"And what about the book?" Clare asked.
"Oh! going on," said Randal. "I showed Cressel a chapter the other day—you know the New Argus man; and he was very nice about it. Of course, some of the older men won't like it, you know. It fairly goes for their methods, and I flatter myself hits them pretty hard once or twice. You know, Miss Trojan, it's the young school you've got to look to nowadays; it's no use going back to those mid-Victorians—all very well for the schoolroom—cause and effect and all that kind of thing—but we must look ahead—be modern and you will be progressive, Miss Trojan."
"That's just what I'm always saying, Mr. Randal," said Clare, smiling. "We're fighting a regular battle over it down here, but I think we will win the day."
Randal turned to Harry. "And you, sir," he said, "are with us, too?"
Harry laughed. He knew that Robin was looking at him. "I have been away," he said, "and perhaps I have been a little surprised at the strides that things have made. Twenty years is a long time, and I was romantic and perhaps foolish enough to expect that Pendragon would be very much the same when I came back. It has changed greatly, and I am a little disappointed."
Clare looked up. "My brother has lost touch a little, Mr. Randal," she said, "and I don't think quite sees what is good for the place—indeed, necessary. At any rate, he scarcely thinks with us."
"Withus." There was emphasis on the word. That meant Robin too. Randal glanced at him for a moment and then he turned to Robin—father and son! A swift drawing of contrasts, perhaps with an inevitable conclusion in favour of his own kind. It was suddenly as though the elder man was shut out of the conversation; they had, in a moment, forgotten his very presence. He sat in the dusk by the window, his head in his hands, and terrible loneliness at his heart; it hurt as he had never known before that anything could hurt. He had never known that he was sensitive; in Auckland it had not been so. He had never felt things then, and had a little despised people that had minded. But there had been ever, in the back of his mind, the thought of those days that were coming when, with his son at his side, he could face all things. Well, now he had his son—there, with him in the room. The irony of it made him clench his hands, there in the dark, whilst they talked in the lighted room behind him.
"Oh! King's is going to pot," Randal was saying. "I was down in the Mays and they were actually running with the boats—they seemed quite keen on going up. The decent men seem to have all gone."
Robin was paying very little attention. He was looking worried, and Clare watched him a little anxiously. "I hope you will be able to stay with us some days, Mr. Randal," she said. "There are several new people in Pendragon whom I should like you to meet."
Randal was charmed. He would love to stop, but he must get back to London almost immediately. He was going over to Germany next week and there were many arrangements to be made.
"Germany!" It was Robin who spoke, but the voice was not his usual one. It was alive, vibrating, startling. "Germany! By Jove! Randal—are you really going?"
"Why, of course," a little wearily; "I have been before, you know. Rather a bore, but the Rainers—you remember them, Miss Trojan—are going over to the Beethoven Festival at Bonn and are keen on my going with them. I wasn't especially anxious, but one must do these things, you know."
"Robin was there a year ago—Germany, I mean—and loved it. Didn't you, Robin?"
"Germany? It was Paradise, Heaven—what you will. Rügen, the Harz, Heidelberg, Worms——" He stopped and his voice broke. "I'm a little absurd about it still," he said, as though in apology for such unnecessary enthusiasm.
"Oh! you're young, Robin," said Randal, laughing. "When you've seen as much as I have you'll be blasé. Not that one ought to be, but Germany—well, it hardly lasts, I think. Rügen—why, it rained and there were mists round the Studenkammer, and how those people eat at the Jagdschloss! Heidelberg! picture postcards and shocking hotels—Oh! No, Robin, you'll see all that later. I wish you were going instead of me, though."
Harry had looked up at the sound of Robin's voice. It had been a new note. There had been an eagerness, an enthusiasm, that meant life and something genuine.
Hope that had been slowly dying revived again. If Robin really cared for Germany like that, then they had something in common. With that spark a fire might be kindled. A red-gold haze as of fire burnt in the night sky, over the town. Stars danced overhead, a little wind, beating fitfully at the window, seemed to carry the light of the moon in its tempestuous track, blowing it lightly in silver mists and clouds over the moor. The Wise Men were there, strong and dark and sombre, watching over the lighted town and listening patiently to the ripple and murmur and life of the sea at their feet. In the little inn at the Cove men were sitting over the roaring fire, telling tales—strange, weird stories of a life that these others did not know. Harry had heard them when he was a boy—those stories—and he had felt the spell and the magic. There had been life in them and romance.
Perhaps they were there again to-night, just as they had been twenty years before. The stars called to him, the lighted town, the dusky, softly breathing sea, the loneliness of the moor. He must get out and away. He must have sympathy and warmth and friendship; he had come back to his own people with open arms and they had no place for him. His own son had repulsed him. But Cornwall, the country of his dreams, the mother of his faith, the guardian of his honour, was there—the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. He would search for her and would find her—even though it were on the red-brick floor of the tavern in the Cove.
