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NLP Research Group 9

won these acres here For old man Kingston's daughter, who in turn Bound it with limitation for the life Of selfish sons, who keep a caretaker, Who keeps a cow upon it. There's the cow! The land has had no use for thirty years. The children are kept off it. Elenor Murray, This girl whose death makes such a stir, one time Was playing there--but that's another story. I only say for the present, these five acres Made Elenor Murray's life a thing of waste As much as anything, and a damn sight more. For think a minute! Kingston had a daughter Married to Colonel Burton in Kentucky. And Kingston's son was in the Civil War. But just before the war, the Burtons deeded These acres here, which she inherited From old man Kingston, to this Captain Kingston, The son aforesaid of Old Kingston. Well, The deed upon its face was absolute, But really was a deed in trust. The Captain Held title for a year or two, and then An hour before he fought at Shiloh, made A will, and willed acres to his wife, Fee simple and forever. Now you'd think That contemplating death, he'd make a deed Giving these acres back to Mrs. Burton, The sister who had trusted him. I don't know What comes in people's heads, but I believe The want of money is the root of evil, As well as love of money; for this Captain Perhaps would make provision for his wife And infant son, thought that the chiefest thing No matter how he did it, being poor, Willed this land as he did. But anyway He willed it so, went into Shiloh's battle, And fell dead on the field. What happened then? They took this will to probate. As I said I was a lawyer then, you may believe it, Was hired by the Burtons to reclaim These acres from the Widow Kingston's clutch, Under this wicked will. And so I argued The will had not been witnessed according to law. Got beat upon that point in the lower court, But won upon it in the upper courts. Then next I filed a bill to set aside This deed the Burtons made to Captain Kingston-- Oh, I was full of schemes, expedients, In those days, I can tell you. Widow Kingston Came back and filed a cross bill, asked the court To confirm the title in her son and her As heirs of Captain Kingston, let the will Go out of thought and reckoning. Here's the issue; You understand the case, no doubt. We fought Through all the courts. I lost in the lower court, As I lost on the will. There was the deed: For love and affection and one dollar we Convey and warrant lots from one to ten In the city of LeRoy, to Captain Kingston To be his own forever. How to go Behind such words and show the actual trust Inhering in the deed, that was the job. But here I was resourceful as before, Found witnesses to testify they heard This Captain Kingston say he held the acres In trust for Mrs. Burton--but I lost Before the chancellor, had to appeal, But won on the appeal, and thus restored These acres to the Burtons. And for this What did I get? Three hundred lousy dollars. That's why I smoke a pipe; that's also why I quit the business when I saw the business Was making ready to quit me. By God, My life is waste so far as it was used By this law business, and no coroner Need hold an inquest on me to find out What waste was in my life--God damn the law! Well, then I go my way, and take my fee, And pay my bills. The Burtons have the land, And turn a cow upon it. See how nice A playground it would be. I've seen ten sets Of children try to play there--hey! you hear, The caretaker come out, get off of there! And then the children scamper, climb the fence. Well, after while the Burtons die. The will Leaves these five acres to their sons for life, Remainder to the children of the sons. The sons are living yet at middle life, These acres have been tied up twenty years, They may be tied up thirty years beside: The sons can't sell it, and their children can't, Only the cow can use it, as it stands. It grows more valuable as the people come here, And bring in being Elenor Murrays, children, And make the land around it populous. That's what makes poverty, this holding land, It makes the taxes harder on the poor, It makes work scarcer, and it takes your girls And boys and throws them into life half made, Half ready for the battle. Is a country Free where the laws permit such things? Your priests, Your addle-headed preachers mouthing Christ And morals, prohibition, laws to force People to be good, to save the girls, When every half-wit knows environment Takes natures, made unstable in these homes Of poverty and does the trick. That baronet Who mocked our freedom, sailing back for England And said: Your Liberty Statue in the harbor Is just a joke, that baronet is right, While such conditions thrive. Well, look at me Who for three hundred dollars take a part In making a cow pasture for a cow For fifty years or so. I hate myself. And were the Burtons better than this Kingston? Kingston would will away what was not his. The Burtons took what is the gift of God, As much as air, and fenced it out of use-- Save for the cow aforesaid--for the lives Of sons in being. Oh, I know you think I have a grudge. I have. This Elenor Murray Was ten years old I think, this law suit ended Twelve years or so, and I was running down, Was tippling just a little every day; And I came by this lot one afternoon When school was out, a sunny afternoon. The children had no place except the street To play in; they were standing by the fence, The cow was way across the lot, and Elenor Was looking through the fence, some boys and girls Standing around her, and I said to them: "Why don't you climb the fence and play in there?" And Elenor--she always was a leader, And not afraid of anything, said: "Come on," And in a jiffy climbed the fence, the children, Some quicker and some slower, followed her. Some said "They don't allow it." Elenor Stood on the fence, flung up her arms and crowed, And said "What can they do? He says to do it," Pointing at me. And in a moment all of them Were playing and were shouting in the lot. And I stood there and watched them half malicious, And half in pleasure watching them at play. Then I heard "hey!" the care-taker ran out. And said "Get out of there, I will arrest you." He drove them out and as they jumped the fence Some said, "He told us to," pointing at me. And Elenor Murray said "Why, what a lie!" And then the care-taker grabbed Elenor Murray And said, "You are the wildest of them all." I spoke up, saying, "Leave that child alone. I won this God damn land for those you serve, They use it for a cow and nothing else, And let these children run about the streets, When there are grass and dandelions there In plenty for these children, and the cow, And space enough to play in without bothering That solitary cow." I took his hands Away from Elenor Murray; he and I Came face to face with clenched fists--but at last He walked away; the children scampered off. Next day, however, they arrested me For aiding in a _trespass clausam fregit_, And fined me twenty dollars and the costs. Since then the cow has all her way in there. And Elenor Murray left this rotten place, Went to the war, came home and died, and proved She had the sense to leave so vile a world. * * * * * George Joslin ending up his days with dreams Of youth in Europe, travels, and with talk, Stirred to a recollection of a face He saw in Paris fifty years before, Because the face resembled Elenor Murray's, Explored his drawers and boxes, where he kept Mementos, treasures of the olden days. And found a pamphlet, came to Merival, With certain recollections, and with theories Of Elenor Murray:-- GEORGE JOSLIN ON LA MENKEN Here, Coroner Merival, look at this picture! Whom does it look like? Eyes too crystalline, A head like Byron's, tender mouth, and neck, Slender and white, a pathos as of smiles And tears kept back by courage. Yes, you know It looks like Elenor Murray. Well, you see I read each day about the inquest--good! Dig out the truth, begin a system here Of making family records, let us see If we can do for people when we know How best to do it, what is done for stock. So build up Illinois, the nation too. I read about you daily. And last night When Elenor Murray's picture in the _Times_ Looked at me, I began to think, Good Lord, Where have I seen that face before? I thought Through more than fifty years departed, sent My mind through Europe and America In all my travels, meetings, episodes. I could not think. At last I opened up A box of pamphlets, photographs, mementos, Picked up since 1860, and behold I find this pamphlet of La Belle Menken. Here is your Elenor Murray born again, As here might be your blackbird of this year With spots of red upon his wings, the same As last year's blackbird, like a pansy springing Out of the April of this year, repeating The color, form of one you saw last year. Repeating and the same, but not the same; No two alike, you know. I'll come to that. Well, then, La Menken--as a boy in Paris I saw La Menken, I'll return to this. But just as Elenor Murray has her life Shadowed and symbolized by our Starved Rock-- And everyone has something in his life Which takes him, makes him, is the image too Of fate prefigured--La Menken has Mazeppa, Her notable first part as actress, emblem Of spirit, character, and of omen too Of years to come, the thrill of life, the end. Who is La Menken? Symbol of America, One phase of spirit! She was venturesome, Resourceful, daring, hopeful, confident, And as she wrote of self, a vagabond, A dweller in tents, a reveler, and a flame Aspiring but disreputable, coming up With leaves that shamed her stalk, could not be shed, But stuck out heavy veined and muddy hued In time of blossom. There are souls, you know, Who have shed shapeless immaturities, Betrayals of the seed before the blossom Comes to proclaim a beauty, a perfection; Or risen with their stalk, until such leaves Were hidden in the grass or soil--not she, Nor even your Elenor Murray, as I read her. But being America and American, Brings good and bad together, blossom and leaves With prodigal recklessness, in vital health And unselective taste and vision mixed Of beauty and of truth. Who was La Menken? She's born in Louisiana in thirty-five, Left fatherless at seven--mother takes her And puts her in the ballet at New Orleans. She dances then from Texas clear to Cuba; Then gives up dancing, studies tragedy, And plays Bianca! Fourteen years of age Weds Menken, who's a Jew, divorced from him; Then falls in love with Heenan, pugilist. They quarrel and separate--it's in this pamphlet Just as I tell you; you can take it, Coroner. Now something happens, nothing in her birth Or place of birth to prophesy her life Like Starved Rock to this Elenor--being grown, A hand instead is darted from the curtain That hangs between to-day, to-morrow, sticks A symbol on her heart and whispers to her: You're this, my woman. Well, the thing was this: She played Mazeppa: take your dummy off, And lash me to the horse. They were afraid, But she prevailed, was nearly killed the first night, And after that succeeded, was the rage And for her years remaining found herself Lashed to the wild horse of ungoverned will, Which ran and wandered, till she knew herself With stronger will than vision, passion stronger Than spirit to judge; the richness of the world, Love, beauty, living, greater than her power. And all the time she had the appetite To eat, devour it all. Grown sick at last, She diagnosed her case, wrote to a friend: The soul and body do not fit each other-- A human spirit in a horse's flesh. This is your Elenor Murray, in a way. But to return to pansies, run your hand Over a bed of pansies; here's a pansy With petals stunted, here's another one All perfect but one petal, here's another Too streaked or mottled--all are pansies though. And here is one full petaled, strikes the eye With perfect color, markings. Elenor Murray Has something of the color and the form Of this La Menken, but is less a pansy, And Sappho, Rachel, Bernhardt are the flowers La Menken strove to be, and could not be, Ended with being only of their kind. And now there's pity for this Elenor Murray, And people wept when poor La Menken died. Both lived and had their way. I hate this pity, It makes you overlook there are two hours: The hour of joy, the hour of finding out Your joy was all mistake, or led to pain. We who inspect these lives behold the pain, And see the error, do not keep in mind The hour of rapture, and the pride, indeed With which your Elenor Murrays and La Menkens Have lived that hour, elation, pride and scorn For any other way--"this is the life" I hear them say. Well, now I go along. La Menken fills her purse with gold--she sends Her pugilist away, tries once again And weds a humorist, an Orpheus Kerr-- And plays before the miners out in 'Frisco, And Sacramento, gathers in the eagles. She goes to Europe then--with husband? No! James Barkley is her fellow on the voyage. She lands in London, takes a gorgeous suite In London's grandest hostlery, entertains Charles Dickens, Prince Baerto and Charles Read, The Duke of Wellington and Swinburne, Sand And Jenny Lind; and has a liveried coachman; And for a crest a horse's head surmounting Four aces, if you please. And plays Mazeppa, And piles the money up. Then next is Paris. And there I saw her, 1866, When Louis Napoleon and the King of Greece, The Prince Imperial were in a box. She wandered to Vienna, there was ill, Came back to Paris, died, a stranger's grave In Pere la Chaise was given, afterwards Exhumed in Mont Parnasse was buried, got A little stone with these words carved upon it: "Thou Knowest" meaning God knew, while herself Knew nothing of herself. But when in Paris They sold her picture taken with her arms Around Dumas, and photographs made up Of postures ludicrous, obscene as well, Of her and great Dumas, I have them home. Can show you sometime. Well she loved Dumas, Inscribed a book of poems to Charles Dickens, By his permission, mark you--don't you see Your Elenor Murray here? This Elenor Murray A miniature imperfect of La Menken? She loved sensation, all her senses thrilled her; A delicate soul too weighted by the flesh; A coquette, quick of wit, intuitive, Kind, generous, unaffected, mystical, Teased by the divine in life, and melancholy, Of deep emotion sometimes. One has said She had a nature spiritual, religious Which warred upon the flesh and fell in battle; Just as your Elenor Murray joined the church, And did not keep the faith, if truth be told. Now look, here is a letter in this pamphlet La Menken writes a poet--for she hunts For seers and for poets, lofty souls. And who does that? A woman wholly bad? Why no, a woman to be given life Fit for her spirit in another realm By God who will take notice, I believe. Now listen if you will! "I know your soul. It has met mine somewhere in starry space. And you must often meet me, vagabond Of fancy without aim, a dweller in tents Disreputable before the just. Just think I am a linguist, write some poems too, Can paint a little, model clay as well. And yet for all these gropings of my soul I am a vagabond, of little use. My body and my soul are in a scramble And do not fit each other--let them carve Those words upon my stone, but also these Thou Knowest, for God knows me, knows I love Whatever is good and beautiful in life; And that my soul has sought them without rest. Farewell, my friend, my spirit is with you, Vienna is too horrible, but know Paris Then die content." Now, Coroner Merival, You're not the only man who wants to see, Will work to make America a republic Of splendors, freedoms, happiness, success. Though I am seventy-six, cannot do much, Save talk, as I am talking now, bring forth Proofs, revelations from the years I've lived. I care not how you view the lives of people, As pansy beds or what not, lift your faith So high above the pansy bed it sees The streaked and stunted pansies filling in The pattern that the perfect pansies outline, Therefore are smiling, even indifferent To this poor conscious pansy, dying at last Because it could not be the flower it wished. My heart to Elenor Murray and La Menken Goes out in sorrow, even while I know They shook their leaves in April, laughed and thrilled, And either did not know, or did not care The growing time was precious, and if wasted Could never be regained. Look at La Menken At seven years put in the ballet corps; And look at Elenor Murray getting smut Out of experience that made her wise. What shall we do about it?--let it go? And say there is no help, or say a republic, Set up a hundred years ago, raised to the helm Of rulership as president a list Of men more able than the emperors, Kings, rulers of the world, and statesmen too The equal of the greatest, money makers, And domineers of finance and economies Phenomenal in time--say, I repeat A country like this one must let its children Waste as they wasted in the darker years Of Europe. Shall we let these trivial minds Who see salvation, progress in restraint, Pre-empt the field of moulding human life? Or shall we take a hand, and put our minds Upon the task, as recently we built An army for the war, equipped and fed it, An army better than all other armies, More powerful, more apt of hand and brain, Of thin tall youths, who did stop but said Like poor La Menken, strap me to the horse I'll do it if I die--so giving to peace The skill and genius which we use in war, Though it cost twenty billion, and why not? Why every dollar, every drop of blood For war like this to guard democracy, And not so much or more to build the land, Improve our blood, make individual America and her race? And first to rout Poverty and disease, give youth its chance, And therapeutic guidance. Soldier boys Have huts for recreation, clergymen, And is it more, less worth to furnish hands Intimate, hearts intimate for the use Of your La Menkens, Elenor Murrays, youths Who feel such vigor in their restless wings They tumble out of crowded nests and fly To fall in thickets, dash themselves against Walls, trees? I have a vision, Coroner, Of a new Republic, brighter than the sun, A new race, loftier faith, this land of ours Made over as to people, boys and girls, Conserved like forests, water power or mines; Watched, tested, put to best use, keen economies Practiced in spirits, waste of human life, Hope, aspiration, talent, virtues, powers, Avoided by a science, science of life, Of spirit, what you will. Enough of war, And billions for the flag--all well enough! Some billions now to make democracy Democracy in truth with us, and life Not helter-skelter, hitting as it may, And missing much, as this La Menken did. I'm not convinced we must have stunted pansies, That have no use but just to piece the pattern. Let's try, and if we try and fail, why then Our human duty ends, the God in us Will have it just this way, no other way. And then we may accept so poor a world, A republic so unfinished. * * * * * Will Paget is another writer of letters To Coroner Merival. The coroner Spends evenings reading letters, keeps a file Where he preserves them. And the blasphemy Of Paget makes him laugh. He has an evening And reads this letter to the jurymen: WILL PAGET ON DEMOS AND HOGOS To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice Dissentient from much that goes the rounds, Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word: Give men and women freedom, save the land From dull theocracy--the theo, what? A blend of Demos and Jehovah! Say, Bring back your despots, bring your Louis Fourteenths, And give them thrones of gold and ivory From where with leaded sceptres they may whack King Demos driven forth. You know the face? The temples are like sea shells, hollows out, Which narrow close the space for cortex cells. There would be little brow if hair remained; But hair is gone, because the dandruff came. The eyes are close together like a weasel's; The jaws are heavy, that is character; The mouth is thin and wide to gobble chicken; The paunch is heavy for the chickens eaten. Throned high upon a soap box Demos rules, And mumbles decalogues: Thou shalt not read, Save what I tell you, never books that tell Of men and women as they live and are. Thou shalt not see the dramas which portray The evil passions and satiric moods Which mock this Christian nation and its hope. Thou shalt not drink, not even wine or beer. Thou shalt not play at cards, or see the races. Thou shalt not be divorced! Thou shalt not play. Thou shalt not bow to graven images Of beauty cut in marble, fused in bronze. Behold my name is Demos, King of Kings, My name is legion, I am many, come Out of the sea where many hogs were drowned, And now the ruler of hogocracy, Where in the name of freedom hungry snouts Root up the truffles in your great republic, And crunch with heavy jaws the legs and arms Of people who fall over in the pen. Hierarchies in my name are planted under Your states political to sprout and take The new world's soil,--religious freedom this!-- Thought must be free--unless your thought objects To such dominion, and to literal faith In an old book that never had a place Except beside the Koran, Zarathustra. So here is your theocracy and here The land of Boredom. Do you wonder now That people cry for war? You see that God Frowns on all games but war. You shall not play Or kindle spirit with a rapture save A moral end's in view. All joy is sin, Where joy stands for itself alone, nor asks Consent to be, save for itself. But war Waged to put down the wrong, it's always that; To vindicate God's truths, all wars are such, Is game that lets the spirit play, is backed By God and moral reasons, therefore war, A game disguised as business, cosmic work For great millenniums, no less relieves The boredom of theocracies. But if Your men and women had the chance to play, Be free and spend superfluous energies, In what I call the greatest game, that's Life, Have life more freely, deeply, and you say How would you like a war and lose a leg, Or come from battle sick for all your years? You would say no, unless you saw an issue, Stripped clean of Christian twaddle, as we'll say The Greeks beheld the Persians. Well, behold All honest paganism in such things discarded For God who comes in glory, trampling presses Filled up with grapes of wrath. Now hear me out: I knew we'd have a war, it wasn't only That your hogocracy was grunting war We'd fight Japan, take Mexico--remember How dancing flourished madly in the land; Then think of savages who dance the Ghost Dance, And cattle lowing, rushing in a panic, There's psychic secrets here. But then at last What can you do with life? You're well and strong, Flushed with desire, mad with appetites, You turn this way and find a sign forbidden, You turn that way and find the door is closed. Hogocracy, King Demos say, go back, Find work, develop character, restrain, Draw up your belt a little tighter, hunger And thirst diminish with a tighter belt. And none to say, take off the belt and eat, Here's water for you. Well, you have a war. We used to say in foot ball kick their shins, And gouge their eyes out--when our shins were kicked We hollered foul and ouch. There was the south Who called us mud-sills in this freer north, And mouthed democracy; and as for that Their churches made of God a battle leader, An idea come from Palestine; oh, yes, They soon would wipe us up, they were the people. But when we slaughtered them they hollered ouch. And why not? For a gun and uniform, And bands that play are rapturous enough. But when you get a bullet through the heart, The game is not so funny as it was. That's why I hated Germany and hate her, And feel we could not let this German culture Spread over earth. That culture was but this: Life must have an expression and a game, And war's the game, besides the prize is great In land and treasure, commerce, let us play, It lets the people's passions have a vent When fires of life burn hot and hotter under The kettle and the lid is clamped by work, Dull duty, daily routine, inhibitions. Before this Elenor Murray woke to life LeRoy was stirring, but the stir was play. It was a Gretna Green, and pleasure boats Ran up and down the river--on the streets You heard the cry of barkers, in the park The band was playing, and you heard the ring Of registers at fountains and buffets. All this was shabby maybe, but observe There are those souls who see the wrath of God As blackest background to the light of soul: And when the thunder rumbles and the storm Comes up with lightning then they say to men Who laugh in bar-rooms, "Have a care, blasphemers, You may be struck by lightning"--here's the root From which this mood ascetic comes to leaf In all theocracies, and throws a shadow Upon all freedom. Look at us to-day. They say to me, see what a town we have: The men at work, smoke coming from the chimneys, The banks full up of money, business good, The workmen sober, going home at night, No rowdy barkers and no bands a-playing, No drinking and no gaming and no vice. No marriages contracted to be broken. Look how LeRoy is quiet, sane and clean! And I reply, you like the stir of work, But not the stir of play; your chimneys smoke, Your banks have money. Let me look behind The door that closes on your man at home, The wife and children there, what shall I find? A sick man looks to health as it were all, But when the fever leaves him and he feels The store of strength in muscles slumbering And waiting to be used, then something else Than health is needful, he must have a way To voice the life within him, and he wonders Why health seemed so desirable before, And all sufficient to him. Take this girl: Why do you marvel that she rode at night With any man who came along? Good God, If I were born a woman and they put me In a theocracy, hogocracy, I'd do the first thing that came in my mind To give my soul expression. Don't you think You're something of a bully and a coward To ask such model living from this girl When you, my grunting hogos, run the land And bring us scandals like the times of Grant, And poisoned beef sold to the soldier boys, When we were warring Spain, and all this stuff Concerning loot and plunder, malversation, That riots in your cities, printed daily? I roll the panoramic story out To Washington the great--what do I see? It's tangle foot, the sticky smear is dry; But I can find wings, legs and heads, remember How little flies and big were buzzing once Of God and duty, country, virtue, faith; And beating wings, already gummed with sweet, Until their little bellies touched the glue, They sought to fill their bellies with--at last Long silence, which is history, scroll rolled up And spoken of in sacred whispers. Well, I'm glad that Elenor Murray had her fling, If that be really true. I understand What drove her to the war. I think she knew Too much to marry, settle down and live Under the rule of Demos or of Hogos. I wish

byron

How many times the word 'byron' appears in the text?

won these acres here For old man Kingston's daughter, who in turn Bound it with limitation for the life Of selfish sons, who keep a caretaker, Who keeps a cow upon it. There's the cow! The land has had no use for thirty years. The children are kept off it. Elenor Murray, This girl whose death makes such a stir, one time Was playing there--but that's another story. I only say for the present, these five acres Made Elenor Murray's life a thing of waste As much as anything, and a damn sight more. For think a minute! Kingston had a daughter Married to Colonel Burton in Kentucky. And Kingston's son was in the Civil War. But just before the war, the Burtons deeded These acres here, which she inherited From old man Kingston, to this Captain Kingston, The son aforesaid of Old Kingston. Well, The deed upon its face was absolute, But really was a deed in trust. The Captain Held title for a year or two, and then An hour before he fought at Shiloh, made A will, and willed acres to his wife, Fee simple and forever. Now you'd think That contemplating death, he'd make a deed Giving these acres back to Mrs. Burton, The sister who had trusted him. I don't know What comes in people's heads, but I believe The want of money is the root of evil, As well as love of money; for this Captain Perhaps would make provision for his wife And infant son, thought that the chiefest thing No matter how he did it, being poor, Willed this land as he did. But anyway He willed it so, went into Shiloh's battle, And fell dead on the field. What happened then? They took this will to probate. As I said I was a lawyer then, you may believe it, Was hired by the Burtons to reclaim These acres from the Widow Kingston's clutch, Under this wicked will. And so I argued The will had not been witnessed according to law. Got beat upon that point in the lower court, But won upon it in the upper courts. Then next I filed a bill to set aside This deed the Burtons made to Captain Kingston-- Oh, I was full of schemes, expedients, In those days, I can tell you. Widow Kingston Came back and filed a cross bill, asked the court To confirm the title in her son and her As heirs of Captain Kingston, let the will Go out of thought and reckoning. Here's the issue; You understand the case, no doubt. We fought Through all the courts. I lost in the lower court, As I lost on the will. There was the deed: For love and affection and one dollar we Convey and warrant lots from one to ten In the city of LeRoy, to Captain Kingston To be his own forever. How to go Behind such words and show the actual trust Inhering in the deed, that was the job. But here I was resourceful as before, Found witnesses to testify they heard This Captain Kingston say he held the acres In trust for Mrs. Burton--but I lost Before the chancellor, had to appeal, But won on the appeal, and thus restored These acres to the Burtons. And for this What did I get? Three hundred lousy dollars. That's why I smoke a pipe; that's also why I quit the business when I saw the business Was making ready to quit me. By God, My life is waste so far as it was used By this law business, and no coroner Need hold an inquest on me to find out What waste was in my life--God damn the law! Well, then I go my way, and take my fee, And pay my bills. The Burtons have the land, And turn a cow upon it. See how nice A playground it would be. I've seen ten sets Of children try to play there--hey! you hear, The caretaker come out, get off of there! And then the children scamper, climb the fence. Well, after while the Burtons die. The will Leaves these five acres to their sons for life, Remainder to the children of the sons. The sons are living yet at middle life, These acres have been tied up twenty years, They may be tied up thirty years beside: The sons can't sell it, and their children can't, Only the cow can use it, as it stands. It grows more valuable as the people come here, And bring in being Elenor Murrays, children, And make the land around it populous. That's what makes poverty, this holding land, It makes the taxes harder on the poor, It makes work scarcer, and it takes your girls And boys and throws them into life half made, Half ready for the battle. Is a country Free where the laws permit such things? Your priests, Your addle-headed preachers mouthing Christ And morals, prohibition, laws to force People to be good, to save the girls, When every half-wit knows environment Takes natures, made unstable in these homes Of poverty and does the trick. That baronet Who mocked our freedom, sailing back for England And said: Your Liberty Statue in the harbor Is just a joke, that baronet is right, While such conditions thrive. Well, look at me Who for three hundred dollars take a part In making a cow pasture for a cow For fifty years or so. I hate myself. And were the Burtons better than this Kingston? Kingston would will away what was not his. The Burtons took what is the gift of God, As much as air, and fenced it out of use-- Save for the cow aforesaid--for the lives Of sons in being. Oh, I know you think I have a grudge. I have. This Elenor Murray Was ten years old I think, this law suit ended Twelve years or so, and I was running down, Was tippling just a little every day; And I came by this lot one afternoon When school was out, a sunny afternoon. The children had no place except the street To play in; they were standing by the fence, The cow was way across the lot, and Elenor Was looking through the fence, some boys and girls Standing around her, and I said to them: "Why don't you climb the fence and play in there?" And Elenor--she always was a leader, And not afraid of anything, said: "Come on," And in a jiffy climbed the fence, the children, Some quicker and some slower, followed her. Some said "They don't allow it." Elenor Stood on the fence, flung up her arms and crowed, And said "What can they do? He says to do it," Pointing at me. And in a moment all of them Were playing and were shouting in the lot. And I stood there and watched them half malicious, And half in pleasure watching them at play. Then I heard "hey!" the care-taker ran out. And said "Get out of there, I will arrest you." He drove them out and as they jumped the fence Some said, "He told us to," pointing at me. And Elenor Murray said "Why, what a lie!" And then the care-taker grabbed Elenor Murray And said, "You are the wildest of them all." I spoke up, saying, "Leave that child alone. I won this God damn land for those you serve, They use it for a cow and nothing else, And let these children run about the streets, When there are grass and dandelions there In plenty for these children, and the cow, And space enough to play in without bothering That solitary cow." I took his hands Away from Elenor Murray; he and I Came face to face with clenched fists--but at last He walked away; the children scampered off. Next day, however, they arrested me For aiding in a _trespass clausam fregit_, And fined me twenty dollars and the costs. Since then the cow has all her way in there. And Elenor Murray left this rotten place, Went to the war, came home and died, and proved She had the sense to leave so vile a world. * * * * * George Joslin ending up his days with dreams Of youth in Europe, travels, and with talk, Stirred to a recollection of a face He saw in Paris fifty years before, Because the face resembled Elenor Murray's, Explored his drawers and boxes, where he kept Mementos, treasures of the olden days. And found a pamphlet, came to Merival, With certain recollections, and with theories Of Elenor Murray:-- GEORGE JOSLIN ON LA MENKEN Here, Coroner Merival, look at this picture! Whom does it look like? Eyes too crystalline, A head like Byron's, tender mouth, and neck, Slender and white, a pathos as of smiles And tears kept back by courage. Yes, you know It looks like Elenor Murray. Well, you see I read each day about the inquest--good! Dig out the truth, begin a system here Of making family records, let us see If we can do for people when we know How best to do it, what is done for stock. So build up Illinois, the nation too. I read about you daily. And last night When Elenor Murray's picture in the _Times_ Looked at me, I began to think, Good Lord, Where have I seen that face before? I thought Through more than fifty years departed, sent My mind through Europe and America In all my travels, meetings, episodes. I could not think. At last I opened up A box of pamphlets, photographs, mementos, Picked up since 1860, and behold I find this pamphlet of La Belle Menken. Here is your Elenor Murray born again, As here might be your blackbird of this year With spots of red upon his wings, the same As last year's blackbird, like a pansy springing Out of the April of this year, repeating The color, form of one you saw last year. Repeating and the same, but not the same; No two alike, you know. I'll come to that. Well, then, La Menken--as a boy in Paris I saw La Menken, I'll return to this. But just as Elenor Murray has her life Shadowed and symbolized by our Starved Rock-- And everyone has something in his life Which takes him, makes him, is the image too Of fate prefigured--La Menken has Mazeppa, Her notable first part as actress, emblem Of spirit, character, and of omen too Of years to come, the thrill of life, the end. Who is La Menken? Symbol of America, One phase of spirit! She was venturesome, Resourceful, daring, hopeful, confident, And as she wrote of self, a vagabond, A dweller in tents, a reveler, and a flame Aspiring but disreputable, coming up With leaves that shamed her stalk, could not be shed, But stuck out heavy veined and muddy hued In time of blossom. There are souls, you know, Who have shed shapeless immaturities, Betrayals of the seed before the blossom Comes to proclaim a beauty, a perfection; Or risen with their stalk, until such leaves Were hidden in the grass or soil--not she, Nor even your Elenor Murray, as I read her. But being America and American, Brings good and bad together, blossom and leaves With prodigal recklessness, in vital health And unselective taste and vision mixed Of beauty and of truth. Who was La Menken? She's born in Louisiana in thirty-five, Left fatherless at seven--mother takes her And puts her in the ballet at New Orleans. She dances then from Texas clear to Cuba; Then gives up dancing, studies tragedy, And plays Bianca! Fourteen years of age Weds Menken, who's a Jew, divorced from him; Then falls in love with Heenan, pugilist. They quarrel and separate--it's in this pamphlet Just as I tell you; you can take it, Coroner. Now something happens, nothing in her birth Or place of birth to prophesy her life Like Starved Rock to this Elenor--being grown, A hand instead is darted from the curtain That hangs between to-day, to-morrow, sticks A symbol on her heart and whispers to her: You're this, my woman. Well, the thing was this: She played Mazeppa: take your dummy off, And lash me to the horse. They were afraid, But she prevailed, was nearly killed the first night, And after that succeeded, was the rage And for her years remaining found herself Lashed to the wild horse of ungoverned will, Which ran and wandered, till she knew herself With stronger will than vision, passion stronger Than spirit to judge; the richness of the world, Love, beauty, living, greater than her power. And all the time she had the appetite To eat, devour it all. Grown sick at last, She diagnosed her case, wrote to a friend: The soul and body do not fit each other-- A human spirit in a horse's flesh. This is your Elenor Murray, in a way. But to return to pansies, run your hand Over a bed of pansies; here's a pansy With petals stunted, here's another one All perfect but one petal, here's another Too streaked or mottled--all are pansies though. And here is one full petaled, strikes the eye With perfect color, markings. Elenor Murray Has something of the color and the form Of this La Menken, but is less a pansy, And Sappho, Rachel, Bernhardt are the flowers La Menken strove to be, and could not be, Ended with being only of their kind. And now there's pity for this Elenor Murray, And people wept when poor La Menken died. Both lived and had their way. I hate this pity, It makes you overlook there are two hours: The hour of joy, the hour of finding out Your joy was all mistake, or led to pain. We who inspect these lives behold the pain, And see the error, do not keep in mind The hour of rapture, and the pride, indeed With which your Elenor Murrays and La Menkens Have lived that hour, elation, pride and scorn For any other way--"this is the life" I hear them say. Well, now I go along. La Menken fills her purse with gold--she sends Her pugilist away, tries once again And weds a humorist, an Orpheus Kerr-- And plays before the miners out in 'Frisco, And Sacramento, gathers in the eagles. She goes to Europe then--with husband? No! James Barkley is her fellow on the voyage. She lands in London, takes a gorgeous suite In London's grandest hostlery, entertains Charles Dickens, Prince Baerto and Charles Read, The Duke of Wellington and Swinburne, Sand And Jenny Lind; and has a liveried coachman; And for a crest a horse's head surmounting Four aces, if you please. And plays Mazeppa, And piles the money up. Then next is Paris. And there I saw her, 1866, When Louis Napoleon and the King of Greece, The Prince Imperial were in a box. She wandered to Vienna, there was ill, Came back to Paris, died, a stranger's grave In Pere la Chaise was given, afterwards Exhumed in Mont Parnasse was buried, got A little stone with these words carved upon it: "Thou Knowest" meaning God knew, while herself Knew nothing of herself. But when in Paris They sold her picture taken with her arms Around Dumas, and photographs made up Of postures ludicrous, obscene as well, Of her and great Dumas, I have them home. Can show you sometime. Well she loved Dumas, Inscribed a book of poems to Charles Dickens, By his permission, mark you--don't you see Your Elenor Murray here? This Elenor Murray A miniature imperfect of La Menken? She loved sensation, all her senses thrilled her; A delicate soul too weighted by the flesh; A coquette, quick of wit, intuitive, Kind, generous, unaffected, mystical, Teased by the divine in life, and melancholy, Of deep emotion sometimes. One has said She had a nature spiritual, religious Which warred upon the flesh and fell in battle; Just as your Elenor Murray joined the church, And did not keep the faith, if truth be told. Now look, here is a letter in this pamphlet La Menken writes a poet--for she hunts For seers and for poets, lofty souls. And who does that? A woman wholly bad? Why no, a woman to be given life Fit for her spirit in another realm By God who will take notice, I believe. Now listen if you will! "I know your soul. It has met mine somewhere in starry space. And you must often meet me, vagabond Of fancy without aim, a dweller in tents Disreputable before the just. Just think I am a linguist, write some poems too, Can paint a little, model clay as well. And yet for all these gropings of my soul I am a vagabond, of little use. My body and my soul are in a scramble And do not fit each other--let them carve Those words upon my stone, but also these Thou Knowest, for God knows me, knows I love Whatever is good and beautiful in life; And that my soul has sought them without rest. Farewell, my friend, my spirit is with you, Vienna is too horrible, but know Paris Then die content." Now, Coroner Merival, You're not the only man who wants to see, Will work to make America a republic Of splendors, freedoms, happiness, success. Though I am seventy-six, cannot do much, Save talk, as I am talking now, bring forth Proofs, revelations from the years I've lived. I care not how you view the lives of people, As pansy beds or what not, lift your faith So high above the pansy bed it sees The streaked and stunted pansies filling in The pattern that the perfect pansies outline, Therefore are smiling, even indifferent To this poor conscious pansy, dying at last Because it could not be the flower it wished. My heart to Elenor Murray and La Menken Goes out in sorrow, even while I know They shook their leaves in April, laughed and thrilled, And either did not know, or did not care The growing time was precious, and if wasted Could never be regained. Look at La Menken At seven years put in the ballet corps; And look at Elenor Murray getting smut Out of experience that made her wise. What shall we do about it?--let it go? And say there is no help, or say a republic, Set up a hundred years ago, raised to the helm Of rulership as president a list Of men more able than the emperors, Kings, rulers of the world, and statesmen too The equal of the greatest, money makers, And domineers of finance and economies Phenomenal in time--say, I repeat A country like this one must let its children Waste as they wasted in the darker years Of Europe. Shall we let these trivial minds Who see salvation, progress in restraint, Pre-empt the field of moulding human life? Or shall we take a hand, and put our minds Upon the task, as recently we built An army for the war, equipped and fed it, An army better than all other armies, More powerful, more apt of hand and brain, Of thin tall youths, who did stop but said Like poor La Menken, strap me to the horse I'll do it if I die--so giving to peace The skill and genius which we use in war, Though it cost twenty billion, and why not? Why every dollar, every drop of blood For war like this to guard democracy, And not so much or more to build the land, Improve our blood, make individual America and her race? And first to rout Poverty and disease, give youth its chance, And therapeutic guidance. Soldier boys Have huts for recreation, clergymen, And is it more, less worth to furnish hands Intimate, hearts intimate for the use Of your La Menkens, Elenor Murrays, youths Who feel such vigor in their restless wings They tumble out of crowded nests and fly To fall in thickets, dash themselves against Walls, trees? I have a vision, Coroner, Of a new Republic, brighter than the sun, A new race, loftier faith, this land of ours Made over as to people, boys and girls, Conserved like forests, water power or mines; Watched, tested, put to best use, keen economies Practiced in spirits, waste of human life, Hope, aspiration, talent, virtues, powers, Avoided by a science, science of life, Of spirit, what you will. Enough of war, And billions for the flag--all well enough! Some billions now to make democracy Democracy in truth with us, and life Not helter-skelter, hitting as it may, And missing much, as this La Menken did. I'm not convinced we must have stunted pansies, That have no use but just to piece the pattern. Let's try, and if we try and fail, why then Our human duty ends, the God in us Will have it just this way, no other way. And then we may accept so poor a world, A republic so unfinished. * * * * * Will Paget is another writer of letters To Coroner Merival. The coroner Spends evenings reading letters, keeps a file Where he preserves them. And the blasphemy Of Paget makes him laugh. He has an evening And reads this letter to the jurymen: WILL PAGET ON DEMOS AND HOGOS To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice Dissentient from much that goes the rounds, Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word: Give men and women freedom, save the land From dull theocracy--the theo, what? A blend of Demos and Jehovah! Say, Bring back your despots, bring your Louis Fourteenths, And give them thrones of gold and ivory From where with leaded sceptres they may whack King Demos driven forth. You know the face? The temples are like sea shells, hollows out, Which narrow close the space for cortex cells. There would be little brow if hair remained; But hair is gone, because the dandruff came. The eyes are close together like a weasel's; The jaws are heavy, that is character; The mouth is thin and wide to gobble chicken; The paunch is heavy for the chickens eaten. Throned high upon a soap box Demos rules, And mumbles decalogues: Thou shalt not read, Save what I tell you, never books that tell Of men and women as they live and are. Thou shalt not see the dramas which portray The evil passions and satiric moods Which mock this Christian nation and its hope. Thou shalt not drink, not even wine or beer. Thou shalt not play at cards, or see the races. Thou shalt not be divorced! Thou shalt not play. Thou shalt not bow to graven images Of beauty cut in marble, fused in bronze. Behold my name is Demos, King of Kings, My name is legion, I am many, come Out of the sea where many hogs were drowned, And now the ruler of hogocracy, Where in the name of freedom hungry snouts Root up the truffles in your great republic, And crunch with heavy jaws the legs and arms Of people who fall over in the pen. Hierarchies in my name are planted under Your states political to sprout and take The new world's soil,--religious freedom this!-- Thought must be free--unless your thought objects To such dominion, and to literal faith In an old book that never had a place Except beside the Koran, Zarathustra. So here is your theocracy and here The land of Boredom. Do you wonder now That people cry for war? You see that God Frowns on all games but war. You shall not play Or kindle spirit with a rapture save A moral end's in view. All joy is sin, Where joy stands for itself alone, nor asks Consent to be, save for itself. But war Waged to put down the wrong, it's always that; To vindicate God's truths, all wars are such, Is game that lets the spirit play, is backed By God and moral reasons, therefore war, A game disguised as business, cosmic work For great millenniums, no less relieves The boredom of theocracies. But if Your men and women had the chance to play, Be free and spend superfluous energies, In what I call the greatest game, that's Life, Have life more freely, deeply, and you say How would you like a war and lose a leg, Or come from battle sick for all your years? You would say no, unless you saw an issue, Stripped clean of Christian twaddle, as we'll say The Greeks beheld the Persians. Well, behold All honest paganism in such things discarded For God who comes in glory, trampling presses Filled up with grapes of wrath. Now hear me out: I knew we'd have a war, it wasn't only That your hogocracy was grunting war We'd fight Japan, take Mexico--remember How dancing flourished madly in the land; Then think of savages who dance the Ghost Dance, And cattle lowing, rushing in a panic, There's psychic secrets here. But then at last What can you do with life? You're well and strong, Flushed with desire, mad with appetites, You turn this way and find a sign forbidden, You turn that way and find the door is closed. Hogocracy, King Demos say, go back, Find work, develop character, restrain, Draw up your belt a little tighter, hunger And thirst diminish with a tighter belt. And none to say, take off the belt and eat, Here's water for you. Well, you have a war. We used to say in foot ball kick their shins, And gouge their eyes out--when our shins were kicked We hollered foul and ouch. There was the south Who called us mud-sills in this freer north, And mouthed democracy; and as for that Their churches made of God a battle leader, An idea come from Palestine; oh, yes, They soon would wipe us up, they were the people. But when we slaughtered them they hollered ouch. And why not? For a gun and uniform, And bands that play are rapturous enough. But when you get a bullet through the heart, The game is not so funny as it was. That's why I hated Germany and hate her, And feel we could not let this German culture Spread over earth. That culture was but this: Life must have an expression and a game, And war's the game, besides the prize is great In land and treasure, commerce, let us play, It lets the people's passions have a vent When fires of life burn hot and hotter under The kettle and the lid is clamped by work, Dull duty, daily routine, inhibitions. Before this Elenor Murray woke to life LeRoy was stirring, but the stir was play. It was a Gretna Green, and pleasure boats Ran up and down the river--on the streets You heard the cry of barkers, in the park The band was playing, and you heard the ring Of registers at fountains and buffets. All this was shabby maybe, but observe There are those souls who see the wrath of God As blackest background to the light of soul: And when the thunder rumbles and the storm Comes up with lightning then they say to men Who laugh in bar-rooms, "Have a care, blasphemers, You may be struck by lightning"--here's the root From which this mood ascetic comes to leaf In all theocracies, and throws a shadow Upon all freedom. Look at us to-day. They say to me, see what a town we have: The men at work, smoke coming from the chimneys, The banks full up of money, business good, The workmen sober, going home at night, No rowdy barkers and no bands a-playing, No drinking and no gaming and no vice. No marriages contracted to be broken. Look how LeRoy is quiet, sane and clean! And I reply, you like the stir of work, But not the stir of play; your chimneys smoke, Your banks have money. Let me look behind The door that closes on your man at home, The wife and children there, what shall I find? A sick man looks to health as it were all, But when the fever leaves him and he feels The store of strength in muscles slumbering And waiting to be used, then something else Than health is needful, he must have a way To voice the life within him, and he wonders Why health seemed so desirable before, And all sufficient to him. Take this girl: Why do you marvel that she rode at night With any man who came along? Good God, If I were born a woman and they put me In a theocracy, hogocracy, I'd do the first thing that came in my mind To give my soul expression. Don't you think You're something of a bully and a coward To ask such model living from this girl When you, my grunting hogos, run the land And bring us scandals like the times of Grant, And poisoned beef sold to the soldier boys, When we were warring Spain, and all this stuff Concerning loot and plunder, malversation, That riots in your cities, printed daily? I roll the panoramic story out To Washington the great--what do I see? It's tangle foot, the sticky smear is dry; But I can find wings, legs and heads, remember How little flies and big were buzzing once Of God and duty, country, virtue, faith; And beating wings, already gummed with sweet, Until their little bellies touched the glue, They sought to fill their bellies with--at last Long silence, which is history, scroll rolled up And spoken of in sacred whispers. Well, I'm glad that Elenor Murray had her fling, If that be really true. I understand What drove her to the war. I think she knew Too much to marry, settle down and live Under the rule of Demos or of Hogos. I wish

affection

How many times the word 'affection' appears in the text?

won these acres here For old man Kingston's daughter, who in turn Bound it with limitation for the life Of selfish sons, who keep a caretaker, Who keeps a cow upon it. There's the cow! The land has had no use for thirty years. The children are kept off it. Elenor Murray, This girl whose death makes such a stir, one time Was playing there--but that's another story. I only say for the present, these five acres Made Elenor Murray's life a thing of waste As much as anything, and a damn sight more. For think a minute! Kingston had a daughter Married to Colonel Burton in Kentucky. And Kingston's son was in the Civil War. But just before the war, the Burtons deeded These acres here, which she inherited From old man Kingston, to this Captain Kingston, The son aforesaid of Old Kingston. Well, The deed upon its face was absolute, But really was a deed in trust. The Captain Held title for a year or two, and then An hour before he fought at Shiloh, made A will, and willed acres to his wife, Fee simple and forever. Now you'd think That contemplating death, he'd make a deed Giving these acres back to Mrs. Burton, The sister who had trusted him. I don't know What comes in people's heads, but I believe The want of money is the root of evil, As well as love of money; for this Captain Perhaps would make provision for his wife And infant son, thought that the chiefest thing No matter how he did it, being poor, Willed this land as he did. But anyway He willed it so, went into Shiloh's battle, And fell dead on the field. What happened then? They took this will to probate. As I said I was a lawyer then, you may believe it, Was hired by the Burtons to reclaim These acres from the Widow Kingston's clutch, Under this wicked will. And so I argued The will had not been witnessed according to law. Got beat upon that point in the lower court, But won upon it in the upper courts. Then next I filed a bill to set aside This deed the Burtons made to Captain Kingston-- Oh, I was full of schemes, expedients, In those days, I can tell you. Widow Kingston Came back and filed a cross bill, asked the court To confirm the title in her son and her As heirs of Captain Kingston, let the will Go out of thought and reckoning. Here's the issue; You understand the case, no doubt. We fought Through all the courts. I lost in the lower court, As I lost on the will. There was the deed: For love and affection and one dollar we Convey and warrant lots from one to ten In the city of LeRoy, to Captain Kingston To be his own forever. How to go Behind such words and show the actual trust Inhering in the deed, that was the job. But here I was resourceful as before, Found witnesses to testify they heard This Captain Kingston say he held the acres In trust for Mrs. Burton--but I lost Before the chancellor, had to appeal, But won on the appeal, and thus restored These acres to the Burtons. And for this What did I get? Three hundred lousy dollars. That's why I smoke a pipe; that's also why I quit the business when I saw the business Was making ready to quit me. By God, My life is waste so far as it was used By this law business, and no coroner Need hold an inquest on me to find out What waste was in my life--God damn the law! Well, then I go my way, and take my fee, And pay my bills. The Burtons have the land, And turn a cow upon it. See how nice A playground it would be. I've seen ten sets Of children try to play there--hey! you hear, The caretaker come out, get off of there! And then the children scamper, climb the fence. Well, after while the Burtons die. The will Leaves these five acres to their sons for life, Remainder to the children of the sons. The sons are living yet at middle life, These acres have been tied up twenty years, They may be tied up thirty years beside: The sons can't sell it, and their children can't, Only the cow can use it, as it stands. It grows more valuable as the people come here, And bring in being Elenor Murrays, children, And make the land around it populous. That's what makes poverty, this holding land, It makes the taxes harder on the poor, It makes work scarcer, and it takes your girls And boys and throws them into life half made, Half ready for the battle. Is a country Free where the laws permit such things? Your priests, Your addle-headed preachers mouthing Christ And morals, prohibition, laws to force People to be good, to save the girls, When every half-wit knows environment Takes natures, made unstable in these homes Of poverty and does the trick. That baronet Who mocked our freedom, sailing back for England And said: Your Liberty Statue in the harbor Is just a joke, that baronet is right, While such conditions thrive. Well, look at me Who for three hundred dollars take a part In making a cow pasture for a cow For fifty years or so. I hate myself. And were the Burtons better than this Kingston? Kingston would will away what was not his. The Burtons took what is the gift of God, As much as air, and fenced it out of use-- Save for the cow aforesaid--for the lives Of sons in being. Oh, I know you think I have a grudge. I have. This Elenor Murray Was ten years old I think, this law suit ended Twelve years or so, and I was running down, Was tippling just a little every day; And I came by this lot one afternoon When school was out, a sunny afternoon. The children had no place except the street To play in; they were standing by the fence, The cow was way across the lot, and Elenor Was looking through the fence, some boys and girls Standing around her, and I said to them: "Why don't you climb the fence and play in there?" And Elenor--she always was a leader, And not afraid of anything, said: "Come on," And in a jiffy climbed the fence, the children, Some quicker and some slower, followed her. Some said "They don't allow it." Elenor Stood on the fence, flung up her arms and crowed, And said "What can they do? He says to do it," Pointing at me. And in a moment all of them Were playing and were shouting in the lot. And I stood there and watched them half malicious, And half in pleasure watching them at play. Then I heard "hey!" the care-taker ran out. And said "Get out of there, I will arrest you." He drove them out and as they jumped the fence Some said, "He told us to," pointing at me. And Elenor Murray said "Why, what a lie!" And then the care-taker grabbed Elenor Murray And said, "You are the wildest of them all." I spoke up, saying, "Leave that child alone. I won this God damn land for those you serve, They use it for a cow and nothing else, And let these children run about the streets, When there are grass and dandelions there In plenty for these children, and the cow, And space enough to play in without bothering That solitary cow." I took his hands Away from Elenor Murray; he and I Came face to face with clenched fists--but at last He walked away; the children scampered off. Next day, however, they arrested me For aiding in a _trespass clausam fregit_, And fined me twenty dollars and the costs. Since then the cow has all her way in there. And Elenor Murray left this rotten place, Went to the war, came home and died, and proved She had the sense to leave so vile a world. * * * * * George Joslin ending up his days with dreams Of youth in Europe, travels, and with talk, Stirred to a recollection of a face He saw in Paris fifty years before, Because the face resembled Elenor Murray's, Explored his drawers and boxes, where he kept Mementos, treasures of the olden days. And found a pamphlet, came to Merival, With certain recollections, and with theories Of Elenor Murray:-- GEORGE JOSLIN ON LA MENKEN Here, Coroner Merival, look at this picture! Whom does it look like? Eyes too crystalline, A head like Byron's, tender mouth, and neck, Slender and white, a pathos as of smiles And tears kept back by courage. Yes, you know It looks like Elenor Murray. Well, you see I read each day about the inquest--good! Dig out the truth, begin a system here Of making family records, let us see If we can do for people when we know How best to do it, what is done for stock. So build up Illinois, the nation too. I read about you daily. And last night When Elenor Murray's picture in the _Times_ Looked at me, I began to think, Good Lord, Where have I seen that face before? I thought Through more than fifty years departed, sent My mind through Europe and America In all my travels, meetings, episodes. I could not think. At last I opened up A box of pamphlets, photographs, mementos, Picked up since 1860, and behold I find this pamphlet of La Belle Menken. Here is your Elenor Murray born again, As here might be your blackbird of this year With spots of red upon his wings, the same As last year's blackbird, like a pansy springing Out of the April of this year, repeating The color, form of one you saw last year. Repeating and the same, but not the same; No two alike, you know. I'll come to that. Well, then, La Menken--as a boy in Paris I saw La Menken, I'll return to this. But just as Elenor Murray has her life Shadowed and symbolized by our Starved Rock-- And everyone has something in his life Which takes him, makes him, is the image too Of fate prefigured--La Menken has Mazeppa, Her notable first part as actress, emblem Of spirit, character, and of omen too Of years to come, the thrill of life, the end. Who is La Menken? Symbol of America, One phase of spirit! She was venturesome, Resourceful, daring, hopeful, confident, And as she wrote of self, a vagabond, A dweller in tents, a reveler, and a flame Aspiring but disreputable, coming up With leaves that shamed her stalk, could not be shed, But stuck out heavy veined and muddy hued In time of blossom. There are souls, you know, Who have shed shapeless immaturities, Betrayals of the seed before the blossom Comes to proclaim a beauty, a perfection; Or risen with their stalk, until such leaves Were hidden in the grass or soil--not she, Nor even your Elenor Murray, as I read her. But being America and American, Brings good and bad together, blossom and leaves With prodigal recklessness, in vital health And unselective taste and vision mixed Of beauty and of truth. Who was La Menken? She's born in Louisiana in thirty-five, Left fatherless at seven--mother takes her And puts her in the ballet at New Orleans. She dances then from Texas clear to Cuba; Then gives up dancing, studies tragedy, And plays Bianca! Fourteen years of age Weds Menken, who's a Jew, divorced from him; Then falls in love with Heenan, pugilist. They quarrel and separate--it's in this pamphlet Just as I tell you; you can take it, Coroner. Now something happens, nothing in her birth Or place of birth to prophesy her life Like Starved Rock to this Elenor--being grown, A hand instead is darted from the curtain That hangs between to-day, to-morrow, sticks A symbol on her heart and whispers to her: You're this, my woman. Well, the thing was this: She played Mazeppa: take your dummy off, And lash me to the horse. They were afraid, But she prevailed, was nearly killed the first night, And after that succeeded, was the rage And for her years remaining found herself Lashed to the wild horse of ungoverned will, Which ran and wandered, till she knew herself With stronger will than vision, passion stronger Than spirit to judge; the richness of the world, Love, beauty, living, greater than her power. And all the time she had the appetite To eat, devour it all. Grown sick at last, She diagnosed her case, wrote to a friend: The soul and body do not fit each other-- A human spirit in a horse's flesh. This is your Elenor Murray, in a way. But to return to pansies, run your hand Over a bed of pansies; here's a pansy With petals stunted, here's another one All perfect but one petal, here's another Too streaked or mottled--all are pansies though. And here is one full petaled, strikes the eye With perfect color, markings. Elenor Murray Has something of the color and the form Of this La Menken, but is less a pansy, And Sappho, Rachel, Bernhardt are the flowers La Menken strove to be, and could not be, Ended with being only of their kind. And now there's pity for this Elenor Murray, And people wept when poor La Menken died. Both lived and had their way. I hate this pity, It makes you overlook there are two hours: The hour of joy, the hour of finding out Your joy was all mistake, or led to pain. We who inspect these lives behold the pain, And see the error, do not keep in mind The hour of rapture, and the pride, indeed With which your Elenor Murrays and La Menkens Have lived that hour, elation, pride and scorn For any other way--"this is the life" I hear them say. Well, now I go along. La Menken fills her purse with gold--she sends Her pugilist away, tries once again And weds a humorist, an Orpheus Kerr-- And plays before the miners out in 'Frisco, And Sacramento, gathers in the eagles. She goes to Europe then--with husband? No! James Barkley is her fellow on the voyage. She lands in London, takes a gorgeous suite In London's grandest hostlery, entertains Charles Dickens, Prince Baerto and Charles Read, The Duke of Wellington and Swinburne, Sand And Jenny Lind; and has a liveried coachman; And for a crest a horse's head surmounting Four aces, if you please. And plays Mazeppa, And piles the money up. Then next is Paris. And there I saw her, 1866, When Louis Napoleon and the King of Greece, The Prince Imperial were in a box. She wandered to Vienna, there was ill, Came back to Paris, died, a stranger's grave In Pere la Chaise was given, afterwards Exhumed in Mont Parnasse was buried, got A little stone with these words carved upon it: "Thou Knowest" meaning God knew, while herself Knew nothing of herself. But when in Paris They sold her picture taken with her arms Around Dumas, and photographs made up Of postures ludicrous, obscene as well, Of her and great Dumas, I have them home. Can show you sometime. Well she loved Dumas, Inscribed a book of poems to Charles Dickens, By his permission, mark you--don't you see Your Elenor Murray here? This Elenor Murray A miniature imperfect of La Menken? She loved sensation, all her senses thrilled her; A delicate soul too weighted by the flesh; A coquette, quick of wit, intuitive, Kind, generous, unaffected, mystical, Teased by the divine in life, and melancholy, Of deep emotion sometimes. One has said She had a nature spiritual, religious Which warred upon the flesh and fell in battle; Just as your Elenor Murray joined the church, And did not keep the faith, if truth be told. Now look, here is a letter in this pamphlet La Menken writes a poet--for she hunts For seers and for poets, lofty souls. And who does that? A woman wholly bad? Why no, a woman to be given life Fit for her spirit in another realm By God who will take notice, I believe. Now listen if you will! "I know your soul. It has met mine somewhere in starry space. And you must often meet me, vagabond Of fancy without aim, a dweller in tents Disreputable before the just. Just think I am a linguist, write some poems too, Can paint a little, model clay as well. And yet for all these gropings of my soul I am a vagabond, of little use. My body and my soul are in a scramble And do not fit each other--let them carve Those words upon my stone, but also these Thou Knowest, for God knows me, knows I love Whatever is good and beautiful in life; And that my soul has sought them without rest. Farewell, my friend, my spirit is with you, Vienna is too horrible, but know Paris Then die content." Now, Coroner Merival, You're not the only man who wants to see, Will work to make America a republic Of splendors, freedoms, happiness, success. Though I am seventy-six, cannot do much, Save talk, as I am talking now, bring forth Proofs, revelations from the years I've lived. I care not how you view the lives of people, As pansy beds or what not, lift your faith So high above the pansy bed it sees The streaked and stunted pansies filling in The pattern that the perfect pansies outline, Therefore are smiling, even indifferent To this poor conscious pansy, dying at last Because it could not be the flower it wished. My heart to Elenor Murray and La Menken Goes out in sorrow, even while I know They shook their leaves in April, laughed and thrilled, And either did not know, or did not care The growing time was precious, and if wasted Could never be regained. Look at La Menken At seven years put in the ballet corps; And look at Elenor Murray getting smut Out of experience that made her wise. What shall we do about it?--let it go? And say there is no help, or say a republic, Set up a hundred years ago, raised to the helm Of rulership as president a list Of men more able than the emperors, Kings, rulers of the world, and statesmen too The equal of the greatest, money makers, And domineers of finance and economies Phenomenal in time--say, I repeat A country like this one must let its children Waste as they wasted in the darker years Of Europe. Shall we let these trivial minds Who see salvation, progress in restraint, Pre-empt the field of moulding human life? Or shall we take a hand, and put our minds Upon the task, as recently we built An army for the war, equipped and fed it, An army better than all other armies, More powerful, more apt of hand and brain, Of thin tall youths, who did stop but said Like poor La Menken, strap me to the horse I'll do it if I die--so giving to peace The skill and genius which we use in war, Though it cost twenty billion, and why not? Why every dollar, every drop of blood For war like this to guard democracy, And not so much or more to build the land, Improve our blood, make individual America and her race? And first to rout Poverty and disease, give youth its chance, And therapeutic guidance. Soldier boys Have huts for recreation, clergymen, And is it more, less worth to furnish hands Intimate, hearts intimate for the use Of your La Menkens, Elenor Murrays, youths Who feel such vigor in their restless wings They tumble out of crowded nests and fly To fall in thickets, dash themselves against Walls, trees? I have a vision, Coroner, Of a new Republic, brighter than the sun, A new race, loftier faith, this land of ours Made over as to people, boys and girls, Conserved like forests, water power or mines; Watched, tested, put to best use, keen economies Practiced in spirits, waste of human life, Hope, aspiration, talent, virtues, powers, Avoided by a science, science of life, Of spirit, what you will. Enough of war, And billions for the flag--all well enough! Some billions now to make democracy Democracy in truth with us, and life Not helter-skelter, hitting as it may, And missing much, as this La Menken did. I'm not convinced we must have stunted pansies, That have no use but just to piece the pattern. Let's try, and if we try and fail, why then Our human duty ends, the God in us Will have it just this way, no other way. And then we may accept so poor a world, A republic so unfinished. * * * * * Will Paget is another writer of letters To Coroner Merival. The coroner Spends evenings reading letters, keeps a file Where he preserves them. And the blasphemy Of Paget makes him laugh. He has an evening And reads this letter to the jurymen: WILL PAGET ON DEMOS AND HOGOS To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice Dissentient from much that goes the rounds, Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word: Give men and women freedom, save the land From dull theocracy--the theo, what? A blend of Demos and Jehovah! Say, Bring back your despots, bring your Louis Fourteenths, And give them thrones of gold and ivory From where with leaded sceptres they may whack King Demos driven forth. You know the face? The temples are like sea shells, hollows out, Which narrow close the space for cortex cells. There would be little brow if hair remained; But hair is gone, because the dandruff came. The eyes are close together like a weasel's; The jaws are heavy, that is character; The mouth is thin and wide to gobble chicken; The paunch is heavy for the chickens eaten. Throned high upon a soap box Demos rules, And mumbles decalogues: Thou shalt not read, Save what I tell you, never books that tell Of men and women as they live and are. Thou shalt not see the dramas which portray The evil passions and satiric moods Which mock this Christian nation and its hope. Thou shalt not drink, not even wine or beer. Thou shalt not play at cards, or see the races. Thou shalt not be divorced! Thou shalt not play. Thou shalt not bow to graven images Of beauty cut in marble, fused in bronze. Behold my name is Demos, King of Kings, My name is legion, I am many, come Out of the sea where many hogs were drowned, And now the ruler of hogocracy, Where in the name of freedom hungry snouts Root up the truffles in your great republic, And crunch with heavy jaws the legs and arms Of people who fall over in the pen. Hierarchies in my name are planted under Your states political to sprout and take The new world's soil,--religious freedom this!-- Thought must be free--unless your thought objects To such dominion, and to literal faith In an old book that never had a place Except beside the Koran, Zarathustra. So here is your theocracy and here The land of Boredom. Do you wonder now That people cry for war? You see that God Frowns on all games but war. You shall not play Or kindle spirit with a rapture save A moral end's in view. All joy is sin, Where joy stands for itself alone, nor asks Consent to be, save for itself. But war Waged to put down the wrong, it's always that; To vindicate God's truths, all wars are such, Is game that lets the spirit play, is backed By God and moral reasons, therefore war, A game disguised as business, cosmic work For great millenniums, no less relieves The boredom of theocracies. But if Your men and women had the chance to play, Be free and spend superfluous energies, In what I call the greatest game, that's Life, Have life more freely, deeply, and you say How would you like a war and lose a leg, Or come from battle sick for all your years? You would say no, unless you saw an issue, Stripped clean of Christian twaddle, as we'll say The Greeks beheld the Persians. Well, behold All honest paganism in such things discarded For God who comes in glory, trampling presses Filled up with grapes of wrath. Now hear me out: I knew we'd have a war, it wasn't only That your hogocracy was grunting war We'd fight Japan, take Mexico--remember How dancing flourished madly in the land; Then think of savages who dance the Ghost Dance, And cattle lowing, rushing in a panic, There's psychic secrets here. But then at last What can you do with life? You're well and strong, Flushed with desire, mad with appetites, You turn this way and find a sign forbidden, You turn that way and find the door is closed. Hogocracy, King Demos say, go back, Find work, develop character, restrain, Draw up your belt a little tighter, hunger And thirst diminish with a tighter belt. And none to say, take off the belt and eat, Here's water for you. Well, you have a war. We used to say in foot ball kick their shins, And gouge their eyes out--when our shins were kicked We hollered foul and ouch. There was the south Who called us mud-sills in this freer north, And mouthed democracy; and as for that Their churches made of God a battle leader, An idea come from Palestine; oh, yes, They soon would wipe us up, they were the people. But when we slaughtered them they hollered ouch. And why not? For a gun and uniform, And bands that play are rapturous enough. But when you get a bullet through the heart, The game is not so funny as it was. That's why I hated Germany and hate her, And feel we could not let this German culture Spread over earth. That culture was but this: Life must have an expression and a game, And war's the game, besides the prize is great In land and treasure, commerce, let us play, It lets the people's passions have a vent When fires of life burn hot and hotter under The kettle and the lid is clamped by work, Dull duty, daily routine, inhibitions. Before this Elenor Murray woke to life LeRoy was stirring, but the stir was play. It was a Gretna Green, and pleasure boats Ran up and down the river--on the streets You heard the cry of barkers, in the park The band was playing, and you heard the ring Of registers at fountains and buffets. All this was shabby maybe, but observe There are those souls who see the wrath of God As blackest background to the light of soul: And when the thunder rumbles and the storm Comes up with lightning then they say to men Who laugh in bar-rooms, "Have a care, blasphemers, You may be struck by lightning"--here's the root From which this mood ascetic comes to leaf In all theocracies, and throws a shadow Upon all freedom. Look at us to-day. They say to me, see what a town we have: The men at work, smoke coming from the chimneys, The banks full up of money, business good, The workmen sober, going home at night, No rowdy barkers and no bands a-playing, No drinking and no gaming and no vice. No marriages contracted to be broken. Look how LeRoy is quiet, sane and clean! And I reply, you like the stir of work, But not the stir of play; your chimneys smoke, Your banks have money. Let me look behind The door that closes on your man at home, The wife and children there, what shall I find? A sick man looks to health as it were all, But when the fever leaves him and he feels The store of strength in muscles slumbering And waiting to be used, then something else Than health is needful, he must have a way To voice the life within him, and he wonders Why health seemed so desirable before, And all sufficient to him. Take this girl: Why do you marvel that she rode at night With any man who came along? Good God, If I were born a woman and they put me In a theocracy, hogocracy, I'd do the first thing that came in my mind To give my soul expression. Don't you think You're something of a bully and a coward To ask such model living from this girl When you, my grunting hogos, run the land And bring us scandals like the times of Grant, And poisoned beef sold to the soldier boys, When we were warring Spain, and all this stuff Concerning loot and plunder, malversation, That riots in your cities, printed daily? I roll the panoramic story out To Washington the great--what do I see? It's tangle foot, the sticky smear is dry; But I can find wings, legs and heads, remember How little flies and big were buzzing once Of God and duty, country, virtue, faith; And beating wings, already gummed with sweet, Until their little bellies touched the glue, They sought to fill their bellies with--at last Long silence, which is history, scroll rolled up And spoken of in sacred whispers. Well, I'm glad that Elenor Murray had her fling, If that be really true. I understand What drove her to the war. I think she knew Too much to marry, settle down and live Under the rule of Demos or of Hogos. I wish

court

How many times the word 'court' appears in the text?

