CHAPTER XIXA SANATORIUM IN SUTHERLANDArchibald Samphire took with him to Scotland a suit-case and a small handbag. After leaving Perth, where he made an early breakfast, he opened the bag and pulled out a roll of foolscap covered with neat, scholarly handwriting. The reading of this MS. seemed to give him pleasure; but presently his fine brow puckered into wrinkles, and an excellent cigar was allowed to go out prematurely."It's not as good as I thought," he murmured; and he was not speaking of his cigar.Presently he lit another cigar and reread the MS.—the sermon prepared for Royalty. When he wrote it, he told himself it eclipsed the one preached on Whit-Sunday at Westchester. Afterwards, rereading it in cold blood, he had come to the conclusion that it did not quite "grip," as Betty put it, although sound to the core doctrinally, and discreet; better suited, perhaps, for august ears than the other. Now, in this clear, cool northern air, judgment was of a less sanguine complexion. The theme warmed into life in the Close at Westchester lacked vitality in the Highlands. Mountain and moor made it seem anæmic. Archibald looked out of the window, which was open, and inhaled the fresh, pungent air. Not a house was to be seen, not even a shepherd's hut; the moors spread a purple carpet on which no human creature walked; the mountains, vast, rugged, solitary, encompassed the moors. Yet in the heart of this lonely wilderness men had swarmed together in conflict. These mountains had not barred the progress of an army. Guns, horses, transport waggons had defiled through the passes and across the treacherous peat bogs. That clear burn yonder had run red with blood. Here was fought the battle of Killiecrankie! Archie thought of these things as he sat with the sheets of his sermon in his hand. He bundled the MS. back into his bag, and closed it with a snap, divining his inability to deal adequately with what was primal!He had wired to Mark that he was coming North; accordingly, at Lairg he found a "machine" awaiting him, a ramshackle cart drawn by a sturdy pony, whose attempts to leave the rough roads and plunge on to the moor indicated that he was more at ease beneath a deer packsaddle than between a pair of shafts. The driver eyed somewhat derisively Archie's clerical garments. "Ye're no a meenister?" he asked; and receiving a reply in the affirmative, added with emphasis, "Ye're verra young for that." A minute later he asked if his passenger were college-bred."I took my degree at Cambridge," said Archie."Indeed. A'm interested in the Punic Wars. Yon Scipio Africanus was a gran' man. I'd be obliged if ye'd tell me all ye ken aboot him."Archie changed from pink to the colour of Turkey twill. What he knew about Scipio Africanus could have been put into a grain of millet seed. In some confusion—not wasted upon the critical Scot—he explained that the Punic Wars were beyond his horizon. The driver nodded compassionately, expressing no surprise at the Sassenach's ignorance. He was thin and angular; his grey eyes had curious flecks of brown in them; his face and hands were very red and hairy, and beneath the red hair Archie detected a certain amount of dirt. This restored the minor canon's sense of superiority. The Scot, however, wore stout homespun and superb stockings."You wear good clothes," said Archie."D'ye think they're too guid?""Certainly not," said Archie hastily. "Your Highland sheep look in fine condition."Once more the driver's queer eyes met his. The brown flecks danced in the grey."They're no mine, and they cam frae Teviotdale—they white-faced sheep." The contempt in the man's voice was unmistakable.Archie wondered if the man also came from the border; he did not look like a Highlander; Highlanders always said "whateffer." He wished to ask questions about Crask, Ross's lodge, but the brown flecks in the small, closely-set eyes were oddly disconcerting, so he stared at the face of the landscape instead of that of the man. They were driving over a bleak moor which stretched, far as the eye could reach, to some delicately blue hills fringing the western skies. The scene was panoramic and indescribably desolate. Along the road black posts, set at intervals, served as guides to such travellers—shepherds for the most part—who were obliged to cross the moors in winter-time, when snow covered all things. Archie thought of November and shivered. Presently they passed a small slate-tiled cottage built of rough grey stone and surrounded by a grey stone wall. Peats were piled close to a vast midden, on which some hens were scratching; beyond the peat stack stood the byre; garden, ornamental or useful, there was none. As the pony came to a sudden halt, three rough collies rushed out, barking furiously. The driver spoke to them and got down; he strode into the house, remained there ten minutes, and came out wiping his hairy chin. Archie smelled whisky. The driver picked up the reins, the collies barked, the pony shambled forward. Evidently the whisky had had an effect, for the Scot became communicative."He's a verra mean man, yon," he said, jerking his head in the direction of the house. "We were tasting the noo, and I said, as he was filling the glass—'Stop!' And wad ye believe it, the brute stoppit?"Mark would have laughed. Archibald remained calm."There's too much whisky drunk in Scotland," he said."There's' mair drunk oot of it," retorted the driver.Archie refused to enter into argument, and the driver filled a black cutty with evil-smelling tobacco. After the moor was crossed, the character of the scenery changed. The road wound its way beside a charming burn to which heather-covered hills sloped steeply. Farther on, a loch reflected the saffron splendours of the sky. A splendid mountain—Ben Caryll—towered to the right."Yon's the hoose," said the driver.The house crowned a small spur of Ben Caryll. At one side stood a small wooden chapel embellished by a diminutive bell-tower, in which hung a single bell of great sweetness of tone. A big lawn lay on the other side of the house, and Archie noted with surprise that tennis-courts were marked out. He noted also, with equal surprise, the profusion of flowers and flowering shrubs and the care which allotted to each its particular place in the general plan of the garden. The house looked grey and grim, like all houses in this part of Scotland, and the windows had been enlarged, giving the building somewhat the appearance of a small factory. Behind the tennis-courts stood a row of rough sheds covered with creepers and facing the south. In the sheds he caught a glimpse of tables, chairs, sofas, and other simple furnishings.Archie rang the bell, which jangled discordantly. The door was opened by Mark, who held out both hands, smiling. "It's awfully good of you, old fellow," he said. "I don't know how to thank you. You're just in time for supper. Here's the Bishop. He's up for a day or two."David Ross nodded cordially and gripped Archie's hand. Two men came forward and were introduced. One shouldered the big suit-case and went upstairs with it, ignoring protests. Archie followed, carrying his small black bag and feeling that he had come on a fool's errand so far as Mark was concerned. Dying? Why, he looked stronger than he had looked for months. As soon as the brothers were alone Archie said as much."I suppose it's the air," Mark explained. "I'm out-of-doors night and day. My trouble is scotched.""I can't understand how you can joke about it," said Archie."A vile pun, but irresistible. I say, wash that frown off your face and come down. We'll have a pipe and a good jaw afterwards. If you think, by the way, that I do look better, you might say so to David Ross. He's been awfully kind.""Why didn't you go home?""I c-c-couldn't," said Mark shortly.In the refectory, a long, low annexe to the house, the Bishop's guests sat at meat. Some of them were ruddy and robust; others looked thin and white, but not one, so Archie remarked, wore the sable of discontent. The eyes that met his were candid and clear—the eyes of men satisfied with their lot in life. At the foot of the table sat a little fellow with a big head, which waggled comically. Archie wondered where he had seen him before; then he remembered. The little man looked like Mr. Pickwick, although he lacked that illustrious character's deportment and dignity."Who is that?" he whispered to Mark, who sat beside him."That's Stride, our resident doctor. He's mad keen about the open-air cure. He got his ideas from Father Kneippe."In those days neither Father Kneippe nor his ideas were famous. The open-air treatment for disease was practically unknown. Mark explained Stride's methods: his theories on diet and physical culture, facts now familiar to everybody."Stride lives here all the year round, you know. David Ross comes and goes at long intervals.""It must be desolate in winter." Archie gave his impressions, including a description of the house with the huge midden. "It was larger than the cottage," he said in great disgust, "and the drunken savage who drove me wanted to learn what I knew about Scipio Africanus and the Punic wars. Punic wars indeed!""I like the country and the people," said Mark, "but you have to climb to get at either."After supper the guests marched outside and settled themselves in the sheds, which were lit with lamps. Some read, some played chess, some listened to Stride, who talked unceasingly. The Bishop led Archie aside and asked him if he would like to smoke a pipe on the lawn."I'll smoke a cigar," said Archie. "Can I offer you one?""I prefer a pipe," said the