He turned round and found that the room was empty. They had forgotten him and left him—without a word. The light of the lamp caught the silver of the tea-things, and flashed and sparkled like a flame.
Harry Trojan softly opened the door, passed into the dim twilight of the hall, picked up his hat, and stepped into the garden.
As he felt the crunch of the gravel beneath his feet he was possessed with the spirit of adventure. The dark house behind him had been holding him captive. It had held him against his will, imprisoning him, tormenting him, and the tortures that he had endured were many and severe. He had not known that he could have felt it so much—that absolute rejection of him by everything in which he had trusted; but he would mind these things no longer—he would even try not to mind Robin! That would be hard, and as he thought of it even now for a moment tears had filled his eyes. That, however, was cowardice. He must fling away the hopes of twenty years and start afresh, with the knowledge won of his experience and the strength that he had snatched from his wounds.
And after all a man was a fool to mope and whine when that wind from the sea was beating in his ears and the sea scents of clover and poppies and salt stinging foam were brought to his nostrils, and the trees rustled like the beating of birds' wings in the velvety star-lighted sky.
A garden was wonderful at night—a place of strange silences and yet stranger sound: trees darkly guarding mysterious paths that ran into caverns of darkness; the scents of flowers rising from damp earth heavy with dew; flowers that were weary with the dust and noise of the day and slept gently, gratefully, with their heads drooping to the soil, their petals closed by the tender hands of the spirits of the garden. The night-sounds were strangely musical. Cries that were discordant in the day mingled now with the running of distant water, the last notes of some bird before it slept, the measured harmony of a far-away bell, the gentle rustle of some arrival in the thickets; the voice that could not be heard in the noisy chatter of the day rose softly now in a little song of the night and the dark trees and the silver firelight of the stars.
And it was all very romantic, of course. Harry Trojan had flung his cares behind him and stepped over the soft turf of the lawns, a free adventurer. It was not really very late, and there was an hour before dinner; but he was not sure that he minded about that—they would be glad to dine without him. There crossed his mind the memory of a night in New Zealand. He had been walking down to the harbour in Auckland, and the moon had shone in the crooked water-side streets, its white, cold light crossed with dark black shadows of roofs and gables. Suddenly a woman's voice called for help across the silence, and he had turned and listened. It had called again, and, thinking that he might help some one in distress, he had burst a dark, silent door, stumbled up crooked wooden stairs, and entered an empty room. As he passed the door there was a sound of skirts, and a door at the other end of the room had closed. There was no one there, only a candle guttering on the table, the remains of a meal, a woman's hat on the back of a chair; he had waited for some time in silence, he had called and asked if there was any one there, he had tried the farther door and found it shut—and so, cursing himself for a fool, he had passed down into the street again and the episode had ended. There was really nothing in it—nothing at all; but it was the atmosphere, the atmosphere of romantic adventure shot suddenly across a rather drab and colourless existence, and he had liked to dwell on the possibilities of the affair and ask himself about it. Who was the woman, and why had she cried out? Why was there no one in the room? And why had no one answered him?
He did not know and really he did not care, and, indeed, it was better that the affair should be left in vague and incomplete outline. It was probably commonplace enough, had one only known, and sordid too, perhaps. But to-night was just such a night as that other. He would go to the Cove and find his romance where he had left it twenty years ago. It was the hour in Pendragon when shops are closing and young men and maidens walk out. There were a great many people in the street; girls with white, tired faces, young men with bright ties and a self-assertive air—a type of person new to Pendragon since Harry's day. The young man who served you respectfully, almost timidly, behind the counter was now self-assertive, taking the middle of the street with a flourish of his cane. Fragments of conversation came to Harry's ears—
"Mother being out I thought as 'ow I might venture—not but what she'd kick up a rare old fuss——"
"So I told 'er it weren't no business of 'ers and the sooner she caught on to the idea the better for all parties, seein' as 'ow——"
"Well, I never did! and you told 'im that, did yer? I always said you'd some pluck if you really wanted to——"
A gramophone from an open window up the street shrieked the alluring refrain of "She's a different girl again," and a man who had established himself at the corner under the protecting glare of two hissing gas-jets urged on the company present an immediate acceptance of his stupendous offer. "Gold watches for 'alf a crown—positively for one evening in order to clear—all above board. Solid gold and cheap at a sovereign."
The plunge into the cool depths of the winding little path that led down to the Cove was delicious. Oh! the contrast of it! The noise and ugly self-assertion of the town, flinging its gas-jets against the moon and covering the roll of the sea with the shriek of the gramophone. He crossed through the turnstile at the bend of the road and passed up the hill that led to the Cove. At a bend the view of the sea came to him, the white moonlight lying, a path of dancing shining silver, on the grey sweep of the sea. A wind was blowing, turning the grey into sudden points of white—like ghostly hands rising for a moment suddenly from immensity and then sinking silently again, their prayers unanswered.