won these acres here For old man Kingston's daughter, who in turn Bound it with limitation for the life Of selfish sons, who keep a caretaker, Who keeps a cow upon it. There's the cow! The land has had no use for thirty years. The children are kept off it. Elenor Murray, This girl whose death makes such a stir, one time Was playing there--but that's another story. I only say for the present, these five acres Made Elenor Murray's life a thing of waste As much as anything, and a damn sight more. For think a minute! Kingston had a daughter Married to Colonel Burton in Kentucky. And Kingston's son was in the Civil War. But just before the war, the Burtons deeded These acres here, which she inherited From old man Kingston, to this Captain Kingston, The son aforesaid of Old Kingston. Well, The deed upon its face was absolute, But really was a deed in trust. The Captain Held title for a year or two, and then An hour before he fought at Shiloh, made A will, and willed acres to his wife, Fee simple and forever. Now you'd think That contemplating death, he'd make a deed Giving these acres back to Mrs. Burton, The sister who had trusted him. I don't know What comes in people's heads, but I believe The want of money is the root of evil, As well as love of money; for this Captain Perhaps would make provision for his wife And infant son, thought that the chiefest thing No matter how he did it, being poor, Willed this land as he did. But anyway He willed it so, went into Shiloh's battle, And fell dead on the field. What happened then? They took this will to probate. As I said I was a lawyer then, you may believe it, Was hired by the Burtons to reclaim These acres from the Widow Kingston's clutch, Under this wicked will. And so I argued The will had not been witnessed according to law. Got beat upon that point in the lower court, But won upon it in the upper courts. Then next I filed a bill to set aside This deed the Burtons made to Captain Kingston-- Oh, I was full of schemes, expedients, In those days, I can tell you. Widow Kingston Came back and filed a cross bill, asked the court To confirm the title in her son and her As heirs of Captain Kingston, let the will Go out of thought and reckoning. Here's the issue; You understand the case, no doubt. We fought Through all the courts. I lost in the lower court, As I lost on the will. There was the deed: For love and affection and one dollar we Convey and warrant lots from one to ten In the city of LeRoy, to Captain Kingston To be his own forever. How to go Behind such words and show the actual trust Inhering in the deed, that was the job. But here I was resourceful as before, Found witnesses to testify they heard This Captain Kingston say he held the acres In trust for Mrs. Burton--but I lost Before the chancellor, had to appeal, But won on the appeal, and thus restored These acres to the Burtons. And for this What did I get? Three hundred lousy dollars. That's why I smoke a pipe; that's also why I quit the business when I saw the business Was making ready to quit me. By God, My life is waste so far as it was used By this law business, and no coroner Need hold an inquest on me to find out What waste was in my life--God damn the law! Well, then I go my way, and take my fee, And pay my bills. The Burtons have the land, And turn a cow upon it. See how nice A playground it would be. I've seen ten sets Of children try to play there--hey! you hear, The caretaker come out, get off of there! And then the children scamper, climb the fence. Well, after while the Burtons die. The will Leaves these five acres to their sons for life, Remainder to the children of the sons. The sons are living yet at middle life, These acres have been tied up twenty years, They may be tied up thirty years beside: The sons can't sell it, and their children can't, Only the cow can use it, as it stands. It grows more valuable as the people come here, And bring in being Elenor Murrays, children, And make the land around it populous. That's what makes poverty, this holding land, It makes the taxes harder on the poor, It makes work scarcer, and it takes your girls And boys and throws them into life half made, Half ready for the battle. Is a country Free where the laws permit such things? Your priests, Your addle-headed preachers mouthing Christ And morals, prohibition, laws to force People to be good, to save the girls, When every half-wit knows environment Takes natures, made unstable in these homes Of poverty and does the trick. That baronet Who mocked our freedom, sailing back for England And said: Your Liberty Statue in the harbor Is just a joke, that baronet is right, While such conditions thrive. Well, look at me Who for three hundred dollars take a part In making a cow pasture for a cow For fifty years or so. I hate myself. And were the Burtons better than this Kingston? Kingston would will away what was not his. The Burtons took what is the gift of God, As much as air, and fenced it out of use-- Save for the cow aforesaid--for the lives Of sons in being. Oh, I know you think I have a grudge. I have. This Elenor Murray Was ten years old I think, this law suit ended Twelve years or so, and I was running down, Was tippling just a little every day; And I came by this lot one afternoon When school was out, a sunny afternoon. The children had no place except the street To play in; they were standing by the fence, The cow was way across the lot, and Elenor Was looking through the fence, some boys and girls Standing around her, and I said to them: "Why don't you climb the fence and play in there?" And Elenor--she always was a leader, And not afraid of anything, said: "Come on," And in a jiffy climbed the fence, the children, Some quicker and some slower, followed her. Some said "They don't allow it." Elenor Stood on the fence, flung up her arms and crowed, And said "What can they do? He says to do it," Pointing at me. And in a moment all of them Were playing and were shouting in the lot. And I stood there and watched them half malicious, And half in pleasure watching them at play. Then I heard "hey!" the care-taker ran out. And said "Get out of there, I will arrest you." He drove them out and as they jumped the fence Some said, "He told us to," pointing at me. And Elenor Murray said "Why, what a lie!" And then the care-taker grabbed Elenor Murray And said, "You are the wildest of them all." I spoke up, saying, "Leave that child alone. I won this God damn land for those you serve, They use it for a cow and nothing else, And let these children run about the streets, When there are grass and dandelions there In plenty for these children, and the cow, And space enough to play in without bothering That solitary cow." I took his hands Away from Elenor Murray; he and I Came face to face with clenched fists--but at last He walked away; the children scampered off. Next day, however, they arrested me For aiding in a _trespass clausam fregit_, And fined me twenty dollars and the costs. Since then the cow has all her way in there. And Elenor Murray left this rotten place, Went to the war, came home and died, and proved She had the sense to leave so vile a world. * * * * * George Joslin ending up his days with dreams Of youth in Europe, travels, and with talk, Stirred to a recollection of a face He saw in Paris fifty years before, Because the face resembled Elenor Murray's, Explored his drawers and boxes, where he kept Mementos, treasures of the olden days. And found a pamphlet, came to Merival, With certain recollections, and with theories Of Elenor Murray:-- GEORGE JOSLIN ON LA MENKEN Here, Coroner Merival, look at this picture! Whom does it look like? Eyes too crystalline, A head like Byron's, tender mouth, and neck, Slender and white, a pathos as of smiles And tears kept back by courage. Yes, you know It looks like Elenor Murray. Well, you see I read each day about the inquest--good! Dig out the truth, begin a system here Of making family records, let us see If we can do for people when we know How best to do it, what is done for stock. So build up Illinois, the nation too. I read about you daily. And last night When Elenor Murray's picture in the _Times_ Looked at me, I began to think, Good Lord, Where have I seen that face before? I thought Through more than fifty years departed, sent My mind through Europe and America In all my travels, meetings, episodes. I could not think. At last I opened up A box of pamphlets, photographs, mementos, Picked up since 1860, and behold I find this pamphlet of La Belle Menken. Here is your Elenor Murray born again, As here might be your blackbird of this year With spots of red upon his wings, the same As last year's blackbird, like a pansy springing Out of the April of this year, repeating The color, form of one you saw last year. Repeating and the same, but not the same; No two alike, you know. I'll come to that. Well, then, La Menken--as a boy in Paris I saw La Menken, I'll return to this. But just as Elenor Murray has her life Shadowed and symbolized by our Starved Rock-- And everyone has something in his life Which takes him, makes him, is the image too Of fate prefigured--La Menken has Mazeppa, Her notable first part as actress, emblem Of spirit, character, and of omen too Of years to come, the thrill of life, the end. Who is La Menken? Symbol of America, One phase of spirit! She was venturesome, Resourceful, daring, hopeful, confident, And as she wrote of self, a vagabond, A dweller in tents, a reveler, and a flame Aspiring but disreputable, coming up With leaves that shamed her stalk, could not be shed, But stuck out heavy veined and muddy hued In time of blossom. There are souls, you know, Who have shed shapeless immaturities, Betrayals of the seed before the blossom Comes to proclaim a beauty, a perfection; Or risen with their stalk, until such leaves Were hidden in the grass or soil--not she, Nor even your Elenor Murray, as I read her. But being America and American, Brings good and bad together, blossom and leaves With prodigal recklessness, in vital health And unselective taste and vision mixed Of beauty and of truth. Who was La Menken? She's born in Louisiana in thirty-five, Left fatherless at seven--mother takes her And puts her in the ballet at New Orleans. She dances then from Texas clear to Cuba; Then gives up dancing, studies tragedy, And plays Bianca! Fourteen years of age Weds Menken, who's a Jew, divorced from him; Then falls in love with Heenan, pugilist. They quarrel and separate--it's in this pamphlet Just as I tell you; you can take it, Coroner. Now something happens, nothing in her birth Or place of birth to prophesy her life Like Starved Rock to this Elenor--being grown, A hand instead is darted from the curtain That hangs between to-day, to-morrow, sticks A symbol on her heart and whispers to her: You're this, my woman. Well, the thing was this: She played Mazeppa: take your dummy off, And lash me to the horse. They were afraid, But she prevailed, was nearly killed the first night, And after that succeeded, was the rage And for her years remaining found herself Lashed to the wild horse of ungoverned will, Which ran and wandered, till she knew herself With stronger will than vision, passion stronger Than spirit to judge; the richness of the world, Love, beauty, living, greater than her power. And all the time she had the appetite To eat, devour it all. Grown sick at last, She diagnosed her case, wrote to a friend: The soul and body do not fit each other-- A human spirit in a horse's flesh. This is your Elenor Murray, in a way. But to return to pansies, run your hand Over a bed of pansies; here's a pansy With petals stunted, here's another one All perfect but one petal, here's another Too streaked or mottled--all are pansies though. And here is one full petaled, strikes the eye With perfect color, markings. Elenor Murray Has something of the color and the form Of this La Menken, but is less a pansy, And Sappho, Rachel, Bernhardt are the flowers La Menken strove to be, and could not be, Ended with being only of their kind. And now there's pity for this Elenor Murray, And people wept when poor La Menken died. Both lived and had their way. I hate this pity, It makes you overlook there are two hours: The hour of joy, the hour of finding out Your joy was all mistake, or led to pain. We who inspect these lives behold the pain, And see the error, do not keep in mind The hour of rapture, and the pride, indeed With which your Elenor Murrays and La Menkens Have lived that hour, elation, pride and scorn For any other way--"this is the life" I hear them say. Well, now I go along. La Menken fills her purse with gold--she sends Her pugilist away, tries once again And weds a humorist, an Orpheus Kerr-- And plays before the miners out in 'Frisco, And Sacramento, gathers in the eagles. She goes to Europe then--with husband? No! James Barkley is her fellow on the voyage. She lands in London, takes a gorgeous suite In London's grandest hostlery, entertains Charles Dickens, Prince Baerto and Charles Read, The Duke of Wellington and Swinburne, Sand And Jenny Lind; and has a liveried coachman; And for a crest a horse's head surmounting Four aces, if you please. And plays Mazeppa, And piles the money up. Then next is Paris. And there I saw her, 1866, When Louis Napoleon and the King of Greece, The Prince Imperial were in a box. She wandered to Vienna, there was ill, Came back to Paris, died, a stranger's grave In Pere la Chaise was given, afterwards Exhumed in Mont Parnasse was buried, got A little stone with these words carved upon it: "Thou Knowest" meaning God knew, while herself Knew nothing of herself. But when in Paris They sold her picture taken with her arms Around Dumas, and photographs made up Of postures ludicrous, obscene as well, Of her and great Dumas, I have them home. Can show you sometime. Well she loved Dumas, Inscribed a book of poems to Charles Dickens, By his permission, mark you--don't you see Your Elenor Murray here? This Elenor Murray A miniature imperfect of La Menken? She loved sensation, all her senses thrilled her; A delicate soul too weighted by the flesh; A coquette, quick of wit, intuitive, Kind, generous, unaffected, mystical, Teased by the divine in life, and melancholy, Of deep emotion sometimes. One has said She had a nature spiritual, religious Which warred upon the flesh and fell in battle; Just as your Elenor Murray joined the church, And did not keep the faith, if truth be told. Now look, here is a letter in this pamphlet La Menken writes a poet--for she hunts For seers and for poets, lofty souls. And who does that? A woman wholly bad? Why no, a woman to be given life Fit for her spirit in another realm By God who will take notice, I believe. Now listen if you will! "I know your soul. It has met mine somewhere in starry space. And you must often meet me, vagabond Of fancy without aim, a dweller in tents Disreputable before the just. Just think I am a linguist, write some poems too, Can paint a little, model clay as well. And yet for all these gropings of my soul I am a vagabond, of little use. My body and my soul are in a scramble And do not fit each other--let them carve Those words upon my stone, but also these Thou Knowest, for God knows me, knows I love Whatever is good and beautiful in life; And that my soul has sought them without rest. Farewell, my friend, my spirit is with you, Vienna is too horrible, but know Paris Then die content." Now, Coroner Merival, You're not the only man who wants to see, Will work to make America a republic Of splendors, freedoms, happiness, success. Though I am seventy-six, cannot do much, Save talk, as I am talking now, bring forth Proofs, revelations from the years I've lived. I care not how you view the lives of people, As pansy beds or what not, lift your faith So high above the pansy bed it sees The streaked and stunted pansies filling in The pattern that the perfect pansies outline, Therefore are smiling, even indifferent To this poor conscious pansy, dying at last Because it could not be the flower it wished. My heart to Elenor Murray and La Menken Goes out in sorrow, even while I know They shook their leaves in April, laughed and thrilled, And either did not know, or did not care The growing time was precious, and if wasted Could never be regained. Look at La Menken At seven years put in the ballet corps; And look at Elenor Murray getting smut Out of experience that made her wise. What shall we do about it?--let it go? And say there is no help, or say a republic, Set up a hundred years ago, raised to the helm Of rulership as president a list Of men more able than the emperors, Kings, rulers of the world, and statesmen too The equal of the greatest, money makers, And domineers of finance and economies Phenomenal in time--say, I repeat A country like this one must let its children Waste as they wasted in the darker years Of Europe. Shall we let these trivial minds Who see salvation, progress in restraint, Pre-empt the field of moulding human life? Or shall we take a hand, and put our minds Upon the task, as recently we built An army for the war, equipped and fed it, An army better than all other armies, More powerful, more apt of hand and brain, Of thin tall youths, who did stop but said Like poor La Menken, strap me to the horse I'll do it if I die--so giving to peace The skill and genius which we use in war, Though it cost twenty billion, and why not? Why every dollar, every drop of blood For war like this to guard democracy, And not so much or more to build the land, Improve our blood, make individual America and her race? And first to rout Poverty and disease, give youth its chance, And therapeutic guidance. Soldier boys Have huts for recreation, clergymen, And is it more, less worth to furnish hands Intimate, hearts intimate for the use Of your La Menkens, Elenor Murrays, youths Who feel such vigor in their restless wings They tumble out of crowded nests and fly To fall in thickets, dash themselves against Walls, trees? I have a vision, Coroner, Of a new Republic, brighter than the sun, A new race, loftier faith, this land of ours Made over as to people, boys and girls, Conserved like forests, water power or mines; Watched, tested, put to best use, keen economies Practiced in spirits, waste of human life, Hope, aspiration, talent, virtues, powers, Avoided by a science, science of life, Of spirit, what you will. Enough of war, And billions for the flag--all well enough! Some billions now to make democracy Democracy in truth with us, and life Not helter-skelter, hitting as it may, And missing much, as this La Menken did. I'm not convinced we must have stunted pansies, That have no use but just to piece the pattern. Let's try, and if we try and fail, why then Our human duty ends, the God in us Will have it just this way, no other way. And then we may accept so poor a world, A republic so unfinished. * * * * * Will Paget is another writer of letters To Coroner Merival. The coroner Spends evenings reading letters, keeps a file Where he preserves them. And the blasphemy Of Paget makes him laugh. He has an evening And reads this letter to the jurymen: WILL PAGET ON DEMOS AND HOGOS To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice Dissentient from much that goes the rounds, Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word: Give men and women freedom, save the land From dull theocracy--the theo, what? A blend of Demos and Jehovah! Say, Bring back your despots, bring your Louis Fourteenths, And give them thrones of gold and ivory From where with leaded sceptres they may whack King Demos driven forth. You know the face? The temples are like sea shells, hollows out, Which narrow close the space for cortex cells. There would be little brow if hair remained; But hair is gone, because the dandruff came. The eyes are close together like a weasel's; The jaws are heavy, that is character; The mouth is thin and wide to gobble chicken; The paunch is heavy for the chickens eaten. Throned high upon a soap box Demos rules, And mumbles decalogues: Thou shalt not read, Save what I tell you, never books that tell Of men and women as they live and are. Thou shalt not see the dramas which portray The evil passions and satiric moods Which mock this Christian nation and its hope. Thou shalt not drink, not even wine or beer. Thou shalt not play at cards, or see the races. Thou shalt not be divorced! Thou shalt not play. Thou shalt not bow to graven images Of beauty cut in marble, fused in bronze. Behold my name is Demos, King of Kings, My name is legion, I am many, come Out of the sea where many hogs were drowned, And now the ruler of hogocracy, Where in the name of freedom hungry snouts Root up the truffles in your great republic, And crunch with heavy jaws the legs and arms Of people who fall over in the pen. Hierarchies in my name are planted under Your states political to sprout and take The new world's soil,--religious freedom this!-- Thought must be free--unless your thought objects To such dominion, and to literal faith In an old book that never had a place Except beside the Koran, Zarathustra. So here is your theocracy and here The land of Boredom. Do you wonder now That people cry for war? You see that God Frowns on all games but war. You shall not play Or kindle spirit with a rapture save A moral end's in view. All joy is sin, Where joy stands for itself alone, nor asks Consent to be, save for itself. But war Waged to put down the wrong, it's always that; To vindicate God's truths, all wars are such, Is game that lets the spirit play, is backed By God and moral reasons, therefore war, A game disguised as business, cosmic work For great millenniums, no less relieves The boredom of theocracies. But if Your men and women had the chance to play, Be free and spend superfluous energies, In what I call the greatest game, that's Life, Have life more freely, deeply, and you say How would you like a war and lose a leg, Or come from battle sick for all your years? You would say no, unless you saw an issue, Stripped clean of Christian twaddle, as we'll say The Greeks beheld the Persians. Well, behold All honest paganism in such things discarded For God who comes in glory, trampling presses Filled up with grapes of wrath. Now hear me out: I knew we'd have a war, it wasn't only That your hogocracy was grunting war We'd fight Japan, take Mexico--remember How dancing flourished madly in the land; Then think of savages who dance the Ghost Dance, And cattle lowing, rushing in a panic, There's psychic secrets here. But then at last What can you do with life? You're well and strong, Flushed with desire, mad with appetites, You turn this way and find a sign forbidden, You turn that way and find the door is closed. Hogocracy, King Demos say, go back, Find work, develop character, restrain, Draw up your belt a little tighter, hunger And thirst diminish with a tighter belt. And none to say, take off the belt and eat, Here's water for you. Well, you have a war. We used to say in foot ball kick their shins, And gouge their eyes out--when our shins were kicked We hollered foul and ouch. There was the south Who called us mud-sills in this freer north, And mouthed democracy; and as for that Their churches made of God a battle leader, An idea come from Palestine; oh, yes, They soon would wipe us up, they were the people. But when we slaughtered them they hollered ouch. And why not? For a gun and uniform, And bands that play are rapturous enough. But when you get a bullet through the heart, The game is not so funny as it was. That's why I hated Germany and hate her, And feel we could not let this German culture Spread over earth. That culture was but this: Life must have an expression and a game, And war's the game, besides the prize is great In land and treasure, commerce, let us play, It lets the people's passions have a vent When fires of life burn hot and hotter under The kettle and the lid is clamped by work, Dull duty, daily routine, inhibitions. Before this Elenor Murray woke to life LeRoy was stirring, but the stir was play. It was a Gretna Green, and pleasure boats Ran up and down the river--on the streets You heard the cry of barkers, in the park The band was playing, and you heard the ring Of registers at fountains and buffets. All this was shabby maybe, but observe There are those souls who see the wrath of God As blackest background to the light of soul: And when the thunder rumbles and the storm Comes up with lightning then they say to men Who laugh in bar-rooms, "Have a care, blasphemers, You may be struck by lightning"--here's the root From which this mood ascetic comes to leaf In all theocracies, and throws a shadow Upon all freedom. Look at us to-day. They say to me, see what a town we have: The men at work, smoke coming from the chimneys, The banks full up of money, business good, The workmen sober, going home at night, No rowdy barkers and no bands a-playing, No drinking and no gaming and no vice. No marriages contracted to be broken. Look how LeRoy is quiet, sane and clean! And I reply, you like the stir of work, But not the stir of play; your chimneys smoke, Your banks have money. Let me look behind The door that closes on your man at home, The wife and children there, what shall I find? A sick man looks to health as it were all, But when the fever leaves him and he feels The store of strength in muscles slumbering And waiting to be used, then something else Than health is needful, he must have a way To voice the life within him, and he wonders Why health seemed so desirable before, And all sufficient to him. Take this girl: Why do you marvel that she rode at night With any man who came along? Good God, If I were born a woman and they put me In a theocracy, hogocracy, I'd do the first thing that came in my mind To give my soul expression. Don't you think You're something of a bully and a coward To ask such model living from this girl When you, my grunting hogos, run the land And bring us scandals like the times of Grant, And poisoned beef sold to the soldier boys, When we were warring Spain, and all this stuff Concerning loot and plunder, malversation, That riots in your cities, printed daily? I roll the panoramic story out To Washington the great--what do I see? It's tangle foot, the sticky smear is dry; But I can find wings, legs and heads, remember How little flies and big were buzzing once Of God and duty, country, virtue, faith; And beating wings, already gummed with sweet, Until their little bellies touched the glue, They sought to fill their bellies with--at last Long silence, which is history, scroll rolled up And spoken of in sacred whispers. Well, I'm glad that Elenor Murray had her fling, If that be really true. I understand What drove her to the war. I think she knew Too much to marry, settle down and live Under the rule of Demos or of Hogos. I wish

threatening

How many times the word 'threatening' appears in the text?

won these acres here For old man Kingston's daughter, who in turn Bound it with limitation for the life Of selfish sons, who keep a caretaker, Who keeps a cow upon it. There's the cow! The land has had no use for thirty years. The children are kept off it. Elenor Murray, This girl whose death makes such a stir, one time Was playing there--but that's another story. I only say for the present, these five acres Made Elenor Murray's life a thing of waste As much as anything, and a damn sight more. For think a minute! Kingston had a daughter Married to Colonel Burton in Kentucky. And Kingston's son was in the Civil War. But just before the war, the Burtons deeded These acres here, which she inherited From old man Kingston, to this Captain Kingston, The son aforesaid of Old Kingston. Well, The deed upon its face was absolute, But really was a deed in trust. The Captain Held title for a year or two, and then An hour before he fought at Shiloh, made A will, and willed acres to his wife, Fee simple and forever. Now you'd think That contemplating death, he'd make a deed Giving these acres back to Mrs. Burton, The sister who had trusted him. I don't know What comes in people's heads, but I believe The want of money is the root of evil, As well as love of money; for this Captain Perhaps would make provision for his wife And infant son, thought that the chiefest thing No matter how he did it, being poor, Willed this land as he did. But anyway He willed it so, went into Shiloh's battle, And fell dead on the field. What happened then? They took this will to probate. As I said I was a lawyer then, you may believe it, Was hired by the Burtons to reclaim These acres from the Widow Kingston's clutch, Under this wicked will. And so I argued The will had not been witnessed according to law. Got beat upon that point in the lower court, But won upon it in the upper courts. Then next I filed a bill to set aside This deed the Burtons made to Captain Kingston-- Oh, I was full of schemes, expedients, In those days, I can tell you. Widow Kingston Came back and filed a cross bill, asked the court To confirm the title in her son and her As heirs of Captain Kingston, let the will Go out of thought and reckoning. Here's the issue; You understand the case, no doubt. We fought Through all the courts. I lost in the lower court, As I lost on the will. There was the deed: For love and affection and one dollar we Convey and warrant lots from one to ten In the city of LeRoy, to Captain Kingston To be his own forever. How to go Behind such words and show the actual trust Inhering in the deed, that was the job. But here I was resourceful as before, Found witnesses to testify they heard This Captain Kingston say he held the acres In trust for Mrs. Burton--but I lost Before the chancellor, had to appeal, But won on the appeal, and thus restored These acres to the Burtons. And for this What did I get? Three hundred lousy dollars. That's why I smoke a pipe; that's also why I quit the business when I saw the business Was making ready to quit me. By God, My life is waste so far as it was used By this law business, and no coroner Need hold an inquest on me to find out What waste was in my life--God damn the law! Well, then I go my way, and take my fee, And pay my bills. The Burtons have the land, And turn a cow upon it. See how nice A playground it would be. I've seen ten sets Of children try to play there--hey! you hear, The caretaker come out, get off of there! And then the children scamper, climb the fence. Well, after while the Burtons die. The will Leaves these five acres to their sons for life, Remainder to the children of the sons. The sons are living yet at middle life, These acres have been tied up twenty years, They may be tied up thirty years beside: The sons can't sell it, and their children can't, Only the cow can use it, as it stands. It grows more valuable as the people come here, And bring in being Elenor Murrays, children, And make the land around it populous. That's what makes poverty, this holding land, It makes the taxes harder on the poor, It makes work scarcer, and it takes your girls And boys and throws them into life half made, Half ready for the battle. Is a country Free where the laws permit such things? Your priests, Your addle-headed preachers mouthing Christ And morals, prohibition, laws to force People to be good, to save the girls, When every half-wit knows environment Takes natures, made unstable in these homes Of poverty and does the trick. That baronet Who mocked our freedom, sailing back for England And said: Your Liberty Statue in the harbor Is just a joke, that baronet is right, While such conditions thrive. Well, look at me Who for three hundred dollars take a part In making a cow pasture for a cow For fifty years or so. I hate myself. And were the Burtons better than this Kingston? Kingston would will away what was not his. The Burtons took what is the gift of God, As much as air, and fenced it out of use-- Save for the cow aforesaid--for the lives Of sons in being. Oh, I know you think I have a grudge. I have. This Elenor Murray Was ten years old I think, this law suit ended Twelve years or so, and I was running down, Was tippling just a little every day; And I came by this lot one afternoon When school was out, a sunny afternoon. The children had no place except the street To play in; they were standing by the fence, The cow was way across the lot, and Elenor Was looking through the fence, some boys and girls Standing around her, and I said to them: "Why don't you climb the fence and play in there?" And Elenor--she always was a leader, And not afraid of anything, said: "Come on," And in a jiffy climbed the fence, the children, Some quicker and some slower, followed her. Some said "They don't allow it." Elenor Stood on the fence, flung up her arms and crowed, And said "What can they do? He says to do it," Pointing at me. And in a moment all of them Were playing and were shouting in the lot. And I stood there and watched them half malicious, And half in pleasure watching them at play. Then I heard "hey!" the care-taker ran out. And said "Get out of there, I will arrest you." He drove them out and as they jumped the fence Some said, "He told us to," pointing at me. And Elenor Murray said "Why, what a lie!" And then the care-taker grabbed Elenor Murray And said, "You are the wildest of them all." I spoke up, saying, "Leave that child alone. I won this God damn land for those you serve, They use it for a cow and nothing else, And let these children run about the streets, When there are grass and dandelions there In plenty for these children, and the cow, And space enough to play in without bothering That solitary cow." I took his hands Away from Elenor Murray; he and I Came face to face with clenched fists--but at last He walked away; the children scampered off. Next day, however, they arrested me For aiding in a _trespass clausam fregit_, And fined me twenty dollars and the costs. Since then the cow has all her way in there. And Elenor Murray left this rotten place, Went to the war, came home and died, and proved She had the sense to leave so vile a world. * * * * * George Joslin ending up his days with dreams Of youth in Europe, travels, and with talk, Stirred to a recollection of a face He saw in Paris fifty years before, Because the face resembled Elenor Murray's, Explored his drawers and boxes, where he kept Mementos, treasures of the olden days. And found a pamphlet, came to Merival, With certain recollections, and with theories Of Elenor Murray:-- GEORGE JOSLIN ON LA MENKEN Here, Coroner Merival, look at this picture! Whom does it look like? Eyes too crystalline, A head like Byron's, tender mouth, and neck, Slender and white, a pathos as of smiles And tears kept back by courage. Yes, you know It looks like Elenor Murray. Well, you see I read each day about the inquest--good! Dig out the truth, begin a system here Of making family records, let us see If we can do for people when we know How best to do it, what is done for stock. So build up Illinois, the nation too. I read about you daily. And last night When Elenor Murray's picture in the _Times_ Looked at me, I began to think, Good Lord, Where have I seen that face before? I thought Through more than fifty years departed, sent My mind through Europe and America In all my travels, meetings, episodes. I could not think. At last I opened up A box of pamphlets, photographs, mementos, Picked up since 1860, and behold I find this pamphlet of La Belle Menken. Here is your Elenor Murray born again, As here might be your blackbird of this year With spots of red upon his wings, the same As last year's blackbird, like a pansy springing Out of the April of this year, repeating The color, form of one you saw last year. Repeating and the same, but not the same; No two alike, you know. I'll come to that. Well, then, La Menken--as a boy in Paris I saw La Menken, I'll return to this. But just as Elenor Murray has her life Shadowed and symbolized by our Starved Rock-- And everyone has something in his life Which takes him, makes him, is the image too Of fate prefigured--La Menken has Mazeppa, Her notable first part as actress, emblem Of spirit, character, and of omen too Of years to come, the thrill of life, the end. Who is La Menken? Symbol of America, One phase of spirit! She was venturesome, Resourceful, daring, hopeful, confident, And as she wrote of self, a vagabond, A dweller in tents, a reveler, and a flame Aspiring but disreputable, coming up With leaves that shamed her stalk, could not be shed, But stuck out heavy veined and muddy hued In time of blossom. There are souls, you know, Who have shed shapeless immaturities, Betrayals of the seed before the blossom Comes to proclaim a beauty, a perfection; Or risen with their stalk, until such leaves Were hidden in the grass or soil--not she, Nor even your Elenor Murray, as I read her. But being America and American, Brings good and bad together, blossom and leaves With prodigal recklessness, in vital health And unselective taste and vision mixed Of beauty and of truth. Who was La Menken? She's born in Louisiana in thirty-five, Left fatherless at seven--mother takes her And puts her in the ballet at New Orleans. She dances then from Texas clear to Cuba; Then gives up dancing, studies tragedy, And plays Bianca! Fourteen years of age Weds Menken, who's a Jew, divorced from him; Then falls in love with Heenan, pugilist. They quarrel and separate--it's in this pamphlet Just as I tell you; you can take it, Coroner. Now something happens, nothing in her birth Or place of birth to prophesy her life Like Starved Rock to this Elenor--being grown, A hand instead is darted from the curtain That hangs between to-day, to-morrow, sticks A symbol on her heart and whispers to her: You're this, my woman. Well, the thing was this: She played Mazeppa: take your dummy off, And lash me to the horse. They were afraid, But she prevailed, was nearly killed the first night, And after that succeeded, was the rage And for her years remaining found herself Lashed to the wild horse of ungoverned will, Which ran and wandered, till she knew herself With stronger will than vision, passion stronger Than spirit to judge; the richness of the world, Love, beauty, living, greater than her power. And all the time she had the appetite To eat, devour it all. Grown sick at last, She diagnosed her case, wrote to a friend: The soul and body do not fit each other-- A human spirit in a horse's flesh. This is your Elenor Murray, in a way. But to return to pansies, run your hand Over a bed of pansies; here's a pansy With petals stunted, here's another one All perfect but one petal, here's another Too streaked or mottled--all are pansies though. And here is one full petaled, strikes the eye With perfect color, markings. Elenor Murray Has something of the color and the form Of this La Menken, but is less a pansy, And Sappho, Rachel, Bernhardt are the flowers La Menken strove to be, and could not be, Ended with being only of their kind. And now there's pity for this Elenor Murray, And people wept when poor La Menken died. Both lived and had their way. I hate this pity, It makes you overlook there are two hours: The hour of joy, the hour of finding out Your joy was all mistake, or led to pain. We who inspect these lives behold the pain, And see the error, do not keep in mind The hour of rapture, and the pride, indeed With which your Elenor Murrays and La Menkens Have lived that hour, elation, pride and scorn For any other way--"this is the life" I hear them say. Well, now I go along. La Menken fills her purse with gold--she sends Her pugilist away, tries once again And weds a humorist, an Orpheus Kerr-- And plays before the miners out in 'Frisco, And Sacramento, gathers in the eagles. She goes to Europe then--with husband? No! James Barkley is her fellow on the voyage. She lands in London, takes a gorgeous suite In London's grandest hostlery, entertains Charles Dickens, Prince Baerto and Charles Read, The Duke of Wellington and Swinburne, Sand And Jenny Lind; and has a liveried coachman; And for a crest a horse's head surmounting Four aces, if you please. And plays Mazeppa, And piles the money up. Then next is Paris. And there I saw her, 1866, When Louis Napoleon and the King of Greece, The Prince Imperial were in a box. She wandered to Vienna, there was ill, Came back to Paris, died, a stranger's grave In Pere la Chaise was given, afterwards Exhumed in Mont Parnasse was buried, got A little stone with these words carved upon it: "Thou Knowest" meaning God knew, while herself Knew nothing of herself. But when in Paris They sold her picture taken with her arms Around Dumas, and photographs made up Of postures ludicrous, obscene as well, Of her and great Dumas, I have them home. Can show you sometime. Well she loved Dumas, Inscribed a book of poems to Charles Dickens, By his permission, mark you--don't you see Your Elenor Murray here? This Elenor Murray A miniature imperfect of La Menken? She loved sensation, all her senses thrilled her; A delicate soul too weighted by the flesh; A coquette, quick of wit, intuitive, Kind, generous, unaffected, mystical, Teased by the divine in life, and melancholy, Of deep emotion sometimes. One has said She had a nature spiritual, religious Which warred upon the flesh and fell in battle; Just as your Elenor Murray joined the church, And did not keep the faith, if truth be told. Now look, here is a letter in this pamphlet La Menken writes a poet--for she hunts For seers and for poets, lofty souls. And who does that? A woman wholly bad? Why no, a woman to be given life Fit for her spirit in another realm By God who will take notice, I believe. Now listen if you will! "I know your soul. It has met mine somewhere in starry space. And you must often meet me, vagabond Of fancy without aim, a dweller in tents Disreputable before the just. Just think I am a linguist, write some poems too, Can paint a little, model clay as well. And yet for all these gropings of my soul I am a vagabond, of little use. My body and my soul are in a scramble And do not fit each other--let them carve Those words upon my stone, but also these Thou Knowest, for God knows me, knows I love Whatever is good and beautiful in life; And that my soul has sought them without rest. Farewell, my friend, my spirit is with you, Vienna is too horrible, but know Paris Then die content." Now, Coroner Merival, You're not the only man who wants to see, Will work to make America a republic Of splendors, freedoms, happiness, success. Though I am seventy-six, cannot do much, Save talk, as I am talking now, bring forth Proofs, revelations from the years I've lived. I care not how you view the lives of people, As pansy beds or what not, lift your faith So high above the pansy bed it sees The streaked and stunted pansies filling in The pattern that the perfect pansies outline, Therefore are smiling, even indifferent To this poor conscious pansy, dying at last Because it could not be the flower it wished. My heart to Elenor Murray and La Menken Goes out in sorrow, even while I know They shook their leaves in April, laughed and thrilled, And either did not know, or did not care The growing time was precious, and if wasted Could never be regained. Look at La Menken At seven years put in the ballet corps; And look at Elenor Murray getting smut Out of experience that made her wise. What shall we do about it?--let it go? And say there is no help, or say a republic, Set up a hundred years ago, raised to the helm Of rulership as president a list Of men more able than the emperors, Kings, rulers of the world, and statesmen too The equal of the greatest, money makers, And domineers of finance and economies Phenomenal in time--say, I repeat A country like this one must let its children Waste as they wasted in the darker years Of Europe. Shall we let these trivial minds Who see salvation, progress in restraint, Pre-empt the field of moulding human life? Or shall we take a hand, and put our minds Upon the task, as recently we built An army for the war, equipped and fed it, An army better than all other armies, More powerful, more apt of hand and brain, Of thin tall youths, who did stop but said Like poor La Menken, strap me to the horse I'll do it if I die--so giving to peace The skill and genius which we use in war, Though it cost twenty billion, and why not? Why every dollar, every drop of blood For war like this to guard democracy, And not so much or more to build the land, Improve our blood, make individual America and her race? And first to rout Poverty and disease, give youth its chance, And therapeutic guidance. Soldier boys Have huts for recreation, clergymen, And is it more, less worth to furnish hands Intimate, hearts intimate for the use Of your La Menkens, Elenor Murrays, youths Who feel such vigor in their restless wings They tumble out of crowded nests and fly To fall in thickets, dash themselves against Walls, trees? I have a vision, Coroner, Of a new Republic, brighter than the sun, A new race, loftier faith, this land of ours Made over as to people, boys and girls, Conserved like forests, water power or mines; Watched, tested, put to best use, keen economies Practiced in spirits, waste of human life, Hope, aspiration, talent, virtues, powers, Avoided by a science, science of life, Of spirit, what you will. Enough of war, And billions for the flag--all well enough! Some billions now to make democracy Democracy in truth with us, and life Not helter-skelter, hitting as it may, And missing much, as this La Menken did. I'm not convinced we must have stunted pansies, That have no use but just to piece the pattern. Let's try, and if we try and fail, why then Our human duty ends, the God in us Will have it just this way, no other way. And then we may accept so poor a world, A republic so unfinished. * * * * * Will Paget is another writer of letters To Coroner Merival. The coroner Spends evenings reading letters, keeps a file Where he preserves them. And the blasphemy Of Paget makes him laugh. He has an evening And reads this letter to the jurymen: WILL PAGET ON DEMOS AND HOGOS To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice Dissentient from much that goes the rounds, Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word: Give men and women freedom, save the land From dull theocracy--the theo, what? A blend of Demos and Jehovah! Say, Bring back your despots, bring your Louis Fourteenths, And give them thrones of gold and ivory From where with leaded sceptres they may whack King Demos driven forth. You know the face? The temples are like sea shells, hollows out, Which narrow close the space for cortex cells. There would be little brow if hair remained; But hair is gone, because the dandruff came. The eyes are close together like a weasel's; The jaws are heavy, that is character; The mouth is thin and wide to gobble chicken; The paunch is heavy for the chickens eaten. Throned high upon a soap box Demos rules, And mumbles decalogues: Thou shalt not read, Save what I tell you, never books that tell Of men and women as they live and are. Thou shalt not see the dramas which portray The evil passions and satiric moods Which mock this Christian nation and its hope. Thou shalt not drink, not even wine or beer. Thou shalt not play at cards, or see the races. Thou shalt not be divorced! Thou shalt not play. Thou shalt not bow to graven images Of beauty cut in marble, fused in bronze. Behold my name is Demos, King of Kings, My name is legion, I am many, come Out of the sea where many hogs were drowned, And now the ruler of hogocracy, Where in the name of freedom hungry snouts Root up the truffles in your great republic, And crunch with heavy jaws the legs and arms Of people who fall over in the pen. Hierarchies in my name are planted under Your states political to sprout and take The new world's soil,--religious freedom this!-- Thought must be free--unless your thought objects To such dominion, and to literal faith In an old book that never had a place Except beside the Koran, Zarathustra. So here is your theocracy and here The land of Boredom. Do you wonder now That people cry for war? You see that God Frowns on all games but war. You shall not play Or kindle spirit with a rapture save A moral end's in view. All joy is sin, Where joy stands for itself alone, nor asks Consent to be, save for itself. But war Waged to put down the wrong, it's always that; To vindicate God's truths, all wars are such, Is game that lets the spirit play, is backed By God and moral reasons, therefore war, A game disguised as business, cosmic work For great millenniums, no less relieves The boredom of theocracies. But if Your men and women had the chance to play, Be free and spend superfluous energies, In what I call the greatest game, that's Life, Have life more freely, deeply, and you say How would you like a war and lose a leg, Or come from battle sick for all your years? You would say no, unless you saw an issue, Stripped clean of Christian twaddle, as we'll say The Greeks beheld the Persians. Well, behold All honest paganism in such things discarded For God who comes in glory, trampling presses Filled up with grapes of wrath. Now hear me out: I knew we'd have a war, it wasn't only That your hogocracy was grunting war We'd fight Japan, take Mexico--remember How dancing flourished madly in the land; Then think of savages who dance the Ghost Dance, And cattle lowing, rushing in a panic, There's psychic secrets here. But then at last What can you do with life? You're well and strong, Flushed with desire, mad with appetites, You turn this way and find a sign forbidden, You turn that way and find the door is closed. Hogocracy, King Demos say, go back, Find work, develop character, restrain, Draw up your belt a little tighter, hunger And thirst diminish with a tighter belt. And none to say, take off the belt and eat, Here's water for you. Well, you have a war. We used to say in foot ball kick their shins, And gouge their eyes out--when our shins were kicked We hollered foul and ouch. There was the south Who called us mud-sills in this freer north, And mouthed democracy; and as for that Their churches made of God a battle leader, An idea come from Palestine; oh, yes, They soon would wipe us up, they were the people. But when we slaughtered them they hollered ouch. And why not? For a gun and uniform, And bands that play are rapturous enough. But when you get a bullet through the heart, The game is not so funny as it was. That's why I hated Germany and hate her, And feel we could not let this German culture Spread over earth. That culture was but this: Life must have an expression and a game, And war's the game, besides the prize is great In land and treasure, commerce, let us play, It lets the people's passions have a vent When fires of life burn hot and hotter under The kettle and the lid is clamped by work, Dull duty, daily routine, inhibitions. Before this Elenor Murray woke to life LeRoy was stirring, but the stir was play. It was a Gretna Green, and pleasure boats Ran up and down the river--on the streets You heard the cry of barkers, in the park The band was playing, and you heard the ring Of registers at fountains and buffets. All this was shabby maybe, but observe There are those souls who see the wrath of God As blackest background to the light of soul: And when the thunder rumbles and the storm Comes up with lightning then they say to men Who laugh in bar-rooms, "Have a care, blasphemers, You may be struck by lightning"--here's the root From which this mood ascetic comes to leaf In all theocracies, and throws a shadow Upon all freedom. Look at us to-day. They say to me, see what a town we have: The men at work, smoke coming from the chimneys, The banks full up of money, business good, The workmen sober, going home at night, No rowdy barkers and no bands a-playing, No drinking and no gaming and no vice. No marriages contracted to be broken. Look how LeRoy is quiet, sane and clean! And I reply, you like the stir of work, But not the stir of play; your chimneys smoke, Your banks have money. Let me look behind The door that closes on your man at home, The wife and children there, what shall I find? A sick man looks to health as it were all, But when the fever leaves him and he feels The store of strength in muscles slumbering And waiting to be used, then something else Than health is needful, he must have a way To voice the life within him, and he wonders Why health seemed so desirable before, And all sufficient to him. Take this girl: Why do you marvel that she rode at night With any man who came along? Good God, If I were born a woman and they put me In a theocracy, hogocracy, I'd do the first thing that came in my mind To give my soul expression. Don't you think You're something of a bully and a coward To ask such model living from this girl When you, my grunting hogos, run the land And bring us scandals like the times of Grant, And poisoned beef sold to the soldier boys, When we were warring Spain, and all this stuff Concerning loot and plunder, malversation, That riots in your cities, printed daily? I roll the panoramic story out To Washington the great--what do I see? It's tangle foot, the sticky smear is dry; But I can find wings, legs and heads, remember How little flies and big were buzzing once Of God and duty, country, virtue, faith; And beating wings, already gummed with sweet, Until their little bellies touched the glue, They sought to fill their bellies with--at last Long silence, which is history, scroll rolled up And spoken of in sacred whispers. Well, I'm glad that Elenor Murray had her fling, If that be really true. I understand What drove her to the war. I think she knew Too much to marry, settle down and live Under the rule of Demos or of Hogos. I wish

before

How many times the word 'before' appears in the text?

won these acres here For old man Kingston's daughter, who in turn Bound it with limitation for the life Of selfish sons, who keep a caretaker, Who keeps a cow upon it. There's the cow! The land has had no use for thirty years. The children are kept off it. Elenor Murray, This girl whose death makes such a stir, one time Was playing there--but that's another story. I only say for the present, these five acres Made Elenor Murray's life a thing of waste As much as anything, and a damn sight more. For think a minute! Kingston had a daughter Married to Colonel Burton in Kentucky. And Kingston's son was in the Civil War. But just before the war, the Burtons deeded These acres here, which she inherited From old man Kingston, to this Captain Kingston, The son aforesaid of Old Kingston. Well, The deed upon its face was absolute, But really was a deed in trust. The Captain Held title for a year or two, and then An hour before he fought at Shiloh, made A will, and willed acres to his wife, Fee simple and forever. Now you'd think That contemplating death, he'd make a deed Giving these acres back to Mrs. Burton, The sister who had trusted him. I don't know What comes in people's heads, but I believe The want of money is the root of evil, As well as love of money; for this Captain Perhaps would make provision for his wife And infant son, thought that the chiefest thing No matter how he did it, being poor, Willed this land as he did. But anyway He willed it so, went into Shiloh's battle, And fell dead on the field. What happened then? They took this will to probate. As I said I was a lawyer then, you may believe it, Was hired by the Burtons to reclaim These acres from the Widow Kingston's clutch, Under this wicked will. And so I argued The will had not been witnessed according to law. Got beat upon that point in the lower court, But won upon it in the upper courts. Then next I filed a bill to set aside This deed the Burtons made to Captain Kingston-- Oh, I was full of schemes, expedients, In those days, I can tell you. Widow Kingston Came back and filed a cross bill, asked the court To confirm the title in her son and her As heirs of Captain Kingston, let the will Go out of thought and reckoning. Here's the issue; You understand the case, no doubt. We fought Through all the courts. I lost in the lower court, As I lost on the will. There was the deed: For love and affection and one dollar we Convey and warrant lots from one to ten In the city of LeRoy, to Captain Kingston To be his own forever. How to go Behind such words and show the actual trust Inhering in the deed, that was the job. But here I was resourceful as before, Found witnesses to testify they heard This Captain Kingston say he held the acres In trust for Mrs. Burton--but I lost Before the chancellor, had to appeal, But won on the appeal, and thus restored These acres to the Burtons. And for this What did I get? Three hundred lousy dollars. That's why I smoke a pipe; that's also why I quit the business when I saw the business Was making ready to quit me. By God, My life is waste so far as it was used By this law business, and no coroner Need hold an inquest on me to find out What waste was in my life--God damn the law! Well, then I go my way, and take my fee, And pay my bills. The Burtons have the land, And turn a cow upon it. See how nice A playground it would be. I've seen ten sets Of children try to play there--hey! you hear, The caretaker come out, get off of there! And then the children scamper, climb the fence. Well, after while the Burtons die. The will Leaves these five acres to their sons for life, Remainder to the children of the sons. The sons are living yet at middle life, These acres have been tied up twenty years, They may be tied up thirty years beside: The sons can't sell it, and their children can't, Only the cow can use it, as it stands. It grows more valuable as the people come here, And bring in being Elenor Murrays, children, And make the land around it populous. That's what makes poverty, this holding land, It makes the taxes harder on the poor, It makes work scarcer, and it takes your girls And boys and throws them into life half made, Half ready for the battle. Is a country Free where the laws permit such things? Your priests, Your addle-headed preachers mouthing Christ And morals, prohibition, laws to force People to be good, to save the girls, When every half-wit knows environment Takes natures, made unstable in these homes Of poverty and does the trick. That baronet Who mocked our freedom, sailing back for England And said: Your Liberty Statue in the harbor Is just a joke, that baronet is right, While such conditions thrive. Well, look at me Who for three hundred dollars take a part In making a cow pasture for a cow For fifty years or so. I hate myself. And were the Burtons better than this Kingston? Kingston would will away what was not his. The Burtons took what is the gift of God, As much as air, and fenced it out of use-- Save for the cow aforesaid--for the lives Of sons in being. Oh, I know you think I have a grudge. I have. This Elenor Murray Was ten years old I think, this law suit ended Twelve years or so, and I was running down, Was tippling just a little every day; And I came by this lot one afternoon When school was out, a sunny afternoon. The children had no place except the street To play in; they were standing by the fence, The cow was way across the lot, and Elenor Was looking through the fence, some boys and girls Standing around her, and I said to them: "Why don't you climb the fence and play in there?" And Elenor--she always was a leader, And not afraid of anything, said: "Come on," And in a jiffy climbed the fence, the children, Some quicker and some slower, followed her. Some said "They don't allow it." Elenor Stood on the fence, flung up her arms and crowed, And said "What can they do? He says to do it," Pointing at me. And in a moment all of them Were playing and were shouting in the lot. And I stood there and watched them half malicious, And half in pleasure watching them at play. Then I heard "hey!" the care-taker ran out. And said "Get out of there, I will arrest you." He drove them out and as they jumped the fence Some said, "He told us to," pointing at me. And Elenor Murray said "Why, what a lie!" And then the care-taker grabbed Elenor Murray And said, "You are the wildest of them all." I spoke up, saying, "Leave that child alone. I won this God damn land for those you serve, They use it for a cow and nothing else, And let these children run about the streets, When there are grass and dandelions there In plenty for these children, and the cow, And space enough to play in without bothering That solitary cow." I took his hands Away from Elenor Murray; he and I Came face to face with clenched fists--but at last He walked away; the children scampered off. Next day, however, they arrested me For aiding in a _trespass clausam fregit_, And fined me twenty dollars and the costs. Since then the cow has all her way in there. And Elenor Murray left this rotten place, Went to the war, came home and died, and proved She had the sense to leave so vile a world. * * * * * George Joslin ending up his days with dreams Of youth in Europe, travels, and with talk, Stirred to a recollection of a face He saw in Paris fifty years before, Because the face resembled Elenor Murray's, Explored his drawers and boxes, where he kept Mementos, treasures of the olden days. And found a pamphlet, came to Merival, With certain recollections, and with theories Of Elenor Murray:-- GEORGE JOSLIN ON LA MENKEN Here, Coroner Merival, look at this picture! Whom does it look like? Eyes too crystalline, A head like Byron's, tender mouth, and neck, Slender and white, a pathos as of smiles And tears kept back by courage. Yes, you know It looks like Elenor Murray. Well, you see I read each day about the inquest--good! Dig out the truth, begin a system here Of making family records, let us see If we can do for people when we know How best to do it, what is done for stock. So build up Illinois, the nation too. I read about you daily. And last night When Elenor Murray's picture in the _Times_ Looked at me, I began to think, Good Lord, Where have I seen that face before? I thought Through more than fifty years departed, sent My mind through Europe and America In all my travels, meetings, episodes. I could not think. At last I opened up A box of pamphlets, photographs, mementos, Picked up since 1860, and behold I find this pamphlet of La Belle Menken. Here is your Elenor Murray born again, As here might be your blackbird of this year With spots of red upon his wings, the same As last year's blackbird, like a pansy springing Out of the April of this year, repeating The color, form of one you saw last year. Repeating and the same, but not the same; No two alike, you know. I'll come to that. Well, then, La Menken--as a boy in Paris I saw La Menken, I'll return to this. But just as Elenor Murray has her life Shadowed and symbolized by our Starved Rock-- And everyone has something in his life Which takes him, makes him, is the image too Of fate prefigured--La Menken has Mazeppa, Her notable first part as actress, emblem Of spirit, character, and of omen too Of years to come, the thrill of life, the end. Who is La Menken? Symbol of America, One phase of spirit! She was venturesome, Resourceful, daring, hopeful, confident, And as she wrote of self, a vagabond, A dweller in tents, a reveler, and a flame Aspiring but disreputable, coming up With leaves that shamed her stalk, could not be shed, But stuck out heavy veined and muddy hued In time of blossom. There are souls, you know, Who have shed shapeless immaturities, Betrayals of the seed before the blossom Comes to proclaim a beauty, a perfection; Or risen with their stalk, until such leaves Were hidden in the grass or soil--not she, Nor even your Elenor Murray, as I read her. But being America and American, Brings good and bad together, blossom and leaves With prodigal recklessness, in vital health And unselective taste and vision mixed Of beauty and of truth. Who was La Menken? She's born in Louisiana in thirty-five, Left fatherless at seven--mother takes her And puts her in the ballet at New Orleans. She dances then from Texas clear to Cuba; Then gives up dancing, studies tragedy, And plays Bianca! Fourteen years of age Weds Menken, who's a Jew, divorced from him; Then falls in love with Heenan, pugilist. They quarrel and separate--it's in this pamphlet Just as I tell you; you can take it, Coroner. Now something happens, nothing in her birth Or place of birth to prophesy her life Like Starved Rock to this Elenor--being grown, A hand instead is darted from the curtain That hangs between to-day, to-morrow, sticks A symbol on her heart and whispers to her: You're this, my woman. Well, the thing was this: She played Mazeppa: take your dummy off, And lash me to the horse. They were afraid, But she prevailed, was nearly killed the first night, And after that succeeded, was the rage And for her years remaining found herself Lashed to the wild horse of ungoverned will, Which ran and wandered, till she knew herself With stronger will than vision, passion stronger Than spirit to judge; the richness of the world, Love, beauty, living, greater than her power. And all the time she had the appetite To eat, devour it all. Grown sick at last, She diagnosed her case, wrote to a friend: The soul and body do not fit each other-- A human spirit in a horse's flesh. This is your Elenor Murray, in a way. But to return to pansies, run your hand Over a bed of pansies; here's a pansy With petals stunted, here's another one All perfect but one petal, here's another Too streaked or mottled--all are pansies though. And here is one full petaled, strikes the eye With perfect color, markings. Elenor Murray Has something of the color and the form Of this La Menken, but is less a pansy, And Sappho, Rachel, Bernhardt are the flowers La Menken strove to be, and could not be, Ended with being only of their kind. And now there's pity for this Elenor Murray, And people wept when poor La Menken died. Both lived and had their way. I hate this pity, It makes you overlook there are two hours: The hour of joy, the hour of finding out Your joy was all mistake, or led to pain. We who inspect these lives behold the pain, And see the error, do not keep in mind The hour of rapture, and the pride, indeed With which your Elenor Murrays and La Menkens Have lived that hour, elation, pride and scorn For any other way--"this is the life" I hear them say. Well, now I go along. La Menken fills her purse with gold--she sends Her pugilist away, tries once again And weds a humorist, an Orpheus Kerr-- And plays before the miners out in 'Frisco, And Sacramento, gathers in the eagles. She goes to Europe then--with husband? No! James Barkley is her fellow on the voyage. She lands in London, takes a gorgeous suite In London's grandest hostlery, entertains Charles Dickens, Prince Baerto and Charles Read, The Duke of Wellington and Swinburne, Sand And Jenny Lind; and has a liveried coachman; And for a crest a horse's head surmounting Four aces, if you please. And plays Mazeppa, And piles the money up. Then next is Paris. And there I saw her, 1866, When Louis Napoleon and the King of Greece, The Prince Imperial were in a box. She wandered to Vienna, there was ill, Came back to Paris, died, a stranger's grave In Pere la Chaise was given, afterwards Exhumed in Mont Parnasse was buried, got A little stone with these words carved upon it: "Thou Knowest" meaning God knew, while herself Knew nothing of herself. But when in Paris They sold her picture taken with her arms Around Dumas, and photographs made up Of postures ludicrous, obscene as well, Of her and great Dumas, I have them home. Can show you sometime. Well she loved Dumas, Inscribed a book of poems to Charles Dickens, By his permission, mark you--don't you see Your Elenor Murray here? This Elenor Murray A miniature imperfect of La Menken? She loved sensation, all her senses thrilled her; A delicate soul too weighted by the flesh; A coquette, quick of wit, intuitive, Kind, generous, unaffected, mystical, Teased by the divine in life, and melancholy, Of deep emotion sometimes. One has said She had a nature spiritual, religious Which warred upon the flesh and fell in battle; Just as your Elenor Murray joined the church, And did not keep the faith, if truth be told. Now look, here is a letter in this pamphlet La Menken writes a poet--for she hunts For seers and for poets, lofty souls. And who does that? A woman wholly bad? Why no, a woman to be given life Fit for her spirit in another realm By God who will take notice, I believe. Now listen if you will! "I know your soul. It has met mine somewhere in starry space. And you must often meet me, vagabond Of fancy without aim, a dweller in tents Disreputable before the just. Just think I am a linguist, write some poems too, Can paint a little, model clay as well. And yet for all these gropings of my soul I am a vagabond, of little use. My body and my soul are in a scramble And do not fit each other--let them carve Those words upon my stone, but also these Thou Knowest, for God knows me, knows I love Whatever is good and beautiful in life; And that my soul has sought them without rest. Farewell, my friend, my spirit is with you, Vienna is too horrible, but know Paris Then die content." Now, Coroner Merival, You're not the only man who wants to see, Will work to make America a republic Of splendors, freedoms, happiness, success. Though I am seventy-six, cannot do much, Save talk, as I am talking now, bring forth Proofs, revelations from the years I've lived. I care not how you view the lives of people, As pansy beds or what not, lift your faith So high above the pansy bed it sees The streaked and stunted pansies filling in The pattern that the perfect pansies outline, Therefore are smiling, even indifferent To this poor conscious pansy, dying at last Because it could not be the flower it wished. My heart to Elenor Murray and La Menken Goes out in sorrow, even while I know They shook their leaves in April, laughed and thrilled, And either did not know, or did not care The growing time was precious, and if wasted Could never be regained. Look at La Menken At seven years put in the ballet corps; And look at Elenor Murray getting smut Out of experience that made her wise. What shall we do about it?--let it go? And say there is no help, or say a republic, Set up a hundred years ago, raised to the helm Of rulership as president a list Of men more able than the emperors, Kings, rulers of the world, and statesmen too The equal of the greatest, money makers, And domineers of finance and economies Phenomenal in time--say, I repeat A country like this one must let its children Waste as they wasted in the darker years Of Europe. Shall we let these trivial minds Who see salvation, progress in restraint, Pre-empt the field of moulding human life? Or shall we take a hand, and put our minds Upon the task, as recently we built An army for the war, equipped and fed it, An army better than all other armies, More powerful, more apt of hand and brain, Of thin tall youths, who did stop but said Like poor La Menken, strap me to the horse I'll do it if I die--so giving to peace The skill and genius which we use in war, Though it cost twenty billion, and why not? Why every dollar, every drop of blood For war like this to guard democracy, And not so much or more to build the land, Improve our blood, make individual America and her race? And first to rout Poverty and disease, give youth its chance, And therapeutic guidance. Soldier boys Have huts for recreation, clergymen, And is it more, less worth to furnish hands Intimate, hearts intimate for the use Of your La Menkens, Elenor Murrays, youths Who feel such vigor in their restless wings They tumble out of crowded nests and fly To fall in thickets, dash themselves against Walls, trees? I have a vision, Coroner, Of a new Republic, brighter than the sun, A new race, loftier faith, this land of ours Made over as to people, boys and girls, Conserved like forests, water power or mines; Watched, tested, put to best use, keen economies Practiced in spirits, waste of human life, Hope, aspiration, talent, virtues, powers, Avoided by a science, science of life, Of spirit, what you will. Enough of war, And billions for the flag--all well enough! Some billions now to make democracy Democracy in truth with us, and life Not helter-skelter, hitting as it may, And missing much, as this La Menken did. I'm not convinced we must have stunted pansies, That have no use but just to piece the pattern. Let's try, and if we try and fail, why then Our human duty ends, the God in us Will have it just this way, no other way. And then we may accept so poor a world, A republic so unfinished. * * * * * Will Paget is another writer of letters To Coroner Merival. The coroner Spends evenings reading letters, keeps a file Where he preserves them. And the blasphemy Of Paget makes him laugh. He has an evening And reads this letter to the jurymen: WILL PAGET ON DEMOS AND HOGOS To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice Dissentient from much that goes the rounds, Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word: Give men and women freedom, save the land From dull theocracy--the theo, what? A blend of Demos and Jehovah! Say, Bring back your despots, bring your Louis Fourteenths, And give them thrones of gold and ivory From where with leaded sceptres they may whack King Demos driven forth. You know the face? The temples are like sea shells, hollows out, Which narrow close the space for cortex cells. There would be little brow if hair remained; But hair is gone, because the dandruff came. The eyes are close together like a weasel's; The jaws are heavy, that is character; The mouth is thin and wide to gobble chicken; The paunch is heavy for the chickens eaten. Throned high upon a soap box Demos rules, And mumbles decalogues: Thou shalt not read, Save what I tell you, never books that tell Of men and women as they live and are. Thou shalt not see the dramas which portray The evil passions and satiric moods Which mock this Christian nation and its hope. Thou shalt not drink, not even wine or beer. Thou shalt not play at cards, or see the races. Thou shalt not be divorced! Thou shalt not play. Thou shalt not bow to graven images Of beauty cut in marble, fused in bronze. Behold my name is Demos, King of Kings, My name is legion, I am many, come Out of the sea where many hogs were drowned, And now the ruler of hogocracy, Where in the name of freedom hungry snouts Root up the truffles in your great republic, And crunch with heavy jaws the legs and arms Of people who fall over in the pen. Hierarchies in my name are planted under Your states political to sprout and take The new world's soil,--religious freedom this!-- Thought must be free--unless your thought objects To such dominion, and to literal faith In an old book that never had a place Except beside the Koran, Zarathustra. So here is your theocracy and here The land of Boredom. Do you wonder now That people cry for war? You see that God Frowns on all games but war. You shall not play Or kindle spirit with a rapture save A moral end's in view. All joy is sin, Where joy stands for itself alone, nor asks Consent to be, save for itself. But war Waged to put down the wrong, it's always that; To vindicate God's truths, all wars are such, Is game that lets the spirit play, is backed By God and moral reasons, therefore war, A game disguised as business, cosmic work For great millenniums, no less relieves The boredom of theocracies. But if Your men and women had the chance to play, Be free and spend superfluous energies, In what I call the greatest game, that's Life, Have life more freely, deeply, and you say How would you like a war and lose a leg, Or come from battle sick for all your years? You would say no, unless you saw an issue, Stripped clean of Christian twaddle, as we'll say The Greeks beheld the Persians. Well, behold All honest paganism in such things discarded For God who comes in glory, trampling presses Filled up with grapes of wrath. Now hear me out: I knew we'd have a war, it wasn't only That your hogocracy was grunting war We'd fight Japan, take Mexico--remember How dancing flourished madly in the land; Then think of savages who dance the Ghost Dance, And cattle lowing, rushing in a panic, There's psychic secrets here. But then at last What can you do with life? You're well and strong, Flushed with desire, mad with appetites, You turn this way and find a sign forbidden, You turn that way and find the door is closed. Hogocracy, King Demos say, go back, Find work, develop character, restrain, Draw up your belt a little tighter, hunger And thirst diminish with a tighter belt. And none to say, take off the belt and eat, Here's water for you. Well, you have a war. We used to say in foot ball kick their shins, And gouge their eyes out--when our shins were kicked We hollered foul and ouch. There was the south Who called us mud-sills in this freer north, And mouthed democracy; and as for that Their churches made of God a battle leader, An idea come from Palestine; oh, yes, They soon would wipe us up, they were the people. But when we slaughtered them they hollered ouch. And why not? For a gun and uniform, And bands that play are rapturous enough. But when you get a bullet through the heart, The game is not so funny as it was. That's why I hated Germany and hate her, And feel we could not let this German culture Spread over earth. That culture was but this: Life must have an expression and a game, And war's the game, besides the prize is great In land and treasure, commerce, let us play, It lets the people's passions have a vent When fires of life burn hot and hotter under The kettle and the lid is clamped by work, Dull duty, daily routine, inhibitions. Before this Elenor Murray woke to life LeRoy was stirring, but the stir was play. It was a Gretna Green, and pleasure boats Ran up and down the river--on the streets You heard the cry of barkers, in the park The band was playing, and you heard the ring Of registers at fountains and buffets. All this was shabby maybe, but observe There are those souls who see the wrath of God As blackest background to the light of soul: And when the thunder rumbles and the storm Comes up with lightning then they say to men Who laugh in bar-rooms, "Have a care, blasphemers, You may be struck by lightning"--here's the root From which this mood ascetic comes to leaf In all theocracies, and throws a shadow Upon all freedom. Look at us to-day. They say to me, see what a town we have: The men at work, smoke coming from the chimneys, The banks full up of money, business good, The workmen sober, going home at night, No rowdy barkers and no bands a-playing, No drinking and no gaming and no vice. No marriages contracted to be broken. Look how LeRoy is quiet, sane and clean! And I reply, you like the stir of work, But not the stir of play; your chimneys smoke, Your banks have money. Let me look behind The door that closes on your man at home, The wife and children there, what shall I find? A sick man looks to health as it were all, But when the fever leaves him and he feels The store of strength in muscles slumbering And waiting to be used, then something else Than health is needful, he must have a way To voice the life within him, and he wonders Why health seemed so desirable before, And all sufficient to him. Take this girl: Why do you marvel that she rode at night With any man who came along? Good God, If I were born a woman and they put me In a theocracy, hogocracy, I'd do the first thing that came in my mind To give my soul expression. Don't you think You're something of a bully and a coward To ask such model living from this girl When you, my grunting hogos, run the land And bring us scandals like the times of Grant, And poisoned beef sold to the soldier boys, When we were warring Spain, and all this stuff Concerning loot and plunder, malversation, That riots in your cities, printed daily? I roll the panoramic story out To Washington the great--what do I see? It's tangle foot, the sticky smear is dry; But I can find wings, legs and heads, remember How little flies and big were buzzing once Of God and duty, country, virtue, faith; And beating wings, already gummed with sweet, Until their little bellies touched the glue, They sought to fill their bellies with--at last Long silence, which is history, scroll rolled up And spoken of in sacred whispers. Well, I'm glad that Elenor Murray had her fling, If that be really true. I understand What drove her to the war. I think she knew Too much to marry, settle down and live Under the rule of Demos or of Hogos. I wish

place

How many times the word 'place' appears in the text?

won these acres here For old man Kingston's daughter, who in turn Bound it with limitation for the life Of selfish sons, who keep a caretaker, Who keeps a cow upon it. There's the cow! The land has had no use for thirty years. The children are kept off it. Elenor Murray, This girl whose death makes such a stir, one time Was playing there--but that's another story. I only say for the present, these five acres Made Elenor Murray's life a thing of waste As much as anything, and a damn sight more. For think a minute! Kingston had a daughter Married to Colonel Burton in Kentucky. And Kingston's son was in the Civil War. But just before the war, the Burtons deeded These acres here, which she inherited From old man Kingston, to this Captain Kingston, The son aforesaid of Old Kingston. Well, The deed upon its face was absolute, But really was a deed in trust. The Captain Held title for a year or two, and then An hour before he fought at Shiloh, made A will, and willed acres to his wife, Fee simple and forever. Now you'd think That contemplating death, he'd make a deed Giving these acres back to Mrs. Burton, The sister who had trusted him. I don't know What comes in people's heads, but I believe The want of money is the root of evil, As well as love of money; for this Captain Perhaps would make provision for his wife And infant son, thought that the chiefest thing No matter how he did it, being poor, Willed this land as he did. But anyway He willed it so, went into Shiloh's battle, And fell dead on the field. What happened then? They took this will to probate. As I said I was a lawyer then, you may believe it, Was hired by the Burtons to reclaim These acres from the Widow Kingston's clutch, Under this wicked will. And so I argued The will had not been witnessed according to law. Got beat upon that point in the lower court, But won upon it in the upper courts. Then next I filed a bill to set aside This deed the Burtons made to Captain Kingston-- Oh, I was full of schemes, expedients, In those days, I can tell you. Widow Kingston Came back and filed a cross bill, asked the court To confirm the title in her son and her As heirs of Captain Kingston, let the will Go out of thought and reckoning. Here's the issue; You understand the case, no doubt. We fought Through all the courts. I lost in the lower court, As I lost on the will. There was the deed: For love and affection and one dollar we Convey and warrant lots from one to ten In the city of LeRoy, to Captain Kingston To be his own forever. How to go Behind such words and show the actual trust Inhering in the deed, that was the job. But here I was resourceful as before, Found witnesses to testify they heard This Captain Kingston say he held the acres In trust for Mrs. Burton--but I lost Before the chancellor, had to appeal, But won on the appeal, and thus restored These acres to the Burtons. And for this What did I get? Three hundred lousy dollars. That's why I smoke a pipe; that's also why I quit the business when I saw the business Was making ready to quit me. By God, My life is waste so far as it was used By this law business, and no coroner Need hold an inquest on me to find out What waste was in my life--God damn the law! Well, then I go my way, and take my fee, And pay my bills. The Burtons have the land, And turn a cow upon it. See how nice A playground it would be. I've seen ten sets Of children try to play there--hey! you hear, The caretaker come out, get off of there! And then the children scamper, climb the fence. Well, after while the Burtons die. The will Leaves these five acres to their sons for life, Remainder to the children of the sons. The sons are living yet at middle life, These acres have been tied up twenty years, They may be tied up thirty years beside: The sons can't sell it, and their children can't, Only the cow can use it, as it stands. It grows more valuable as the people come here, And bring in being Elenor Murrays, children, And make the land around it populous. That's what makes poverty, this holding land, It makes the taxes harder on the poor, It makes work scarcer, and it takes your girls And boys and throws them into life half made, Half ready for the battle. Is a country Free where the laws permit such things? Your priests, Your addle-headed preachers mouthing Christ And morals, prohibition, laws to force People to be good, to save the girls, When every half-wit knows environment Takes natures, made unstable in these homes Of poverty and does the trick. That baronet Who mocked our freedom, sailing back for England And said: Your Liberty Statue in the harbor Is just a joke, that baronet is right, While such conditions thrive. Well, look at me Who for three hundred dollars take a part In making a cow pasture for a cow For fifty years or so. I hate myself. And were the Burtons better than this Kingston? Kingston would will away what was not his. The Burtons took what is the gift of God, As much as air, and fenced it out of use-- Save for the cow aforesaid--for the lives Of sons in being. Oh, I know you think I have a grudge. I have. This Elenor Murray Was ten years old I think, this law suit ended Twelve years or so, and I was running down, Was tippling just a little every day; And I came by this lot one afternoon When school was out, a sunny afternoon. The children had no place except the street To play in; they were standing by the fence, The cow was way across the lot, and Elenor Was looking through the fence, some boys and girls Standing around her, and I said to them: "Why don't you climb the fence and play in there?" And Elenor--she always was a leader, And not afraid of anything, said: "Come on," And in a jiffy climbed the fence, the children, Some quicker and some slower, followed her. Some said "They don't allow it." Elenor Stood on the fence, flung up her arms and crowed, And said "What can they do? He says to do it," Pointing at me. And in a moment all of them Were playing and were shouting in the lot. And I stood there and watched them half malicious, And half in pleasure watching them at play. Then I heard "hey!" the care-taker ran out. And said "Get out of there, I will arrest you." He drove them out and as they jumped the fence Some said, "He told us to," pointing at me. And Elenor Murray said "Why, what a lie!" And then the care-taker grabbed Elenor Murray And said, "You are the wildest of them all." I spoke up, saying, "Leave that child alone. I won this God damn land for those you serve, They use it for a cow and nothing else, And let these children run about the streets, When there are grass and dandelions there In plenty for these children, and the cow, And space enough to play in without bothering That solitary cow." I took his hands Away from Elenor Murray; he and I Came face to face with clenched fists--but at last He walked away; the children scampered off. Next day, however, they arrested me For aiding in a _trespass clausam fregit_, And fined me twenty dollars and the costs. Since then the cow has all her way in there. And Elenor Murray left this rotten place, Went to the war, came home and died, and proved She had the sense to leave so vile a world. * * * * * George Joslin ending up his days with dreams Of youth in Europe, travels, and with talk, Stirred to a recollection of a face He saw in Paris fifty years before, Because the face resembled Elenor Murray's, Explored his drawers and boxes, where he kept Mementos, treasures of the olden days. And found a pamphlet, came to Merival, With certain recollections, and with theories Of Elenor Murray:-- GEORGE JOSLIN ON LA MENKEN Here, Coroner Merival, look at this picture! Whom does it look like? Eyes too crystalline, A head like Byron's, tender mouth, and neck, Slender and white, a pathos as of smiles And tears kept back by courage. Yes, you know It looks like Elenor Murray. Well, you see I read each day about the inquest--good! Dig out the truth, begin a system here Of making family records, let us see If we can do for people when we know How best to do it, what is done for stock. So build up Illinois, the nation too. I read about you daily. And last night When Elenor Murray's picture in the _Times_ Looked at me, I began to think, Good Lord, Where have I seen that face before? I thought Through more than fifty years departed, sent My mind through Europe and America In all my travels, meetings, episodes. I could not think. At last I opened up A box of pamphlets, photographs, mementos, Picked up since 1860, and behold I find this pamphlet of La Belle Menken. Here is your Elenor Murray born again, As here might be your blackbird of this year With spots of red upon his wings, the same As last year's blackbird, like a pansy springing Out of the April of this year, repeating The color, form of one you saw last year. Repeating and the same, but not the same; No two alike, you know. I'll come to that. Well, then, La Menken--as a boy in Paris I saw La Menken, I'll return to this. But just as Elenor Murray has her life Shadowed and symbolized by our Starved Rock-- And everyone has something in his life Which takes him, makes him, is the image too Of fate prefigured--La Menken has Mazeppa, Her notable first part as actress, emblem Of spirit, character, and of omen too Of years to come, the thrill of life, the end. Who is La Menken? Symbol of America, One phase of spirit! She was venturesome, Resourceful, daring, hopeful, confident, And as she wrote of self, a vagabond, A dweller in tents, a reveler, and a flame Aspiring but disreputable, coming up With leaves that shamed her stalk, could not be shed, But stuck out heavy veined and muddy hued In time of blossom. There are souls, you know, Who have shed shapeless immaturities, Betrayals of the seed before the blossom Comes to proclaim a beauty, a perfection; Or risen with their stalk, until such leaves Were hidden in the grass or soil--not she, Nor even your Elenor Murray, as I read her. But being America and American, Brings good and bad together, blossom and leaves With prodigal recklessness, in vital health And unselective taste and vision mixed Of beauty and of truth. Who was La Menken? She's born in Louisiana in thirty-five, Left fatherless at seven--mother takes her And puts her in the ballet at New Orleans. She dances then from Texas clear to Cuba; Then gives up dancing, studies tragedy, And plays Bianca! Fourteen years of age Weds Menken, who's a Jew, divorced from him; Then falls in love with Heenan, pugilist. They quarrel and separate--it's in this pamphlet Just as I tell you; you can take it, Coroner. Now something happens, nothing in her birth Or place of birth to prophesy her life Like Starved Rock to this Elenor--being grown, A hand instead is darted from the curtain That hangs between to-day, to-morrow, sticks A symbol on her heart and whispers to her: You're this, my woman. Well, the thing was this: She played Mazeppa: take your dummy off, And lash me to the horse. They were afraid, But she prevailed, was nearly killed the first night, And after that succeeded, was the rage And for her years remaining found herself Lashed to the wild horse of ungoverned will, Which ran and wandered, till she knew herself With stronger will than vision, passion stronger Than spirit to judge; the richness of the world, Love, beauty, living, greater than her power. And all the time she had the appetite To eat, devour it all. Grown sick at last, She diagnosed her case, wrote to a friend: The soul and body do not fit each other-- A human spirit in a horse's flesh. This is your Elenor Murray, in a way. But to return to pansies, run your hand Over a bed of pansies; here's a pansy With petals stunted, here's another one All perfect but one petal, here's another Too streaked or mottled--all are pansies though. And here is one full petaled, strikes the eye With perfect color, markings. Elenor Murray Has something of the color and the form Of this La Menken, but is less a pansy, And Sappho, Rachel, Bernhardt are the flowers La Menken strove to be, and could not be, Ended with being only of their kind. And now there's pity for this Elenor Murray, And people wept when poor La Menken died. Both lived and had their way. I hate this pity, It makes you overlook there are two hours: The hour of joy, the hour of finding out Your joy was all mistake, or led to pain. We who inspect these lives behold the pain, And see the error, do not keep in mind The hour of rapture, and the pride, indeed With which your Elenor Murrays and La Menkens Have lived that hour, elation, pride and scorn For any other way--"this is the life" I hear them say. Well, now I go along. La Menken fills her purse with gold--she sends Her pugilist away, tries once again And weds a humorist, an Orpheus Kerr-- And plays before the miners out in 'Frisco, And Sacramento, gathers in the eagles. She goes to Europe then--with husband? No! James Barkley is her fellow on the voyage. She lands in London, takes a gorgeous suite In London's grandest hostlery, entertains Charles Dickens, Prince Baerto and Charles Read, The Duke of Wellington and Swinburne, Sand And Jenny Lind; and has a liveried coachman; And for a crest a horse's head surmounting Four aces, if you please. And plays Mazeppa, And piles the money up. Then next is Paris. And there I saw her, 1866, When Louis Napoleon and the King of Greece, The Prince Imperial were in a box. She wandered to Vienna, there was ill, Came back to Paris, died, a stranger's grave In Pere la Chaise was given, afterwards Exhumed in Mont Parnasse was buried, got A little stone with these words carved upon it: "Thou Knowest" meaning God knew, while herself Knew nothing of herself. But when in Paris They sold her picture taken with her arms Around Dumas, and photographs made up Of postures ludicrous, obscene as well, Of her and great Dumas, I have them home. Can show you sometime. Well she loved Dumas, Inscribed a book of poems to Charles Dickens, By his permission, mark you--don't you see Your Elenor Murray here? This Elenor Murray A miniature imperfect of La Menken? She loved sensation, all her senses thrilled her; A delicate soul too weighted by the flesh; A coquette, quick of wit, intuitive, Kind, generous, unaffected, mystical, Teased by the divine in life, and melancholy, Of deep emotion sometimes. One has said She had a nature spiritual, religious Which warred upon the flesh and fell in battle; Just as your Elenor Murray joined the church, And did not keep the faith, if truth be told. Now look, here is a letter in this pamphlet La Menken writes a poet--for she hunts For seers and for poets, lofty souls. And who does that? A woman wholly bad? Why no, a woman to be given life Fit for her spirit in another realm By God who will take notice, I believe. Now listen if you will! "I know your soul. It has met mine somewhere in starry space. And you must often meet me, vagabond Of fancy without aim, a dweller in tents Disreputable before the just. Just think I am a linguist, write some poems too, Can paint a little, model clay as well. And yet for all these gropings of my soul I am a vagabond, of little use. My body and my soul are in a scramble And do not fit each other--let them carve Those words upon my stone, but also these Thou Knowest, for God knows me, knows I love Whatever is good and beautiful in life; And that my soul has sought them without rest. Farewell, my friend, my spirit is with you, Vienna is too horrible, but know Paris Then die content." Now, Coroner Merival, You're not the only man who wants to see, Will work to make America a republic Of splendors, freedoms, happiness, success. Though I am seventy-six, cannot do much, Save talk, as I am talking now, bring forth Proofs, revelations from the years I've lived. I care not how you view the lives of people, As pansy beds or what not, lift your faith So high above the pansy bed it sees The streaked and stunted pansies filling in The pattern that the perfect pansies outline, Therefore are smiling, even indifferent To this poor conscious pansy, dying at last Because it could not be the flower it wished. My heart to Elenor Murray and La Menken Goes out in sorrow, even while I know They shook their leaves in April, laughed and thrilled, And either did not know, or did not care The growing time was precious, and if wasted Could never be regained. Look at La Menken At seven years put in the ballet corps; And look at Elenor Murray getting smut Out of experience that made her wise. What shall we do about it?--let it go? And say there is no help, or say a republic, Set up a hundred years ago, raised to the helm Of rulership as president a list Of men more able than the emperors, Kings, rulers of the world, and statesmen too The equal of the greatest, money makers, And domineers of finance and economies Phenomenal in time--say, I repeat A country like this one must let its children Waste as they wasted in the darker years Of Europe. Shall we let these trivial minds Who see salvation, progress in restraint, Pre-empt the field of moulding human life? Or shall we take a hand, and put our minds Upon the task, as recently we built An army for the war, equipped and fed it, An army better than all other armies, More powerful, more apt of hand and brain, Of thin tall youths, who did stop but said Like poor La Menken, strap me to the horse I'll do it if I die--so giving to peace The skill and genius which we use in war, Though it cost twenty billion, and why not? Why every dollar, every drop of blood For war like this to guard democracy, And not so much or more to build the land, Improve our blood, make individual America and her race? And first to rout Poverty and disease, give youth its chance, And therapeutic guidance. Soldier boys Have huts for recreation, clergymen, And is it more, less worth to furnish hands Intimate, hearts intimate for the use Of your La Menkens, Elenor Murrays, youths Who feel such vigor in their restless wings They tumble out of crowded nests and fly To fall in thickets, dash themselves against Walls, trees? I have a vision, Coroner, Of a new Republic, brighter than the sun, A new race, loftier faith, this land of ours Made over as to people, boys and girls, Conserved like forests, water power or mines; Watched, tested, put to best use, keen economies Practiced in spirits, waste of human life, Hope, aspiration, talent, virtues, powers, Avoided by a science, science of life, Of spirit, what you will. Enough of war, And billions for the flag--all well enough! Some billions now to make democracy Democracy in truth with us, and life Not helter-skelter, hitting as it may, And missing much, as this La Menken did. I'm not convinced we must have stunted pansies, That have no use but just to piece the pattern. Let's try, and if we try and fail, why then Our human duty ends, the God in us Will have it just this way, no other way. And then we may accept so poor a world, A republic so unfinished. * * * * * Will Paget is another writer of letters To Coroner Merival. The coroner Spends evenings reading letters, keeps a file Where he preserves them. And the blasphemy Of Paget makes him laugh. He has an evening And reads this letter to the jurymen: WILL PAGET ON DEMOS AND HOGOS To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice Dissentient from much that goes the rounds, Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word: Give men and women freedom, save the land From dull theocracy--the theo, what? A blend of Demos and Jehovah! Say, Bring back your despots, bring your Louis Fourteenths, And give them thrones of gold and ivory From where with leaded sceptres they may whack King Demos driven forth. You know the face? The temples are like sea shells, hollows out, Which narrow close the space for cortex cells. There would be little brow if hair remained; But hair is gone, because the dandruff came. The eyes are close together like a weasel's; The jaws are heavy, that is character; The mouth is thin and wide to gobble chicken; The paunch is heavy for the chickens eaten. Throned high upon a soap box Demos rules, And mumbles decalogues: Thou shalt not read, Save what I tell you, never books that tell Of men and women as they live and are. Thou shalt not see the dramas which portray The evil passions and satiric moods Which mock this Christian nation and its hope. Thou shalt not drink, not even wine or beer. Thou shalt not play at cards, or see the races. Thou shalt not be divorced! Thou shalt not play. Thou shalt not bow to graven images Of beauty cut in marble, fused in bronze. Behold my name is Demos, King of Kings, My name is legion, I am many, come Out of the sea where many hogs were drowned, And now the ruler of hogocracy, Where in the name of freedom hungry snouts Root up the truffles in your great republic, And crunch with heavy jaws the legs and arms Of people who fall over in the pen. Hierarchies in my name are planted under Your states political to sprout and take The new world's soil,--religious freedom this!-- Thought must be free--unless your thought objects To such dominion, and to literal faith In an old book that never had a place Except beside the Koran, Zarathustra. So here is your theocracy and here The land of Boredom. Do you wonder now That people cry for war? You see that God Frowns on all games but war. You shall not play Or kindle spirit with a rapture save A moral end's in view. All joy is sin, Where joy stands for itself alone, nor asks Consent to be, save for itself. But war Waged to put down the wrong, it's always that; To vindicate God's truths, all wars are such, Is game that lets the spirit play, is backed By God and moral reasons, therefore war, A game disguised as business, cosmic work For great millenniums, no less relieves The boredom of theocracies. But if Your men and women had the chance to play, Be free and spend superfluous energies, In what I call the greatest game, that's Life, Have life more freely, deeply, and you say How would you like a war and lose a leg, Or come from battle sick for all your years? You would say no, unless you saw an issue, Stripped clean of Christian twaddle, as we'll say The Greeks beheld the Persians. Well, behold All honest paganism in such things discarded For God who comes in glory, trampling presses Filled up with grapes of wrath. Now hear me out: I knew we'd have a war, it wasn't only That your hogocracy was grunting war We'd fight Japan, take Mexico--remember How dancing flourished madly in the land; Then think of savages who dance the Ghost Dance, And cattle lowing, rushing in a panic, There's psychic secrets here. But then at last What can you do with life? You're well and strong, Flushed with desire, mad with appetites, You turn this way and find a sign forbidden, You turn that way and find the door is closed. Hogocracy, King Demos say, go back, Find work, develop character, restrain, Draw up your belt a little tighter, hunger And thirst diminish with a tighter belt. And none to say, take off the belt and eat, Here's water for you. Well, you have a war. We used to say in foot ball kick their shins, And gouge their eyes out--when our shins were kicked We hollered foul and ouch. There was the south Who called us mud-sills in this freer north, And mouthed democracy; and as for that Their churches made of God a battle leader, An idea come from Palestine; oh, yes, They soon would wipe us up, they were the people. But when we slaughtered them they hollered ouch. And why not? For a gun and uniform, And bands that play are rapturous enough. But when you get a bullet through the heart, The game is not so funny as it was. That's why I hated Germany and hate her, And feel we could not let this German culture Spread over earth. That culture was but this: Life must have an expression and a game, And war's the game, besides the prize is great In land and treasure, commerce, let us play, It lets the people's passions have a vent When fires of life burn hot and hotter under The kettle and the lid is clamped by work, Dull duty, daily routine, inhibitions. Before this Elenor Murray woke to life LeRoy was stirring, but the stir was play. It was a Gretna Green, and pleasure boats Ran up and down the river--on the streets You heard the cry of barkers, in the park The band was playing, and you heard the ring Of registers at fountains and buffets. All this was shabby maybe, but observe There are those souls who see the wrath of God As blackest background to the light of soul: And when the thunder rumbles and the storm Comes up with lightning then they say to men Who laugh in bar-rooms, "Have a care, blasphemers, You may be struck by lightning"--here's the root From which this mood ascetic comes to leaf In all theocracies, and throws a shadow Upon all freedom. Look at us to-day. They say to me, see what a town we have: The men at work, smoke coming from the chimneys, The banks full up of money, business good, The workmen sober, going home at night, No rowdy barkers and no bands a-playing, No drinking and no gaming and no vice. No marriages contracted to be broken. Look how LeRoy is quiet, sane and clean! And I reply, you like the stir of work, But not the stir of play; your chimneys smoke, Your banks have money. Let me look behind The door that closes on your man at home, The wife and children there, what shall I find? A sick man looks to health as it were all, But when the fever leaves him and he feels The store of strength in muscles slumbering And waiting to be used, then something else Than health is needful, he must have a way To voice the life within him, and he wonders Why health seemed so desirable before, And all sufficient to him. Take this girl: Why do you marvel that she rode at night With any man who came along? Good God, If I were born a woman and they put me In a theocracy, hogocracy, I'd do the first thing that came in my mind To give my soul expression. Don't you think You're something of a bully and a coward To ask such model living from this girl When you, my grunting hogos, run the land And bring us scandals like the times of Grant, And poisoned beef sold to the soldier boys, When we were warring Spain, and all this stuff Concerning loot and plunder, malversation, That riots in your cities, printed daily? I roll the panoramic story out To Washington the great--what do I see? It's tangle foot, the sticky smear is dry; But I can find wings, legs and heads, remember How little flies and big were buzzing once Of God and duty, country, virtue, faith; And beating wings, already gummed with sweet, Until their little bellies touched the glue, They sought to fill their bellies with--at last Long silence, which is history, scroll rolled up And spoken of in sacred whispers. Well, I'm glad that Elenor Murray had her fling, If that be really true. I understand What drove her to the war. I think she knew Too much to marry, settle down and live Under the rule of Demos or of Hogos. I wish

tied

How many times the word 'tied' appears in the text?