Bishop.They strolled together on to the lawn. Although it was nearly ten, twilight still lingered about the landscape, as if loath to leave a scene so fair in darkness. Archie listened attentively to what his companion was saying."Your brother has neglected his body." (Ross had been warned by Mark to say no more than this.) "In such cases more or less of a breakdown is inevitable. I am delighted that you see a change for the better. Six months up here, under Stride, may set him up.""I hoped to take him back with me. I came up for that purpose.""Your brother can return with you, if he wishes, but would it be wise?""Perhaps not, perhaps not," said Archie. "We did not know that you were prepared to offer so generous a hospitality.""He will be a paying guest in more senses than one. I dare say you would like to talk to him. Good night! I have an immense pile of letters to answer. I hope you will stay with us as long as you please."He grasped Archie's hand, and strode off. Archie watched him for a moment, enviously. Ross gave the impression of power in action. It was certain that his amazing stride would take him far on any road—and alwaysupward and onward: the motto adopted by his followers.When he found himself alone with Mark, in the bedroom assigned to him, Archie said: "Ross seems to think that you are doing better here than you would, for instance, in Slowshire.""Why, of course. I'm mending rapidly. One cannot do anything rapidly in Slowshire. It's not even a place to die in. One would dawdle over it.""You will speak with such levity——""I've not your gravity, my dear old fellow. Now then, tell me about yourself. What are you doing?""I've been commanded to preach at Windsor."Mark was so eager and warm in his congratulations that Archie found it easy to go on."I've brought my MS. with me. I want you to skim through it.""I must read it at once. This is wildly exciting."Archie paced up and down, while Mark sat on the bed reading the sermon. Judging from his face, the fare was proving unpalatable. Archie saw that he was frowning and fidgeting with his fingers, as he used to do at Harrow, when he was looking over his major's verses. This familiar expression made the big fellow feel ludicrously like a boy. He half shut his eyes and waited for the inevitable: "I say, you know, this is awful bosh," of the Fifth Form days. Mark read the MS. through, and then glanced again at certain passages, before he said a word."Well," said Archie nervously, "will it do?"Mark slid off the bed, put his hands in his pockets, and stared at his brother."That depends. It will do to light some fires with; but it won't set the Thames, near Windsor, ablaze.""Call it 'bosh' and have done with it.""It's not bosh. You've taken one of the Beatitudes.""The Dean suggested that. He said it would please. Of course he knows.""The text is the most inspiring in the New Testament, but you've treated it conventionally. Now look here——" He paused to collect his ideas. Archie saw that his eyes were shining with that suffused light which betokened in him mental or spiritual excitement. He began to pace up and down the narrow room; then he burst out: "You lay stress on the reward hereafter; a hereafter which the finite mind is unable to grasp.The pure in heart shall see God in His Heaven. Don't you know that the pure in heart see God here? That He is revealed, and only to the pure, in everything that lies around us. Ah, that is a theme, a celestial theme: the revelation of the Creator in the things created. And impurity blinds us. We look up to God, if we do look up, through a fog. You must take that line, Archie. Burn this—and begin again. And be sure that you define purity of heart aright. Don't confound it with purity of body. You are eloquent on the purity of a child. Why, man, the purity which knows not impurity is emasculate compared with the purity which knows impurity, which has fought with impurity, and yet, in the end, after conflicts innumerable, vanquishes impurity! I tell you that what men and women want to-day is substance. An ideal Heaven, an ideal earth, appeal to us, yes, but they charm as a mirage charms; they melt and fade as the mirage does. What you have written here," he tapped the foolscap impatiently, "might feed saints, but flesh-and-blood sinners would go empty away. By Heaven! if I had your voice, I would make the sinners hear.""You must help me," said Archie in a low, hesitating voice."Why not?" said Mark excitedly. "Give me the night to think. To-morrow we'll put our heads together and the sparks shall fly. I haven't used my brains for a month. This will do me good.""Will it?" said Archie doubtfully. Already Mark's face was drawn and haggard; he looked ten years older than his brother."What is life," said Mark contemptuously, "if the salt of helping a pal be taken from it? I'm not useless yet. Good night. I sleep in a shed, you know. And I can see the stars whenever I open my eyes.""It's so cloudy here," said Archibald."I can see through most clouds, but s-s-some——"Mark paused abruptly, the light faded in his eyes, as he turned and left the room.CHAPTER XXBETTY SEES A SPRIG OF RUEArchibald returned to Westchester some three days later. In the small black bag was another MS. quite as bulky as the first, and covered with Mark's handwriting. Blots and smudges deformed it; the edges were dog-eared, whole sentences were excised, red pencil marks flamed amidst the black. Yet Archibald read it through again and again, smiling, and nodding his handsome head. He was not alone in his first-class carriage, and his companion, a shrewd Scotch lawyer, guessed why the minister kept moving his lips as he read his MS. In fancy he was declaiming it.The day after his arrival at the lodge the elder brother had said to Mark: "By the way, Betty Kirtling sent her love to you. Have you any message for her?""None," said he slowly. "I hope she is well."Archie, not detecting the anxiety in his tone, thought Betty was looking very well. Then he mentioned Jim."He comes from Friday to Monday, every week. He wants Betty, but I don't fancy he'll get her.""Have you any reason for saying that?" Mark asked, wondering whether Archie was clearer-sighted than he had supposed."Jim is a materialist.""Oh, come now!""A money-grubber and an agnostic.""One of the best of fellows. Ross never appeals to him in vain.""As if any rich man couldn't write a cheque. Betty ought to marry somebody very different.""Don't abuse him to Betty.""Betty is rather—undisciplined.""You can say that of all of us. I hope to God she won't marry a schoolmaster." He glanced at his brother with an eye that flamed. He had been smitten by the fear that Betty might marry Archie."What strong expressions you use, Mark. It doesn't sound quite—how shall I put it?—well, seemly, for a man who holds Orders. I see no chance of Betty marrying a schoolmaster. I have great hopes that she will choose wisely. She said 'No' to Harry Kirtling, and she will say 'No' to Jim Corrance.""And she said 'No' to you," Mark reflected.Within the week Archibald rode over to King's Charteris, where he found Betty in Mrs. Corrance's garden gathering roses. He had wired that he was returning without Mark. She took the telegram to her room, where pride dried her eyes and hardened her heart. That night Jim told himself he had a chance. She had never been so kind to him, so understanding, so alluring. But on the brink of declaration he hesitated, fearing to leap. Afterwards he wondered what might have happened if he had—leaped boldly instead of looking and longing.Betty received Archie with the question, "Is Mark really ill?"Archie hesitated."He looks stronger," he said slowly. "And he is in his usual spirits: the life and soul of the place. There can't be anything really wrong. In fact he joked about his health. He doesn't take anything very seriously, you know. David Ross told me that he had overworked himself—more or less.""You gave him my love?" Betty murmured lightly. She had the faintest tinge of colour in her cheeks, but her voice was almost cold."Yes.""And I hope he sent a nice message to me in return?""No. He asked if you were well. I said—yes. You do look uncommonly well, Betty."She wore white, which set off the delicate tints and admirable texture of her skin, but her hat was black, giving a necessary note of contrast. At her throat, holding together ajabotof creamy laces, sparkled an old-fashioned enamel ornament set with tiny brilliants. Standing on the sloping lawn, her figure defined against a towering yew fence, and holding in her hand the roses she had just gathered, the girl made a picture which lured Archie's thoughts even from Windsor."I suppose a country life agrees with me.""You are wonderful."She moved to a bench, the young man following her with eager feet and eyes. He could not see that her heart was beating, nor did he notice that the brilliancy of her eyes was due to an abnormal enlargement of the pupil. She sat down, smiling derisively. Then she bade him tell her about the sanatorium. When he had finished, she said quietly, "You were very, very kind to take that long journey.""It's easy to be kind to people like you—and Mark."His delightful voice softened, because when he mentioned his brother's name the memory of what that brother had done on his behalf filled him with gratitude."I hear you are kind to everybody. All Slowshire sings your praises."Archibald shook his head, wondering whether Betty would mention the sermon. He was burning with impatience to try on, so to speak, some of its phrases, to watch the effect of them on a woman who had listened to the