As he passed up the hill he was aware of something pattering beside him; at first it was a little uncanny in that dim, uncertain light, and he stopped and bent down to the road. It was a dog, a fox-terrier of a kind, dirty, and even in that light most obviously a mongrel. But it jumped up at him and put its paws on his knee.
"Well, company's company," he said with a laugh. "I don't know where you've sprung from, but we'll travel together for a bit." The dog ran up the hill, and for a moment stood out against the moon—a shaggy, disreputable dog with a humorous stump of a tail. He stood there with one ear flapping back and the other cocked up—a most ridiculous figure.
Harry laughed again and the dog barked; they walked down the hill together.
The Cove was dark, but from behind shuttered windows lamps twinkled mysteriously, and the red glow from the inn flung a circle of light down the little cobbled street. The beat of the sea came solemnly like the tramp of invisible armies from the distance. There was no other sound save the tremble of the wind in the trees.
Harry pushed open the door of the inn and entered, followed by the dog. The place was the same; nothing had been changed. There was the old wooden gallery where the fiddle had played such merry tunes. The rough uneven floor had the same holes, the same hills and dales. The great settle by the fire was marked, as in former years, with mysterious crosses and initials cut by jack-knives in olden days. The two lamps shone in their accustomed places—one over the fire, another by the window. The door leading to the bar was half open, and in the distance voices could be heard, but the room itself seemed to be empty.
A great fire leapt in the fireplace and the gold light of it danced on the red-brick floor. The peculiar scent as of tobacco and ale and the salt of the sea, and, faintly, the breath of mignonette and geraniums, struck out the long intervals since Harry had been there before. Twenty years ago he had breathed the same air; and now he was back there again and nothing was changed. The dog had run to the fire and sat in front of it now, wagging his stump of a tail, his ear cocked. Harry laughed and sat down in the settle; the burden of the last week was flung off and he was a free man.
A long, lean man with a straggling beard stood in the doorway and watched him; then he came forward. "Mr. Harry," he said, and held out his hand.
Harry started up. "I'm sorry," he said, stammering, "I don't remember."
"We were wonderin'," said the long, thin man slowly, "when you was comin' down. Not that you'd remember faces—that's not to be expected—especially in foreign parts which is confusing and difficult for a man—but I'm Bill Tregarvis what have had you out fishin' many's the time—not that you'd remember faces," he said again, looking a little timidly at him.
But he did! Harry remembered him perfectly! Bill Tregarvis! Why, of course—many was the time they had seen life together—he had had a wife and two boys.
Harry wrung his hand and laughed.
"Remember, Bill! Why, of course! It was only for a moment. I had got the face all right but not the name. Yes, I have, as a matter of fact, come before, but there were things that have made it difficult at first, and of course there was a lot to do up there. But it's good to be down here! The other place is changed; I had been a bit disappointed, but here it is just the same—the same old lights and smells and sea, and the same old friends——"
"Yer think that?" Tregarvis looked at him. "Because we'd been fearing that all your travelling and sight-seeing might have harmed you—that you'd be thinking a bit like the folk up-along with their cars and gas and filth. Aye, it's a changed world up there, Mr. Harry; but down-along there's no difference. It's the sea keeps us steady."
And then they talked about the old adventurous days when Harry had been eighteen and the world had been a very wonderful place: the herring fishing, the bathing, the adventures on the moor, the tales at night by candlelight, the fun of it all. The room began to fill, and one after another men came forward and claimed friendship on the score of old days and perils shared. They received him quite simply—he was "Mr. Harry," but still one of themselves, taking his place with them, telling tales and hearing them in return.
There were nine or ten of them, and a wild company they made, crowding round the fire, with the flames leaping and flinging gigantic shadows on the walls. The landlord, a short, ruddy-faced man with white hair and a merry twinkle of the eye, was one of the best men that Harry had ever known.
He was a man whose modesty was only equalled by his charity; a man of great humour, wide knowledge of the most varied subjects, and above all a passionate faith in the country of his birth, Cornwall. He was, like most Cornishmen, superstitious, but his belief in Nature as a wise and beneficent mother, stern but never unjust, controlled his will and justified his actions. In those early days Harry had worshipped him with that whole-hearted adoration bestowed at times by young hero-worshippers on those that have travelled a little way along the path and have learnt their lesson wisely. Tony Newsome's influence had done more for Harry in those early years than he had realised, but he knew now what he owed to him as he sat by his side and recalled those other days. They had written once or twice, but Tony was no correspondent and hated to have a pen between his fingers.
"Drive a horse, pull a boat, shoot a gun, mind a net—but God help me if I write," he had said. Not that he objected to books; he had read a good deal and cared for it—but "God's air in the day and a merry fire at night leaves little room for pen and ink" was his justification.
