1
He discovered that there were people in the world who could make scenes without noise. They were like the crocodiles he had met on his visit to the Zoo, lying malignantly inert in their oily water. But one twitch of the tail, one blink of a lightless eye, was more terrifying than the roar of a lion.
No one made a noise in Christine's home. The two sisters looked at Robert as though he were a small but disagreeable smell that they tried politely to ignore. They asked him if he wanted a second helping in voices of glacial courtesy. They said things to each other and at Christine which were quiet and deadly as the rustle of a snake in the grass. Robert had never fled from his father as he fled from their restrained disgust. He had never been more aware of storm than in the smother of the heavily carpeted, decorously silent rooms. It broke, three days later, not with thunder and lightning, but with the brief malicious rattle of a machine-gun.
"You ought not to have brought him here. You have no pride. But, then, you never had. At least some consideration for our feelings might have been expected. We have suffered enough. If you knew what people said—— Mrs. Stonehouse has been talking. She offered to take the child. As his natural guardian she had the right. An unpardonable, undignified interference——"
Christine hardly answered. Her fragile face wore the look of quiet obstinacy which had braved James Stonehouse and the worst disasters. Robert had seen it too often not to understand. But now his father was dead, and instead; inexplicably, he had become the source of trouble. He disgraced Christine. Her people hated her because she was good to him. He felt the shame of it all over him like a horrible kind of uncleanliness, and beneath the shame a burning sense of wrong. He hid in dark places. He refused to answer even when Christine called him. He skulked miserably past Christine's sisters when he met them in the passage. He scowled at them, his head down, like a hobbled, angry little bull. And Christine's sisters drew in their nostrils in a last genteel effort at self-control.
Christine packed his trunk with ragged odds and ends of clothing, and they made a long journey to No. 14, Acacia Grove, where Christine had taken two furnished rooms and a scullery, which served also as kitchen and bath-room. Acacia Grove was the deformed extremity of a misbegotten suburb. There were five acacia trees planted on either side of the unfinished roadway, but they had been blighted in their youth, and their branches were spinsterish and threadbare. Behind the houses were a few dingy fields, and then a biscuit factory, an obscene, congested-looking building with belching chimneys.
Every morning at nine o'clock Robert walked with Christine to the corner of the road, and a jolly, red-faced 'bus, rollicking through the neighbourhood like a slightly intoxicated reveller who has landed by mistake in a gathering of Decayed Gentlefolk, carried her off citywards, and at dusk returned her again, grey and worn, with wisps of tired brown hair hanging about her face and bundles of solemn letters and folded parchment documents bulging from her dispatch-case. Then she and Robert shopped together at the Stores, and afterwards she cooked over a gas-jet in the scullery, and they had supper together, almost in the dark, but very peacefully.
It was too peaceful. One couldn't believe in it. When supper was over Robert washed up and Christine uncovered the decrepit, second-hand typewriter which she had bought, and began to copy from the letters, bending lower and lower over the crabbed writing and sighing deeply and impatiently as her fingers blundered at the keys. On odd nights, when there was no copying to be done, she tried to teach Robert his letters and words of one syllable, but they were both too tired, and he yawned and kicked the table and was cross and stupid with sleepiness. At nine o'clock he washed himself cautiously and crept into the little bed beside her big one and lay curled up, listening to the reassuring click-click of the typewriter, until suddenly it was broad daylight again, and there was Christine getting breakfast.
In the day-time Robert played ball in the quiet street or sat with his elbows on the window-sill and watched the people go in and out of the houses opposite. The people were grey and furtive-looking, as though they were afraid of attracting the notice of some dangerous monster and had tried to take on the colour of their surroundings in self-protection. They seemed to ask nothing more for themselves than that they should be forgotten. Robert knew how they felt. He felt like that himself. He was never sure that he was really safe. He dared not ask questions lest he should find out that his father wasn't dead after all, or that they were on the brink of some new convulsion. He did not even ask where Christine went in the day-time, or what had become of Edith, or where their money came from. He clung desperately to an ignorance which allowed him to believe that he and Christine would always live like this, quietly and happily. When the landlady's shadow came heavy-footed up the stairs, he hid himself and stuffed his fingers in his ears lest he should hear her threaten them with instant expulsion. (It was incredible that she and Christine should be talking amicably about the weather.) Or when they went to the butcher's, he hung behind in dread anticipation of the red-faced man's insolent "And what about that there little account of ours, Ma'am?" But the red-faced man smiled ingratiatingly and patted him on the back and called him a fine young fellow. Christine counted out her money at the desk. It made Robert dizzy with joy and pride to see her pay her bill, and tears came into his throat and nearly choked him. On the way home he behaved abominably, chased cats or threw stones with a reckless disregard for their neighbours' windows, and Christine, looking into his flushed, excited face, had a movement that was like the shadow of his own secret fear.
"Robert, Robert, don't be so wild. You might hurt yourself—or someone else. It frightens me."
And then at once he walked quietly beside her, chilled and dispirited. At any moment the new-found commonplaces might drop from him, and everyone would find out—the neighbours who nodded kindly and the tradespeople who bowed them out of their shops—just as Francey and the Banditti had found out—and turn away from him, ashamed and sorry.
He did not think of Francey very often. For when he did it was almost always in those last moments together that he remembered her—the Francey who was too strong for him, the Francey who knew that he was a nasty little boy who couldn't even beat a girl—who told lies—the Francey who despised him. And then it was as though his body had been bruised afresh from head to foot. But he still had her handkerchief. He even kept it hidden from Christine lest she should insist on washing it. For by now it was incredibly dirty.
In the day-time he never thought of his father at all. But in his sleep one nightmare returned repeatedly. It never varied; it was definite and horrible. In it his father, grown to demonic proportions, towered over Christine's huddled body, his eyes terrible, his fists clenched and raised to strike. Then in that moment, at the very height of his awful fear and helpless hatred, the wonderful truth burst upon Robert, and he danced gleefully, full of cruel triumph, about the black, suddenly impotent figure, shouting:
"You can't—you're dead—you're dead—you can't——"
And then he would wake up with a hideous start, sweating, his eyes hot with unshed tears, and Christine's hand would come to him out of the darkness and clasp his in reassuring firmness.
There was another dream. Or, rather, it was half a dream and half one of these stories that he told himself just before he fell asleep. It came to him at dusk when he stood at the gate and waited for Christine to come home. In the long day of silent games he had lost touch, little by little, with reality. Hunger had made him faint and drowsy. Things changed, became unfamiliar, fantastic. Between the stunted trees he could see the afterglow of the sunset like the reflection of a blazing city. The road then was full of silence and shadow. The drab outlines grew faint and the mean houses were merged into the vaster shapes of night. Robert waited, motionless, breathless. He was sure that something was coming to him down the path of fading light. He did not know what it was. Once, indeed, it had been Francey, with her queer dancing step, her hair flying about her head like a flock of little red-brown birds. She had hovered before him, on tiptoe, as though the next gust of wind would blow her on her way down the street, and looked at him. They had not spoken, but he had seen in her eyes how sorry she was that she had not understood. And a warm content had flowed over him. All the sore, aching places were healed and comforted.