won these acres here For old man Kingston's daughter, who in turn Bound it with limitation for the life Of selfish sons, who keep a caretaker, Who keeps a cow upon it. There's the cow! The land has had no use for thirty years. The children are kept off it. Elenor Murray, This girl whose death makes such a stir, one time Was playing there--but that's another story. I only say for the present, these five acres Made Elenor Murray's life a thing of waste As much as anything, and a damn sight more. For think a minute! Kingston had a daughter Married to Colonel Burton in Kentucky. And Kingston's son was in the Civil War. But just before the war, the Burtons deeded These acres here, which she inherited From old man Kingston, to this Captain Kingston, The son aforesaid of Old Kingston. Well, The deed upon its face was absolute, But really was a deed in trust. The Captain Held title for a year or two, and then An hour before he fought at Shiloh, made A will, and willed acres to his wife, Fee simple and forever. Now you'd think That contemplating death, he'd make a deed Giving these acres back to Mrs. Burton, The sister who had trusted him. I don't know What comes in people's heads, but I believe The want of money is the root of evil, As well as love of money; for this Captain Perhaps would make provision for his wife And infant son, thought that the chiefest thing No matter how he did it, being poor, Willed this land as he did. But anyway He willed it so, went into Shiloh's battle, And fell dead on the field. What happened then? They took this will to probate. As I said I was a lawyer then, you may believe it, Was hired by the Burtons to reclaim These acres from the Widow Kingston's clutch, Under this wicked will. And so I argued The will had not been witnessed according to law. Got beat upon that point in the lower court, But won upon it in the upper courts. Then next I filed a bill to set aside This deed the Burtons made to Captain Kingston-- Oh, I was full of schemes, expedients, In those days, I can tell you. Widow Kingston Came back and filed a cross bill, asked the court To confirm the title in her son and her As heirs of Captain Kingston, let the will Go out of thought and reckoning. Here's the issue; You understand the case, no doubt. We fought Through all the courts. I lost in the lower court, As I lost on the will. There was the deed: For love and affection and one dollar we Convey and warrant lots from one to ten In the city of LeRoy, to Captain Kingston To be his own forever. How to go Behind such words and show the actual trust Inhering in the deed, that was the job. But here I was resourceful as before, Found witnesses to testify they heard This Captain Kingston say he held the acres In trust for Mrs. Burton--but I lost Before the chancellor, had to appeal, But won on the appeal, and thus restored These acres to the Burtons. And for this What did I get? Three hundred lousy dollars. That's why I smoke a pipe; that's also why I quit the business when I saw the business Was making ready to quit me. By God, My life is waste so far as it was used By this law business, and no coroner Need hold an inquest on me to find out What waste was in my life--God damn the law! Well, then I go my way, and take my fee, And pay my bills. The Burtons have the land, And turn a cow upon it. See how nice A playground it would be. I've seen ten sets Of children try to play there--hey! you hear, The caretaker come out, get off of there! And then the children scamper, climb the fence. Well, after while the Burtons die. The will Leaves these five acres to their sons for life, Remainder to the children of the sons. The sons are living yet at middle life, These acres have been tied up twenty years, They may be tied up thirty years beside: The sons can't sell it, and their children can't, Only the cow can use it, as it stands. It grows more valuable as the people come here, And bring in being Elenor Murrays, children, And make the land around it populous. That's what makes poverty, this holding land, It makes the taxes harder on the poor, It makes work scarcer, and it takes your girls And boys and throws them into life half made, Half ready for the battle. Is a country Free where the laws permit such things? Your priests, Your addle-headed preachers mouthing Christ And morals, prohibition, laws to force People to be good, to save the girls, When every half-wit knows environment Takes natures, made unstable in these homes Of poverty and does the trick. That baronet Who mocked our freedom, sailing back for England And said: Your Liberty Statue in the harbor Is just a joke, that baronet is right, While such conditions thrive. Well, look at me Who for three hundred dollars take a part In making a cow pasture for a cow For fifty years or so. I hate myself. And were the Burtons better than this Kingston? Kingston would will away what was not his. The Burtons took what is the gift of God, As much as air, and fenced it out of use-- Save for the cow aforesaid--for the lives Of sons in being. Oh, I know you think I have a grudge. I have. This Elenor Murray Was ten years old I think, this law suit ended Twelve years or so, and I was running down, Was tippling just a little every day; And I came by this lot one afternoon When school was out, a sunny afternoon. The children had no place except the street To play in; they were standing by the fence, The cow was way across the lot, and Elenor Was looking through the fence, some boys and girls Standing around her, and I said to them: "Why don't you climb the fence and play in there?" And Elenor--she always was a leader, And not afraid of anything, said: "Come on," And in a jiffy climbed the fence, the children, Some quicker and some slower, followed her. Some said "They don't allow it." Elenor Stood on the fence, flung up her arms and crowed, And said "What can they do? He says to do it," Pointing at me. And in a moment all of them Were playing and were shouting in the lot. And I stood there and watched them half malicious, And half in pleasure watching them at play. Then I heard "hey!" the care-taker ran out. And said "Get out of there, I will arrest you." He drove them out and as they jumped the fence Some said, "He told us to," pointing at me. And Elenor Murray said "Why, what a lie!" And then the care-taker grabbed Elenor Murray And said, "You are the wildest of them all." I spoke up, saying, "Leave that child alone. I won this God damn land for those you serve, They use it for a cow and nothing else, And let these children run about the streets, When there are grass and dandelions there In plenty for these children, and the cow, And space enough to play in without bothering That solitary cow." I took his hands Away from Elenor Murray; he and I Came face to face with clenched fists--but at last He walked away; the children scampered off. Next day, however, they arrested me For aiding in a _trespass clausam fregit_, And fined me twenty dollars and the costs. Since then the cow has all her way in there. And Elenor Murray left this rotten place, Went to the war, came home and died, and proved She had the sense to leave so vile a world. * * * * * George Joslin ending up his days with dreams Of youth in Europe, travels, and with talk, Stirred to a recollection of a face He saw in Paris fifty years before, Because the face resembled Elenor Murray's, Explored his drawers and boxes, where he kept Mementos, treasures of the olden days. And found a pamphlet, came to Merival, With certain recollections, and with theories Of Elenor Murray:-- GEORGE JOSLIN ON LA MENKEN Here, Coroner Merival, look at this picture! Whom does it look like? Eyes too crystalline, A head like Byron's, tender mouth, and neck, Slender and white, a pathos as of smiles And tears kept back by courage. Yes, you know It looks like Elenor Murray. Well, you see I read each day about the inquest--good! Dig out the truth, begin a system here Of making family records, let us see If we can do for people when we know How best to do it, what is done for stock. So build up Illinois, the nation too. I read about you daily. And last night When Elenor Murray's picture in the _Times_ Looked at me, I began to think, Good Lord, Where have I seen that face before? I thought Through more than fifty years departed, sent My mind through Europe and America In all my travels, meetings, episodes. I could not think. At last I opened up A box of pamphlets, photographs, mementos, Picked up since 1860, and behold I find this pamphlet of La Belle Menken. Here is your Elenor Murray born again, As here might be your blackbird of this year With spots of red upon his wings, the same As last year's blackbird, like a pansy springing Out of the April of this year, repeating The color, form of one you saw last year. Repeating and the same, but not the same; No two alike, you know. I'll come to that. Well, then, La Menken--as a boy in Paris I saw La Menken, I'll return to this. But just as Elenor Murray has her life Shadowed and symbolized by our Starved Rock-- And everyone has something in his life Which takes him, makes him, is the image too Of fate prefigured--La Menken has Mazeppa, Her notable first part as actress, emblem Of spirit, character, and of omen too Of years to come, the thrill of life, the end. Who is La Menken? Symbol of America, One phase of spirit! She was venturesome, Resourceful, daring, hopeful, confident, And as she wrote of self, a vagabond, A dweller in tents, a reveler, and a flame Aspiring but disreputable, coming up With leaves that shamed her stalk, could not be shed, But stuck out heavy veined and muddy hued In time of blossom. There are souls, you know, Who have shed shapeless immaturities, Betrayals of the seed before the blossom Comes to proclaim a beauty, a perfection; Or risen with their stalk, until such leaves Were hidden in the grass or soil--not she, Nor even your Elenor Murray, as I read her. But being America and American, Brings good and bad together, blossom and leaves With prodigal recklessness, in vital health And unselective taste and vision mixed Of beauty and of truth. Who was La Menken? She's born in Louisiana in thirty-five, Left fatherless at seven--mother takes her And puts her in the ballet at New Orleans. She dances then from Texas clear to Cuba; Then gives up dancing, studies tragedy, And plays Bianca! Fourteen years of age Weds Menken, who's a Jew, divorced from him; Then falls in love with Heenan, pugilist. They quarrel and separate--it's in this pamphlet Just as I tell you; you can take it, Coroner. Now something happens, nothing in her birth Or place of birth to prophesy her life Like Starved Rock to this Elenor--being grown, A hand instead is darted from the curtain That hangs between to-day, to-morrow, sticks A symbol on her heart and whispers to her: You're this, my woman. Well, the thing was this: She played Mazeppa: take your dummy off, And lash me to the horse. They were afraid, But she prevailed, was nearly killed the first night, And after that succeeded, was the rage And for her years remaining found herself Lashed to the wild horse of ungoverned will, Which ran and wandered, till she knew herself With stronger will than vision, passion stronger Than spirit to judge; the richness of the world, Love, beauty, living, greater than her power. And all the time she had the appetite To eat, devour it all. Grown sick at last, She diagnosed her case, wrote to a friend: The soul and body do not fit each other-- A human spirit in a horse's flesh. This is your Elenor Murray, in a way. But to return to pansies, run your hand Over a bed of pansies; here's a pansy With petals stunted, here's another one All perfect but one petal, here's another Too streaked or mottled--all are pansies though. And here is one full petaled, strikes the eye With perfect color, markings. Elenor Murray Has something of the color and the form Of this La Menken, but is less a pansy, And Sappho, Rachel, Bernhardt are the flowers La Menken strove to be, and could not be, Ended with being only of their kind. And now there's pity for this Elenor Murray, And people wept when poor La Menken died. Both lived and had their way. I hate this pity, It makes you overlook there are two hours: The hour of joy, the hour of finding out Your joy was all mistake, or led to pain. We who inspect these lives behold the pain, And see the error, do not keep in mind The hour of rapture, and the pride, indeed With which your Elenor Murrays and La Menkens Have lived that hour, elation, pride and scorn For any other way--"this is the life" I hear them say. Well, now I go along. La Menken fills her purse with gold--she sends Her pugilist away, tries once again And weds a humorist, an Orpheus Kerr-- And plays before the miners out in 'Frisco, And Sacramento, gathers in the eagles. She goes to Europe then--with husband? No! James Barkley is her fellow on the voyage. She lands in London, takes a gorgeous suite In London's grandest hostlery, entertains Charles Dickens, Prince Baerto and Charles Read, The Duke of Wellington and Swinburne, Sand And Jenny Lind; and has a liveried coachman; And for a crest a horse's head surmounting Four aces, if you please. And plays Mazeppa, And piles the money up. Then next is Paris. And there I saw her, 1866, When Louis Napoleon and the King of Greece, The Prince Imperial were in a box. She wandered to Vienna, there was ill, Came back to Paris, died, a stranger's grave In Pere la Chaise was given, afterwards Exhumed in Mont Parnasse was buried, got A little stone with these words carved upon it: "Thou Knowest" meaning God knew, while herself Knew nothing of herself. But when in Paris They sold her picture taken with her arms Around Dumas, and photographs made up Of postures ludicrous, obscene as well, Of her and great Dumas, I have them home. Can show you sometime. Well she loved Dumas, Inscribed a book of poems to Charles Dickens, By his permission, mark you--don't you see Your Elenor Murray here? This Elenor Murray A miniature imperfect of La Menken? She loved sensation, all her senses thrilled her; A delicate soul too weighted by the flesh; A coquette, quick of wit, intuitive, Kind, generous, unaffected, mystical, Teased by the divine in life, and melancholy, Of deep emotion sometimes. One has said She had a nature spiritual, religious Which warred upon the flesh and fell in battle; Just as your Elenor Murray joined the church, And did not keep the faith, if truth be told. Now look, here is a letter in this pamphlet La Menken writes a poet--for she hunts For seers and for poets, lofty souls. And who does that? A woman wholly bad? Why no, a woman to be given life Fit for her spirit in another realm By God who will take notice, I believe. Now listen if you will! "I know your soul. It has met mine somewhere in starry space. And you must often meet me, vagabond Of fancy without aim, a dweller in tents Disreputable before the just. Just think I am a linguist, write some poems too, Can paint a little, model clay as well. And yet for all these gropings of my soul I am a vagabond, of little use. My body and my soul are in a scramble And do not fit each other--let them carve Those words upon my stone, but also these Thou Knowest, for God knows me, knows I love Whatever is good and beautiful in life; And that my soul has sought them without rest. Farewell, my friend, my spirit is with you, Vienna is too horrible, but know Paris Then die content." Now, Coroner Merival, You're not the only man who wants to see, Will work to make America a republic Of splendors, freedoms, happiness, success. Though I am seventy-six, cannot do much, Save talk, as I am talking now, bring forth Proofs, revelations from the years I've lived. I care not how you view the lives of people, As pansy beds or what not, lift your faith So high above the pansy bed it sees The streaked and stunted pansies filling in The pattern that the perfect pansies outline, Therefore are smiling, even indifferent To this poor conscious pansy, dying at last Because it could not be the flower it wished. My heart to Elenor Murray and La Menken Goes out in sorrow, even while I know They shook their leaves in April, laughed and thrilled, And either did not know, or did not care The growing time was precious, and if wasted Could never be regained. Look at La Menken At seven years put in the ballet corps; And look at Elenor Murray getting smut Out of experience that made her wise. What shall we do about it?--let it go? And say there is no help, or say a republic, Set up a hundred years ago, raised to the helm Of rulership as president a list Of men more able than the emperors, Kings, rulers of the world, and statesmen too The equal of the greatest, money makers, And domineers of finance and economies Phenomenal in time--say, I repeat A country like this one must let its children Waste as they wasted in the darker years Of Europe. Shall we let these trivial minds Who see salvation, progress in restraint, Pre-empt the field of moulding human life? Or shall we take a hand, and put our minds Upon the task, as recently we built An army for the war, equipped and fed it, An army better than all other armies, More powerful, more apt of hand and brain, Of thin tall youths, who did stop but said Like poor La Menken, strap me to the horse I'll do it if I die--so giving to peace The skill and genius which we use in war, Though it cost twenty billion, and why not? Why every dollar, every drop of blood For war like this to guard democracy, And not so much or more to build the land, Improve our blood, make individual America and her race? And first to rout Poverty and disease, give youth its chance, And therapeutic guidance. Soldier boys Have huts for recreation, clergymen, And is it more, less worth to furnish hands Intimate, hearts intimate for the use Of your La Menkens, Elenor Murrays, youths Who feel such vigor in their restless wings They tumble out of crowded nests and fly To fall in thickets, dash themselves against Walls, trees? I have a vision, Coroner, Of a new Republic, brighter than the sun, A new race, loftier faith, this land of ours Made over as to people, boys and girls, Conserved like forests, water power or mines; Watched, tested, put to best use, keen economies Practiced in spirits, waste of human life, Hope, aspiration, talent, virtues, powers, Avoided by a science, science of life, Of spirit, what you will. Enough of war, And billions for the flag--all well enough! Some billions now to make democracy Democracy in truth with us, and life Not helter-skelter, hitting as it may, And missing much, as this La Menken did. I'm not convinced we must have stunted pansies, That have no use but just to piece the pattern. Let's try, and if we try and fail, why then Our human duty ends, the God in us Will have it just this way, no other way. And then we may accept so poor a world, A republic so unfinished. * * * * * Will Paget is another writer of letters To Coroner Merival. The coroner Spends evenings reading letters, keeps a file Where he preserves them. And the blasphemy Of Paget makes him laugh. He has an evening And reads this letter to the jurymen: WILL PAGET ON DEMOS AND HOGOS To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice Dissentient from much that goes the rounds, Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word: Give men and women freedom, save the land From dull theocracy--the theo, what? A blend of Demos and Jehovah! Say, Bring back your despots, bring your Louis Fourteenths, And give them thrones of gold and ivory From where with leaded sceptres they may whack King Demos driven forth. You know the face? The temples are like sea shells, hollows out, Which narrow close the space for cortex cells. There would be little brow if hair remained; But hair is gone, because the dandruff came. The eyes are close together like a weasel's; The jaws are heavy, that is character; The mouth is thin and wide to gobble chicken; The paunch is heavy for the chickens eaten. Throned high upon a soap box Demos rules, And mumbles decalogues: Thou shalt not read, Save what I tell you, never books that tell Of men and women as they live and are. Thou shalt not see the dramas which portray The evil passions and satiric moods Which mock this Christian nation and its hope. Thou shalt not drink, not even wine or beer. Thou shalt not play at cards, or see the races. Thou shalt not be divorced! Thou shalt not play. Thou shalt not bow to graven images Of beauty cut in marble, fused in bronze. Behold my name is Demos, King of Kings, My name is legion, I am many, come Out of the sea where many hogs were drowned, And now the ruler of hogocracy, Where in the name of freedom hungry snouts Root up the truffles in your great republic, And crunch with heavy jaws the legs and arms Of people who fall over in the pen. Hierarchies in my name are planted under Your states political to sprout and take The new world's soil,--religious freedom this!-- Thought must be free--unless your thought objects To such dominion, and to literal faith In an old book that never had a place Except beside the Koran, Zarathustra. So here is your theocracy and here The land of Boredom. Do you wonder now That people cry for war? You see that God Frowns on all games but war. You shall not play Or kindle spirit with a rapture save A moral end's in view. All joy is sin, Where joy stands for itself alone, nor asks Consent to be, save for itself. But war Waged to put down the wrong, it's always that; To vindicate God's truths, all wars are such, Is game that lets the spirit play, is backed By God and moral reasons, therefore war, A game disguised as business, cosmic work For great millenniums, no less relieves The boredom of theocracies. But if Your men and women had the chance to play, Be free and spend superfluous energies, In what I call the greatest game, that's Life, Have life more freely, deeply, and you say How would you like a war and lose a leg, Or come from battle sick for all your years? You would say no, unless you saw an issue, Stripped clean of Christian twaddle, as we'll say The Greeks beheld the Persians. Well, behold All honest paganism in such things discarded For God who comes in glory, trampling presses Filled up with grapes of wrath. Now hear me out: I knew we'd have a war, it wasn't only That your hogocracy was grunting war We'd fight Japan, take Mexico--remember How dancing flourished madly in the land; Then think of savages who dance the Ghost Dance, And cattle lowing, rushing in a panic, There's psychic secrets here. But then at last What can you do with life? You're well and strong, Flushed with desire, mad with appetites, You turn this way and find a sign forbidden, You turn that way and find the door is closed. Hogocracy, King Demos say, go back, Find work, develop character, restrain, Draw up your belt a little tighter, hunger And thirst diminish with a tighter belt. And none to say, take off the belt and eat, Here's water for you. Well, you have a war. We used to say in foot ball kick their shins, And gouge their eyes out--when our shins were kicked We hollered foul and ouch. There was the south Who called us mud-sills in this freer north, And mouthed democracy; and as for that Their churches made of God a battle leader, An idea come from Palestine; oh, yes, They soon would wipe us up, they were the people. But when we slaughtered them they hollered ouch. And why not? For a gun and uniform, And bands that play are rapturous enough. But when you get a bullet through the heart, The game is not so funny as it was. That's why I hated Germany and hate her, And feel we could not let this German culture Spread over earth. That culture was but this: Life must have an expression and a game, And war's the game, besides the prize is great In land and treasure, commerce, let us play, It lets the people's passions have a vent When fires of life burn hot and hotter under The kettle and the lid is clamped by work, Dull duty, daily routine, inhibitions. Before this Elenor Murray woke to life LeRoy was stirring, but the stir was play. It was a Gretna Green, and pleasure boats Ran up and down the river--on the streets You heard the cry of barkers, in the park The band was playing, and you heard the ring Of registers at fountains and buffets. All this was shabby maybe, but observe There are those souls who see the wrath of God As blackest background to the light of soul: And when the thunder rumbles and the storm Comes up with lightning then they say to men Who laugh in bar-rooms, "Have a care, blasphemers, You may be struck by lightning"--here's the root From which this mood ascetic comes to leaf In all theocracies, and throws a shadow Upon all freedom. Look at us to-day. They say to me, see what a town we have: The men at work, smoke coming from the chimneys, The banks full up of money, business good, The workmen sober, going home at night, No rowdy barkers and no bands a-playing, No drinking and no gaming and no vice. No marriages contracted to be broken. Look how LeRoy is quiet, sane and clean! And I reply, you like the stir of work, But not the stir of play; your chimneys smoke, Your banks have money. Let me look behind The door that closes on your man at home, The wife and children there, what shall I find? A sick man looks to health as it were all, But when the fever leaves him and he feels The store of strength in muscles slumbering And waiting to be used, then something else Than health is needful, he must have a way To voice the life within him, and he wonders Why health seemed so desirable before, And all sufficient to him. Take this girl: Why do you marvel that she rode at night With any man who came along? Good God, If I were born a woman and they put me In a theocracy, hogocracy, I'd do the first thing that came in my mind To give my soul expression. Don't you think You're something of a bully and a coward To ask such model living from this girl When you, my grunting hogos, run the land And bring us scandals like the times of Grant, And poisoned beef sold to the soldier boys, When we were warring Spain, and all this stuff Concerning loot and plunder, malversation, That riots in your cities, printed daily? I roll the panoramic story out To Washington the great--what do I see? It's tangle foot, the sticky smear is dry; But I can find wings, legs and heads, remember How little flies and big were buzzing once Of God and duty, country, virtue, faith; And beating wings, already gummed with sweet, Until their little bellies touched the glue, They sought to fill their bellies with--at last Long silence, which is history, scroll rolled up And spoken of in sacred whispers. Well, I'm glad that Elenor Murray had her fling, If that be really true. I understand What drove her to the war. I think she knew Too much to marry, settle down and live Under the rule of Demos or of Hogos. I wish

thirty

How many times the word 'thirty' appears in the text?

won these acres here For old man Kingston's daughter, who in turn Bound it with limitation for the life Of selfish sons, who keep a caretaker, Who keeps a cow upon it. There's the cow! The land has had no use for thirty years. The children are kept off it. Elenor Murray, This girl whose death makes such a stir, one time Was playing there--but that's another story. I only say for the present, these five acres Made Elenor Murray's life a thing of waste As much as anything, and a damn sight more. For think a minute! Kingston had a daughter Married to Colonel Burton in Kentucky. And Kingston's son was in the Civil War. But just before the war, the Burtons deeded These acres here, which she inherited From old man Kingston, to this Captain Kingston, The son aforesaid of Old Kingston. Well, The deed upon its face was absolute, But really was a deed in trust. The Captain Held title for a year or two, and then An hour before he fought at Shiloh, made A will, and willed acres to his wife, Fee simple and forever. Now you'd think That contemplating death, he'd make a deed Giving these acres back to Mrs. Burton, The sister who had trusted him. I don't know What comes in people's heads, but I believe The want of money is the root of evil, As well as love of money; for this Captain Perhaps would make provision for his wife And infant son, thought that the chiefest thing No matter how he did it, being poor, Willed this land as he did. But anyway He willed it so, went into Shiloh's battle, And fell dead on the field. What happened then? They took this will to probate. As I said I was a lawyer then, you may believe it, Was hired by the Burtons to reclaim These acres from the Widow Kingston's clutch, Under this wicked will. And so I argued The will had not been witnessed according to law. Got beat upon that point in the lower court, But won upon it in the upper courts. Then next I filed a bill to set aside This deed the Burtons made to Captain Kingston-- Oh, I was full of schemes, expedients, In those days, I can tell you. Widow Kingston Came back and filed a cross bill, asked the court To confirm the title in her son and her As heirs of Captain Kingston, let the will Go out of thought and reckoning. Here's the issue; You understand the case, no doubt. We fought Through all the courts. I lost in the lower court, As I lost on the will. There was the deed: For love and affection and one dollar we Convey and warrant lots from one to ten In the city of LeRoy, to Captain Kingston To be his own forever. How to go Behind such words and show the actual trust Inhering in the deed, that was the job. But here I was resourceful as before, Found witnesses to testify they heard This Captain Kingston say he held the acres In trust for Mrs. Burton--but I lost Before the chancellor, had to appeal, But won on the appeal, and thus restored These acres to the Burtons. And for this What did I get? Three hundred lousy dollars. That's why I smoke a pipe; that's also why I quit the business when I saw the business Was making ready to quit me. By God, My life is waste so far as it was used By this law business, and no coroner Need hold an inquest on me to find out What waste was in my life--God damn the law! Well, then I go my way, and take my fee, And pay my bills. The Burtons have the land, And turn a cow upon it. See how nice A playground it would be. I've seen ten sets Of children try to play there--hey! you hear, The caretaker come out, get off of there! And then the children scamper, climb the fence. Well, after while the Burtons die. The will Leaves these five acres to their sons for life, Remainder to the children of the sons. The sons are living yet at middle life, These acres have been tied up twenty years, They may be tied up thirty years beside: The sons can't sell it, and their children can't, Only the cow can use it, as it stands. It grows more valuable as the people come here, And bring in being Elenor Murrays, children, And make the land around it populous. That's what makes poverty, this holding land, It makes the taxes harder on the poor, It makes work scarcer, and it takes your girls And boys and throws them into life half made, Half ready for the battle. Is a country Free where the laws permit such things? Your priests, Your addle-headed preachers mouthing Christ And morals, prohibition, laws to force People to be good, to save the girls, When every half-wit knows environment Takes natures, made unstable in these homes Of poverty and does the trick. That baronet Who mocked our freedom, sailing back for England And said: Your Liberty Statue in the harbor Is just a joke, that baronet is right, While such conditions thrive. Well, look at me Who for three hundred dollars take a part In making a cow pasture for a cow For fifty years or so. I hate myself. And were the Burtons better than this Kingston? Kingston would will away what was not his. The Burtons took what is the gift of God, As much as air, and fenced it out of use-- Save for the cow aforesaid--for the lives Of sons in being. Oh, I know you think I have a grudge. I have. This Elenor Murray Was ten years old I think, this law suit ended Twelve years or so, and I was running down, Was tippling just a little every day; And I came by this lot one afternoon When school was out, a sunny afternoon. The children had no place except the street To play in; they were standing by the fence, The cow was way across the lot, and Elenor Was looking through the fence, some boys and girls Standing around her, and I said to them: "Why don't you climb the fence and play in there?" And Elenor--she always was a leader, And not afraid of anything, said: "Come on," And in a jiffy climbed the fence, the children, Some quicker and some slower, followed her. Some said "They don't allow it." Elenor Stood on the fence, flung up her arms and crowed, And said "What can they do? He says to do it," Pointing at me. And in a moment all of them Were playing and were shouting in the lot. And I stood there and watched them half malicious, And half in pleasure watching them at play. Then I heard "hey!" the care-taker ran out. And said "Get out of there, I will arrest you." He drove them out and as they jumped the fence Some said, "He told us to," pointing at me. And Elenor Murray said "Why, what a lie!" And then the care-taker grabbed Elenor Murray And said, "You are the wildest of them all." I spoke up, saying, "Leave that child alone. I won this God damn land for those you serve, They use it for a cow and nothing else, And let these children run about the streets, When there are grass and dandelions there In plenty for these children, and the cow, And space enough to play in without bothering That solitary cow." I took his hands Away from Elenor Murray; he and I Came face to face with clenched fists--but at last He walked away; the children scampered off. Next day, however, they arrested me For aiding in a _trespass clausam fregit_, And fined me twenty dollars and the costs. Since then the cow has all her way in there. And Elenor Murray left this rotten place, Went to the war, came home and died, and proved She had the sense to leave so vile a world. * * * * * George Joslin ending up his days with dreams Of youth in Europe, travels, and with talk, Stirred to a recollection of a face He saw in Paris fifty years before, Because the face resembled Elenor Murray's, Explored his drawers and boxes, where he kept Mementos, treasures of the olden days. And found a pamphlet, came to Merival, With certain recollections, and with theories Of Elenor Murray:-- GEORGE JOSLIN ON LA MENKEN Here, Coroner Merival, look at this picture! Whom does it look like? Eyes too crystalline, A head like Byron's, tender mouth, and neck, Slender and white, a pathos as of smiles And tears kept back by courage. Yes, you know It looks like Elenor Murray. Well, you see I read each day about the inquest--good! Dig out the truth, begin a system here Of making family records, let us see If we can do for people when we know How best to do it, what is done for stock. So build up Illinois, the nation too. I read about you daily. And last night When Elenor Murray's picture in the _Times_ Looked at me, I began to think, Good Lord, Where have I seen that face before? I thought Through more than fifty years departed, sent My mind through Europe and America In all my travels, meetings, episodes. I could not think. At last I opened up A box of pamphlets, photographs, mementos, Picked up since 1860, and behold I find this pamphlet of La Belle Menken. Here is your Elenor Murray born again, As here might be your blackbird of this year With spots of red upon his wings, the same As last year's blackbird, like a pansy springing Out of the April of this year, repeating The color, form of one you saw last year. Repeating and the same, but not the same; No two alike, you know. I'll come to that. Well, then, La Menken--as a boy in Paris I saw La Menken, I'll return to this. But just as Elenor Murray has her life Shadowed and symbolized by our Starved Rock-- And everyone has something in his life Which takes him, makes him, is the image too Of fate prefigured--La Menken has Mazeppa, Her notable first part as actress, emblem Of spirit, character, and of omen too Of years to come, the thrill of life, the end. Who is La Menken? Symbol of America, One phase of spirit! She was venturesome, Resourceful, daring, hopeful, confident, And as she wrote of self, a vagabond, A dweller in tents, a reveler, and a flame Aspiring but disreputable, coming up With leaves that shamed her stalk, could not be shed, But stuck out heavy veined and muddy hued In time of blossom. There are souls, you know, Who have shed shapeless immaturities, Betrayals of the seed before the blossom Comes to proclaim a beauty, a perfection; Or risen with their stalk, until such leaves Were hidden in the grass or soil--not she, Nor even your Elenor Murray, as I read her. But being America and American, Brings good and bad together, blossom and leaves With prodigal recklessness, in vital health And unselective taste and vision mixed Of beauty and of truth. Who was La Menken? She's born in Louisiana in thirty-five, Left fatherless at seven--mother takes her And puts her in the ballet at New Orleans. She dances then from Texas clear to Cuba; Then gives up dancing, studies tragedy, And plays Bianca! Fourteen years of age Weds Menken, who's a Jew, divorced from him; Then falls in love with Heenan, pugilist. They quarrel and separate--it's in this pamphlet Just as I tell you; you can take it, Coroner. Now something happens, nothing in her birth Or place of birth to prophesy her life Like Starved Rock to this Elenor--being grown, A hand instead is darted from the curtain That hangs between to-day, to-morrow, sticks A symbol on her heart and whispers to her: You're this, my woman. Well, the thing was this: She played Mazeppa: take your dummy off, And lash me to the horse. They were afraid, But she prevailed, was nearly killed the first night, And after that succeeded, was the rage And for her years remaining found herself Lashed to the wild horse of ungoverned will, Which ran and wandered, till she knew herself With stronger will than vision, passion stronger Than spirit to judge; the richness of the world, Love, beauty, living, greater than her power. And all the time she had the appetite To eat, devour it all. Grown sick at last, She diagnosed her case, wrote to a friend: The soul and body do not fit each other-- A human spirit in a horse's flesh. This is your Elenor Murray, in a way. But to return to pansies, run your hand Over a bed of pansies; here's a pansy With petals stunted, here's another one All perfect but one petal, here's another Too streaked or mottled--all are pansies though. And here is one full petaled, strikes the eye With perfect color, markings. Elenor Murray Has something of the color and the form Of this La Menken, but is less a pansy, And Sappho, Rachel, Bernhardt are the flowers La Menken strove to be, and could not be, Ended with being only of their kind. And now there's pity for this Elenor Murray, And people wept when poor La Menken died. Both lived and had their way. I hate this pity, It makes you overlook there are two hours: The hour of joy, the hour of finding out Your joy was all mistake, or led to pain. We who inspect these lives behold the pain, And see the error, do not keep in mind The hour of rapture, and the pride, indeed With which your Elenor Murrays and La Menkens Have lived that hour, elation, pride and scorn For any other way--"this is the life" I hear them say. Well, now I go along. La Menken fills her purse with gold--she sends Her pugilist away, tries once again And weds a humorist, an Orpheus Kerr-- And plays before the miners out in 'Frisco, And Sacramento, gathers in the eagles. She goes to Europe then--with husband? No! James Barkley is her fellow on the voyage. She lands in London, takes a gorgeous suite In London's grandest hostlery, entertains Charles Dickens, Prince Baerto and Charles Read, The Duke of Wellington and Swinburne, Sand And Jenny Lind; and has a liveried coachman; And for a crest a horse's head surmounting Four aces, if you please. And plays Mazeppa, And piles the money up. Then next is Paris. And there I saw her, 1866, When Louis Napoleon and the King of Greece, The Prince Imperial were in a box. She wandered to Vienna, there was ill, Came back to Paris, died, a stranger's grave In Pere la Chaise was given, afterwards Exhumed in Mont Parnasse was buried, got A little stone with these words carved upon it: "Thou Knowest" meaning God knew, while herself Knew nothing of herself. But when in Paris They sold her picture taken with her arms Around Dumas, and photographs made up Of postures ludicrous, obscene as well, Of her and great Dumas, I have them home. Can show you sometime. Well she loved Dumas, Inscribed a book of poems to Charles Dickens, By his permission, mark you--don't you see Your Elenor Murray here? This Elenor Murray A miniature imperfect of La Menken? She loved sensation, all her senses thrilled her; A delicate soul too weighted by the flesh; A coquette, quick of wit, intuitive, Kind, generous, unaffected, mystical, Teased by the divine in life, and melancholy, Of deep emotion sometimes. One has said She had a nature spiritual, religious Which warred upon the flesh and fell in battle; Just as your Elenor Murray joined the church, And did not keep the faith, if truth be told. Now look, here is a letter in this pamphlet La Menken writes a poet--for she hunts For seers and for poets, lofty souls. And who does that? A woman wholly bad? Why no, a woman to be given life Fit for her spirit in another realm By God who will take notice, I believe. Now listen if you will! "I know your soul. It has met mine somewhere in starry space. And you must often meet me, vagabond Of fancy without aim, a dweller in tents Disreputable before the just. Just think I am a linguist, write some poems too, Can paint a little, model clay as well. And yet for all these gropings of my soul I am a vagabond, of little use. My body and my soul are in a scramble And do not fit each other--let them carve Those words upon my stone, but also these Thou Knowest, for God knows me, knows I love Whatever is good and beautiful in life; And that my soul has sought them without rest. Farewell, my friend, my spirit is with you, Vienna is too horrible, but know Paris Then die content." Now, Coroner Merival, You're not the only man who wants to see, Will work to make America a republic Of splendors, freedoms, happiness, success. Though I am seventy-six, cannot do much, Save talk, as I am talking now, bring forth Proofs, revelations from the years I've lived. I care not how you view the lives of people, As pansy beds or what not, lift your faith So high above the pansy bed it sees The streaked and stunted pansies filling in The pattern that the perfect pansies outline, Therefore are smiling, even indifferent To this poor conscious pansy, dying at last Because it could not be the flower it wished. My heart to Elenor Murray and La Menken Goes out in sorrow, even while I know They shook their leaves in April, laughed and thrilled, And either did not know, or did not care The growing time was precious, and if wasted Could never be regained. Look at La Menken At seven years put in the ballet corps; And look at Elenor Murray getting smut Out of experience that made her wise. What shall we do about it?--let it go? And say there is no help, or say a republic, Set up a hundred years ago, raised to the helm Of rulership as president a list Of men more able than the emperors, Kings, rulers of the world, and statesmen too The equal of the greatest, money makers, And domineers of finance and economies Phenomenal in time--say, I repeat A country like this one must let its children Waste as they wasted in the darker years Of Europe. Shall we let these trivial minds Who see salvation, progress in restraint, Pre-empt the field of moulding human life? Or shall we take a hand, and put our minds Upon the task, as recently we built An army for the war, equipped and fed it, An army better than all other armies, More powerful, more apt of hand and brain, Of thin tall youths, who did stop but said Like poor La Menken, strap me to the horse I'll do it if I die--so giving to peace The skill and genius which we use in war, Though it cost twenty billion, and why not? Why every dollar, every drop of blood For war like this to guard democracy, And not so much or more to build the land, Improve our blood, make individual America and her race? And first to rout Poverty and disease, give youth its chance, And therapeutic guidance. Soldier boys Have huts for recreation, clergymen, And is it more, less worth to furnish hands Intimate, hearts intimate for the use Of your La Menkens, Elenor Murrays, youths Who feel such vigor in their restless wings They tumble out of crowded nests and fly To fall in thickets, dash themselves against Walls, trees? I have a vision, Coroner, Of a new Republic, brighter than the sun, A new race, loftier faith, this land of ours Made over as to people, boys and girls, Conserved like forests, water power or mines; Watched, tested, put to best use, keen economies Practiced in spirits, waste of human life, Hope, aspiration, talent, virtues, powers, Avoided by a science, science of life, Of spirit, what you will. Enough of war, And billions for the flag--all well enough! Some billions now to make democracy Democracy in truth with us, and life Not helter-skelter, hitting as it may, And missing much, as this La Menken did. I'm not convinced we must have stunted pansies, That have no use but just to piece the pattern. Let's try, and if we try and fail, why then Our human duty ends, the God in us Will have it just this way, no other way. And then we may accept so poor a world, A republic so unfinished. * * * * * Will Paget is another writer of letters To Coroner Merival. The coroner Spends evenings reading letters, keeps a file Where he preserves them. And the blasphemy Of Paget makes him laugh. He has an evening And reads this letter to the jurymen: WILL PAGET ON DEMOS AND HOGOS To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice Dissentient from much that goes the rounds, Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word: Give men and women freedom, save the land From dull theocracy--the theo, what? A blend of Demos and Jehovah! Say, Bring back your despots, bring your Louis Fourteenths, And give them thrones of gold and ivory From where with leaded sceptres they may whack King Demos driven forth. You know the face? The temples are like sea shells, hollows out, Which narrow close the space for cortex cells. There would be little brow if hair remained; But hair is gone, because the dandruff came. The eyes are close together like a weasel's; The jaws are heavy, that is character; The mouth is thin and wide to gobble chicken; The paunch is heavy for the chickens eaten. Throned high upon a soap box Demos rules, And mumbles decalogues: Thou shalt not read, Save what I tell you, never books that tell Of men and women as they live and are. Thou shalt not see the dramas which portray The evil passions and satiric moods Which mock this Christian nation and its hope. Thou shalt not drink, not even wine or beer. Thou shalt not play at cards, or see the races. Thou shalt not be divorced! Thou shalt not play. Thou shalt not bow to graven images Of beauty cut in marble, fused in bronze. Behold my name is Demos, King of Kings, My name is legion, I am many, come Out of the sea where many hogs were drowned, And now the ruler of hogocracy, Where in the name of freedom hungry snouts Root up the truffles in your great republic, And crunch with heavy jaws the legs and arms Of people who fall over in the pen. Hierarchies in my name are planted under Your states political to sprout and take The new world's soil,--religious freedom this!-- Thought must be free--unless your thought objects To such dominion, and to literal faith In an old book that never had a place Except beside the Koran, Zarathustra. So here is your theocracy and here The land of Boredom. Do you wonder now That people cry for war? You see that God Frowns on all games but war. You shall not play Or kindle spirit with a rapture save A moral end's in view. All joy is sin, Where joy stands for itself alone, nor asks Consent to be, save for itself. But war Waged to put down the wrong, it's always that; To vindicate God's truths, all wars are such, Is game that lets the spirit play, is backed By God and moral reasons, therefore war, A game disguised as business, cosmic work For great millenniums, no less relieves The boredom of theocracies. But if Your men and women had the chance to play, Be free and spend superfluous energies, In what I call the greatest game, that's Life, Have life more freely, deeply, and you say How would you like a war and lose a leg, Or come from battle sick for all your years? You would say no, unless you saw an issue, Stripped clean of Christian twaddle, as we'll say The Greeks beheld the Persians. Well, behold All honest paganism in such things discarded For God who comes in glory, trampling presses Filled up with grapes of wrath. Now hear me out: I knew we'd have a war, it wasn't only That your hogocracy was grunting war We'd fight Japan, take Mexico--remember How dancing flourished madly in the land; Then think of savages who dance the Ghost Dance, And cattle lowing, rushing in a panic, There's psychic secrets here. But then at last What can you do with life? You're well and strong, Flushed with desire, mad with appetites, You turn this way and find a sign forbidden, You turn that way and find the door is closed. Hogocracy, King Demos say, go back, Find work, develop character, restrain, Draw up your belt a little tighter, hunger And thirst diminish with a tighter belt. And none to say, take off the belt and eat, Here's water for you. Well, you have a war. We used to say in foot ball kick their shins, And gouge their eyes out--when our shins were kicked We hollered foul and ouch. There was the south Who called us mud-sills in this freer north, And mouthed democracy; and as for that Their churches made of God a battle leader, An idea come from Palestine; oh, yes, They soon would wipe us up, they were the people. But when we slaughtered them they hollered ouch. And why not? For a gun and uniform, And bands that play are rapturous enough. But when you get a bullet through the heart, The game is not so funny as it was. That's why I hated Germany and hate her, And feel we could not let this German culture Spread over earth. That culture was but this: Life must have an expression and a game, And war's the game, besides the prize is great In land and treasure, commerce, let us play, It lets the people's passions have a vent When fires of life burn hot and hotter under The kettle and the lid is clamped by work, Dull duty, daily routine, inhibitions. Before this Elenor Murray woke to life LeRoy was stirring, but the stir was play. It was a Gretna Green, and pleasure boats Ran up and down the river--on the streets You heard the cry of barkers, in the park The band was playing, and you heard the ring Of registers at fountains and buffets. All this was shabby maybe, but observe There are those souls who see the wrath of God As blackest background to the light of soul: And when the thunder rumbles and the storm Comes up with lightning then they say to men Who laugh in bar-rooms, "Have a care, blasphemers, You may be struck by lightning"--here's the root From which this mood ascetic comes to leaf In all theocracies, and throws a shadow Upon all freedom. Look at us to-day. They say to me, see what a town we have: The men at work, smoke coming from the chimneys, The banks full up of money, business good, The workmen sober, going home at night, No rowdy barkers and no bands a-playing, No drinking and no gaming and no vice. No marriages contracted to be broken. Look how LeRoy is quiet, sane and clean! And I reply, you like the stir of work, But not the stir of play; your chimneys smoke, Your banks have money. Let me look behind The door that closes on your man at home, The wife and children there, what shall I find? A sick man looks to health as it were all, But when the fever leaves him and he feels The store of strength in muscles slumbering And waiting to be used, then something else Than health is needful, he must have a way To voice the life within him, and he wonders Why health seemed so desirable before, And all sufficient to him. Take this girl: Why do you marvel that she rode at night With any man who came along? Good God, If I were born a woman and they put me In a theocracy, hogocracy, I'd do the first thing that came in my mind To give my soul expression. Don't you think You're something of a bully and a coward To ask such model living from this girl When you, my grunting hogos, run the land And bring us scandals like the times of Grant, And poisoned beef sold to the soldier boys, When we were warring Spain, and all this stuff Concerning loot and plunder, malversation, That riots in your cities, printed daily? I roll the panoramic story out To Washington the great--what do I see? It's tangle foot, the sticky smear is dry; But I can find wings, legs and heads, remember How little flies and big were buzzing once Of God and duty, country, virtue, faith; And beating wings, already gummed with sweet, Until their little bellies touched the glue, They sought to fill their bellies with--at last Long silence, which is history, scroll rolled up And spoken of in sacred whispers. Well, I'm glad that Elenor Murray had her fling, If that be really true. I understand What drove her to the war. I think she knew Too much to marry, settle down and live Under the rule of Demos or of Hogos. I wish

out

How many times the word 'out' appears in the text?

won these acres here For old man Kingston's daughter, who in turn Bound it with limitation for the life Of selfish sons, who keep a caretaker, Who keeps a cow upon it. There's the cow! The land has had no use for thirty years. The children are kept off it. Elenor Murray, This girl whose death makes such a stir, one time Was playing there--but that's another story. I only say for the present, these five acres Made Elenor Murray's life a thing of waste As much as anything, and a damn sight more. For think a minute! Kingston had a daughter Married to Colonel Burton in Kentucky. And Kingston's son was in the Civil War. But just before the war, the Burtons deeded These acres here, which she inherited From old man Kingston, to this Captain Kingston, The son aforesaid of Old Kingston. Well, The deed upon its face was absolute, But really was a deed in trust. The Captain Held title for a year or two, and then An hour before he fought at Shiloh, made A will, and willed acres to his wife, Fee simple and forever. Now you'd think That contemplating death, he'd make a deed Giving these acres back to Mrs. Burton, The sister who had trusted him. I don't know What comes in people's heads, but I believe The want of money is the root of evil, As well as love of money; for this Captain Perhaps would make provision for his wife And infant son, thought that the chiefest thing No matter how he did it, being poor, Willed this land as he did. But anyway He willed it so, went into Shiloh's battle, And fell dead on the field. What happened then? They took this will to probate. As I said I was a lawyer then, you may believe it, Was hired by the Burtons to reclaim These acres from the Widow Kingston's clutch, Under this wicked will. And so I argued The will had not been witnessed according to law. Got beat upon that point in the lower court, But won upon it in the upper courts. Then next I filed a bill to set aside This deed the Burtons made to Captain Kingston-- Oh, I was full of schemes, expedients, In those days, I can tell you. Widow Kingston Came back and filed a cross bill, asked the court To confirm the title in her son and her As heirs of Captain Kingston, let the will Go out of thought and reckoning. Here's the issue; You understand the case, no doubt. We fought Through all the courts. I lost in the lower court, As I lost on the will. There was the deed: For love and affection and one dollar we Convey and warrant lots from one to ten In the city of LeRoy, to Captain Kingston To be his own forever. How to go Behind such words and show the actual trust Inhering in the deed, that was the job. But here I was resourceful as before, Found witnesses to testify they heard This Captain Kingston say he held the acres In trust for Mrs. Burton--but I lost Before the chancellor, had to appeal, But won on the appeal, and thus restored These acres to the Burtons. And for this What did I get? Three hundred lousy dollars. That's why I smoke a pipe; that's also why I quit the business when I saw the business Was making ready to quit me. By God, My life is waste so far as it was used By this law business, and no coroner Need hold an inquest on me to find out What waste was in my life--God damn the law! Well, then I go my way, and take my fee, And pay my bills. The Burtons have the land, And turn a cow upon it. See how nice A playground it would be. I've seen ten sets Of children try to play there--hey! you hear, The caretaker come out, get off of there! And then the children scamper, climb the fence. Well, after while the Burtons die. The will Leaves these five acres to their sons for life, Remainder to the children of the sons. The sons are living yet at middle life, These acres have been tied up twenty years, They may be tied up thirty years beside: The sons can't sell it, and their children can't, Only the cow can use it, as it stands. It grows more valuable as the people come here, And bring in being Elenor Murrays, children, And make the land around it populous. That's what makes poverty, this holding land, It makes the taxes harder on the poor, It makes work scarcer, and it takes your girls And boys and throws them into life half made, Half ready for the battle. Is a country Free where the laws permit such things? Your priests, Your addle-headed preachers mouthing Christ And morals, prohibition, laws to force People to be good, to save the girls, When every half-wit knows environment Takes natures, made unstable in these homes Of poverty and does the trick. That baronet Who mocked our freedom, sailing back for England And said: Your Liberty Statue in the harbor Is just a joke, that baronet is right, While such conditions thrive. Well, look at me Who for three hundred dollars take a part In making a cow pasture for a cow For fifty years or so. I hate myself. And were the Burtons better than this Kingston? Kingston would will away what was not his. The Burtons took what is the gift of God, As much as air, and fenced it out of use-- Save for the cow aforesaid--for the lives Of sons in being. Oh, I know you think I have a grudge. I have. This Elenor Murray Was ten years old I think, this law suit ended Twelve years or so, and I was running down, Was tippling just a little every day; And I came by this lot one afternoon When school was out, a sunny afternoon. The children had no place except the street To play in; they were standing by the fence, The cow was way across the lot, and Elenor Was looking through the fence, some boys and girls Standing around her, and I said to them: "Why don't you climb the fence and play in there?" And Elenor--she always was a leader, And not afraid of anything, said: "Come on," And in a jiffy climbed the fence, the children, Some quicker and some slower, followed her. Some said "They don't allow it." Elenor Stood on the fence, flung up her arms and crowed, And said "What can they do? He says to do it," Pointing at me. And in a moment all of them Were playing and were shouting in the lot. And I stood there and watched them half malicious, And half in pleasure watching them at play. Then I heard "hey!" the care-taker ran out. And said "Get out of there, I will arrest you." He drove them out and as they jumped the fence Some said, "He told us to," pointing at me. And Elenor Murray said "Why, what a lie!" And then the care-taker grabbed Elenor Murray And said, "You are the wildest of them all." I spoke up, saying, "Leave that child alone. I won this God damn land for those you serve, They use it for a cow and nothing else, And let these children run about the streets, When there are grass and dandelions there In plenty for these children, and the cow, And space enough to play in without bothering That solitary cow." I took his hands Away from Elenor Murray; he and I Came face to face with clenched fists--but at last He walked away; the children scampered off. Next day, however, they arrested me For aiding in a _trespass clausam fregit_, And fined me twenty dollars and the costs. Since then the cow has all her way in there. And Elenor Murray left this rotten place, Went to the war, came home and died, and proved She had the sense to leave so vile a world. * * * * * George Joslin ending up his days with dreams Of youth in Europe, travels, and with talk, Stirred to a recollection of a face He saw in Paris fifty years before, Because the face resembled Elenor Murray's, Explored his drawers and boxes, where he kept Mementos, treasures of the olden days. And found a pamphlet, came to Merival, With certain recollections, and with theories Of Elenor Murray:-- GEORGE JOSLIN ON LA MENKEN Here, Coroner Merival, look at this picture! Whom does it look like? Eyes too crystalline, A head like Byron's, tender mouth, and neck, Slender and white, a pathos as of smiles And tears kept back by courage. Yes, you know It looks like Elenor Murray. Well, you see I read each day about the inquest--good! Dig out the truth, begin a system here Of making family records, let us see If we can do for people when we know How best to do it, what is done for stock. So build up Illinois, the nation too. I read about you daily. And last night When Elenor Murray's picture in the _Times_ Looked at me, I began to think, Good Lord, Where have I seen that face before? I thought Through more than fifty years departed, sent My mind through Europe and America In all my travels, meetings, episodes. I could not think. At last I opened up A box of pamphlets, photographs, mementos, Picked up since 1860, and behold I find this pamphlet of La Belle Menken. Here is your Elenor Murray born again, As here might be your blackbird of this year With spots of red upon his wings, the same As last year's blackbird, like a pansy springing Out of the April of this year, repeating The color, form of one you saw last year. Repeating and the same, but not the same; No two alike, you know. I'll come to that. Well, then, La Menken--as a boy in Paris I saw La Menken, I'll return to this. But just as Elenor Murray has her life Shadowed and symbolized by our Starved Rock-- And everyone has something in his life Which takes him, makes him, is the image too Of fate prefigured--La Menken has Mazeppa, Her notable first part as actress, emblem Of spirit, character, and of omen too Of years to come, the thrill of life, the end. Who is La Menken? Symbol of America, One phase of spirit! She was venturesome, Resourceful, daring, hopeful, confident, And as she wrote of self, a vagabond, A dweller in tents, a reveler, and a flame Aspiring but disreputable, coming up With leaves that shamed her stalk, could not be shed, But stuck out heavy veined and muddy hued In time of blossom. There are souls, you know, Who have shed shapeless immaturities, Betrayals of the seed before the blossom Comes to proclaim a beauty, a perfection; Or risen with their stalk, until such leaves Were hidden in the grass or soil--not she, Nor even your Elenor Murray, as I read her. But being America and American, Brings good and bad together, blossom and leaves With prodigal recklessness, in vital health And unselective taste and vision mixed Of beauty and of truth. Who was La Menken? She's born in Louisiana in thirty-five, Left fatherless at seven--mother takes her And puts her in the ballet at New Orleans. She dances then from Texas clear to Cuba; Then gives up dancing, studies tragedy, And plays Bianca! Fourteen years of age Weds Menken, who's a Jew, divorced from him; Then falls in love with Heenan, pugilist. They quarrel and separate--it's in this pamphlet Just as I tell you; you can take it, Coroner. Now something happens, nothing in her birth Or place of birth to prophesy her life Like Starved Rock to this Elenor--being grown, A hand instead is darted from the curtain That hangs between to-day, to-morrow, sticks A symbol on her heart and whispers to her: You're this, my woman. Well, the thing was this: She played Mazeppa: take your dummy off, And lash me to the horse. They were afraid, But she prevailed, was nearly killed the first night, And after that succeeded, was the rage And for her years remaining found herself Lashed to the wild horse of ungoverned will, Which ran and wandered, till she knew herself With stronger will than vision, passion stronger Than spirit to judge; the richness of the world, Love, beauty, living, greater than her power. And all the time she had the appetite To eat, devour it all. Grown sick at last, She diagnosed her case, wrote to a friend: The soul and body do not fit each other-- A human spirit in a horse's flesh. This is your Elenor Murray, in a way. But to return to pansies, run your hand Over a bed of pansies; here's a pansy With petals stunted, here's another one All perfect but one petal, here's another Too streaked or mottled--all are pansies though. And here is one full petaled, strikes the eye With perfect color, markings. Elenor Murray Has something of the color and the form Of this La Menken, but is less a pansy, And Sappho, Rachel, Bernhardt are the flowers La Menken strove to be, and could not be, Ended with being only of their kind. And now there's pity for this Elenor Murray, And people wept when poor La Menken died. Both lived and had their way. I hate this pity, It makes you overlook there are two hours: The hour of joy, the hour of finding out Your joy was all mistake, or led to pain. We who inspect these lives behold the pain, And see the error, do not keep in mind The hour of rapture, and the pride, indeed With which your Elenor Murrays and La Menkens Have lived that hour, elation, pride and scorn For any other way--"this is the life" I hear them say. Well, now I go along. La Menken fills her purse with gold--she sends Her pugilist away, tries once again And weds a humorist, an Orpheus Kerr-- And plays before the miners out in 'Frisco, And Sacramento, gathers in the eagles. She goes to Europe then--with husband? No! James Barkley is her fellow on the voyage. She lands in London, takes a gorgeous suite In London's grandest hostlery, entertains Charles Dickens, Prince Baerto and Charles Read, The Duke of Wellington and Swinburne, Sand And Jenny Lind; and has a liveried coachman; And for a crest a horse's head surmounting Four aces, if you please. And plays Mazeppa, And piles the money up. Then next is Paris. And there I saw her, 1866, When Louis Napoleon and the King of Greece, The Prince Imperial were in a box. She wandered to Vienna, there was ill, Came back to Paris, died, a stranger's grave In Pere la Chaise was given, afterwards Exhumed in Mont Parnasse was buried, got A little stone with these words carved upon it: "Thou Knowest" meaning God knew, while herself Knew nothing of herself. But when in Paris They sold her picture taken with her arms Around Dumas, and photographs made up Of postures ludicrous, obscene as well, Of her and great Dumas, I have them home. Can show you sometime. Well she loved Dumas, Inscribed a book of poems to Charles Dickens, By his permission, mark you--don't you see Your Elenor Murray here? This Elenor Murray A miniature imperfect of La Menken? She loved sensation, all her senses thrilled her; A delicate soul too weighted by the flesh; A coquette, quick of wit, intuitive, Kind, generous, unaffected, mystical, Teased by the divine in life, and melancholy, Of deep emotion sometimes. One has said She had a nature spiritual, religious Which warred upon the flesh and fell in battle; Just as your Elenor Murray joined the church, And did not keep the faith, if truth be told. Now look, here is a letter in this pamphlet La Menken writes a poet--for she hunts For seers and for poets, lofty souls. And who does that? A woman wholly bad? Why no, a woman to be given life Fit for her spirit in another realm By God who will take notice, I believe. Now listen if you will! "I know your soul. It has met mine somewhere in starry space. And you must often meet me, vagabond Of fancy without aim, a dweller in tents Disreputable before the just. Just think I am a linguist, write some poems too, Can paint a little, model clay as well. And yet for all these gropings of my soul I am a vagabond, of little use. My body and my soul are in a scramble And do not fit each other--let them carve Those words upon my stone, but also these Thou Knowest, for God knows me, knows I love Whatever is good and beautiful in life; And that my soul has sought them without rest. Farewell, my friend, my spirit is with you, Vienna is too horrible, but know Paris Then die content." Now, Coroner Merival, You're not the only man who wants to see, Will work to make America a republic Of splendors, freedoms, happiness, success. Though I am seventy-six, cannot do much, Save talk, as I am talking now, bring forth Proofs, revelations from the years I've lived. I care not how you view the lives of people, As pansy beds or what not, lift your faith So high above the pansy bed it sees The streaked and stunted pansies filling in The pattern that the perfect pansies outline, Therefore are smiling, even indifferent To this poor conscious pansy, dying at last Because it could not be the flower it wished. My heart to Elenor Murray and La Menken Goes out in sorrow, even while I know They shook their leaves in April, laughed and thrilled, And either did not know, or did not care The growing time was precious, and if wasted Could never be regained. Look at La Menken At seven years put in the ballet corps; And look at Elenor Murray getting smut Out of experience that made her wise. What shall we do about it?--let it go? And say there is no help, or say a republic, Set up a hundred years ago, raised to the helm Of rulership as president a list Of men more able than the emperors, Kings, rulers of the world, and statesmen too The equal of the greatest, money makers, And domineers of finance and economies Phenomenal in time--say, I repeat A country like this one must let its children Waste as they wasted in the darker years Of Europe. Shall we let these trivial minds Who see salvation, progress in restraint, Pre-empt the field of moulding human life? Or shall we take a hand, and put our minds Upon the task, as recently we built An army for the war, equipped and fed it, An army better than all other armies, More powerful, more apt of hand and brain, Of thin tall youths, who did stop but said Like poor La Menken, strap me to the horse I'll do it if I die--so giving to peace The skill and genius which we use in war, Though it cost twenty billion, and why not? Why every dollar, every drop of blood For war like this to guard democracy, And not so much or more to build the land, Improve our blood, make individual America and her race? And first to rout Poverty and disease, give youth its chance, And therapeutic guidance. Soldier boys Have huts for recreation, clergymen, And is it more, less worth to furnish hands Intimate, hearts intimate for the use Of your La Menkens, Elenor Murrays, youths Who feel such vigor in their restless wings They tumble out of crowded nests and fly To fall in thickets, dash themselves against Walls, trees? I have a vision, Coroner, Of a new Republic, brighter than the sun, A new race, loftier faith, this land of ours Made over as to people, boys and girls, Conserved like forests, water power or mines; Watched, tested, put to best use, keen economies Practiced in spirits, waste of human life, Hope, aspiration, talent, virtues, powers, Avoided by a science, science of life, Of spirit, what you will. Enough of war, And billions for the flag--all well enough! Some billions now to make democracy Democracy in truth with us, and life Not helter-skelter, hitting as it may, And missing much, as this La Menken did. I'm not convinced we must have stunted pansies, That have no use but just to piece the pattern. Let's try, and if we try and fail, why then Our human duty ends, the God in us Will have it just this way, no other way. And then we may accept so poor a world, A republic so unfinished. * * * * * Will Paget is another writer of letters To Coroner Merival. The coroner Spends evenings reading letters, keeps a file Where he preserves them. And the blasphemy Of Paget makes him laugh. He has an evening And reads this letter to the jurymen: WILL PAGET ON DEMOS AND HOGOS To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice Dissentient from much that goes the rounds, Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word: Give men and women freedom, save the land From dull theocracy--the theo, what? A blend of Demos and Jehovah! Say, Bring back your despots, bring your Louis Fourteenths, And give them thrones of gold and ivory From where with leaded sceptres they may whack King Demos driven forth. You know the face? The temples are like sea shells, hollows out, Which narrow close the space for cortex cells. There would be little brow if hair remained; But hair is gone, because the dandruff came. The eyes are close together like a weasel's; The jaws are heavy, that is character; The mouth is thin and wide to gobble chicken; The paunch is heavy for the chickens eaten. Throned high upon a soap box Demos rules, And mumbles decalogues: Thou shalt not read, Save what I tell you, never books that tell Of men and women as they live and are. Thou shalt not see the dramas which portray The evil passions and satiric moods Which mock this Christian nation and its hope. Thou shalt not drink, not even wine or beer. Thou shalt not play at cards, or see the races. Thou shalt not be divorced! Thou shalt not play. Thou shalt not bow to graven images Of beauty cut in marble, fused in bronze. Behold my name is Demos, King of Kings, My name is legion, I am many, come Out of the sea where many hogs were drowned, And now the ruler of hogocracy, Where in the name of freedom hungry snouts Root up the truffles in your great republic, And crunch with heavy jaws the legs and arms Of people who fall over in the pen. Hierarchies in my name are planted under Your states political to sprout and take The new world's soil,--religious freedom this!-- Thought must be free--unless your thought objects To such dominion, and to literal faith In an old book that never had a place Except beside the Koran, Zarathustra. So here is your theocracy and here The land of Boredom. Do you wonder now That people cry for war? You see that God Frowns on all games but war. You shall not play Or kindle spirit with a rapture save A moral end's in view. All joy is sin, Where joy stands for itself alone, nor asks Consent to be, save for itself. But war Waged to put down the wrong, it's always that; To vindicate God's truths, all wars are such, Is game that lets the spirit play, is backed By God and moral reasons, therefore war, A game disguised as business, cosmic work For great millenniums, no less relieves The boredom of theocracies. But if Your men and women had the chance to play, Be free and spend superfluous energies, In what I call the greatest game, that's Life, Have life more freely, deeply, and you say How would you like a war and lose a leg, Or come from battle sick for all your years? You would say no, unless you saw an issue, Stripped clean of Christian twaddle, as we'll say The Greeks beheld the Persians. Well, behold All honest paganism in such things discarded For God who comes in glory, trampling presses Filled up with grapes of wrath. Now hear me out: I knew we'd have a war, it wasn't only That your hogocracy was grunting war We'd fight Japan, take Mexico--remember How dancing flourished madly in the land; Then think of savages who dance the Ghost Dance, And cattle lowing, rushing in a panic, There's psychic secrets here. But then at last What can you do with life? You're well and strong, Flushed with desire, mad with appetites, You turn this way and find a sign forbidden, You turn that way and find the door is closed. Hogocracy, King Demos say, go back, Find work, develop character, restrain, Draw up your belt a little tighter, hunger And thirst diminish with a tighter belt. And none to say, take off the belt and eat, Here's water for you. Well, you have a war. We used to say in foot ball kick their shins, And gouge their eyes out--when our shins were kicked We hollered foul and ouch. There was the south Who called us mud-sills in this freer north, And mouthed democracy; and as for that Their churches made of God a battle leader, An idea come from Palestine; oh, yes, They soon would wipe us up, they were the people. But when we slaughtered them they hollered ouch. And why not? For a gun and uniform, And bands that play are rapturous enough. But when you get a bullet through the heart, The game is not so funny as it was. That's why I hated Germany and hate her, And feel we could not let this German culture Spread over earth. That culture was but this: Life must have an expression and a game, And war's the game, besides the prize is great In land and treasure, commerce, let us play, It lets the people's passions have a vent When fires of life burn hot and hotter under The kettle and the lid is clamped by work, Dull duty, daily routine, inhibitions. Before this Elenor Murray woke to life LeRoy was stirring, but the stir was play. It was a Gretna Green, and pleasure boats Ran up and down the river--on the streets You heard the cry of barkers, in the park The band was playing, and you heard the ring Of registers at fountains and buffets. All this was shabby maybe, but observe There are those souls who see the wrath of God As blackest background to the light of soul: And when the thunder rumbles and the storm Comes up with lightning then they say to men Who laugh in bar-rooms, "Have a care, blasphemers, You may be struck by lightning"--here's the root From which this mood ascetic comes to leaf In all theocracies, and throws a shadow Upon all freedom. Look at us to-day. They say to me, see what a town we have: The men at work, smoke coming from the chimneys, The banks full up of money, business good, The workmen sober, going home at night, No rowdy barkers and no bands a-playing, No drinking and no gaming and no vice. No marriages contracted to be broken. Look how LeRoy is quiet, sane and clean! And I reply, you like the stir of work, But not the stir of play; your chimneys smoke, Your banks have money. Let me look behind The door that closes on your man at home, The wife and children there, what shall I find? A sick man looks to health as it were all, But when the fever leaves him and he feels The store of strength in muscles slumbering And waiting to be used, then something else Than health is needful, he must have a way To voice the life within him, and he wonders Why health seemed so desirable before, And all sufficient to him. Take this girl: Why do you marvel that she rode at night With any man who came along? Good God, If I were born a woman and they put me In a theocracy, hogocracy, I'd do the first thing that came in my mind To give my soul expression. Don't you think You're something of a bully and a coward To ask such model living from this girl When you, my grunting hogos, run the land And bring us scandals like the times of Grant, And poisoned beef sold to the soldier boys, When we were warring Spain, and all this stuff Concerning loot and plunder, malversation, That riots in your cities, printed daily? I roll the panoramic story out To Washington the great--what do I see? It's tangle foot, the sticky smear is dry; But I can find wings, legs and heads, remember How little flies and big were buzzing once Of God and duty, country, virtue, faith; And beating wings, already gummed with sweet, Until their little bellies touched the glue, They sought to fill their bellies with--at last Long silence, which is history, scroll rolled up And spoken of in sacred whispers. Well, I'm glad that Elenor Murray had her fling, If that be really true. I understand What drove her to the war. I think she knew Too much to marry, settle down and live Under the rule of Demos or of Hogos. I wish

dandelions

How many times the word 'dandelions' appears in the text?