He treated Harry now as his boy of twenty years ago, and laughed at him and scolded him as of old. He did not question him very closely on the incidents of those twenty years, and indeed, with them all, Harry noticed that there was very little curiosity as to those other countries. They welcomed him quietly, simply. They were glad that he was there again, sitting with them, taking his place naturally and easily—and again the twenty years seemed as nothing.
He sat with the dog at his feet. Newsome's hand was on his knee, and every once and again he gave a smothered chuckle. "I knew you'd come back, Mr. Harry," he said. "I just waited. Once the sea has got hold of you it doesn't loosen its grip so quick. I knew you'd come back."
They told wild stories as they had been telling them for many years at the same hour in the same place—strange things seen at sea, the lights and mists of the moor, survivals of smuggling days and fights on the beach under the moon; and it always was the sea. They might leave it for a moment perhaps, but they came back to it—the terror of it, the joy of it, the cruelty of it; the mistress that held them chained, that called their children and would not be denied, the god that they served.
They spoke of her softly with lowered voices and a strange reverence. They had learnt her moods and her dangers; they knew that she could caress them, and then, of a sudden, strike them down—but they loved her.
And she had claimed Harry again. Everything for which he had been longing during that past week had come to him at last; their friendship, their faith in an old god, and above all that sense of a great adventure, for the spirit of which he had so diligently been searching. "Up-along" life was an affair of measured rules and things foreseen. "Down-along" it was a game of unending surprises and a gossamer web shot with the golden light of romance. High-falutin perhaps, but to Harry, as he sat before the fire with the strange dog and those ten wild men, words and pictures came too speedily to admit of a sense of the absurd.
An old man, with a long white beard and a shaking hand, knew strange tales of the moor. When the mists creep up and blot out the land, then the four grey stones take life and are the giants of old, and strange sacrifices are grimly performed. Talse Carlyon had seen things late on a moonlit night with the mists swimming white and silvery-grey over the moor. He had lost his way and had met a man of mighty size who had led him by the hand. There had been spirits about, and at the foot of the grey stone a pool of blood—he had never been the same man since.
"There are spirits and spirits," said the old man solemnly, "and there 'm some good and some bad, for the proper edification of us mortals, and, for my part, it's not for the like of us to meddle."
He stroked his beard—a very gloomy old man with a blind eye. Harry remembered that he had had a wife twenty years before, so he inquired about her.
"Dead," said the old man fiercely, "dead—and, thank God, she went out like a candle."
He muttered this so fiercely that Harry said no more, and the white beard shone in the light of the fire, and his blind eye opened and shut like a box, and his wrinkled hand shook on his knee. The fishing had been bad of late, and here again they spoke as if some personal power had been at work. There were few there who had not lost some one during the years that they had served her, and the memory of what this had been and the foreshadowing of the dangerous future hung over them in the room. Songs were sung, jokes were made, but they were the songs and laughter of men on guard, with the enemy to be encountered, perhaps, in the morning.
Harry sat in his corner of the great seat, watching the leaping of the flames, his hand on Newsome's shoulder, listening to the murmuring voices at his side. He scarcely knew whether he were awake or sleeping; their laughter came to him dimly, and it seemed that he was alone there with only Newsome by his side and the dog sleeping at his feet. The tobacco smoke hung in grey-blue wreaths above his head and the gold light of the two lamps shone mistily, without shape or form. Perhaps it was really a dream. The old man with the white beard and the blind eye was sleeping, his head on his breast. A man with a vacant expression was telling a tale, heavily, slowly, gazing at the fire. The others were not listening—or at any rate not obviously so. They, too, gazed at the fire—it had, as it were, become personal and mesmerised the room. Perhaps it was a dream. He would wake and find himself at "The Flutes." There would be Clare and Garrett and—Robin! He would put all that away now; he would forget it for a moment, at least. He had failed them; they had not wanted him and had told him so,—but here they had known him and loved him; they had welcomed him back as though there had been no intervening space of years. They at least had known what life was. They had not played with it, like those others. They had not surrounded themselves with barricades of artificiality, and glanced through distorting mirrors at their own exaggerated reflection; they had seen life simply, fearlessly, accepting their peril like men and enjoying their fate with the greatness of soul that simplicity had given them. They were not like those others; those on the hill had invaded the sea with noisy clamour, had greeted her familiarly and offered her bathing-machines and boarding-houses; these others had reverenced her and learnt to know her, alone on the downs in the first grey of the dawn, or secretly, when the breakers had rolled in over the sand, carrying with them the red and gold of some gorgeous sunset.
He contrasted them in his mind—the Trojans and the Greeks. He turned round a little in his seat and listened to the story: "It were a man—a strange man with horns and hoofs, so he said—and a merry, deceiving eye; but he couldn't see him clear because of the mist that hung there, with the moon pushing through like a candle, he said. The man was laughing to himself and playing with leaves that danced at his feet under the wind. It can't have been far from the town, because Joe heard St. Elmo's bell ringin' and he could hear the sea quite plain. He ..."