But that had been only once. And then he wasn't sure that he hadn't made it up. At all other times the thing was outside himself too strange to have been imagined. It shook him from head to foot with dread and longing. He wanted to run to meet it, to plunge into it, reckless and shouting, as into a warm, dancing, summer sea. And yet it menaced him. It was of fire and colour, of the rumble and thud of armies, of laughter and singing and distant broken music. It was all just round the comer. If he hurried he would see it, lose himself in it, march to the tune he could never quite catch. But he was afraid, and whilst he tried to make up his mind the light faded. The sounds died. After all, it was only Christine, trudging wearily through the dusk.
2
The six forms were marshalled in squares down the centre of the drill-hall, Form I, with Robert Stonehouse at the bottom, holding the place of dishonour under the shadow of the Headmaster's rostrum. Robert did not know that he was at the bottom of Form I, or that such a thing as Form I existed. He did not know that he was older than the eldest of his class-mates, but he was aware of being unusually and uncomfortably large. Under the curious stare that had greeted him on his first appearance and which now pressed on him from the rear and sides, he felt himself shoot up, inch by inch, into a horrible conspicuousness, whilst his feet grew flat and leaden, and his hands were too swollen to squeeze into his trousers pockets.
". . . we have left undone those things which we ought to have done and we have done those things which we ought not to have done . . ."
He wondered what they were saying. It sounded rather like one of those tongue-twisters which his father had taught him in a playful moment—"round the rugged rock the ragged robber ran"—but it was evidently no joking matter. And it was something which everyone knew except himself. The urchin on his left piped it out in an assured, self-satisfied treble. The clergyman kneeling behind the raised desk came in with a bang at the beginning of each sentence, and then subsided into an indistinguishable murmur. Evidently he knew what he was saying so well that he did not need even to think about it, for his eyes wandered over his folded hands as though in methodical search for somebody. They reached Form I, and Robert, who saw them coming, broke instinctively into a panic-stricken gabble. Of all the poems which Christine had read aloud to him, Casablanca was the only one he could remember, and he had got as far as "whence all but he had fled" before he saw that it was of no good. The subterfuge had been recognized. The clergyman had stopped praying and was gazing at him earnestly. Robert gazed back, fascinated and open-mouthed.
". . . and there is no health in us . . ."
But the strain of that encounter was too much for him. He tried to escape, first to the ceiling and finally to his boots. The stare pursued him, pointed at him. In a moment the whole school would be on his track. His eyes, rolling desperately to their corners, encountered a little dark man who had led in Form I and now stood sideways on, so as to keep his charge under constant survey. Even in that moment of acute despair he arrested Robert's attention. There was something odd about him—something distressful and indignant. Whilst he prayed he made jerky, irritable movements which fluttered out the wings of his gown, so that with his sleek black hair and pointed face he looked like a large angry blackbird, trapped and tied by the foot.
"But Thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us . . ."
And then, suddenly, an amazing conviction broke upon Robert. The little man wasn't praying at all. His lips moved, but the movement was all wrong. He was repeating two words, over and over again, at great speed and with a suppressed violence. They looked familiar—painfully, elusively familiar. Robert felt that in another moment he would recognize them:
". . . spare Thou them that are penitent . . ."
Now Robert knew for certain. It was his father's favourite answer to all expostulations. Of course that was it. "Damned rot—damned rot—damned rot." The little man was swearing passionately to himself. It was incredible, but there was no mistake possible. And in the full blast of the discovery his dark eyes, hunted and angry-looking behind their round glasses, met Robert's, widened, passed on, and came back again. It was an extraordinary moment. Robert could not have looked away to save his life. He knew that he had betrayed himself. The little man knew that he knew. He grew very red, coughed, and blew his nose violently, his eyes meantime returning repeatedly to Robert's flushed and frightened face with an expression utterly unfathomable. It was almost as though he were trying to signal——
"Amen!" declared the whole school with infinite relief and satisfaction.
The clergyman sighed deeply and raised himself painfully from his knees.
"Hymn number 503."
A boy came out from the class next to Robert's and walked to the piano, and Robert forgot everything else, even his own imminent disgrace. He had never seen such red hair before—deep red with a touch of purple, like the leaves of a beech tree in autumn—or such a freckled face. The freckles lay thick on the small unimportant nose and clashed painfully against the roots of the amazing hair. They crowded out the flaxen eyebrows altogether. And yet he was pretty in a wistful, whimsical sort of way. He made Robert want to laugh. Someone close to Robert did titter, and muttered, "Go it, Carrots!" and Robert saw that the boy had heard and was horribly frightened. He winced and faltered, and Robert poked out viciously with his elbow.
"Shut up!" he whispered,
His victim was too astonished even to retaliate.
The red-haired boy had reached the piano. And at once a change came over him. He wasn't frightened any more. He played the first verse over without a stumble, calmly, confidently, as though he knew that now no one had the right to laugh. The light from an upper window made a halo of his blazing head and lit up his small round face, faintly and absurdly grave, but with something elfish and eager lurking behind the gravity. Robert stared at him as an Ancient Briton might have stared at the first lordly Roman who crossed his ken. He felt uncouth and cumbersome and stupid. And yet he could have knocked the red-headed boy down easily with one hand.
The clergyman led the singing. The urchin on Robert's right had produced a hymn-book from his pocket and opened it and found his place with the same air of smug efficiency. Robert had no book. He longed for one. He knew that the clergyman was watching him again. His companion nudged him, and by a stab of a stumpy, inky forefinger indicated the verse which he himself was singing in an aggressive treble. But Robert only stared helplessly. At another time he might have recognized "God—love—dove—" and other words of one syllable, and he liked the tune. But now he could see nothing but the clergyman and think of nothing but the little dark man. He wondered madly what the latter was singing now and whether he had managed to fit in "damned rot—damned rot" to the music. But he did not dare to look.
A second prod roused him with a ghastly self-betraying start.
"You gotter sing," the small boy whispered fiercely; "gotter sing, idjit."
"Wh-a-a-t?"
Robert made a loud, unexpected noise in his throat. His companion choked, spluttered and buried his impertinent face in a grubby handkerchief. The dark man left his post hastily and stationed himself immediately at Robert's side in anticipation of a further outbreak. Someone in the rear giggled hysterically. Robert dropped his head and riveted his swimming eyes on the clergyman's boots. He made no further attempt to save himself. He was caught by his mysterious, relentless destiny. He had been found out.