won these acres here For old man Kingston's daughter, who in turn Bound it with limitation for the life Of selfish sons, who keep a caretaker, Who keeps a cow upon it. There's the cow! The land has had no use for thirty years. The children are kept off it. Elenor Murray, This girl whose death makes such a stir, one time Was playing there--but that's another story. I only say for the present, these five acres Made Elenor Murray's life a thing of waste As much as anything, and a damn sight more. For think a minute! Kingston had a daughter Married to Colonel Burton in Kentucky. And Kingston's son was in the Civil War. But just before the war, the Burtons deeded These acres here, which she inherited From old man Kingston, to this Captain Kingston, The son aforesaid of Old Kingston. Well, The deed upon its face was absolute, But really was a deed in trust. The Captain Held title for a year or two, and then An hour before he fought at Shiloh, made A will, and willed acres to his wife, Fee simple and forever. Now you'd think That contemplating death, he'd make a deed Giving these acres back to Mrs. Burton, The sister who had trusted him. I don't know What comes in people's heads, but I believe The want of money is the root of evil, As well as love of money; for this Captain Perhaps would make provision for his wife And infant son, thought that the chiefest thing No matter how he did it, being poor, Willed this land as he did. But anyway He willed it so, went into Shiloh's battle, And fell dead on the field. What happened then? They took this will to probate. As I said I was a lawyer then, you may believe it, Was hired by the Burtons to reclaim These acres from the Widow Kingston's clutch, Under this wicked will. And so I argued The will had not been witnessed according to law. Got beat upon that point in the lower court, But won upon it in the upper courts. Then next I filed a bill to set aside This deed the Burtons made to Captain Kingston-- Oh, I was full of schemes, expedients, In those days, I can tell you. Widow Kingston Came back and filed a cross bill, asked the court To confirm the title in her son and her As heirs of Captain Kingston, let the will Go out of thought and reckoning. Here's the issue; You understand the case, no doubt. We fought Through all the courts. I lost in the lower court, As I lost on the will. There was the deed: For love and affection and one dollar we Convey and warrant lots from one to ten In the city of LeRoy, to Captain Kingston To be his own forever. How to go Behind such words and show the actual trust Inhering in the deed, that was the job. But here I was resourceful as before, Found witnesses to testify they heard This Captain Kingston say he held the acres In trust for Mrs. Burton--but I lost Before the chancellor, had to appeal, But won on the appeal, and thus restored These acres to the Burtons. And for this What did I get? Three hundred lousy dollars. That's why I smoke a pipe; that's also why I quit the business when I saw the business Was making ready to quit me. By God, My life is waste so far as it was used By this law business, and no coroner Need hold an inquest on me to find out What waste was in my life--God damn the law! Well, then I go my way, and take my fee, And pay my bills. The Burtons have the land, And turn a cow upon it. See how nice A playground it would be. I've seen ten sets Of children try to play there--hey! you hear, The caretaker come out, get off of there! And then the children scamper, climb the fence. Well, after while the Burtons die. The will Leaves these five acres to their sons for life, Remainder to the children of the sons. The sons are living yet at middle life, These acres have been tied up twenty years, They may be tied up thirty years beside: The sons can't sell it, and their children can't, Only the cow can use it, as it stands. It grows more valuable as the people come here, And bring in being Elenor Murrays, children, And make the land around it populous. That's what makes poverty, this holding land, It makes the taxes harder on the poor, It makes work scarcer, and it takes your girls And boys and throws them into life half made, Half ready for the battle. Is a country Free where the laws permit such things? Your priests, Your addle-headed preachers mouthing Christ And morals, prohibition, laws to force People to be good, to save the girls, When every half-wit knows environment Takes natures, made unstable in these homes Of poverty and does the trick. That baronet Who mocked our freedom, sailing back for England And said: Your Liberty Statue in the harbor Is just a joke, that baronet is right, While such conditions thrive. Well, look at me Who for three hundred dollars take a part In making a cow pasture for a cow For fifty years or so. I hate myself. And were the Burtons better than this Kingston? Kingston would will away what was not his. The Burtons took what is the gift of God, As much as air, and fenced it out of use-- Save for the cow aforesaid--for the lives Of sons in being. Oh, I know you think I have a grudge. I have. This Elenor Murray Was ten years old I think, this law suit ended Twelve years or so, and I was running down, Was tippling just a little every day; And I came by this lot one afternoon When school was out, a sunny afternoon. The children had no place except the street To play in; they were standing by the fence, The cow was way across the lot, and Elenor Was looking through the fence, some boys and girls Standing around her, and I said to them: "Why don't you climb the fence and play in there?" And Elenor--she always was a leader, And not afraid of anything, said: "Come on," And in a jiffy climbed the fence, the children, Some quicker and some slower, followed her. Some said "They don't allow it." Elenor Stood on the fence, flung up her arms and crowed, And said "What can they do? He says to do it," Pointing at me. And in a moment all of them Were playing and were shouting in the lot. And I stood there and watched them half malicious, And half in pleasure watching them at play. Then I heard "hey!" the care-taker ran out. And said "Get out of there, I will arrest you." He drove them out and as they jumped the fence Some said, "He told us to," pointing at me. And Elenor Murray said "Why, what a lie!" And then the care-taker grabbed Elenor Murray And said, "You are the wildest of them all." I spoke up, saying, "Leave that child alone. I won this God damn land for those you serve, They use it for a cow and nothing else, And let these children run about the streets, When there are grass and dandelions there In plenty for these children, and the cow, And space enough to play in without bothering That solitary cow." I took his hands Away from Elenor Murray; he and I Came face to face with clenched fists--but at last He walked away; the children scampered off. Next day, however, they arrested me For aiding in a _trespass clausam fregit_, And fined me twenty dollars and the costs. Since then the cow has all her way in there. And Elenor Murray left this rotten place, Went to the war, came home and died, and proved She had the sense to leave so vile a world. * * * * * George Joslin ending up his days with dreams Of youth in Europe, travels, and with talk, Stirred to a recollection of a face He saw in Paris fifty years before, Because the face resembled Elenor Murray's, Explored his drawers and boxes, where he kept Mementos, treasures of the olden days. And found a pamphlet, came to Merival, With certain recollections, and with theories Of Elenor Murray:-- GEORGE JOSLIN ON LA MENKEN Here, Coroner Merival, look at this picture! Whom does it look like? Eyes too crystalline, A head like Byron's, tender mouth, and neck, Slender and white, a pathos as of smiles And tears kept back by courage. Yes, you know It looks like Elenor Murray. Well, you see I read each day about the inquest--good! Dig out the truth, begin a system here Of making family records, let us see If we can do for people when we know How best to do it, what is done for stock. So build up Illinois, the nation too. I read about you daily. And last night When Elenor Murray's picture in the _Times_ Looked at me, I began to think, Good Lord, Where have I seen that face before? I thought Through more than fifty years departed, sent My mind through Europe and America In all my travels, meetings, episodes. I could not think. At last I opened up A box of pamphlets, photographs, mementos, Picked up since 1860, and behold I find this pamphlet of La Belle Menken. Here is your Elenor Murray born again, As here might be your blackbird of this year With spots of red upon his wings, the same As last year's blackbird, like a pansy springing Out of the April of this year, repeating The color, form of one you saw last year. Repeating and the same, but not the same; No two alike, you know. I'll come to that. Well, then, La Menken--as a boy in Paris I saw La Menken, I'll return to this. But just as Elenor Murray has her life Shadowed and symbolized by our Starved Rock-- And everyone has something in his life Which takes him, makes him, is the image too Of fate prefigured--La Menken has Mazeppa, Her notable first part as actress, emblem Of spirit, character, and of omen too Of years to come, the thrill of life, the end. Who is La Menken? Symbol of America, One phase of spirit! She was venturesome, Resourceful, daring, hopeful, confident, And as she wrote of self, a vagabond, A dweller in tents, a reveler, and a flame Aspiring but disreputable, coming up With leaves that shamed her stalk, could not be shed, But stuck out heavy veined and muddy hued In time of blossom. There are souls, you know, Who have shed shapeless immaturities, Betrayals of the seed before the blossom Comes to proclaim a beauty, a perfection; Or risen with their stalk, until such leaves Were hidden in the grass or soil--not she, Nor even your Elenor Murray, as I read her. But being America and American, Brings good and bad together, blossom and leaves With prodigal recklessness, in vital health And unselective taste and vision mixed Of beauty and of truth. Who was La Menken? She's born in Louisiana in thirty-five, Left fatherless at seven--mother takes her And puts her in the ballet at New Orleans. She dances then from Texas clear to Cuba; Then gives up dancing, studies tragedy, And plays Bianca! Fourteen years of age Weds Menken, who's a Jew, divorced from him; Then falls in love with Heenan, pugilist. They quarrel and separate--it's in this pamphlet Just as I tell you; you can take it, Coroner. Now something happens, nothing in her birth Or place of birth to prophesy her life Like Starved Rock to this Elenor--being grown, A hand instead is darted from the curtain That hangs between to-day, to-morrow, sticks A symbol on her heart and whispers to her: You're this, my woman. Well, the thing was this: She played Mazeppa: take your dummy off, And lash me to the horse. They were afraid, But she prevailed, was nearly killed the first night, And after that succeeded, was the rage And for her years remaining found herself Lashed to the wild horse of ungoverned will, Which ran and wandered, till she knew herself With stronger will than vision, passion stronger Than spirit to judge; the richness of the world, Love, beauty, living, greater than her power. And all the time she had the appetite To eat, devour it all. Grown sick at last, She diagnosed her case, wrote to a friend: The soul and body do not fit each other-- A human spirit in a horse's flesh. This is your Elenor Murray, in a way. But to return to pansies, run your hand Over a bed of pansies; here's a pansy With petals stunted, here's another one All perfect but one petal, here's another Too streaked or mottled--all are pansies though. And here is one full petaled, strikes the eye With perfect color, markings. Elenor Murray Has something of the color and the form Of this La Menken, but is less a pansy, And Sappho, Rachel, Bernhardt are the flowers La Menken strove to be, and could not be, Ended with being only of their kind. And now there's pity for this Elenor Murray, And people wept when poor La Menken died. Both lived and had their way. I hate this pity, It makes you overlook there are two hours: The hour of joy, the hour of finding out Your joy was all mistake, or led to pain. We who inspect these lives behold the pain, And see the error, do not keep in mind The hour of rapture, and the pride, indeed With which your Elenor Murrays and La Menkens Have lived that hour, elation, pride and scorn For any other way--"this is the life" I hear them say. Well, now I go along. La Menken fills her purse with gold--she sends Her pugilist away, tries once again And weds a humorist, an Orpheus Kerr-- And plays before the miners out in 'Frisco, And Sacramento, gathers in the eagles. She goes to Europe then--with husband? No! James Barkley is her fellow on the voyage. She lands in London, takes a gorgeous suite In London's grandest hostlery, entertains Charles Dickens, Prince Baerto and Charles Read, The Duke of Wellington and Swinburne, Sand And Jenny Lind; and has a liveried coachman; And for a crest a horse's head surmounting Four aces, if you please. And plays Mazeppa, And piles the money up. Then next is Paris. And there I saw her, 1866, When Louis Napoleon and the King of Greece, The Prince Imperial were in a box. She wandered to Vienna, there was ill, Came back to Paris, died, a stranger's grave In Pere la Chaise was given, afterwards Exhumed in Mont Parnasse was buried, got A little stone with these words carved upon it: "Thou Knowest" meaning God knew, while herself Knew nothing of herself. But when in Paris They sold her picture taken with her arms Around Dumas, and photographs made up Of postures ludicrous, obscene as well, Of her and great Dumas, I have them home. Can show you sometime. Well she loved Dumas, Inscribed a book of poems to Charles Dickens, By his permission, mark you--don't you see Your Elenor Murray here? This Elenor Murray A miniature imperfect of La Menken? She loved sensation, all her senses thrilled her; A delicate soul too weighted by the flesh; A coquette, quick of wit, intuitive, Kind, generous, unaffected, mystical, Teased by the divine in life, and melancholy, Of deep emotion sometimes. One has said She had a nature spiritual, religious Which warred upon the flesh and fell in battle; Just as your Elenor Murray joined the church, And did not keep the faith, if truth be told. Now look, here is a letter in this pamphlet La Menken writes a poet--for she hunts For seers and for poets, lofty souls. And who does that? A woman wholly bad? Why no, a woman to be given life Fit for her spirit in another realm By God who will take notice, I believe. Now listen if you will! "I know your soul. It has met mine somewhere in starry space. And you must often meet me, vagabond Of fancy without aim, a dweller in tents Disreputable before the just. Just think I am a linguist, write some poems too, Can paint a little, model clay as well. And yet for all these gropings of my soul I am a vagabond, of little use. My body and my soul are in a scramble And do not fit each other--let them carve Those words upon my stone, but also these Thou Knowest, for God knows me, knows I love Whatever is good and beautiful in life; And that my soul has sought them without rest. Farewell, my friend, my spirit is with you, Vienna is too horrible, but know Paris Then die content." Now, Coroner Merival, You're not the only man who wants to see, Will work to make America a republic Of splendors, freedoms, happiness, success. Though I am seventy-six, cannot do much, Save talk, as I am talking now, bring forth Proofs, revelations from the years I've lived. I care not how you view the lives of people, As pansy beds or what not, lift your faith So high above the pansy bed it sees The streaked and stunted pansies filling in The pattern that the perfect pansies outline, Therefore are smiling, even indifferent To this poor conscious pansy, dying at last Because it could not be the flower it wished. My heart to Elenor Murray and La Menken Goes out in sorrow, even while I know They shook their leaves in April, laughed and thrilled, And either did not know, or did not care The growing time was precious, and if wasted Could never be regained. Look at La Menken At seven years put in the ballet corps; And look at Elenor Murray getting smut Out of experience that made her wise. What shall we do about it?--let it go? And say there is no help, or say a republic, Set up a hundred years ago, raised to the helm Of rulership as president a list Of men more able than the emperors, Kings, rulers of the world, and statesmen too The equal of the greatest, money makers, And domineers of finance and economies Phenomenal in time--say, I repeat A country like this one must let its children Waste as they wasted in the darker years Of Europe. Shall we let these trivial minds Who see salvation, progress in restraint, Pre-empt the field of moulding human life? Or shall we take a hand, and put our minds Upon the task, as recently we built An army for the war, equipped and fed it, An army better than all other armies, More powerful, more apt of hand and brain, Of thin tall youths, who did stop but said Like poor La Menken, strap me to the horse I'll do it if I die--so giving to peace The skill and genius which we use in war, Though it cost twenty billion, and why not? Why every dollar, every drop of blood For war like this to guard democracy, And not so much or more to build the land, Improve our blood, make individual America and her race? And first to rout Poverty and disease, give youth its chance, And therapeutic guidance. Soldier boys Have huts for recreation, clergymen, And is it more, less worth to furnish hands Intimate, hearts intimate for the use Of your La Menkens, Elenor Murrays, youths Who feel such vigor in their restless wings They tumble out of crowded nests and fly To fall in thickets, dash themselves against Walls, trees? I have a vision, Coroner, Of a new Republic, brighter than the sun, A new race, loftier faith, this land of ours Made over as to people, boys and girls, Conserved like forests, water power or mines; Watched, tested, put to best use, keen economies Practiced in spirits, waste of human life, Hope, aspiration, talent, virtues, powers, Avoided by a science, science of life, Of spirit, what you will. Enough of war, And billions for the flag--all well enough! Some billions now to make democracy Democracy in truth with us, and life Not helter-skelter, hitting as it may, And missing much, as this La Menken did. I'm not convinced we must have stunted pansies, That have no use but just to piece the pattern. Let's try, and if we try and fail, why then Our human duty ends, the God in us Will have it just this way, no other way. And then we may accept so poor a world, A republic so unfinished. * * * * * Will Paget is another writer of letters To Coroner Merival. The coroner Spends evenings reading letters, keeps a file Where he preserves them. And the blasphemy Of Paget makes him laugh. He has an evening And reads this letter to the jurymen: WILL PAGET ON DEMOS AND HOGOS To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice Dissentient from much that goes the rounds, Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word: Give men and women freedom, save the land From dull theocracy--the theo, what? A blend of Demos and Jehovah! Say, Bring back your despots, bring your Louis Fourteenths, And give them thrones of gold and ivory From where with leaded sceptres they may whack King Demos driven forth. You know the face? The temples are like sea shells, hollows out, Which narrow close the space for cortex cells. There would be little brow if hair remained; But hair is gone, because the dandruff came. The eyes are close together like a weasel's; The jaws are heavy, that is character; The mouth is thin and wide to gobble chicken; The paunch is heavy for the chickens eaten. Throned high upon a soap box Demos rules, And mumbles decalogues: Thou shalt not read, Save what I tell you, never books that tell Of men and women as they live and are. Thou shalt not see the dramas which portray The evil passions and satiric moods Which mock this Christian nation and its hope. Thou shalt not drink, not even wine or beer. Thou shalt not play at cards, or see the races. Thou shalt not be divorced! Thou shalt not play. Thou shalt not bow to graven images Of beauty cut in marble, fused in bronze. Behold my name is Demos, King of Kings, My name is legion, I am many, come Out of the sea where many hogs were drowned, And now the ruler of hogocracy, Where in the name of freedom hungry snouts Root up the truffles in your great republic, And crunch with heavy jaws the legs and arms Of people who fall over in the pen. Hierarchies in my name are planted under Your states political to sprout and take The new world's soil,--religious freedom this!-- Thought must be free--unless your thought objects To such dominion, and to literal faith In an old book that never had a place Except beside the Koran, Zarathustra. So here is your theocracy and here The land of Boredom. Do you wonder now That people cry for war? You see that God Frowns on all games but war. You shall not play Or kindle spirit with a rapture save A moral end's in view. All joy is sin, Where joy stands for itself alone, nor asks Consent to be, save for itself. But war Waged to put down the wrong, it's always that; To vindicate God's truths, all wars are such, Is game that lets the spirit play, is backed By God and moral reasons, therefore war, A game disguised as business, cosmic work For great millenniums, no less relieves The boredom of theocracies. But if Your men and women had the chance to play, Be free and spend superfluous energies, In what I call the greatest game, that's Life, Have life more freely, deeply, and you say How would you like a war and lose a leg, Or come from battle sick for all your years? You would say no, unless you saw an issue, Stripped clean of Christian twaddle, as we'll say The Greeks beheld the Persians. Well, behold All honest paganism in such things discarded For God who comes in glory, trampling presses Filled up with grapes of wrath. Now hear me out: I knew we'd have a war, it wasn't only That your hogocracy was grunting war We'd fight Japan, take Mexico--remember How dancing flourished madly in the land; Then think of savages who dance the Ghost Dance, And cattle lowing, rushing in a panic, There's psychic secrets here. But then at last What can you do with life? You're well and strong, Flushed with desire, mad with appetites, You turn this way and find a sign forbidden, You turn that way and find the door is closed. Hogocracy, King Demos say, go back, Find work, develop character, restrain, Draw up your belt a little tighter, hunger And thirst diminish with a tighter belt. And none to say, take off the belt and eat, Here's water for you. Well, you have a war. We used to say in foot ball kick their shins, And gouge their eyes out--when our shins were kicked We hollered foul and ouch. There was the south Who called us mud-sills in this freer north, And mouthed democracy; and as for that Their churches made of God a battle leader, An idea come from Palestine; oh, yes, They soon would wipe us up, they were the people. But when we slaughtered them they hollered ouch. And why not? For a gun and uniform, And bands that play are rapturous enough. But when you get a bullet through the heart, The game is not so funny as it was. That's why I hated Germany and hate her, And feel we could not let this German culture Spread over earth. That culture was but this: Life must have an expression and a game, And war's the game, besides the prize is great In land and treasure, commerce, let us play, It lets the people's passions have a vent When fires of life burn hot and hotter under The kettle and the lid is clamped by work, Dull duty, daily routine, inhibitions. Before this Elenor Murray woke to life LeRoy was stirring, but the stir was play. It was a Gretna Green, and pleasure boats Ran up and down the river--on the streets You heard the cry of barkers, in the park The band was playing, and you heard the ring Of registers at fountains and buffets. All this was shabby maybe, but observe There are those souls who see the wrath of God As blackest background to the light of soul: And when the thunder rumbles and the storm Comes up with lightning then they say to men Who laugh in bar-rooms, "Have a care, blasphemers, You may be struck by lightning"--here's the root From which this mood ascetic comes to leaf In all theocracies, and throws a shadow Upon all freedom. Look at us to-day. They say to me, see what a town we have: The men at work, smoke coming from the chimneys, The banks full up of money, business good, The workmen sober, going home at night, No rowdy barkers and no bands a-playing, No drinking and no gaming and no vice. No marriages contracted to be broken. Look how LeRoy is quiet, sane and clean! And I reply, you like the stir of work, But not the stir of play; your chimneys smoke, Your banks have money. Let me look behind The door that closes on your man at home, The wife and children there, what shall I find? A sick man looks to health as it were all, But when the fever leaves him and he feels The store of strength in muscles slumbering And waiting to be used, then something else Than health is needful, he must have a way To voice the life within him, and he wonders Why health seemed so desirable before, And all sufficient to him. Take this girl: Why do you marvel that she rode at night With any man who came along? Good God, If I were born a woman and they put me In a theocracy, hogocracy, I'd do the first thing that came in my mind To give my soul expression. Don't you think You're something of a bully and a coward To ask such model living from this girl When you, my grunting hogos, run the land And bring us scandals like the times of Grant, And poisoned beef sold to the soldier boys, When we were warring Spain, and all this stuff Concerning loot and plunder, malversation, That riots in your cities, printed daily? I roll the panoramic story out To Washington the great--what do I see? It's tangle foot, the sticky smear is dry; But I can find wings, legs and heads, remember How little flies and big were buzzing once Of God and duty, country, virtue, faith; And beating wings, already gummed with sweet, Until their little bellies touched the glue, They sought to fill their bellies with--at last Long silence, which is history, scroll rolled up And spoken of in sacred whispers. Well, I'm glad that Elenor Murray had her fling, If that be really true. I understand What drove her to the war. I think she knew Too much to marry, settle down and live Under the rule of Demos or of Hogos. I wish

helen

How many times the word 'helen' appears in the text?

won these acres here For old man Kingston's daughter, who in turn Bound it with limitation for the life Of selfish sons, who keep a caretaker, Who keeps a cow upon it. There's the cow! The land has had no use for thirty years. The children are kept off it. Elenor Murray, This girl whose death makes such a stir, one time Was playing there--but that's another story. I only say for the present, these five acres Made Elenor Murray's life a thing of waste As much as anything, and a damn sight more. For think a minute! Kingston had a daughter Married to Colonel Burton in Kentucky. And Kingston's son was in the Civil War. But just before the war, the Burtons deeded These acres here, which she inherited From old man Kingston, to this Captain Kingston, The son aforesaid of Old Kingston. Well, The deed upon its face was absolute, But really was a deed in trust. The Captain Held title for a year or two, and then An hour before he fought at Shiloh, made A will, and willed acres to his wife, Fee simple and forever. Now you'd think That contemplating death, he'd make a deed Giving these acres back to Mrs. Burton, The sister who had trusted him. I don't know What comes in people's heads, but I believe The want of money is the root of evil, As well as love of money; for this Captain Perhaps would make provision for his wife And infant son, thought that the chiefest thing No matter how he did it, being poor, Willed this land as he did. But anyway He willed it so, went into Shiloh's battle, And fell dead on the field. What happened then? They took this will to probate. As I said I was a lawyer then, you may believe it, Was hired by the Burtons to reclaim These acres from the Widow Kingston's clutch, Under this wicked will. And so I argued The will had not been witnessed according to law. Got beat upon that point in the lower court, But won upon it in the upper courts. Then next I filed a bill to set aside This deed the Burtons made to Captain Kingston-- Oh, I was full of schemes, expedients, In those days, I can tell you. Widow Kingston Came back and filed a cross bill, asked the court To confirm the title in her son and her As heirs of Captain Kingston, let the will Go out of thought and reckoning. Here's the issue; You understand the case, no doubt. We fought Through all the courts. I lost in the lower court, As I lost on the will. There was the deed: For love and affection and one dollar we Convey and warrant lots from one to ten In the city of LeRoy, to Captain Kingston To be his own forever. How to go Behind such words and show the actual trust Inhering in the deed, that was the job. But here I was resourceful as before, Found witnesses to testify they heard This Captain Kingston say he held the acres In trust for Mrs. Burton--but I lost Before the chancellor, had to appeal, But won on the appeal, and thus restored These acres to the Burtons. And for this What did I get? Three hundred lousy dollars. That's why I smoke a pipe; that's also why I quit the business when I saw the business Was making ready to quit me. By God, My life is waste so far as it was used By this law business, and no coroner Need hold an inquest on me to find out What waste was in my life--God damn the law! Well, then I go my way, and take my fee, And pay my bills. The Burtons have the land, And turn a cow upon it. See how nice A playground it would be. I've seen ten sets Of children try to play there--hey! you hear, The caretaker come out, get off of there! And then the children scamper, climb the fence. Well, after while the Burtons die. The will Leaves these five acres to their sons for life, Remainder to the children of the sons. The sons are living yet at middle life, These acres have been tied up twenty years, They may be tied up thirty years beside: The sons can't sell it, and their children can't, Only the cow can use it, as it stands. It grows more valuable as the people come here, And bring in being Elenor Murrays, children, And make the land around it populous. That's what makes poverty, this holding land, It makes the taxes harder on the poor, It makes work scarcer, and it takes your girls And boys and throws them into life half made, Half ready for the battle. Is a country Free where the laws permit such things? Your priests, Your addle-headed preachers mouthing Christ And morals, prohibition, laws to force People to be good, to save the girls, When every half-wit knows environment Takes natures, made unstable in these homes Of poverty and does the trick. That baronet Who mocked our freedom, sailing back for England And said: Your Liberty Statue in the harbor Is just a joke, that baronet is right, While such conditions thrive. Well, look at me Who for three hundred dollars take a part In making a cow pasture for a cow For fifty years or so. I hate myself. And were the Burtons better than this Kingston? Kingston would will away what was not his. The Burtons took what is the gift of God, As much as air, and fenced it out of use-- Save for the cow aforesaid--for the lives Of sons in being. Oh, I know you think I have a grudge. I have. This Elenor Murray Was ten years old I think, this law suit ended Twelve years or so, and I was running down, Was tippling just a little every day; And I came by this lot one afternoon When school was out, a sunny afternoon. The children had no place except the street To play in; they were standing by the fence, The cow was way across the lot, and Elenor Was looking through the fence, some boys and girls Standing around her, and I said to them: "Why don't you climb the fence and play in there?" And Elenor--she always was a leader, And not afraid of anything, said: "Come on," And in a jiffy climbed the fence, the children, Some quicker and some slower, followed her. Some said "They don't allow it." Elenor Stood on the fence, flung up her arms and crowed, And said "What can they do? He says to do it," Pointing at me. And in a moment all of them Were playing and were shouting in the lot. And I stood there and watched them half malicious, And half in pleasure watching them at play. Then I heard "hey!" the care-taker ran out. And said "Get out of there, I will arrest you." He drove them out and as they jumped the fence Some said, "He told us to," pointing at me. And Elenor Murray said "Why, what a lie!" And then the care-taker grabbed Elenor Murray And said, "You are the wildest of them all." I spoke up, saying, "Leave that child alone. I won this God damn land for those you serve, They use it for a cow and nothing else, And let these children run about the streets, When there are grass and dandelions there In plenty for these children, and the cow, And space enough to play in without bothering That solitary cow." I took his hands Away from Elenor Murray; he and I Came face to face with clenched fists--but at last He walked away; the children scampered off. Next day, however, they arrested me For aiding in a _trespass clausam fregit_, And fined me twenty dollars and the costs. Since then the cow has all her way in there. And Elenor Murray left this rotten place, Went to the war, came home and died, and proved She had the sense to leave so vile a world. * * * * * George Joslin ending up his days with dreams Of youth in Europe, travels, and with talk, Stirred to a recollection of a face He saw in Paris fifty years before, Because the face resembled Elenor Murray's, Explored his drawers and boxes, where he kept Mementos, treasures of the olden days. And found a pamphlet, came to Merival, With certain recollections, and with theories Of Elenor Murray:-- GEORGE JOSLIN ON LA MENKEN Here, Coroner Merival, look at this picture! Whom does it look like? Eyes too crystalline, A head like Byron's, tender mouth, and neck, Slender and white, a pathos as of smiles And tears kept back by courage. Yes, you know It looks like Elenor Murray. Well, you see I read each day about the inquest--good! Dig out the truth, begin a system here Of making family records, let us see If we can do for people when we know How best to do it, what is done for stock. So build up Illinois, the nation too. I read about you daily. And last night When Elenor Murray's picture in the _Times_ Looked at me, I began to think, Good Lord, Where have I seen that face before? I thought Through more than fifty years departed, sent My mind through Europe and America In all my travels, meetings, episodes. I could not think. At last I opened up A box of pamphlets, photographs, mementos, Picked up since 1860, and behold I find this pamphlet of La Belle Menken. Here is your Elenor Murray born again, As here might be your blackbird of this year With spots of red upon his wings, the same As last year's blackbird, like a pansy springing Out of the April of this year, repeating The color, form of one you saw last year. Repeating and the same, but not the same; No two alike, you know. I'll come to that. Well, then, La Menken--as a boy in Paris I saw La Menken, I'll return to this. But just as Elenor Murray has her life Shadowed and symbolized by our Starved Rock-- And everyone has something in his life Which takes him, makes him, is the image too Of fate prefigured--La Menken has Mazeppa, Her notable first part as actress, emblem Of spirit, character, and of omen too Of years to come, the thrill of life, the end. Who is La Menken? Symbol of America, One phase of spirit! She was venturesome, Resourceful, daring, hopeful, confident, And as she wrote of self, a vagabond, A dweller in tents, a reveler, and a flame Aspiring but disreputable, coming up With leaves that shamed her stalk, could not be shed, But stuck out heavy veined and muddy hued In time of blossom. There are souls, you know, Who have shed shapeless immaturities, Betrayals of the seed before the blossom Comes to proclaim a beauty, a perfection; Or risen with their stalk, until such leaves Were hidden in the grass or soil--not she, Nor even your Elenor Murray, as I read her. But being America and American, Brings good and bad together, blossom and leaves With prodigal recklessness, in vital health And unselective taste and vision mixed Of beauty and of truth. Who was La Menken? She's born in Louisiana in thirty-five, Left fatherless at seven--mother takes her And puts her in the ballet at New Orleans. She dances then from Texas clear to Cuba; Then gives up dancing, studies tragedy, And plays Bianca! Fourteen years of age Weds Menken, who's a Jew, divorced from him; Then falls in love with Heenan, pugilist. They quarrel and separate--it's in this pamphlet Just as I tell you; you can take it, Coroner. Now something happens, nothing in her birth Or place of birth to prophesy her life Like Starved Rock to this Elenor--being grown, A hand instead is darted from the curtain That hangs between to-day, to-morrow, sticks A symbol on her heart and whispers to her: You're this, my woman. Well, the thing was this: She played Mazeppa: take your dummy off, And lash me to the horse. They were afraid, But she prevailed, was nearly killed the first night, And after that succeeded, was the rage And for her years remaining found herself Lashed to the wild horse of ungoverned will, Which ran and wandered, till she knew herself With stronger will than vision, passion stronger Than spirit to judge; the richness of the world, Love, beauty, living, greater than her power. And all the time she had the appetite To eat, devour it all. Grown sick at last, She diagnosed her case, wrote to a friend: The soul and body do not fit each other-- A human spirit in a horse's flesh. This is your Elenor Murray, in a way. But to return to pansies, run your hand Over a bed of pansies; here's a pansy With petals stunted, here's another one All perfect but one petal, here's another Too streaked or mottled--all are pansies though. And here is one full petaled, strikes the eye With perfect color, markings. Elenor Murray Has something of the color and the form Of this La Menken, but is less a pansy, And Sappho, Rachel, Bernhardt are the flowers La Menken strove to be, and could not be, Ended with being only of their kind. And now there's pity for this Elenor Murray, And people wept when poor La Menken died. Both lived and had their way. I hate this pity, It makes you overlook there are two hours: The hour of joy, the hour of finding out Your joy was all mistake, or led to pain. We who inspect these lives behold the pain, And see the error, do not keep in mind The hour of rapture, and the pride, indeed With which your Elenor Murrays and La Menkens Have lived that hour, elation, pride and scorn For any other way--"this is the life" I hear them say. Well, now I go along. La Menken fills her purse with gold--she sends Her pugilist away, tries once again And weds a humorist, an Orpheus Kerr-- And plays before the miners out in 'Frisco, And Sacramento, gathers in the eagles. She goes to Europe then--with husband? No! James Barkley is her fellow on the voyage. She lands in London, takes a gorgeous suite In London's grandest hostlery, entertains Charles Dickens, Prince Baerto and Charles Read, The Duke of Wellington and Swinburne, Sand And Jenny Lind; and has a liveried coachman; And for a crest a horse's head surmounting Four aces, if you please. And plays Mazeppa, And piles the money up. Then next is Paris. And there I saw her, 1866, When Louis Napoleon and the King of Greece, The Prince Imperial were in a box. She wandered to Vienna, there was ill, Came back to Paris, died, a stranger's grave In Pere la Chaise was given, afterwards Exhumed in Mont Parnasse was buried, got A little stone with these words carved upon it: "Thou Knowest" meaning God knew, while herself Knew nothing of herself. But when in Paris They sold her picture taken with her arms Around Dumas, and photographs made up Of postures ludicrous, obscene as well, Of her and great Dumas, I have them home. Can show you sometime. Well she loved Dumas, Inscribed a book of poems to Charles Dickens, By his permission, mark you--don't you see Your Elenor Murray here? This Elenor Murray A miniature imperfect of La Menken? She loved sensation, all her senses thrilled her; A delicate soul too weighted by the flesh; A coquette, quick of wit, intuitive, Kind, generous, unaffected, mystical, Teased by the divine in life, and melancholy, Of deep emotion sometimes. One has said She had a nature spiritual, religious Which warred upon the flesh and fell in battle; Just as your Elenor Murray joined the church, And did not keep the faith, if truth be told. Now look, here is a letter in this pamphlet La Menken writes a poet--for she hunts For seers and for poets, lofty souls. And who does that? A woman wholly bad? Why no, a woman to be given life Fit for her spirit in another realm By God who will take notice, I believe. Now listen if you will! "I know your soul. It has met mine somewhere in starry space. And you must often meet me, vagabond Of fancy without aim, a dweller in tents Disreputable before the just. Just think I am a linguist, write some poems too, Can paint a little, model clay as well. And yet for all these gropings of my soul I am a vagabond, of little use. My body and my soul are in a scramble And do not fit each other--let them carve Those words upon my stone, but also these Thou Knowest, for God knows me, knows I love Whatever is good and beautiful in life; And that my soul has sought them without rest. Farewell, my friend, my spirit is with you, Vienna is too horrible, but know Paris Then die content." Now, Coroner Merival, You're not the only man who wants to see, Will work to make America a republic Of splendors, freedoms, happiness, success. Though I am seventy-six, cannot do much, Save talk, as I am talking now, bring forth Proofs, revelations from the years I've lived. I care not how you view the lives of people, As pansy beds or what not, lift your faith So high above the pansy bed it sees The streaked and stunted pansies filling in The pattern that the perfect pansies outline, Therefore are smiling, even indifferent To this poor conscious pansy, dying at last Because it could not be the flower it wished. My heart to Elenor Murray and La Menken Goes out in sorrow, even while I know They shook their leaves in April, laughed and thrilled, And either did not know, or did not care The growing time was precious, and if wasted Could never be regained. Look at La Menken At seven years put in the ballet corps; And look at Elenor Murray getting smut Out of experience that made her wise. What shall we do about it?--let it go? And say there is no help, or say a republic, Set up a hundred years ago, raised to the helm Of rulership as president a list Of men more able than the emperors, Kings, rulers of the world, and statesmen too The equal of the greatest, money makers, And domineers of finance and economies Phenomenal in time--say, I repeat A country like this one must let its children Waste as they wasted in the darker years Of Europe. Shall we let these trivial minds Who see salvation, progress in restraint, Pre-empt the field of moulding human life? Or shall we take a hand, and put our minds Upon the task, as recently we built An army for the war, equipped and fed it, An army better than all other armies, More powerful, more apt of hand and brain, Of thin tall youths, who did stop but said Like poor La Menken, strap me to the horse I'll do it if I die--so giving to peace The skill and genius which we use in war, Though it cost twenty billion, and why not? Why every dollar, every drop of blood For war like this to guard democracy, And not so much or more to build the land, Improve our blood, make individual America and her race? And first to rout Poverty and disease, give youth its chance, And therapeutic guidance. Soldier boys Have huts for recreation, clergymen, And is it more, less worth to furnish hands Intimate, hearts intimate for the use Of your La Menkens, Elenor Murrays, youths Who feel such vigor in their restless wings They tumble out of crowded nests and fly To fall in thickets, dash themselves against Walls, trees? I have a vision, Coroner, Of a new Republic, brighter than the sun, A new race, loftier faith, this land of ours Made over as to people, boys and girls, Conserved like forests, water power or mines; Watched, tested, put to best use, keen economies Practiced in spirits, waste of human life, Hope, aspiration, talent, virtues, powers, Avoided by a science, science of life, Of spirit, what you will. Enough of war, And billions for the flag--all well enough! Some billions now to make democracy Democracy in truth with us, and life Not helter-skelter, hitting as it may, And missing much, as this La Menken did. I'm not convinced we must have stunted pansies, That have no use but just to piece the pattern. Let's try, and if we try and fail, why then Our human duty ends, the God in us Will have it just this way, no other way. And then we may accept so poor a world, A republic so unfinished. * * * * * Will Paget is another writer of letters To Coroner Merival. The coroner Spends evenings reading letters, keeps a file Where he preserves them. And the blasphemy Of Paget makes him laugh. He has an evening And reads this letter to the jurymen: WILL PAGET ON DEMOS AND HOGOS To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice Dissentient from much that goes the rounds, Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word: Give men and women freedom, save the land From dull theocracy--the theo, what? A blend of Demos and Jehovah! Say, Bring back your despots, bring your Louis Fourteenths, And give them thrones of gold and ivory From where with leaded sceptres they may whack King Demos driven forth. You know the face? The temples are like sea shells, hollows out, Which narrow close the space for cortex cells. There would be little brow if hair remained; But hair is gone, because the dandruff came. The eyes are close together like a weasel's; The jaws are heavy, that is character; The mouth is thin and wide to gobble chicken; The paunch is heavy for the chickens eaten. Throned high upon a soap box Demos rules, And mumbles decalogues: Thou shalt not read, Save what I tell you, never books that tell Of men and women as they live and are. Thou shalt not see the dramas which portray The evil passions and satiric moods Which mock this Christian nation and its hope. Thou shalt not drink, not even wine or beer. Thou shalt not play at cards, or see the races. Thou shalt not be divorced! Thou shalt not play. Thou shalt not bow to graven images Of beauty cut in marble, fused in bronze. Behold my name is Demos, King of Kings, My name is legion, I am many, come Out of the sea where many hogs were drowned, And now the ruler of hogocracy, Where in the name of freedom hungry snouts Root up the truffles in your great republic, And crunch with heavy jaws the legs and arms Of people who fall over in the pen. Hierarchies in my name are planted under Your states political to sprout and take The new world's soil,--religious freedom this!-- Thought must be free--unless your thought objects To such dominion, and to literal faith In an old book that never had a place Except beside the Koran, Zarathustra. So here is your theocracy and here The land of Boredom. Do you wonder now That people cry for war? You see that God Frowns on all games but war. You shall not play Or kindle spirit with a rapture save A moral end's in view. All joy is sin, Where joy stands for itself alone, nor asks Consent to be, save for itself. But war Waged to put down the wrong, it's always that; To vindicate God's truths, all wars are such, Is game that lets the spirit play, is backed By God and moral reasons, therefore war, A game disguised as business, cosmic work For great millenniums, no less relieves The boredom of theocracies. But if Your men and women had the chance to play, Be free and spend superfluous energies, In what I call the greatest game, that's Life, Have life more freely, deeply, and you say How would you like a war and lose a leg, Or come from battle sick for all your years? You would say no, unless you saw an issue, Stripped clean of Christian twaddle, as we'll say The Greeks beheld the Persians. Well, behold All honest paganism in such things discarded For God who comes in glory, trampling presses Filled up with grapes of wrath. Now hear me out: I knew we'd have a war, it wasn't only That your hogocracy was grunting war We'd fight Japan, take Mexico--remember How dancing flourished madly in the land; Then think of savages who dance the Ghost Dance, And cattle lowing, rushing in a panic, There's psychic secrets here. But then at last What can you do with life? You're well and strong, Flushed with desire, mad with appetites, You turn this way and find a sign forbidden, You turn that way and find the door is closed. Hogocracy, King Demos say, go back, Find work, develop character, restrain, Draw up your belt a little tighter, hunger And thirst diminish with a tighter belt. And none to say, take off the belt and eat, Here's water for you. Well, you have a war. We used to say in foot ball kick their shins, And gouge their eyes out--when our shins were kicked We hollered foul and ouch. There was the south Who called us mud-sills in this freer north, And mouthed democracy; and as for that Their churches made of God a battle leader, An idea come from Palestine; oh, yes, They soon would wipe us up, they were the people. But when we slaughtered them they hollered ouch. And why not? For a gun and uniform, And bands that play are rapturous enough. But when you get a bullet through the heart, The game is not so funny as it was. That's why I hated Germany and hate her, And feel we could not let this German culture Spread over earth. That culture was but this: Life must have an expression and a game, And war's the game, besides the prize is great In land and treasure, commerce, let us play, It lets the people's passions have a vent When fires of life burn hot and hotter under The kettle and the lid is clamped by work, Dull duty, daily routine, inhibitions. Before this Elenor Murray woke to life LeRoy was stirring, but the stir was play. It was a Gretna Green, and pleasure boats Ran up and down the river--on the streets You heard the cry of barkers, in the park The band was playing, and you heard the ring Of registers at fountains and buffets. All this was shabby maybe, but observe There are those souls who see the wrath of God As blackest background to the light of soul: And when the thunder rumbles and the storm Comes up with lightning then they say to men Who laugh in bar-rooms, "Have a care, blasphemers, You may be struck by lightning"--here's the root From which this mood ascetic comes to leaf In all theocracies, and throws a shadow Upon all freedom. Look at us to-day. They say to me, see what a town we have: The men at work, smoke coming from the chimneys, The banks full up of money, business good, The workmen sober, going home at night, No rowdy barkers and no bands a-playing, No drinking and no gaming and no vice. No marriages contracted to be broken. Look how LeRoy is quiet, sane and clean! And I reply, you like the stir of work, But not the stir of play; your chimneys smoke, Your banks have money. Let me look behind The door that closes on your man at home, The wife and children there, what shall I find? A sick man looks to health as it were all, But when the fever leaves him and he feels The store of strength in muscles slumbering And waiting to be used, then something else Than health is needful, he must have a way To voice the life within him, and he wonders Why health seemed so desirable before, And all sufficient to him. Take this girl: Why do you marvel that she rode at night With any man who came along? Good God, If I were born a woman and they put me In a theocracy, hogocracy, I'd do the first thing that came in my mind To give my soul expression. Don't you think You're something of a bully and a coward To ask such model living from this girl When you, my grunting hogos, run the land And bring us scandals like the times of Grant, And poisoned beef sold to the soldier boys, When we were warring Spain, and all this stuff Concerning loot and plunder, malversation, That riots in your cities, printed daily? I roll the panoramic story out To Washington the great--what do I see? It's tangle foot, the sticky smear is dry; But I can find wings, legs and heads, remember How little flies and big were buzzing once Of God and duty, country, virtue, faith; And beating wings, already gummed with sweet, Until their little bellies touched the glue, They sought to fill their bellies with--at last Long silence, which is history, scroll rolled up And spoken of in sacred whispers. Well, I'm glad that Elenor Murray had her fling, If that be really true. I understand What drove her to the war. I think she knew Too much to marry, settle down and live Under the rule of Demos or of Hogos. I wish

caretaker

How many times the word 'caretaker' appears in the text?

won these acres here For old man Kingston's daughter, who in turn Bound it with limitation for the life Of selfish sons, who keep a caretaker, Who keeps a cow upon it. There's the cow! The land has had no use for thirty years. The children are kept off it. Elenor Murray, This girl whose death makes such a stir, one time Was playing there--but that's another story. I only say for the present, these five acres Made Elenor Murray's life a thing of waste As much as anything, and a damn sight more. For think a minute! Kingston had a daughter Married to Colonel Burton in Kentucky. And Kingston's son was in the Civil War. But just before the war, the Burtons deeded These acres here, which she inherited From old man Kingston, to this Captain Kingston, The son aforesaid of Old Kingston. Well, The deed upon its face was absolute, But really was a deed in trust. The Captain Held title for a year or two, and then An hour before he fought at Shiloh, made A will, and willed acres to his wife, Fee simple and forever. Now you'd think That contemplating death, he'd make a deed Giving these acres back to Mrs. Burton, The sister who had trusted him. I don't know What comes in people's heads, but I believe The want of money is the root of evil, As well as love of money; for this Captain Perhaps would make provision for his wife And infant son, thought that the chiefest thing No matter how he did it, being poor, Willed this land as he did. But anyway He willed it so, went into Shiloh's battle, And fell dead on the field. What happened then? They took this will to probate. As I said I was a lawyer then, you may believe it, Was hired by the Burtons to reclaim These acres from the Widow Kingston's clutch, Under this wicked will. And so I argued The will had not been witnessed according to law. Got beat upon that point in the lower court, But won upon it in the upper courts. Then next I filed a bill to set aside This deed the Burtons made to Captain Kingston-- Oh, I was full of schemes, expedients, In those days, I can tell you. Widow Kingston Came back and filed a cross bill, asked the court To confirm the title in her son and her As heirs of Captain Kingston, let the will Go out of thought and reckoning. Here's the issue; You understand the case, no doubt. We fought Through all the courts. I lost in the lower court, As I lost on the will. There was the deed: For love and affection and one dollar we Convey and warrant lots from one to ten In the city of LeRoy, to Captain Kingston To be his own forever. How to go Behind such words and show the actual trust Inhering in the deed, that was the job. But here I was resourceful as before, Found witnesses to testify they heard This Captain Kingston say he held the acres In trust for Mrs. Burton--but I lost Before the chancellor, had to appeal, But won on the appeal, and thus restored These acres to the Burtons. And for this What did I get? Three hundred lousy dollars. That's why I smoke a pipe; that's also why I quit the business when I saw the business Was making ready to quit me. By God, My life is waste so far as it was used By this law business, and no coroner Need hold an inquest on me to find out What waste was in my life--God damn the law! Well, then I go my way, and take my fee, And pay my bills. The Burtons have the land, And turn a cow upon it. See how nice A playground it would be. I've seen ten sets Of children try to play there--hey! you hear, The caretaker come out, get off of there! And then the children scamper, climb the fence. Well, after while the Burtons die. The will Leaves these five acres to their sons for life, Remainder to the children of the sons. The sons are living yet at middle life, These acres have been tied up twenty years, They may be tied up thirty years beside: The sons can't sell it, and their children can't, Only the cow can use it, as it stands. It grows more valuable as the people come here, And bring in being Elenor Murrays, children, And make the land around it populous. That's what makes poverty, this holding land, It makes the taxes harder on the poor, It makes work scarcer, and it takes your girls And boys and throws them into life half made, Half ready for the battle. Is a country Free where the laws permit such things? Your priests, Your addle-headed preachers mouthing Christ And morals, prohibition, laws to force People to be good, to save the girls, When every half-wit knows environment Takes natures, made unstable in these homes Of poverty and does the trick. That baronet Who mocked our freedom, sailing back for England And said: Your Liberty Statue in the harbor Is just a joke, that baronet is right, While such conditions thrive. Well, look at me Who for three hundred dollars take a part In making a cow pasture for a cow For fifty years or so. I hate myself. And were the Burtons better than this Kingston? Kingston would will away what was not his. The Burtons took what is the gift of God, As much as air, and fenced it out of use-- Save for the cow aforesaid--for the lives Of sons in being. Oh, I know you think I have a grudge. I have. This Elenor Murray Was ten years old I think, this law suit ended Twelve years or so, and I was running down, Was tippling just a little every day; And I came by this lot one afternoon When school was out, a sunny afternoon. The children had no place except the street To play in; they were standing by the fence, The cow was way across the lot, and Elenor Was looking through the fence, some boys and girls Standing around her, and I said to them: "Why don't you climb the fence and play in there?" And Elenor--she always was a leader, And not afraid of anything, said: "Come on," And in a jiffy climbed the fence, the children, Some quicker and some slower, followed her. Some said "They don't allow it." Elenor Stood on the fence, flung up her arms and crowed, And said "What can they do? He says to do it," Pointing at me. And in a moment all of them Were playing and were shouting in the lot. And I stood there and watched them half malicious, And half in pleasure watching them at play. Then I heard "hey!" the care-taker ran out. And said "Get out of there, I will arrest you." He drove them out and as they jumped the fence Some said, "He told us to," pointing at me. And Elenor Murray said "Why, what a lie!" And then the care-taker grabbed Elenor Murray And said, "You are the wildest of them all." I spoke up, saying, "Leave that child alone. I won this God damn land for those you serve, They use it for a cow and nothing else, And let these children run about the streets, When there are grass and dandelions there In plenty for these children, and the cow, And space enough to play in without bothering That solitary cow." I took his hands Away from Elenor Murray; he and I Came face to face with clenched fists--but at last He walked away; the children scampered off. Next day, however, they arrested me For aiding in a _trespass clausam fregit_, And fined me twenty dollars and the costs. Since then the cow has all her way in there. And Elenor Murray left this rotten place, Went to the war, came home and died, and proved She had the sense to leave so vile a world. * * * * * George Joslin ending up his days with dreams Of youth in Europe, travels, and with talk, Stirred to a recollection of a face He saw in Paris fifty years before, Because the face resembled Elenor Murray's, Explored his drawers and boxes, where he kept Mementos, treasures of the olden days. And found a pamphlet, came to Merival, With certain recollections, and with theories Of Elenor Murray:-- GEORGE JOSLIN ON LA MENKEN Here, Coroner Merival, look at this picture! Whom does it look like? Eyes too crystalline, A head like Byron's, tender mouth, and neck, Slender and white, a pathos as of smiles And tears kept back by courage. Yes, you know It looks like Elenor Murray. Well, you see I read each day about the inquest--good! Dig out the truth, begin a system here Of making family records, let us see If we can do for people when we know How best to do it, what is done for stock. So build up Illinois, the nation too. I read about you daily. And last night When Elenor Murray's picture in the _Times_ Looked at me, I began to think, Good Lord, Where have I seen that face before? I thought Through more than fifty years departed, sent My mind through Europe and America In all my travels, meetings, episodes. I could not think. At last I opened up A box of pamphlets, photographs, mementos, Picked up since 1860, and behold I find this pamphlet of La Belle Menken. Here is your Elenor Murray born again, As here might be your blackbird of this year With spots of red upon his wings, the same As last year's blackbird, like a pansy springing Out of the April of this year, repeating The color, form of one you saw last year. Repeating and the same, but not the same; No two alike, you know. I'll come to that. Well, then, La Menken--as a boy in Paris I saw La Menken, I'll return to this. But just as Elenor Murray has her life Shadowed and symbolized by our Starved Rock-- And everyone has something in his life Which takes him, makes him, is the image too Of fate prefigured--La Menken has Mazeppa, Her notable first part as actress, emblem Of spirit, character, and of omen too Of years to come, the thrill of life, the end. Who is La Menken? Symbol of America, One phase of spirit! She was venturesome, Resourceful, daring, hopeful, confident, And as she wrote of self, a vagabond, A dweller in tents, a reveler, and a flame Aspiring but disreputable, coming up With leaves that shamed her stalk, could not be shed, But stuck out heavy veined and muddy hued In time of blossom. There are souls, you know, Who have shed shapeless immaturities, Betrayals of the seed before the blossom Comes to proclaim a beauty, a perfection; Or risen with their stalk, until such leaves Were hidden in the grass or soil--not she, Nor even your Elenor Murray, as I read her. But being America and American, Brings good and bad together, blossom and leaves With prodigal recklessness, in vital health And unselective taste and vision mixed Of beauty and of truth. Who was La Menken? She's born in Louisiana in thirty-five, Left fatherless at seven--mother takes her And puts her in the ballet at New Orleans. She dances then from Texas clear to Cuba; Then gives up dancing, studies tragedy, And plays Bianca! Fourteen years of age Weds Menken, who's a Jew, divorced from him; Then falls in love with Heenan, pugilist. They quarrel and separate--it's in this pamphlet Just as I tell you; you can take it, Coroner. Now something happens, nothing in her birth Or place of birth to prophesy her life Like Starved Rock to this Elenor--being grown, A hand instead is darted from the curtain That hangs between to-day, to-morrow, sticks A symbol on her heart and whispers to her: You're this, my woman. Well, the thing was this: She played Mazeppa: take your dummy off, And lash me to the horse. They were afraid, But she prevailed, was nearly killed the first night, And after that succeeded, was the rage And for her years remaining found herself Lashed to the wild horse of ungoverned will, Which ran and wandered, till she knew herself With stronger will than vision, passion stronger Than spirit to judge; the richness of the world, Love, beauty, living, greater than her power. And all the time she had the appetite To eat, devour it all. Grown sick at last, She diagnosed her case, wrote to a friend: The soul and body do not fit each other-- A human spirit in a horse's flesh. This is your Elenor Murray, in a way. But to return to pansies, run your hand Over a bed of pansies; here's a pansy With petals stunted, here's another one All perfect but one petal, here's another Too streaked or mottled--all are pansies though. And here is one full petaled, strikes the eye With perfect color, markings. Elenor Murray Has something of the color and the form Of this La Menken, but is less a pansy, And Sappho, Rachel, Bernhardt are the flowers La Menken strove to be, and could not be, Ended with being only of their kind. And now there's pity for this Elenor Murray, And people wept when poor La Menken died. Both lived and had their way. I hate this pity, It makes you overlook there are two hours: The hour of joy, the hour of finding out Your joy was all mistake, or led to pain. We who inspect these lives behold the pain, And see the error, do not keep in mind The hour of rapture, and the pride, indeed With which your Elenor Murrays and La Menkens Have lived that hour, elation, pride and scorn For any other way--"this is the life" I hear them say. Well, now I go along. La Menken fills her purse with gold--she sends Her pugilist away, tries once again And weds a humorist, an Orpheus Kerr-- And plays before the miners out in 'Frisco, And Sacramento, gathers in the eagles. She goes to Europe then--with husband? No! James Barkley is her fellow on the voyage. She lands in London, takes a gorgeous suite In London's grandest hostlery, entertains Charles Dickens, Prince Baerto and Charles Read, The Duke of Wellington and Swinburne, Sand And Jenny Lind; and has a liveried coachman; And for a crest a horse's head surmounting Four aces, if you please. And plays Mazeppa, And piles the money up. Then next is Paris. And there I saw her, 1866, When Louis Napoleon and the King of Greece, The Prince Imperial were in a box. She wandered to Vienna, there was ill, Came back to Paris, died, a stranger's grave In Pere la Chaise was given, afterwards Exhumed in Mont Parnasse was buried, got A little stone with these words carved upon it: "Thou Knowest" meaning God knew, while herself Knew nothing of herself. But when in Paris They sold her picture taken with her arms Around Dumas, and photographs made up Of postures ludicrous, obscene as well, Of her and great Dumas, I have them home. Can show you sometime. Well she loved Dumas, Inscribed a book of poems to Charles Dickens, By his permission, mark you--don't you see Your Elenor Murray here? This Elenor Murray A miniature imperfect of La Menken? She loved sensation, all her senses thrilled her; A delicate soul too weighted by the flesh; A coquette, quick of wit, intuitive, Kind, generous, unaffected, mystical, Teased by the divine in life, and melancholy, Of deep emotion sometimes. One has said She had a nature spiritual, religious Which warred upon the flesh and fell in battle; Just as your Elenor Murray joined the church, And did not keep the faith, if truth be told. Now look, here is a letter in this pamphlet La Menken writes a poet--for she hunts For seers and for poets, lofty souls. And who does that? A woman wholly bad? Why no, a woman to be given life Fit for her spirit in another realm By God who will take notice, I believe. Now listen if you will! "I know your soul. It has met mine somewhere in starry space. And you must often meet me, vagabond Of fancy without aim, a dweller in tents Disreputable before the just. Just think I am a linguist, write some poems too, Can paint a little, model clay as well. And yet for all these gropings of my soul I am a vagabond, of little use. My body and my soul are in a scramble And do not fit each other--let them carve Those words upon my stone, but also these Thou Knowest, for God knows me, knows I love Whatever is good and beautiful in life; And that my soul has sought them without rest. Farewell, my friend, my spirit is with you, Vienna is too horrible, but know Paris Then die content." Now, Coroner Merival, You're not the only man who wants to see, Will work to make America a republic Of splendors, freedoms, happiness, success. Though I am seventy-six, cannot do much, Save talk, as I am talking now, bring forth Proofs, revelations from the years I've lived. I care not how you view the lives of people, As pansy beds or what not, lift your faith So high above the pansy bed it sees The streaked and stunted pansies filling in The pattern that the perfect pansies outline, Therefore are smiling, even indifferent To this poor conscious pansy, dying at last Because it could not be the flower it wished. My heart to Elenor Murray and La Menken Goes out in sorrow, even while I know They shook their leaves in April, laughed and thrilled, And either did not know, or did not care The growing time was precious, and if wasted Could never be regained. Look at La Menken At seven years put in the ballet corps; And look at Elenor Murray getting smut Out of experience that made her wise. What shall we do about it?--let it go? And say there is no help, or say a republic, Set up a hundred years ago, raised to the helm Of rulership as president a list Of men more able than the emperors, Kings, rulers of the world, and statesmen too The equal of the greatest, money makers, And domineers of finance and economies Phenomenal in time--say, I repeat A country like this one must let its children Waste as they wasted in the darker years Of Europe. Shall we let these trivial minds Who see salvation, progress in restraint, Pre-empt the field of moulding human life? Or shall we take a hand, and put our minds Upon the task, as recently we built An army for the war, equipped and fed it, An army better than all other armies, More powerful, more apt of hand and brain, Of thin tall youths, who did stop but said Like poor La Menken, strap me to the horse I'll do it if I die--so giving to peace The skill and genius which we use in war, Though it cost twenty billion, and why not? Why every dollar, every drop of blood For war like this to guard democracy, And not so much or more to build the land, Improve our blood, make individual America and her race? And first to rout Poverty and disease, give youth its chance, And therapeutic guidance. Soldier boys Have huts for recreation, clergymen, And is it more, less worth to furnish hands Intimate, hearts intimate for the use Of your La Menkens, Elenor Murrays, youths Who feel such vigor in their restless wings They tumble out of crowded nests and fly To fall in thickets, dash themselves against Walls, trees? I have a vision, Coroner, Of a new Republic, brighter than the sun, A new race, loftier faith, this land of ours Made over as to people, boys and girls, Conserved like forests, water power or mines; Watched, tested, put to best use, keen economies Practiced in spirits, waste of human life, Hope, aspiration, talent, virtues, powers, Avoided by a science, science of life, Of spirit, what you will. Enough of war, And billions for the flag--all well enough! Some billions now to make democracy Democracy in truth with us, and life Not helter-skelter, hitting as it may, And missing much, as this La Menken did. I'm not convinced we must have stunted pansies, That have no use but just to piece the pattern. Let's try, and if we try and fail, why then Our human duty ends, the God in us Will have it just this way, no other way. And then we may accept so poor a world, A republic so unfinished. * * * * * Will Paget is another writer of letters To Coroner Merival. The coroner Spends evenings reading letters, keeps a file Where he preserves them. And the blasphemy Of Paget makes him laugh. He has an evening And reads this letter to the jurymen: WILL PAGET ON DEMOS AND HOGOS To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice Dissentient from much that goes the rounds, Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word: Give men and women freedom, save the land From dull theocracy--the theo, what? A blend of Demos and Jehovah! Say, Bring back your despots, bring your Louis Fourteenths, And give them thrones of gold and ivory From where with leaded sceptres they may whack King Demos driven forth. You know the face? The temples are like sea shells, hollows out, Which narrow close the space for cortex cells. There would be little brow if hair remained; But hair is gone, because the dandruff came. The eyes are close together like a weasel's; The jaws are heavy, that is character; The mouth is thin and wide to gobble chicken; The paunch is heavy for the chickens eaten. Throned high upon a soap box Demos rules, And mumbles decalogues: Thou shalt not read, Save what I tell you, never books that tell Of men and women as they live and are. Thou shalt not see the dramas which portray The evil passions and satiric moods Which mock this Christian nation and its hope. Thou shalt not drink, not even wine or beer. Thou shalt not play at cards, or see the races. Thou shalt not be divorced! Thou shalt not play. Thou shalt not bow to graven images Of beauty cut in marble, fused in bronze. Behold my name is Demos, King of Kings, My name is legion, I am many, come Out of the sea where many hogs were drowned, And now the ruler of hogocracy, Where in the name of freedom hungry snouts Root up the truffles in your great republic, And crunch with heavy jaws the legs and arms Of people who fall over in the pen. Hierarchies in my name are planted under Your states political to sprout and take The new world's soil,--religious freedom this!-- Thought must be free--unless your thought objects To such dominion, and to literal faith In an old book that never had a place Except beside the Koran, Zarathustra. So here is your theocracy and here The land of Boredom. Do you wonder now That people cry for war? You see that God Frowns on all games but war. You shall not play Or kindle spirit with a rapture save A moral end's in view. All joy is sin, Where joy stands for itself alone, nor asks Consent to be, save for itself. But war Waged to put down the wrong, it's always that; To vindicate God's truths, all wars are such, Is game that lets the spirit play, is backed By God and moral reasons, therefore war, A game disguised as business, cosmic work For great millenniums, no less relieves The boredom of theocracies. But if Your men and women had the chance to play, Be free and spend superfluous energies, In what I call the greatest game, that's Life, Have life more freely, deeply, and you say How would you like a war and lose a leg, Or come from battle sick for all your years? You would say no, unless you saw an issue, Stripped clean of Christian twaddle, as we'll say The Greeks beheld the Persians. Well, behold All honest paganism in such things discarded For God who comes in glory, trampling presses Filled up with grapes of wrath. Now hear me out: I knew we'd have a war, it wasn't only That your hogocracy was grunting war We'd fight Japan, take Mexico--remember How dancing flourished madly in the land; Then think of savages who dance the Ghost Dance, And cattle lowing, rushing in a panic, There's psychic secrets here. But then at last What can you do with life? You're well and strong, Flushed with desire, mad with appetites, You turn this way and find a sign forbidden, You turn that way and find the door is closed. Hogocracy, King Demos say, go back, Find work, develop character, restrain, Draw up your belt a little tighter, hunger And thirst diminish with a tighter belt. And none to say, take off the belt and eat, Here's water for you. Well, you have a war. We used to say in foot ball kick their shins, And gouge their eyes out--when our shins were kicked We hollered foul and ouch. There was the south Who called us mud-sills in this freer north, And mouthed democracy; and as for that Their churches made of God a battle leader, An idea come from Palestine; oh, yes, They soon would wipe us up, they were the people. But when we slaughtered them they hollered ouch. And why not? For a gun and uniform, And bands that play are rapturous enough. But when you get a bullet through the heart, The game is not so funny as it was. That's why I hated Germany and hate her, And feel we could not let this German culture Spread over earth. That culture was but this: Life must have an expression and a game, And war's the game, besides the prize is great In land and treasure, commerce, let us play, It lets the people's passions have a vent When fires of life burn hot and hotter under The kettle and the lid is clamped by work, Dull duty, daily routine, inhibitions. Before this Elenor Murray woke to life LeRoy was stirring, but the stir was play. It was a Gretna Green, and pleasure boats Ran up and down the river--on the streets You heard the cry of barkers, in the park The band was playing, and you heard the ring Of registers at fountains and buffets. All this was shabby maybe, but observe There are those souls who see the wrath of God As blackest background to the light of soul: And when the thunder rumbles and the storm Comes up with lightning then they say to men Who laugh in bar-rooms, "Have a care, blasphemers, You may be struck by lightning"--here's the root From which this mood ascetic comes to leaf In all theocracies, and throws a shadow Upon all freedom. Look at us to-day. They say to me, see what a town we have: The men at work, smoke coming from the chimneys, The banks full up of money, business good, The workmen sober, going home at night, No rowdy barkers and no bands a-playing, No drinking and no gaming and no vice. No marriages contracted to be broken. Look how LeRoy is quiet, sane and clean! And I reply, you like the stir of work, But not the stir of play; your chimneys smoke, Your banks have money. Let me look behind The door that closes on your man at home, The wife and children there, what shall I find? A sick man looks to health as it were all, But when the fever leaves him and he feels The store of strength in muscles slumbering And waiting to be used, then something else Than health is needful, he must have a way To voice the life within him, and he wonders Why health seemed so desirable before, And all sufficient to him. Take this girl: Why do you marvel that she rode at night With any man who came along? Good God, If I were born a woman and they put me In a theocracy, hogocracy, I'd do the first thing that came in my mind To give my soul expression. Don't you think You're something of a bully and a coward To ask such model living from this girl When you, my grunting hogos, run the land And bring us scandals like the times of Grant, And poisoned beef sold to the soldier boys, When we were warring Spain, and all this stuff Concerning loot and plunder, malversation, That riots in your cities, printed daily? I roll the panoramic story out To Washington the great--what do I see? It's tangle foot, the sticky smear is dry; But I can find wings, legs and heads, remember How little flies and big were buzzing once Of God and duty, country, virtue, faith; And beating wings, already gummed with sweet, Until their little bellies touched the glue, They sought to fill their bellies with--at last Long silence, which is history, scroll rolled up And spoken of in sacred whispers. Well, I'm glad that Elenor Murray had her fling, If that be really true. I understand What drove her to the war. I think she knew Too much to marry, settle down and live Under the rule of Demos or of Hogos. I wish

duel

How many times the word 'duel' appears in the text?