Gamaliels of the day. Betty possessed sincerity, imagination, sympathy. These would flow freely at the touch of a friend's hand."If it would not bore you," he said, "I should like to talk over the Windsor sermon. You can help me——""I? Help—you?""You can, indeed"; his voice grew eager. "Whatever I say will be the fresher and purer if it passes through your mind before it is given to the world.""My mindisa sort of filter." She laughed. None the less she was pleased and flattered. Archibald began to speak in a soft monotone. Betty half closed her eyes and the lines of her figure slightly relaxed beneath the caressing inflections of the speaker's voice. Whenever Archie sang she was affected in the same way. A languor overcame her. For the moment she was not attempting to grasp the meaning of his words, which, even as inarticulate sounds, possessed value and significance. But, soon, she opened her eyes wide and sat up. By this time Archie was at the core of his theme, and his treatment of it was so masterly that Betty found herself thrilling with surprise and delight. A few minutes before life had seemed empty. Now it was full again, brimming over, bubbling, with possibilities swelling from shadow into substance. Archie, be it remembered, was not preaching the sermon. He was rather submitting the material, the tissues, the threads, the patterns, out of which a fine piece of work had been already fashioned. Now and again Betty was invited to choose, to select, out of these wares some one which pleased her fancy. She realised that Archie had more of Mark in him than she had deemed possible. Once or twice she seemed to hear Mark's eager tones."You say that like Mark.""Has Mark talked to you on this theme?""Oh, no," Betty replied, "but he pours out his ideas, as you do.""Mark and I have talked about this. He helped me. He always does."Archie spoke hesitatingly, on the edge of full confession. He had a genuine desire to tell Betty the truth. The words formed on his lips."Yes, yes," said Betty absently. "Mark has helped me too, many a time; but he's in Sutherland." Her voice became cold as she recalled his letter. "I feel as if he were at the North Pole! Well, Archie, I've enjoyed our talk immensely.""And when may I come to talk to you again?""You are not going—now?"The "now" brought a sparkle to his eyes."I must. I'm one of the busiest men in Westchester.""I shall run down to Windsor to hear your sermon," she said."Our sermon, Betty.""That's rubbish. You must never pay me compliments, Archie. I couldn't stand them from you——" she broke off, irrelevantly: "How did you attain to your pinnacle? I suppose you've been climbing ever since we were children. It's quite wonderful. Don't come Friday or Saturday. Jim will be here. Poor, rich Jim! What do you think of Jim?"Archie remembered, in the nick of time, what Mark had said about not abusing Jim."I think what you think," he said slowly. "Poor, rich Jim!"After he had gone, Betty picked no more roses, but sat down on the bench, feeling rather forlorn. Archibald had taken something away with him. What it was she could not define precisely. For instance—was it Jim's character? He had said nothing. Nothing—except her own words: "Poor, rich Jim." Jim had been his friend, although the men had now little in common. Of course, he would not speak unkindly of an old schoolfellow. Yet as a preacher of Christ's gospel, he must in his heart rank Jim amongst Christ's enemies. Jim was not with Christ. He did not believe in Christ. The conclusion was obvious: he must be counted as an enemy. An enemy? Poor Jim!She was still thinking of Jim, when his mother came towards her. She seemed to ascend the grass slope with difficulty; so Betty ran forward to offer an arm, which was accepted. As they moved slowly on, Betty glanced at the quiet face so near her own. Again, curiosity devoured her. She observed a faded look which she tried to interpret. Did it spell disappointment? Were the last draughts of life proving bitter? Perhaps she felt that her work was done, that her little world would wag on without her. They sat down, and Mrs. Corrance produced her needle, her silks, and a piece of embroidery from the old-fashioned velvet bag, which she always carried on her arm. Betty, who never sewed, wondered if the day would ever dawn when she would find solace in such trivial occupations. Then Mrs. Corrance asked for news of Mark. After that was told, silence fell on both: the silence which precedes the breaking of barriers. Then Betty said softly: "Are you glad that you have lived—or sorry?"The frail hands, poised above the delicate embroidery, sank upon it, and remained still, while faint lines of interrogation puckered the placid forehead. Betty continued: "I ought not to ask such questions. I rush in like a fool. But then I am a fool, although I long to be wise. There is so much a girl like me wants to know, but if you tell me to hold my tongue I shall not be surprised or offended.""I'm glad that I have lived, Betty.""That is because you have loved. Your love for Jim has filled your life, ever since I have known you. If—if—oh, I am ashamed to put it so brutally—but if you lost Jim, or if Jim had never been born—what then?""My dear, you press me too hard. I can hardly conceive of life without Jim," she smiled. "He came when all was dark, and there has been light for me—ever since.""When all was dark——" repeated Betty. She knew that Jim's father had died when Jim was a small boy."Yes. My married life was not happy. Perhaps I expected too much, as is the way with women; perhaps it was not meant that I should be happy.""Notmeant?" Betty spoke with impatience. "Surely the design, the intention, includes happiness, only we mar it.""All young people think that," said Mrs. Corrance, "but as we grow older we see so little real happiness that we must believe, if we believe in the mercy of God, that, save for the few, happiness on earth is not to be enjoyed but earned rather, so that it may be enjoyed, without alloy, hereafter. And I believe that to everyone a glimpse of happiness is vouchsafed. Were it not for that, how many would struggle on?"Betty asked no more questions. The youth in her rebelled against this placid acceptance of suffering and strife. She told herself that she had enormous capacity for enjoyment. Politics, literature, history, sport: all were fish to her net. But religion, and in particular that concrete presentation of it by the Church of England, had, so far, left her cold. She seemed to have touched but its phylacteries, out of which came no virtue. She had met many clever men who confessed themselves agnostic. Her kind friend, Lady Randolph, never spoke of religion, either in its wide or narrow sense. Certainly she did her duty without aid or formulæ. In fact, when Betty came to think of it, some freethinkers of her acquaintance lived more Christian lives than many Churchpeople who took the Sacrament every Sunday. This was puzzling. On the other hand, the life she had led since the Admiral's death, the life of Mayfair, of big country houses, of race-meetings, of perpetual pleasure-seekings, had begun to pall. The grandmothers—some of them—who gambled, and made love, and over-ate themselves, revolted her. That they were at heart discontented and unhappy she could not doubt. Finally, she had just come to the trite conclusion that, in or out of the fashionable world, the people least to be pitied were those who had some definite object in view. Politics, for instance, had probably saved Lord Randolph from the hereditary curse of his family; fox-hunting made Harry Kirtling ride straight and walk straight; Jim Corrance admitted that money-grubbing kept him out of mischief. These pursuits, however, led to negative results: being preventive of evil, not productive of good, except indirectly. Mark Samphire not only avoided evil, but did good, as dozens were eager to testify, including herself. When with Mark she had always been conscious of his power to bring out the good in her. And this afternoon, listening to Archie, she had felt the same thrill, the same irresistible yearning to ascend, to scale the heights. None the less, she was whimsically aware, being a creature of sense as well as sensibility, that Mark cast a glamour. She loved him, and, loving him, loved what he loved, tried to see Heaven's wares with his eyes, and succeeded, so long as the magician remained at her side. When he was at work in Whitechapel and she was shopping in Bond Street, Heaven, somehow, seemed distant. At such times she looked at a set of sables or a diamond ornament with a pleasure which proved that the clay within her was very far from being purged.Upon the following Saturday, when Jim asked her to become his wife, to share the fortune which would be no fortune without her, she said No, as kindly as words and looks could say it. Her distress at the pain she inflicted touched him profoundly."I shall remain your pal, Betty," Jim declared. "The other thing was always a forlorn hope. Is it any use saying that I have known for years that I wasn't first, and that I was sanguine enough to believe that if the first failed, I might be second? Isn't half a loaf better than no bread, dear?"She let him take her hand, but she turned aside eyes full of tears."We'll go on as before. The mater needn't know—eh? It has been a great thing for her having you here.""And a great thing for me," said Betty unsteadily. "I wish I could marry you, dear old Jim, but I can't—I can't."She broke down, sobbing bitterly. Jim patted her hand, wondering what he could say to comfort her, but the