3
Mr. Morton, the headmaster, believed in Hygiene and the Educational Value of Beauty. The classroom smelt vividly of carbolic. There was a large lithograph of "Love and Life" on the pure white wall and a pot of flowers on the high window-sill. Maps, blackboards and all other paraphernalia of learning were kept in merciful concealment.
Robert took possession of the desk nearest him and was at once ejected. Its rightful owner scowled darkly at him. At the next desk he tried to anchor himself, and there was a scuffle and a smothered exchange of blows, from which he escaped with a scraped shin and a strange, unfamiliar sense of being afraid. There was no fight in him. He didn't want to fight. He wanted to belong—to be one of the herd—and he knew dimly that he would first have to learn its laws and submit to its tortures. He tried to grin back when the titter, which seemed endemic, broke out afresh as he stumbled on his ignominious pilgrimage, but the unasked-for partition in their amusement seemed to exasperate them. They whispered things to one another. They commented on his clothes. He realized suddenly how poorly dressed he was. There was a patch on the knee of his trousers and a mended tear on his shiny jacket. His finger-nails weren't very clean. Christine had gone off too early to be sure that he had done them, and he had never thought much of that sort of thing. Now he was paralysed with shame. He could feel the tears strangling him.
Fortunately the desk in the far corner belonged to nobody. It was old and battered and covered with the undecipherable carvings of his predecessors, but at once he loved it. It was his. Its retired position seemed to offer him protection. He hid behind it, drawing a long, shuddering sigh of thankfulness.
The little dark man stood on the raised platform and surveyed them all. His expression was nearly a grimace; as though he had just swallowed a disagreeable medicine. He pursed his lips and held tight to the lapels of his coat, his piercing yet distressful eyes blinking rapidly behind their glasses with a kind of nervous malice.
"Well, my delightful and learned young friends——"
The class wilted in anticipation. But before he spoke again the door opened and they rose thankfully with a shuffle of feet and surreptitious clatter of desks. The clergyman waved to them. If the little dark man was like a blackbird, captive and resentful, the newcomer was like a meagre and somewhat fluttered hen. His hands and wrists were long and yellow and sinewy. He wore no cuffs, but one could see the beginnings of his Jaeger undervest under the black sleeve. He rubbed his chin or smoothed the back of his small head almost ceaselessly.
"You can sit down, boys. One moment, Mr. Ricardo, one moment only——"
He spoke in an undertone. Robert knew it was about him. They both looked in his direction. The little man jerked his head.
"Robert Stonehouse."
He sat motionless, trying to hide from them. But it was of no good. The clergyman made an elevating gesture, and he rose automatically as though he were tied to that gentleman's hand by an invisible string. The desk was much too small for him and he had to wiggle to get free from it. The lid banged. Instantly every boy had turned in his seat to gaze at him, and he saw that this was the worst place that could have fallen to his lot. In his corner he was trapped, a sea of mocking, curious faces between him and his tormentors.
The clergyman smiled palely at him.
"I understand that you are a new boy, Stonehouse, and I don't wish to be too severe with you. At the same time we must begin as we are to go on. And you were not behaving very well at prayers this morning, were you?"
Robert moved his lips soundlessly. But no answer was expected of him.The question was rhetorical. "You weren't," the enemy said,"attending. You were trying to make your companions laugh——"This, at least, was unbearably unjust.
"I wasn't," Robert interrupted loudly.
Someone moved to compassion hissed, "Say 'sir'—say sir,'" but he was beyond help. From that moment on he was beyond fear. He dug himself in, dogged and defiant.
"Come now, Stonehouse, I saw you myself. You were only pretending to join in, now weren't you? How was it? Didn't you know the prayer?"
"No."
"Don't be so abrupt, my boy. Say 'sir' when you answer me. How is it that you don't know it? You go to church, don't you?"
"No."
"Say 'sir.'"
"Sir."
"Well, chapel, then. You go to chapel, no doubt?"
Robert stared blankly.
"You don't? But surely your mother takes you——"
"I haven't got a mother." His voice sounded in his own ears like a shout. He scowled down at the faces nearest him. He was ready to fight them now. If they were going to say anything about his mother, good or bad, he would fly at them, just as he had flown at his old aggressors in the Terrace, regardless of size and numbers.
"Your father, then?"
"I haven't got a father."
His questioner smiled faintly, not without asperity.
"Come, come, you are not yet a gentleman in independent circumstances.Who takes care of you?"
"Christine."
"And who, pray, is Christine?"
Who was Christine? It was as though suddenly the corner of a curtain had been raised for a moment, letting him look through into a strange new country.
"I don't know."
The clergyman waved his hand, damping down the titters that spluttered up nervously, threatening to explode outright. He himself had an air of slight dishevelment, as though his ideas had been blown about by a rude wind.
"I remember—Mr. Morton spoke to me—your guardian, of course. You should answer properly. But still, surely you have been taught—some religious instruction. You say your prayers, don't you?"
"No." He added after a moment of sudden, vivid recollection: "Not now."
It was nothing short of a debacle. He had pulled out the keystone of an invisible edifice which had come tumbling about their ears, leaving him in safety. Without knowing how or why, he knew he had got the better of them all. The grins died out of the upturned faces. They looked at him with amazement, with horror, yes—with respect.
"But you have been taught your catechism—to—to believe in God?"
"No."
"But the hymn—at least you could have sung the hymn, my poor boy. You can read, can't you?"
"No."
The awe passed before a storm of unchecked laughter. For one spectacular moment he had held them all helpless, every one of them, by the sheer audacity of his admissions. Now with one word he had fallen—an ignominious, comic outcast. The clergyman turned away, shaken but satisfied.
"You have a great deal to learn. I doubt if Mr. Morton quite realized—— A heavy task in front of you, too, Mr. Ricardo. One word, please——"
They spoke in undertones. Robert slid back into his seat. He could feel exultant glances sting and pierce him on every side. And yet when the door closed he had to look up. He was driven by a relentless curiosity to meet the worst. Mr. Ricardo had resumed his place. He did not so much as glance at Robert. He clung on to the lapels of his coat and blinked up at the window as though nothing had happened. But there was something impish twitching at the corners of his nervous mouth.
"My delightful young friends," he said, "you will be kind enough to leave Stonehouse in peace both now and hereafter. I know your amiable propensities, and my own conviction is that he is probably worth the pack of you. Get out your history books——"
So he was a friend. A powerful friend. But not powerful enough. No one looked at Robert again. And yet he knew, with all the certainty of inherited instinct, that they were waiting for him.