The voice seemed to trail off again into the distance; Harry's thoughts were with his future. What was he to do? It seemed to him that his crisis had come and was now facing him. Should he stay or should he flee? Why should he not escape—away into the country, where he could live his life without fear, where there would be no contempt, no hampering family traditions? Should he stay and wait while Robin learnt to hate him? At the thought his face grew white and he clenched his hands. Robin ... Robin ... Robin ... it always came back to that—and there seemed no answer. That dream of love between father and son, the dream that he had cherished for twenty years, was shattered, and the bubble had burst....
"So Joe said he didn't know but he thought it was to the left and down through the Cove—to the old church he meant; and the man laughed and danced with the leaves through the mist; and once Joe thought he was gone, and there he was back again, laughin'."
No, he would face it. He would take his place as he had intended—he would show them of what stuff he was made—and Robin would see, at last. The boy was young, it would of course take time——
The door of the inn opened and some one came in. The lamps flared in the wind, and there was a cry from the fireplace. "Mr. Bethel! Well, I'm right glad!"
Harry started. Bethel—that had been the name of his friend—the girl who had come to tea. The new-comer was a large man, over six feet in height, and correspondingly broad. His head was bare, and his hair was a little long and curly. His eyes were blue and twinkled, and his face was pleasantly humorous and, in the mouth and chin, strong and determined. He wore a grey flannel suit with a flannel collar, and he was smoking a pipe of great size. Newsome, starting to his feet, went forward to meet him. Bethel came to the fire and talked to them all; there was obviously a free companionship between them that told of long acquaintance. He was introduced to Harry.
"I've heard of you, Mr. Trojan," he said, "and have been expecting to meet you. I think that we have interests in common—at least an affection for Cornwall."
Harry liked him. He looked at him frankly between the eyes—there was no hesitation or disguise; there had been no barrier or division; and Harry was grateful.
Bethel sat down by the fire, and a discussion followed about matters of which Harry knew nothing. There was talk of the fishing prospects, which were bad; a gloom fell upon them all, and they cursed the new Pendragon—the race had grown too fast for them and competition was too keen. But Harry noticed that they did not yet seem to have heard of the proposed destruction of the Cove. Then he got up to go. They asked him to come again, and he promised that he would. Bethel rose too.
"If you don't object, Mr. Trojan," he said, "I'll make one with you. I had only looked in for a moment and had never intended to stay. I was on my way back to the town."
They went out into the street together, and Harry shivered for a moment as the wind from the sea met them.
"Ah, that's good," Bethel said; "your fires are well enough, but that wind is worth a bag of gold."
They walked for a little in silence, and then Harry said: "Those are a fine lot of men. They know what life really is."
Bethel laughed. "I know what you feel about them. You are glad that there's no change. Twenty years has made little difference there. It is twenty years, isn't it?"
"Yes," said Harry. "One thinks that it is nothing until one comes back, and then one thinks that it's more than it really is."
"Yes, you're disappointed," Bethel said. "I know. Pendragon has become popular, and to your mind that has destroyed its beauty—or, at any rate, some of it."
"Well, I hate it," Harry said fiercely, "all this noise and show. Why couldn't they have left Pendragon alone? I don't hate it for big places that are, as it were, in the line of march. I suppose that they must move with the day. That is inevitable. But Pendragon! Why—when I was a boy, it was simply a little town by the sea. No one thought about it or worried about it: it was a place wonderfully quiet and simple. It was too quiet for me then; I should worship it now. But I have come back and it has no room for me."
"I haven't known it as long as you," Bethel answered, "but I confess that the very charm of it lies in its contrast. It is invasion, if you like, but for that very reason exciting—two forces at work and a battle in progress."
"With no doubt as to the ultimate victory," said Harry gloomily. "Yes, I see what you mean by the contrast. But I cannot stand there and see them dispassionately—you see I am bound up with so much of it. Those men to-night were my friends when I was a boy. Newsome is the best man that I have ever known, and there is the place; I love every stone of it, and they would pull it down."
They had left the Cove and were pressing up a steep path to the moor. The moon was struggling through a bank of clouds; the wind was whistling over their heads.
Bethel suddenly stopped and turned towards Harry. "Mr. Trojan," he said, "I'm going to be impulsive and perhaps imprudent. There's nothing an Englishman fears so much as impulse, and he is terribly ashamed of imprudence. But, after all, there is no time to waste, and if you think me impertinent you have only to say so, and the matter ends."
Harry laughed. "I am delighted," he began, but the other stopped him.
"No, wait a moment. You don't know. I'm afraid you'll think that I'm absurd—most people will tell you that I am worse. I want you to try to be a friend of mine, at any rate to give me a chance. I scarcely know you—you don't know me at all—but; one goes on first impressions, and I believe that you would understand a little better than most of these people here—for one thing you have gone farther and seen more——"
There was a little pause. Harry was surprised. Here was what he had been wanting—friendship; a week ago he would have seized it with both hands; now he was a little distrustful; a week ago it would have been natural, delightful; now it was unusual, even a little absurd.