words which came into his head seemed inadequate. If he had taken her face between his strong hands, kissed away her tears, and sworn passionately that he would love and cherish her so long as she lived, she might have changed a mind which was less strong than her body. While she sat weeping beside him, she was thinking not so much that she had lost Mark, but that she had lost love. The woman within her groaned, the flesh and blood protested. She saw herself as in a vision, treading the dreary years alone, with no strong arm to protect and defend, with no tiny hands to cling to and caress her. And at the end of the pilgrimage stood old age, grim and grey, carrying a sprig of rue in palsied shrivelled hands!CHAPTER XXIRECUPERATIONMark went North with David Ross convinced that his months, if not his days, were numbered; but as time passed, this conviction passed with it, and hope once more fluttered into his heart. Stride took extraordinary interest in his case."You must become an animal and remain an animal till I give you leave to assume again the man," he told Mark after Archibald had left Crask. "I don't know what you and your brother have been up to, but you've had a relapse. You must go on all-fours till I tell you to walk upright."Mark promised, but he added: "I feel an animal—an ass!"Stride growled out something about dead lions, and set Mark to work in the garden, bare-legged and bare-headed. The work was light, but it strained every muscle in Mark's body. Then he was made to lie down in one of the sheds. After such rest came refreshment—easily digested, nourishing food, taken in small quantities, but often. During this month Mark reckoned that he was sleeping fourteen hours out of the twenty-four. At the end of each week Stride weighed him and applied a number of tests to determine what strength he had gained. There was a sort of rivalry between the patients. Dick who had gained two pounds crowed over Tom who had gained one. Into this competition Mark entered with boyish keenness. Stride said he was the star pupil of the class.By the beginning of October, a radical improvement had taken place. The cold weather set in sharply, but Mark, always susceptible to atmospheric change, braved the frosty nights with impunity, sleeping in the sheds with the winds howling about him. He had the confidence in Stride that a well-trained dog has in his master. Some of Stride's "animals"—as he called them—proved at first unmanageable. Coming, as most of them did, from the strenuous life of crowded cities, accustomed to and yearning for the stimulus of constant mental action, such stagnation as Stride enforced seemed insupportable. These kittle cattle were yoked for a season with Mark.Meantime he had received many letters from his friends, but none from Betty, who had returned to Lady Randolph. Jim wrote that he had been rejected, but made no mention of Archibald, who was often seen crossing the downs between Westchester and Birr Wood. As a matter of fact, Jim was not aware of these rides. He remained in London making money. From Pynsent Mark learned of the enthusiasm aroused by Archibald's Windsor sermon."Reading in the paper" (he wrote) "that your brother was preaching in St. George's Chapel, I went down to Windsor yesterday to hear him. He is quite amazing. What he said and the way he said it took us by storm. The Whitsuntide sermon gave only a taste of his quality. Out of the pulpit he has always struck me as being the typical English parson of means and position; in it he is—apostolic! I can find no other adjective to describe his persuasiveness, sincerity, and power. Lord Randolph tells me that it made a profound impression in the highest quarter. I saw Betty Kirtling and Lady Randolph in the knights' stalls...."Mark thrust the letter into his pocket with an exclamation which made the man working next to him raise his brows."Anything wrong, Samphire? No bad news, I hope?"Mark blurted out the truth. His companion, broken down by hard work in Manchester, had sympathetic eyes and lips which dropped compassion upon all infirmities save his own."I've had good news, Maitland: my brother has preached a great sermon at Windsor, and—and there is something wrong with me. I have the damnable wish that he'd failed—as I failed." Then he laughed harshly, bending down to pick up his spade.That afternoon he climbed the mountain, which sloped steeply to the loch. The air, he felt, on the top of Ben Caryll would purge and purify; the panoramic view would enlarge the circle of his sympathies. And so it proved, although a materialist might assign another cause. When Mark reached the highest peak he became aware that he had accomplished a feat of physical endurance beyond such powers as he possessed two months before. He was not aware of undue fatigue; on the contrary, a strange exhilaration permeated mind and body. He could have danced, but he sat down, soberly enough, and reread Pynsent's letter. When he had done this, he tried to transport himself to Windsor. He wanted to sit with Betty in the knights' stalls, beneath the gorgeous silken banners, and the emblazoned shields of the princes of the world, under the eye and ægis of a living sovereign. But fancy left him—in Sutherland. He gazed upon moor and mountain whitened here and there by snow. He looked into the pale, luminous skies above, into the frosty opalescent mists to the westward, through which the sun glowed like a red-hot ball, and wherever he looked Betty was not. For the moment he could not recall her face. It seemed as if he were seeking a stranger with a written description of her in his hand.Sitting there, some voice whispered to him that Betty wanted him, that he must descend the mountain and go to her. Then he told himself that he was mad. If he obeyed this beguiling voice in his ears, if he went south—what then? The hope in his eye and heart would kindle like hope in her, and such hope was a will-o'-the-wisp flickering above—a grave!When he came down from the mountain, he found Stride busy in his laboratory. Stride possessed a magnificent Zeiss microscope and all the accessories—incubating ovens, sterilising apparatus, stains, and reagents—for the highest bacteriological work. Of late, Mark had given the little man some help in staining and mounting preparations."We are out of one world," Stride had said, "but I will introduce you to another through an apochromatic lens. You will find yourself quite at home, my friend. Here, in this drop of water, you will note the same struggle for existence, the same old game as it is played in Whitechapel or Whitehall."When Mark began to understand something of the technique of the microscope, when Stride had shown him its uses, for instance, in the analysis of diseased tissue or blood, and revealed its magical powers of diagnosis, Mark asked a question: "How can any doctor work without one?" Stride laughed at such innocence."It takes up too much time. No hard-working practitioner ignores the value of it, but he cannot use it. When necessary, he sends preparations to some specialist. A microscope exacts more attention than a wife. That is why I"—he slapped his chest and winked furiously—"have remained single."This devotion to his work strengthened the chain which linked patient to doctor. Stride—Mark felt assured—might have secured fame and fortune in London. Yet he chose to remain unknown and poor in Sutherland.Mark told him that he had climbed Ben Caryll, and felt none the worse for it. Stride shook his big head."You oughtn't to attempt such walks—yet.""Then the time is coming. I shall regain my health?"He had never put the question so directly before. Stride eyed him attentively, hearing a new note in his voice."Per—haps.""If I asked for leave of absence——""It would be refused—peremptorily," said Stride. "Why, man, you'd douse the glim which I've been coaxing into flame all these weeks. What magnet draws you from Crask? A woman?""Yes—a woman.""Oh, these tempestuous petticoats! Now, Samphire, I'm not a fool, and I guessed, when you came here, that you left a girl behind you. You are not engaged to her?""No.""Good! Now, listen to wisdom. If everything goes well with you—if fresh air and simple food and freedom from worry make you whole, you may marry some day—but you'll have to wait a long time, so as to make sure, and even then, after years of comparative health, you may break down again. Will this young lady wait for you—indefinitely?""I should never ask her to do that.""Um! I daresay she's flirting with someone at this very minute. Eh? I beg pardon, Samphire. Your goddess, no doubt, is an exception; but few women, if they are women, can get along without a man. And now you must leave me. I'm on the edge of a small discovery. I've done some good work to-day.""Your good work will tell, Stride.""What d'ye mean? Recognition? If it comes, so much the better; if it doesn't, I've had 'the joy of the working'—eh?"Next day, a letter from Archibald gave many details. He had enjoyed the honour of meeting his Sovereign, who said gracious things; he had dined with a Cabinet Minister; he had been interviewed at length by a reporter. The letter concluded as follows:—
CHAPTER XIX
A SANATORIUM IN SUTHERLAND
Archibald Samphire took with him to Scotland a suit-case and a small handbag. After leaving Perth, where he made an early breakfast, he opened the bag and pulled out a roll of foolscap covered with neat, scholarly handwriting. The reading of this MS. seemed to give him pleasure; but presently his fine brow puckered into wrinkles, and an excellent cigar was allowed to go out prematurely.