4
He went out into the school-yard like an early Christian into the arena. He knew exactly what to expect. It was just the Terrace over again. He would have to fight them all until they learnt to leave him alone. Somehow he knew for certain that to be left alone was the best he could expect. They would never really forgive him for being different from themselves. It was very mysterious. It couldn't be his father or the unpaid bills any more. It seemed that if you were born different you remained different, however hard you tried. He had wanted so much to go to school, to run with a band again, to play games with them and have them call out, "Hallo, Stonehouse!" as he heard other boys call to each other across the street. He had meant to be exactly like them at all costs. It had seemed so easy, since his father was dead and Christine paid the butcher. But at once he had been found out, a marked man. He hadn't got a father and mother like ordinary people, he didn't go to church, he didn't say his prayers, he couldn't read, and he didn't know who God was—or even Christine——
There was a moment of suspense before the attack opened. Like an old, experienced general he made his way with apparent indifference towards the wall. But he was not quite quick enough. Someone prodded him sharply in the back. Someone hissed in mocking imitation:
"I don't know—I don't know!"
He was too cunning to retaliate. He waited till he had reached his chosen ground, then he turned with his fists clenched. The storm had already gathered. It was only a little school, and the story of the new boy's "break" with old Jaegers had reached even the big louts who lingered on in Form VI. They made a rough half-circle round their intended victim, only partially malevolent in their intentions. The fact that he had bearded a contemptible old beast like Jaegers was rather in his favour than otherwise, but his assertion that he did not say his prayers and knew nothing about God smacked of superiority. He had to be taken down. And, anyhow, a new boy was an object of curiosity and his preliminary persecution a time-honoured custom. A fight was not in their calculations—the very idea of a new boy venturing to fight beyond their imaginations. And Robert did not want to fight. He felt oddly weary and disinclined. But to him there was no other outcome possible. It was his only tradition. It blinded him to what was kindly or only mischievous in the faces round him. He had a momentary glimpse of the red-headed boy who stood just outside the circle, munching an apple and staring at him with astonished blue eyes, and then his attention fixed itself on his enemy-in-chief. There was no mistaking him. He was a big, lumpy fellow, fifteen years of age, with an untidy mouth, the spots of a premature adolescence and an air of heavy self-importance. When he spoke, the rest fell into awed attention.
"Hallo, new kid, what's your name?"
"Robert Stonehouse."
"Don't be so abrupt, my boy,"—a delighted titter from the small fry—"say 'sir' when you answer me."
"I shan't."
The little colourless eyes widened in sheer incredulity. For a moment the role of humorist was forgotten.
"Look here—no cheek, or I'll smack your head."
"He hasn't been properly brought up," one of the spotty youth's companions remarked, not ill-naturedly. "Can't expect him to have manners. He never had a father or a mother, poor darling——"
"Then where did he come from?"
"God made him."
"He told old Jaegers he'd never even heard of God."
"Dear, dear, what a naughty boy. He doesn't even say his prayers."
"But he lives with a lady called Christine——"
"How nice for him. Is she a pretty lady, Stonehouse?" Up till now nothing had stirred in him. He hadn't cared. He had indeed felt something of the superiority which they suspected in him. If that was all they could do—— Now, suddenly, the blood rushed to the roots of his fair hair.
"Shut up. You leave Christine alone."
The big boy was too delighted to be angry.
"Hoity-toity. She must be a high-stepper. No trespassers allowed—eh, what? young cockalorum. Come on, what's she like? Who is she?
"He doesn't know."
"She isn't his mother."
"He says she isn't."
"P'r'aps he doesn't know that either. P'r'aps that's what she says——"
The full extent of the innuendo, like the majority of the audience, he did not understand, but he saw the wink which passed between the two elder boys. Ever since that day when he had gathered flowers for his mother in Kensal Green Cemetery he had known of dark things, just beyond his understanding. He had wandered in the midst of them too long not to be aware of them on the instant. And it was against Christine—who had suffered from them so terribly—they dared—— A great sigh tore itself free from him. He put his head down. He flew at the spotty youth like a stone from a catapult, and they went down together in a cloud of dust.
After that, as in most of his uneven, desperate encounters, he hardly knew what happened. He felt nothing. In reality it was an absurd spectacle. The spotty youth, bounding up from his momentary discomfiture, caught Robert by the collar and smacked him shamefully, severely, as the outrage merited. And when justice had been satisfied, he released the culprit, and Robert, without pause, returned, fighting with fists and feet and teeth, as he had learnt to do from dire necessity. It was unprecedented. The spotty youth gasped. His companions offered intervention.
"I'll hold the beggar."
But honour was at stake. The small fry, startled out of caution, were tittering in hysterical excitement.
"Th-thanks—you keep out of it—I'll manage him."'
The second beating was more drastic. The third was ineffectual. The spotty youth, besides being exhausted, was demoralized with sheer bewilderment. He was not clever, and when events ran out of their ruts he lost his head. He had made the same discovery that the Terrace boys had made long since, namely that short of killing Robert Stonehouse there was no way of beating him, and he drew back, panting, dishevelled, his manly collar limp and his eyes wild.
"There—that'll teach you——"
Robert laughed. He put his tongue out. He knew it was vulgar but it was the only retaliation he had breath for. His clothes were dusty and torn, his nose bloody. He was a frightful object. But he knew that he had won.
The spotty youth wiped his hands on his handkerchief with exaggerated disgust.
"Dirty little beast. I wouldn't touch him again—not with the end of a barge pole."
He never did. Nobody did. Though he did not know it, it was Robert's last fight. But he had won immunity at a high cost. The small fry skirted him as they went out through the school gates. It was more than fear. They distrusted him. He was not one of them. He did not keep their laws. His wickedness was not their wickedness, his courage not their courage. He ought not to have fought a boy in the sixth form. He ought to have taken his beating quietly. Even if he had "blubbed" they might afterwards have taken him to their bosoms in understanding and inarticulate sympathy. As it was, he was a devil—a foreign devil, outside the caste for ever.
Only the small red-haired boy, waiting cautiously till everyone else was out of sight, came after him as he trailed forlornly down the street. He was still chewing meditatively at the core of his apple, and his eyes, vividly blue amidst the freckles, considered Robert out of their corners with solemn astonishment.
"I say, Stonehouse, you can fight."
Robert nodded. He was still breathless.
"I—I'm used to it."
"I'm glad you kicked that beast Saunders. You hurt him, too. I saw him make a face. I wish I could fight like that. But I'm no good at it. I'm not 'fraid—not really—but I just hate it. You like it, don't you?"
Robert swaggered a little.
"Rather."
There was a moment's silence,
"I say—if you like it—would you mind licking Dickson Minor for me? He's always ragging me—you see, I've a rotten time—because of my hair, and about playing the piano. Dickson's the worst. I'd be awfully glad, if you wouldn't mind, of course."
Robert surreptitiously wiped the blood from his nose on to his sleeve. As usual he had no handkerchief. A warm, delicious solace flowed over his battered spirit. His heart swelled till it hurt him. It opened wide to the little red-haired boy. If only Francey could see him now—the defender of the oppressed. But he did not dare to think of that. After all, he might cry.