won these acres here For old man Kingston's daughter, who in turn Bound it with limitation for the life Of selfish sons, who keep a caretaker, Who keeps a cow upon it. There's the cow! The land has had no use for thirty years. The children are kept off it. Elenor Murray, This girl whose death makes such a stir, one time Was playing there--but that's another story. I only say for the present, these five acres Made Elenor Murray's life a thing of waste As much as anything, and a damn sight more. For think a minute! Kingston had a daughter Married to Colonel Burton in Kentucky. And Kingston's son was in the Civil War. But just before the war, the Burtons deeded These acres here, which she inherited From old man Kingston, to this Captain Kingston, The son aforesaid of Old Kingston. Well, The deed upon its face was absolute, But really was a deed in trust. The Captain Held title for a year or two, and then An hour before he fought at Shiloh, made A will, and willed acres to his wife, Fee simple and forever. Now you'd think That contemplating death, he'd make a deed Giving these acres back to Mrs. Burton, The sister who had trusted him. I don't know What comes in people's heads, but I believe The want of money is the root of evil, As well as love of money; for this Captain Perhaps would make provision for his wife And infant son, thought that the chiefest thing No matter how he did it, being poor, Willed this land as he did. But anyway He willed it so, went into Shiloh's battle, And fell dead on the field. What happened then? They took this will to probate. As I said I was a lawyer then, you may believe it, Was hired by the Burtons to reclaim These acres from the Widow Kingston's clutch, Under this wicked will. And so I argued The will had not been witnessed according to law. Got beat upon that point in the lower court, But won upon it in the upper courts. Then next I filed a bill to set aside This deed the Burtons made to Captain Kingston-- Oh, I was full of schemes, expedients, In those days, I can tell you. Widow Kingston Came back and filed a cross bill, asked the court To confirm the title in her son and her As heirs of Captain Kingston, let the will Go out of thought and reckoning. Here's the issue; You understand the case, no doubt. We fought Through all the courts. I lost in the lower court, As I lost on the will. There was the deed: For love and affection and one dollar we Convey and warrant lots from one to ten In the city of LeRoy, to Captain Kingston To be his own forever. How to go Behind such words and show the actual trust Inhering in the deed, that was the job. But here I was resourceful as before, Found witnesses to testify they heard This Captain Kingston say he held the acres In trust for Mrs. Burton--but I lost Before the chancellor, had to appeal, But won on the appeal, and thus restored These acres to the Burtons. And for this What did I get? Three hundred lousy dollars. That's why I smoke a pipe; that's also why I quit the business when I saw the business Was making ready to quit me. By God, My life is waste so far as it was used By this law business, and no coroner Need hold an inquest on me to find out What waste was in my life--God damn the law! Well, then I go my way, and take my fee, And pay my bills. The Burtons have the land, And turn a cow upon it. See how nice A playground it would be. I've seen ten sets Of children try to play there--hey! you hear, The caretaker come out, get off of there! And then the children scamper, climb the fence. Well, after while the Burtons die. The will Leaves these five acres to their sons for life, Remainder to the children of the sons. The sons are living yet at middle life, These acres have been tied up twenty years, They may be tied up thirty years beside: The sons can't sell it, and their children can't, Only the cow can use it, as it stands. It grows more valuable as the people come here, And bring in being Elenor Murrays, children, And make the land around it populous. That's what makes poverty, this holding land, It makes the taxes harder on the poor, It makes work scarcer, and it takes your girls And boys and throws them into life half made, Half ready for the battle. Is a country Free where the laws permit such things? Your priests, Your addle-headed preachers mouthing Christ And morals, prohibition, laws to force People to be good, to save the girls, When every half-wit knows environment Takes natures, made unstable in these homes Of poverty and does the trick. That baronet Who mocked our freedom, sailing back for England And said: Your Liberty Statue in the harbor Is just a joke, that baronet is right, While such conditions thrive. Well, look at me Who for three hundred dollars take a part In making a cow pasture for a cow For fifty years or so. I hate myself. And were the Burtons better than this Kingston? Kingston would will away what was not his. The Burtons took what is the gift of God, As much as air, and fenced it out of use-- Save for the cow aforesaid--for the lives Of sons in being. Oh, I know you think I have a grudge. I have. This Elenor Murray Was ten years old I think, this law suit ended Twelve years or so, and I was running down, Was tippling just a little every day; And I came by this lot one afternoon When school was out, a sunny afternoon. The children had no place except the street To play in; they were standing by the fence, The cow was way across the lot, and Elenor Was looking through the fence, some boys and girls Standing around her, and I said to them: "Why don't you climb the fence and play in there?" And Elenor--she always was a leader, And not afraid of anything, said: "Come on," And in a jiffy climbed the fence, the children, Some quicker and some slower, followed her. Some said "They don't allow it." Elenor Stood on the fence, flung up her arms and crowed, And said "What can they do? He says to do it," Pointing at me. And in a moment all of them Were playing and were shouting in the lot. And I stood there and watched them half malicious, And half in pleasure watching them at play. Then I heard "hey!" the care-taker ran out. And said "Get out of there, I will arrest you." He drove them out and as they jumped the fence Some said, "He told us to," pointing at me. And Elenor Murray said "Why, what a lie!" And then the care-taker grabbed Elenor Murray And said, "You are the wildest of them all." I spoke up, saying, "Leave that child alone. I won this God damn land for those you serve, They use it for a cow and nothing else, And let these children run about the streets, When there are grass and dandelions there In plenty for these children, and the cow, And space enough to play in without bothering That solitary cow." I took his hands Away from Elenor Murray; he and I Came face to face with clenched fists--but at last He walked away; the children scampered off. Next day, however, they arrested me For aiding in a _trespass clausam fregit_, And fined me twenty dollars and the costs. Since then the cow has all her way in there. And Elenor Murray left this rotten place, Went to the war, came home and died, and proved She had the sense to leave so vile a world. * * * * * George Joslin ending up his days with dreams Of youth in Europe, travels, and with talk, Stirred to a recollection of a face He saw in Paris fifty years before, Because the face resembled Elenor Murray's, Explored his drawers and boxes, where he kept Mementos, treasures of the olden days. And found a pamphlet, came to Merival, With certain recollections, and with theories Of Elenor Murray:-- GEORGE JOSLIN ON LA MENKEN Here, Coroner Merival, look at this picture! Whom does it look like? Eyes too crystalline, A head like Byron's, tender mouth, and neck, Slender and white, a pathos as of smiles And tears kept back by courage. Yes, you know It looks like Elenor Murray. Well, you see I read each day about the inquest--good! Dig out the truth, begin a system here Of making family records, let us see If we can do for people when we know How best to do it, what is done for stock. So build up Illinois, the nation too. I read about you daily. And last night When Elenor Murray's picture in the _Times_ Looked at me, I began to think, Good Lord, Where have I seen that face before? I thought Through more than fifty years departed, sent My mind through Europe and America In all my travels, meetings, episodes. I could not think. At last I opened up A box of pamphlets, photographs, mementos, Picked up since 1860, and behold I find this pamphlet of La Belle Menken. Here is your Elenor Murray born again, As here might be your blackbird of this year With spots of red upon his wings, the same As last year's blackbird, like a pansy springing Out of the April of this year, repeating The color, form of one you saw last year. Repeating and the same, but not the same; No two alike, you know. I'll come to that. Well, then, La Menken--as a boy in Paris I saw La Menken, I'll return to this. But just as Elenor Murray has her life Shadowed and symbolized by our Starved Rock-- And everyone has something in his life Which takes him, makes him, is the image too Of fate prefigured--La Menken has Mazeppa, Her notable first part as actress, emblem Of spirit, character, and of omen too Of years to come, the thrill of life, the end. Who is La Menken? Symbol of America, One phase of spirit! She was venturesome, Resourceful, daring, hopeful, confident, And as she wrote of self, a vagabond, A dweller in tents, a reveler, and a flame Aspiring but disreputable, coming up With leaves that shamed her stalk, could not be shed, But stuck out heavy veined and muddy hued In time of blossom. There are souls, you know, Who have shed shapeless immaturities, Betrayals of the seed before the blossom Comes to proclaim a beauty, a perfection; Or risen with their stalk, until such leaves Were hidden in the grass or soil--not she, Nor even your Elenor Murray, as I read her. But being America and American, Brings good and bad together, blossom and leaves With prodigal recklessness, in vital health And unselective taste and vision mixed Of beauty and of truth. Who was La Menken? She's born in Louisiana in thirty-five, Left fatherless at seven--mother takes her And puts her in the ballet at New Orleans. She dances then from Texas clear to Cuba; Then gives up dancing, studies tragedy, And plays Bianca! Fourteen years of age Weds Menken, who's a Jew, divorced from him; Then falls in love with Heenan, pugilist. They quarrel and separate--it's in this pamphlet Just as I tell you; you can take it, Coroner. Now something happens, nothing in her birth Or place of birth to prophesy her life Like Starved Rock to this Elenor--being grown, A hand instead is darted from the curtain That hangs between to-day, to-morrow, sticks A symbol on her heart and whispers to her: You're this, my woman. Well, the thing was this: She played Mazeppa: take your dummy off, And lash me to the horse. They were afraid, But she prevailed, was nearly killed the first night, And after that succeeded, was the rage And for her years remaining found herself Lashed to the wild horse of ungoverned will, Which ran and wandered, till she knew herself With stronger will than vision, passion stronger Than spirit to judge; the richness of the world, Love, beauty, living, greater than her power. And all the time she had the appetite To eat, devour it all. Grown sick at last, She diagnosed her case, wrote to a friend: The soul and body do not fit each other-- A human spirit in a horse's flesh. This is your Elenor Murray, in a way. But to return to pansies, run your hand Over a bed of pansies; here's a pansy With petals stunted, here's another one All perfect but one petal, here's another Too streaked or mottled--all are pansies though. And here is one full petaled, strikes the eye With perfect color, markings. Elenor Murray Has something of the color and the form Of this La Menken, but is less a pansy, And Sappho, Rachel, Bernhardt are the flowers La Menken strove to be, and could not be, Ended with being only of their kind. And now there's pity for this Elenor Murray, And people wept when poor La Menken died. Both lived and had their way. I hate this pity, It makes you overlook there are two hours: The hour of joy, the hour of finding out Your joy was all mistake, or led to pain. We who inspect these lives behold the pain, And see the error, do not keep in mind The hour of rapture, and the pride, indeed With which your Elenor Murrays and La Menkens Have lived that hour, elation, pride and scorn For any other way--"this is the life" I hear them say. Well, now I go along. La Menken fills her purse with gold--she sends Her pugilist away, tries once again And weds a humorist, an Orpheus Kerr-- And plays before the miners out in 'Frisco, And Sacramento, gathers in the eagles. She goes to Europe then--with husband? No! James Barkley is her fellow on the voyage. She lands in London, takes a gorgeous suite In London's grandest hostlery, entertains Charles Dickens, Prince Baerto and Charles Read, The Duke of Wellington and Swinburne, Sand And Jenny Lind; and has a liveried coachman; And for a crest a horse's head surmounting Four aces, if you please. And plays Mazeppa, And piles the money up. Then next is Paris. And there I saw her, 1866, When Louis Napoleon and the King of Greece, The Prince Imperial were in a box. She wandered to Vienna, there was ill, Came back to Paris, died, a stranger's grave In Pere la Chaise was given, afterwards Exhumed in Mont Parnasse was buried, got A little stone with these words carved upon it: "Thou Knowest" meaning God knew, while herself Knew nothing of herself. But when in Paris They sold her picture taken with her arms Around Dumas, and photographs made up Of postures ludicrous, obscene as well, Of her and great Dumas, I have them home. Can show you sometime. Well she loved Dumas, Inscribed a book of poems to Charles Dickens, By his permission, mark you--don't you see Your Elenor Murray here? This Elenor Murray A miniature imperfect of La Menken? She loved sensation, all her senses thrilled her; A delicate soul too weighted by the flesh; A coquette, quick of wit, intuitive, Kind, generous, unaffected, mystical, Teased by the divine in life, and melancholy, Of deep emotion sometimes. One has said She had a nature spiritual, religious Which warred upon the flesh and fell in battle; Just as your Elenor Murray joined the church, And did not keep the faith, if truth be told. Now look, here is a letter in this pamphlet La Menken writes a poet--for she hunts For seers and for poets, lofty souls. And who does that? A woman wholly bad? Why no, a woman to be given life Fit for her spirit in another realm By God who will take notice, I believe. Now listen if you will! "I know your soul. It has met mine somewhere in starry space. And you must often meet me, vagabond Of fancy without aim, a dweller in tents Disreputable before the just. Just think I am a linguist, write some poems too, Can paint a little, model clay as well. And yet for all these gropings of my soul I am a vagabond, of little use. My body and my soul are in a scramble And do not fit each other--let them carve Those words upon my stone, but also these Thou Knowest, for God knows me, knows I love Whatever is good and beautiful in life; And that my soul has sought them without rest. Farewell, my friend, my spirit is with you, Vienna is too horrible, but know Paris Then die content." Now, Coroner Merival, You're not the only man who wants to see, Will work to make America a republic Of splendors, freedoms, happiness, success. Though I am seventy-six, cannot do much, Save talk, as I am talking now, bring forth Proofs, revelations from the years I've lived. I care not how you view the lives of people, As pansy beds or what not, lift your faith So high above the pansy bed it sees The streaked and stunted pansies filling in The pattern that the perfect pansies outline, Therefore are smiling, even indifferent To this poor conscious pansy, dying at last Because it could not be the flower it wished. My heart to Elenor Murray and La Menken Goes out in sorrow, even while I know They shook their leaves in April, laughed and thrilled, And either did not know, or did not care The growing time was precious, and if wasted Could never be regained. Look at La Menken At seven years put in the ballet corps; And look at Elenor Murray getting smut Out of experience that made her wise. What shall we do about it?--let it go? And say there is no help, or say a republic, Set up a hundred years ago, raised to the helm Of rulership as president a list Of men more able than the emperors, Kings, rulers of the world, and statesmen too The equal of the greatest, money makers, And domineers of finance and economies Phenomenal in time--say, I repeat A country like this one must let its children Waste as they wasted in the darker years Of Europe. Shall we let these trivial minds Who see salvation, progress in restraint, Pre-empt the field of moulding human life? Or shall we take a hand, and put our minds Upon the task, as recently we built An army for the war, equipped and fed it, An army better than all other armies, More powerful, more apt of hand and brain, Of thin tall youths, who did stop but said Like poor La Menken, strap me to the horse I'll do it if I die--so giving to peace The skill and genius which we use in war, Though it cost twenty billion, and why not? Why every dollar, every drop of blood For war like this to guard democracy, And not so much or more to build the land, Improve our blood, make individual America and her race? And first to rout Poverty and disease, give youth its chance, And therapeutic guidance. Soldier boys Have huts for recreation, clergymen, And is it more, less worth to furnish hands Intimate, hearts intimate for the use Of your La Menkens, Elenor Murrays, youths Who feel such vigor in their restless wings They tumble out of crowded nests and fly To fall in thickets, dash themselves against Walls, trees? I have a vision, Coroner, Of a new Republic, brighter than the sun, A new race, loftier faith, this land of ours Made over as to people, boys and girls, Conserved like forests, water power or mines; Watched, tested, put to best use, keen economies Practiced in spirits, waste of human life, Hope, aspiration, talent, virtues, powers, Avoided by a science, science of life, Of spirit, what you will. Enough of war, And billions for the flag--all well enough! Some billions now to make democracy Democracy in truth with us, and life Not helter-skelter, hitting as it may, And missing much, as this La Menken did. I'm not convinced we must have stunted pansies, That have no use but just to piece the pattern. Let's try, and if we try and fail, why then Our human duty ends, the God in us Will have it just this way, no other way. And then we may accept so poor a world, A republic so unfinished. * * * * * Will Paget is another writer of letters To Coroner Merival. The coroner Spends evenings reading letters, keeps a file Where he preserves them. And the blasphemy Of Paget makes him laugh. He has an evening And reads this letter to the jurymen: WILL PAGET ON DEMOS AND HOGOS To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice Dissentient from much that goes the rounds, Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word: Give men and women freedom, save the land From dull theocracy--the theo, what? A blend of Demos and Jehovah! Say, Bring back your despots, bring your Louis Fourteenths, And give them thrones of gold and ivory From where with leaded sceptres they may whack King Demos driven forth. You know the face? The temples are like sea shells, hollows out, Which narrow close the space for cortex cells. There would be little brow if hair remained; But hair is gone, because the dandruff came. The eyes are close together like a weasel's; The jaws are heavy, that is character; The mouth is thin and wide to gobble chicken; The paunch is heavy for the chickens eaten. Throned high upon a soap box Demos rules, And mumbles decalogues: Thou shalt not read, Save what I tell you, never books that tell Of men and women as they live and are. Thou shalt not see the dramas which portray The evil passions and satiric moods Which mock this Christian nation and its hope. Thou shalt not drink, not even wine or beer. Thou shalt not play at cards, or see the races. Thou shalt not be divorced! Thou shalt not play. Thou shalt not bow to graven images Of beauty cut in marble, fused in bronze. Behold my name is Demos, King of Kings, My name is legion, I am many, come Out of the sea where many hogs were drowned, And now the ruler of hogocracy, Where in the name of freedom hungry snouts Root up the truffles in your great republic, And crunch with heavy jaws the legs and arms Of people who fall over in the pen. Hierarchies in my name are planted under Your states political to sprout and take The new world's soil,--religious freedom this!-- Thought must be free--unless your thought objects To such dominion, and to literal faith In an old book that never had a place Except beside the Koran, Zarathustra. So here is your theocracy and here The land of Boredom. Do you wonder now That people cry for war? You see that God Frowns on all games but war. You shall not play Or kindle spirit with a rapture save A moral end's in view. All joy is sin, Where joy stands for itself alone, nor asks Consent to be, save for itself. But war Waged to put down the wrong, it's always that; To vindicate God's truths, all wars are such, Is game that lets the spirit play, is backed By God and moral reasons, therefore war, A game disguised as business, cosmic work For great millenniums, no less relieves The boredom of theocracies. But if Your men and women had the chance to play, Be free and spend superfluous energies, In what I call the greatest game, that's Life, Have life more freely, deeply, and you say How would you like a war and lose a leg, Or come from battle sick for all your years? You would say no, unless you saw an issue, Stripped clean of Christian twaddle, as we'll say The Greeks beheld the Persians. Well, behold All honest paganism in such things discarded For God who comes in glory, trampling presses Filled up with grapes of wrath. Now hear me out: I knew we'd have a war, it wasn't only That your hogocracy was grunting war We'd fight Japan, take Mexico--remember How dancing flourished madly in the land; Then think of savages who dance the Ghost Dance, And cattle lowing, rushing in a panic, There's psychic secrets here. But then at last What can you do with life? You're well and strong, Flushed with desire, mad with appetites, You turn this way and find a sign forbidden, You turn that way and find the door is closed. Hogocracy, King Demos say, go back, Find work, develop character, restrain, Draw up your belt a little tighter, hunger And thirst diminish with a tighter belt. And none to say, take off the belt and eat, Here's water for you. Well, you have a war. We used to say in foot ball kick their shins, And gouge their eyes out--when our shins were kicked We hollered foul and ouch. There was the south Who called us mud-sills in this freer north, And mouthed democracy; and as for that Their churches made of God a battle leader, An idea come from Palestine; oh, yes, They soon would wipe us up, they were the people. But when we slaughtered them they hollered ouch. And why not? For a gun and uniform, And bands that play are rapturous enough. But when you get a bullet through the heart, The game is not so funny as it was. That's why I hated Germany and hate her, And feel we could not let this German culture Spread over earth. That culture was but this: Life must have an expression and a game, And war's the game, besides the prize is great In land and treasure, commerce, let us play, It lets the people's passions have a vent When fires of life burn hot and hotter under The kettle and the lid is clamped by work, Dull duty, daily routine, inhibitions. Before this Elenor Murray woke to life LeRoy was stirring, but the stir was play. It was a Gretna Green, and pleasure boats Ran up and down the river--on the streets You heard the cry of barkers, in the park The band was playing, and you heard the ring Of registers at fountains and buffets. All this was shabby maybe, but observe There are those souls who see the wrath of God As blackest background to the light of soul: And when the thunder rumbles and the storm Comes up with lightning then they say to men Who laugh in bar-rooms, "Have a care, blasphemers, You may be struck by lightning"--here's the root From which this mood ascetic comes to leaf In all theocracies, and throws a shadow Upon all freedom. Look at us to-day. They say to me, see what a town we have: The men at work, smoke coming from the chimneys, The banks full up of money, business good, The workmen sober, going home at night, No rowdy barkers and no bands a-playing, No drinking and no gaming and no vice. No marriages contracted to be broken. Look how LeRoy is quiet, sane and clean! And I reply, you like the stir of work, But not the stir of play; your chimneys smoke, Your banks have money. Let me look behind The door that closes on your man at home, The wife and children there, what shall I find? A sick man looks to health as it were all, But when the fever leaves him and he feels The store of strength in muscles slumbering And waiting to be used, then something else Than health is needful, he must have a way To voice the life within him, and he wonders Why health seemed so desirable before, And all sufficient to him. Take this girl: Why do you marvel that she rode at night With any man who came along? Good God, If I were born a woman and they put me In a theocracy, hogocracy, I'd do the first thing that came in my mind To give my soul expression. Don't you think You're something of a bully and a coward To ask such model living from this girl When you, my grunting hogos, run the land And bring us scandals like the times of Grant, And poisoned beef sold to the soldier boys, When we were warring Spain, and all this stuff Concerning loot and plunder, malversation, That riots in your cities, printed daily? I roll the panoramic story out To Washington the great--what do I see? It's tangle foot, the sticky smear is dry; But I can find wings, legs and heads, remember How little flies and big were buzzing once Of God and duty, country, virtue, faith; And beating wings, already gummed with sweet, Until their little bellies touched the glue, They sought to fill their bellies with--at last Long silence, which is history, scroll rolled up And spoken of in sacred whispers. Well, I'm glad that Elenor Murray had her fling, If that be really true. I understand What drove her to the war. I think she knew Too much to marry, settle down and live Under the rule of Demos or of Hogos. I wish

wrote

How many times the word 'wrote' appears in the text?

won these acres here For old man Kingston's daughter, who in turn Bound it with limitation for the life Of selfish sons, who keep a caretaker, Who keeps a cow upon it. There's the cow! The land has had no use for thirty years. The children are kept off it. Elenor Murray, This girl whose death makes such a stir, one time Was playing there--but that's another story. I only say for the present, these five acres Made Elenor Murray's life a thing of waste As much as anything, and a damn sight more. For think a minute! Kingston had a daughter Married to Colonel Burton in Kentucky. And Kingston's son was in the Civil War. But just before the war, the Burtons deeded These acres here, which she inherited From old man Kingston, to this Captain Kingston, The son aforesaid of Old Kingston. Well, The deed upon its face was absolute, But really was a deed in trust. The Captain Held title for a year or two, and then An hour before he fought at Shiloh, made A will, and willed acres to his wife, Fee simple and forever. Now you'd think That contemplating death, he'd make a deed Giving these acres back to Mrs. Burton, The sister who had trusted him. I don't know What comes in people's heads, but I believe The want of money is the root of evil, As well as love of money; for this Captain Perhaps would make provision for his wife And infant son, thought that the chiefest thing No matter how he did it, being poor, Willed this land as he did. But anyway He willed it so, went into Shiloh's battle, And fell dead on the field. What happened then? They took this will to probate. As I said I was a lawyer then, you may believe it, Was hired by the Burtons to reclaim These acres from the Widow Kingston's clutch, Under this wicked will. And so I argued The will had not been witnessed according to law. Got beat upon that point in the lower court, But won upon it in the upper courts. Then next I filed a bill to set aside This deed the Burtons made to Captain Kingston-- Oh, I was full of schemes, expedients, In those days, I can tell you. Widow Kingston Came back and filed a cross bill, asked the court To confirm the title in her son and her As heirs of Captain Kingston, let the will Go out of thought and reckoning. Here's the issue; You understand the case, no doubt. We fought Through all the courts. I lost in the lower court, As I lost on the will. There was the deed: For love and affection and one dollar we Convey and warrant lots from one to ten In the city of LeRoy, to Captain Kingston To be his own forever. How to go Behind such words and show the actual trust Inhering in the deed, that was the job. But here I was resourceful as before, Found witnesses to testify they heard This Captain Kingston say he held the acres In trust for Mrs. Burton--but I lost Before the chancellor, had to appeal, But won on the appeal, and thus restored These acres to the Burtons. And for this What did I get? Three hundred lousy dollars. That's why I smoke a pipe; that's also why I quit the business when I saw the business Was making ready to quit me. By God, My life is waste so far as it was used By this law business, and no coroner Need hold an inquest on me to find out What waste was in my life--God damn the law! Well, then I go my way, and take my fee, And pay my bills. The Burtons have the land, And turn a cow upon it. See how nice A playground it would be. I've seen ten sets Of children try to play there--hey! you hear, The caretaker come out, get off of there! And then the children scamper, climb the fence. Well, after while the Burtons die. The will Leaves these five acres to their sons for life, Remainder to the children of the sons. The sons are living yet at middle life, These acres have been tied up twenty years, They may be tied up thirty years beside: The sons can't sell it, and their children can't, Only the cow can use it, as it stands. It grows more valuable as the people come here, And bring in being Elenor Murrays, children, And make the land around it populous. That's what makes poverty, this holding land, It makes the taxes harder on the poor, It makes work scarcer, and it takes your girls And boys and throws them into life half made, Half ready for the battle. Is a country Free where the laws permit such things? Your priests, Your addle-headed preachers mouthing Christ And morals, prohibition, laws to force People to be good, to save the girls, When every half-wit knows environment Takes natures, made unstable in these homes Of poverty and does the trick. That baronet Who mocked our freedom, sailing back for England And said: Your Liberty Statue in the harbor Is just a joke, that baronet is right, While such conditions thrive. Well, look at me Who for three hundred dollars take a part In making a cow pasture for a cow For fifty years or so. I hate myself. And were the Burtons better than this Kingston? Kingston would will away what was not his. The Burtons took what is the gift of God, As much as air, and fenced it out of use-- Save for the cow aforesaid--for the lives Of sons in being. Oh, I know you think I have a grudge. I have. This Elenor Murray Was ten years old I think, this law suit ended Twelve years or so, and I was running down, Was tippling just a little every day; And I came by this lot one afternoon When school was out, a sunny afternoon. The children had no place except the street To play in; they were standing by the fence, The cow was way across the lot, and Elenor Was looking through the fence, some boys and girls Standing around her, and I said to them: "Why don't you climb the fence and play in there?" And Elenor--she always was a leader, And not afraid of anything, said: "Come on," And in a jiffy climbed the fence, the children, Some quicker and some slower, followed her. Some said "They don't allow it." Elenor Stood on the fence, flung up her arms and crowed, And said "What can they do? He says to do it," Pointing at me. And in a moment all of them Were playing and were shouting in the lot. And I stood there and watched them half malicious, And half in pleasure watching them at play. Then I heard "hey!" the care-taker ran out. And said "Get out of there, I will arrest you." He drove them out and as they jumped the fence Some said, "He told us to," pointing at me. And Elenor Murray said "Why, what a lie!" And then the care-taker grabbed Elenor Murray And said, "You are the wildest of them all." I spoke up, saying, "Leave that child alone. I won this God damn land for those you serve, They use it for a cow and nothing else, And let these children run about the streets, When there are grass and dandelions there In plenty for these children, and the cow, And space enough to play in without bothering That solitary cow." I took his hands Away from Elenor Murray; he and I Came face to face with clenched fists--but at last He walked away; the children scampered off. Next day, however, they arrested me For aiding in a _trespass clausam fregit_, And fined me twenty dollars and the costs. Since then the cow has all her way in there. And Elenor Murray left this rotten place, Went to the war, came home and died, and proved She had the sense to leave so vile a world. * * * * * George Joslin ending up his days with dreams Of youth in Europe, travels, and with talk, Stirred to a recollection of a face He saw in Paris fifty years before, Because the face resembled Elenor Murray's, Explored his drawers and boxes, where he kept Mementos, treasures of the olden days. And found a pamphlet, came to Merival, With certain recollections, and with theories Of Elenor Murray:-- GEORGE JOSLIN ON LA MENKEN Here, Coroner Merival, look at this picture! Whom does it look like? Eyes too crystalline, A head like Byron's, tender mouth, and neck, Slender and white, a pathos as of smiles And tears kept back by courage. Yes, you know It looks like Elenor Murray. Well, you see I read each day about the inquest--good! Dig out the truth, begin a system here Of making family records, let us see If we can do for people when we know How best to do it, what is done for stock. So build up Illinois, the nation too. I read about you daily. And last night When Elenor Murray's picture in the _Times_ Looked at me, I began to think, Good Lord, Where have I seen that face before? I thought Through more than fifty years departed, sent My mind through Europe and America In all my travels, meetings, episodes. I could not think. At last I opened up A box of pamphlets, photographs, mementos, Picked up since 1860, and behold I find this pamphlet of La Belle Menken. Here is your Elenor Murray born again, As here might be your blackbird of this year With spots of red upon his wings, the same As last year's blackbird, like a pansy springing Out of the April of this year, repeating The color, form of one you saw last year. Repeating and the same, but not the same; No two alike, you know. I'll come to that. Well, then, La Menken--as a boy in Paris I saw La Menken, I'll return to this. But just as Elenor Murray has her life Shadowed and symbolized by our Starved Rock-- And everyone has something in his life Which takes him, makes him, is the image too Of fate prefigured--La Menken has Mazeppa, Her notable first part as actress, emblem Of spirit, character, and of omen too Of years to come, the thrill of life, the end. Who is La Menken? Symbol of America, One phase of spirit! She was venturesome, Resourceful, daring, hopeful, confident, And as she wrote of self, a vagabond, A dweller in tents, a reveler, and a flame Aspiring but disreputable, coming up With leaves that shamed her stalk, could not be shed, But stuck out heavy veined and muddy hued In time of blossom. There are souls, you know, Who have shed shapeless immaturities, Betrayals of the seed before the blossom Comes to proclaim a beauty, a perfection; Or risen with their stalk, until such leaves Were hidden in the grass or soil--not she, Nor even your Elenor Murray, as I read her. But being America and American, Brings good and bad together, blossom and leaves With prodigal recklessness, in vital health And unselective taste and vision mixed Of beauty and of truth. Who was La Menken? She's born in Louisiana in thirty-five, Left fatherless at seven--mother takes her And puts her in the ballet at New Orleans. She dances then from Texas clear to Cuba; Then gives up dancing, studies tragedy, And plays Bianca! Fourteen years of age Weds Menken, who's a Jew, divorced from him; Then falls in love with Heenan, pugilist. They quarrel and separate--it's in this pamphlet Just as I tell you; you can take it, Coroner. Now something happens, nothing in her birth Or place of birth to prophesy her life Like Starved Rock to this Elenor--being grown, A hand instead is darted from the curtain That hangs between to-day, to-morrow, sticks A symbol on her heart and whispers to her: You're this, my woman. Well, the thing was this: She played Mazeppa: take your dummy off, And lash me to the horse. They were afraid, But she prevailed, was nearly killed the first night, And after that succeeded, was the rage And for her years remaining found herself Lashed to the wild horse of ungoverned will, Which ran and wandered, till she knew herself With stronger will than vision, passion stronger Than spirit to judge; the richness of the world, Love, beauty, living, greater than her power. And all the time she had the appetite To eat, devour it all. Grown sick at last, She diagnosed her case, wrote to a friend: The soul and body do not fit each other-- A human spirit in a horse's flesh. This is your Elenor Murray, in a way. But to return to pansies, run your hand Over a bed of pansies; here's a pansy With petals stunted, here's another one All perfect but one petal, here's another Too streaked or mottled--all are pansies though. And here is one full petaled, strikes the eye With perfect color, markings. Elenor Murray Has something of the color and the form Of this La Menken, but is less a pansy, And Sappho, Rachel, Bernhardt are the flowers La Menken strove to be, and could not be, Ended with being only of their kind. And now there's pity for this Elenor Murray, And people wept when poor La Menken died. Both lived and had their way. I hate this pity, It makes you overlook there are two hours: The hour of joy, the hour of finding out Your joy was all mistake, or led to pain. We who inspect these lives behold the pain, And see the error, do not keep in mind The hour of rapture, and the pride, indeed With which your Elenor Murrays and La Menkens Have lived that hour, elation, pride and scorn For any other way--"this is the life" I hear them say. Well, now I go along. La Menken fills her purse with gold--she sends Her pugilist away, tries once again And weds a humorist, an Orpheus Kerr-- And plays before the miners out in 'Frisco, And Sacramento, gathers in the eagles. She goes to Europe then--with husband? No! James Barkley is her fellow on the voyage. She lands in London, takes a gorgeous suite In London's grandest hostlery, entertains Charles Dickens, Prince Baerto and Charles Read, The Duke of Wellington and Swinburne, Sand And Jenny Lind; and has a liveried coachman; And for a crest a horse's head surmounting Four aces, if you please. And plays Mazeppa, And piles the money up. Then next is Paris. And there I saw her, 1866, When Louis Napoleon and the King of Greece, The Prince Imperial were in a box. She wandered to Vienna, there was ill, Came back to Paris, died, a stranger's grave In Pere la Chaise was given, afterwards Exhumed in Mont Parnasse was buried, got A little stone with these words carved upon it: "Thou Knowest" meaning God knew, while herself Knew nothing of herself. But when in Paris They sold her picture taken with her arms Around Dumas, and photographs made up Of postures ludicrous, obscene as well, Of her and great Dumas, I have them home. Can show you sometime. Well she loved Dumas, Inscribed a book of poems to Charles Dickens, By his permission, mark you--don't you see Your Elenor Murray here? This Elenor Murray A miniature imperfect of La Menken? She loved sensation, all her senses thrilled her; A delicate soul too weighted by the flesh; A coquette, quick of wit, intuitive, Kind, generous, unaffected, mystical, Teased by the divine in life, and melancholy, Of deep emotion sometimes. One has said She had a nature spiritual, religious Which warred upon the flesh and fell in battle; Just as your Elenor Murray joined the church, And did not keep the faith, if truth be told. Now look, here is a letter in this pamphlet La Menken writes a poet--for she hunts For seers and for poets, lofty souls. And who does that? A woman wholly bad? Why no, a woman to be given life Fit for her spirit in another realm By God who will take notice, I believe. Now listen if you will! "I know your soul. It has met mine somewhere in starry space. And you must often meet me, vagabond Of fancy without aim, a dweller in tents Disreputable before the just. Just think I am a linguist, write some poems too, Can paint a little, model clay as well. And yet for all these gropings of my soul I am a vagabond, of little use. My body and my soul are in a scramble And do not fit each other--let them carve Those words upon my stone, but also these Thou Knowest, for God knows me, knows I love Whatever is good and beautiful in life; And that my soul has sought them without rest. Farewell, my friend, my spirit is with you, Vienna is too horrible, but know Paris Then die content." Now, Coroner Merival, You're not the only man who wants to see, Will work to make America a republic Of splendors, freedoms, happiness, success. Though I am seventy-six, cannot do much, Save talk, as I am talking now, bring forth Proofs, revelations from the years I've lived. I care not how you view the lives of people, As pansy beds or what not, lift your faith So high above the pansy bed it sees The streaked and stunted pansies filling in The pattern that the perfect pansies outline, Therefore are smiling, even indifferent To this poor conscious pansy, dying at last Because it could not be the flower it wished. My heart to Elenor Murray and La Menken Goes out in sorrow, even while I know They shook their leaves in April, laughed and thrilled, And either did not know, or did not care The growing time was precious, and if wasted Could never be regained. Look at La Menken At seven years put in the ballet corps; And look at Elenor Murray getting smut Out of experience that made her wise. What shall we do about it?--let it go? And say there is no help, or say a republic, Set up a hundred years ago, raised to the helm Of rulership as president a list Of men more able than the emperors, Kings, rulers of the world, and statesmen too The equal of the greatest, money makers, And domineers of finance and economies Phenomenal in time--say, I repeat A country like this one must let its children Waste as they wasted in the darker years Of Europe. Shall we let these trivial minds Who see salvation, progress in restraint, Pre-empt the field of moulding human life? Or shall we take a hand, and put our minds Upon the task, as recently we built An army for the war, equipped and fed it, An army better than all other armies, More powerful, more apt of hand and brain, Of thin tall youths, who did stop but said Like poor La Menken, strap me to the horse I'll do it if I die--so giving to peace The skill and genius which we use in war, Though it cost twenty billion, and why not? Why every dollar, every drop of blood For war like this to guard democracy, And not so much or more to build the land, Improve our blood, make individual America and her race? And first to rout Poverty and disease, give youth its chance, And therapeutic guidance. Soldier boys Have huts for recreation, clergymen, And is it more, less worth to furnish hands Intimate, hearts intimate for the use Of your La Menkens, Elenor Murrays, youths Who feel such vigor in their restless wings They tumble out of crowded nests and fly To fall in thickets, dash themselves against Walls, trees? I have a vision, Coroner, Of a new Republic, brighter than the sun, A new race, loftier faith, this land of ours Made over as to people, boys and girls, Conserved like forests, water power or mines; Watched, tested, put to best use, keen economies Practiced in spirits, waste of human life, Hope, aspiration, talent, virtues, powers, Avoided by a science, science of life, Of spirit, what you will. Enough of war, And billions for the flag--all well enough! Some billions now to make democracy Democracy in truth with us, and life Not helter-skelter, hitting as it may, And missing much, as this La Menken did. I'm not convinced we must have stunted pansies, That have no use but just to piece the pattern. Let's try, and if we try and fail, why then Our human duty ends, the God in us Will have it just this way, no other way. And then we may accept so poor a world, A republic so unfinished. * * * * * Will Paget is another writer of letters To Coroner Merival. The coroner Spends evenings reading letters, keeps a file Where he preserves them. And the blasphemy Of Paget makes him laugh. He has an evening And reads this letter to the jurymen: WILL PAGET ON DEMOS AND HOGOS To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice Dissentient from much that goes the rounds, Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word: Give men and women freedom, save the land From dull theocracy--the theo, what? A blend of Demos and Jehovah! Say, Bring back your despots, bring your Louis Fourteenths, And give them thrones of gold and ivory From where with leaded sceptres they may whack King Demos driven forth. You know the face? The temples are like sea shells, hollows out, Which narrow close the space for cortex cells. There would be little brow if hair remained; But hair is gone, because the dandruff came. The eyes are close together like a weasel's; The jaws are heavy, that is character; The mouth is thin and wide to gobble chicken; The paunch is heavy for the chickens eaten. Throned high upon a soap box Demos rules, And mumbles decalogues: Thou shalt not read, Save what I tell you, never books that tell Of men and women as they live and are. Thou shalt not see the dramas which portray The evil passions and satiric moods Which mock this Christian nation and its hope. Thou shalt not drink, not even wine or beer. Thou shalt not play at cards, or see the races. Thou shalt not be divorced! Thou shalt not play. Thou shalt not bow to graven images Of beauty cut in marble, fused in bronze. Behold my name is Demos, King of Kings, My name is legion, I am many, come Out of the sea where many hogs were drowned, And now the ruler of hogocracy, Where in the name of freedom hungry snouts Root up the truffles in your great republic, And crunch with heavy jaws the legs and arms Of people who fall over in the pen. Hierarchies in my name are planted under Your states political to sprout and take The new world's soil,--religious freedom this!-- Thought must be free--unless your thought objects To such dominion, and to literal faith In an old book that never had a place Except beside the Koran, Zarathustra. So here is your theocracy and here The land of Boredom. Do you wonder now That people cry for war? You see that God Frowns on all games but war. You shall not play Or kindle spirit with a rapture save A moral end's in view. All joy is sin, Where joy stands for itself alone, nor asks Consent to be, save for itself. But war Waged to put down the wrong, it's always that; To vindicate God's truths, all wars are such, Is game that lets the spirit play, is backed By God and moral reasons, therefore war, A game disguised as business, cosmic work For great millenniums, no less relieves The boredom of theocracies. But if Your men and women had the chance to play, Be free and spend superfluous energies, In what I call the greatest game, that's Life, Have life more freely, deeply, and you say How would you like a war and lose a leg, Or come from battle sick for all your years? You would say no, unless you saw an issue, Stripped clean of Christian twaddle, as we'll say The Greeks beheld the Persians. Well, behold All honest paganism in such things discarded For God who comes in glory, trampling presses Filled up with grapes of wrath. Now hear me out: I knew we'd have a war, it wasn't only That your hogocracy was grunting war We'd fight Japan, take Mexico--remember How dancing flourished madly in the land; Then think of savages who dance the Ghost Dance, And cattle lowing, rushing in a panic, There's psychic secrets here. But then at last What can you do with life? You're well and strong, Flushed with desire, mad with appetites, You turn this way and find a sign forbidden, You turn that way and find the door is closed. Hogocracy, King Demos say, go back, Find work, develop character, restrain, Draw up your belt a little tighter, hunger And thirst diminish with a tighter belt. And none to say, take off the belt and eat, Here's water for you. Well, you have a war. We used to say in foot ball kick their shins, And gouge their eyes out--when our shins were kicked We hollered foul and ouch. There was the south Who called us mud-sills in this freer north, And mouthed democracy; and as for that Their churches made of God a battle leader, An idea come from Palestine; oh, yes, They soon would wipe us up, they were the people. But when we slaughtered them they hollered ouch. And why not? For a gun and uniform, And bands that play are rapturous enough. But when you get a bullet through the heart, The game is not so funny as it was. That's why I hated Germany and hate her, And feel we could not let this German culture Spread over earth. That culture was but this: Life must have an expression and a game, And war's the game, besides the prize is great In land and treasure, commerce, let us play, It lets the people's passions have a vent When fires of life burn hot and hotter under The kettle and the lid is clamped by work, Dull duty, daily routine, inhibitions. Before this Elenor Murray woke to life LeRoy was stirring, but the stir was play. It was a Gretna Green, and pleasure boats Ran up and down the river--on the streets You heard the cry of barkers, in the park The band was playing, and you heard the ring Of registers at fountains and buffets. All this was shabby maybe, but observe There are those souls who see the wrath of God As blackest background to the light of soul: And when the thunder rumbles and the storm Comes up with lightning then they say to men Who laugh in bar-rooms, "Have a care, blasphemers, You may be struck by lightning"--here's the root From which this mood ascetic comes to leaf In all theocracies, and throws a shadow Upon all freedom. Look at us to-day. They say to me, see what a town we have: The men at work, smoke coming from the chimneys, The banks full up of money, business good, The workmen sober, going home at night, No rowdy barkers and no bands a-playing, No drinking and no gaming and no vice. No marriages contracted to be broken. Look how LeRoy is quiet, sane and clean! And I reply, you like the stir of work, But not the stir of play; your chimneys smoke, Your banks have money. Let me look behind The door that closes on your man at home, The wife and children there, what shall I find? A sick man looks to health as it were all, But when the fever leaves him and he feels The store of strength in muscles slumbering And waiting to be used, then something else Than health is needful, he must have a way To voice the life within him, and he wonders Why health seemed so desirable before, And all sufficient to him. Take this girl: Why do you marvel that she rode at night With any man who came along? Good God, If I were born a woman and they put me In a theocracy, hogocracy, I'd do the first thing that came in my mind To give my soul expression. Don't you think You're something of a bully and a coward To ask such model living from this girl When you, my grunting hogos, run the land And bring us scandals like the times of Grant, And poisoned beef sold to the soldier boys, When we were warring Spain, and all this stuff Concerning loot and plunder, malversation, That riots in your cities, printed daily? I roll the panoramic story out To Washington the great--what do I see? It's tangle foot, the sticky smear is dry; But I can find wings, legs and heads, remember How little flies and big were buzzing once Of God and duty, country, virtue, faith; And beating wings, already gummed with sweet, Until their little bellies touched the glue, They sought to fill their bellies with--at last Long silence, which is history, scroll rolled up And spoken of in sacred whispers. Well, I'm glad that Elenor Murray had her fling, If that be really true. I understand What drove her to the war. I think she knew Too much to marry, settle down and live Under the rule of Demos or of Hogos. I wish

molasses

How many times the word 'molasses' appears in the text?

won these acres here For old man Kingston's daughter, who in turn Bound it with limitation for the life Of selfish sons, who keep a caretaker, Who keeps a cow upon it. There's the cow! The land has had no use for thirty years. The children are kept off it. Elenor Murray, This girl whose death makes such a stir, one time Was playing there--but that's another story. I only say for the present, these five acres Made Elenor Murray's life a thing of waste As much as anything, and a damn sight more. For think a minute! Kingston had a daughter Married to Colonel Burton in Kentucky. And Kingston's son was in the Civil War. But just before the war, the Burtons deeded These acres here, which she inherited From old man Kingston, to this Captain Kingston, The son aforesaid of Old Kingston. Well, The deed upon its face was absolute, But really was a deed in trust. The Captain Held title for a year or two, and then An hour before he fought at Shiloh, made A will, and willed acres to his wife, Fee simple and forever. Now you'd think That contemplating death, he'd make a deed Giving these acres back to Mrs. Burton, The sister who had trusted him. I don't know What comes in people's heads, but I believe The want of money is the root of evil, As well as love of money; for this Captain Perhaps would make provision for his wife And infant son, thought that the chiefest thing No matter how he did it, being poor, Willed this land as he did. But anyway He willed it so, went into Shiloh's battle, And fell dead on the field. What happened then? They took this will to probate. As I said I was a lawyer then, you may believe it, Was hired by the Burtons to reclaim These acres from the Widow Kingston's clutch, Under this wicked will. And so I argued The will had not been witnessed according to law. Got beat upon that point in the lower court, But won upon it in the upper courts. Then next I filed a bill to set aside This deed the Burtons made to Captain Kingston-- Oh, I was full of schemes, expedients, In those days, I can tell you. Widow Kingston Came back and filed a cross bill, asked the court To confirm the title in her son and her As heirs of Captain Kingston, let the will Go out of thought and reckoning. Here's the issue; You understand the case, no doubt. We fought Through all the courts. I lost in the lower court, As I lost on the will. There was the deed: For love and affection and one dollar we Convey and warrant lots from one to ten In the city of LeRoy, to Captain Kingston To be his own forever. How to go Behind such words and show the actual trust Inhering in the deed, that was the job. But here I was resourceful as before, Found witnesses to testify they heard This Captain Kingston say he held the acres In trust for Mrs. Burton--but I lost Before the chancellor, had to appeal, But won on the appeal, and thus restored These acres to the Burtons. And for this What did I get? Three hundred lousy dollars. That's why I smoke a pipe; that's also why I quit the business when I saw the business Was making ready to quit me. By God, My life is waste so far as it was used By this law business, and no coroner Need hold an inquest on me to find out What waste was in my life--God damn the law! Well, then I go my way, and take my fee, And pay my bills. The Burtons have the land, And turn a cow upon it. See how nice A playground it would be. I've seen ten sets Of children try to play there--hey! you hear, The caretaker come out, get off of there! And then the children scamper, climb the fence. Well, after while the Burtons die. The will Leaves these five acres to their sons for life, Remainder to the children of the sons. The sons are living yet at middle life, These acres have been tied up twenty years, They may be tied up thirty years beside: The sons can't sell it, and their children can't, Only the cow can use it, as it stands. It grows more valuable as the people come here, And bring in being Elenor Murrays, children, And make the land around it populous. That's what makes poverty, this holding land, It makes the taxes harder on the poor, It makes work scarcer, and it takes your girls And boys and throws them into life half made, Half ready for the battle. Is a country Free where the laws permit such things? Your priests, Your addle-headed preachers mouthing Christ And morals, prohibition, laws to force People to be good, to save the girls, When every half-wit knows environment Takes natures, made unstable in these homes Of poverty and does the trick. That baronet Who mocked our freedom, sailing back for England And said: Your Liberty Statue in the harbor Is just a joke, that baronet is right, While such conditions thrive. Well, look at me Who for three hundred dollars take a part In making a cow pasture for a cow For fifty years or so. I hate myself. And were the Burtons better than this Kingston? Kingston would will away what was not his. The Burtons took what is the gift of God, As much as air, and fenced it out of use-- Save for the cow aforesaid--for the lives Of sons in being. Oh, I know you think I have a grudge. I have. This Elenor Murray Was ten years old I think, this law suit ended Twelve years or so, and I was running down, Was tippling just a little every day; And I came by this lot one afternoon When school was out, a sunny afternoon. The children had no place except the street To play in; they were standing by the fence, The cow was way across the lot, and Elenor Was looking through the fence, some boys and girls Standing around her, and I said to them: "Why don't you climb the fence and play in there?" And Elenor--she always was a leader, And not afraid of anything, said: "Come on," And in a jiffy climbed the fence, the children, Some quicker and some slower, followed her. Some said "They don't allow it." Elenor Stood on the fence, flung up her arms and crowed, And said "What can they do? He says to do it," Pointing at me. And in a moment all of them Were playing and were shouting in the lot. And I stood there and watched them half malicious, And half in pleasure watching them at play. Then I heard "hey!" the care-taker ran out. And said "Get out of there, I will arrest you." He drove them out and as they jumped the fence Some said, "He told us to," pointing at me. And Elenor Murray said "Why, what a lie!" And then the care-taker grabbed Elenor Murray And said, "You are the wildest of them all." I spoke up, saying, "Leave that child alone. I won this God damn land for those you serve, They use it for a cow and nothing else, And let these children run about the streets, When there are grass and dandelions there In plenty for these children, and the cow, And space enough to play in without bothering That solitary cow." I took his hands Away from Elenor Murray; he and I Came face to face with clenched fists--but at last He walked away; the children scampered off. Next day, however, they arrested me For aiding in a _trespass clausam fregit_, And fined me twenty dollars and the costs. Since then the cow has all her way in there. And Elenor Murray left this rotten place, Went to the war, came home and died, and proved She had the sense to leave so vile a world. * * * * * George Joslin ending up his days with dreams Of youth in Europe, travels, and with talk, Stirred to a recollection of a face He saw in Paris fifty years before, Because the face resembled Elenor Murray's, Explored his drawers and boxes, where he kept Mementos, treasures of the olden days. And found a pamphlet, came to Merival, With certain recollections, and with theories Of Elenor Murray:-- GEORGE JOSLIN ON LA MENKEN Here, Coroner Merival, look at this picture! Whom does it look like? Eyes too crystalline, A head like Byron's, tender mouth, and neck, Slender and white, a pathos as of smiles And tears kept back by courage. Yes, you know It looks like Elenor Murray. Well, you see I read each day about the inquest--good! Dig out the truth, begin a system here Of making family records, let us see If we can do for people when we know How best to do it, what is done for stock. So build up Illinois, the nation too. I read about you daily. And last night When Elenor Murray's picture in the _Times_ Looked at me, I began to think, Good Lord, Where have I seen that face before? I thought Through more than fifty years departed, sent My mind through Europe and America In all my travels, meetings, episodes. I could not think. At last I opened up A box of pamphlets, photographs, mementos, Picked up since 1860, and behold I find this pamphlet of La Belle Menken. Here is your Elenor Murray born again, As here might be your blackbird of this year With spots of red upon his wings, the same As last year's blackbird, like a pansy springing Out of the April of this year, repeating The color, form of one you saw last year. Repeating and the same, but not the same; No two alike, you know. I'll come to that. Well, then, La Menken--as a boy in Paris I saw La Menken, I'll return to this. But just as Elenor Murray has her life Shadowed and symbolized by our Starved Rock-- And everyone has something in his life Which takes him, makes him, is the image too Of fate prefigured--La Menken has Mazeppa, Her notable first part as actress, emblem Of spirit, character, and of omen too Of years to come, the thrill of life, the end. Who is La Menken? Symbol of America, One phase of spirit! She was venturesome, Resourceful, daring, hopeful, confident, And as she wrote of self, a vagabond, A dweller in tents, a reveler, and a flame Aspiring but disreputable, coming up With leaves that shamed her stalk, could not be shed, But stuck out heavy veined and muddy hued In time of blossom. There are souls, you know, Who have shed shapeless immaturities, Betrayals of the seed before the blossom Comes to proclaim a beauty, a perfection; Or risen with their stalk, until such leaves Were hidden in the grass or soil--not she, Nor even your Elenor Murray, as I read her. But being America and American, Brings good and bad together, blossom and leaves With prodigal recklessness, in vital health And unselective taste and vision mixed Of beauty and of truth. Who was La Menken? She's born in Louisiana in thirty-five, Left fatherless at seven--mother takes her And puts her in the ballet at New Orleans. She dances then from Texas clear to Cuba; Then gives up dancing, studies tragedy, And plays Bianca! Fourteen years of age Weds Menken, who's a Jew, divorced from him; Then falls in love with Heenan, pugilist. They quarrel and separate--it's in this pamphlet Just as I tell you; you can take it, Coroner. Now something happens, nothing in her birth Or place of birth to prophesy her life Like Starved Rock to this Elenor--being grown, A hand instead is darted from the curtain That hangs between to-day, to-morrow, sticks A symbol on her heart and whispers to her: You're this, my woman. Well, the thing was this: She played Mazeppa: take your dummy off, And lash me to the horse. They were afraid, But she prevailed, was nearly killed the first night, And after that succeeded, was the rage And for her years remaining found herself Lashed to the wild horse of ungoverned will, Which ran and wandered, till she knew herself With stronger will than vision, passion stronger Than spirit to judge; the richness of the world, Love, beauty, living, greater than her power. And all the time she had the appetite To eat, devour it all. Grown sick at last, She diagnosed her case, wrote to a friend: The soul and body do not fit each other-- A human spirit in a horse's flesh. This is your Elenor Murray, in a way. But to return to pansies, run your hand Over a bed of pansies; here's a pansy With petals stunted, here's another one All perfect but one petal, here's another Too streaked or mottled--all are pansies though. And here is one full petaled, strikes the eye With perfect color, markings. Elenor Murray Has something of the color and the form Of this La Menken, but is less a pansy, And Sappho, Rachel, Bernhardt are the flowers La Menken strove to be, and could not be, Ended with being only of their kind. And now there's pity for this Elenor Murray, And people wept when poor La Menken died. Both lived and had their way. I hate this pity, It makes you overlook there are two hours: The hour of joy, the hour of finding out Your joy was all mistake, or led to pain. We who inspect these lives behold the pain, And see the error, do not keep in mind The hour of rapture, and the pride, indeed With which your Elenor Murrays and La Menkens Have lived that hour, elation, pride and scorn For any other way--"this is the life" I hear them say. Well, now I go along. La Menken fills her purse with gold--she sends Her pugilist away, tries once again And weds a humorist, an Orpheus Kerr-- And plays before the miners out in 'Frisco, And Sacramento, gathers in the eagles. She goes to Europe then--with husband? No! James Barkley is her fellow on the voyage. She lands in London, takes a gorgeous suite In London's grandest hostlery, entertains Charles Dickens, Prince Baerto and Charles Read, The Duke of Wellington and Swinburne, Sand And Jenny Lind; and has a liveried coachman; And for a crest a horse's head surmounting Four aces, if you please. And plays Mazeppa, And piles the money up. Then next is Paris. And there I saw her, 1866, When Louis Napoleon and the King of Greece, The Prince Imperial were in a box. She wandered to Vienna, there was ill, Came back to Paris, died, a stranger's grave In Pere la Chaise was given, afterwards Exhumed in Mont Parnasse was buried, got A little stone with these words carved upon it: "Thou Knowest" meaning God knew, while herself Knew nothing of herself. But when in Paris They sold her picture taken with her arms Around Dumas, and photographs made up Of postures ludicrous, obscene as well, Of her and great Dumas, I have them home. Can show you sometime. Well she loved Dumas, Inscribed a book of poems to Charles Dickens, By his permission, mark you--don't you see Your Elenor Murray here? This Elenor Murray A miniature imperfect of La Menken? She loved sensation, all her senses thrilled her; A delicate soul too weighted by the flesh; A coquette, quick of wit, intuitive, Kind, generous, unaffected, mystical, Teased by the divine in life, and melancholy, Of deep emotion sometimes. One has said She had a nature spiritual, religious Which warred upon the flesh and fell in battle; Just as your Elenor Murray joined the church, And did not keep the faith, if truth be told. Now look, here is a letter in this pamphlet La Menken writes a poet--for she hunts For seers and for poets, lofty souls. And who does that? A woman wholly bad? Why no, a woman to be given life Fit for her spirit in another realm By God who will take notice, I believe. Now listen if you will! "I know your soul. It has met mine somewhere in starry space. And you must often meet me, vagabond Of fancy without aim, a dweller in tents Disreputable before the just. Just think I am a linguist, write some poems too, Can paint a little, model clay as well. And yet for all these gropings of my soul I am a vagabond, of little use. My body and my soul are in a scramble And do not fit each other--let them carve Those words upon my stone, but also these Thou Knowest, for God knows me, knows I love Whatever is good and beautiful in life; And that my soul has sought them without rest. Farewell, my friend, my spirit is with you, Vienna is too horrible, but know Paris Then die content." Now, Coroner Merival, You're not the only man who wants to see, Will work to make America a republic Of splendors, freedoms, happiness, success. Though I am seventy-six, cannot do much, Save talk, as I am talking now, bring forth Proofs, revelations from the years I've lived. I care not how you view the lives of people, As pansy beds or what not, lift your faith So high above the pansy bed it sees The streaked and stunted pansies filling in The pattern that the perfect pansies outline, Therefore are smiling, even indifferent To this poor conscious pansy, dying at last Because it could not be the flower it wished. My heart to Elenor Murray and La Menken Goes out in sorrow, even while I know They shook their leaves in April, laughed and thrilled, And either did not know, or did not care The growing time was precious, and if wasted Could never be regained. Look at La Menken At seven years put in the ballet corps; And look at Elenor Murray getting smut Out of experience that made her wise. What shall we do about it?--let it go? And say there is no help, or say a republic, Set up a hundred years ago, raised to the helm Of rulership as president a list Of men more able than the emperors, Kings, rulers of the world, and statesmen too The equal of the greatest, money makers, And domineers of finance and economies Phenomenal in time--say, I repeat A country like this one must let its children Waste as they wasted in the darker years Of Europe. Shall we let these trivial minds Who see salvation, progress in restraint, Pre-empt the field of moulding human life? Or shall we take a hand, and put our minds Upon the task, as recently we built An army for the war, equipped and fed it, An army better than all other armies, More powerful, more apt of hand and brain, Of thin tall youths, who did stop but said Like poor La Menken, strap me to the horse I'll do it if I die--so giving to peace The skill and genius which we use in war, Though it cost twenty billion, and why not? Why every dollar, every drop of blood For war like this to guard democracy, And not so much or more to build the land, Improve our blood, make individual America and her race? And first to rout Poverty and disease, give youth its chance, And therapeutic guidance. Soldier boys Have huts for recreation, clergymen, And is it more, less worth to furnish hands Intimate, hearts intimate for the use Of your La Menkens, Elenor Murrays, youths Who feel such vigor in their restless wings They tumble out of crowded nests and fly To fall in thickets, dash themselves against Walls, trees? I have a vision, Coroner, Of a new Republic, brighter than the sun, A new race, loftier faith, this land of ours Made over as to people, boys and girls, Conserved like forests, water power or mines; Watched, tested, put to best use, keen economies Practiced in spirits, waste of human life, Hope, aspiration, talent, virtues, powers, Avoided by a science, science of life, Of spirit, what you will. Enough of war, And billions for the flag--all well enough! Some billions now to make democracy Democracy in truth with us, and life Not helter-skelter, hitting as it may, And missing much, as this La Menken did. I'm not convinced we must have stunted pansies, That have no use but just to piece the pattern. Let's try, and if we try and fail, why then Our human duty ends, the God in us Will have it just this way, no other way. And then we may accept so poor a world, A republic so unfinished. * * * * * Will Paget is another writer of letters To Coroner Merival. The coroner Spends evenings reading letters, keeps a file Where he preserves them. And the blasphemy Of Paget makes him laugh. He has an evening And reads this letter to the jurymen: WILL PAGET ON DEMOS AND HOGOS To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice Dissentient from much that goes the rounds, Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word: Give men and women freedom, save the land From dull theocracy--the theo, what? A blend of Demos and Jehovah! Say, Bring back your despots, bring your Louis Fourteenths, And give them thrones of gold and ivory From where with leaded sceptres they may whack King Demos driven forth. You know the face? The temples are like sea shells, hollows out, Which narrow close the space for cortex cells. There would be little brow if hair remained; But hair is gone, because the dandruff came. The eyes are close together like a weasel's; The jaws are heavy, that is character; The mouth is thin and wide to gobble chicken; The paunch is heavy for the chickens eaten. Throned high upon a soap box Demos rules, And mumbles decalogues: Thou shalt not read, Save what I tell you, never books that tell Of men and women as they live and are. Thou shalt not see the dramas which portray The evil passions and satiric moods Which mock this Christian nation and its hope. Thou shalt not drink, not even wine or beer. Thou shalt not play at cards, or see the races. Thou shalt not be divorced! Thou shalt not play. Thou shalt not bow to graven images Of beauty cut in marble, fused in bronze. Behold my name is Demos, King of Kings, My name is legion, I am many, come Out of the sea where many hogs were drowned, And now the ruler of hogocracy, Where in the name of freedom hungry snouts Root up the truffles in your great republic, And crunch with heavy jaws the legs and arms Of people who fall over in the pen. Hierarchies in my name are planted under Your states political to sprout and take The new world's soil,--religious freedom this!-- Thought must be free--unless your thought objects To such dominion, and to literal faith In an old book that never had a place Except beside the Koran, Zarathustra. So here is your theocracy and here The land of Boredom. Do you wonder now That people cry for war? You see that God Frowns on all games but war. You shall not play Or kindle spirit with a rapture save A moral end's in view. All joy is sin, Where joy stands for itself alone, nor asks Consent to be, save for itself. But war Waged to put down the wrong, it's always that; To vindicate God's truths, all wars are such, Is game that lets the spirit play, is backed By God and moral reasons, therefore war, A game disguised as business, cosmic work For great millenniums, no less relieves The boredom of theocracies. But if Your men and women had the chance to play, Be free and spend superfluous energies, In what I call the greatest game, that's Life, Have life more freely, deeply, and you say How would you like a war and lose a leg, Or come from battle sick for all your years? You would say no, unless you saw an issue, Stripped clean of Christian twaddle, as we'll say The Greeks beheld the Persians. Well, behold All honest paganism in such things discarded For God who comes in glory, trampling presses Filled up with grapes of wrath. Now hear me out: I knew we'd have a war, it wasn't only That your hogocracy was grunting war We'd fight Japan, take Mexico--remember How dancing flourished madly in the land; Then think of savages who dance the Ghost Dance, And cattle lowing, rushing in a panic, There's psychic secrets here. But then at last What can you do with life? You're well and strong, Flushed with desire, mad with appetites, You turn this way and find a sign forbidden, You turn that way and find the door is closed. Hogocracy, King Demos say, go back, Find work, develop character, restrain, Draw up your belt a little tighter, hunger And thirst diminish with a tighter belt. And none to say, take off the belt and eat, Here's water for you. Well, you have a war. We used to say in foot ball kick their shins, And gouge their eyes out--when our shins were kicked We hollered foul and ouch. There was the south Who called us mud-sills in this freer north, And mouthed democracy; and as for that Their churches made of God a battle leader, An idea come from Palestine; oh, yes, They soon would wipe us up, they were the people. But when we slaughtered them they hollered ouch. And why not? For a gun and uniform, And bands that play are rapturous enough. But when you get a bullet through the heart, The game is not so funny as it was. That's why I hated Germany and hate her, And feel we could not let this German culture Spread over earth. That culture was but this: Life must have an expression and a game, And war's the game, besides the prize is great In land and treasure, commerce, let us play, It lets the people's passions have a vent When fires of life burn hot and hotter under The kettle and the lid is clamped by work, Dull duty, daily routine, inhibitions. Before this Elenor Murray woke to life LeRoy was stirring, but the stir was play. It was a Gretna Green, and pleasure boats Ran up and down the river--on the streets You heard the cry of barkers, in the park The band was playing, and you heard the ring Of registers at fountains and buffets. All this was shabby maybe, but observe There are those souls who see the wrath of God As blackest background to the light of soul: And when the thunder rumbles and the storm Comes up with lightning then they say to men Who laugh in bar-rooms, "Have a care, blasphemers, You may be struck by lightning"--here's the root From which this mood ascetic comes to leaf In all theocracies, and throws a shadow Upon all freedom. Look at us to-day. They say to me, see what a town we have: The men at work, smoke coming from the chimneys, The banks full up of money, business good, The workmen sober, going home at night, No rowdy barkers and no bands a-playing, No drinking and no gaming and no vice. No marriages contracted to be broken. Look how LeRoy is quiet, sane and clean! And I reply, you like the stir of work, But not the stir of play; your chimneys smoke, Your banks have money. Let me look behind The door that closes on your man at home, The wife and children there, what shall I find? A sick man looks to health as it were all, But when the fever leaves him and he feels The store of strength in muscles slumbering And waiting to be used, then something else Than health is needful, he must have a way To voice the life within him, and he wonders Why health seemed so desirable before, And all sufficient to him. Take this girl: Why do you marvel that she rode at night With any man who came along? Good God, If I were born a woman and they put me In a theocracy, hogocracy, I'd do the first thing that came in my mind To give my soul expression. Don't you think You're something of a bully and a coward To ask such model living from this girl When you, my grunting hogos, run the land And bring us scandals like the times of Grant, And poisoned beef sold to the soldier boys, When we were warring Spain, and all this stuff Concerning loot and plunder, malversation, That riots in your cities, printed daily? I roll the panoramic story out To Washington the great--what do I see? It's tangle foot, the sticky smear is dry; But I can find wings, legs and heads, remember How little flies and big were buzzing once Of God and duty, country, virtue, faith; And beating wings, already gummed with sweet, Until their little bellies touched the glue, They sought to fill their bellies with--at last Long silence, which is history, scroll rolled up And spoken of in sacred whispers. Well, I'm glad that Elenor Murray had her fling, If that be really true. I understand What drove her to the war. I think she knew Too much to marry, settle down and live Under the rule of Demos or of Hogos. I wish

daughter

How many times the word 'daughter' appears in the text?