"It's not as good as I thought," he murmured; and he was not speaking of his cigar.
Presently he lit another cigar and reread the MS.—the sermon prepared for Royalty. When he wrote it, he told himself it eclipsed the one preached on Whit-Sunday at Westchester. Afterwards, rereading it in cold blood, he had come to the conclusion that it did not quite "grip," as Betty put it, although sound to the core doctrinally, and discreet; better suited, perhaps, for august ears than the other. Now, in this clear, cool northern air, judgment was of a less sanguine complexion. The theme warmed into life in the Close at Westchester lacked vitality in the Highlands. Mountain and moor made it seem anæmic. Archibald looked out of the window, which was open, and inhaled the fresh, pungent air. Not a house was to be seen, not even a shepherd's hut; the moors spread a purple carpet on which no human creature walked; the mountains, vast, rugged, solitary, encompassed the moors. Yet in the heart of this lonely wilderness men had swarmed together in conflict. These mountains had not barred the progress of an army. Guns, horses, transport waggons had defiled through the passes and across the treacherous peat bogs. That clear burn yonder had run red with blood. Here was fought the battle of Killiecrankie! Archie thought of these things as he sat with the sheets of his sermon in his hand. He bundled the MS. back into his bag, and closed it with a snap, divining his inability to deal adequately with what was primal!
He had wired to Mark that he was coming North; accordingly, at Lairg he found a "machine" awaiting him, a ramshackle cart drawn by a sturdy pony, whose attempts to leave the rough roads and plunge on to the moor indicated that he was more at ease beneath a deer packsaddle than between a pair of shafts. The driver eyed somewhat derisively Archie's clerical garments. "Ye're no a meenister?" he asked; and receiving a reply in the affirmative, added with emphasis, "Ye're verra young for that." A minute later he asked if his passenger were college-bred.
"I took my degree at Cambridge," said Archie.
"Indeed. A'm interested in the Punic Wars. Yon Scipio Africanus was a gran' man. I'd be obliged if ye'd tell me all ye ken aboot him."
Archie changed from pink to the colour of Turkey twill. What he knew about Scipio Africanus could have been put into a grain of millet seed. In some confusion—not wasted upon the critical Scot—he explained that the Punic Wars were beyond his horizon. The driver nodded compassionately, expressing no surprise at the Sassenach's ignorance. He was thin and angular; his grey eyes had curious flecks of brown in them; his face and hands were very red and hairy, and beneath the red hair Archie detected a certain amount of dirt. This restored the minor canon's sense of superiority. The Scot, however, wore stout homespun and superb stockings.
"You wear good clothes," said Archie.
"D'ye think they're too guid?"
"Certainly not," said Archie hastily. "Your Highland sheep look in fine condition."
Once more the driver's queer eyes met his. The brown flecks danced in the grey.
"They're no mine, and they cam frae Teviotdale—they white-faced sheep." The contempt in the man's voice was unmistakable.
Archie wondered if the man also came from the border; he did not look like a Highlander; Highlanders always said "whateffer." He wished to ask questions about Crask, Ross's lodge, but the brown flecks in the small, closely-set eyes were oddly disconcerting, so he stared at the face of the landscape instead of that of the man. They were driving over a bleak moor which stretched, far as the eye could reach, to some delicately blue hills fringing the western skies. The scene was panoramic and indescribably desolate. Along the road black posts, set at intervals, served as guides to such travellers—shepherds for the most part—who were obliged to cross the moors in winter-time, when snow covered all things. Archie thought of November and shivered. Presently they passed a small slate-tiled cottage built of rough grey stone and surrounded by a grey stone wall. Peats were piled close to a vast midden, on which some hens were scratching; beyond the peat stack stood the byre; garden, ornamental or useful, there was none. As the pony came to a sudden halt, three rough collies rushed out, barking furiously. The driver spoke to them and got down; he strode into the house, remained there ten minutes, and came out wiping his hairy chin. Archie smelled whisky. The driver picked up the reins, the collies barked, the pony shambled forward. Evidently the whisky had had an effect, for the Scot became communicative.
"He's a verra mean man, yon," he said, jerking his head in the direction of the house. "We were tasting the noo, and I said, as he was filling the glass—'Stop!' And wad ye believe it, the brute stoppit?"
Mark would have laughed. Archibald remained calm.
"There's too much whisky drunk in Scotland," he said.
"There's' mair drunk oot of it," retorted the driver.
Archie refused to enter into argument, and the driver filled a black cutty with evil-smelling tobacco. After the moor was crossed, the character of the scenery changed. The road wound its way beside a charming burn to which heather-covered hills sloped steeply. Farther on, a loch reflected the saffron splendours of the sky. A splendid mountain—Ben Caryll—towered to the right.
"Yon's the hoose," said the driver.
The house crowned a small spur of Ben Caryll. At one side stood a small wooden chapel embellished by a diminutive bell-tower, in which hung a single bell of great sweetness of tone. A big lawn lay on the other side of the house, and Archie noted with surprise that tennis-courts were marked out. He noted also, with equal surprise, the profusion of flowers and flowering shrubs and the care which allotted to each its particular place in the general plan of the garden. The house looked grey and grim, like all houses in this part of Scotland, and the windows had been enlarged, giving the building somewhat the appearance of a small factory. Behind the tennis-courts stood a row of rough sheds covered with creepers and facing the south. In the sheds he caught a glimpse of tables, chairs, sofas, and other simple furnishings.
Archie rang the bell, which jangled discordantly. The door was opened by Mark, who held out both hands, smiling. "It's awfully good of you, old fellow," he said. "I don't know how to thank you. You're just in time for supper. Here's the Bishop. He's up for a day or two."
David Ross nodded cordially and gripped Archie's hand. Two men came forward and were introduced. One shouldered the big suit-case and went upstairs with it, ignoring protests. Archie followed, carrying his small black bag and feeling that he had come on a fool's errand so far as Mark was concerned. Dying? Why, he looked stronger than he had looked for months. As soon as the brothers were alone Archie said as much.
"I suppose it's the air," Mark explained. "I'm out-of-doors night and day. My trouble is scotched."
"I can't understand how you can joke about it," said Archie.
"A vile pun, but irresistible. I say, wash that frown off your face and come down. We'll have a pipe and a good jaw afterwards. If you think, by the way, that I do look better, you might say so to David Ross. He's been awfully kind."
"Why didn't you go home?"
"I c-c-couldn't," said Mark shortly.
In the refectory, a long, low annexe to the house, the Bishop's guests sat at meat. Some of them were ruddy and robust; others looked thin and white, but not one, so Archie remarked, wore the sable of discontent. The eyes that met his were candid and clear—the eyes of men satisfied with their lot in life. At the foot of the table sat a little fellow with a big head, which waggled comically. Archie wondered where he had seen him before; then he remembered. The little man looked like Mr. Pickwick, although he lacked that illustrious character's deportment and dignity.
"Who is that?" he whispered to Mark, who sat beside him.
"That's Stride, our resident doctor. He's mad keen about the open-air cure. He got his ideas from Father Kneippe."
In those days neither Father Kneippe nor his ideas were famous. The open-air treatment for disease was practically unknown. Mark explained Stride's methods: his theories on diet and physical culture, facts now familiar to everybody.
"Stride lives here all the year round, you know. David Ross comes and goes at long intervals."
"It must be desolate in winter." Archie gave his impressions, including a description of the house with the huge midden. "It was larger than the cottage," he said in great disgust, "and the drunken savage who drove me wanted to learn what I knew about Scipio Africanus and the Punic wars. Punic wars indeed!"
"I like the country and the people," said Mark, "but you have to climb to get at either."
After supper the guests marched outside and settled themselves in the sheds, which were lit with lamps. Some read, some played chess, some listened to Stride, who talked unceasingly. The Bishop led Archie aside and asked him if he would like to smoke a pipe on the lawn.
"I'll smoke a cigar," said Archie. "Can I offer you one?"
"I prefer a pipe," said the Bishop.