He nodded negligently.
"All right. I don't mind."
"P'r'aps, when he knows you're standing up for me, he'll leave me alone."
"He'd better."
"My name's Rufus—Rufus Cosgrave. You see, I was born like this, and my father thought it would be a good joke. I call it beastly."
"Mine's Robert."
The red-haired boy meditated a little longer. He rubbed his arm against Robert's softly like a young pony.
"I say, let's be friends—shall we?"
Robert gulped and turned his head away.
"All right. I don't mind."
They parted shyly at the corner of Cosgrave's road—a neat double file of vastly superior villas, as Robert realized with a faint sinking of the heart; but Robert did not go home. He made his way out to the dingy fields behind the biscuit factory, and watched the local rag and bobtail play football, lying hidden in the long grass under the wall so that they should not see him and fall upon him. Even when it grew dusk and he knew that Christine must be almost home, he still wandered about the streets. He was hungry and footsore, his head and body ached, but he put off the moment when he would have to face her to the very last. He loved her, and he was not really afraid, though he knew that the sight of his torn, blood-stained clothes would rouse her to a queer unreasonable despair; but he had talked so much, so proudly and so confidently of going to school. And now, how should he tell the tale of his disgrace, how make clear to her the misery which the unfathomable gulf between himself and his companions caused in him, or that because a red-haired, freckled small boy had asked him to fight Dickson Minor he had lain in the grass with his face hidden in his arms and wept tears of sacred happiness? There were things you could never tell, least of all to people whom you loved. They were locked up in you, and the key had been lost long since.
The street lamps came to life one by one. He strolled down Acacia Grove, whistling and swinging his legs with an exaggerated carelessness. He could see their light in the upper window of No. 14. He was sure that Christine would watch for him, and when the hall door opened suddenly, he stopped short, shrinking from their encounter. But it was a man who came out of the gate towards him. For one moment an awful, reasonless terror made him half turn to run, to run headlong, never to come back; the next, he recognized the slight, jerky limp which made his form master so comically bird-like, and stood still, knowing that now Christine had heard everything, the very worst. Probably Mr. Ricardo had come to tell her that she must take him away, that he was too bad and too stupid to be with other boys, and a lump gathered in his throat because he would never see Rufus Cosgrave again: never fight for him.
Mr. Ricardo halted, peering through the dusk.
"That you, Stonehouse?"
"Yes"—he added painfully, because the little man had been kind to him—"sir."
"Your—Miss Forsyth is getting anxious about you. Why are you so late?"
Robert muttered "Football," knowing it was a lie, and that somehow or other his companion knew it too. He heard Mr. Ricardo sigh deeply and wearily.
"Well, I'm very late myself. I don't know this neighbourhood. Is there a station or a 'bus near here?"
"There's a 'bus." Robert pointed eagerly. "I'll show you if you like."
"Thanks—if it doesn't take you too long."
They walked side by side in silence, Mr. Ricardo's stick tapping smartly on the pavement, he himself apparently deep in thought. It seemed to Robert that he had escaped, until suddenly a thin hand took him by the shoulder and shook him with a friendly impatience.
"Football. Nonsense. A boy like you doesn't play football. He hasn't had the chance. Besides, it's not his line. He plays a lone game. No. You've been moping round—crying possibly. Well, I do that myself sometimes. It's a crying business, unless you've got nerves and guts. But you've got that all right. I saw you fight that stupid bully Saunders from my window, and you beat him, too. I was fighting with you, though you didn't know it. It was I who kicked him that time you caught him on the shin."
Robert would have laughed had he been less miserable, and had he not caught beneath Mr. Ricardo's brief amusement a real and angry satisfaction. In the dark, too, he had an uneasy feeling that after all he was going to be found out.
"And then after you'd stood up to and beaten a fellow twice your size you went away by yourself and howled. Shall I tell you why? You'll be astonished. Probably you won't understand in the least. You cried because you're a young idiot. You find yourself in a herd of half-baked living creatures, and you see that they are wearing chains round their ankles and rings through their noses so that they can't move or breathe properly, and you think to yourself that that's the proper thing, and you come crying home for someone to tie you up like the rest. It's natural. It's the race instinct and has had its uses. But it's dangerous. It kills most of us. We start out with brains to use and eyes to see with and hands to make with and we end up by thinking nothing and seeing nothing and making nothing that hasn't been thought and seen and made for the last two thousand years. Most of us, even when we know what is happening to us, are cowed and blackmailed into surrender. We have to compromise—there are circumstances—always circumstances—unless we are very strong—we give in—beaten out of shape——"
His sentences, that had become painful and disjointed, broke off, and there was another silence. Robert could say nothing. He was dazed with the many words, half of which, it was true, he had not understood at all. And yet they excited him. They seemed to pierce through and touch some sleeping thing in himself which stirred and answered: "Yes, yes, that's true—that's true."
The pressure on his shoulders increased a little.
"But you're not afraid of anything, are you, Stonehouse?"
"No—no, sir. I don't think so—not really——"
"I don't think you are, either. I liked the way you stood up to that poor faggot of hereditary superstitions and prejudices who was trying to frighten you into being as big a humbug as himself. He'll never get over it. I daresay he'll make things very unpleasant for you in his charming Christian way. How old are you, Stonehouse?"
"Ten—nearly, sir."
"You're big and precocious for your age. You'll get the better of him. But if you'd been brought up with other children you'd have whined and cringed—'Yes, sir,' 'No, sir'—and been a beastly canting hypocrite all your life. You're wonderfully lucky if you only knew it, Stonehouse. You're nearly ten, and you can't read and you don't say your prayers and your catechism and you know nothing about God Almighty. You've a sporting chance of becoming a man——"
Robert stumbled over his own feet. A deeper, almost overpowering, tiredness had come over him. And yet he was fascinated. He had to try to understand.
"Isn't there—I mean—isn't there anyone like God?"
Mr. Ricardo stopped short. He made a strange, wild gesture. Standing there in the half-darkness he was more than ever like some poor hobbled bird trying desperately, furiously to beat its way back to freedom.
"Superstition—superstition, Stonehouse—the most crushing, damnable chain of all, the symbol of cowardice, of greed and vanity, the enemy of truth and knowledge, the hot-bed on which we breed the miserable half-men who cumber this earth, a pitiable myth——"
He had almost shouted. It was as though he had been addressing a vast audience. His voice dropped now, and he walked on, peering about him anxiously.
"Well—well, you are too young. There are things you can't understand.But I shall teach you. No, there is no God, Stonehouse."