won these acres here For old man Kingston's daughter, who in turn Bound it with limitation for the life Of selfish sons, who keep a caretaker, Who keeps a cow upon it. There's the cow! The land has had no use for thirty years. The children are kept off it. Elenor Murray, This girl whose death makes such a stir, one time Was playing there--but that's another story. I only say for the present, these five acres Made Elenor Murray's life a thing of waste As much as anything, and a damn sight more. For think a minute! Kingston had a daughter Married to Colonel Burton in Kentucky. And Kingston's son was in the Civil War. But just before the war, the Burtons deeded These acres here, which she inherited From old man Kingston, to this Captain Kingston, The son aforesaid of Old Kingston. Well, The deed upon its face was absolute, But really was a deed in trust. The Captain Held title for a year or two, and then An hour before he fought at Shiloh, made A will, and willed acres to his wife, Fee simple and forever. Now you'd think That contemplating death, he'd make a deed Giving these acres back to Mrs. Burton, The sister who had trusted him. I don't know What comes in people's heads, but I believe The want of money is the root of evil, As well as love of money; for this Captain Perhaps would make provision for his wife And infant son, thought that the chiefest thing No matter how he did it, being poor, Willed this land as he did. But anyway He willed it so, went into Shiloh's battle, And fell dead on the field. What happened then? They took this will to probate. As I said I was a lawyer then, you may believe it, Was hired by the Burtons to reclaim These acres from the Widow Kingston's clutch, Under this wicked will. And so I argued The will had not been witnessed according to law. Got beat upon that point in the lower court, But won upon it in the upper courts. Then next I filed a bill to set aside This deed the Burtons made to Captain Kingston-- Oh, I was full of schemes, expedients, In those days, I can tell you. Widow Kingston Came back and filed a cross bill, asked the court To confirm the title in her son and her As heirs of Captain Kingston, let the will Go out of thought and reckoning. Here's the issue; You understand the case, no doubt. We fought Through all the courts. I lost in the lower court, As I lost on the will. There was the deed: For love and affection and one dollar we Convey and warrant lots from one to ten In the city of LeRoy, to Captain Kingston To be his own forever. How to go Behind such words and show the actual trust Inhering in the deed, that was the job. But here I was resourceful as before, Found witnesses to testify they heard This Captain Kingston say he held the acres In trust for Mrs. Burton--but I lost Before the chancellor, had to appeal, But won on the appeal, and thus restored These acres to the Burtons. And for this What did I get? Three hundred lousy dollars. That's why I smoke a pipe; that's also why I quit the business when I saw the business Was making ready to quit me. By God, My life is waste so far as it was used By this law business, and no coroner Need hold an inquest on me to find out What waste was in my life--God damn the law! Well, then I go my way, and take my fee, And pay my bills. The Burtons have the land, And turn a cow upon it. See how nice A playground it would be. I've seen ten sets Of children try to play there--hey! you hear, The caretaker come out, get off of there! And then the children scamper, climb the fence. Well, after while the Burtons die. The will Leaves these five acres to their sons for life, Remainder to the children of the sons. The sons are living yet at middle life, These acres have been tied up twenty years, They may be tied up thirty years beside: The sons can't sell it, and their children can't, Only the cow can use it, as it stands. It grows more valuable as the people come here, And bring in being Elenor Murrays, children, And make the land around it populous. That's what makes poverty, this holding land, It makes the taxes harder on the poor, It makes work scarcer, and it takes your girls And boys and throws them into life half made, Half ready for the battle. Is a country Free where the laws permit such things? Your priests, Your addle-headed preachers mouthing Christ And morals, prohibition, laws to force People to be good, to save the girls, When every half-wit knows environment Takes natures, made unstable in these homes Of poverty and does the trick. That baronet Who mocked our freedom, sailing back for England And said: Your Liberty Statue in the harbor Is just a joke, that baronet is right, While such conditions thrive. Well, look at me Who for three hundred dollars take a part In making a cow pasture for a cow For fifty years or so. I hate myself. And were the Burtons better than this Kingston? Kingston would will away what was not his. The Burtons took what is the gift of God, As much as air, and fenced it out of use-- Save for the cow aforesaid--for the lives Of sons in being. Oh, I know you think I have a grudge. I have. This Elenor Murray Was ten years old I think, this law suit ended Twelve years or so, and I was running down, Was tippling just a little every day; And I came by this lot one afternoon When school was out, a sunny afternoon. The children had no place except the street To play in; they were standing by the fence, The cow was way across the lot, and Elenor Was looking through the fence, some boys and girls Standing around her, and I said to them: "Why don't you climb the fence and play in there?" And Elenor--she always was a leader, And not afraid of anything, said: "Come on," And in a jiffy climbed the fence, the children, Some quicker and some slower, followed her. Some said "They don't allow it." Elenor Stood on the fence, flung up her arms and crowed, And said "What can they do? He says to do it," Pointing at me. And in a moment all of them Were playing and were shouting in the lot. And I stood there and watched them half malicious, And half in pleasure watching them at play. Then I heard "hey!" the care-taker ran out. And said "Get out of there, I will arrest you." He drove them out and as they jumped the fence Some said, "He told us to," pointing at me. And Elenor Murray said "Why, what a lie!" And then the care-taker grabbed Elenor Murray And said, "You are the wildest of them all." I spoke up, saying, "Leave that child alone. I won this God damn land for those you serve, They use it for a cow and nothing else, And let these children run about the streets, When there are grass and dandelions there In plenty for these children, and the cow, And space enough to play in without bothering That solitary cow." I took his hands Away from Elenor Murray; he and I Came face to face with clenched fists--but at last He walked away; the children scampered off. Next day, however, they arrested me For aiding in a _trespass clausam fregit_, And fined me twenty dollars and the costs. Since then the cow has all her way in there. And Elenor Murray left this rotten place, Went to the war, came home and died, and proved She had the sense to leave so vile a world. * * * * * George Joslin ending up his days with dreams Of youth in Europe, travels, and with talk, Stirred to a recollection of a face He saw in Paris fifty years before, Because the face resembled Elenor Murray's, Explored his drawers and boxes, where he kept Mementos, treasures of the olden days. And found a pamphlet, came to Merival, With certain recollections, and with theories Of Elenor Murray:-- GEORGE JOSLIN ON LA MENKEN Here, Coroner Merival, look at this picture! Whom does it look like? Eyes too crystalline, A head like Byron's, tender mouth, and neck, Slender and white, a pathos as of smiles And tears kept back by courage. Yes, you know It looks like Elenor Murray. Well, you see I read each day about the inquest--good! Dig out the truth, begin a system here Of making family records, let us see If we can do for people when we know How best to do it, what is done for stock. So build up Illinois, the nation too. I read about you daily. And last night When Elenor Murray's picture in the _Times_ Looked at me, I began to think, Good Lord, Where have I seen that face before? I thought Through more than fifty years departed, sent My mind through Europe and America In all my travels, meetings, episodes. I could not think. At last I opened up A box of pamphlets, photographs, mementos, Picked up since 1860, and behold I find this pamphlet of La Belle Menken. Here is your Elenor Murray born again, As here might be your blackbird of this year With spots of red upon his wings, the same As last year's blackbird, like a pansy springing Out of the April of this year, repeating The color, form of one you saw last year. Repeating and the same, but not the same; No two alike, you know. I'll come to that. Well, then, La Menken--as a boy in Paris I saw La Menken, I'll return to this. But just as Elenor Murray has her life Shadowed and symbolized by our Starved Rock-- And everyone has something in his life Which takes him, makes him, is the image too Of fate prefigured--La Menken has Mazeppa, Her notable first part as actress, emblem Of spirit, character, and of omen too Of years to come, the thrill of life, the end. Who is La Menken? Symbol of America, One phase of spirit! She was venturesome, Resourceful, daring, hopeful, confident, And as she wrote of self, a vagabond, A dweller in tents, a reveler, and a flame Aspiring but disreputable, coming up With leaves that shamed her stalk, could not be shed, But stuck out heavy veined and muddy hued In time of blossom. There are souls, you know, Who have shed shapeless immaturities, Betrayals of the seed before the blossom Comes to proclaim a beauty, a perfection; Or risen with their stalk, until such leaves Were hidden in the grass or soil--not she, Nor even your Elenor Murray, as I read her. But being America and American, Brings good and bad together, blossom and leaves With prodigal recklessness, in vital health And unselective taste and vision mixed Of beauty and of truth. Who was La Menken? She's born in Louisiana in thirty-five, Left fatherless at seven--mother takes her And puts her in the ballet at New Orleans. She dances then from Texas clear to Cuba; Then gives up dancing, studies tragedy, And plays Bianca! Fourteen years of age Weds Menken, who's a Jew, divorced from him; Then falls in love with Heenan, pugilist. They quarrel and separate--it's in this pamphlet Just as I tell you; you can take it, Coroner. Now something happens, nothing in her birth Or place of birth to prophesy her life Like Starved Rock to this Elenor--being grown, A hand instead is darted from the curtain That hangs between to-day, to-morrow, sticks A symbol on her heart and whispers to her: You're this, my woman. Well, the thing was this: She played Mazeppa: take your dummy off, And lash me to the horse. They were afraid, But she prevailed, was nearly killed the first night, And after that succeeded, was the rage And for her years remaining found herself Lashed to the wild horse of ungoverned will, Which ran and wandered, till she knew herself With stronger will than vision, passion stronger Than spirit to judge; the richness of the world, Love, beauty, living, greater than her power. And all the time she had the appetite To eat, devour it all. Grown sick at last, She diagnosed her case, wrote to a friend: The soul and body do not fit each other-- A human spirit in a horse's flesh. This is your Elenor Murray, in a way. But to return to pansies, run your hand Over a bed of pansies; here's a pansy With petals stunted, here's another one All perfect but one petal, here's another Too streaked or mottled--all are pansies though. And here is one full petaled, strikes the eye With perfect color, markings. Elenor Murray Has something of the color and the form Of this La Menken, but is less a pansy, And Sappho, Rachel, Bernhardt are the flowers La Menken strove to be, and could not be, Ended with being only of their kind. And now there's pity for this Elenor Murray, And people wept when poor La Menken died. Both lived and had their way. I hate this pity, It makes you overlook there are two hours: The hour of joy, the hour of finding out Your joy was all mistake, or led to pain. We who inspect these lives behold the pain, And see the error, do not keep in mind The hour of rapture, and the pride, indeed With which your Elenor Murrays and La Menkens Have lived that hour, elation, pride and scorn For any other way--"this is the life" I hear them say. Well, now I go along. La Menken fills her purse with gold--she sends Her pugilist away, tries once again And weds a humorist, an Orpheus Kerr-- And plays before the miners out in 'Frisco, And Sacramento, gathers in the eagles. She goes to Europe then--with husband? No! James Barkley is her fellow on the voyage. She lands in London, takes a gorgeous suite In London's grandest hostlery, entertains Charles Dickens, Prince Baerto and Charles Read, The Duke of Wellington and Swinburne, Sand And Jenny Lind; and has a liveried coachman; And for a crest a horse's head surmounting Four aces, if you please. And plays Mazeppa, And piles the money up. Then next is Paris. And there I saw her, 1866, When Louis Napoleon and the King of Greece, The Prince Imperial were in a box. She wandered to Vienna, there was ill, Came back to Paris, died, a stranger's grave In Pere la Chaise was given, afterwards Exhumed in Mont Parnasse was buried, got A little stone with these words carved upon it: "Thou Knowest" meaning God knew, while herself Knew nothing of herself. But when in Paris They sold her picture taken with her arms Around Dumas, and photographs made up Of postures ludicrous, obscene as well, Of her and great Dumas, I have them home. Can show you sometime. Well she loved Dumas, Inscribed a book of poems to Charles Dickens, By his permission, mark you--don't you see Your Elenor Murray here? This Elenor Murray A miniature imperfect of La Menken? She loved sensation, all her senses thrilled her; A delicate soul too weighted by the flesh; A coquette, quick of wit, intuitive, Kind, generous, unaffected, mystical, Teased by the divine in life, and melancholy, Of deep emotion sometimes. One has said She had a nature spiritual, religious Which warred upon the flesh and fell in battle; Just as your Elenor Murray joined the church, And did not keep the faith, if truth be told. Now look, here is a letter in this pamphlet La Menken writes a poet--for she hunts For seers and for poets, lofty souls. And who does that? A woman wholly bad? Why no, a woman to be given life Fit for her spirit in another realm By God who will take notice, I believe. Now listen if you will! "I know your soul. It has met mine somewhere in starry space. And you must often meet me, vagabond Of fancy without aim, a dweller in tents Disreputable before the just. Just think I am a linguist, write some poems too, Can paint a little, model clay as well. And yet for all these gropings of my soul I am a vagabond, of little use. My body and my soul are in a scramble And do not fit each other--let them carve Those words upon my stone, but also these Thou Knowest, for God knows me, knows I love Whatever is good and beautiful in life; And that my soul has sought them without rest. Farewell, my friend, my spirit is with you, Vienna is too horrible, but know Paris Then die content." Now, Coroner Merival, You're not the only man who wants to see, Will work to make America a republic Of splendors, freedoms, happiness, success. Though I am seventy-six, cannot do much, Save talk, as I am talking now, bring forth Proofs, revelations from the years I've lived. I care not how you view the lives of people, As pansy beds or what not, lift your faith So high above the pansy bed it sees The streaked and stunted pansies filling in The pattern that the perfect pansies outline, Therefore are smiling, even indifferent To this poor conscious pansy, dying at last Because it could not be the flower it wished. My heart to Elenor Murray and La Menken Goes out in sorrow, even while I know They shook their leaves in April, laughed and thrilled, And either did not know, or did not care The growing time was precious, and if wasted Could never be regained. Look at La Menken At seven years put in the ballet corps; And look at Elenor Murray getting smut Out of experience that made her wise. What shall we do about it?--let it go? And say there is no help, or say a republic, Set up a hundred years ago, raised to the helm Of rulership as president a list Of men more able than the emperors, Kings, rulers of the world, and statesmen too The equal of the greatest, money makers, And domineers of finance and economies Phenomenal in time--say, I repeat A country like this one must let its children Waste as they wasted in the darker years Of Europe. Shall we let these trivial minds Who see salvation, progress in restraint, Pre-empt the field of moulding human life? Or shall we take a hand, and put our minds Upon the task, as recently we built An army for the war, equipped and fed it, An army better than all other armies, More powerful, more apt of hand and brain, Of thin tall youths, who did stop but said Like poor La Menken, strap me to the horse I'll do it if I die--so giving to peace The skill and genius which we use in war, Though it cost twenty billion, and why not? Why every dollar, every drop of blood For war like this to guard democracy, And not so much or more to build the land, Improve our blood, make individual America and her race? And first to rout Poverty and disease, give youth its chance, And therapeutic guidance. Soldier boys Have huts for recreation, clergymen, And is it more, less worth to furnish hands Intimate, hearts intimate for the use Of your La Menkens, Elenor Murrays, youths Who feel such vigor in their restless wings They tumble out of crowded nests and fly To fall in thickets, dash themselves against Walls, trees? I have a vision, Coroner, Of a new Republic, brighter than the sun, A new race, loftier faith, this land of ours Made over as to people, boys and girls, Conserved like forests, water power or mines; Watched, tested, put to best use, keen economies Practiced in spirits, waste of human life, Hope, aspiration, talent, virtues, powers, Avoided by a science, science of life, Of spirit, what you will. Enough of war, And billions for the flag--all well enough! Some billions now to make democracy Democracy in truth with us, and life Not helter-skelter, hitting as it may, And missing much, as this La Menken did. I'm not convinced we must have stunted pansies, That have no use but just to piece the pattern. Let's try, and if we try and fail, why then Our human duty ends, the God in us Will have it just this way, no other way. And then we may accept so poor a world, A republic so unfinished. * * * * * Will Paget is another writer of letters To Coroner Merival. The coroner Spends evenings reading letters, keeps a file Where he preserves them. And the blasphemy Of Paget makes him laugh. He has an evening And reads this letter to the jurymen: WILL PAGET ON DEMOS AND HOGOS To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice Dissentient from much that goes the rounds, Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word: Give men and women freedom, save the land From dull theocracy--the theo, what? A blend of Demos and Jehovah! Say, Bring back your despots, bring your Louis Fourteenths, And give them thrones of gold and ivory From where with leaded sceptres they may whack King Demos driven forth. You know the face? The temples are like sea shells, hollows out, Which narrow close the space for cortex cells. There would be little brow if hair remained; But hair is gone, because the dandruff came. The eyes are close together like a weasel's; The jaws are heavy, that is character; The mouth is thin and wide to gobble chicken; The paunch is heavy for the chickens eaten. Throned high upon a soap box Demos rules, And mumbles decalogues: Thou shalt not read, Save what I tell you, never books that tell Of men and women as they live and are. Thou shalt not see the dramas which portray The evil passions and satiric moods Which mock this Christian nation and its hope. Thou shalt not drink, not even wine or beer. Thou shalt not play at cards, or see the races. Thou shalt not be divorced! Thou shalt not play. Thou shalt not bow to graven images Of beauty cut in marble, fused in bronze. Behold my name is Demos, King of Kings, My name is legion, I am many, come Out of the sea where many hogs were drowned, And now the ruler of hogocracy, Where in the name of freedom hungry snouts Root up the truffles in your great republic, And crunch with heavy jaws the legs and arms Of people who fall over in the pen. Hierarchies in my name are planted under Your states political to sprout and take The new world's soil,--religious freedom this!-- Thought must be free--unless your thought objects To such dominion, and to literal faith In an old book that never had a place Except beside the Koran, Zarathustra. So here is your theocracy and here The land of Boredom. Do you wonder now That people cry for war? You see that God Frowns on all games but war. You shall not play Or kindle spirit with a rapture save A moral end's in view. All joy is sin, Where joy stands for itself alone, nor asks Consent to be, save for itself. But war Waged to put down the wrong, it's always that; To vindicate God's truths, all wars are such, Is game that lets the spirit play, is backed By God and moral reasons, therefore war, A game disguised as business, cosmic work For great millenniums, no less relieves The boredom of theocracies. But if Your men and women had the chance to play, Be free and spend superfluous energies, In what I call the greatest game, that's Life, Have life more freely, deeply, and you say How would you like a war and lose a leg, Or come from battle sick for all your years? You would say no, unless you saw an issue, Stripped clean of Christian twaddle, as we'll say The Greeks beheld the Persians. Well, behold All honest paganism in such things discarded For God who comes in glory, trampling presses Filled up with grapes of wrath. Now hear me out: I knew we'd have a war, it wasn't only That your hogocracy was grunting war We'd fight Japan, take Mexico--remember How dancing flourished madly in the land; Then think of savages who dance the Ghost Dance, And cattle lowing, rushing in a panic, There's psychic secrets here. But then at last What can you do with life? You're well and strong, Flushed with desire, mad with appetites, You turn this way and find a sign forbidden, You turn that way and find the door is closed. Hogocracy, King Demos say, go back, Find work, develop character, restrain, Draw up your belt a little tighter, hunger And thirst diminish with a tighter belt. And none to say, take off the belt and eat, Here's water for you. Well, you have a war. We used to say in foot ball kick their shins, And gouge their eyes out--when our shins were kicked We hollered foul and ouch. There was the south Who called us mud-sills in this freer north, And mouthed democracy; and as for that Their churches made of God a battle leader, An idea come from Palestine; oh, yes, They soon would wipe us up, they were the people. But when we slaughtered them they hollered ouch. And why not? For a gun and uniform, And bands that play are rapturous enough. But when you get a bullet through the heart, The game is not so funny as it was. That's why I hated Germany and hate her, And feel we could not let this German culture Spread over earth. That culture was but this: Life must have an expression and a game, And war's the game, besides the prize is great In land and treasure, commerce, let us play, It lets the people's passions have a vent When fires of life burn hot and hotter under The kettle and the lid is clamped by work, Dull duty, daily routine, inhibitions. Before this Elenor Murray woke to life LeRoy was stirring, but the stir was play. It was a Gretna Green, and pleasure boats Ran up and down the river--on the streets You heard the cry of barkers, in the park The band was playing, and you heard the ring Of registers at fountains and buffets. All this was shabby maybe, but observe There are those souls who see the wrath of God As blackest background to the light of soul: And when the thunder rumbles and the storm Comes up with lightning then they say to men Who laugh in bar-rooms, "Have a care, blasphemers, You may be struck by lightning"--here's the root From which this mood ascetic comes to leaf In all theocracies, and throws a shadow Upon all freedom. Look at us to-day. They say to me, see what a town we have: The men at work, smoke coming from the chimneys, The banks full up of money, business good, The workmen sober, going home at night, No rowdy barkers and no bands a-playing, No drinking and no gaming and no vice. No marriages contracted to be broken. Look how LeRoy is quiet, sane and clean! And I reply, you like the stir of work, But not the stir of play; your chimneys smoke, Your banks have money. Let me look behind The door that closes on your man at home, The wife and children there, what shall I find? A sick man looks to health as it were all, But when the fever leaves him and he feels The store of strength in muscles slumbering And waiting to be used, then something else Than health is needful, he must have a way To voice the life within him, and he wonders Why health seemed so desirable before, And all sufficient to him. Take this girl: Why do you marvel that she rode at night With any man who came along? Good God, If I were born a woman and they put me In a theocracy, hogocracy, I'd do the first thing that came in my mind To give my soul expression. Don't you think You're something of a bully and a coward To ask such model living from this girl When you, my grunting hogos, run the land And bring us scandals like the times of Grant, And poisoned beef sold to the soldier boys, When we were warring Spain, and all this stuff Concerning loot and plunder, malversation, That riots in your cities, printed daily? I roll the panoramic story out To Washington the great--what do I see? It's tangle foot, the sticky smear is dry; But I can find wings, legs and heads, remember How little flies and big were buzzing once Of God and duty, country, virtue, faith; And beating wings, already gummed with sweet, Until their little bellies touched the glue, They sought to fill their bellies with--at last Long silence, which is history, scroll rolled up And spoken of in sacred whispers. Well, I'm glad that Elenor Murray had her fling, If that be really true. I understand What drove her to the war. I think she knew Too much to marry, settle down and live Under the rule of Demos or of Hogos. I wish

judging

How many times the word 'judging' appears in the text?

won these acres here For old man Kingston's daughter, who in turn Bound it with limitation for the life Of selfish sons, who keep a caretaker, Who keeps a cow upon it. There's the cow! The land has had no use for thirty years. The children are kept off it. Elenor Murray, This girl whose death makes such a stir, one time Was playing there--but that's another story. I only say for the present, these five acres Made Elenor Murray's life a thing of waste As much as anything, and a damn sight more. For think a minute! Kingston had a daughter Married to Colonel Burton in Kentucky. And Kingston's son was in the Civil War. But just before the war, the Burtons deeded These acres here, which she inherited From old man Kingston, to this Captain Kingston, The son aforesaid of Old Kingston. Well, The deed upon its face was absolute, But really was a deed in trust. The Captain Held title for a year or two, and then An hour before he fought at Shiloh, made A will, and willed acres to his wife, Fee simple and forever. Now you'd think That contemplating death, he'd make a deed Giving these acres back to Mrs. Burton, The sister who had trusted him. I don't know What comes in people's heads, but I believe The want of money is the root of evil, As well as love of money; for this Captain Perhaps would make provision for his wife And infant son, thought that the chiefest thing No matter how he did it, being poor, Willed this land as he did. But anyway He willed it so, went into Shiloh's battle, And fell dead on the field. What happened then? They took this will to probate. As I said I was a lawyer then, you may believe it, Was hired by the Burtons to reclaim These acres from the Widow Kingston's clutch, Under this wicked will. And so I argued The will had not been witnessed according to law. Got beat upon that point in the lower court, But won upon it in the upper courts. Then next I filed a bill to set aside This deed the Burtons made to Captain Kingston-- Oh, I was full of schemes, expedients, In those days, I can tell you. Widow Kingston Came back and filed a cross bill, asked the court To confirm the title in her son and her As heirs of Captain Kingston, let the will Go out of thought and reckoning. Here's the issue; You understand the case, no doubt. We fought Through all the courts. I lost in the lower court, As I lost on the will. There was the deed: For love and affection and one dollar we Convey and warrant lots from one to ten In the city of LeRoy, to Captain Kingston To be his own forever. How to go Behind such words and show the actual trust Inhering in the deed, that was the job. But here I was resourceful as before, Found witnesses to testify they heard This Captain Kingston say he held the acres In trust for Mrs. Burton--but I lost Before the chancellor, had to appeal, But won on the appeal, and thus restored These acres to the Burtons. And for this What did I get? Three hundred lousy dollars. That's why I smoke a pipe; that's also why I quit the business when I saw the business Was making ready to quit me. By God, My life is waste so far as it was used By this law business, and no coroner Need hold an inquest on me to find out What waste was in my life--God damn the law! Well, then I go my way, and take my fee, And pay my bills. The Burtons have the land, And turn a cow upon it. See how nice A playground it would be. I've seen ten sets Of children try to play there--hey! you hear, The caretaker come out, get off of there! And then the children scamper, climb the fence. Well, after while the Burtons die. The will Leaves these five acres to their sons for life, Remainder to the children of the sons. The sons are living yet at middle life, These acres have been tied up twenty years, They may be tied up thirty years beside: The sons can't sell it, and their children can't, Only the cow can use it, as it stands. It grows more valuable as the people come here, And bring in being Elenor Murrays, children, And make the land around it populous. That's what makes poverty, this holding land, It makes the taxes harder on the poor, It makes work scarcer, and it takes your girls And boys and throws them into life half made, Half ready for the battle. Is a country Free where the laws permit such things? Your priests, Your addle-headed preachers mouthing Christ And morals, prohibition, laws to force People to be good, to save the girls, When every half-wit knows environment Takes natures, made unstable in these homes Of poverty and does the trick. That baronet Who mocked our freedom, sailing back for England And said: Your Liberty Statue in the harbor Is just a joke, that baronet is right, While such conditions thrive. Well, look at me Who for three hundred dollars take a part In making a cow pasture for a cow For fifty years or so. I hate myself. And were the Burtons better than this Kingston? Kingston would will away what was not his. The Burtons took what is the gift of God, As much as air, and fenced it out of use-- Save for the cow aforesaid--for the lives Of sons in being. Oh, I know you think I have a grudge. I have. This Elenor Murray Was ten years old I think, this law suit ended Twelve years or so, and I was running down, Was tippling just a little every day; And I came by this lot one afternoon When school was out, a sunny afternoon. The children had no place except the street To play in; they were standing by the fence, The cow was way across the lot, and Elenor Was looking through the fence, some boys and girls Standing around her, and I said to them: "Why don't you climb the fence and play in there?" And Elenor--she always was a leader, And not afraid of anything, said: "Come on," And in a jiffy climbed the fence, the children, Some quicker and some slower, followed her. Some said "They don't allow it." Elenor Stood on the fence, flung up her arms and crowed, And said "What can they do? He says to do it," Pointing at me. And in a moment all of them Were playing and were shouting in the lot. And I stood there and watched them half malicious, And half in pleasure watching them at play. Then I heard "hey!" the care-taker ran out. And said "Get out of there, I will arrest you." He drove them out and as they jumped the fence Some said, "He told us to," pointing at me. And Elenor Murray said "Why, what a lie!" And then the care-taker grabbed Elenor Murray And said, "You are the wildest of them all." I spoke up, saying, "Leave that child alone. I won this God damn land for those you serve, They use it for a cow and nothing else, And let these children run about the streets, When there are grass and dandelions there In plenty for these children, and the cow, And space enough to play in without bothering That solitary cow." I took his hands Away from Elenor Murray; he and I Came face to face with clenched fists--but at last He walked away; the children scampered off. Next day, however, they arrested me For aiding in a _trespass clausam fregit_, And fined me twenty dollars and the costs. Since then the cow has all her way in there. And Elenor Murray left this rotten place, Went to the war, came home and died, and proved She had the sense to leave so vile a world. * * * * * George Joslin ending up his days with dreams Of youth in Europe, travels, and with talk, Stirred to a recollection of a face He saw in Paris fifty years before, Because the face resembled Elenor Murray's, Explored his drawers and boxes, where he kept Mementos, treasures of the olden days. And found a pamphlet, came to Merival, With certain recollections, and with theories Of Elenor Murray:-- GEORGE JOSLIN ON LA MENKEN Here, Coroner Merival, look at this picture! Whom does it look like? Eyes too crystalline, A head like Byron's, tender mouth, and neck, Slender and white, a pathos as of smiles And tears kept back by courage. Yes, you know It looks like Elenor Murray. Well, you see I read each day about the inquest--good! Dig out the truth, begin a system here Of making family records, let us see If we can do for people when we know How best to do it, what is done for stock. So build up Illinois, the nation too. I read about you daily. And last night When Elenor Murray's picture in the _Times_ Looked at me, I began to think, Good Lord, Where have I seen that face before? I thought Through more than fifty years departed, sent My mind through Europe and America In all my travels, meetings, episodes. I could not think. At last I opened up A box of pamphlets, photographs, mementos, Picked up since 1860, and behold I find this pamphlet of La Belle Menken. Here is your Elenor Murray born again, As here might be your blackbird of this year With spots of red upon his wings, the same As last year's blackbird, like a pansy springing Out of the April of this year, repeating The color, form of one you saw last year. Repeating and the same, but not the same; No two alike, you know. I'll come to that. Well, then, La Menken--as a boy in Paris I saw La Menken, I'll return to this. But just as Elenor Murray has her life Shadowed and symbolized by our Starved Rock-- And everyone has something in his life Which takes him, makes him, is the image too Of fate prefigured--La Menken has Mazeppa, Her notable first part as actress, emblem Of spirit, character, and of omen too Of years to come, the thrill of life, the end. Who is La Menken? Symbol of America, One phase of spirit! She was venturesome, Resourceful, daring, hopeful, confident, And as she wrote of self, a vagabond, A dweller in tents, a reveler, and a flame Aspiring but disreputable, coming up With leaves that shamed her stalk, could not be shed, But stuck out heavy veined and muddy hued In time of blossom. There are souls, you know, Who have shed shapeless immaturities, Betrayals of the seed before the blossom Comes to proclaim a beauty, a perfection; Or risen with their stalk, until such leaves Were hidden in the grass or soil--not she, Nor even your Elenor Murray, as I read her. But being America and American, Brings good and bad together, blossom and leaves With prodigal recklessness, in vital health And unselective taste and vision mixed Of beauty and of truth. Who was La Menken? She's born in Louisiana in thirty-five, Left fatherless at seven--mother takes her And puts her in the ballet at New Orleans. She dances then from Texas clear to Cuba; Then gives up dancing, studies tragedy, And plays Bianca! Fourteen years of age Weds Menken, who's a Jew, divorced from him; Then falls in love with Heenan, pugilist. They quarrel and separate--it's in this pamphlet Just as I tell you; you can take it, Coroner. Now something happens, nothing in her birth Or place of birth to prophesy her life Like Starved Rock to this Elenor--being grown, A hand instead is darted from the curtain That hangs between to-day, to-morrow, sticks A symbol on her heart and whispers to her: You're this, my woman. Well, the thing was this: She played Mazeppa: take your dummy off, And lash me to the horse. They were afraid, But she prevailed, was nearly killed the first night, And after that succeeded, was the rage And for her years remaining found herself Lashed to the wild horse of ungoverned will, Which ran and wandered, till she knew herself With stronger will than vision, passion stronger Than spirit to judge; the richness of the world, Love, beauty, living, greater than her power. And all the time she had the appetite To eat, devour it all. Grown sick at last, She diagnosed her case, wrote to a friend: The soul and body do not fit each other-- A human spirit in a horse's flesh. This is your Elenor Murray, in a way. But to return to pansies, run your hand Over a bed of pansies; here's a pansy With petals stunted, here's another one All perfect but one petal, here's another Too streaked or mottled--all are pansies though. And here is one full petaled, strikes the eye With perfect color, markings. Elenor Murray Has something of the color and the form Of this La Menken, but is less a pansy, And Sappho, Rachel, Bernhardt are the flowers La Menken strove to be, and could not be, Ended with being only of their kind. And now there's pity for this Elenor Murray, And people wept when poor La Menken died. Both lived and had their way. I hate this pity, It makes you overlook there are two hours: The hour of joy, the hour of finding out Your joy was all mistake, or led to pain. We who inspect these lives behold the pain, And see the error, do not keep in mind The hour of rapture, and the pride, indeed With which your Elenor Murrays and La Menkens Have lived that hour, elation, pride and scorn For any other way--"this is the life" I hear them say. Well, now I go along. La Menken fills her purse with gold--she sends Her pugilist away, tries once again And weds a humorist, an Orpheus Kerr-- And plays before the miners out in 'Frisco, And Sacramento, gathers in the eagles. She goes to Europe then--with husband? No! James Barkley is her fellow on the voyage. She lands in London, takes a gorgeous suite In London's grandest hostlery, entertains Charles Dickens, Prince Baerto and Charles Read, The Duke of Wellington and Swinburne, Sand And Jenny Lind; and has a liveried coachman; And for a crest a horse's head surmounting Four aces, if you please. And plays Mazeppa, And piles the money up. Then next is Paris. And there I saw her, 1866, When Louis Napoleon and the King of Greece, The Prince Imperial were in a box. She wandered to Vienna, there was ill, Came back to Paris, died, a stranger's grave In Pere la Chaise was given, afterwards Exhumed in Mont Parnasse was buried, got A little stone with these words carved upon it: "Thou Knowest" meaning God knew, while herself Knew nothing of herself. But when in Paris They sold her picture taken with her arms Around Dumas, and photographs made up Of postures ludicrous, obscene as well, Of her and great Dumas, I have them home. Can show you sometime. Well she loved Dumas, Inscribed a book of poems to Charles Dickens, By his permission, mark you--don't you see Your Elenor Murray here? This Elenor Murray A miniature imperfect of La Menken? She loved sensation, all her senses thrilled her; A delicate soul too weighted by the flesh; A coquette, quick of wit, intuitive, Kind, generous, unaffected, mystical, Teased by the divine in life, and melancholy, Of deep emotion sometimes. One has said She had a nature spiritual, religious Which warred upon the flesh and fell in battle; Just as your Elenor Murray joined the church, And did not keep the faith, if truth be told. Now look, here is a letter in this pamphlet La Menken writes a poet--for she hunts For seers and for poets, lofty souls. And who does that? A woman wholly bad? Why no, a woman to be given life Fit for her spirit in another realm By God who will take notice, I believe. Now listen if you will! "I know your soul. It has met mine somewhere in starry space. And you must often meet me, vagabond Of fancy without aim, a dweller in tents Disreputable before the just. Just think I am a linguist, write some poems too, Can paint a little, model clay as well. And yet for all these gropings of my soul I am a vagabond, of little use. My body and my soul are in a scramble And do not fit each other--let them carve Those words upon my stone, but also these Thou Knowest, for God knows me, knows I love Whatever is good and beautiful in life; And that my soul has sought them without rest. Farewell, my friend, my spirit is with you, Vienna is too horrible, but know Paris Then die content." Now, Coroner Merival, You're not the only man who wants to see, Will work to make America a republic Of splendors, freedoms, happiness, success. Though I am seventy-six, cannot do much, Save talk, as I am talking now, bring forth Proofs, revelations from the years I've lived. I care not how you view the lives of people, As pansy beds or what not, lift your faith So high above the pansy bed it sees The streaked and stunted pansies filling in The pattern that the perfect pansies outline, Therefore are smiling, even indifferent To this poor conscious pansy, dying at last Because it could not be the flower it wished. My heart to Elenor Murray and La Menken Goes out in sorrow, even while I know They shook their leaves in April, laughed and thrilled, And either did not know, or did not care The growing time was precious, and if wasted Could never be regained. Look at La Menken At seven years put in the ballet corps; And look at Elenor Murray getting smut Out of experience that made her wise. What shall we do about it?--let it go? And say there is no help, or say a republic, Set up a hundred years ago, raised to the helm Of rulership as president a list Of men more able than the emperors, Kings, rulers of the world, and statesmen too The equal of the greatest, money makers, And domineers of finance and economies Phenomenal in time--say, I repeat A country like this one must let its children Waste as they wasted in the darker years Of Europe. Shall we let these trivial minds Who see salvation, progress in restraint, Pre-empt the field of moulding human life? Or shall we take a hand, and put our minds Upon the task, as recently we built An army for the war, equipped and fed it, An army better than all other armies, More powerful, more apt of hand and brain, Of thin tall youths, who did stop but said Like poor La Menken, strap me to the horse I'll do it if I die--so giving to peace The skill and genius which we use in war, Though it cost twenty billion, and why not? Why every dollar, every drop of blood For war like this to guard democracy, And not so much or more to build the land, Improve our blood, make individual America and her race? And first to rout Poverty and disease, give youth its chance, And therapeutic guidance. Soldier boys Have huts for recreation, clergymen, And is it more, less worth to furnish hands Intimate, hearts intimate for the use Of your La Menkens, Elenor Murrays, youths Who feel such vigor in their restless wings They tumble out of crowded nests and fly To fall in thickets, dash themselves against Walls, trees? I have a vision, Coroner, Of a new Republic, brighter than the sun, A new race, loftier faith, this land of ours Made over as to people, boys and girls, Conserved like forests, water power or mines; Watched, tested, put to best use, keen economies Practiced in spirits, waste of human life, Hope, aspiration, talent, virtues, powers, Avoided by a science, science of life, Of spirit, what you will. Enough of war, And billions for the flag--all well enough! Some billions now to make democracy Democracy in truth with us, and life Not helter-skelter, hitting as it may, And missing much, as this La Menken did. I'm not convinced we must have stunted pansies, That have no use but just to piece the pattern. Let's try, and if we try and fail, why then Our human duty ends, the God in us Will have it just this way, no other way. And then we may accept so poor a world, A republic so unfinished. * * * * * Will Paget is another writer of letters To Coroner Merival. The coroner Spends evenings reading letters, keeps a file Where he preserves them. And the blasphemy Of Paget makes him laugh. He has an evening And reads this letter to the jurymen: WILL PAGET ON DEMOS AND HOGOS To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice Dissentient from much that goes the rounds, Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word: Give men and women freedom, save the land From dull theocracy--the theo, what? A blend of Demos and Jehovah! Say, Bring back your despots, bring your Louis Fourteenths, And give them thrones of gold and ivory From where with leaded sceptres they may whack King Demos driven forth. You know the face? The temples are like sea shells, hollows out, Which narrow close the space for cortex cells. There would be little brow if hair remained; But hair is gone, because the dandruff came. The eyes are close together like a weasel's; The jaws are heavy, that is character; The mouth is thin and wide to gobble chicken; The paunch is heavy for the chickens eaten. Throned high upon a soap box Demos rules, And mumbles decalogues: Thou shalt not read, Save what I tell you, never books that tell Of men and women as they live and are. Thou shalt not see the dramas which portray The evil passions and satiric moods Which mock this Christian nation and its hope. Thou shalt not drink, not even wine or beer. Thou shalt not play at cards, or see the races. Thou shalt not be divorced! Thou shalt not play. Thou shalt not bow to graven images Of beauty cut in marble, fused in bronze. Behold my name is Demos, King of Kings, My name is legion, I am many, come Out of the sea where many hogs were drowned, And now the ruler of hogocracy, Where in the name of freedom hungry snouts Root up the truffles in your great republic, And crunch with heavy jaws the legs and arms Of people who fall over in the pen. Hierarchies in my name are planted under Your states political to sprout and take The new world's soil,--religious freedom this!-- Thought must be free--unless your thought objects To such dominion, and to literal faith In an old book that never had a place Except beside the Koran, Zarathustra. So here is your theocracy and here The land of Boredom. Do you wonder now That people cry for war? You see that God Frowns on all games but war. You shall not play Or kindle spirit with a rapture save A moral end's in view. All joy is sin, Where joy stands for itself alone, nor asks Consent to be, save for itself. But war Waged to put down the wrong, it's always that; To vindicate God's truths, all wars are such, Is game that lets the spirit play, is backed By God and moral reasons, therefore war, A game disguised as business, cosmic work For great millenniums, no less relieves The boredom of theocracies. But if Your men and women had the chance to play, Be free and spend superfluous energies, In what I call the greatest game, that's Life, Have life more freely, deeply, and you say How would you like a war and lose a leg, Or come from battle sick for all your years? You would say no, unless you saw an issue, Stripped clean of Christian twaddle, as we'll say The Greeks beheld the Persians. Well, behold All honest paganism in such things discarded For God who comes in glory, trampling presses Filled up with grapes of wrath. Now hear me out: I knew we'd have a war, it wasn't only That your hogocracy was grunting war We'd fight Japan, take Mexico--remember How dancing flourished madly in the land; Then think of savages who dance the Ghost Dance, And cattle lowing, rushing in a panic, There's psychic secrets here. But then at last What can you do with life? You're well and strong, Flushed with desire, mad with appetites, You turn this way and find a sign forbidden, You turn that way and find the door is closed. Hogocracy, King Demos say, go back, Find work, develop character, restrain, Draw up your belt a little tighter, hunger And thirst diminish with a tighter belt. And none to say, take off the belt and eat, Here's water for you. Well, you have a war. We used to say in foot ball kick their shins, And gouge their eyes out--when our shins were kicked We hollered foul and ouch. There was the south Who called us mud-sills in this freer north, And mouthed democracy; and as for that Their churches made of God a battle leader, An idea come from Palestine; oh, yes, They soon would wipe us up, they were the people. But when we slaughtered them they hollered ouch. And why not? For a gun and uniform, And bands that play are rapturous enough. But when you get a bullet through the heart, The game is not so funny as it was. That's why I hated Germany and hate her, And feel we could not let this German culture Spread over earth. That culture was but this: Life must have an expression and a game, And war's the game, besides the prize is great In land and treasure, commerce, let us play, It lets the people's passions have a vent When fires of life burn hot and hotter under The kettle and the lid is clamped by work, Dull duty, daily routine, inhibitions. Before this Elenor Murray woke to life LeRoy was stirring, but the stir was play. It was a Gretna Green, and pleasure boats Ran up and down the river--on the streets You heard the cry of barkers, in the park The band was playing, and you heard the ring Of registers at fountains and buffets. All this was shabby maybe, but observe There are those souls who see the wrath of God As blackest background to the light of soul: And when the thunder rumbles and the storm Comes up with lightning then they say to men Who laugh in bar-rooms, "Have a care, blasphemers, You may be struck by lightning"--here's the root From which this mood ascetic comes to leaf In all theocracies, and throws a shadow Upon all freedom. Look at us to-day. They say to me, see what a town we have: The men at work, smoke coming from the chimneys, The banks full up of money, business good, The workmen sober, going home at night, No rowdy barkers and no bands a-playing, No drinking and no gaming and no vice. No marriages contracted to be broken. Look how LeRoy is quiet, sane and clean! And I reply, you like the stir of work, But not the stir of play; your chimneys smoke, Your banks have money. Let me look behind The door that closes on your man at home, The wife and children there, what shall I find? A sick man looks to health as it were all, But when the fever leaves him and he feels The store of strength in muscles slumbering And waiting to be used, then something else Than health is needful, he must have a way To voice the life within him, and he wonders Why health seemed so desirable before, And all sufficient to him. Take this girl: Why do you marvel that she rode at night With any man who came along? Good God, If I were born a woman and they put me In a theocracy, hogocracy, I'd do the first thing that came in my mind To give my soul expression. Don't you think You're something of a bully and a coward To ask such model living from this girl When you, my grunting hogos, run the land And bring us scandals like the times of Grant, And poisoned beef sold to the soldier boys, When we were warring Spain, and all this stuff Concerning loot and plunder, malversation, That riots in your cities, printed daily? I roll the panoramic story out To Washington the great--what do I see? It's tangle foot, the sticky smear is dry; But I can find wings, legs and heads, remember How little flies and big were buzzing once Of God and duty, country, virtue, faith; And beating wings, already gummed with sweet, Until their little bellies touched the glue, They sought to fill their bellies with--at last Long silence, which is history, scroll rolled up And spoken of in sacred whispers. Well, I'm glad that Elenor Murray had her fling, If that be really true. I understand What drove her to the war. I think she knew Too much to marry, settle down and live Under the rule of Demos or of Hogos. I wish

good

How many times the word 'good' appears in the text?

won these acres here For old man Kingston's daughter, who in turn Bound it with limitation for the life Of selfish sons, who keep a caretaker, Who keeps a cow upon it. There's the cow! The land has had no use for thirty years. The children are kept off it. Elenor Murray, This girl whose death makes such a stir, one time Was playing there--but that's another story. I only say for the present, these five acres Made Elenor Murray's life a thing of waste As much as anything, and a damn sight more. For think a minute! Kingston had a daughter Married to Colonel Burton in Kentucky. And Kingston's son was in the Civil War. But just before the war, the Burtons deeded These acres here, which she inherited From old man Kingston, to this Captain Kingston, The son aforesaid of Old Kingston. Well, The deed upon its face was absolute, But really was a deed in trust. The Captain Held title for a year or two, and then An hour before he fought at Shiloh, made A will, and willed acres to his wife, Fee simple and forever. Now you'd think That contemplating death, he'd make a deed Giving these acres back to Mrs. Burton, The sister who had trusted him. I don't know What comes in people's heads, but I believe The want of money is the root of evil, As well as love of money; for this Captain Perhaps would make provision for his wife And infant son, thought that the chiefest thing No matter how he did it, being poor, Willed this land as he did. But anyway He willed it so, went into Shiloh's battle, And fell dead on the field. What happened then? They took this will to probate. As I said I was a lawyer then, you may believe it, Was hired by the Burtons to reclaim These acres from the Widow Kingston's clutch, Under this wicked will. And so I argued The will had not been witnessed according to law. Got beat upon that point in the lower court, But won upon it in the upper courts. Then next I filed a bill to set aside This deed the Burtons made to Captain Kingston-- Oh, I was full of schemes, expedients, In those days, I can tell you. Widow Kingston Came back and filed a cross bill, asked the court To confirm the title in her son and her As heirs of Captain Kingston, let the will Go out of thought and reckoning. Here's the issue; You understand the case, no doubt. We fought Through all the courts. I lost in the lower court, As I lost on the will. There was the deed: For love and affection and one dollar we Convey and warrant lots from one to ten In the city of LeRoy, to Captain Kingston To be his own forever. How to go Behind such words and show the actual trust Inhering in the deed, that was the job. But here I was resourceful as before, Found witnesses to testify they heard This Captain Kingston say he held the acres In trust for Mrs. Burton--but I lost Before the chancellor, had to appeal, But won on the appeal, and thus restored These acres to the Burtons. And for this What did I get? Three hundred lousy dollars. That's why I smoke a pipe; that's also why I quit the business when I saw the business Was making ready to quit me. By God, My life is waste so far as it was used By this law business, and no coroner Need hold an inquest on me to find out What waste was in my life--God damn the law! Well, then I go my way, and take my fee, And pay my bills. The Burtons have the land, And turn a cow upon it. See how nice A playground it would be. I've seen ten sets Of children try to play there--hey! you hear, The caretaker come out, get off of there! And then the children scamper, climb the fence. Well, after while the Burtons die. The will Leaves these five acres to their sons for life, Remainder to the children of the sons. The sons are living yet at middle life, These acres have been tied up twenty years, They may be tied up thirty years beside: The sons can't sell it, and their children can't, Only the cow can use it, as it stands. It grows more valuable as the people come here, And bring in being Elenor Murrays, children, And make the land around it populous. That's what makes poverty, this holding land, It makes the taxes harder on the poor, It makes work scarcer, and it takes your girls And boys and throws them into life half made, Half ready for the battle. Is a country Free where the laws permit such things? Your priests, Your addle-headed preachers mouthing Christ And morals, prohibition, laws to force People to be good, to save the girls, When every half-wit knows environment Takes natures, made unstable in these homes Of poverty and does the trick. That baronet Who mocked our freedom, sailing back for England And said: Your Liberty Statue in the harbor Is just a joke, that baronet is right, While such conditions thrive. Well, look at me Who for three hundred dollars take a part In making a cow pasture for a cow For fifty years or so. I hate myself. And were the Burtons better than this Kingston? Kingston would will away what was not his. The Burtons took what is the gift of God, As much as air, and fenced it out of use-- Save for the cow aforesaid--for the lives Of sons in being. Oh, I know you think I have a grudge. I have. This Elenor Murray Was ten years old I think, this law suit ended Twelve years or so, and I was running down, Was tippling just a little every day; And I came by this lot one afternoon When school was out, a sunny afternoon. The children had no place except the street To play in; they were standing by the fence, The cow was way across the lot, and Elenor Was looking through the fence, some boys and girls Standing around her, and I said to them: "Why don't you climb the fence and play in there?" And Elenor--she always was a leader, And not afraid of anything, said: "Come on," And in a jiffy climbed the fence, the children, Some quicker and some slower, followed her. Some said "They don't allow it." Elenor Stood on the fence, flung up her arms and crowed, And said "What can they do? He says to do it," Pointing at me. And in a moment all of them Were playing and were shouting in the lot. And I stood there and watched them half malicious, And half in pleasure watching them at play. Then I heard "hey!" the care-taker ran out. And said "Get out of there, I will arrest you." He drove them out and as they jumped the fence Some said, "He told us to," pointing at me. And Elenor Murray said "Why, what a lie!" And then the care-taker grabbed Elenor Murray And said, "You are the wildest of them all." I spoke up, saying, "Leave that child alone. I won this God damn land for those you serve, They use it for a cow and nothing else, And let these children run about the streets, When there are grass and dandelions there In plenty for these children, and the cow, And space enough to play in without bothering That solitary cow." I took his hands Away from Elenor Murray; he and I Came face to face with clenched fists--but at last He walked away; the children scampered off. Next day, however, they arrested me For aiding in a _trespass clausam fregit_, And fined me twenty dollars and the costs. Since then the cow has all her way in there. And Elenor Murray left this rotten place, Went to the war, came home and died, and proved She had the sense to leave so vile a world. * * * * * George Joslin ending up his days with dreams Of youth in Europe, travels, and with talk, Stirred to a recollection of a face He saw in Paris fifty years before, Because the face resembled Elenor Murray's, Explored his drawers and boxes, where he kept Mementos, treasures of the olden days. And found a pamphlet, came to Merival, With certain recollections, and with theories Of Elenor Murray:-- GEORGE JOSLIN ON LA MENKEN Here, Coroner Merival, look at this picture! Whom does it look like? Eyes too crystalline, A head like Byron's, tender mouth, and neck, Slender and white, a pathos as of smiles And tears kept back by courage. Yes, you know It looks like Elenor Murray. Well, you see I read each day about the inquest--good! Dig out the truth, begin a system here Of making family records, let us see If we can do for people when we know How best to do it, what is done for stock. So build up Illinois, the nation too. I read about you daily. And last night When Elenor Murray's picture in the _Times_ Looked at me, I began to think, Good Lord, Where have I seen that face before? I thought Through more than fifty years departed, sent My mind through Europe and America In all my travels, meetings, episodes. I could not think. At last I opened up A box of pamphlets, photographs, mementos, Picked up since 1860, and behold I find this pamphlet of La Belle Menken. Here is your Elenor Murray born again, As here might be your blackbird of this year With spots of red upon his wings, the same As last year's blackbird, like a pansy springing Out of the April of this year, repeating The color, form of one you saw last year. Repeating and the same, but not the same; No two alike, you know. I'll come to that. Well, then, La Menken--as a boy in Paris I saw La Menken, I'll return to this. But just as Elenor Murray has her life Shadowed and symbolized by our Starved Rock-- And everyone has something in his life Which takes him, makes him, is the image too Of fate prefigured--La Menken has Mazeppa, Her notable first part as actress, emblem Of spirit, character, and of omen too Of years to come, the thrill of life, the end. Who is La Menken? Symbol of America, One phase of spirit! She was venturesome, Resourceful, daring, hopeful, confident, And as she wrote of self, a vagabond, A dweller in tents, a reveler, and a flame Aspiring but disreputable, coming up With leaves that shamed her stalk, could not be shed, But stuck out heavy veined and muddy hued In time of blossom. There are souls, you know, Who have shed shapeless immaturities, Betrayals of the seed before the blossom Comes to proclaim a beauty, a perfection; Or risen with their stalk, until such leaves Were hidden in the grass or soil--not she, Nor even your Elenor Murray, as I read her. But being America and American, Brings good and bad together, blossom and leaves With prodigal recklessness, in vital health And unselective taste and vision mixed Of beauty and of truth. Who was La Menken? She's born in Louisiana in thirty-five, Left fatherless at seven--mother takes her And puts her in the ballet at New Orleans. She dances then from Texas clear to Cuba; Then gives up dancing, studies tragedy, And plays Bianca! Fourteen years of age Weds Menken, who's a Jew, divorced from him; Then falls in love with Heenan, pugilist. They quarrel and separate--it's in this pamphlet Just as I tell you; you can take it, Coroner. Now something happens, nothing in her birth Or place of birth to prophesy her life Like Starved Rock to this Elenor--being grown, A hand instead is darted from the curtain That hangs between to-day, to-morrow, sticks A symbol on her heart and whispers to her: You're this, my woman. Well, the thing was this: She played Mazeppa: take your dummy off, And lash me to the horse. They were afraid, But she prevailed, was nearly killed the first night, And after that succeeded, was the rage And for her years remaining found herself Lashed to the wild horse of ungoverned will, Which ran and wandered, till she knew herself With stronger will than vision, passion stronger Than spirit to judge; the richness of the world, Love, beauty, living, greater than her power. And all the time she had the appetite To eat, devour it all. Grown sick at last, She diagnosed her case, wrote to a friend: The soul and body do not fit each other-- A human spirit in a horse's flesh. This is your Elenor Murray, in a way. But to return to pansies, run your hand Over a bed of pansies; here's a pansy With petals stunted, here's another one All perfect but one petal, here's another Too streaked or mottled--all are pansies though. And here is one full petaled, strikes the eye With perfect color, markings. Elenor Murray Has something of the color and the form Of this La Menken, but is less a pansy, And Sappho, Rachel, Bernhardt are the flowers La Menken strove to be, and could not be, Ended with being only of their kind. And now there's pity for this Elenor Murray, And people wept when poor La Menken died. Both lived and had their way. I hate this pity, It makes you overlook there are two hours: The hour of joy, the hour of finding out Your joy was all mistake, or led to pain. We who inspect these lives behold the pain, And see the error, do not keep in mind The hour of rapture, and the pride, indeed With which your Elenor Murrays and La Menkens Have lived that hour, elation, pride and scorn For any other way--"this is the life" I hear them say. Well, now I go along. La Menken fills her purse with gold--she sends Her pugilist away, tries once again And weds a humorist, an Orpheus Kerr-- And plays before the miners out in 'Frisco, And Sacramento, gathers in the eagles. She goes to Europe then--with husband? No! James Barkley is her fellow on the voyage. She lands in London, takes a gorgeous suite In London's grandest hostlery, entertains Charles Dickens, Prince Baerto and Charles Read, The Duke of Wellington and Swinburne, Sand And Jenny Lind; and has a liveried coachman; And for a crest a horse's head surmounting Four aces, if you please. And plays Mazeppa, And piles the money up. Then next is Paris. And there I saw her, 1866, When Louis Napoleon and the King of Greece, The Prince Imperial were in a box. She wandered to Vienna, there was ill, Came back to Paris, died, a stranger's grave In Pere la Chaise was given, afterwards Exhumed in Mont Parnasse was buried, got A little stone with these words carved upon it: "Thou Knowest" meaning God knew, while herself Knew nothing of herself. But when in Paris They sold her picture taken with her arms Around Dumas, and photographs made up Of postures ludicrous, obscene as well, Of her and great Dumas, I have them home. Can show you sometime. Well she loved Dumas, Inscribed a book of poems to Charles Dickens, By his permission, mark you--don't you see Your Elenor Murray here? This Elenor Murray A miniature imperfect of La Menken? She loved sensation, all her senses thrilled her; A delicate soul too weighted by the flesh; A coquette, quick of wit, intuitive, Kind, generous, unaffected, mystical, Teased by the divine in life, and melancholy, Of deep emotion sometimes. One has said She had a nature spiritual, religious Which warred upon the flesh and fell in battle; Just as your Elenor Murray joined the church, And did not keep the faith, if truth be told. Now look, here is a letter in this pamphlet La Menken writes a poet--for she hunts For seers and for poets, lofty souls. And who does that? A woman wholly bad? Why no, a woman to be given life Fit for her spirit in another realm By God who will take notice, I believe. Now listen if you will! "I know your soul. It has met mine somewhere in starry space. And you must often meet me, vagabond Of fancy without aim, a dweller in tents Disreputable before the just. Just think I am a linguist, write some poems too, Can paint a little, model clay as well. And yet for all these gropings of my soul I am a vagabond, of little use. My body and my soul are in a scramble And do not fit each other--let them carve Those words upon my stone, but also these Thou Knowest, for God knows me, knows I love Whatever is good and beautiful in life; And that my soul has sought them without rest. Farewell, my friend, my spirit is with you, Vienna is too horrible, but know Paris Then die content." Now, Coroner Merival, You're not the only man who wants to see, Will work to make America a republic Of splendors, freedoms, happiness, success. Though I am seventy-six, cannot do much, Save talk, as I am talking now, bring forth Proofs, revelations from the years I've lived. I care not how you view the lives of people, As pansy beds or what not, lift your faith So high above the pansy bed it sees The streaked and stunted pansies filling in The pattern that the perfect pansies outline, Therefore are smiling, even indifferent To this poor conscious pansy, dying at last Because it could not be the flower it wished. My heart to Elenor Murray and La Menken Goes out in sorrow, even while I know They shook their leaves in April, laughed and thrilled, And either did not know, or did not care The growing time was precious, and if wasted Could never be regained. Look at La Menken At seven years put in the ballet corps; And look at Elenor Murray getting smut Out of experience that made her wise. What shall we do about it?--let it go? And say there is no help, or say a republic, Set up a hundred years ago, raised to the helm Of rulership as president a list Of men more able than the emperors, Kings, rulers of the world, and statesmen too The equal of the greatest, money makers, And domineers of finance and economies Phenomenal in time--say, I repeat A country like this one must let its children Waste as they wasted in the darker years Of Europe. Shall we let these trivial minds Who see salvation, progress in restraint, Pre-empt the field of moulding human life? Or shall we take a hand, and put our minds Upon the task, as recently we built An army for the war, equipped and fed it, An army better than all other armies, More powerful, more apt of hand and brain, Of thin tall youths, who did stop but said Like poor La Menken, strap me to the horse I'll do it if I die--so giving to peace The skill and genius which we use in war, Though it cost twenty billion, and why not? Why every dollar, every drop of blood For war like this to guard democracy, And not so much or more to build the land, Improve our blood, make individual America and her race? And first to rout Poverty and disease, give youth its chance, And therapeutic guidance. Soldier boys Have huts for recreation, clergymen, And is it more, less worth to furnish hands Intimate, hearts intimate for the use Of your La Menkens, Elenor Murrays, youths Who feel such vigor in their restless wings They tumble out of crowded nests and fly To fall in thickets, dash themselves against Walls, trees? I have a vision, Coroner, Of a new Republic, brighter than the sun, A new race, loftier faith, this land of ours Made over as to people, boys and girls, Conserved like forests, water power or mines; Watched, tested, put to best use, keen economies Practiced in spirits, waste of human life, Hope, aspiration, talent, virtues, powers, Avoided by a science, science of life, Of spirit, what you will. Enough of war, And billions for the flag--all well enough! Some billions now to make democracy Democracy in truth with us, and life Not helter-skelter, hitting as it may, And missing much, as this La Menken did. I'm not convinced we must have stunted pansies, That have no use but just to piece the pattern. Let's try, and if we try and fail, why then Our human duty ends, the God in us Will have it just this way, no other way. And then we may accept so poor a world, A republic so unfinished. * * * * * Will Paget is another writer of letters To Coroner Merival. The coroner Spends evenings reading letters, keeps a file Where he preserves them. And the blasphemy Of Paget makes him laugh. He has an evening And reads this letter to the jurymen: WILL PAGET ON DEMOS AND HOGOS To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice Dissentient from much that goes the rounds, Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word: Give men and women freedom, save the land From dull theocracy--the theo, what? A blend of Demos and Jehovah! Say, Bring back your despots, bring your Louis Fourteenths, And give them thrones of gold and ivory From where with leaded sceptres they may whack King Demos driven forth. You know the face? The temples are like sea shells, hollows out, Which narrow close the space for cortex cells. There would be little brow if hair remained; But hair is gone, because the dandruff came. The eyes are close together like a weasel's; The jaws are heavy, that is character; The mouth is thin and wide to gobble chicken; The paunch is heavy for the chickens eaten. Throned high upon a soap box Demos rules, And mumbles decalogues: Thou shalt not read, Save what I tell you, never books that tell Of men and women as they live and are. Thou shalt not see the dramas which portray The evil passions and satiric moods Which mock this Christian nation and its hope. Thou shalt not drink, not even wine or beer. Thou shalt not play at cards, or see the races. Thou shalt not be divorced! Thou shalt not play. Thou shalt not bow to graven images Of beauty cut in marble, fused in bronze. Behold my name is Demos, King of Kings, My name is legion, I am many, come Out of the sea where many hogs were drowned, And now the ruler of hogocracy, Where in the name of freedom hungry snouts Root up the truffles in your great republic, And crunch with heavy jaws the legs and arms Of people who fall over in the pen. Hierarchies in my name are planted under Your states political to sprout and take The new world's soil,--religious freedom this!-- Thought must be free--unless your thought objects To such dominion, and to literal faith In an old book that never had a place Except beside the Koran, Zarathustra. So here is your theocracy and here The land of Boredom. Do you wonder now That people cry for war? You see that God Frowns on all games but war. You shall not play Or kindle spirit with a rapture save A moral end's in view. All joy is sin, Where joy stands for itself alone, nor asks Consent to be, save for itself. But war Waged to put down the wrong, it's always that; To vindicate God's truths, all wars are such, Is game that lets the spirit play, is backed By God and moral reasons, therefore war, A game disguised as business, cosmic work For great millenniums, no less relieves The boredom of theocracies. But if Your men and women had the chance to play, Be free and spend superfluous energies, In what I call the greatest game, that's Life, Have life more freely, deeply, and you say How would you like a war and lose a leg, Or come from battle sick for all your years? You would say no, unless you saw an issue, Stripped clean of Christian twaddle, as we'll say The Greeks beheld the Persians. Well, behold All honest paganism in such things discarded For God who comes in glory, trampling presses Filled up with grapes of wrath. Now hear me out: I knew we'd have a war, it wasn't only That your hogocracy was grunting war We'd fight Japan, take Mexico--remember How dancing flourished madly in the land; Then think of savages who dance the Ghost Dance, And cattle lowing, rushing in a panic, There's psychic secrets here. But then at last What can you do with life? You're well and strong, Flushed with desire, mad with appetites, You turn this way and find a sign forbidden, You turn that way and find the door is closed. Hogocracy, King Demos say, go back, Find work, develop character, restrain, Draw up your belt a little tighter, hunger And thirst diminish with a tighter belt. And none to say, take off the belt and eat, Here's water for you. Well, you have a war. We used to say in foot ball kick their shins, And gouge their eyes out--when our shins were kicked We hollered foul and ouch. There was the south Who called us mud-sills in this freer north, And mouthed democracy; and as for that Their churches made of God a battle leader, An idea come from Palestine; oh, yes, They soon would wipe us up, they were the people. But when we slaughtered them they hollered ouch. And why not? For a gun and uniform, And bands that play are rapturous enough. But when you get a bullet through the heart, The game is not so funny as it was. That's why I hated Germany and hate her, And feel we could not let this German culture Spread over earth. That culture was but this: Life must have an expression and a game, And war's the game, besides the prize is great In land and treasure, commerce, let us play, It lets the people's passions have a vent When fires of life burn hot and hotter under The kettle and the lid is clamped by work, Dull duty, daily routine, inhibitions. Before this Elenor Murray woke to life LeRoy was stirring, but the stir was play. It was a Gretna Green, and pleasure boats Ran up and down the river--on the streets You heard the cry of barkers, in the park The band was playing, and you heard the ring Of registers at fountains and buffets. All this was shabby maybe, but observe There are those souls who see the wrath of God As blackest background to the light of soul: And when the thunder rumbles and the storm Comes up with lightning then they say to men Who laugh in bar-rooms, "Have a care, blasphemers, You may be struck by lightning"--here's the root From which this mood ascetic comes to leaf In all theocracies, and throws a shadow Upon all freedom. Look at us to-day. They say to me, see what a town we have: The men at work, smoke coming from the chimneys, The banks full up of money, business good, The workmen sober, going home at night, No rowdy barkers and no bands a-playing, No drinking and no gaming and no vice. No marriages contracted to be broken. Look how LeRoy is quiet, sane and clean! And I reply, you like the stir of work, But not the stir of play; your chimneys smoke, Your banks have money. Let me look behind The door that closes on your man at home, The wife and children there, what shall I find? A sick man looks to health as it were all, But when the fever leaves him and he feels The store of strength in muscles slumbering And waiting to be used, then something else Than health is needful, he must have a way To voice the life within him, and he wonders Why health seemed so desirable before, And all sufficient to him. Take this girl: Why do you marvel that she rode at night With any man who came along? Good God, If I were born a woman and they put me In a theocracy, hogocracy, I'd do the first thing that came in my mind To give my soul expression. Don't you think You're something of a bully and a coward To ask such model living from this girl When you, my grunting hogos, run the land And bring us scandals like the times of Grant, And poisoned beef sold to the soldier boys, When we were warring Spain, and all this stuff Concerning loot and plunder, malversation, That riots in your cities, printed daily? I roll the panoramic story out To Washington the great--what do I see? It's tangle foot, the sticky smear is dry; But I can find wings, legs and heads, remember How little flies and big were buzzing once Of God and duty, country, virtue, faith; And beating wings, already gummed with sweet, Until their little bellies touched the glue, They sought to fill their bellies with--at last Long silence, which is history, scroll rolled up And spoken of in sacred whispers. Well, I'm glad that Elenor Murray had her fling, If that be really true. I understand What drove her to the war. I think she knew Too much to marry, settle down and live Under the rule of Demos or of Hogos. I wish

making

How many times the word 'making' appears in the text?

won these acres here For old man Kingston's daughter, who in turn Bound it with limitation for the life Of selfish sons, who keep a caretaker, Who keeps a cow upon it. There's the cow! The land has had no use for thirty years. The children are kept off it. Elenor Murray, This girl whose death makes such a stir, one time Was playing there--but that's another story. I only say for the present, these five acres Made Elenor Murray's life a thing of waste As much as anything, and a damn sight more. For think a minute! Kingston had a daughter Married to Colonel Burton in Kentucky. And Kingston's son was in the Civil War. But just before the war, the Burtons deeded These acres here, which she inherited From old man Kingston, to this Captain Kingston, The son aforesaid of Old Kingston. Well, The deed upon its face was absolute, But really was a deed in trust. The Captain Held title for a year or two, and then An hour before he fought at Shiloh, made A will, and willed acres to his wife, Fee simple and forever. Now you'd think That contemplating death, he'd make a deed Giving these acres back to Mrs. Burton, The sister who had trusted him. I don't know What comes in people's heads, but I believe The want of money is the root of evil, As well as love of money; for this Captain Perhaps would make provision for his wife And infant son, thought that the chiefest thing No matter how he did it, being poor, Willed this land as he did. But anyway He willed it so, went into Shiloh's battle, And fell dead on the field. What happened then? They took this will to probate. As I said I was a lawyer then, you may believe it, Was hired by the Burtons to reclaim These acres from the Widow Kingston's clutch, Under this wicked will. And so I argued The will had not been witnessed according to law. Got beat upon that point in the lower court, But won upon it in the upper courts. Then next I filed a bill to set aside This deed the Burtons made to Captain Kingston-- Oh, I was full of schemes, expedients, In those days, I can tell you. Widow Kingston Came back and filed a cross bill, asked the court To confirm the title in her son and her As heirs of Captain Kingston, let the will Go out of thought and reckoning. Here's the issue; You understand the case, no doubt. We fought Through all the courts. I lost in the lower court, As I lost on the will. There was the deed: For love and affection and one dollar we Convey and warrant lots from one to ten In the city of LeRoy, to Captain Kingston To be his own forever. How to go Behind such words and show the actual trust Inhering in the deed, that was the job. But here I was resourceful as before, Found witnesses to testify they heard This Captain Kingston say he held the acres In trust for Mrs. Burton--but I lost Before the chancellor, had to appeal, But won on the appeal, and thus restored These acres to the Burtons. And for this What did I get? Three hundred lousy dollars. That's why I smoke a pipe; that's also why I quit the business when I saw the business Was making ready to quit me. By God, My life is waste so far as it was used By this law business, and no coroner Need hold an inquest on me to find out What waste was in my life--God damn the law! Well, then I go my way, and take my fee, And pay my bills. The Burtons have the land, And turn a cow upon it. See how nice A playground it would be. I've seen ten sets Of children try to play there--hey! you hear, The caretaker come out, get off of there! And then the children scamper, climb the fence. Well, after while the Burtons die. The will Leaves these five acres to their sons for life, Remainder to the children of the sons. The sons are living yet at middle life, These acres have been tied up twenty years, They may be tied up thirty years beside: The sons can't sell it, and their children can't, Only the cow can use it, as it stands. It grows more valuable as the people come here, And bring in being Elenor Murrays, children, And make the land around it populous. That's what makes poverty, this holding land, It makes the taxes harder on the poor, It makes work scarcer, and it takes your girls And boys and throws them into life half made, Half ready for the battle. Is a country Free where the laws permit such things? Your priests, Your addle-headed preachers mouthing Christ And morals, prohibition, laws to force People to be good, to save the girls, When every half-wit knows environment Takes natures, made unstable in these homes Of poverty and does the trick. That baronet Who mocked our freedom, sailing back for England And said: Your Liberty Statue in the harbor Is just a joke, that baronet is right, While such conditions thrive. Well, look at me Who for three hundred dollars take a part In making a cow pasture for a cow For fifty years or so. I hate myself. And were the Burtons better than this Kingston? Kingston would will away what was not his. The Burtons took what is the gift of God, As much as air, and fenced it out of use-- Save for the cow aforesaid--for the lives Of sons in being. Oh, I know you think I have a grudge. I have. This Elenor Murray Was ten years old I think, this law suit ended Twelve years or so, and I was running down, Was tippling just a little every day; And I came by this lot one afternoon When school was out, a sunny afternoon. The children had no place except the street To play in; they were standing by the fence, The cow was way across the lot, and Elenor Was looking through the fence, some boys and girls Standing around her, and I said to them: "Why don't you climb the fence and play in there?" And Elenor--she always was a leader, And not afraid of anything, said: "Come on," And in a jiffy climbed the fence, the children, Some quicker and some slower, followed her. Some said "They don't allow it." Elenor Stood on the fence, flung up her arms and crowed, And said "What can they do? He says to do it," Pointing at me. And in a moment all of them Were playing and were shouting in the lot. And I stood there and watched them half malicious, And half in pleasure watching them at play. Then I heard "hey!" the care-taker ran out. And said "Get out of there, I will arrest you." He drove them out and as they jumped the fence Some said, "He told us to," pointing at me. And Elenor Murray said "Why, what a lie!" And then the care-taker grabbed Elenor Murray And said, "You are the wildest of them all." I spoke up, saying, "Leave that child alone. I won this God damn land for those you serve, They use it for a cow and nothing else, And let these children run about the streets, When there are grass and dandelions there In plenty for these children, and the cow, And space enough to play in without bothering That solitary cow." I took his hands Away from Elenor Murray; he and I Came face to face with clenched fists--but at last He walked away; the children scampered off. Next day, however, they arrested me For aiding in a _trespass clausam fregit_, And fined me twenty dollars and the costs. Since then the cow has all her way in there. And Elenor Murray left this rotten place, Went to the war, came home and died, and proved She had the sense to leave so vile a world. * * * * * George Joslin ending up his days with dreams Of youth in Europe, travels, and with talk, Stirred to a recollection of a face He saw in Paris fifty years before, Because the face resembled Elenor Murray's, Explored his drawers and boxes, where he kept Mementos, treasures of the olden days. And found a pamphlet, came to Merival, With certain recollections, and with theories Of Elenor Murray:-- GEORGE JOSLIN ON LA MENKEN Here, Coroner Merival, look at this picture! Whom does it look like? Eyes too crystalline, A head like Byron's, tender mouth, and neck, Slender and white, a pathos as of smiles And tears kept back by courage. Yes, you know It looks like Elenor Murray. Well, you see I read each day about the inquest--good! Dig out the truth, begin a system here Of making family records, let us see If we can do for people when we know How best to do it, what is done for stock. So build up Illinois, the nation too. I read about you daily. And last night When Elenor Murray's picture in the _Times_ Looked at me, I began to think, Good Lord, Where have I seen that face before? I thought Through more than fifty years departed, sent My mind through Europe and America In all my travels, meetings, episodes. I could not think. At last I opened up A box of pamphlets, photographs, mementos, Picked up since 1860, and behold I find this pamphlet of La Belle Menken. Here is your Elenor Murray born again, As here might be your blackbird of this year With spots of red upon his wings, the same As last year's blackbird, like a pansy springing Out of the April of this year, repeating The color, form of one you saw last year. Repeating and the same, but not the same; No two alike, you know. I'll come to that. Well, then, La Menken--as a boy in Paris I saw La Menken, I'll return to this. But just as Elenor Murray has her life Shadowed and symbolized by our Starved Rock-- And everyone has something in his life Which takes him, makes him, is the image too Of fate prefigured--La Menken has Mazeppa, Her notable first part as actress, emblem Of spirit, character, and of omen too Of years to come, the thrill of life, the end. Who is La Menken? Symbol of America, One phase of spirit! She was venturesome, Resourceful, daring, hopeful, confident, And as she wrote of self, a vagabond, A dweller in tents, a reveler, and a flame Aspiring but disreputable, coming up With leaves that shamed her stalk, could not be shed, But stuck out heavy veined and muddy hued In time of blossom. There are souls, you know, Who have shed shapeless immaturities, Betrayals of the seed before the blossom Comes to proclaim a beauty, a perfection; Or risen with their stalk, until such leaves Were hidden in the grass or soil--not she, Nor even your Elenor Murray, as I read her. But being America and American, Brings good and bad together, blossom and leaves With prodigal recklessness, in vital health And unselective taste and vision mixed Of beauty and of truth. Who was La Menken? She's born in Louisiana in thirty-five, Left fatherless at seven--mother takes her And puts her in the ballet at New Orleans. She dances then from Texas clear to Cuba; Then gives up dancing, studies tragedy, And plays Bianca! Fourteen years of age Weds Menken, who's a Jew, divorced from him; Then falls in love with Heenan, pugilist. They quarrel and separate--it's in this pamphlet Just as I tell you; you can take it, Coroner. Now something happens, nothing in her birth Or place of birth to prophesy her life Like Starved Rock to this Elenor--being grown, A hand instead is darted from the curtain That hangs between to-day, to-morrow, sticks A symbol on her heart and whispers to her: You're this, my woman. Well, the thing was this: She played Mazeppa: take your dummy off, And lash me to the horse. They were afraid, But she prevailed, was nearly killed the first night, And after that succeeded, was the rage And for her years remaining found herself Lashed to the wild horse of ungoverned will, Which ran and wandered, till she knew herself With stronger will than vision, passion stronger Than spirit to judge; the richness of the world, Love, beauty, living, greater than her power. And all the time she had the appetite To eat, devour it all. Grown sick at last, She diagnosed her case, wrote to a friend: The soul and body do not fit each other-- A human spirit in a horse's flesh. This is your Elenor Murray, in a way. But to return to pansies, run your hand Over a bed of pansies; here's a pansy With petals stunted, here's another one All perfect but one petal, here's another Too streaked or mottled--all are pansies though. And here is one full petaled, strikes the eye With perfect color, markings. Elenor Murray Has something of the color and the form Of this La Menken, but is less a pansy, And Sappho, Rachel, Bernhardt are the flowers La Menken strove to be, and could not be, Ended with being only of their kind. And now there's pity for this Elenor Murray, And people wept when poor La Menken died. Both lived and had their way. I hate this pity, It makes you overlook there are two hours: The hour of joy, the hour of finding out Your joy was all mistake, or led to pain. We who inspect these lives behold the pain, And see the error, do not keep in mind The hour of rapture, and the pride, indeed With which your Elenor Murrays and La Menkens Have lived that hour, elation, pride and scorn For any other way--"this is the life" I hear them say. Well, now I go along. La Menken fills her purse with gold--she sends Her pugilist away, tries once again And weds a humorist, an Orpheus Kerr-- And plays before the miners out in 'Frisco, And Sacramento, gathers in the eagles. She goes to Europe then--with husband? No! James Barkley is her fellow on the voyage. She lands in London, takes a gorgeous suite In London's grandest hostlery, entertains Charles Dickens, Prince Baerto and Charles Read, The Duke of Wellington and Swinburne, Sand And Jenny Lind; and has a liveried coachman; And for a crest a horse's head surmounting Four aces, if you please. And plays Mazeppa, And piles the money up. Then next is Paris. And there I saw her, 1866, When Louis Napoleon and the King of Greece, The Prince Imperial were in a box. She wandered to Vienna, there was ill, Came back to Paris, died, a stranger's grave In Pere la Chaise was given, afterwards Exhumed in Mont Parnasse was buried, got A little stone with these words carved upon it: "Thou Knowest" meaning God knew, while herself Knew nothing of herself. But when in Paris They sold her picture taken with her arms Around Dumas, and photographs made up Of postures ludicrous, obscene as well, Of her and great Dumas, I have them home. Can show you sometime. Well she loved Dumas, Inscribed a book of poems to Charles Dickens, By his permission, mark you--don't you see Your Elenor Murray here? This Elenor Murray A miniature imperfect of La Menken? She loved sensation, all her senses thrilled her; A delicate soul too weighted by the flesh; A coquette, quick of wit, intuitive, Kind, generous, unaffected, mystical, Teased by the divine in life, and melancholy, Of deep emotion sometimes. One has said She had a nature spiritual, religious Which warred upon the flesh and fell in battle; Just as your Elenor Murray joined the church, And did not keep the faith, if truth be told. Now look, here is a letter in this pamphlet La Menken writes a poet--for she hunts For seers and for poets, lofty souls. And who does that? A woman wholly bad? Why no, a woman to be given life Fit for her spirit in another realm By God who will take notice, I believe. Now listen if you will! "I know your soul. It has met mine somewhere in starry space. And you must often meet me, vagabond Of fancy without aim, a dweller in tents Disreputable before the just. Just think I am a linguist, write some poems too, Can paint a little, model clay as well. And yet for all these gropings of my soul I am a vagabond, of little use. My body and my soul are in a scramble And do not fit each other--let them carve Those words upon my stone, but also these Thou Knowest, for God knows me, knows I love Whatever is good and beautiful in life; And that my soul has sought them without rest. Farewell, my friend, my spirit is with you, Vienna is too horrible, but know Paris Then die content." Now, Coroner Merival, You're not the only man who wants to see, Will work to make America a republic Of splendors, freedoms, happiness, success. Though I am seventy-six, cannot do much, Save talk, as I am talking now, bring forth Proofs, revelations from the years I've lived. I care not how you view the lives of people, As pansy beds or what not, lift your faith So high above the pansy bed it sees The streaked and stunted pansies filling in The pattern that the perfect pansies outline, Therefore are smiling, even indifferent To this poor conscious pansy, dying at last Because it could not be the flower it wished. My heart to Elenor Murray and La Menken Goes out in sorrow, even while I know They shook their leaves in April, laughed and thrilled, And either did not know, or did not care The growing time was precious, and if wasted Could never be regained. Look at La Menken At seven years put in the ballet corps; And look at Elenor Murray getting smut Out of experience that made her wise. What shall we do about it?--let it go? And say there is no help, or say a republic, Set up a hundred years ago, raised to the helm Of rulership as president a list Of men more able than the emperors, Kings, rulers of the world, and statesmen too The equal of the greatest, money makers, And domineers of finance and economies Phenomenal in time--say, I repeat A country like this one must let its children Waste as they wasted in the darker years Of Europe. Shall we let these trivial minds Who see salvation, progress in restraint, Pre-empt the field of moulding human life? Or shall we take a hand, and put our minds Upon the task, as recently we built An army for the war, equipped and fed it, An army better than all other armies, More powerful, more apt of hand and brain, Of thin tall youths, who did stop but said Like poor La Menken, strap me to the horse I'll do it if I die--so giving to peace The skill and genius which we use in war, Though it cost twenty billion, and why not? Why every dollar, every drop of blood For war like this to guard democracy, And not so much or more to build the land, Improve our blood, make individual America and her race? And first to rout Poverty and disease, give youth its chance, And therapeutic guidance. Soldier boys Have huts for recreation, clergymen, And is it more, less worth to furnish hands Intimate, hearts intimate for the use Of your La Menkens, Elenor Murrays, youths Who feel such vigor in their restless wings They tumble out of crowded nests and fly To fall in thickets, dash themselves against Walls, trees? I have a vision, Coroner, Of a new Republic, brighter than the sun, A new race, loftier faith, this land of ours Made over as to people, boys and girls, Conserved like forests, water power or mines; Watched, tested, put to best use, keen economies Practiced in spirits, waste of human life, Hope, aspiration, talent, virtues, powers, Avoided by a science, science of life, Of spirit, what you will. Enough of war, And billions for the flag--all well enough! Some billions now to make democracy Democracy in truth with us, and life Not helter-skelter, hitting as it may, And missing much, as this La Menken did. I'm not convinced we must have stunted pansies, That have no use but just to piece the pattern. Let's try, and if we try and fail, why then Our human duty ends, the God in us Will have it just this way, no other way. And then we may accept so poor a world, A republic so unfinished. * * * * * Will Paget is another writer of letters To Coroner Merival. The coroner Spends evenings reading letters, keeps a file Where he preserves them. And the blasphemy Of Paget makes him laugh. He has an evening And reads this letter to the jurymen: WILL PAGET ON DEMOS AND HOGOS To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice Dissentient from much that goes the rounds, Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word: Give men and women freedom, save the land From dull theocracy--the theo, what? A blend of Demos and Jehovah! Say, Bring back your despots, bring your Louis Fourteenths, And give them thrones of gold and ivory From where with leaded sceptres they may whack King Demos driven forth. You know the face? The temples are like sea shells, hollows out, Which narrow close the space for cortex cells. There would be little brow if hair remained; But hair is gone, because the dandruff came. The eyes are close together like a weasel's; The jaws are heavy, that is character; The mouth is thin and wide to gobble chicken; The paunch is heavy for the chickens eaten. Throned high upon a soap box Demos rules, And mumbles decalogues: Thou shalt not read, Save what I tell you, never books that tell Of men and women as they live and are. Thou shalt not see the dramas which portray The evil passions and satiric moods Which mock this Christian nation and its hope. Thou shalt not drink, not even wine or beer. Thou shalt not play at cards, or see the races. Thou shalt not be divorced! Thou shalt not play. Thou shalt not bow to graven images Of beauty cut in marble, fused in bronze. Behold my name is Demos, King of Kings, My name is legion, I am many, come Out of the sea where many hogs were drowned, And now the ruler of hogocracy, Where in the name of freedom hungry snouts Root up the truffles in your great republic, And crunch with heavy jaws the legs and arms Of people who fall over in the pen. Hierarchies in my name are planted under Your states political to sprout and take The new world's soil,--religious freedom this!-- Thought must be free--unless your thought objects To such dominion, and to literal faith In an old book that never had a place Except beside the Koran, Zarathustra. So here is your theocracy and here The land of Boredom. Do you wonder now That people cry for war? You see that God Frowns on all games but war. You shall not play Or kindle spirit with a rapture save A moral end's in view. All joy is sin, Where joy stands for itself alone, nor asks Consent to be, save for itself. But war Waged to put down the wrong, it's always that; To vindicate God's truths, all wars are such, Is game that lets the spirit play, is backed By God and moral reasons, therefore war, A game disguised as business, cosmic work For great millenniums, no less relieves The boredom of theocracies. But if Your men and women had the chance to play, Be free and spend superfluous energies, In what I call the greatest game, that's Life, Have life more freely, deeply, and you say How would you like a war and lose a leg, Or come from battle sick for all your years? You would say no, unless you saw an issue, Stripped clean of Christian twaddle, as we'll say The Greeks beheld the Persians. Well, behold All honest paganism in such things discarded For God who comes in glory, trampling presses Filled up with grapes of wrath. Now hear me out: I knew we'd have a war, it wasn't only That your hogocracy was grunting war We'd fight Japan, take Mexico--remember How dancing flourished madly in the land; Then think of savages who dance the Ghost Dance, And cattle lowing, rushing in a panic, There's psychic secrets here. But then at last What can you do with life? You're well and strong, Flushed with desire, mad with appetites, You turn this way and find a sign forbidden, You turn that way and find the door is closed. Hogocracy, King Demos say, go back, Find work, develop character, restrain, Draw up your belt a little tighter, hunger And thirst diminish with a tighter belt. And none to say, take off the belt and eat, Here's water for you. Well, you have a war. We used to say in foot ball kick their shins, And gouge their eyes out--when our shins were kicked We hollered foul and ouch. There was the south Who called us mud-sills in this freer north, And mouthed democracy; and as for that Their churches made of God a battle leader, An idea come from Palestine; oh, yes, They soon would wipe us up, they were the people. But when we slaughtered them they hollered ouch. And why not? For a gun and uniform, And bands that play are rapturous enough. But when you get a bullet through the heart, The game is not so funny as it was. That's why I hated Germany and hate her, And feel we could not let this German culture Spread over earth. That culture was but this: Life must have an expression and a game, And war's the game, besides the prize is great In land and treasure, commerce, let us play, It lets the people's passions have a vent When fires of life burn hot and hotter under The kettle and the lid is clamped by work, Dull duty, daily routine, inhibitions. Before this Elenor Murray woke to life LeRoy was stirring, but the stir was play. It was a Gretna Green, and pleasure boats Ran up and down the river--on the streets You heard the cry of barkers, in the park The band was playing, and you heard the ring Of registers at fountains and buffets. All this was shabby maybe, but observe There are those souls who see the wrath of God As blackest background to the light of soul: And when the thunder rumbles and the storm Comes up with lightning then they say to men Who laugh in bar-rooms, "Have a care, blasphemers, You may be struck by lightning"--here's the root From which this mood ascetic comes to leaf In all theocracies, and throws a shadow Upon all freedom. Look at us to-day. They say to me, see what a town we have: The men at work, smoke coming from the chimneys, The banks full up of money, business good, The workmen sober, going home at night, No rowdy barkers and no bands a-playing, No drinking and no gaming and no vice. No marriages contracted to be broken. Look how LeRoy is quiet, sane and clean! And I reply, you like the stir of work, But not the stir of play; your chimneys smoke, Your banks have money. Let me look behind The door that closes on your man at home, The wife and children there, what shall I find? A sick man looks to health as it were all, But when the fever leaves him and he feels The store of strength in muscles slumbering And waiting to be used, then something else Than health is needful, he must have a way To voice the life within him, and he wonders Why health seemed so desirable before, And all sufficient to him. Take this girl: Why do you marvel that she rode at night With any man who came along? Good God, If I were born a woman and they put me In a theocracy, hogocracy, I'd do the first thing that came in my mind To give my soul expression. Don't you think You're something of a bully and a coward To ask such model living from this girl When you, my grunting hogos, run the land And bring us scandals like the times of Grant, And poisoned beef sold to the soldier boys, When we were warring Spain, and all this stuff Concerning loot and plunder, malversation, That riots in your cities, printed daily? I roll the panoramic story out To Washington the great--what do I see? It's tangle foot, the sticky smear is dry; But I can find wings, legs and heads, remember How little flies and big were buzzing once Of God and duty, country, virtue, faith; And beating wings, already gummed with sweet, Until their little bellies touched the glue, They sought to fill their bellies with--at last Long silence, which is history, scroll rolled up And spoken of in sacred whispers. Well, I'm glad that Elenor Murray had her fling, If that be really true. I understand What drove her to the war. I think she knew Too much to marry, settle down and live Under the rule of Demos or of Hogos. I wish

climb

How many times the word 'climb' appears in the text?