They strolled together on to the lawn. Although it was nearly ten, twilight still lingered about the landscape, as if loath to leave a scene so fair in darkness. Archie listened attentively to what his companion was saying.
"Your brother has neglected his body." (Ross had been warned by Mark to say no more than this.) "In such cases more or less of a breakdown is inevitable. I am delighted that you see a change for the better. Six months up here, under Stride, may set him up."
"I hoped to take him back with me. I came up for that purpose."
"Your brother can return with you, if he wishes, but would it be wise?"
"Perhaps not, perhaps not," said Archie. "We did not know that you were prepared to offer so generous a hospitality."
"He will be a paying guest in more senses than one. I dare say you would like to talk to him. Good night! I have an immense pile of letters to answer. I hope you will stay with us as long as you please."
He grasped Archie's hand, and strode off. Archie watched him for a moment, enviously. Ross gave the impression of power in action. It was certain that his amazing stride would take him far on any road—and alwaysupward and onward: the motto adopted by his followers.
When he found himself alone with Mark, in the bedroom assigned to him, Archie said: "Ross seems to think that you are doing better here than you would, for instance, in Slowshire."
"Why, of course. I'm mending rapidly. One cannot do anything rapidly in Slowshire. It's not even a place to die in. One would dawdle over it."
"You will speak with such levity——"
"I've not your gravity, my dear old fellow. Now then, tell me about yourself. What are you doing?"
"I've been commanded to preach at Windsor."
Mark was so eager and warm in his congratulations that Archie found it easy to go on.
"I've brought my MS. with me. I want you to skim through it."
"I must read it at once. This is wildly exciting."
Archie paced up and down, while Mark sat on the bed reading the sermon. Judging from his face, the fare was proving unpalatable. Archie saw that he was frowning and fidgeting with his fingers, as he used to do at Harrow, when he was looking over his major's verses. This familiar expression made the big fellow feel ludicrously like a boy. He half shut his eyes and waited for the inevitable: "I say, you know, this is awful bosh," of the Fifth Form days. Mark read the MS. through, and then glanced again at certain passages, before he said a word.
"Well," said Archie nervously, "will it do?"
Mark slid off the bed, put his hands in his pockets, and stared at his brother.
"That depends. It will do to light some fires with; but it won't set the Thames, near Windsor, ablaze."
"Call it 'bosh' and have done with it."
"It's not bosh. You've taken one of the Beatitudes."
"The Dean suggested that. He said it would please. Of course he knows."
"The text is the most inspiring in the New Testament, but you've treated it conventionally. Now look here——" He paused to collect his ideas. Archie saw that his eyes were shining with that suffused light which betokened in him mental or spiritual excitement. He began to pace up and down the narrow room; then he burst out: "You lay stress on the reward hereafter; a hereafter which the finite mind is unable to grasp.The pure in heart shall see God in His Heaven. Don't you know that the pure in heart see God here? That He is revealed, and only to the pure, in everything that lies around us. Ah, that is a theme, a celestial theme: the revelation of the Creator in the things created. And impurity blinds us. We look up to God, if we do look up, through a fog. You must take that line, Archie. Burn this—and begin again. And be sure that you define purity of heart aright. Don't confound it with purity of body. You are eloquent on the purity of a child. Why, man, the purity which knows not impurity is emasculate compared with the purity which knows impurity, which has fought with impurity, and yet, in the end, after conflicts innumerable, vanquishes impurity! I tell you that what men and women want to-day is substance. An ideal Heaven, an ideal earth, appeal to us, yes, but they charm as a mirage charms; they melt and fade as the mirage does. What you have written here," he tapped the foolscap impatiently, "might feed saints, but flesh-and-blood sinners would go empty away. By Heaven! if I had your voice, I would make the sinners hear."
"You must help me," said Archie in a low, hesitating voice.
"Why not?" said Mark excitedly. "Give me the night to think. To-morrow we'll put our heads together and the sparks shall fly. I haven't used my brains for a month. This will do me good."
"Will it?" said Archie doubtfully. Already Mark's face was drawn and haggard; he looked ten years older than his brother.
"What is life," said Mark contemptuously, "if the salt of helping a pal be taken from it? I'm not useless yet. Good night. I sleep in a shed, you know. And I can see the stars whenever I open my eyes."
"It's so cloudy here," said Archibald.
"I can see through most clouds, but s-s-some——"
Mark paused abruptly, the light faded in his eyes, as he turned and left the room.
CHAPTER XX
BETTY SEES A SPRIG OF RUE
Archibald returned to Westchester some three days later. In the small black bag was another MS. quite as bulky as the first, and covered with Mark's handwriting. Blots and smudges deformed it; the edges were dog-eared, whole sentences were excised, red pencil marks flamed amidst the black. Yet Archibald read it through again and again, smiling, and nodding his handsome head. He was not alone in his first-class carriage, and his companion, a shrewd Scotch lawyer, guessed why the minister kept moving his lips as he read his MS. In fancy he was declaiming it.
The day after his arrival at the lodge the elder brother had said to Mark: "By the way, Betty Kirtling sent her love to you. Have you any message for her?"
"None," said he slowly. "I hope she is well."
Archie, not detecting the anxiety in his tone, thought Betty was looking very well. Then he mentioned Jim.
"He comes from Friday to Monday, every week. He wants Betty, but I don't fancy he'll get her."
"Have you any reason for saying that?" Mark asked, wondering whether Archie was clearer-sighted than he had supposed.
"Jim is a materialist."
"Oh, come now!"
"A money-grubber and an agnostic."
"One of the best of fellows. Ross never appeals to him in vain."
"As if any rich man couldn't write a cheque. Betty ought to marry somebody very different."
"Don't abuse him to Betty."
"Betty is rather—undisciplined."
"You can say that of all of us. I hope to God she won't marry a schoolmaster." He glanced at his brother with an eye that flamed. He had been smitten by the fear that Betty might marry Archie.
"What strong expressions you use, Mark. It doesn't sound quite—how shall I put it?—well, seemly, for a man who holds Orders. I see no chance of Betty marrying a schoolmaster. I have great hopes that she will choose wisely. She said 'No' to Harry Kirtling, and she will say 'No' to Jim Corrance."
"And she said 'No' to you," Mark reflected.
Within the week Archibald rode over to King's Charteris, where he found Betty in Mrs. Corrance's garden gathering roses. He had wired that he was returning without Mark. She took the telegram to her room, where pride dried her eyes and hardened her heart. That night Jim told himself he had a chance. She had never been so kind to him, so understanding, so alluring. But on the brink of declaration he hesitated, fearing to leap. Afterwards he wondered what might have happened if he had—leaped boldly instead of looking and longing.
Betty received Archie with the question, "Is Mark really ill?"
Archie hesitated.
"He looks stronger," he said slowly. "And he is in his usual spirits: the life and soul of the place. There can't be anything really wrong. In fact he joked about his health. He doesn't take anything very seriously, you know. David Ross told me that he had overworked himself—more or less."
"You gave him my love?" Betty murmured lightly. She had the faintest tinge of colour in her cheeks, but her voice was almost cold.
"Yes."
"And I hope he sent a nice message to me in return?"
"No. He asked if you were well. I said—yes. You do look uncommonly well, Betty."
She wore white, which set off the delicate tints and admirable texture of her skin, but her hat was black, giving a necessary note of contrast. At her throat, holding together ajabotof creamy laces, sparkled an old-fashioned enamel ornament set with tiny brilliants. Standing on the sloping lawn, her figure defined against a towering yew fence, and holding in her hand the roses she had just gathered, the girl made a picture which lured Archie's thoughts even from Windsor.
"I suppose a country life agrees with me."
"You are wonderful."
She moved to a bench, the young man following her with eager feet and eyes. He could not see that her heart was beating, nor did he notice that the brilliancy of her eyes was due to an abnormal enlargement of the pupil. She sat down, smiling derisively. Then she bade him tell her about the sanatorium. When he had finished, she said quietly, "You were very, very kind to take that long journey."
"It's easy to be kind to people like you—and Mark."
His delightful voice softened, because when he mentioned his brother's name the memory of what that brother had done on his behalf filled him with gratitude.