Robert was vaguely sorry. It was true that he had no clear idea of God, and yet in some way He had been mixed up with the bands and music and marching crowds that were always just round the corner. In his expansive, genial moments, so rare towards the end. Dr. Stonehouse had been known to say, "God bless you, Christine," and that had always meant a few hours' peace. It seemed very sad.
"What are you going to be, Stonehouse?"
"A doctor, sir."
"Why?"
It was impossible to tell the whole truth—namely, that because Francey had said she was to be a doctor he had said he would be one too, and a better one at that. He gave half-measure.
"I want to be."
"Well, that's a good reason. It might be a great profession, but it has its liars and tricksters like the rest. It is eaten up by little men who wrap themselves in priestly garments and hide their ignorance behind oracular silences. They play up to the superstitious weakness of the mob, and replace one religion by another. They don't care what beastly misery and evil they keep alive so long as they can pull off their particular little stunts. You mustn't be like that, Stonehouse. To be free—to be free—and strong enough to go one's way and trample down the people who try to turn you aside; that is the only thing worth while. Don't let them catch you, Stonehouse. You don't know how cunning they can be—cunning and cruel."
He sighed again, and Robert did not try to answer. He had given up all hope of understanding, and his tiredness was now such that he had to set his teeth to keep the tears back. At the corner they waited in silence watching the jolly, yellow-eyed 'bus rumble towards them down the High Street.
"Your guardian will tell you what we have arranged," Mr. Ricardo said abruptly and with a complete change of tone. "In a month you will read better than any of them. As to the rest, you will have to compromise. So long as you know what you are doing and don't humbug yourself, there's no harm done. With the necessity you will shake yourself free. You can say, 'I believe in God the Father Almighty' with your lips and in your heart, as I do, damned rot—damned rot.'"
He laughed, and in the lamplight Robert saw his face, puckered with an impish, malicious merriment. Robert laughed too. So he had guessed right. He felt proud and pleased.
"Good night, Stonehouse."
"Good night, sir."
Robert took off his battered cap politely as did other boys. Mr. Ricardo scrambled into the 'bus with an unexpected agility, and from the bright interior in which he sat a huddled, faceless shadow, he waved. Robert waved back. A fresh rush of elation had lifted him out of his sorrowful weariness. His disgrace had been miraculously turned to a kind of secret triumph. He was different; but then, how different! He didn't wear chains or a ring through his nose. He was going to know things that no one else knew. And one day he would be big and free.
5
It did not last. By the time he had dragged himself up to the top of their stairs there was nothing left but hunger, the consciousness of tattered, blood-stained clothes, and a sore, tired body. After all, he was only a small boy who had wanted to play with other boys, and had been cast out. Even Mr. Ricardo could never make them play with him.
It was dark in the sitting-room. Against the grey, ghostly light of the window he could see Christine bowed over her typewriter. She was so still that she frightened him. All the terrors of night which lay in wait for him ever since his fathers dead hand had touched his door and opened it, rushed down upon him with a sweep of black, smothering wings. He called out "Christine! Christine!" in a choked voice, and she moved at once, and he saw her profile, sharp-drawn and unfamiliar.
"Is that you, Robert? What is it, dear?"
So she had not been worrying about him at all. She did not know that it was long past their usual supper-time. She had been thinking of something else. It made her seem a terrifyingly long way off, and he shuffled across the room to her, and touched her to make sure of her. And it was strange that her hand glided over him anxiously, questioningly, as though in the darkness she too had been afraid and uncertain.
"Your form-master, Mr. Ricardo, has been here. We've been talking about you. Is your coat very, very torn?"
"Not—not very."
"Never mind. I'll mend it afterwards—when you've gone to bed."
Because he was so tired himself the unutterable weariness in her voice smote him on the heart unbearably. He had never heard it before. It made him think of her, for the first time, not just as Christine, who looked after him and loved him, but as someone apart whom, perhaps, he did not know at all. Hadn't they asked him, "Who is Christine?" And he hadn't answered. He hadn't known.
"Mr. Ricardo says you will need a lot of help to pick up with the other boys. Poor little Robert! But he takes an interest in you, and you are to go to his house in the afternoon to be coached, and in a few weeks you will know as much as any of them."
He did not know what "coaching" meant, but all of a sudden he had become afraid of Mr. Ricardo. He did not want to go to him. He knew that Mr. Ricardo would not like him to play with other boys, even if he got a chance. He would want him to be alone and different always.
"He doesn't believe in God," Robert asserted accusingly. "He said he didn't."
"Perhaps not, dear."
"Doesn't that matter?"
"I don't suppose God minds—if He exists."
"Don't you believe in Him, Christine?"
"I don't know. People say they believe too easily. I expect I believe as much as the others. With most of us it's just—just a hope."
They had never talked together in that way before. It made her more than ever someone apart from him, who had her own thoughts, and perhaps her own secret way of being unhappy. He was frightened again, not of the darkness now, but of something nearer—something so real and deadly that the old spectres became almost comic, like ghosts made up of dust-sheets and broom-handles. Supposing Christine went still further from him—supposing she left him altogether alone? She wouldn't do it of her free will, but there were things people couldn't help. People died. The thought was a cruel hand twining itself into the strings of his heart. He tried to see her face. Was she young? He didn't know. He had never thought about it. She had been grown-up. That covered everything. Now in the pale, unreal light her face and hair were a strange dead gray, and she was old—old.
"Christine, how—how long do people live?"
"It depends. Sometimes to a hundred—sometimes just a minute.
"But if one is careful, Christine—I mean, really careful?"
"It doesn't always help, Robert. And even if it did, the people who need to live most have to take risks——" She broke off, following her thought further till it was far beyond his reach. "In fifteen years you will be grown up. You will be able to take care of yourself. What will you be then?"
"A doctor," he said firmly; "and I'll look after you, Christine, and you'll live for ever and ever."
"A doctor—a doctor!" She seemed startled, almost frightened. "Yes, of course. Your father would want it. He was always proud of his profession, though he made fun. But it will mean more—waiting a little longer."
She brooded, her hand covering her eyes, and he crept nearer to her, pressing himself against her arm, trying to draw her back.
"Christine, who—who are you?"
"I don't know, Robert, I don't know——"
"I mean—why do you look after me? You're not my mother."
"Why, I love you."
"But you didn't at the beginning. You couldn't have done."
"Your father and I were friends. Yes, always—always—right through everything—to the very end. When your mother came into our lives, I loved her almost more. That will seem very strange to you one of these days, but it was true. When she was dying she asked me to take care of you both." She drew herself up, and pushed the untidy wisps of hair out of her face, and with that gesture she seemed suddenly to grow vigorous and young. "Why, Robert, it's better than if you were my own son; it's as though in you I had a little of those two always with me."
"Christine, you won't ever leave me, will you?"
For now his fear had him by the throat. She didn't—she never had belonged to him. It was his father and his mother, who were dead.