"I should be very glad," he said gravely. "I—scarcely——"
"Oh," Bethel broke in, "we shall come together naturally—there's no fear of that. I could see at once that you know the mysteries of this place just as I do. Those others here are blind. I've been waiting for some one who would understand. But I don't want you to listen to those other people about me; they will tell you a good deal—and most of it's true. I don't blame 'em, but I'm curiously anxious for you not to think with them. It's ridiculous, I know, when I had never seen you before. If you only knew how long I'd been waiting—to talk to some one—about—all this."
He waved his hand and they stopped. They were standing on the moor. Above their head mighty grey clouds were driving like fleets before the wind, and the moon, a cold, lifeless thing, a moon of chiselled marble, appeared, and then, as though frightened at the wild flight of the clouds, vanished. The sea, pearl grey, lay like mist on the horizon, and its voice was gentle and tired, as though it were slowly dying into sleep. They were near the Four Stones—gaunt, grey, and old. The dog had followed Harry from the inn and now ran, a white shadow, in front of him.
"Let me tell you," Bethel said, "about myself. You know I was born in London—the son of a doctor with a very considerable practice. I received an excellent education, Rugby and Cambridge, and was trained for the law. I was, I believe, a rather ordinary person with a rather more than ordinary power of concentration, and I got on. I built up a business and was extremely and very conventionally happy. I married and we had a little girl. And then, one summer, we came down to Cornwall for our holiday. It was St. Ives. I remember that first morning as though it were yesterday. It was grey with the sea flinging great breakers. There was a smell of clover and cornflowers in the air, and great sheets of flaming poppies in the cornfields. But there was more than that. It was Cornwall, something magical, and that strange sense of old history and customs that you get nowhere else in quite the same way. Ah! but why analyse it?—you know as well as I do what I mean. A new man was born in me that day. I had been sociable and fond of little quite ordinary pleasures that came my way, now I wanted to be alone. Their conversation worried me; it seemed to be pointless and concerned with things that did not matter at all. I had done things like other men—now it was all to no purpose. I used to lie for hours on the cliffs watching the sea. I was often out all day, and I met all sorts of people, tramps, wasters, vagabonds, and they seemed the only people worth talking to. I met some strange fellows but excellent company—and they knew, all of them, the things that I knew; they had been out all night and seen the moon and the stars change and the first light of the dawn, and the little breeze that comes in those early hours from the sea, bringing the winds of other countries with it. And they were merry, they had a philosophy—they knew Cornwall and believed in her.
"Well—the holiday came to an end, and I had to go back! London. My God! After that I struggled—I went to my work every day with the sound of that sea in my ears and the vision of those moors always there with me. And the freedom! If you have tasted that once, if you have ever got really close so that you can hear strange voices and see beauties of which you had never dreamt, well, you will never get back to your old routine again. I don't care how strong you are—you can't do it, man. Once she's got hold of you, nothing counts. That was eighteen years ago. I kept my work for a year, but it was killing me. I got ill—I nearly died; once I ran away at night and tried to get to the sea. But I came back—there were my wife and girl. We had a little money, and I gave it all up and we came to live down here. I have done nothing since; rather shameful, isn't it, for a strong man? They have thought that here; they think that I am a waster—by their lights I am. But the things I have learnt! I didn't know what living was until I came here! I knew nothing, I did nothing, I was a dead man. What do I care for their thoughts of me! They are in the dark!"
He had spoken eagerly, almost breathlessly. He was defending his position, and Harry knew that he had been waiting for years to say these things to some one of his own kind who would understand. And he understood only too well! Had he not himself that very evening been tempted to escape, to flee his duty? He had resisted, but the temptation had been very strong—that very voice of Cornwall of which Bethel had spoken—and if it were to return he did not know what answer he might give. But he was not thinking of Bethel; his thoughts were with the wife and daughter. That poor pathetic little woman—and the girl——
"And your wife and daughter?" he said. "What of them?"
"They are happy," Bethel said eagerly. "They are indeed. I don't see them very often, but they have their own interests—and friends. My wife and I never had very much in common—Ah! you're going to scold," he said, laughing, "and say just what all these other horrid people say. But I know. I grant it you all. I'm a waster—through and through; it's damnably selfish—worst of all, in this energetic and pushing age, it's idle. Oh! I know and I'm sorry—but, do you know, I'm not ashamed. I can't see it seriously. I wouldn't harm a fly. Why can't they let me alone? At least I am happy."
They had reached the outskirts of the town by this time and Bethel stopped before a little dark house with red shutters and a tiny strip of garden.
"Here we are!" said he. "This is my place. Come in and smoke! It must be past your dinner hour up at 'The Flutes.' Come and have something with me."