world. Isabel knew every one in Chilmark and every one knew her. Such a range of intensive acquaintance is not so narrow as people who have never lived in a country village are apt to suppose. Past the schoolhouse, past the wide stone bridge where Isabel loved to hang over the parapet watching for trout--but not tonight, for it was late, and Isabel after a "company tea" wanted her supper: by a footpath through the churchyard, closely mown and planted with rosebushes: and so into the church, where, after dropping a hurried professional curtsey to the altar, she set about her evening duties. Isabel called herself the curate, but she did a good deal which is not expected of a curate, such as shutting windows and changing lesson-markers, propping up the trebles when they went astray in the pointing of the Psalms, altering the numbers on the hymn-board, writing out choir papers, putting flowers in the vases and candles in the benediction lights, playing the organ as required and occasionally blowing it. . . . Before leaving the church she fell on her knees, in deference to Mr. Stafford and the text by the door, and said a prayer. What did she pray? "O Lord bless this church and all who worship in it and make father preach a good sermon next Sunday. I wish I'd been playing with Val instead of Jack, we should have won that last set if Jack hadn't muffed his services. . . . Well, this curate was only nineteen." And then, coming out into the fading light, she locked the north door behind her and went off whistling like a blackbird, if a blackbird could whistle the alto of Calkin's Magnificat in B flat. . . . Five minutes climbing of the steep brown floor of the beechwood, and she was out on uplands in the dying fires of day. It had been twilight in the valley, but here the wide plain was sunlit and the air was fresh and dry: in the valley even the river-aspens were almost quiet, but here there was still a sough of wind coming and going, through the dry grass thick set with lemon thyme and lady's slipper, or along the low garden wall where red valerian sprouted out of yellow stonecrop. A wishing gate led into the garden, and Isabel made for an open window, but halfway over the sill she paused, gazing with all her soul in her eyes across the vicarage gooseberry bushes. That grey suit was Val's of course, but who was inside the belted coat and riding breeches? "Rows-lee!" sang out Isabel, tumbling back into the garden with a generous display of leg. The raiders rose up each holding a handful of large red strawberries melting ripe, and Isabel, pitching in her racquet on a sofa, ran across the grass and enfolded her brother in her arms. Rowsley, dark and slight and shrewd, returned her hug with one arm, while carefully guarding his strawberries with the other--"You pig, you perfect pig!" wailed Isabel. "I was saving them for tea tomorrow, Laura's coming and I can't afford a cake. Oh joy, you can buy me one! How long can you stay?" "Over the week end: but I didn't come to buy you cakes, Baby. I haven't any money either. I came because I wanted you to buy me cakes." "O well never mind, I'll make one," Isabel joyously slipped her hand through Rowsley's arm. "Then I can get the flour from the baker and it won't cost anything at all--it'll go down in the bill. Well give me one anyhow, now they're picked it would be a pity to waste them." She helped herself liberally out of Val's hand. "Now stop both of you, you can't have any more." She linked her other arm in Val's and dragged her brothers out of the dangerous proximity of the strawberry beds. Val sat down on a deck chair, one leg thrown over the other, Rowsley dropped at full length on the turf, and Isabel doubled herself up between them, her arms clasped round her knees. "How's the Old Man?" she asked in friendly reference to Rowsley's commanding officer. "Oh Rose, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. Will Spillsby be able to play on the Fourth?" Spillsby, a brother subaltern and a famous bat, had twisted his ankle at the nets, and Rowsley in his last letter had been uncertain whether he would be well enough to play the Sappers at the annual fixture. Happily Rowsley was able to reassure his young sister: the ankle was much better and Spillsby was already allowed to walk on it. Isabel then turned her large velvet eyes--gazelle eyes with a world of pathos in their velvet gloom on her elder brother. "Coruscate, Val," she commanded. "You haven't said anything at all yet. We should all try to be bright in the home circle. We cannot all be witty, but-Ow! Rowsley, if you pull my hair I shall hit you in the--in the place where the Gauls fined their soldiers if they stuck out on parade. Oh, Val, that really isn't vulgar, I found it in Matthew Arnold! Their stomachs, you know. They wouldn't have fined you anyhow. You look fagged, darling-- are you?" "Not so much fagged as hungry," said Val in his soft voice. "It's getting on for nine o'clock and I was done out of my tea. I went in to Wanhope, but Laura was out, and Clowes was drinking whisky and soda. I cannot stand whisky at four in the afternoon, and Irish whisky at that. There'll be some supper going before long, won't there?" "Not until half past nine because Jimmy has his Bible class tonight." Jimmy was Mr. Stafford: and perhaps a purist might have objected that Mrs. Clowes and Yvonne Bendish had not done all they might have done to form Isabel's manners. "I'm so sorry, darling," she continued, preparing to leap to her feet. "Shall I get you a biscuit? There are oatmeals in the sideboard, the kind you like, I won't be a minute--" "Thanks very much, I'd rather wait. Did you see Mrs. Clowes today? Clowes said she was at the Castle." "So she was, sitting with Mrs. Morley in an angelic striped cotton. Mrs. Morley was in mauve ninon and a Gainsborough hat. Yvonne says Mr. Morley is a Jew and made his money in I. D. B.'s, which I suppose are some sort of stocks?" Neither of her brothers offered to enlighten her, Rowsley because he was feeling indolent, Val because he never said an unkind word to any one. Isabel, who was enamoured of her own voice flowed on with little delay: "If he really is a Jew, I can't think how she could marry him; I wouldn't. Mrs. Morley can't be very happy or Laura wouldn't go and talk to her. Laura is so sweet, she always sits with people that other people run away from. Oh Val, did Major Clowes tell you their news?" Isabel might refer to her father as Jimmy and to Rowsley's commander as the Old Man, but she rarely failed to give Bernard Clowes his correct prefix. "No--is there any?" "Only that they have some one coming to stay with them. Won't he have a deadly time?" Isabel glanced from Val to Rowsley in the certainty of a common response. "Imagine staying at Wanhope! However, he invited himself, so it's at his own risk. Perhaps he's embarrassed like you, Rose, and wants Laura to feed him. It's rather fun for Laura, though--that is, it will be, if Major Clowes isn't too hopeless." Strange freemasonry of the generations! Mr. Stafford's children loved him dearly and he was wont to say that there were no secrets at the vicarage, yet they lived in a conspiracy of silence, and even Val, who was mentally nearer to his father's age, would have been loth to let Mr. Stafford know as much as Isabel knew about Wanhope. It was assumed that Val's job was the very job Val wanted. Mr. Stafford had indeed a suspicion that it was not all plain sailing: Bernard Clowes retained just so much of the decently bred man as to be courteous to his wife before a mere acquaintance, but the vicar came and went at odd hours, and he observed now and then vague intimations--undertones from Bernard himself, an uncontrollable shrinking on Laura's part, an occasional hesitation or reluctance in Val--which hinted at flying storms. But Val, the father supposed, could make allowance for a cripple: Bernard was so much to be pitied that no man would resent an occasional burst of temper! And there his children left him. The younger generation can trust one another not to interfere, but when the seniors strike in, with their cut and dry precedents and rule of thumb moralities, who knows what mischief may follow? Elder people are so indiscreet! "It's a cousin of Major Clowes," Isabel continued, "but they haven't met for years and years--not since the war. Laura knows him too, she met him before she was married and liked him very much indeed. She's looking forward to it--that is, she would be if she had spirit enough to look forward to anything." "Clowes never said a word to me about it," remarked Val. "Didn't he?" Isabel unfolded herself and stood up. "That means he is going to be tiresome. I must run now, it's five past nine. Which will you both have, cold beef or eggs?" "Oh, anything that's going," said Val. "Eggs," said Rowsley, "not less than four. Without prejudice to the cold beef if it's underdone. Hallo!" "What?" "What's the matter with your skirt?" "Nothing," said Isabel shortly. She screwed her head over her shoulder in a vain endeavour to see her own back. "It's perfectly all right." "It would be, on a scarecrow." Isabel stuck her chin up. "Have you been over to the Castle in that kit, Baby? Well, if Yvonne won't give you some of her old clothes, you might ask the kitchenmaid." "The kitchenmaid has more money than I have," said Isabel cheerfully. "Is it so very bad? It's clean anyway, I washed and ironed it myself." "It looks very nice and so do you," said Val. Isabel eyed him with a softened glance: one could rely on Val to salve one's wounded vanity, but, alas! Val did not know home-made from tailor-made. Reluctantly she owned to herself that she had more faith in Rowsley's judgment. "It seems rather short though," Val added. "I suppose you will have to go into long frocks pretty soon, won't you, and put your hair up?" "Oh bother my hair and my dresses!" said Isabel with a great sigh. "I will pin my hair up when I get some new clothes, but how can I when I haven't any money and Jim hasn't any money and neither of you have any money? Don't you see, idiot," this was exclusively to Rowsley, "when I pin my hair up I shall turn into a grown up lady? And then I shall have to wear proper clothes. At present I'm only a little girl and it doesn't signify what I wear. If any one will give me five pounds I'll pin my hair up like a shot. Oh dear, I wonder what Yvonne would say if Jack expected her to outfit herself for five pounds? I do wish some one would leave me 10,000 pounds a year. Get up now, you lazy beggar, come and help me lay the supper. It's Fanny's evening out." She pulled Rowsley to his feet and they went off together leaving Val alone on the lawn: good comrades those two, and apparently more of an age, in spite of the long gap between them, than Rowsley and Val, who was the eldest by only eighteen months. And Val sat on alone, while stains of coral and amber faded out of the lavender sky, and a rack of sea clouds, which half an hour ago had shone like fiery ripples, dwindled away into smoke--mist --a mere shadow on the breast of the night. Stars began to sparkle, moths and humming cockchafers sailed by him, a chase of bats overhead endlessly fell down airy precipices and rose in long loops of darkling flight: honeysuckle and night-scented stock tinged with their sweet garden perfume the cool airs from the moor. Val lit a cigarette, a rare indulgence. If cigarettes grew on gooseberry bushes Val would have been an inveterate smoker, but good Egyptians were a luxury which he could not often afford The Wanhope agency was ample for his needs, though underpaid as agencies go: but there was Rowsley, always hard up, uncomplaining, but sensitive, as a young fellow in his position is sure to be, and secretly fretting because he could not do as other men did: and there was Isabel, for whom Val felt the anxiety Mr. Stafford ought to have felt, and was trying to make the provision Mr. Stafford ought to have made: and then there was the vicar himself, who laid out a great deal of money in those investments for which we are promised cent per cent interest, but upon a system of deferred payment. Tonight however Val lit a cigarette, and then a second, to the surprise of Isabel, who saw the red spark on the lawn. She thought her brother must be tired, and perhaps it really was the long day without food that made him so restless in mind and so uneasy. Bernard Clowes had been more than usually cranky that afternoon. Even the patient Val had had thoughts of throwing up his job when the cripple made him go through his week's accounts, scrutinizing every entry and cross-examining him on every transaction in such a tone as the head of a firm might employ to a junior clerk suspected of dishonesty. It was Bernard's way: it meant nothing: but it was irksome to Val, especially when he could not soothe himself by dropping into Laura's quiet parlour for a cup of tea. Yet his irritation would not have lingered through a cigarette if Isabel's news had not revived it. This cousin of Bernard's! Val had not much faith in any cousin of Bernard Clowes: nor in the kindness of life. Val was a slight, fair, pleasant-looking man of eight or nine and twenty, quiet of movement, friendly-mannered and as inconspicuous as his own rather worn grey tweeds: one of a class, till he raised his eyes: and then? There was something strange in Val's eyes when they were fully raised, an indrawn arresting brilliance difficult to analyse: imaginative and sympathetic, as if he were at home in dark places: the quality of acceptance of pain. Adepts in old days knew by his eyes a man who had been on the rack. Stafford had been racked: and by the pain that is half shame, the keenest, the most lacerating and destructive of wounds. He had suffered till he could suffer no more, and tonight in the starlit garden he, suffered still, without hope, or rebellion, or defence. Indoors Rowsley and Isabel, with the rapidity of long use, laid the cloth, and Isabel fetched cold beef from the larder and butter and eggs from the dairy, while Rowsley went down the cellar with a jug and a candle and drew from the cask a generous allowance of beer. "Come along in, old Val," said Isabel, reappearing at the open window, "You and Rose are both famishing and I'm not," this was a pious fiction, "so you can begin and I'll wait for Jimmy. I dare say he's gone wandering off somewhere and won't be in till ten." Val came across the dark, cool lawn and climbed over the window sill. A shabby room, large and low: a faded paper, grey toning to blue: a carpet of faded roses on a grey ground: the shaded Dresden lamp and roselit supper table shining like an island in a pool of shadow, and those two beloved heads, both so dark and smooth and young, tam cara capita! Neither of them suspected that Val was unhappy. His feeling for them was more fatherly than fraternal, and Rowsley, strange to say, fell in with Val's attitude, coming to his brother for money as naturally as most young men go to their parents. Val sat at the head of the table because Mr. Stafford could not carve. "There!" said Isabel, giving him his plate. "Mustard? I've just made it so you needn't look to see if it's fresh. Watercress: I picked it myself. Lettuce. Cream and vinegar and sugar. Beer. Now do you feel happy? Lord love you, dear, I like to see you eat." She sat on the arm of Mr. Stafford's mahogany chair. "What time do you want breakfast? Seven o'clock? Major Clowes wouldn't come down at seven if he were your agent. Can you get back to tea tomorrow? Laura may bring the cousin up to tea with her and she wants him to meet you." "Very good of her. Why?" "Oh, because he was in the Army too and all through the war. He went out with the first hundred thousand. He's much older than you are--the same age as Laura. Oh, wait a minute!" exclaimed Isabel in the tone in which a Frenchwoman says Tenez. I forgot. She thinks you must have met him, Val." "Possibly," said Val. "Was he in the Dorchesters?" asked Rowsley--much more interested than his brother, no doubt because he was not so hungry as Val, who was giving all his attention to his supper. "No, in the Winchesters," said Isabel. "Do I mean the Winchesters, Val? What was Major Clowes' old regiment?" "Clowes was in the Wintons." Isabel nodded. "Then so was the cousin. And Laura says he was out there when the Wintons were in the next bit of trench north of the Dorchesters. He was there when--when you were wounded." Such was Val Stafford's modesty that in the family circle it was not in etiquette to refer in other terms to that famous occasion. "I don't remember any fellow named Clowes and I never knew Bernard Clowes had a cousin out there," said Val, mixing himself a salad. "Oh, his name isn't Clowes. It's Ryde or Pride or something like that. I'm sorry to be so vague, but Jack Bendish and Yvonne and Mrs. Morley were all talking at once. Lawrence Pied--Fried--" "Lawrence Hyde?" "Yes, that's it! Then you really do remember him?" "Er--yes. Is that lamp smoking, Rowsley? You might turn it down a trifle, I can't reach." "Let me, let me?-- What was he like?" "Who--Hyde? Oh," said Val vaguely, "he was like the rest of us --very tired." "Tired?" echoed Isabel with a blank face, "but, Val darling, he couldn't have been only tired! What should you think he was like when he wasn't tired?" "That is a question I have occasionally asked myself," Val answered with his faint indecipherable smile. "My dear child, I only saw him once or twice. He was a senior captain and commanded his company. I was a very junior lieutenant." "Still he was there at the time," reflected Isabel. "O Rose! if he's anything like nice, which is almost past praying for in Major Clowes' cousin, let's beguile him into the gooseberry bushes and make him tell us all about it! Val is very dear to his family, but no one, however tenderly attached to him, could call him a brilliant raconteur. Now Mr. Hyde won't have any modest scruples. Val, if there is a slug in that lettuce I wish you would say so. It would hurt my feelings less than for you to sit looking at it in a stony silence. Was he good-looking?" "Possibly he might be," said Val, "when he scraped the dirt off." After a moment he added, "He was very decent to me." "Was he? Then he was nice?" "Gnat," said Rowsley from the middle of his third egg. Isabel rounded him indignantly. "I'm not gnatting! I'm not asking Val anything about himself, am I? Val can't possibly mind telling me about another man in another regiment. You eat your eggs, there's a good boy, before they get cold.-- Laura says the Dorchesters dined the Winchesters once when they were in billets. Was that when you and Mr. Hyde were there?" "Captain Hyde," Val corrected his young sister. "Yes, we both graced the festive board. It was too festive for me. We had Buszard's soup and curried chicken and real cream, and more champagne than was good for us. But it was not on that occasion that Hyde was so decent to me. The day I--the day Dale went down--" Rowsley nodded to him as he raised his glass of beer to his lips--"thank you, Rose.-- As I was saying, that evening I ran across Hyde between the lines. The Dorsets and Wintons had gone over the top together, and he had been left behind with a bullet in his chest. I was done to the world, but he had some brandy left and shared it with me. If it had not been for Hyde I should never have brought Dale in." "Well, I've never heard that before," said Rowsley to his fourth egg. Isabel was silent, and her eyes in the shadow of a momentary gravity were the eyes of a woman and not of a child. She raised them to look out at the evening sky, indigo blue against the lamplit interior, or faintly primrose in the west, and wondered for the thousandth time why it was still such an effort to Val to refer to his brief military experience. Soft country noises came in, peaceful and soothing: the short shrill shriek of a bat, the rustle of a branch of rose-leaves moving like a hand over the window panes, a faint breathing of wind from the moor. Surely the scar of war ought to be healed by now! Isabel kept these thoughts to herself: young as she was, her solitary life--for a woman alone among men is always to some extent solitary--had trained her to a clear perception of what had better not be said. "When is Hyde coming?" asked Val, going on with his salad. "Tomorrow, didn't you hear me say Laura is going to bring him here to tea? He's staying at his own place, Farringay--I think from the way Laura spoke it is what one calls a place--and they expect him by the morning train. Laura's to meet him in the car." "Did you ask her to bring him in to tea," said Rowsley, frowning over the marmalade jar, "when Val is safe to be out and you didn't know I should be here?" "Yes: oughtn't I to have?" "No." "Is there anything else you would like to speak to me about?" said Isabel after a pregnant silence. "Dear Rowsley, you seem determined to look after my manners and morals! I asked him to please Laura. She's nervous of Major Clowes. Jack and Yvonne are coming too." "Oh I don't see that it signifies," said Val. Mrs. Clowes wouldn't have accepted if it weren't all right. I don't see that you or I need worry if she doesn't. Isabel is old enough to pour out tea for herself. In any case, as it happens, you'll be here if I'm not, and I dare say Jimmy will look in for ten minutes." "You are sweet, Val," said Isabel gratefully. "Oh I don't say Rowsley's not right! Prigs generally are: and besides now I come to think of it, Laura did look faintly amused when I asked her. But these stupid things never occur to me till afterwards! After all, what am I to do? I can't manufacture a chaperon, and it would be very bad for the parish if the vicar never entertained. And it's not as if Captain Hyde were a young man; he's thirty-six if he's a day." CHAPTER III When the sea retreats after a storm one finds on the beach all sorts of strange flotsam. Bernard Clowes was a bit of human wreckage left on the sands of society by the storm of the war. When it broke out he was a second lieutenant in the Winchester Regiment, a keen polo player and first class batsman who rarely opened a book. He was sent out with the First Division and carried himself with his usual phlegmatic good humour through almost four years of fighting from Mons to Cambrai. In the March break-through he had his wrist broken by a rifle-bullet and was invalided home, where he took advantage of his leave to get married, partly because most of the men he knew were already married, and partly to please his sister. There were no other brothers, and Mrs. Morrison, a practical lady, but always a little regretful of her own marriage with Morrison's Boot and Shoe Company, recommended him with the family bluntness to arrange for an olive branch before the Huns got him. Laura, a penniless woman two years his senior and handicapped by her disreputable belongings, was not the wife Gertrude Morrison would have chosen for him: still it might have been worse, for Laura was well-born and personally irreproachable, while Clowes, hot-blooded and casual, was as likely as not to have married a chorus-girl. If any disappointment lingered, Gertrude soothed it by trying over in her own mind the irritation that she would be able to produce in Morrison circles: "Where he met her? Oh, when she was staying with her married sister at Castle Wharton . . . .Yvonne, the elder Selincourt girl, married into the Bendish family." Bernard did not care a straw either for the paternal handicap or for the glories of the Wharton connection. He took his love-affair as simply as his cricket and with the same bold confidence. Laura was what he wanted; she would fit into her surroundings at Wanhope as delicately as an old picture fits into an old frame, and one could leave her about--so he put it to himself--without fear of her getting damaged. When Tom Morrison, shrewd business man, dropped a hint about the rashness of marrying the daughter of a scamp like Ferdinand Selincourt, Bernard merely stared at him and let the indiscretion go in silence. He can scarcely be said to have loved his bride, for up to the time of the wedding his nature was not much more developed than that of a prize bull, but he considered her a very pretty woman, and his faith in her was a religion. So they were married, and went to Eastbourne for their honeymoon: an average match, not marked by passion on either side, but destined apparently to an average amount of comfort and good will. They had ten gay days before Laura was left on a victoria platform, gallantly smiling with pale lips and waving her handkerchief after the train that carried Bernard back to the front. Five months later on the eve of the Armistice he was flung out of the service, a broken man, paralysed below the waist, cursing every one who came near him and chiefly the surgeons for not letting him die. No one ever desired life more passionately than Bernard desired death. For some time he clung to the hope that his mind would wear his body out. But his body was too young, too strong, too tenacious of earth to be betrayed by the renegade mind. There came a day when Clowes felt his youth welling up in him like sap in a fallen tree: new energy throbbed in his veins, his heart beat strong and even, it was hard to believe that he could not get off his bed if he liked and go down to the playing fields or throw his leg over a horse. This mood fastened on him without warning in a Surbiton hospital after a calm night without a sleeping draught, when through his open window he could see green branches waving in sunlight, and hear the cries of men playing cricket and the smack of the driven ball: and it was torture. Tears forced their way suddenly into Bernard's eyes. His nurse, who had watched not a few reluctant recoveries, went out of the room. Then his great chest heaved, and he sobbed aloud, lying on his back with face unhidden, his wide black eyes blinking at the sweet pale June sky. No chance of death for him: he was good for ten, twenty, fifty years more: he could not bear it, but it had to be borne. He tried to pull himself up: if he could only have reached the window! But the arms that felt so strong were as weak as an infant's, while the dead weight of his helpless legs dragged on him like lead. The only result of his struggle was a dreadful access of pain. Reaction followed, for he had learnt in his A B C days not to whimper when he was hurt, and by the time the nurse returned Clowes had scourged himself back to his usual savage tranquillity. "Can I have that window shut, please?" he asked, cynically frank. "I used to play cricket myself." Laura Clowes in this period went through an experience almost equally formative. Two years older than Bernard, she was also more mature for her years and had developed more evenly, and from the outset her engagement and marriage had meant more to her then to Bernard, because her girlhood had been unhappy and they provided a way of escape. Her sister Yvonne had met Jack Bendish at a race-meeting and he had fallen madly in love with her and married her in a month in the teeth of

scams

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world. Isabel knew every one in Chilmark and every one knew her. Such a range of intensive acquaintance is not so narrow as people who have never lived in a country village are apt to suppose. Past the schoolhouse, past the wide stone bridge where Isabel loved to hang over the parapet watching for trout--but not tonight, for it was late, and Isabel after a "company tea" wanted her supper: by a footpath through the churchyard, closely mown and planted with rosebushes: and so into the church, where, after dropping a hurried professional curtsey to the altar, she set about her evening duties. Isabel called herself the curate, but she did a good deal which is not expected of a curate, such as shutting windows and changing lesson-markers, propping up the trebles when they went astray in the pointing of the Psalms, altering the numbers on the hymn-board, writing out choir papers, putting flowers in the vases and candles in the benediction lights, playing the organ as required and occasionally blowing it. . . . Before leaving the church she fell on her knees, in deference to Mr. Stafford and the text by the door, and said a prayer. What did she pray? "O Lord bless this church and all who worship in it and make father preach a good sermon next Sunday. I wish I'd been playing with Val instead of Jack, we should have won that last set if Jack hadn't muffed his services. . . . Well, this curate was only nineteen." And then, coming out into the fading light, she locked the north door behind her and went off whistling like a blackbird, if a blackbird could whistle the alto of Calkin's Magnificat in B flat. . . . Five minutes climbing of the steep brown floor of the beechwood, and she was out on uplands in the dying fires of day. It had been twilight in the valley, but here the wide plain was sunlit and the air was fresh and dry: in the valley even the river-aspens were almost quiet, but here there was still a sough of wind coming and going, through the dry grass thick set with lemon thyme and lady's slipper, or along the low garden wall where red valerian sprouted out of yellow stonecrop. A wishing gate led into the garden, and Isabel made for an open window, but halfway over the sill she paused, gazing with all her soul in her eyes across the vicarage gooseberry bushes. That grey suit was Val's of course, but who was inside the belted coat and riding breeches? "Rows-lee!" sang out Isabel, tumbling back into the garden with a generous display of leg. The raiders rose up each holding a handful of large red strawberries melting ripe, and Isabel, pitching in her racquet on a sofa, ran across the grass and enfolded her brother in her arms. Rowsley, dark and slight and shrewd, returned her hug with one arm, while carefully guarding his strawberries with the other--"You pig, you perfect pig!" wailed Isabel. "I was saving them for tea tomorrow, Laura's coming and I can't afford a cake. Oh joy, you can buy me one! How long can you stay?" "Over the week end: but I didn't come to buy you cakes, Baby. I haven't any money either. I came because I wanted you to buy me cakes." "O well never mind, I'll make one," Isabel joyously slipped her hand through Rowsley's arm. "Then I can get the flour from the baker and it won't cost anything at all--it'll go down in the bill. Well give me one anyhow, now they're picked it would be a pity to waste them." She helped herself liberally out of Val's hand. "Now stop both of you, you can't have any more." She linked her other arm in Val's and dragged her brothers out of the dangerous proximity of the strawberry beds. Val sat down on a deck chair, one leg thrown over the other, Rowsley dropped at full length on the turf, and Isabel doubled herself up between them, her arms clasped round her knees. "How's the Old Man?" she asked in friendly reference to Rowsley's commanding officer. "Oh Rose, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. Will Spillsby be able to play on the Fourth?" Spillsby, a brother subaltern and a famous bat, had twisted his ankle at the nets, and Rowsley in his last letter had been uncertain whether he would be well enough to play the Sappers at the annual fixture. Happily Rowsley was able to reassure his young sister: the ankle was much better and Spillsby was already allowed to walk on it. Isabel then turned her large velvet eyes--gazelle eyes with a world of pathos in their velvet gloom on her elder brother. "Coruscate, Val," she commanded. "You haven't said anything at all yet. We should all try to be bright in the home circle. We cannot all be witty, but-Ow! Rowsley, if you pull my hair I shall hit you in the--in the place where the Gauls fined their soldiers if they stuck out on parade. Oh, Val, that really isn't vulgar, I found it in Matthew Arnold! Their stomachs, you know. They wouldn't have fined you anyhow. You look fagged, darling-- are you?" "Not so much fagged as hungry," said Val in his soft voice. "It's getting on for nine o'clock and I was done out of my tea. I went in to Wanhope, but Laura was out, and Clowes was drinking whisky and soda. I cannot stand whisky at four in the afternoon, and Irish whisky at that. There'll be some supper going before long, won't there?" "Not until half past nine because Jimmy has his Bible class tonight." Jimmy was Mr. Stafford: and perhaps a purist might have objected that Mrs. Clowes and Yvonne Bendish had not done all they might have done to form Isabel's manners. "I'm so sorry, darling," she continued, preparing to leap to her feet. "Shall I get you a biscuit? There are oatmeals in the sideboard, the kind you like, I won't be a minute--" "Thanks very much, I'd rather wait. Did you see Mrs. Clowes today? Clowes said she was at the Castle." "So she was, sitting with Mrs. Morley in an angelic striped cotton. Mrs. Morley was in mauve ninon and a Gainsborough hat. Yvonne says Mr. Morley is a Jew and made his money in I. D. B.'s, which I suppose are some sort of stocks?" Neither of her brothers offered to enlighten her, Rowsley because he was feeling indolent, Val because he never said an unkind word to any one. Isabel, who was enamoured of her own voice flowed on with little delay: "If he really is a Jew, I can't think how she could marry him; I wouldn't. Mrs. Morley can't be very happy or Laura wouldn't go and talk to her. Laura is so sweet, she always sits with people that other people run away from. Oh Val, did Major Clowes tell you their news?" Isabel might refer to her father as Jimmy and to Rowsley's commander as the Old Man, but she rarely failed to give Bernard Clowes his correct prefix. "No--is there any?" "Only that they have some one coming to stay with them. Won't he have a deadly time?" Isabel glanced from Val to Rowsley in the certainty of a common response. "Imagine staying at Wanhope! However, he invited himself, so it's at his own risk. Perhaps he's embarrassed like you, Rose, and wants Laura to feed him. It's rather fun for Laura, though--that is, it will be, if Major Clowes isn't too hopeless." Strange freemasonry of the generations! Mr. Stafford's children loved him dearly and he was wont to say that there were no secrets at the vicarage, yet they lived in a conspiracy of silence, and even Val, who was mentally nearer to his father's age, would have been loth to let Mr. Stafford know as much as Isabel knew about Wanhope. It was assumed that Val's job was the very job Val wanted. Mr. Stafford had indeed a suspicion that it was not all plain sailing: Bernard Clowes retained just so much of the decently bred man as to be courteous to his wife before a mere acquaintance, but the vicar came and went at odd hours, and he observed now and then vague intimations--undertones from Bernard himself, an uncontrollable shrinking on Laura's part, an occasional hesitation or reluctance in Val--which hinted at flying storms. But Val, the father supposed, could make allowance for a cripple: Bernard was so much to be pitied that no man would resent an occasional burst of temper! And there his children left him. The younger generation can trust one another not to interfere, but when the seniors strike in, with their cut and dry precedents and rule of thumb moralities, who knows what mischief may follow? Elder people are so indiscreet! "It's a cousin of Major Clowes," Isabel continued, "but they haven't met for years and years--not since the war. Laura knows him too, she met him before she was married and liked him very much indeed. She's looking forward to it--that is, she would be if she had spirit enough to look forward to anything." "Clowes never said a word to me about it," remarked Val. "Didn't he?" Isabel unfolded herself and stood up. "That means he is going to be tiresome. I must run now, it's five past nine. Which will you both have, cold beef or eggs?" "Oh, anything that's going," said Val. "Eggs," said Rowsley, "not less than four. Without prejudice to the cold beef if it's underdone. Hallo!" "What?" "What's the matter with your skirt?" "Nothing," said Isabel shortly. She screwed her head over her shoulder in a vain endeavour to see her own back. "It's perfectly all right." "It would be, on a scarecrow." Isabel stuck her chin up. "Have you been over to the Castle in that kit, Baby? Well, if Yvonne won't give you some of her old clothes, you might ask the kitchenmaid." "The kitchenmaid has more money than I have," said Isabel cheerfully. "Is it so very bad? It's clean anyway, I washed and ironed it myself." "It looks very nice and so do you," said Val. Isabel eyed him with a softened glance: one could rely on Val to salve one's wounded vanity, but, alas! Val did not know home-made from tailor-made. Reluctantly she owned to herself that she had more faith in Rowsley's judgment. "It seems rather short though," Val added. "I suppose you will have to go into long frocks pretty soon, won't you, and put your hair up?" "Oh bother my hair and my dresses!" said Isabel with a great sigh. "I will pin my hair up when I get some new clothes, but how can I when I haven't any money and Jim hasn't any money and neither of you have any money? Don't you see, idiot," this was exclusively to Rowsley, "when I pin my hair up I shall turn into a grown up lady? And then I shall have to wear proper clothes. At present I'm only a little girl and it doesn't signify what I wear. If any one will give me five pounds I'll pin my hair up like a shot. Oh dear, I wonder what Yvonne would say if Jack expected her to outfit herself for five pounds? I do wish some one would leave me 10,000 pounds a year. Get up now, you lazy beggar, come and help me lay the supper. It's Fanny's evening out." She pulled Rowsley to his feet and they went off together leaving Val alone on the lawn: good comrades those two, and apparently more of an age, in spite of the long gap between them, than Rowsley and Val, who was the eldest by only eighteen months. And Val sat on alone, while stains of coral and amber faded out of the lavender sky, and a rack of sea clouds, which half an hour ago had shone like fiery ripples, dwindled away into smoke--mist --a mere shadow on the breast of the night. Stars began to sparkle, moths and humming cockchafers sailed by him, a chase of bats overhead endlessly fell down airy precipices and rose in long loops of darkling flight: honeysuckle and night-scented stock tinged with their sweet garden perfume the cool airs from the moor. Val lit a cigarette, a rare indulgence. If cigarettes grew on gooseberry bushes Val would have been an inveterate smoker, but good Egyptians were a luxury which he could not often afford The Wanhope agency was ample for his needs, though underpaid as agencies go: but there was Rowsley, always hard up, uncomplaining, but sensitive, as a young fellow in his position is sure to be, and secretly fretting because he could not do as other men did: and there was Isabel, for whom Val felt the anxiety Mr. Stafford ought to have felt, and was trying to make the provision Mr. Stafford ought to have made: and then there was the vicar himself, who laid out a great deal of money in those investments for which we are promised cent per cent interest, but upon a system of deferred payment. Tonight however Val lit a cigarette, and then a second, to the surprise of Isabel, who saw the red spark on the lawn. She thought her brother must be tired, and perhaps it really was the long day without food that made him so restless in mind and so uneasy. Bernard Clowes had been more than usually cranky that afternoon. Even the patient Val had had thoughts of throwing up his job when the cripple made him go through his week's accounts, scrutinizing every entry and cross-examining him on every transaction in such a tone as the head of a firm might employ to a junior clerk suspected of dishonesty. It was Bernard's way: it meant nothing: but it was irksome to Val, especially when he could not soothe himself by dropping into Laura's quiet parlour for a cup of tea. Yet his irritation would not have lingered through a cigarette if Isabel's news had not revived it. This cousin of Bernard's! Val had not much faith in any cousin of Bernard Clowes: nor in the kindness of life. Val was a slight, fair, pleasant-looking man of eight or nine and twenty, quiet of movement, friendly-mannered and as inconspicuous as his own rather worn grey tweeds: one of a class, till he raised his eyes: and then? There was something strange in Val's eyes when they were fully raised, an indrawn arresting brilliance difficult to analyse: imaginative and sympathetic, as if he were at home in dark places: the quality of acceptance of pain. Adepts in old days knew by his eyes a man who had been on the rack. Stafford had been racked: and by the pain that is half shame, the keenest, the most lacerating and destructive of wounds. He had suffered till he could suffer no more, and tonight in the starlit garden he, suffered still, without hope, or rebellion, or defence. Indoors Rowsley and Isabel, with the rapidity of long use, laid the cloth, and Isabel fetched cold beef from the larder and butter and eggs from the dairy, while Rowsley went down the cellar with a jug and a candle and drew from the cask a generous allowance of beer. "Come along in, old Val," said Isabel, reappearing at the open window, "You and Rose are both famishing and I'm not," this was a pious fiction, "so you can begin and I'll wait for Jimmy. I dare say he's gone wandering off somewhere and won't be in till ten." Val came across the dark, cool lawn and climbed over the window sill. A shabby room, large and low: a faded paper, grey toning to blue: a carpet of faded roses on a grey ground: the shaded Dresden lamp and roselit supper table shining like an island in a pool of shadow, and those two beloved heads, both so dark and smooth and young, tam cara capita! Neither of them suspected that Val was unhappy. His feeling for them was more fatherly than fraternal, and Rowsley, strange to say, fell in with Val's attitude, coming to his brother for money as naturally as most young men go to their parents. Val sat at the head of the table because Mr. Stafford could not carve. "There!" said Isabel, giving him his plate. "Mustard? I've just made it so you needn't look to see if it's fresh. Watercress: I picked it myself. Lettuce. Cream and vinegar and sugar. Beer. Now do you feel happy? Lord love you, dear, I like to see you eat." She sat on the arm of Mr. Stafford's mahogany chair. "What time do you want breakfast? Seven o'clock? Major Clowes wouldn't come down at seven if he were your agent. Can you get back to tea tomorrow? Laura may bring the cousin up to tea with her and she wants him to meet you." "Very good of her. Why?" "Oh, because he was in the Army too and all through the war. He went out with the first hundred thousand. He's much older than you are--the same age as Laura. Oh, wait a minute!" exclaimed Isabel in the tone in which a Frenchwoman says Tenez. I forgot. She thinks you must have met him, Val." "Possibly," said Val. "Was he in the Dorchesters?" asked Rowsley--much more interested than his brother, no doubt because he was not so hungry as Val, who was giving all his attention to his supper. "No, in the Winchesters," said Isabel. "Do I mean the Winchesters, Val? What was Major Clowes' old regiment?" "Clowes was in the Wintons." Isabel nodded. "Then so was the cousin. And Laura says he was out there when the Wintons were in the next bit of trench north of the Dorchesters. He was there when--when you were wounded." Such was Val Stafford's modesty that in the family circle it was not in etiquette to refer in other terms to that famous occasion. "I don't remember any fellow named Clowes and I never knew Bernard Clowes had a cousin out there," said Val, mixing himself a salad. "Oh, his name isn't Clowes. It's Ryde or Pride or something like that. I'm sorry to be so vague, but Jack Bendish and Yvonne and Mrs. Morley were all talking at once. Lawrence Pied--Fried--" "Lawrence Hyde?" "Yes, that's it! Then you really do remember him?" "Er--yes. Is that lamp smoking, Rowsley? You might turn it down a trifle, I can't reach." "Let me, let me?-- What was he like?" "Who--Hyde? Oh," said Val vaguely, "he was like the rest of us --very tired." "Tired?" echoed Isabel with a blank face, "but, Val darling, he couldn't have been only tired! What should you think he was like when he wasn't tired?" "That is a question I have occasionally asked myself," Val answered with his faint indecipherable smile. "My dear child, I only saw him once or twice. He was a senior captain and commanded his company. I was a very junior lieutenant." "Still he was there at the time," reflected Isabel. "O Rose! if he's anything like nice, which is almost past praying for in Major Clowes' cousin, let's beguile him into the gooseberry bushes and make him tell us all about it! Val is very dear to his family, but no one, however tenderly attached to him, could call him a brilliant raconteur. Now Mr. Hyde won't have any modest scruples. Val, if there is a slug in that lettuce I wish you would say so. It would hurt my feelings less than for you to sit looking at it in a stony silence. Was he good-looking?" "Possibly he might be," said Val, "when he scraped the dirt off." After a moment he added, "He was very decent to me." "Was he? Then he was nice?" "Gnat," said Rowsley from the middle of his third egg. Isabel rounded him indignantly. "I'm not gnatting! I'm not asking Val anything about himself, am I? Val can't possibly mind telling me about another man in another regiment. You eat your eggs, there's a good boy, before they get cold.-- Laura says the Dorchesters dined the Winchesters once when they were in billets. Was that when you and Mr. Hyde were there?" "Captain Hyde," Val corrected his young sister. "Yes, we both graced the festive board. It was too festive for me. We had Buszard's soup and curried chicken and real cream, and more champagne than was good for us. But it was not on that occasion that Hyde was so decent to me. The day I--the day Dale went down--" Rowsley nodded to him as he raised his glass of beer to his lips--"thank you, Rose.-- As I was saying, that evening I ran across Hyde between the lines. The Dorsets and Wintons had gone over the top together, and he had been left behind with a bullet in his chest. I was done to the world, but he had some brandy left and shared it with me. If it had not been for Hyde I should never have brought Dale in." "Well, I've never heard that before," said Rowsley to his fourth egg. Isabel was silent, and her eyes in the shadow of a momentary gravity were the eyes of a woman and not of a child. She raised them to look out at the evening sky, indigo blue against the lamplit interior, or faintly primrose in the west, and wondered for the thousandth time why it was still such an effort to Val to refer to his brief military experience. Soft country noises came in, peaceful and soothing: the short shrill shriek of a bat, the rustle of a branch of rose-leaves moving like a hand over the window panes, a faint breathing of wind from the moor. Surely the scar of war ought to be healed by now! Isabel kept these thoughts to herself: young as she was, her solitary life--for a woman alone among men is always to some extent solitary--had trained her to a clear perception of what had better not be said. "When is Hyde coming?" asked Val, going on with his salad. "Tomorrow, didn't you hear me say Laura is going to bring him here to tea? He's staying at his own place, Farringay--I think from the way Laura spoke it is what one calls a place--and they expect him by the morning train. Laura's to meet him in the car." "Did you ask her to bring him in to tea," said Rowsley, frowning over the marmalade jar, "when Val is safe to be out and you didn't know I should be here?" "Yes: oughtn't I to have?" "No." "Is there anything else you would like to speak to me about?" said Isabel after a pregnant silence. "Dear Rowsley, you seem determined to look after my manners and morals! I asked him to please Laura. She's nervous of Major Clowes. Jack and Yvonne are coming too." "Oh I don't see that it signifies," said Val. Mrs. Clowes wouldn't have accepted if it weren't all right. I don't see that you or I need worry if she doesn't. Isabel is old enough to pour out tea for herself. In any case, as it happens, you'll be here if I'm not, and I dare say Jimmy will look in for ten minutes." "You are sweet, Val," said Isabel gratefully. "Oh I don't say Rowsley's not right! Prigs generally are: and besides now I come to think of it, Laura did look faintly amused when I asked her. But these stupid things never occur to me till afterwards! After all, what am I to do? I can't manufacture a chaperon, and it would be very bad for the parish if the vicar never entertained. And it's not as if Captain Hyde were a young man; he's thirty-six if he's a day." CHAPTER III When the sea retreats after a storm one finds on the beach all sorts of strange flotsam. Bernard Clowes was a bit of human wreckage left on the sands of society by the storm of the war. When it broke out he was a second lieutenant in the Winchester Regiment, a keen polo player and first class batsman who rarely opened a book. He was sent out with the First Division and carried himself with his usual phlegmatic good humour through almost four years of fighting from Mons to Cambrai. In the March break-through he had his wrist broken by a rifle-bullet and was invalided home, where he took advantage of his leave to get married, partly because most of the men he knew were already married, and partly to please his sister. There were no other brothers, and Mrs. Morrison, a practical lady, but always a little regretful of her own marriage with Morrison's Boot and Shoe Company, recommended him with the family bluntness to arrange for an olive branch before the Huns got him. Laura, a penniless woman two years his senior and handicapped by her disreputable belongings, was not the wife Gertrude Morrison would have chosen for him: still it might have been worse, for Laura was well-born and personally irreproachable, while Clowes, hot-blooded and casual, was as likely as not to have married a chorus-girl. If any disappointment lingered, Gertrude soothed it by trying over in her own mind the irritation that she would be able to produce in Morrison circles: "Where he met her? Oh, when she was staying with her married sister at Castle Wharton . . . .Yvonne, the elder Selincourt girl, married into the Bendish family." Bernard did not care a straw either for the paternal handicap or for the glories of the Wharton connection. He took his love-affair as simply as his cricket and with the same bold confidence. Laura was what he wanted; she would fit into her surroundings at Wanhope as delicately as an old picture fits into an old frame, and one could leave her about--so he put it to himself--without fear of her getting damaged. When Tom Morrison, shrewd business man, dropped a hint about the rashness of marrying the daughter of a scamp like Ferdinand Selincourt, Bernard merely stared at him and let the indiscretion go in silence. He can scarcely be said to have loved his bride, for up to the time of the wedding his nature was not much more developed than that of a prize bull, but he considered her a very pretty woman, and his faith in her was a religion. So they were married, and went to Eastbourne for their honeymoon: an average match, not marked by passion on either side, but destined apparently to an average amount of comfort and good will. They had ten gay days before Laura was left on a victoria platform, gallantly smiling with pale lips and waving her handkerchief after the train that carried Bernard back to the front. Five months later on the eve of the Armistice he was flung out of the service, a broken man, paralysed below the waist, cursing every one who came near him and chiefly the surgeons for not letting him die. No one ever desired life more passionately than Bernard desired death. For some time he clung to the hope that his mind would wear his body out. But his body was too young, too strong, too tenacious of earth to be betrayed by the renegade mind. There came a day when Clowes felt his youth welling up in him like sap in a fallen tree: new energy throbbed in his veins, his heart beat strong and even, it was hard to believe that he could not get off his bed if he liked and go down to the playing fields or throw his leg over a horse. This mood fastened on him without warning in a Surbiton hospital after a calm night without a sleeping draught, when through his open window he could see green branches waving in sunlight, and hear the cries of men playing cricket and the smack of the driven ball: and it was torture. Tears forced their way suddenly into Bernard's eyes. His nurse, who had watched not a few reluctant recoveries, went out of the room. Then his great chest heaved, and he sobbed aloud, lying on his back with face unhidden, his wide black eyes blinking at the sweet pale June sky. No chance of death for him: he was good for ten, twenty, fifty years more: he could not bear it, but it had to be borne. He tried to pull himself up: if he could only have reached the window! But the arms that felt so strong were as weak as an infant's, while the dead weight of his helpless legs dragged on him like lead. The only result of his struggle was a dreadful access of pain. Reaction followed, for he had learnt in his A B C days not to whimper when he was hurt, and by the time the nurse returned Clowes had scourged himself back to his usual savage tranquillity. "Can I have that window shut, please?" he asked, cynically frank. "I used to play cricket myself." Laura Clowes in this period went through an experience almost equally formative. Two years older than Bernard, she was also more mature for her years and had developed more evenly, and from the outset her engagement and marriage had meant more to her then to Bernard, because her girlhood had been unhappy and they provided a way of escape. Her sister Yvonne had met Jack Bendish at a race-meeting and he had fallen madly in love with her and married her in a month in the teeth of

bravery

How many times the word 'bravery' appears in the text?

world. Isabel knew every one in Chilmark and every one knew her. Such a range of intensive acquaintance is not so narrow as people who have never lived in a country village are apt to suppose. Past the schoolhouse, past the wide stone bridge where Isabel loved to hang over the parapet watching for trout--but not tonight, for it was late, and Isabel after a "company tea" wanted her supper: by a footpath through the churchyard, closely mown and planted with rosebushes: and so into the church, where, after dropping a hurried professional curtsey to the altar, she set about her evening duties. Isabel called herself the curate, but she did a good deal which is not expected of a curate, such as shutting windows and changing lesson-markers, propping up the trebles when they went astray in the pointing of the Psalms, altering the numbers on the hymn-board, writing out choir papers, putting flowers in the vases and candles in the benediction lights, playing the organ as required and occasionally blowing it. . . . Before leaving the church she fell on her knees, in deference to Mr. Stafford and the text by the door, and said a prayer. What did she pray? "O Lord bless this church and all who worship in it and make father preach a good sermon next Sunday. I wish I'd been playing with Val instead of Jack, we should have won that last set if Jack hadn't muffed his services. . . . Well, this curate was only nineteen." And then, coming out into the fading light, she locked the north door behind her and went off whistling like a blackbird, if a blackbird could whistle the alto of Calkin's Magnificat in B flat. . . . Five minutes climbing of the steep brown floor of the beechwood, and she was out on uplands in the dying fires of day. It had been twilight in the valley, but here the wide plain was sunlit and the air was fresh and dry: in the valley even the river-aspens were almost quiet, but here there was still a sough of wind coming and going, through the dry grass thick set with lemon thyme and lady's slipper, or along the low garden wall where red valerian sprouted out of yellow stonecrop. A wishing gate led into the garden, and Isabel made for an open window, but halfway over the sill she paused, gazing with all her soul in her eyes across the vicarage gooseberry bushes. That grey suit was Val's of course, but who was inside the belted coat and riding breeches? "Rows-lee!" sang out Isabel, tumbling back into the garden with a generous display of leg. The raiders rose up each holding a handful of large red strawberries melting ripe, and Isabel, pitching in her racquet on a sofa, ran across the grass and enfolded her brother in her arms. Rowsley, dark and slight and shrewd, returned her hug with one arm, while carefully guarding his strawberries with the other--"You pig, you perfect pig!" wailed Isabel. "I was saving them for tea tomorrow, Laura's coming and I can't afford a cake. Oh joy, you can buy me one! How long can you stay?" "Over the week end: but I didn't come to buy you cakes, Baby. I haven't any money either. I came because I wanted you to buy me cakes." "O well never mind, I'll make one," Isabel joyously slipped her hand through Rowsley's arm. "Then I can get the flour from the baker and it won't cost anything at all--it'll go down in the bill. Well give me one anyhow, now they're picked it would be a pity to waste them." She helped herself liberally out of Val's hand. "Now stop both of you, you can't have any more." She linked her other arm in Val's and dragged her brothers out of the dangerous proximity of the strawberry beds. Val sat down on a deck chair, one leg thrown over the other, Rowsley dropped at full length on the turf, and Isabel doubled herself up between them, her arms clasped round her knees. "How's the Old Man?" she asked in friendly reference to Rowsley's commanding officer. "Oh Rose, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. Will Spillsby be able to play on the Fourth?" Spillsby, a brother subaltern and a famous bat, had twisted his ankle at the nets, and Rowsley in his last letter had been uncertain whether he would be well enough to play the Sappers at the annual fixture. Happily Rowsley was able to reassure his young sister: the ankle was much better and Spillsby was already allowed to walk on it. Isabel then turned her large velvet eyes--gazelle eyes with a world of pathos in their velvet gloom on her elder brother. "Coruscate, Val," she commanded. "You haven't said anything at all yet. We should all try to be bright in the home circle. We cannot all be witty, but-Ow! Rowsley, if you pull my hair I shall hit you in the--in the place where the Gauls fined their soldiers if they stuck out on parade. Oh, Val, that really isn't vulgar, I found it in Matthew Arnold! Their stomachs, you know. They wouldn't have fined you anyhow. You look fagged, darling-- are you?" "Not so much fagged as hungry," said Val in his soft voice. "It's getting on for nine o'clock and I was done out of my tea. I went in to Wanhope, but Laura was out, and Clowes was drinking whisky and soda. I cannot stand whisky at four in the afternoon, and Irish whisky at that. There'll be some supper going before long, won't there?" "Not until half past nine because Jimmy has his Bible class tonight." Jimmy was Mr. Stafford: and perhaps a purist might have objected that Mrs. Clowes and Yvonne Bendish had not done all they might have done to form Isabel's manners. "I'm so sorry, darling," she continued, preparing to leap to her feet. "Shall I get you a biscuit? There are oatmeals in the sideboard, the kind you like, I won't be a minute--" "Thanks very much, I'd rather wait. Did you see Mrs. Clowes today? Clowes said she was at the Castle." "So she was, sitting with Mrs. Morley in an angelic striped cotton. Mrs. Morley was in mauve ninon and a Gainsborough hat. Yvonne says Mr. Morley is a Jew and made his money in I. D. B.'s, which I suppose are some sort of stocks?" Neither of her brothers offered to enlighten her, Rowsley because he was feeling indolent, Val because he never said an unkind word to any one. Isabel, who was enamoured of her own voice flowed on with little delay: "If he really is a Jew, I can't think how she could marry him; I wouldn't. Mrs. Morley can't be very happy or Laura wouldn't go and talk to her. Laura is so sweet, she always sits with people that other people run away from. Oh Val, did Major Clowes tell you their news?" Isabel might refer to her father as Jimmy and to Rowsley's commander as the Old Man, but she rarely failed to give Bernard Clowes his correct prefix. "No--is there any?" "Only that they have some one coming to stay with them. Won't he have a deadly time?" Isabel glanced from Val to Rowsley in the certainty of a common response. "Imagine staying at Wanhope! However, he invited himself, so it's at his own risk. Perhaps he's embarrassed like you, Rose, and wants Laura to feed him. It's rather fun for Laura, though--that is, it will be, if Major Clowes isn't too hopeless." Strange freemasonry of the generations! Mr. Stafford's children loved him dearly and he was wont to say that there were no secrets at the vicarage, yet they lived in a conspiracy of silence, and even Val, who was mentally nearer to his father's age, would have been loth to let Mr. Stafford know as much as Isabel knew about Wanhope. It was assumed that Val's job was the very job Val wanted. Mr. Stafford had indeed a suspicion that it was not all plain sailing: Bernard Clowes retained just so much of the decently bred man as to be courteous to his wife before a mere acquaintance, but the vicar came and went at odd hours, and he observed now and then vague intimations--undertones from Bernard himself, an uncontrollable shrinking on Laura's part, an occasional hesitation or reluctance in Val--which hinted at flying storms. But Val, the father supposed, could make allowance for a cripple: Bernard was so much to be pitied that no man would resent an occasional burst of temper! And there his children left him. The younger generation can trust one another not to interfere, but when the seniors strike in, with their cut and dry precedents and rule of thumb moralities, who knows what mischief may follow? Elder people are so indiscreet! "It's a cousin of Major Clowes," Isabel continued, "but they haven't met for years and years--not since the war. Laura knows him too, she met him before she was married and liked him very much indeed. She's looking forward to it--that is, she would be if she had spirit enough to look forward to anything." "Clowes never said a word to me about it," remarked Val. "Didn't he?" Isabel unfolded herself and stood up. "That means he is going to be tiresome. I must run now, it's five past nine. Which will you both have, cold beef or eggs?" "Oh, anything that's going," said Val. "Eggs," said Rowsley, "not less than four. Without prejudice to the cold beef if it's underdone. Hallo!" "What?" "What's the matter with your skirt?" "Nothing," said Isabel shortly. She screwed her head over her shoulder in a vain endeavour to see her own back. "It's perfectly all right." "It would be, on a scarecrow." Isabel stuck her chin up. "Have you been over to the Castle in that kit, Baby? Well, if Yvonne won't give you some of her old clothes, you might ask the kitchenmaid." "The kitchenmaid has more money than I have," said Isabel cheerfully. "Is it so very bad? It's clean anyway, I washed and ironed it myself." "It looks very nice and so do you," said Val. Isabel eyed him with a softened glance: one could rely on Val to salve one's wounded vanity, but, alas! Val did not know home-made from tailor-made. Reluctantly she owned to herself that she had more faith in Rowsley's judgment. "It seems rather short though," Val added. "I suppose you will have to go into long frocks pretty soon, won't you, and put your hair up?" "Oh bother my hair and my dresses!" said Isabel with a great sigh. "I will pin my hair up when I get some new clothes, but how can I when I haven't any money and Jim hasn't any money and neither of you have any money? Don't you see, idiot," this was exclusively to Rowsley, "when I pin my hair up I shall turn into a grown up lady? And then I shall have to wear proper clothes. At present I'm only a little girl and it doesn't signify what I wear. If any one will give me five pounds I'll pin my hair up like a shot. Oh dear, I wonder what Yvonne would say if Jack expected her to outfit herself for five pounds? I do wish some one would leave me 10,000 pounds a year. Get up now, you lazy beggar, come and help me lay the supper. It's Fanny's evening out." She pulled Rowsley to his feet and they went off together leaving Val alone on the lawn: good comrades those two, and apparently more of an age, in spite of the long gap between them, than Rowsley and Val, who was the eldest by only eighteen months. And Val sat on alone, while stains of coral and amber faded out of the lavender sky, and a rack of sea clouds, which half an hour ago had shone like fiery ripples, dwindled away into smoke--mist --a mere shadow on the breast of the night. Stars began to sparkle, moths and humming cockchafers sailed by him, a chase of bats overhead endlessly fell down airy precipices and rose in long loops of darkling flight: honeysuckle and night-scented stock tinged with their sweet garden perfume the cool airs from the moor. Val lit a cigarette, a rare indulgence. If cigarettes grew on gooseberry bushes Val would have been an inveterate smoker, but good Egyptians were a luxury which he could not often afford The Wanhope agency was ample for his needs, though underpaid as agencies go: but there was Rowsley, always hard up, uncomplaining, but sensitive, as a young fellow in his position is sure to be, and secretly fretting because he could not do as other men did: and there was Isabel, for whom Val felt the anxiety Mr. Stafford ought to have felt, and was trying to make the provision Mr. Stafford ought to have made: and then there was the vicar himself, who laid out a great deal of money in those investments for which we are promised cent per cent interest, but upon a system of deferred payment. Tonight however Val lit a cigarette, and then a second, to the surprise of Isabel, who saw the red spark on the lawn. She thought her brother must be tired, and perhaps it really was the long day without food that made him so restless in mind and so uneasy. Bernard Clowes had been more than usually cranky that afternoon. Even the patient Val had had thoughts of throwing up his job when the cripple made him go through his week's accounts, scrutinizing every entry and cross-examining him on every transaction in such a tone as the head of a firm might employ to a junior clerk suspected of dishonesty. It was Bernard's way: it meant nothing: but it was irksome to Val, especially when he could not soothe himself by dropping into Laura's quiet parlour for a cup of tea. Yet his irritation would not have lingered through a cigarette if Isabel's news had not revived it. This cousin of Bernard's! Val had not much faith in any cousin of Bernard Clowes: nor in the kindness of life. Val was a slight, fair, pleasant-looking man of eight or nine and twenty, quiet of movement, friendly-mannered and as inconspicuous as his own rather worn grey tweeds: one of a class, till he raised his eyes: and then? There was something strange in Val's eyes when they were fully raised, an indrawn arresting brilliance difficult to analyse: imaginative and sympathetic, as if he were at home in dark places: the quality of acceptance of pain. Adepts in old days knew by his eyes a man who had been on the rack. Stafford had been racked: and by the pain that is half shame, the keenest, the most lacerating and destructive of wounds. He had suffered till he could suffer no more, and tonight in the starlit garden he, suffered still, without hope, or rebellion, or defence. Indoors Rowsley and Isabel, with the rapidity of long use, laid the cloth, and Isabel fetched cold beef from the larder and butter and eggs from the dairy, while Rowsley went down the cellar with a jug and a candle and drew from the cask a generous allowance of beer. "Come along in, old Val," said Isabel, reappearing at the open window, "You and Rose are both famishing and I'm not," this was a pious fiction, "so you can begin and I'll wait for Jimmy. I dare say he's gone wandering off somewhere and won't be in till ten." Val came across the dark, cool lawn and climbed over the window sill. A shabby room, large and low: a faded paper, grey toning to blue: a carpet of faded roses on a grey ground: the shaded Dresden lamp and roselit supper table shining like an island in a pool of shadow, and those two beloved heads, both so dark and smooth and young, tam cara capita! Neither of them suspected that Val was unhappy. His feeling for them was more fatherly than fraternal, and Rowsley, strange to say, fell in with Val's attitude, coming to his brother for money as naturally as most young men go to their parents. Val sat at the head of the table because Mr. Stafford could not carve. "There!" said Isabel, giving him his plate. "Mustard? I've just made it so you needn't look to see if it's fresh. Watercress: I picked it myself. Lettuce. Cream and vinegar and sugar. Beer. Now do you feel happy? Lord love you, dear, I like to see you eat." She sat on the arm of Mr. Stafford's mahogany chair. "What time do you want breakfast? Seven o'clock? Major Clowes wouldn't come down at seven if he were your agent. Can you get back to tea tomorrow? Laura may bring the cousin up to tea with her and she wants him to meet you." "Very good of her. Why?" "Oh, because he was in the Army too and all through the war. He went out with the first hundred thousand. He's much older than you are--the same age as Laura. Oh, wait a minute!" exclaimed Isabel in the tone in which a Frenchwoman says Tenez. I forgot. She thinks you must have met him, Val." "Possibly," said Val. "Was he in the Dorchesters?" asked Rowsley--much more interested than his brother, no doubt because he was not so hungry as Val, who was giving all his attention to his supper. "No, in the Winchesters," said Isabel. "Do I mean the Winchesters, Val? What was Major Clowes' old regiment?" "Clowes was in the Wintons." Isabel nodded. "Then so was the cousin. And Laura says he was out there when the Wintons were in the next bit of trench north of the Dorchesters. He was there when--when you were wounded." Such was Val Stafford's modesty that in the family circle it was not in etiquette to refer in other terms to that famous occasion. "I don't remember any fellow named Clowes and I never knew Bernard Clowes had a cousin out there," said Val, mixing himself a salad. "Oh, his name isn't Clowes. It's Ryde or Pride or something like that. I'm sorry to be so vague, but Jack Bendish and Yvonne and Mrs. Morley were all talking at once. Lawrence Pied--Fried--" "Lawrence Hyde?" "Yes, that's it! Then you really do remember him?" "Er--yes. Is that lamp smoking, Rowsley? You might turn it down a trifle, I can't reach." "Let me, let me?-- What was he like?" "Who--Hyde? Oh," said Val vaguely, "he was like the rest of us --very tired." "Tired?" echoed Isabel with a blank face, "but, Val darling, he couldn't have been only tired! What should you think he was like when he wasn't tired?" "That is a question I have occasionally asked myself," Val answered with his faint indecipherable smile. "My dear child, I only saw him once or twice. He was a senior captain and commanded his company. I was a very junior lieutenant." "Still he was there at the time," reflected Isabel. "O Rose! if he's anything like nice, which is almost past praying for in Major Clowes' cousin, let's beguile him into the gooseberry bushes and make him tell us all about it! Val is very dear to his family, but no one, however tenderly attached to him, could call him a brilliant raconteur. Now Mr. Hyde won't have any modest scruples. Val, if there is a slug in that lettuce I wish you would say so. It would hurt my feelings less than for you to sit looking at it in a stony silence. Was he good-looking?" "Possibly he might be," said Val, "when he scraped the dirt off." After a moment he added, "He was very decent to me." "Was he? Then he was nice?" "Gnat," said Rowsley from the middle of his third egg. Isabel rounded him indignantly. "I'm not gnatting! I'm not asking Val anything about himself, am I? Val can't possibly mind telling me about another man in another regiment. You eat your eggs, there's a good boy, before they get cold.-- Laura says the Dorchesters dined the Winchesters once when they were in billets. Was that when you and Mr. Hyde were there?" "Captain Hyde," Val corrected his young sister. "Yes, we both graced the festive board. It was too festive for me. We had Buszard's soup and curried chicken and real cream, and more champagne than was good for us. But it was not on that occasion that Hyde was so decent to me. The day I--the day Dale went down--" Rowsley nodded to him as he raised his glass of beer to his lips--"thank you, Rose.-- As I was saying, that evening I ran across Hyde between the lines. The Dorsets and Wintons had gone over the top together, and he had been left behind with a bullet in his chest. I was done to the world, but he had some brandy left and shared it with me. If it had not been for Hyde I should never have brought Dale in." "Well, I've never heard that before," said Rowsley to his fourth egg. Isabel was silent, and her eyes in the shadow of a momentary gravity were the eyes of a woman and not of a child. She raised them to look out at the evening sky, indigo blue against the lamplit interior, or faintly primrose in the west, and wondered for the thousandth time why it was still such an effort to Val to refer to his brief military experience. Soft country noises came in, peaceful and soothing: the short shrill shriek of a bat, the rustle of a branch of rose-leaves moving like a hand over the window panes, a faint breathing of wind from the moor. Surely the scar of war ought to be healed by now! Isabel kept these thoughts to herself: young as she was, her solitary life--for a woman alone among men is always to some extent solitary--had trained her to a clear perception of what had better not be said. "When is Hyde coming?" asked Val, going on with his salad. "Tomorrow, didn't you hear me say Laura is going to bring him here to tea? He's staying at his own place, Farringay--I think from the way Laura spoke it is what one calls a place--and they expect him by the morning train. Laura's to meet him in the car." "Did you ask her to bring him in to tea," said Rowsley, frowning over the marmalade jar, "when Val is safe to be out and you didn't know I should be here?" "Yes: oughtn't I to have?" "No." "Is there anything else you would like to speak to me about?" said Isabel after a pregnant silence. "Dear Rowsley, you seem determined to look after my manners and morals! I asked him to please Laura. She's nervous of Major Clowes. Jack and Yvonne are coming too." "Oh I don't see that it signifies," said Val. Mrs. Clowes wouldn't have accepted if it weren't all right. I don't see that you or I need worry if she doesn't. Isabel is old enough to pour out tea for herself. In any case, as it happens, you'll be here if I'm not, and I dare say Jimmy will look in for ten minutes." "You are sweet, Val," said Isabel gratefully. "Oh I don't say Rowsley's not right! Prigs generally are: and besides now I come to think of it, Laura did look faintly amused when I asked her. But these stupid things never occur to me till afterwards! After all, what am I to do? I can't manufacture a chaperon, and it would be very bad for the parish if the vicar never entertained. And it's not as if Captain Hyde were a young man; he's thirty-six if he's a day." CHAPTER III When the sea retreats after a storm one finds on the beach all sorts of strange flotsam. Bernard Clowes was a bit of human wreckage left on the sands of society by the storm of the war. When it broke out he was a second lieutenant in the Winchester Regiment, a keen polo player and first class batsman who rarely opened a book. He was sent out with the First Division and carried himself with his usual phlegmatic good humour through almost four years of fighting from Mons to Cambrai. In the March break-through he had his wrist broken by a rifle-bullet and was invalided home, where he took advantage of his leave to get married, partly because most of the men he knew were already married, and partly to please his sister. There were no other brothers, and Mrs. Morrison, a practical lady, but always a little regretful of her own marriage with Morrison's Boot and Shoe Company, recommended him with the family bluntness to arrange for an olive branch before the Huns got him. Laura, a penniless woman two years his senior and handicapped by her disreputable belongings, was not the wife Gertrude Morrison would have chosen for him: still it might have been worse, for Laura was well-born and personally irreproachable, while Clowes, hot-blooded and casual, was as likely as not to have married a chorus-girl. If any disappointment lingered, Gertrude soothed it by trying over in her own mind the irritation that she would be able to produce in Morrison circles: "Where he met her? Oh, when she was staying with her married sister at Castle Wharton . . . .Yvonne, the elder Selincourt girl, married into the Bendish family." Bernard did not care a straw either for the paternal handicap or for the glories of the Wharton connection. He took his love-affair as simply as his cricket and with the same bold confidence. Laura was what he wanted; she would fit into her surroundings at Wanhope as delicately as an old picture fits into an old frame, and one could leave her about--so he put it to himself--without fear of her getting damaged. When Tom Morrison, shrewd business man, dropped a hint about the rashness of marrying the daughter of a scamp like Ferdinand Selincourt, Bernard merely stared at him and let the indiscretion go in silence. He can scarcely be said to have loved his bride, for up to the time of the wedding his nature was not much more developed than that of a prize bull, but he considered her a very pretty woman, and his faith in her was a religion. So they were married, and went to Eastbourne for their honeymoon: an average match, not marked by passion on either side, but destined apparently to an average amount of comfort and good will. They had ten gay days before Laura was left on a victoria platform, gallantly smiling with pale lips and waving her handkerchief after the train that carried Bernard back to the front. Five months later on the eve of the Armistice he was flung out of the service, a broken man, paralysed below the waist, cursing every one who came near him and chiefly the surgeons for not letting him die. No one ever desired life more passionately than Bernard desired death. For some time he clung to the hope that his mind would wear his body out. But his body was too young, too strong, too tenacious of earth to be betrayed by the renegade mind. There came a day when Clowes felt his youth welling up in him like sap in a fallen tree: new energy throbbed in his veins, his heart beat strong and even, it was hard to believe that he could not get off his bed if he liked and go down to the playing fields or throw his leg over a horse. This mood fastened on him without warning in a Surbiton hospital after a calm night without a sleeping draught, when through his open window he could see green branches waving in sunlight, and hear the cries of men playing cricket and the smack of the driven ball: and it was torture. Tears forced their way suddenly into Bernard's eyes. His nurse, who had watched not a few reluctant recoveries, went out of the room. Then his great chest heaved, and he sobbed aloud, lying on his back with face unhidden, his wide black eyes blinking at the sweet pale June sky. No chance of death for him: he was good for ten, twenty, fifty years more: he could not bear it, but it had to be borne. He tried to pull himself up: if he could only have reached the window! But the arms that felt so strong were as weak as an infant's, while the dead weight of his helpless legs dragged on him like lead. The only result of his struggle was a dreadful access of pain. Reaction followed, for he had learnt in his A B C days not to whimper when he was hurt, and by the time the nurse returned Clowes had scourged himself back to his usual savage tranquillity. "Can I have that window shut, please?" he asked, cynically frank. "I used to play cricket myself." Laura Clowes in this period went through an experience almost equally formative. Two years older than Bernard, she was also more mature for her years and had developed more evenly, and from the outset her engagement and marriage had meant more to her then to Bernard, because her girlhood had been unhappy and they provided a way of escape. Her sister Yvonne had met Jack Bendish at a race-meeting and he had fallen madly in love with her and married her in a month in the teeth of