"I hear you are kind to everybody. All Slowshire sings your praises."
Archibald shook his head, wondering whether Betty would mention the sermon. He was burning with impatience to try on, so to speak, some of its phrases, to watch the effect of them on a woman who had listened to the Gamaliels of the day. Betty possessed sincerity, imagination, sympathy. These would flow freely at the touch of a friend's hand.
"If it would not bore you," he said, "I should like to talk over the Windsor sermon. You can help me——"
"I? Help—you?"
"You can, indeed"; his voice grew eager. "Whatever I say will be the fresher and purer if it passes through your mind before it is given to the world."
"My mindisa sort of filter." She laughed. None the less she was pleased and flattered. Archibald began to speak in a soft monotone. Betty half closed her eyes and the lines of her figure slightly relaxed beneath the caressing inflections of the speaker's voice. Whenever Archie sang she was affected in the same way. A languor overcame her. For the moment she was not attempting to grasp the meaning of his words, which, even as inarticulate sounds, possessed value and significance. But, soon, she opened her eyes wide and sat up. By this time Archie was at the core of his theme, and his treatment of it was so masterly that Betty found herself thrilling with surprise and delight. A few minutes before life had seemed empty. Now it was full again, brimming over, bubbling, with possibilities swelling from shadow into substance. Archie, be it remembered, was not preaching the sermon. He was rather submitting the material, the tissues, the threads, the patterns, out of which a fine piece of work had been already fashioned. Now and again Betty was invited to choose, to select, out of these wares some one which pleased her fancy. She realised that Archie had more of Mark in him than she had deemed possible. Once or twice she seemed to hear Mark's eager tones.
"You say that like Mark."
"Has Mark talked to you on this theme?"
"Oh, no," Betty replied, "but he pours out his ideas, as you do."
"Mark and I have talked about this. He helped me. He always does."
Archie spoke hesitatingly, on the edge of full confession. He had a genuine desire to tell Betty the truth. The words formed on his lips.
"Yes, yes," said Betty absently. "Mark has helped me too, many a time; but he's in Sutherland." Her voice became cold as she recalled his letter. "I feel as if he were at the North Pole! Well, Archie, I've enjoyed our talk immensely."
"And when may I come to talk to you again?"
"You are not going—now?"
The "now" brought a sparkle to his eyes.
"I must. I'm one of the busiest men in Westchester."
"I shall run down to Windsor to hear your sermon," she said.
"Our sermon, Betty."
"That's rubbish. You must never pay me compliments, Archie. I couldn't stand them from you——" she broke off, irrelevantly: "How did you attain to your pinnacle? I suppose you've been climbing ever since we were children. It's quite wonderful. Don't come Friday or Saturday. Jim will be here. Poor, rich Jim! What do you think of Jim?"
Archie remembered, in the nick of time, what Mark had said about not abusing Jim.
"I think what you think," he said slowly. "Poor, rich Jim!"
After he had gone, Betty picked no more roses, but sat down on the bench, feeling rather forlorn. Archibald had taken something away with him. What it was she could not define precisely. For instance—was it Jim's character? He had said nothing. Nothing—except her own words: "Poor, rich Jim." Jim had been his friend, although the men had now little in common. Of course, he would not speak unkindly of an old schoolfellow. Yet as a preacher of Christ's gospel, he must in his heart rank Jim amongst Christ's enemies. Jim was not with Christ. He did not believe in Christ. The conclusion was obvious: he must be counted as an enemy. An enemy? Poor Jim!
She was still thinking of Jim, when his mother came towards her. She seemed to ascend the grass slope with difficulty; so Betty ran forward to offer an arm, which was accepted. As they moved slowly on, Betty glanced at the quiet face so near her own. Again, curiosity devoured her. She observed a faded look which she tried to interpret. Did it spell disappointment? Were the last draughts of life proving bitter? Perhaps she felt that her work was done, that her little world would wag on without her. They sat down, and Mrs. Corrance produced her needle, her silks, and a piece of embroidery from the old-fashioned velvet bag, which she always carried on her arm. Betty, who never sewed, wondered if the day would ever dawn when she would find solace in such trivial occupations. Then Mrs. Corrance asked for news of Mark. After that was told, silence fell on both: the silence which precedes the breaking of barriers. Then Betty said softly: "Are you glad that you have lived—or sorry?"
The frail hands, poised above the delicate embroidery, sank upon it, and remained still, while faint lines of interrogation puckered the placid forehead. Betty continued: "I ought not to ask such questions. I rush in like a fool. But then I am a fool, although I long to be wise. There is so much a girl like me wants to know, but if you tell me to hold my tongue I shall not be surprised or offended."
"I'm glad that I have lived, Betty."
"That is because you have loved. Your love for Jim has filled your life, ever since I have known you. If—if—oh, I am ashamed to put it so brutally—but if you lost Jim, or if Jim had never been born—what then?"
"My dear, you press me too hard. I can hardly conceive of life without Jim," she smiled. "He came when all was dark, and there has been light for me—ever since."
"When all was dark——" repeated Betty. She knew that Jim's father had died when Jim was a small boy.
"Yes. My married life was not happy. Perhaps I expected too much, as is the way with women; perhaps it was not meant that I should be happy."
"Notmeant?" Betty spoke with impatience. "Surely the design, the intention, includes happiness, only we mar it."
"All young people think that," said Mrs. Corrance, "but as we grow older we see so little real happiness that we must believe, if we believe in the mercy of God, that, save for the few, happiness on earth is not to be enjoyed but earned rather, so that it may be enjoyed, without alloy, hereafter. And I believe that to everyone a glimpse of happiness is vouchsafed. Were it not for that, how many would struggle on?"
Betty asked no more questions. The youth in her rebelled against this placid acceptance of suffering and strife. She told herself that she had enormous capacity for enjoyment. Politics, literature, history, sport: all were fish to her net. But religion, and in particular that concrete presentation of it by the Church of England, had, so far, left her cold. She seemed to have touched but its phylacteries, out of which came no virtue. She had met many clever men who confessed themselves agnostic. Her kind friend, Lady Randolph, never spoke of religion, either in its wide or narrow sense. Certainly she did her duty without aid or formulæ. In fact, when Betty came to think of it, some freethinkers of her acquaintance lived more Christian lives than many Churchpeople who took the Sacrament every Sunday. This was puzzling. On the other hand, the life she had led since the Admiral's death, the life of Mayfair, of big country houses, of race-meetings, of perpetual pleasure-seekings, had begun to pall. The grandmothers—some of them—who gambled, and made love, and over-ate themselves, revolted her. That they were at heart discontented and unhappy she could not doubt. Finally, she had just come to the trite conclusion that, in or out of the fashionable world, the people least to be pitied were those who had some definite object in view. Politics, for instance, had probably saved Lord Randolph from the hereditary curse of his family; fox-hunting made Harry Kirtling ride straight and walk straight; Jim Corrance admitted that money-grubbing kept him out of mischief. These pursuits, however, led to negative results: being preventive of evil, not productive of good, except indirectly. Mark Samphire not only avoided evil, but did good, as dozens were eager to testify, including herself. When with Mark she had always been conscious of his power to bring out the good in her. And this afternoon, listening to Archie, she had felt the same thrill, the same irresistible yearning to ascend, to scale the heights. None the less, she was whimsically aware, being a creature of sense as well as sensibility, that Mark cast a glamour. She loved him, and, loving him, loved what he loved, tried to see Heaven's wares with his eyes, and succeeded, so long as the magician remained at her side. When he was at work in Whitechapel and she was shopping in Bond Street, Heaven, somehow, seemed distant. At such times she looked at a set of sables or a diamond ornament with a pleasure which proved that the clay within her was very far from being purged.
Upon the following Saturday, when Jim asked her to become his wife, to share the fortune which would be no fortune without her, she said No, as kindly as words and looks could say it. Her distress at the pain she inflicted touched him profoundly.
"I shall remain your pal, Betty," Jim declared. "The other thing was always a forlorn hope. Is it any use saying that I have known for years that I wasn't first, and that I was sanguine enough to believe that if the first failed, I might be second? Isn't half a loaf better than no bread, dear?"