Harry laughed. "They have already ceased wondering at my erratic habits," he said. "New Zealand is a bad place for method."
He followed Bethel in. It was a tiny hall, and on entering he stumbled over an umbrella-stand that lounged forward in a rickety position. Bethel apologised. "We're in a bit of a mess," he said. "In fact, to tell the truth, we always are!" He hung his coat in the hall and led the way into the dining-room. Mrs. Bethel and her daughter came forward. The little woman was amazing in a dress of bright red silk and an absurd little yellow lace cap. Only half the table was laid; for the rest a shabby green cloth, spotted with ink, formed a background for an incoherent litter of papers and needlework. The walls were lined with books and there were some piled on the floor.
A cold shoulder of mutton, baked potatoes in their skins, a melancholy glass dish containing celery, and a salad bowl startlingly empty, lay waiting on the table.
"Anne," said Bethel, "I've brought a guest—up with the family port and let's be festive."
His great body seemed to fill the room, and he brought with him the breath of the sea and the wind. He began to carve the mutton like Siegfried making battle with Fafner, and indeed again and again during the evening he reminded Harry of Siegfried's impetuous humour and rejoicing animal spirits.
Mrs. Bethel was delighted. Her little eyes twinkled with excitement, her yellow cap was pushed awry, and her hands trembled with pleasure. It was obvious that a visitor was an unusual event. Miss Bethel had said very little, but she had given Harry that same smile that he had seen before. She busied herself now with the salad, and he watched her white fingers shine under the lamplight and the white curve of her neck as she bent over the bowl. She was dressed in some dark stuff—quite simple and unassuming, but he thought that he had never seen anything so beautiful.
He said very little, but he was quietly happy. Bethel did not talk very much; he was eating furiously—not greedily, but with great pleasure and satisfaction. Mrs. Bethel talked continuously. Her eyes shone and her cap bobbed on her head like a live thing.
"I said, Mr. Trojan, after our meeting the other day, that you would be a friend. I said so to Mary coming back. I felt sure that first day. It is so nice to have some one new in Pendragon—one gets used, you know, to the same faces and tired of them. In my old home, Penlicott in Surrey, near Marlwood Beeches—you change at Grayling Junction—or you used to; I think you go straight through now. Butthereyou know we knew everybody. You really couldn't help it. There was really only the Vicar and the Doctor, and he was so old. Of course there were the Draytons; you must have heard of Mr. Herbert Drayton—he paints things—I forget quite what, but I know he's good. They all lived there—such a lot of them and most peculiar in their habits; but one gets used to anything. They all lived together for some time, about fifteen there were. Mother and I dined there once or twice, and they had the funniest dining-room with pictures of Job all round the room that were most queer and rather disagreeable; and they all liked different things to drink, so they each had a bottle—of something—separately. It looked quite funny to see the fifteen bottles, and then 'Job' on the wall, you know."
But he really hadn't paid very much attention to her. He had been thinking and wondering. How was it that a man like Bethel had married such a wife? He supposed that things had been different twenty years ago, with them as with him. It was strange to think of the difference that twenty years could make. She had been, perhaps, a little pretty, dainty thing then—the style of girl that a strong man like Bethel would fall in love with. Then he thought of Miss Bethel—what was her life with a mother like that and a father who never thought about her at all? She must, he thought, be lonely. He almost hoped that she was. It gave them kinship, because he was lonely too. The conversation was not very animated; Mrs. Bethel was suddenly silent—she seemed to have collapsed with the effort, and sat huddled up in her chair, with her hands in her lap.
He realised that he had said nothing to Miss Bethel, and he turned to her. "You know London?" he said. He wondered whether she longed for it sometimes—its excitement and life.
"Oh yes," she said quickly; "we were there, you know, a long while ago, and I've been up once or twice since. But it makes one feel so dreadfully small, as if one simply didn't count, and no woman likes that."
"Pendragon makes one feel smaller," Harry said. "When one is of no account even in a small place, then one is small indeed."
He had not intended to speak bitterly, but she had caught the sound of it in his voice and she was suddenly sorry for him. She had been a little afraid of him before—even on that terrible afternoon at "The Flutes"; but now she saw that he was disappointed—he had expected something and it had failed him.
She said nothing then, and the meal came to an end. Bethel dragged Harry into his study to see the books. There was the same untidiness here. The table was littered with papers and pens, tobacco jars, numerous pipes, some photographs. From the floor to the ceiling were books—rows on rows—flung apparently into the shelves with no order or method.
"I'm no good as far as books go," said Harry, laughing. "There never was such a heathen. There have always been other things to do, and I must confess it is a mystery to me how men get time to read at all. If I do get time I'm generally done up, and a novel's the only thing I'm fit for."