"Of course not—not so long as you need me. You mustn't worry. It's because we're both tired and hungry. We'll get supper."
Her voice was its old self. But whilst she laid the cloth he stood pressed against the window and looked out with blind eyes into the darkness, so that she should not see his slow, hot tears. He was aware of great and bitter loss. But he loved Christine more than he had ever done. His love had ceased to be instinctive. It had become conscious of itself and of her separateness. And it would never be quite free again from pain.
1
Long before he could read words of three syllables, Robert had learnt the Origin of Man, and had made a vivid, somewhat fanciful picture of that personage's pathetic beginnings as a miasm floating on the earth's surface, and of his accidental, no less pathetic progression as a Survival of the Fittest. He gathered that even more than old Jaegers, Mr. Ricardo hated God Almighty and Jesus Christ, the latter of whom was intimately connected with something called a Sun Myth—chiefly, Robert supposed, because He was the Son of God. Mr. Ricardo could not leave these two alone. He hunted them down, he badgered and worried them, he covered them with gibes and insults. It seemed to Robert sometimes that even the multiplication table was really a disguised missile hurled in their unsuspecting and non-existent faces.
Mr. Ricardo appeared to have no friends. As far as Robert could make out, when he was not at school he sat at his desk in the untidy, stuffy attic in the still more untidy, stuffy boarding-house where he lived, and wrote feverishly. What he wrote Robert did not know. There was an air of mystery about the whole business, as though he were concocting a deadly explosive which might go off at any moment. Sometimes he seemed dated, sometimes cast down by the results, but always doggedly resolved.
"It is a long, hard struggle, Stonehouse," he would say. "There are more fools in this world than you could conceive possible. Thank your stars your friend isn't one of them. A fine, intelligent woman—a unique woman."
He talked a good deal about Christine and women in general.
"When once we can get them on our side," was one of his dark sayings, "the last trench will be in our hands."
Then, one evening, to Robert's astonished displeasure, he walked home with him, and somehow drifted up their dark stairs to the little sitting-room where Christine was laying supper. It appeared that he had come to give an account of his pupil's progress, but he was oddly excited, and when Christine invited him to share their meal—surely he could have seen there wasn't enough to go round, Robert thought—he accepted with a transparent, childlike eagerness that made Robert stare at him as at a stranger. And after supper, with the self-conscious air of a man who has waited for this moment, be produced from his coat pocket a crumpled newspaper with the titleUnshackledprinted in aggressive letters on its pale-green cover.
"In my leisure time I write a good deal on a subject very dear to me, Miss Forsyth," he said and screwed up his sharp nose in a kind of nervous anguish. "I have here an article published last week—you are a broad-minded, intelligent woman—I thought perhaps it might interest you—if you would care to glance over it."
Christine lay back in her chair, her face in shadow. But the lamplight fell on her two hands. Red and misshapen as they were now, they were still noble hands, and their repose had dignity and beauty.
"Won't you read it to us, Mr. Ricardo? My eyes are tired at night."
He cleared his throat.
"It is an answer to Bishop Crawford's recent letter toThe Times, which you may have seen. I have called it 'Unmasking the Oracle.'"
Robert leant out of the window and watched the sun sink into mist and smoke. He wished Mr. Ricardo hadn't come; and that he would go away soon. In a few minutes the light would begin to die, and the sharp black lines of the roofs and spires, which on the ruins of their dull selves seemed to be built anew into a witchlike fantastic city, would be lost to him for another night. Robert did not want to hear about God and the origin of man now. He kicked impatiently. Christine would sit up later than ever. And, besides with Mr. Ricardo's voice rising and falling, growing shriller and more passionate, one could not listen to that low, mysterious hum that was so like a far-off music.
Mr. Ricardo made a sweeping, crushing gesture. "That, surely, settles the controversy. He will hardly be able to answer that, I think."
Christine stirred, and opened her eyes, and smiled a little.
"I could not answer it, at any rate. It sounds very clever." She took the paper from him and held it to the light, and Robert turned, hoping that now he would really go. "But—but I didn't quite understand—have I lost the place?—this is by E. T. Richards."
Then Robert saw an astonishing thing. Suddenly Mr. Ricardo seemed to shrivel—to cower back into himself. His fierce, triumphant energy had gone as at a blasting touch of magic. He looked ashamed and broken.
"Anom de plume—a nom de guerre, rather, Miss Forsyth—you understand—in my opinion—the scholastic profession—the stronghold of the worst bigotry and prejudice—for myself I should not care—I have always wanted to come out into the open—but I have a sister—poor girl!—a long, sad illness—for her sake—I can't afford——"
Christine folded the paper gently as though she were afraid of hurting it.
"Of course. It would be unwise—unnecessary. Why should one sacrifice oneself to fight something that doesn't exist?"
He clenched his fists.
"One must fight error, Miss Forsyth."
"At any rate it's brave of you to try—to do what you think is right." And now it seemed she was trying to find something that would comfort him—just as she had once given Robert peppermint balls when he had hurt himself. "If ever you feel inclined, won't you come again—and read to us?"
He looked at her with dark, tragic eyes.
"Thank you, thank you."
Robert went with him to the door, and for a moment he wavered on the steps, blinking, and squeezing his soft hat between his bony hands.
"A great woman—a kind woman—you must be worth her while, Stonehouse."
And then, without so much as a "good night," he limped down the steps and along the street, flitting in and out of the lamplight like a hunted bat.
It was the first of many tiresome evening visits. But the next day he was always himself again, and the class wilted under his merciless, contemptuous sarcasms. Only Robert was not afraid. He knew that the lash would never come his way, and he could feel the little man's unspoken pride, when he showed himself quicker than his companions, like a secret Masonic pressure of the hand. And there was something else. It was a discovery that made him at first almost dizzy with astonishment. He wasn't stupid. Just as he was stronger, so he was cleverer than boys older than himself. He could do things at once over which they botched and bungled. He outstripped them when he chose. Even his ignorance did not handicap him for long. For Mr. Ricardo had kept his promise. He taught well, and in those long afternoons in the hot boarding-house attic Robert had raced over the lost ground. He did not always want to work. He gazed out of the window, half his mind busy planning what he and Rufus Cosgrave would do when they met at the corner of the street, but he could not help understanding what was so obvious, and there were moments when sheer interest swept him off his feet, and even Rufus was forgotten. He took an audacious pleasure, too, in leaping suddenly over the heads of the whole class to the first place. He did not always bother. He liked to wait for some really teasing question, and then, when silence had become hopeless, hold up his hand. Mr. Ricardo would look towards him, apparently incredulous and satirical, but Robert could read the message which the narrowed eyes twinkled at him.
"Of course you understand, Stonehouse."