She let him take her hand, but she turned aside eyes full of tears.
"We'll go on as before. The mater needn't know—eh? It has been a great thing for her having you here."
"And a great thing for me," said Betty unsteadily. "I wish I could marry you, dear old Jim, but I can't—I can't."
She broke down, sobbing bitterly. Jim patted her hand, wondering what he could say to comfort her, but the words which came into his head seemed inadequate. If he had taken her face between his strong hands, kissed away her tears, and sworn passionately that he would love and cherish her so long as she lived, she might have changed a mind which was less strong than her body. While she sat weeping beside him, she was thinking not so much that she had lost Mark, but that she had lost love. The woman within her groaned, the flesh and blood protested. She saw herself as in a vision, treading the dreary years alone, with no strong arm to protect and defend, with no tiny hands to cling to and caress her. And at the end of the pilgrimage stood old age, grim and grey, carrying a sprig of rue in palsied shrivelled hands!
CHAPTER XXI
RECUPERATION
Mark went North with David Ross convinced that his months, if not his days, were numbered; but as time passed, this conviction passed with it, and hope once more fluttered into his heart. Stride took extraordinary interest in his case.
"You must become an animal and remain an animal till I give you leave to assume again the man," he told Mark after Archibald had left Crask. "I don't know what you and your brother have been up to, but you've had a relapse. You must go on all-fours till I tell you to walk upright."
Mark promised, but he added: "I feel an animal—an ass!"
Stride growled out something about dead lions, and set Mark to work in the garden, bare-legged and bare-headed. The work was light, but it strained every muscle in Mark's body. Then he was made to lie down in one of the sheds. After such rest came refreshment—easily digested, nourishing food, taken in small quantities, but often. During this month Mark reckoned that he was sleeping fourteen hours out of the twenty-four. At the end of each week Stride weighed him and applied a number of tests to determine what strength he had gained. There was a sort of rivalry between the patients. Dick who had gained two pounds crowed over Tom who had gained one. Into this competition Mark entered with boyish keenness. Stride said he was the star pupil of the class.
By the beginning of October, a radical improvement had taken place. The cold weather set in sharply, but Mark, always susceptible to atmospheric change, braved the frosty nights with impunity, sleeping in the sheds with the winds howling about him. He had the confidence in Stride that a well-trained dog has in his master. Some of Stride's "animals"—as he called them—proved at first unmanageable. Coming, as most of them did, from the strenuous life of crowded cities, accustomed to and yearning for the stimulus of constant mental action, such stagnation as Stride enforced seemed insupportable. These kittle cattle were yoked for a season with Mark.
Meantime he had received many letters from his friends, but none from Betty, who had returned to Lady Randolph. Jim wrote that he had been rejected, but made no mention of Archibald, who was often seen crossing the downs between Westchester and Birr Wood. As a matter of fact, Jim was not aware of these rides. He remained in London making money. From Pynsent Mark learned of the enthusiasm aroused by Archibald's Windsor sermon.
"Reading in the paper" (he wrote) "that your brother was preaching in St. George's Chapel, I went down to Windsor yesterday to hear him. He is quite amazing. What he said and the way he said it took us by storm. The Whitsuntide sermon gave only a taste of his quality. Out of the pulpit he has always struck me as being the typical English parson of means and position; in it he is—apostolic! I can find no other adjective to describe his persuasiveness, sincerity, and power. Lord Randolph tells me that it made a profound impression in the highest quarter. I saw Betty Kirtling and Lady Randolph in the knights' stalls...."
Mark thrust the letter into his pocket with an exclamation which made the man working next to him raise his brows.
"Anything wrong, Samphire? No bad news, I hope?"
Mark blurted out the truth. His companion, broken down by hard work in Manchester, had sympathetic eyes and lips which dropped compassion upon all infirmities save his own.
"I've had good news, Maitland: my brother has preached a great sermon at Windsor, and—and there is something wrong with me. I have the damnable wish that he'd failed—as I failed." Then he laughed harshly, bending down to pick up his spade.
That afternoon he climbed the mountain, which sloped steeply to the loch. The air, he felt, on the top of Ben Caryll would purge and purify; the panoramic view would enlarge the circle of his sympathies. And so it proved, although a materialist might assign another cause. When Mark reached the highest peak he became aware that he had accomplished a feat of physical endurance beyond such powers as he possessed two months before. He was not aware of undue fatigue; on the contrary, a strange exhilaration permeated mind and body. He could have danced, but he sat down, soberly enough, and reread Pynsent's letter. When he had done this, he tried to transport himself to Windsor. He wanted to sit with Betty in the knights' stalls, beneath the gorgeous silken banners, and the emblazoned shields of the princes of the world, under the eye and ægis of a living sovereign. But fancy left him—in Sutherland. He gazed upon moor and mountain whitened here and there by snow. He looked into the pale, luminous skies above, into the frosty opalescent mists to the westward, through which the sun glowed like a red-hot ball, and wherever he looked Betty was not. For the moment he could not recall her face. It seemed as if he were seeking a stranger with a written description of her in his hand.
Sitting there, some voice whispered to him that Betty wanted him, that he must descend the mountain and go to her. Then he told himself that he was mad. If he obeyed this beguiling voice in his ears, if he went south—what then? The hope in his eye and heart would kindle like hope in her, and such hope was a will-o'-the-wisp flickering above—a grave!
When he came down from the mountain, he found Stride busy in his laboratory. Stride possessed a magnificent Zeiss microscope and all the accessories—incubating ovens, sterilising apparatus, stains, and reagents—for the highest bacteriological work. Of late, Mark had given the little man some help in staining and mounting preparations.
"We are out of one world," Stride had said, "but I will introduce you to another through an apochromatic lens. You will find yourself quite at home, my friend. Here, in this drop of water, you will note the same struggle for existence, the same old game as it is played in Whitechapel or Whitehall."
When Mark began to understand something of the technique of the microscope, when Stride had shown him its uses, for instance, in the analysis of diseased tissue or blood, and revealed its magical powers of diagnosis, Mark asked a question: "How can any doctor work without one?" Stride laughed at such innocence.
"It takes up too much time. No hard-working practitioner ignores the value of it, but he cannot use it. When necessary, he sends preparations to some specialist. A microscope exacts more attention than a wife. That is why I"—he slapped his chest and winked furiously—"have remained single."
This devotion to his work strengthened the chain which linked patient to doctor. Stride—Mark felt assured—might have secured fame and fortune in London. Yet he chose to remain unknown and poor in Sutherland.
Mark told him that he had climbed Ben Caryll, and felt none the worse for it. Stride shook his big head.
"You oughtn't to attempt such walks—yet."
"Then the time is coming. I shall regain my health?"
He had never put the question so directly before. Stride eyed him attentively, hearing a new note in his voice.
"Per—haps."
"If I asked for leave of absence——"
"It would be refused—peremptorily," said Stride. "Why, man, you'd douse the glim which I've been coaxing into flame all these weeks. What magnet draws you from Crask? A woman?"
"Yes—a woman."
"Oh, these tempestuous petticoats! Now, Samphire, I'm not a fool, and I guessed, when you came here, that you left a girl behind you. You are not engaged to her?"
"No."
"Good! Now, listen to wisdom. If everything goes well with you—if fresh air and simple food and freedom from worry make you whole, you may marry some day—but you'll have to wait a long time, so as to make sure, and even then, after years of comparative health, you may break down again. Will this young lady wait for you—indefinitely?"
"I should never ask her to do that."
"Um! I daresay she's flirting with someone at this very minute. Eh? I beg pardon, Samphire. Your goddess, no doubt, is an exception; but few women, if they are women, can get along without a man. And now you must leave me. I'm on the edge of a small discovery. I've done some good work to-day."
"Your good work will tell, Stride."
"What d'ye mean? Recognition? If it comes, so much the better; if it doesn't, I've had 'the joy of the working'—eh?"
Next day, a letter from Archibald gave many details. He had enjoyed the honour of meeting his Sovereign, who said gracious things; he had dined with a Cabinet Minister; he had been interviewed at length by a reporter. The letter concluded as follows:—