"Ah, then, you don't know the book craze," Bethel Said. "It's worse than drink. I've seen it absolutely ruin a man. You can't stop—if you see a book you must get it, whether you really want it or no. You go on buying and buying and buying. You get far more than you can ever read. But you're a miser and you hate even lending them. You sit in your room and count the covers, and you're no fit company for man or beast."
Harry looked at him—"You've known it?"
"Oh yes! I've known it. I'm a bit better now—I'm out such a lot. But even now there's a great deal here that I've never read, and I add to it continually. The worst of it is," he said, laughing, "that we can't afford it. It's very hard on Mary and the wife, but I'm a rotten loafer, and that's the end of it."
He said it so gaily and with so little sense of responsibility that you couldn't possibly think that it weighed on him. But he looked such a boy, standing there with his hands in his pockets and that half-penitent, half-humorous look in his eyes, that you couldn't be angry. Harry laughed.
"Upon my word, you're amazing!"
"Oh! you'll get sick of me. It's all so selfish and slack, I know. But I struggled once—I'm in the grip now." He talked about Borrow and displayed a little grey-bound "Walden" with pride. He spoke of Richard Jefferies with an intimate affection as though he had known the man.
He gave Harry some of his enthusiasm, and he lent him "Lavengro." He described it and Harry compared mentally Isobel Berners with Mary Bethel.
Then they went up to the little drawing-room—an ugly room, but redeemed by a great window overlooking the sea, and a large photograph of Mary on the mantelpiece. Under the light of the lamp the silver frame glittered and sparkled.
He sat by the window and talked to her, and again he had that same curious sense of having known her before: he spoke of it.
"I expect it's in another existence then," she said; "as I've never been into New Zealand and you've never been out of it—at least, since I've been born. But, of course, I've talked about you to Robin. We speculated, you know. We hadn't any photographs much to help us, and it was quite a good game."
"Ah! Robin!"
"I want to speak to you about him," she said, turning round to him. "You won't think me interfering, will you? but I've meant to speak ever since the other day. I was afraid that, perhaps—don't think it dreadfully rude of me—you hadn't quite understood Robin. He's at a difficult age, you know, and there are a lot of things about him that are quite absurd. And I have been afraid that you might take those absurdities for the real things and fancy that that was all that was there. Cambridge—and other things—have made him think that a certain sort of attitude is essential if you're to get on. I don't think he even sincerely believes in it. But they have taught him that he must, at least, seem to believe. The other things are there all right, but he hides them—he is almost ashamed of any one suspecting their existence."
"Thank you!" Harry said quietly. "It is very kind of you and I'm deeply grateful. It's quite true that Robin and I haven't seemed to hit it off properly. I expect that it is my fault. I have tried to see his point of view and have the same interests, but every effort that I've made has seemed to make things worse. He distrusts me, I think, and—well—of course, that hurts. All the things in which I had hoped we would share have no interest for him."
"Don't you think, perhaps," she said, "that you've been a little too anxious—perhaps, a little too affectionate? I am speaking like this because I care for Robin so much. We have been such good friends for years now, and I think he has let me see a side of him that he has hidden from most people. He is curiously sensitive, and really, I think, very shy; and most of all, he has a perfect horror of being absurd. That is what I meant about your being affectionate. He would think, perhaps, that the rest were laughing at him. It's as if you were dragging something that was very sacred and precious out into the light before all those others. Boys are like that; they are terrified lest any one should know what good there is in them—it isn't quite good form."
They were silent for some time. Harry was throwing her words like a searchlight on the events of the past week, and they revealed much that had been very dark and confused. But he was thinking of her. Their acquaintance seemed to have grown into intimacy already.
"I can't thank you enough," he said again.
"It is so nice of you," she said laughing, "not to have thought it presumptuous of me. But Robin is a very good friend of mine. Of course you will find out what a sterling fellow he is—under all that superficiality. He is one of my best friends here!"
He got up to go. As he held out his hand, he said: "I will tell you frankly, Miss Bethel, that Pendragon hasn't received me with open arms. I don't know why it should—and twenty years in New Zealand knocks the polish off. But it has been delightful this evening—more than you know."
"It has been nice for us too," Mary answered. "I don't know that Pendragon is exactly thronging our door night and day—and a new friend is worth having. You see I've claimed you as a friend because you listened so patiently to my sermon—that's a sure test."
She had spoken lightly but he had felt the bitterness in her voice. Life was hard for her too, then? He knew that he was glad.
"I shall come back," he said.
"Please," she answered.
He said good-bye to Mrs. Bethel and she pressed his hand very warmly. "You are very kind to take pity on us," she said, ogling him under the gas in the hall; "I hope you will come often."
Bethel said very little. He walked with him to the gate and laughed. "We're absurd, aren't we, Trojan?" he said. "But don't neglect us altogether. Even absurdity is refreshing sometimes."
But Harry went up the hill with a happier heart than he had had since he entered Pendragon.
That promise of adventure had been fulfilled.