And then he would answer and sweep the sullen class with a cool, exasperating indifference as he sat down. For he did not want them any more. He returned instinctive enmity with the scorn of a growing confidence. It was rather fine to stand by yourself, especially when you had one friend who thought you splendid whatever you did, who clung to you, and whom you had to protect. When he walked arm in arm with Rufus Cosgrave in the playground he trailed his coat insolently, and the challenge was not once accepted. From the biggest boys to Dickson Minor, no one cared to risk the limitless possibilities of an encounter, and the word "carrots" was not so much as whispered in his hearing.
Then in the late afternoon the real day seemed to begin. Then the hardness and distrust with which he had unconsciously armed himself fell away, and he and Rufus Cosgrave sat side by side in the sooty grass behind the biscuit factory, and with arms clasped about their scarred and grubby knees planned out the vague but glorious time that waited for them. Rufus was to be a Civil Servant. He did not seem to care much for the prospect or even to be very clear as to what would be expected of him. He felt, with Robert, that a Civil Servant sounded servile and romanceless, but unfortunately the profession, whatever it was, ran in the family.
"My father's one, you know. So I've got to. I'd rather play the piano. But, of course, I wouldn't say so to anyone but you. It sounds too beastly silly——"
"I'd say whatever I wanted to," Robert retorted grandly, "I'll always say what I want to and do what I jolly well like when I'm grown up anyhow. You can if you're strong enough."
"But then people hate you," Rufus said sadly.
"That doesn't matter a bit."
"Don't you mind people not liking you?"
"Rather not."
Rufus fumbled anxiously.
"Wouldn't you be pleased if—if you were asked to play in the eleven—and the chaps cheered you like they do Christopher when he kicks a goal?"
"I shouldn't care—not a button." But he knew even then that it was not true. His heart had leapt at the very thought. He drew his fair brows together in the portentous Stonehouse scowl. "It's silly to mind what silly people think. And kicking goals is no good. I'm going to be a doctor—not just the ordinary sort—a big doctor—and I'll discover things—and people like Christopher'll come and beg me to keep them alive."
Rufus sighed deeply.
"I wish I was like that. I mind awfully—being ragged, and all that. I was awfully miserable until you came. If you went away—or didn't care any more—I don't know what I'd do. But if I went away you wouldn't mind——"
"Yes, I would."
"But you're so much stronger."
"I like being strongest."
And then and there he expounded the doctrine of the Survival, and Rufus began to shiver all over like a frightened pony.
"I think it's perfectly beastly. What'll happen to me? Anyone can lick me. I wouldn't have a chance."
The tears came into his round, blue eyes and trickled down his freckled cheeks, and a sudden choking tenderness, a dim perception of all that this one friend meant to him, made Robert fling his arms about him and hug him close.
"Yes—you would. Because I'll look after you—always—honest injun."
2
There was one secret that he never told to anyone—not even to Cosgrave. He was ashamed of it. He knew it was silly—sillier than in believing in God—and he had almost succeeded in forgetting it when it came true. It happened. Just when he was least expecting it it came round the corner. First the music, a long way off, but growing louder and fiercer so that it seemed as though his fancy had suddenly jumped out of his brain and was running about by itself, doing just what it liked; then lights, torches with streaming flags of fire that put out the street lamps altogether, and the shadows of people marching—running—leaping—capering.
Robert ran too. He did not stop to think what it was. He was wild with excitement, and as he ran he bounded into the air and waved his arms in a pent-up joy of living and moving. He never had much chance to run. You couldn't run by yourself for nothing. People stared or were annoyed when you bumped against them. But now there was something to run for. There was no one to see or hear him in the deserted Grove, and with each bound he let out an unearthly, exultant whoop.
At the corner where Acacia Grove met the High Street Rufus Cosgrave squirmed out of the pushing, jostling crowd and caught hold of him. He was capless, panting. His red hair stood on end. In the flickering torch light he looked like a small, delirious Loga.
"I say—Stonehouse—I was coming for you—it's a circus—they're going all the way down to the Green—they've got their tent there—if we could only climb up somewhere—I can't see a thing—not even the elephant's legs."
"If we cut round by Griffith's Road we'll get there first," Robert shouted. "Only we've got to run like mad."
He seized Rufus by the hand and they shot free of the procession, up and down dim and decorous streets, swerving round corners and past astonished policemen whose "Now then, you young devils" was lost in the clatter of their feet. Cosgrave gasped, but Robert's hold was relentless, compelling. He could have run faster by himself, but somehow he could not let Cosgrave go. "You've got to stick it," he hissed fiercely. "It's only a minute."
Cosgrave had no choice but to "stick it." It did not even occur to him to resist though his eyes seemed to be bulging out of his head and his lungs on the point of bursting. But the reward was near at hand. There, at the bottom of Griffith's Road, they could see it—the Green, unfamiliar with its garish lights and the ghostly, gleaming tents.
"We've done it!" Robert shouted. "Hurrah—hurrah!"
They had, in fact, time to spare. The procession was still only half-way down the High Street, a dull red glow, like the mouth of a fiery cave, widening with every minute as though to swallow them. There was, indeed, a disconcerting crowd gathered round the chief entrance, but Robert was like a general, cool and vigorous, strung up to the finest pitch of cunning. He wormed his way under the ropes, he edged and insinuated himself between the idle and good-natured onlookers, with Cosgrave, tossed and buffeted, but still in tow, struggling in the backwash. At last they were through, next to the entrance, and in the very front row of all.
"Now you'll see the elephant," Robert laughed triumphantly, "every bit of him,"
"Oh, my word!" Cosgrave gasped. "Oh, my word!"
It was coming. It made itself felt even before it came into sight by the sudden tensity of the crowd, the anxious pressure from behind, the determined pushing back by the righteously indignant in front, the craning of necks, and indistinguishable, thrilling murmur. A small boy, whom Robert recognized as the butcher's son, evidently torn between the dignity and excitement of his new post, stalked ahead and thrust printed notices into the outstretched hands. Robert seized hold of one, but he was too excited to read. He felt Rufus poke him insistently.
"What's it say—what's it say?"
"Shut up—I don't know—look for yourself."
There they were. The six torch-bearers were dressed like mediaeval pages, or near enough. Their tight-fitting cotton hose, sagging a little at the knees, were sky-blue, and their tunics green and slashed with yellow. They wore jaunty velvet caps and fascinating daggers, ready to hand. As they reached the entrance to the tent they halted, and with some uneasy shuffling formed up on either side, making a splendid passage of fire for the ten Moorish horsemen who rode next, fierce fellows these, armed to the teeth, with black, shining faces and rolling eyes. A band struck up inside the tent to welcome them, and they rode through, scarcely bending their proud heads—much to the relief of the more timorous members of the crowd who had eyed the rear end of their noble steeds with a natural anxiety. Unfortunately the torches smoked a good deal, and there was some grumbling.