afford

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world. Isabel knew every one in Chilmark and every one knew her. Such a range of intensive acquaintance is not so narrow as people who have never lived in a country village are apt to suppose. Past the schoolhouse, past the wide stone bridge where Isabel loved to hang over the parapet watching for trout--but not tonight, for it was late, and Isabel after a "company tea" wanted her supper: by a footpath through the churchyard, closely mown and planted with rosebushes: and so into the church, where, after dropping a hurried professional curtsey to the altar, she set about her evening duties. Isabel called herself the curate, but she did a good deal which is not expected of a curate, such as shutting windows and changing lesson-markers, propping up the trebles when they went astray in the pointing of the Psalms, altering the numbers on the hymn-board, writing out choir papers, putting flowers in the vases and candles in the benediction lights, playing the organ as required and occasionally blowing it. . . . Before leaving the church she fell on her knees, in deference to Mr. Stafford and the text by the door, and said a prayer. What did she pray? "O Lord bless this church and all who worship in it and make father preach a good sermon next Sunday. I wish I'd been playing with Val instead of Jack, we should have won that last set if Jack hadn't muffed his services. . . . Well, this curate was only nineteen." And then, coming out into the fading light, she locked the north door behind her and went off whistling like a blackbird, if a blackbird could whistle the alto of Calkin's Magnificat in B flat. . . . Five minutes climbing of the steep brown floor of the beechwood, and she was out on uplands in the dying fires of day. It had been twilight in the valley, but here the wide plain was sunlit and the air was fresh and dry: in the valley even the river-aspens were almost quiet, but here there was still a sough of wind coming and going, through the dry grass thick set with lemon thyme and lady's slipper, or along the low garden wall where red valerian sprouted out of yellow stonecrop. A wishing gate led into the garden, and Isabel made for an open window, but halfway over the sill she paused, gazing with all her soul in her eyes across the vicarage gooseberry bushes. That grey suit was Val's of course, but who was inside the belted coat and riding breeches? "Rows-lee!" sang out Isabel, tumbling back into the garden with a generous display of leg. The raiders rose up each holding a handful of large red strawberries melting ripe, and Isabel, pitching in her racquet on a sofa, ran across the grass and enfolded her brother in her arms. Rowsley, dark and slight and shrewd, returned her hug with one arm, while carefully guarding his strawberries with the other--"You pig, you perfect pig!" wailed Isabel. "I was saving them for tea tomorrow, Laura's coming and I can't afford a cake. Oh joy, you can buy me one! How long can you stay?" "Over the week end: but I didn't come to buy you cakes, Baby. I haven't any money either. I came because I wanted you to buy me cakes." "O well never mind, I'll make one," Isabel joyously slipped her hand through Rowsley's arm. "Then I can get the flour from the baker and it won't cost anything at all--it'll go down in the bill. Well give me one anyhow, now they're picked it would be a pity to waste them." She helped herself liberally out of Val's hand. "Now stop both of you, you can't have any more." She linked her other arm in Val's and dragged her brothers out of the dangerous proximity of the strawberry beds. Val sat down on a deck chair, one leg thrown over the other, Rowsley dropped at full length on the turf, and Isabel doubled herself up between them, her arms clasped round her knees. "How's the Old Man?" she asked in friendly reference to Rowsley's commanding officer. "Oh Rose, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. Will Spillsby be able to play on the Fourth?" Spillsby, a brother subaltern and a famous bat, had twisted his ankle at the nets, and Rowsley in his last letter had been uncertain whether he would be well enough to play the Sappers at the annual fixture. Happily Rowsley was able to reassure his young sister: the ankle was much better and Spillsby was already allowed to walk on it. Isabel then turned her large velvet eyes--gazelle eyes with a world of pathos in their velvet gloom on her elder brother. "Coruscate, Val," she commanded. "You haven't said anything at all yet. We should all try to be bright in the home circle. We cannot all be witty, but-Ow! Rowsley, if you pull my hair I shall hit you in the--in the place where the Gauls fined their soldiers if they stuck out on parade. Oh, Val, that really isn't vulgar, I found it in Matthew Arnold! Their stomachs, you know. They wouldn't have fined you anyhow. You look fagged, darling-- are you?" "Not so much fagged as hungry," said Val in his soft voice. "It's getting on for nine o'clock and I was done out of my tea. I went in to Wanhope, but Laura was out, and Clowes was drinking whisky and soda. I cannot stand whisky at four in the afternoon, and Irish whisky at that. There'll be some supper going before long, won't there?" "Not until half past nine because Jimmy has his Bible class tonight." Jimmy was Mr. Stafford: and perhaps a purist might have objected that Mrs. Clowes and Yvonne Bendish had not done all they might have done to form Isabel's manners. "I'm so sorry, darling," she continued, preparing to leap to her feet. "Shall I get you a biscuit? There are oatmeals in the sideboard, the kind you like, I won't be a minute--" "Thanks very much, I'd rather wait. Did you see Mrs. Clowes today? Clowes said she was at the Castle." "So she was, sitting with Mrs. Morley in an angelic striped cotton. Mrs. Morley was in mauve ninon and a Gainsborough hat. Yvonne says Mr. Morley is a Jew and made his money in I. D. B.'s, which I suppose are some sort of stocks?" Neither of her brothers offered to enlighten her, Rowsley because he was feeling indolent, Val because he never said an unkind word to any one. Isabel, who was enamoured of her own voice flowed on with little delay: "If he really is a Jew, I can't think how she could marry him; I wouldn't. Mrs. Morley can't be very happy or Laura wouldn't go and talk to her. Laura is so sweet, she always sits with people that other people run away from. Oh Val, did Major Clowes tell you their news?" Isabel might refer to her father as Jimmy and to Rowsley's commander as the Old Man, but she rarely failed to give Bernard Clowes his correct prefix. "No--is there any?" "Only that they have some one coming to stay with them. Won't he have a deadly time?" Isabel glanced from Val to Rowsley in the certainty of a common response. "Imagine staying at Wanhope! However, he invited himself, so it's at his own risk. Perhaps he's embarrassed like you, Rose, and wants Laura to feed him. It's rather fun for Laura, though--that is, it will be, if Major Clowes isn't too hopeless." Strange freemasonry of the generations! Mr. Stafford's children loved him dearly and he was wont to say that there were no secrets at the vicarage, yet they lived in a conspiracy of silence, and even Val, who was mentally nearer to his father's age, would have been loth to let Mr. Stafford know as much as Isabel knew about Wanhope. It was assumed that Val's job was the very job Val wanted. Mr. Stafford had indeed a suspicion that it was not all plain sailing: Bernard Clowes retained just so much of the decently bred man as to be courteous to his wife before a mere acquaintance, but the vicar came and went at odd hours, and he observed now and then vague intimations--undertones from Bernard himself, an uncontrollable shrinking on Laura's part, an occasional hesitation or reluctance in Val--which hinted at flying storms. But Val, the father supposed, could make allowance for a cripple: Bernard was so much to be pitied that no man would resent an occasional burst of temper! And there his children left him. The younger generation can trust one another not to interfere, but when the seniors strike in, with their cut and dry precedents and rule of thumb moralities, who knows what mischief may follow? Elder people are so indiscreet! "It's a cousin of Major Clowes," Isabel continued, "but they haven't met for years and years--not since the war. Laura knows him too, she met him before she was married and liked him very much indeed. She's looking forward to it--that is, she would be if she had spirit enough to look forward to anything." "Clowes never said a word to me about it," remarked Val. "Didn't he?" Isabel unfolded herself and stood up. "That means he is going to be tiresome. I must run now, it's five past nine. Which will you both have, cold beef or eggs?" "Oh, anything that's going," said Val. "Eggs," said Rowsley, "not less than four. Without prejudice to the cold beef if it's underdone. Hallo!" "What?" "What's the matter with your skirt?" "Nothing," said Isabel shortly. She screwed her head over her shoulder in a vain endeavour to see her own back. "It's perfectly all right." "It would be, on a scarecrow." Isabel stuck her chin up. "Have you been over to the Castle in that kit, Baby? Well, if Yvonne won't give you some of her old clothes, you might ask the kitchenmaid." "The kitchenmaid has more money than I have," said Isabel cheerfully. "Is it so very bad? It's clean anyway, I washed and ironed it myself." "It looks very nice and so do you," said Val. Isabel eyed him with a softened glance: one could rely on Val to salve one's wounded vanity, but, alas! Val did not know home-made from tailor-made. Reluctantly she owned to herself that she had more faith in Rowsley's judgment. "It seems rather short though," Val added. "I suppose you will have to go into long frocks pretty soon, won't you, and put your hair up?" "Oh bother my hair and my dresses!" said Isabel with a great sigh. "I will pin my hair up when I get some new clothes, but how can I when I haven't any money and Jim hasn't any money and neither of you have any money? Don't you see, idiot," this was exclusively to Rowsley, "when I pin my hair up I shall turn into a grown up lady? And then I shall have to wear proper clothes. At present I'm only a little girl and it doesn't signify what I wear. If any one will give me five pounds I'll pin my hair up like a shot. Oh dear, I wonder what Yvonne would say if Jack expected her to outfit herself for five pounds? I do wish some one would leave me 10,000 pounds a year. Get up now, you lazy beggar, come and help me lay the supper. It's Fanny's evening out." She pulled Rowsley to his feet and they went off together leaving Val alone on the lawn: good comrades those two, and apparently more of an age, in spite of the long gap between them, than Rowsley and Val, who was the eldest by only eighteen months. And Val sat on alone, while stains of coral and amber faded out of the lavender sky, and a rack of sea clouds, which half an hour ago had shone like fiery ripples, dwindled away into smoke--mist --a mere shadow on the breast of the night. Stars began to sparkle, moths and humming cockchafers sailed by him, a chase of bats overhead endlessly fell down airy precipices and rose in long loops of darkling flight: honeysuckle and night-scented stock tinged with their sweet garden perfume the cool airs from the moor. Val lit a cigarette, a rare indulgence. If cigarettes grew on gooseberry bushes Val would have been an inveterate smoker, but good Egyptians were a luxury which he could not often afford The Wanhope agency was ample for his needs, though underpaid as agencies go: but there was Rowsley, always hard up, uncomplaining, but sensitive, as a young fellow in his position is sure to be, and secretly fretting because he could not do as other men did: and there was Isabel, for whom Val felt the anxiety Mr. Stafford ought to have felt, and was trying to make the provision Mr. Stafford ought to have made: and then there was the vicar himself, who laid out a great deal of money in those investments for which we are promised cent per cent interest, but upon a system of deferred payment. Tonight however Val lit a cigarette, and then a second, to the surprise of Isabel, who saw the red spark on the lawn. She thought her brother must be tired, and perhaps it really was the long day without food that made him so restless in mind and so uneasy. Bernard Clowes had been more than usually cranky that afternoon. Even the patient Val had had thoughts of throwing up his job when the cripple made him go through his week's accounts, scrutinizing every entry and cross-examining him on every transaction in such a tone as the head of a firm might employ to a junior clerk suspected of dishonesty. It was Bernard's way: it meant nothing: but it was irksome to Val, especially when he could not soothe himself by dropping into Laura's quiet parlour for a cup of tea. Yet his irritation would not have lingered through a cigarette if Isabel's news had not revived it. This cousin of Bernard's! Val had not much faith in any cousin of Bernard Clowes: nor in the kindness of life. Val was a slight, fair, pleasant-looking man of eight or nine and twenty, quiet of movement, friendly-mannered and as inconspicuous as his own rather worn grey tweeds: one of a class, till he raised his eyes: and then? There was something strange in Val's eyes when they were fully raised, an indrawn arresting brilliance difficult to analyse: imaginative and sympathetic, as if he were at home in dark places: the quality of acceptance of pain. Adepts in old days knew by his eyes a man who had been on the rack. Stafford had been racked: and by the pain that is half shame, the keenest, the most lacerating and destructive of wounds. He had suffered till he could suffer no more, and tonight in the starlit garden he, suffered still, without hope, or rebellion, or defence. Indoors Rowsley and Isabel, with the rapidity of long use, laid the cloth, and Isabel fetched cold beef from the larder and butter and eggs from the dairy, while Rowsley went down the cellar with a jug and a candle and drew from the cask a generous allowance of beer. "Come along in, old Val," said Isabel, reappearing at the open window, "You and Rose are both famishing and I'm not," this was a pious fiction, "so you can begin and I'll wait for Jimmy. I dare say he's gone wandering off somewhere and won't be in till ten." Val came across the dark, cool lawn and climbed over the window sill. A shabby room, large and low: a faded paper, grey toning to blue: a carpet of faded roses on a grey ground: the shaded Dresden lamp and roselit supper table shining like an island in a pool of shadow, and those two beloved heads, both so dark and smooth and young, tam cara capita! Neither of them suspected that Val was unhappy. His feeling for them was more fatherly than fraternal, and Rowsley, strange to say, fell in with Val's attitude, coming to his brother for money as naturally as most young men go to their parents. Val sat at the head of the table because Mr. Stafford could not carve. "There!" said Isabel, giving him his plate. "Mustard? I've just made it so you needn't look to see if it's fresh. Watercress: I picked it myself. Lettuce. Cream and vinegar and sugar. Beer. Now do you feel happy? Lord love you, dear, I like to see you eat." She sat on the arm of Mr. Stafford's mahogany chair. "What time do you want breakfast? Seven o'clock? Major Clowes wouldn't come down at seven if he were your agent. Can you get back to tea tomorrow? Laura may bring the cousin up to tea with her and she wants him to meet you." "Very good of her. Why?" "Oh, because he was in the Army too and all through the war. He went out with the first hundred thousand. He's much older than you are--the same age as Laura. Oh, wait a minute!" exclaimed Isabel in the tone in which a Frenchwoman says Tenez. I forgot. She thinks you must have met him, Val." "Possibly," said Val. "Was he in the Dorchesters?" asked Rowsley--much more interested than his brother, no doubt because he was not so hungry as Val, who was giving all his attention to his supper. "No, in the Winchesters," said Isabel. "Do I mean the Winchesters, Val? What was Major Clowes' old regiment?" "Clowes was in the Wintons." Isabel nodded. "Then so was the cousin. And Laura says he was out there when the Wintons were in the next bit of trench north of the Dorchesters. He was there when--when you were wounded." Such was Val Stafford's modesty that in the family circle it was not in etiquette to refer in other terms to that famous occasion. "I don't remember any fellow named Clowes and I never knew Bernard Clowes had a cousin out there," said Val, mixing himself a salad. "Oh, his name isn't Clowes. It's Ryde or Pride or something like that. I'm sorry to be so vague, but Jack Bendish and Yvonne and Mrs. Morley were all talking at once. Lawrence Pied--Fried--" "Lawrence Hyde?" "Yes, that's it! Then you really do remember him?" "Er--yes. Is that lamp smoking, Rowsley? You might turn it down a trifle, I can't reach." "Let me, let me?-- What was he like?" "Who--Hyde? Oh," said Val vaguely, "he was like the rest of us --very tired." "Tired?" echoed Isabel with a blank face, "but, Val darling, he couldn't have been only tired! What should you think he was like when he wasn't tired?" "That is a question I have occasionally asked myself," Val answered with his faint indecipherable smile. "My dear child, I only saw him once or twice. He was a senior captain and commanded his company. I was a very junior lieutenant." "Still he was there at the time," reflected Isabel. "O Rose! if he's anything like nice, which is almost past praying for in Major Clowes' cousin, let's beguile him into the gooseberry bushes and make him tell us all about it! Val is very dear to his family, but no one, however tenderly attached to him, could call him a brilliant raconteur. Now Mr. Hyde won't have any modest scruples. Val, if there is a slug in that lettuce I wish you would say so. It would hurt my feelings less than for you to sit looking at it in a stony silence. Was he good-looking?" "Possibly he might be," said Val, "when he scraped the dirt off." After a moment he added, "He was very decent to me." "Was he? Then he was nice?" "Gnat," said Rowsley from the middle of his third egg. Isabel rounded him indignantly. "I'm not gnatting! I'm not asking Val anything about himself, am I? Val can't possibly mind telling me about another man in another regiment. You eat your eggs, there's a good boy, before they get cold.-- Laura says the Dorchesters dined the Winchesters once when they were in billets. Was that when you and Mr. Hyde were there?" "Captain Hyde," Val corrected his young sister. "Yes, we both graced the festive board. It was too festive for me. We had Buszard's soup and curried chicken and real cream, and more champagne than was good for us. But it was not on that occasion that Hyde was so decent to me. The day I--the day Dale went down--" Rowsley nodded to him as he raised his glass of beer to his lips--"thank you, Rose.-- As I was saying, that evening I ran across Hyde between the lines. The Dorsets and Wintons had gone over the top together, and he had been left behind with a bullet in his chest. I was done to the world, but he had some brandy left and shared it with me. If it had not been for Hyde I should never have brought Dale in." "Well, I've never heard that before," said Rowsley to his fourth egg. Isabel was silent, and her eyes in the shadow of a momentary gravity were the eyes of a woman and not of a child. She raised them to look out at the evening sky, indigo blue against the lamplit interior, or faintly primrose in the west, and wondered for the thousandth time why it was still such an effort to Val to refer to his brief military experience. Soft country noises came in, peaceful and soothing: the short shrill shriek of a bat, the rustle of a branch of rose-leaves moving like a hand over the window panes, a faint breathing of wind from the moor. Surely the scar of war ought to be healed by now! Isabel kept these thoughts to herself: young as she was, her solitary life--for a woman alone among men is always to some extent solitary--had trained her to a clear perception of what had better not be said. "When is Hyde coming?" asked Val, going on with his salad. "Tomorrow, didn't you hear me say Laura is going to bring him here to tea? He's staying at his own place, Farringay--I think from the way Laura spoke it is what one calls a place--and they expect him by the morning train. Laura's to meet him in the car." "Did you ask her to bring him in to tea," said Rowsley, frowning over the marmalade jar, "when Val is safe to be out and you didn't know I should be here?" "Yes: oughtn't I to have?" "No." "Is there anything else you would like to speak to me about?" said Isabel after a pregnant silence. "Dear Rowsley, you seem determined to look after my manners and morals! I asked him to please Laura. She's nervous of Major Clowes. Jack and Yvonne are coming too." "Oh I don't see that it signifies," said Val. Mrs. Clowes wouldn't have accepted if it weren't all right. I don't see that you or I need worry if she doesn't. Isabel is old enough to pour out tea for herself. In any case, as it happens, you'll be here if I'm not, and I dare say Jimmy will look in for ten minutes." "You are sweet, Val," said Isabel gratefully. "Oh I don't say Rowsley's not right! Prigs generally are: and besides now I come to think of it, Laura did look faintly amused when I asked her. But these stupid things never occur to me till afterwards! After all, what am I to do? I can't manufacture a chaperon, and it would be very bad for the parish if the vicar never entertained. And it's not as if Captain Hyde were a young man; he's thirty-six if he's a day." CHAPTER III When the sea retreats after a storm one finds on the beach all sorts of strange flotsam. Bernard Clowes was a bit of human wreckage left on the sands of society by the storm of the war. When it broke out he was a second lieutenant in the Winchester Regiment, a keen polo player and first class batsman who rarely opened a book. He was sent out with the First Division and carried himself with his usual phlegmatic good humour through almost four years of fighting from Mons to Cambrai. In the March break-through he had his wrist broken by a rifle-bullet and was invalided home, where he took advantage of his leave to get married, partly because most of the men he knew were already married, and partly to please his sister. There were no other brothers, and Mrs. Morrison, a practical lady, but always a little regretful of her own marriage with Morrison's Boot and Shoe Company, recommended him with the family bluntness to arrange for an olive branch before the Huns got him. Laura, a penniless woman two years his senior and handicapped by her disreputable belongings, was not the wife Gertrude Morrison would have chosen for him: still it might have been worse, for Laura was well-born and personally irreproachable, while Clowes, hot-blooded and casual, was as likely as not to have married a chorus-girl. If any disappointment lingered, Gertrude soothed it by trying over in her own mind the irritation that she would be able to produce in Morrison circles: "Where he met her? Oh, when she was staying with her married sister at Castle Wharton . . . .Yvonne, the elder Selincourt girl, married into the Bendish family." Bernard did not care a straw either for the paternal handicap or for the glories of the Wharton connection. He took his love-affair as simply as his cricket and with the same bold confidence. Laura was what he wanted; she would fit into her surroundings at Wanhope as delicately as an old picture fits into an old frame, and one could leave her about--so he put it to himself--without fear of her getting damaged. When Tom Morrison, shrewd business man, dropped a hint about the rashness of marrying the daughter of a scamp like Ferdinand Selincourt, Bernard merely stared at him and let the indiscretion go in silence. He can scarcely be said to have loved his bride, for up to the time of the wedding his nature was not much more developed than that of a prize bull, but he considered her a very pretty woman, and his faith in her was a religion. So they were married, and went to Eastbourne for their honeymoon: an average match, not marked by passion on either side, but destined apparently to an average amount of comfort and good will. They had ten gay days before Laura was left on a victoria platform, gallantly smiling with pale lips and waving her handkerchief after the train that carried Bernard back to the front. Five months later on the eve of the Armistice he was flung out of the service, a broken man, paralysed below the waist, cursing every one who came near him and chiefly the surgeons for not letting him die. No one ever desired life more passionately than Bernard desired death. For some time he clung to the hope that his mind would wear his body out. But his body was too young, too strong, too tenacious of earth to be betrayed by the renegade mind. There came a day when Clowes felt his youth welling up in him like sap in a fallen tree: new energy throbbed in his veins, his heart beat strong and even, it was hard to believe that he could not get off his bed if he liked and go down to the playing fields or throw his leg over a horse. This mood fastened on him without warning in a Surbiton hospital after a calm night without a sleeping draught, when through his open window he could see green branches waving in sunlight, and hear the cries of men playing cricket and the smack of the driven ball: and it was torture. Tears forced their way suddenly into Bernard's eyes. His nurse, who had watched not a few reluctant recoveries, went out of the room. Then his great chest heaved, and he sobbed aloud, lying on his back with face unhidden, his wide black eyes blinking at the sweet pale June sky. No chance of death for him: he was good for ten, twenty, fifty years more: he could not bear it, but it had to be borne. He tried to pull himself up: if he could only have reached the window! But the arms that felt so strong were as weak as an infant's, while the dead weight of his helpless legs dragged on him like lead. The only result of his struggle was a dreadful access of pain. Reaction followed, for he had learnt in his A B C days not to whimper when he was hurt, and by the time the nurse returned Clowes had scourged himself back to his usual savage tranquillity. "Can I have that window shut, please?" he asked, cynically frank. "I used to play cricket myself." Laura Clowes in this period went through an experience almost equally formative. Two years older than Bernard, she was also more mature for her years and had developed more evenly, and from the outset her engagement and marriage had meant more to her then to Bernard, because her girlhood had been unhappy and they provided a way of escape. Her sister Yvonne had met Jack Bendish at a race-meeting and he had fallen madly in love with her and married her in a month in the teeth of

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world. Isabel knew every one in Chilmark and every one knew her. Such a range of intensive acquaintance is not so narrow as people who have never lived in a country village are apt to suppose. Past the schoolhouse, past the wide stone bridge where Isabel loved to hang over the parapet watching for trout--but not tonight, for it was late, and Isabel after a "company tea" wanted her supper: by a footpath through the churchyard, closely mown and planted with rosebushes: and so into the church, where, after dropping a hurried professional curtsey to the altar, she set about her evening duties. Isabel called herself the curate, but she did a good deal which is not expected of a curate, such as shutting windows and changing lesson-markers, propping up the trebles when they went astray in the pointing of the Psalms, altering the numbers on the hymn-board, writing out choir papers, putting flowers in the vases and candles in the benediction lights, playing the organ as required and occasionally blowing it. . . . Before leaving the church she fell on her knees, in deference to Mr. Stafford and the text by the door, and said a prayer. What did she pray? "O Lord bless this church and all who worship in it and make father preach a good sermon next Sunday. I wish I'd been playing with Val instead of Jack, we should have won that last set if Jack hadn't muffed his services. . . . Well, this curate was only nineteen." And then, coming out into the fading light, she locked the north door behind her and went off whistling like a blackbird, if a blackbird could whistle the alto of Calkin's Magnificat in B flat. . . . Five minutes climbing of the steep brown floor of the beechwood, and she was out on uplands in the dying fires of day. It had been twilight in the valley, but here the wide plain was sunlit and the air was fresh and dry: in the valley even the river-aspens were almost quiet, but here there was still a sough of wind coming and going, through the dry grass thick set with lemon thyme and lady's slipper, or along the low garden wall where red valerian sprouted out of yellow stonecrop. A wishing gate led into the garden, and Isabel made for an open window, but halfway over the sill she paused, gazing with all her soul in her eyes across the vicarage gooseberry bushes. That grey suit was Val's of course, but who was inside the belted coat and riding breeches? "Rows-lee!" sang out Isabel, tumbling back into the garden with a generous display of leg. The raiders rose up each holding a handful of large red strawberries melting ripe, and Isabel, pitching in her racquet on a sofa, ran across the grass and enfolded her brother in her arms. Rowsley, dark and slight and shrewd, returned her hug with one arm, while carefully guarding his strawberries with the other--"You pig, you perfect pig!" wailed Isabel. "I was saving them for tea tomorrow, Laura's coming and I can't afford a cake. Oh joy, you can buy me one! How long can you stay?" "Over the week end: but I didn't come to buy you cakes, Baby. I haven't any money either. I came because I wanted you to buy me cakes." "O well never mind, I'll make one," Isabel joyously slipped her hand through Rowsley's arm. "Then I can get the flour from the baker and it won't cost anything at all--it'll go down in the bill. Well give me one anyhow, now they're picked it would be a pity to waste them." She helped herself liberally out of Val's hand. "Now stop both of you, you can't have any more." She linked her other arm in Val's and dragged her brothers out of the dangerous proximity of the strawberry beds. Val sat down on a deck chair, one leg thrown over the other, Rowsley dropped at full length on the turf, and Isabel doubled herself up between them, her arms clasped round her knees. "How's the Old Man?" she asked in friendly reference to Rowsley's commanding officer. "Oh Rose, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. Will Spillsby be able to play on the Fourth?" Spillsby, a brother subaltern and a famous bat, had twisted his ankle at the nets, and Rowsley in his last letter had been uncertain whether he would be well enough to play the Sappers at the annual fixture. Happily Rowsley was able to reassure his young sister: the ankle was much better and Spillsby was already allowed to walk on it. Isabel then turned her large velvet eyes--gazelle eyes with a world of pathos in their velvet gloom on her elder brother. "Coruscate, Val," she commanded. "You haven't said anything at all yet. We should all try to be bright in the home circle. We cannot all be witty, but-Ow! Rowsley, if you pull my hair I shall hit you in the--in the place where the Gauls fined their soldiers if they stuck out on parade. Oh, Val, that really isn't vulgar, I found it in Matthew Arnold! Their stomachs, you know. They wouldn't have fined you anyhow. You look fagged, darling-- are you?" "Not so much fagged as hungry," said Val in his soft voice. "It's getting on for nine o'clock and I was done out of my tea. I went in to Wanhope, but Laura was out, and Clowes was drinking whisky and soda. I cannot stand whisky at four in the afternoon, and Irish whisky at that. There'll be some supper going before long, won't there?" "Not until half past nine because Jimmy has his Bible class tonight." Jimmy was Mr. Stafford: and perhaps a purist might have objected that Mrs. Clowes and Yvonne Bendish had not done all they might have done to form Isabel's manners. "I'm so sorry, darling," she continued, preparing to leap to her feet. "Shall I get you a biscuit? There are oatmeals in the sideboard, the kind you like, I won't be a minute--" "Thanks very much, I'd rather wait. Did you see Mrs. Clowes today? Clowes said she was at the Castle." "So she was, sitting with Mrs. Morley in an angelic striped cotton. Mrs. Morley was in mauve ninon and a Gainsborough hat. Yvonne says Mr. Morley is a Jew and made his money in I. D. B.'s, which I suppose are some sort of stocks?" Neither of her brothers offered to enlighten her, Rowsley because he was feeling indolent, Val because he never said an unkind word to any one. Isabel, who was enamoured of her own voice flowed on with little delay: "If he really is a Jew, I can't think how she could marry him; I wouldn't. Mrs. Morley can't be very happy or Laura wouldn't go and talk to her. Laura is so sweet, she always sits with people that other people run away from. Oh Val, did Major Clowes tell you their news?" Isabel might refer to her father as Jimmy and to Rowsley's commander as the Old Man, but she rarely failed to give Bernard Clowes his correct prefix. "No--is there any?" "Only that they have some one coming to stay with them. Won't he have a deadly time?" Isabel glanced from Val to Rowsley in the certainty of a common response. "Imagine staying at Wanhope! However, he invited himself, so it's at his own risk. Perhaps he's embarrassed like you, Rose, and wants Laura to feed him. It's rather fun for Laura, though--that is, it will be, if Major Clowes isn't too hopeless." Strange freemasonry of the generations! Mr. Stafford's children loved him dearly and he was wont to say that there were no secrets at the vicarage, yet they lived in a conspiracy of silence, and even Val, who was mentally nearer to his father's age, would have been loth to let Mr. Stafford know as much as Isabel knew about Wanhope. It was assumed that Val's job was the very job Val wanted. Mr. Stafford had indeed a suspicion that it was not all plain sailing: Bernard Clowes retained just so much of the decently bred man as to be courteous to his wife before a mere acquaintance, but the vicar came and went at odd hours, and he observed now and then vague intimations--undertones from Bernard himself, an uncontrollable shrinking on Laura's part, an occasional hesitation or reluctance in Val--which hinted at flying storms. But Val, the father supposed, could make allowance for a cripple: Bernard was so much to be pitied that no man would resent an occasional burst of temper! And there his children left him. The younger generation can trust one another not to interfere, but when the seniors strike in, with their cut and dry precedents and rule of thumb moralities, who knows what mischief may follow? Elder people are so indiscreet! "It's a cousin of Major Clowes," Isabel continued, "but they haven't met for years and years--not since the war. Laura knows him too, she met him before she was married and liked him very much indeed. She's looking forward to it--that is, she would be if she had spirit enough to look forward to anything." "Clowes never said a word to me about it," remarked Val. "Didn't he?" Isabel unfolded herself and stood up. "That means he is going to be tiresome. I must run now, it's five past nine. Which will you both have, cold beef or eggs?" "Oh, anything that's going," said Val. "Eggs," said Rowsley, "not less than four. Without prejudice to the cold beef if it's underdone. Hallo!" "What?" "What's the matter with your skirt?" "Nothing," said Isabel shortly. She screwed her head over her shoulder in a vain endeavour to see her own back. "It's perfectly all right." "It would be, on a scarecrow." Isabel stuck her chin up. "Have you been over to the Castle in that kit, Baby? Well, if Yvonne won't give you some of her old clothes, you might ask the kitchenmaid." "The kitchenmaid has more money than I have," said Isabel cheerfully. "Is it so very bad? It's clean anyway, I washed and ironed it myself." "It looks very nice and so do you," said Val. Isabel eyed him with a softened glance: one could rely on Val to salve one's wounded vanity, but, alas! Val did not know home-made from tailor-made. Reluctantly she owned to herself that she had more faith in Rowsley's judgment. "It seems rather short though," Val added. "I suppose you will have to go into long frocks pretty soon, won't you, and put your hair up?" "Oh bother my hair and my dresses!" said Isabel with a great sigh. "I will pin my hair up when I get some new clothes, but how can I when I haven't any money and Jim hasn't any money and neither of you have any money? Don't you see, idiot," this was exclusively to Rowsley, "when I pin my hair up I shall turn into a grown up lady? And then I shall have to wear proper clothes. At present I'm only a little girl and it doesn't signify what I wear. If any one will give me five pounds I'll pin my hair up like a shot. Oh dear, I wonder what Yvonne would say if Jack expected her to outfit herself for five pounds? I do wish some one would leave me 10,000 pounds a year. Get up now, you lazy beggar, come and help me lay the supper. It's Fanny's evening out." She pulled Rowsley to his feet and they went off together leaving Val alone on the lawn: good comrades those two, and apparently more of an age, in spite of the long gap between them, than Rowsley and Val, who was the eldest by only eighteen months. And Val sat on alone, while stains of coral and amber faded out of the lavender sky, and a rack of sea clouds, which half an hour ago had shone like fiery ripples, dwindled away into smoke--mist --a mere shadow on the breast of the night. Stars began to sparkle, moths and humming cockchafers sailed by him, a chase of bats overhead endlessly fell down airy precipices and rose in long loops of darkling flight: honeysuckle and night-scented stock tinged with their sweet garden perfume the cool airs from the moor. Val lit a cigarette, a rare indulgence. If cigarettes grew on gooseberry bushes Val would have been an inveterate smoker, but good Egyptians were a luxury which he could not often afford The Wanhope agency was ample for his needs, though underpaid as agencies go: but there was Rowsley, always hard up, uncomplaining, but sensitive, as a young fellow in his position is sure to be, and secretly fretting because he could not do as other men did: and there was Isabel, for whom Val felt the anxiety Mr. Stafford ought to have felt, and was trying to make the provision Mr. Stafford ought to have made: and then there was the vicar himself, who laid out a great deal of money in those investments for which we are promised cent per cent interest, but upon a system of deferred payment. Tonight however Val lit a cigarette, and then a second, to the surprise of Isabel, who saw the red spark on the lawn. She thought her brother must be tired, and perhaps it really was the long day without food that made him so restless in mind and so uneasy. Bernard Clowes had been more than usually cranky that afternoon. Even the patient Val had had thoughts of throwing up his job when the cripple made him go through his week's accounts, scrutinizing every entry and cross-examining him on every transaction in such a tone as the head of a firm might employ to a junior clerk suspected of dishonesty. It was Bernard's way: it meant nothing: but it was irksome to Val, especially when he could not soothe himself by dropping into Laura's quiet parlour for a cup of tea. Yet his irritation would not have lingered through a cigarette if Isabel's news had not revived it. This cousin of Bernard's! Val had not much faith in any cousin of Bernard Clowes: nor in the kindness of life. Val was a slight, fair, pleasant-looking man of eight or nine and twenty, quiet of movement, friendly-mannered and as inconspicuous as his own rather worn grey tweeds: one of a class, till he raised his eyes: and then? There was something strange in Val's eyes when they were fully raised, an indrawn arresting brilliance difficult to analyse: imaginative and sympathetic, as if he were at home in dark places: the quality of acceptance of pain. Adepts in old days knew by his eyes a man who had been on the rack. Stafford had been racked: and by the pain that is half shame, the keenest, the most lacerating and destructive of wounds. He had suffered till he could suffer no more, and tonight in the starlit garden he, suffered still, without hope, or rebellion, or defence. Indoors Rowsley and Isabel, with the rapidity of long use, laid the cloth, and Isabel fetched cold beef from the larder and butter and eggs from the dairy, while Rowsley went down the cellar with a jug and a candle and drew from the cask a generous allowance of beer. "Come along in, old Val," said Isabel, reappearing at the open window, "You and Rose are both famishing and I'm not," this was a pious fiction, "so you can begin and I'll wait for Jimmy. I dare say he's gone wandering off somewhere and won't be in till ten." Val came across the dark, cool lawn and climbed over the window sill. A shabby room, large and low: a faded paper, grey toning to blue: a carpet of faded roses on a grey ground: the shaded Dresden lamp and roselit supper table shining like an island in a pool of shadow, and those two beloved heads, both so dark and smooth and young, tam cara capita! Neither of them suspected that Val was unhappy. His feeling for them was more fatherly than fraternal, and Rowsley, strange to say, fell in with Val's attitude, coming to his brother for money as naturally as most young men go to their parents. Val sat at the head of the table because Mr. Stafford could not carve. "There!" said Isabel, giving him his plate. "Mustard? I've just made it so you needn't look to see if it's fresh. Watercress: I picked it myself. Lettuce. Cream and vinegar and sugar. Beer. Now do you feel happy? Lord love you, dear, I like to see you eat." She sat on the arm of Mr. Stafford's mahogany chair. "What time do you want breakfast? Seven o'clock? Major Clowes wouldn't come down at seven if he were your agent. Can you get back to tea tomorrow? Laura may bring the cousin up to tea with her and she wants him to meet you." "Very good of her. Why?" "Oh, because he was in the Army too and all through the war. He went out with the first hundred thousand. He's much older than you are--the same age as Laura. Oh, wait a minute!" exclaimed Isabel in the tone in which a Frenchwoman says Tenez. I forgot. She thinks you must have met him, Val." "Possibly," said Val. "Was he in the Dorchesters?" asked Rowsley--much more interested than his brother, no doubt because he was not so hungry as Val, who was giving all his attention to his supper. "No, in the Winchesters," said Isabel. "Do I mean the Winchesters, Val? What was Major Clowes' old regiment?" "Clowes was in the Wintons." Isabel nodded. "Then so was the cousin. And Laura says he was out there when the Wintons were in the next bit of trench north of the Dorchesters. He was there when--when you were wounded." Such was Val Stafford's modesty that in the family circle it was not in etiquette to refer in other terms to that famous occasion. "I don't remember any fellow named Clowes and I never knew Bernard Clowes had a cousin out there," said Val, mixing himself a salad. "Oh, his name isn't Clowes. It's Ryde or Pride or something like that. I'm sorry to be so vague, but Jack Bendish and Yvonne and Mrs. Morley were all talking at once. Lawrence Pied--Fried--" "Lawrence Hyde?" "Yes, that's it! Then you really do remember him?" "Er--yes. Is that lamp smoking, Rowsley? You might turn it down a trifle, I can't reach." "Let me, let me?-- What was he like?" "Who--Hyde? Oh," said Val vaguely, "he was like the rest of us --very tired." "Tired?" echoed Isabel with a blank face, "but, Val darling, he couldn't have been only tired! What should you think he was like when he wasn't tired?" "That is a question I have occasionally asked myself," Val answered with his faint indecipherable smile. "My dear child, I only saw him once or twice. He was a senior captain and commanded his company. I was a very junior lieutenant." "Still he was there at the time," reflected Isabel. "O Rose! if he's anything like nice, which is almost past praying for in Major Clowes' cousin, let's beguile him into the gooseberry bushes and make him tell us all about it! Val is very dear to his family, but no one, however tenderly attached to him, could call him a brilliant raconteur. Now Mr. Hyde won't have any modest scruples. Val, if there is a slug in that lettuce I wish you would say so. It would hurt my feelings less than for you to sit looking at it in a stony silence. Was he good-looking?" "Possibly he might be," said Val, "when he scraped the dirt off." After a moment he added, "He was very decent to me." "Was he? Then he was nice?" "Gnat," said Rowsley from the middle of his third egg. Isabel rounded him indignantly. "I'm not gnatting! I'm not asking Val anything about himself, am I? Val can't possibly mind telling me about another man in another regiment. You eat your eggs, there's a good boy, before they get cold.-- Laura says the Dorchesters dined the Winchesters once when they were in billets. Was that when you and Mr. Hyde were there?" "Captain Hyde," Val corrected his young sister. "Yes, we both graced the festive board. It was too festive for me. We had Buszard's soup and curried chicken and real cream, and more champagne than was good for us. But it was not on that occasion that Hyde was so decent to me. The day I--the day Dale went down--" Rowsley nodded to him as he raised his glass of beer to his lips--"thank you, Rose.-- As I was saying, that evening I ran across Hyde between the lines. The Dorsets and Wintons had gone over the top together, and he had been left behind with a bullet in his chest. I was done to the world, but he had some brandy left and shared it with me. If it had not been for Hyde I should never have brought Dale in." "Well, I've never heard that before," said Rowsley to his fourth egg. Isabel was silent, and her eyes in the shadow of a momentary gravity were the eyes of a woman and not of a child. She raised them to look out at the evening sky, indigo blue against the lamplit interior, or faintly primrose in the west, and wondered for the thousandth time why it was still such an effort to Val to refer to his brief military experience. Soft country noises came in, peaceful and soothing: the short shrill shriek of a bat, the rustle of a branch of rose-leaves moving like a hand over the window panes, a faint breathing of wind from the moor. Surely the scar of war ought to be healed by now! Isabel kept these thoughts to herself: young as she was, her solitary life--for a woman alone among men is always to some extent solitary--had trained her to a clear perception of what had better not be said. "When is Hyde coming?" asked Val, going on with his salad. "Tomorrow, didn't you hear me say Laura is going to bring him here to tea? He's staying at his own place, Farringay--I think from the way Laura spoke it is what one calls a place--and they expect him by the morning train. Laura's to meet him in the car." "Did you ask her to bring him in to tea," said Rowsley, frowning over the marmalade jar, "when Val is safe to be out and you didn't know I should be here?" "Yes: oughtn't I to have?" "No." "Is there anything else you would like to speak to me about?" said Isabel after a pregnant silence. "Dear Rowsley, you seem determined to look after my manners and morals! I asked him to please Laura. She's nervous of Major Clowes. Jack and Yvonne are coming too." "Oh I don't see that it signifies," said Val. Mrs. Clowes wouldn't have accepted if it weren't all right. I don't see that you or I need worry if she doesn't. Isabel is old enough to pour out tea for herself. In any case, as it happens, you'll be here if I'm not, and I dare say Jimmy will look in for ten minutes." "You are sweet, Val," said Isabel gratefully. "Oh I don't say Rowsley's not right! Prigs generally are: and besides now I come to think of it, Laura did look faintly amused when I asked her. But these stupid things never occur to me till afterwards! After all, what am I to do? I can't manufacture a chaperon, and it would be very bad for the parish if the vicar never entertained. And it's not as if Captain Hyde were a young man; he's thirty-six if he's a day." CHAPTER III When the sea retreats after a storm one finds on the beach all sorts of strange flotsam. Bernard Clowes was a bit of human wreckage left on the sands of society by the storm of the war. When it broke out he was a second lieutenant in the Winchester Regiment, a keen polo player and first class batsman who rarely opened a book. He was sent out with the First Division and carried himself with his usual phlegmatic good humour through almost four years of fighting from Mons to Cambrai. In the March break-through he had his wrist broken by a rifle-bullet and was invalided home, where he took advantage of his leave to get married, partly because most of the men he knew were already married, and partly to please his sister. There were no other brothers, and Mrs. Morrison, a practical lady, but always a little regretful of her own marriage with Morrison's Boot and Shoe Company, recommended him with the family bluntness to arrange for an olive branch before the Huns got him. Laura, a penniless woman two years his senior and handicapped by her disreputable belongings, was not the wife Gertrude Morrison would have chosen for him: still it might have been worse, for Laura was well-born and personally irreproachable, while Clowes, hot-blooded and casual, was as likely as not to have married a chorus-girl. If any disappointment lingered, Gertrude soothed it by trying over in her own mind the irritation that she would be able to produce in Morrison circles: "Where he met her? Oh, when she was staying with her married sister at Castle Wharton . . . .Yvonne, the elder Selincourt girl, married into the Bendish family." Bernard did not care a straw either for the paternal handicap or for the glories of the Wharton connection. He took his love-affair as simply as his cricket and with the same bold confidence. Laura was what he wanted; she would fit into her surroundings at Wanhope as delicately as an old picture fits into an old frame, and one could leave her about--so he put it to himself--without fear of her getting damaged. When Tom Morrison, shrewd business man, dropped a hint about the rashness of marrying the daughter of a scamp like Ferdinand Selincourt, Bernard merely stared at him and let the indiscretion go in silence. He can scarcely be said to have loved his bride, for up to the time of the wedding his nature was not much more developed than that of a prize bull, but he considered her a very pretty woman, and his faith in her was a religion. So they were married, and went to Eastbourne for their honeymoon: an average match, not marked by passion on either side, but destined apparently to an average amount of comfort and good will. They had ten gay days before Laura was left on a victoria platform, gallantly smiling with pale lips and waving her handkerchief after the train that carried Bernard back to the front. Five months later on the eve of the Armistice he was flung out of the service, a broken man, paralysed below the waist, cursing every one who came near him and chiefly the surgeons for not letting him die. No one ever desired life more passionately than Bernard desired death. For some time he clung to the hope that his mind would wear his body out. But his body was too young, too strong, too tenacious of earth to be betrayed by the renegade mind. There came a day when Clowes felt his youth welling up in him like sap in a fallen tree: new energy throbbed in his veins, his heart beat strong and even, it was hard to believe that he could not get off his bed if he liked and go down to the playing fields or throw his leg over a horse. This mood fastened on him without warning in a Surbiton hospital after a calm night without a sleeping draught, when through his open window he could see green branches waving in sunlight, and hear the cries of men playing cricket and the smack of the driven ball: and it was torture. Tears forced their way suddenly into Bernard's eyes. His nurse, who had watched not a few reluctant recoveries, went out of the room. Then his great chest heaved, and he sobbed aloud, lying on his back with face unhidden, his wide black eyes blinking at the sweet pale June sky. No chance of death for him: he was good for ten, twenty, fifty years more: he could not bear it, but it had to be borne. He tried to pull himself up: if he could only have reached the window! But the arms that felt so strong were as weak as an infant's, while the dead weight of his helpless legs dragged on him like lead. The only result of his struggle was a dreadful access of pain. Reaction followed, for he had learnt in his A B C days not to whimper when he was hurt, and by the time the nurse returned Clowes had scourged himself back to his usual savage tranquillity. "Can I have that window shut, please?" he asked, cynically frank. "I used to play cricket myself." Laura Clowes in this period went through an experience almost equally formative. Two years older than Bernard, she was also more mature for her years and had developed more evenly, and from the outset her engagement and marriage had meant more to her then to Bernard, because her girlhood had been unhappy and they provided a way of escape. Her sister Yvonne had met Jack Bendish at a race-meeting and he had fallen madly in love with her and married her in a month in the teeth of

garden

How many times the word 'garden' appears in the text?

world. Isabel knew every one in Chilmark and every one knew her. Such a range of intensive acquaintance is not so narrow as people who have never lived in a country village are apt to suppose. Past the schoolhouse, past the wide stone bridge where Isabel loved to hang over the parapet watching for trout--but not tonight, for it was late, and Isabel after a "company tea" wanted her supper: by a footpath through the churchyard, closely mown and planted with rosebushes: and so into the church, where, after dropping a hurried professional curtsey to the altar, she set about her evening duties. Isabel called herself the curate, but she did a good deal which is not expected of a curate, such as shutting windows and changing lesson-markers, propping up the trebles when they went astray in the pointing of the Psalms, altering the numbers on the hymn-board, writing out choir papers, putting flowers in the vases and candles in the benediction lights, playing the organ as required and occasionally blowing it. . . . Before leaving the church she fell on her knees, in deference to Mr. Stafford and the text by the door, and said a prayer. What did she pray? "O Lord bless this church and all who worship in it and make father preach a good sermon next Sunday. I wish I'd been playing with Val instead of Jack, we should have won that last set if Jack hadn't muffed his services. . . . Well, this curate was only nineteen." And then, coming out into the fading light, she locked the north door behind her and went off whistling like a blackbird, if a blackbird could whistle the alto of Calkin's Magnificat in B flat. . . . Five minutes climbing of the steep brown floor of the beechwood, and she was out on uplands in the dying fires of day. It had been twilight in the valley, but here the wide plain was sunlit and the air was fresh and dry: in the valley even the river-aspens were almost quiet, but here there was still a sough of wind coming and going, through the dry grass thick set with lemon thyme and lady's slipper, or along the low garden wall where red valerian sprouted out of yellow stonecrop. A wishing gate led into the garden, and Isabel made for an open window, but halfway over the sill she paused, gazing with all her soul in her eyes across the vicarage gooseberry bushes. That grey suit was Val's of course, but who was inside the belted coat and riding breeches? "Rows-lee!" sang out Isabel, tumbling back into the garden with a generous display of leg. The raiders rose up each holding a handful of large red strawberries melting ripe, and Isabel, pitching in her racquet on a sofa, ran across the grass and enfolded her brother in her arms. Rowsley, dark and slight and shrewd, returned her hug with one arm, while carefully guarding his strawberries with the other--"You pig, you perfect pig!" wailed Isabel. "I was saving them for tea tomorrow, Laura's coming and I can't afford a cake. Oh joy, you can buy me one! How long can you stay?" "Over the week end: but I didn't come to buy you cakes, Baby. I haven't any money either. I came because I wanted you to buy me cakes." "O well never mind, I'll make one," Isabel joyously slipped her hand through Rowsley's arm. "Then I can get the flour from the baker and it won't cost anything at all--it'll go down in the bill. Well give me one anyhow, now they're picked it would be a pity to waste them." She helped herself liberally out of Val's hand. "Now stop both of you, you can't have any more." She linked her other arm in Val's and dragged her brothers out of the dangerous proximity of the strawberry beds. Val sat down on a deck chair, one leg thrown over the other, Rowsley dropped at full length on the turf, and Isabel doubled herself up between them, her arms clasped round her knees. "How's the Old Man?" she asked in friendly reference to Rowsley's commanding officer. "Oh Rose, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. Will Spillsby be able to play on the Fourth?" Spillsby, a brother subaltern and a famous bat, had twisted his ankle at the nets, and Rowsley in his last letter had been uncertain whether he would be well enough to play the Sappers at the annual fixture. Happily Rowsley was able to reassure his young sister: the ankle was much better and Spillsby was already allowed to walk on it. Isabel then turned her large velvet eyes--gazelle eyes with a world of pathos in their velvet gloom on her elder brother. "Coruscate, Val," she commanded. "You haven't said anything at all yet. We should all try to be bright in the home circle. We cannot all be witty, but-Ow! Rowsley, if you pull my hair I shall hit you in the--in the place where the Gauls fined their soldiers if they stuck out on parade. Oh, Val, that really isn't vulgar, I found it in Matthew Arnold! Their stomachs, you know. They wouldn't have fined you anyhow. You look fagged, darling-- are you?" "Not so much fagged as hungry," said Val in his soft voice. "It's getting on for nine o'clock and I was done out of my tea. I went in to Wanhope, but Laura was out, and Clowes was drinking whisky and soda. I cannot stand whisky at four in the afternoon, and Irish whisky at that. There'll be some supper going before long, won't there?" "Not until half past nine because Jimmy has his Bible class tonight." Jimmy was Mr. Stafford: and perhaps a purist might have objected that Mrs. Clowes and Yvonne Bendish had not done all they might have done to form Isabel's manners. "I'm so sorry, darling," she continued, preparing to leap to her feet. "Shall I get you a biscuit? There are oatmeals in the sideboard, the kind you like, I won't be a minute--" "Thanks very much, I'd rather wait. Did you see Mrs. Clowes today? Clowes said she was at the Castle." "So she was, sitting with Mrs. Morley in an angelic striped cotton. Mrs. Morley was in mauve ninon and a Gainsborough hat. Yvonne says Mr. Morley is a Jew and made his money in I. D. B.'s, which I suppose are some sort of stocks?" Neither of her brothers offered to enlighten her, Rowsley because he was feeling indolent, Val because he never said an unkind word to any one. Isabel, who was enamoured of her own voice flowed on with little delay: "If he really is a Jew, I can't think how she could marry him; I wouldn't. Mrs. Morley can't be very happy or Laura wouldn't go and talk to her. Laura is so sweet, she always sits with people that other people run away from. Oh Val, did Major Clowes tell you their news?" Isabel might refer to her father as Jimmy and to Rowsley's commander as the Old Man, but she rarely failed to give Bernard Clowes his correct prefix. "No--is there any?" "Only that they have some one coming to stay with them. Won't he have a deadly time?" Isabel glanced from Val to Rowsley in the certainty of a common response. "Imagine staying at Wanhope! However, he invited himself, so it's at his own risk. Perhaps he's embarrassed like you, Rose, and wants Laura to feed him. It's rather fun for Laura, though--that is, it will be, if Major Clowes isn't too hopeless." Strange freemasonry of the generations! Mr. Stafford's children loved him dearly and he was wont to say that there were no secrets at the vicarage, yet they lived in a conspiracy of silence, and even Val, who was mentally nearer to his father's age, would have been loth to let Mr. Stafford know as much as Isabel knew about Wanhope. It was assumed that Val's job was the very job Val wanted. Mr. Stafford had indeed a suspicion that it was not all plain sailing: Bernard Clowes retained just so much of the decently bred man as to be courteous to his wife before a mere acquaintance, but the vicar came and went at odd hours, and he observed now and then vague intimations--undertones from Bernard himself, an uncontrollable shrinking on Laura's part, an occasional hesitation or reluctance in Val--which hinted at flying storms. But Val, the father supposed, could make allowance for a cripple: Bernard was so much to be pitied that no man would resent an occasional burst of temper! And there his children left him. The younger generation can trust one another not to interfere, but when the seniors strike in, with their cut and dry precedents and rule of thumb moralities, who knows what mischief may follow? Elder people are so indiscreet! "It's a cousin of Major Clowes," Isabel continued, "but they haven't met for years and years--not since the war. Laura knows him too, she met him before she was married and liked him very much indeed. She's looking forward to it--that is, she would be if she had spirit enough to look forward to anything." "Clowes never said a word to me about it," remarked Val. "Didn't he?" Isabel unfolded herself and stood up. "That means he is going to be tiresome. I must run now, it's five past nine. Which will you both have, cold beef or eggs?" "Oh, anything that's going," said Val. "Eggs," said Rowsley, "not less than four. Without prejudice to the cold beef if it's underdone. Hallo!" "What?" "What's the matter with your skirt?" "Nothing," said Isabel shortly. She screwed her head over her shoulder in a vain endeavour to see her own back. "It's perfectly all right." "It would be, on a scarecrow." Isabel stuck her chin up. "Have you been over to the Castle in that kit, Baby? Well, if Yvonne won't give you some of her old clothes, you might ask the kitchenmaid." "The kitchenmaid has more money than I have," said Isabel cheerfully. "Is it so very bad? It's clean anyway, I washed and ironed it myself." "It looks very nice and so do you," said Val. Isabel eyed him with a softened glance: one could rely on Val to salve one's wounded vanity, but, alas! Val did not know home-made from tailor-made. Reluctantly she owned to herself that she had more faith in Rowsley's judgment. "It seems rather short though," Val added. "I suppose you will have to go into long frocks pretty soon, won't you, and put your hair up?" "Oh bother my hair and my dresses!" said Isabel with a great sigh. "I will pin my hair up when I get some new clothes, but how can I when I haven't any money and Jim hasn't any money and neither of you have any money? Don't you see, idiot," this was exclusively to Rowsley, "when I pin my hair up I shall turn into a grown up lady? And then I shall have to wear proper clothes. At present I'm only a little girl and it doesn't signify what I wear. If any one will give me five pounds I'll pin my hair up like a shot. Oh dear, I wonder what Yvonne would say if Jack expected her to outfit herself for five pounds? I do wish some one would leave me 10,000 pounds a year. Get up now, you lazy beggar, come and help me lay the supper. It's Fanny's evening out." She pulled Rowsley to his feet and they went off together leaving Val alone on the lawn: good comrades those two, and apparently more of an age, in spite of the long gap between them, than Rowsley and Val, who was the eldest by only eighteen months. And Val sat on alone, while stains of coral and amber faded out of the lavender sky, and a rack of sea clouds, which half an hour ago had shone like fiery ripples, dwindled away into smoke--mist --a mere shadow on the breast of the night. Stars began to sparkle, moths and humming cockchafers sailed by him, a chase of bats overhead endlessly fell down airy precipices and rose in long loops of darkling flight: honeysuckle and night-scented stock tinged with their sweet garden perfume the cool airs from the moor. Val lit a cigarette, a rare indulgence. If cigarettes grew on gooseberry bushes Val would have been an inveterate smoker, but good Egyptians were a luxury which he could not often afford The Wanhope agency was ample for his needs, though underpaid as agencies go: but there was Rowsley, always hard up, uncomplaining, but sensitive, as a young fellow in his position is sure to be, and secretly fretting because he could not do as other men did: and there was Isabel, for whom Val felt the anxiety Mr. Stafford ought to have felt, and was trying to make the provision Mr. Stafford ought to have made: and then there was the vicar himself, who laid out a great deal of money in those investments for which we are promised cent per cent interest, but upon a system of deferred payment. Tonight however Val lit a cigarette, and then a second, to the surprise of Isabel, who saw the red spark on the lawn. She thought her brother must be tired, and perhaps it really was the long day without food that made him so restless in mind and so uneasy. Bernard Clowes had been more than usually cranky that afternoon. Even the patient Val had had thoughts of throwing up his job when the cripple made him go through his week's accounts, scrutinizing every entry and cross-examining him on every transaction in such a tone as the head of a firm might employ to a junior clerk suspected of dishonesty. It was Bernard's way: it meant nothing: but it was irksome to Val, especially when he could not soothe himself by dropping into Laura's quiet parlour for a cup of tea. Yet his irritation would not have lingered through a cigarette if Isabel's news had not revived it. This cousin of Bernard's! Val had not much faith in any cousin of Bernard Clowes: nor in the kindness of life. Val was a slight, fair, pleasant-looking man of eight or nine and twenty, quiet of movement, friendly-mannered and as inconspicuous as his own rather worn grey tweeds: one of a class, till he raised his eyes: and then? There was something strange in Val's eyes when they were fully raised, an indrawn arresting brilliance difficult to analyse: imaginative and sympathetic, as if he were at home in dark places: the quality of acceptance of pain. Adepts in old days knew by his eyes a man who had been on the rack. Stafford had been racked: and by the pain that is half shame, the keenest, the most lacerating and destructive of wounds. He had suffered till he could suffer no more, and tonight in the starlit garden he, suffered still, without hope, or rebellion, or defence. Indoors Rowsley and Isabel, with the rapidity of long use, laid the cloth, and Isabel fetched cold beef from the larder and butter and eggs from the dairy, while Rowsley went down the cellar with a jug and a candle and drew from the cask a generous allowance of beer. "Come along in, old Val," said Isabel, reappearing at the open window, "You and Rose are both famishing and I'm not," this was a pious fiction, "so you can begin and I'll wait for Jimmy. I dare say he's gone wandering off somewhere and won't be in till ten." Val came across the dark, cool lawn and climbed over the window sill. A shabby room, large and low: a faded paper, grey toning to blue: a carpet of faded roses on a grey ground: the shaded Dresden lamp and roselit supper table shining like an island in a pool of shadow, and those two beloved heads, both so dark and smooth and young, tam cara capita! Neither of them suspected that Val was unhappy. His feeling for them was more fatherly than fraternal, and Rowsley, strange to say, fell in with Val's attitude, coming to his brother for money as naturally as most young men go to their parents. Val sat at the head of the table because Mr. Stafford could not carve. "There!" said Isabel, giving him his plate. "Mustard? I've just made it so you needn't look to see if it's fresh. Watercress: I picked it myself. Lettuce. Cream and vinegar and sugar. Beer. Now do you feel happy? Lord love you, dear, I like to see you eat." She sat on the arm of Mr. Stafford's mahogany chair. "What time do you want breakfast? Seven o'clock? Major Clowes wouldn't come down at seven if he were your agent. Can you get back to tea tomorrow? Laura may bring the cousin up to tea with her and she wants him to meet you." "Very good of her. Why?" "Oh, because he was in the Army too and all through the war. He went out with the first hundred thousand. He's much older than you are--the same age as Laura. Oh, wait a minute!" exclaimed Isabel in the tone in which a Frenchwoman says Tenez. I forgot. She thinks you must have met him, Val." "Possibly," said Val. "Was he in the Dorchesters?" asked Rowsley--much more interested than his brother, no doubt because he was not so hungry as Val, who was giving all his attention to his supper. "No, in the Winchesters," said Isabel. "Do I mean the Winchesters, Val? What was Major Clowes' old regiment?" "Clowes was in the Wintons." Isabel nodded. "Then so was the cousin. And Laura says he was out there when the Wintons were in the next bit of trench north of the Dorchesters. He was there when--when you were wounded." Such was Val Stafford's modesty that in the family circle it was not in etiquette to refer in other terms to that famous occasion. "I don't remember any fellow named Clowes and I never knew Bernard Clowes had a cousin out there," said Val, mixing himself a salad. "Oh, his name isn't Clowes. It's Ryde or Pride or something like that. I'm sorry to be so vague, but Jack Bendish and Yvonne and Mrs. Morley were all talking at once. Lawrence Pied--Fried--" "Lawrence Hyde?" "Yes, that's it! Then you really do remember him?" "Er--yes. Is that lamp smoking, Rowsley? You might turn it down a trifle, I can't reach." "Let me, let me?-- What was he like?" "Who--Hyde? Oh," said Val vaguely, "he was like the rest of us --very tired." "Tired?" echoed Isabel with a blank face, "but, Val darling, he couldn't have been only tired! What should you think he was like when he wasn't tired?" "That is a question I have occasionally asked myself," Val answered with his faint indecipherable smile. "My dear child, I only saw him once or twice. He was a senior captain and commanded his company. I was a very junior lieutenant." "Still he was there at the time," reflected Isabel. "O Rose! if he's anything like nice, which is almost past praying for in Major Clowes' cousin, let's beguile him into the gooseberry bushes and make him tell us all about it! Val is very dear to his family, but no one, however tenderly attached to him, could call him a brilliant raconteur. Now Mr. Hyde won't have any modest scruples. Val, if there is a slug in that lettuce I wish you would say so. It would hurt my feelings less than for you to sit looking at it in a stony silence. Was he good-looking?" "Possibly he might be," said Val, "when he scraped the dirt off." After a moment he added, "He was very decent to me." "Was he? Then he was nice?" "Gnat," said Rowsley from the middle of his third egg. Isabel rounded him indignantly. "I'm not gnatting! I'm not asking Val anything about himself, am I? Val can't possibly mind telling me about another man in another regiment. You eat your eggs, there's a good boy, before they get cold.-- Laura says the Dorchesters dined the Winchesters once when they were in billets. Was that when you and Mr. Hyde were there?" "Captain Hyde," Val corrected his young sister. "Yes, we both graced the festive board. It was too festive for me. We had Buszard's soup and curried chicken and real cream, and more champagne than was good for us. But it was not on that occasion that Hyde was so decent to me. The day I--the day Dale went down--" Rowsley nodded to him as he raised his glass of beer to his lips--"thank you, Rose.-- As I was saying, that evening I ran across Hyde between the lines. The Dorsets and Wintons had gone over the top together, and he had been left behind with a bullet in his chest. I was done to the world, but he had some brandy left and shared it with me. If it had not been for Hyde I should never have brought Dale in." "Well, I've never heard that before," said Rowsley to his fourth egg. Isabel was silent, and her eyes in the shadow of a momentary gravity were the eyes of a woman and not of a child. She raised them to look out at the evening sky, indigo blue against the lamplit interior, or faintly primrose in the west, and wondered for the thousandth time why it was still such an effort to Val to refer to his brief military experience. Soft country noises came in, peaceful and soothing: the short shrill shriek of a bat, the rustle of a branch of rose-leaves moving like a hand over the window panes, a faint breathing of wind from the moor. Surely the scar of war ought to be healed by now! Isabel kept these thoughts to herself: young as she was, her solitary life--for a woman alone among men is always to some extent solitary--had trained her to a clear perception of what had better not be said. "When is Hyde coming?" asked Val, going on with his salad. "Tomorrow, didn't you hear me say Laura is going to bring him here to tea? He's staying at his own place, Farringay--I think from the way Laura spoke it is what one calls a place--and they expect him by the morning train. Laura's to meet him in the car." "Did you ask her to bring him in to tea," said Rowsley, frowning over the marmalade jar, "when Val is safe to be out and you didn't know I should be here?" "Yes: oughtn't I to have?" "No." "Is there anything else you would like to speak to me about?" said Isabel after a pregnant silence. "Dear Rowsley, you seem determined to look after my manners and morals! I asked him to please Laura. She's nervous of Major Clowes. Jack and Yvonne are coming too." "Oh I don't see that it signifies," said Val. Mrs. Clowes wouldn't have accepted if it weren't all right. I don't see that you or I need worry if she doesn't. Isabel is old enough to pour out tea for herself. In any case, as it happens, you'll be here if I'm not, and I dare say Jimmy will look in for ten minutes." "You are sweet, Val," said Isabel gratefully. "Oh I don't say Rowsley's not right! Prigs generally are: and besides now I come to think of it, Laura did look faintly amused when I asked her. But these stupid things never occur to me till afterwards! After all, what am I to do? I can't manufacture a chaperon, and it would be very bad for the parish if the vicar never entertained. And it's not as if Captain Hyde were a young man; he's thirty-six if he's a day." CHAPTER III When the sea retreats after a storm one finds on the beach all sorts of strange flotsam. Bernard Clowes was a bit of human wreckage left on the sands of society by the storm of the war. When it broke out he was a second lieutenant in the Winchester Regiment, a keen polo player and first class batsman who rarely opened a book. He was sent out with the First Division and carried himself with his usual phlegmatic good humour through almost four years of fighting from Mons to Cambrai. In the March break-through he had his wrist broken by a rifle-bullet and was invalided home, where he took advantage of his leave to get married, partly because most of the men he knew were already married, and partly to please his sister. There were no other brothers, and Mrs. Morrison, a practical lady, but always a little regretful of her own marriage with Morrison's Boot and Shoe Company, recommended him with the family bluntness to arrange for an olive branch before the Huns got him. Laura, a penniless woman two years his senior and handicapped by her disreputable belongings, was not the wife Gertrude Morrison would have chosen for him: still it might have been worse, for Laura was well-born and personally irreproachable, while Clowes, hot-blooded and casual, was as likely as not to have married a chorus-girl. If any disappointment lingered, Gertrude soothed it by trying over in her own mind the irritation that she would be able to produce in Morrison circles: "Where he met her? Oh, when she was staying with her married sister at Castle Wharton . . . .Yvonne, the elder Selincourt girl, married into the Bendish family." Bernard did not care a straw either for the paternal handicap or for the glories of the Wharton connection. He took his love-affair as simply as his cricket and with the same bold confidence. Laura was what he wanted; she would fit into her surroundings at Wanhope as delicately as an old picture fits into an old frame, and one could leave her about--so he put it to himself--without fear of her getting damaged. When Tom Morrison, shrewd business man, dropped a hint about the rashness of marrying the daughter of a scamp like Ferdinand Selincourt, Bernard merely stared at him and let the indiscretion go in silence. He can scarcely be said to have loved his bride, for up to the time of the wedding his nature was not much more developed than that of a prize bull, but he considered her a very pretty woman, and his faith in her was a religion. So they were married, and went to Eastbourne for their honeymoon: an average match, not marked by passion on either side, but destined apparently to an average amount of comfort and good will. They had ten gay days before Laura was left on a victoria platform, gallantly smiling with pale lips and waving her handkerchief after the train that carried Bernard back to the front. Five months later on the eve of the Armistice he was flung out of the service, a broken man, paralysed below the waist, cursing every one who came near him and chiefly the surgeons for not letting him die. No one ever desired life more passionately than Bernard desired death. For some time he clung to the hope that his mind would wear his body out. But his body was too young, too strong, too tenacious of earth to be betrayed by the renegade mind. There came a day when Clowes felt his youth welling up in him like sap in a fallen tree: new energy throbbed in his veins, his heart beat strong and even, it was hard to believe that he could not get off his bed if he liked and go down to the playing fields or throw his leg over a horse. This mood fastened on him without warning in a Surbiton hospital after a calm night without a sleeping draught, when through his open window he could see green branches waving in sunlight, and hear the cries of men playing cricket and the smack of the driven ball: and it was torture. Tears forced their way suddenly into Bernard's eyes. His nurse, who had watched not a few reluctant recoveries, went out of the room. Then his great chest heaved, and he sobbed aloud, lying on his back with face unhidden, his wide black eyes blinking at the sweet pale June sky. No chance of death for him: he was good for ten, twenty, fifty years more: he could not bear it, but it had to be borne. He tried to pull himself up: if he could only have reached the window! But the arms that felt so strong were as weak as an infant's, while the dead weight of his helpless legs dragged on him like lead. The only result of his struggle was a dreadful access of pain. Reaction followed, for he had learnt in his A B C days not to whimper when he was hurt, and by the time the nurse returned Clowes had scourged himself back to his usual savage tranquillity. "Can I have that window shut, please?" he asked, cynically frank. "I used to play cricket myself." Laura Clowes in this period went through an experience almost equally formative. Two years older than Bernard, she was also more mature for her years and had developed more evenly, and from the outset her engagement and marriage had meant more to her then to Bernard, because her girlhood had been unhappy and they provided a way of escape. Her sister Yvonne had met Jack Bendish at a race-meeting and he had fallen madly in love with her and married her in a month in the teeth of

machines

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world. Isabel knew every one in Chilmark and every one knew her. Such a range of intensive acquaintance is not so narrow as people who have never lived in a country village are apt to suppose. Past the schoolhouse, past the wide stone bridge where Isabel loved to hang over the parapet watching for trout--but not tonight, for it was late, and Isabel after a "company tea" wanted her supper: by a footpath through the churchyard, closely mown and planted with rosebushes: and so into the church, where, after dropping a hurried professional curtsey to the altar, she set about her evening duties. Isabel called herself the curate, but she did a good deal which is not expected of a curate, such as shutting windows and changing lesson-markers, propping up the trebles when they went astray in the pointing of the Psalms, altering the numbers on the hymn-board, writing out choir papers, putting flowers in the vases and candles in the benediction lights, playing the organ as required and occasionally blowing it. . . . Before leaving the church she fell on her knees, in deference to Mr. Stafford and the text by the door, and said a prayer. What did she pray? "O Lord bless this church and all who worship in it and make father preach a good sermon next Sunday. I wish I'd been playing with Val instead of Jack, we should have won that last set if Jack hadn't muffed his services. . . . Well, this curate was only nineteen." And then, coming out into the fading light, she locked the north door behind her and went off whistling like a blackbird, if a blackbird could whistle the alto of Calkin's Magnificat in B flat. . . . Five minutes climbing of the steep brown floor of the beechwood, and she was out on uplands in the dying fires of day. It had been twilight in the valley, but here the wide plain was sunlit and the air was fresh and dry: in the valley even the river-aspens were almost quiet, but here there was still a sough of wind coming and going, through the dry grass thick set with lemon thyme and lady's slipper, or along the low garden wall where red valerian sprouted out of yellow stonecrop. A wishing gate led into the garden, and Isabel made for an open window, but halfway over the sill she paused, gazing with all her soul in her eyes across the vicarage gooseberry bushes. That grey suit was Val's of course, but who was inside the belted coat and riding breeches? "Rows-lee!" sang out Isabel, tumbling back into the garden with a generous display of leg. The raiders rose up each holding a handful of large red strawberries melting ripe, and Isabel, pitching in her racquet on a sofa, ran across the grass and enfolded her brother in her arms. Rowsley, dark and slight and shrewd, returned her hug with one arm, while carefully guarding his strawberries with the other--"You pig, you perfect pig!" wailed Isabel. "I was saving them for tea tomorrow, Laura's coming and I can't afford a cake. Oh joy, you can buy me one! How long can you stay?" "Over the week end: but I didn't come to buy you cakes, Baby. I haven't any money either. I came because I wanted you to buy me cakes." "O well never mind, I'll make one," Isabel joyously slipped her hand through Rowsley's arm. "Then I can get the flour from the baker and it won't cost anything at all--it'll go down in the bill. Well give me one anyhow, now they're picked it would be a pity to waste them." She helped herself liberally out of Val's hand. "Now stop both of you, you can't have any more." She linked her other arm in Val's and dragged her brothers out of the dangerous proximity of the strawberry beds. Val sat down on a deck chair, one leg thrown over the other, Rowsley dropped at full length on the turf, and Isabel doubled herself up between them, her arms clasped round her knees. "How's the Old Man?" she asked in friendly reference to Rowsley's commanding officer. "Oh Rose, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. Will Spillsby be able to play on the Fourth?" Spillsby, a brother subaltern and a famous bat, had twisted his ankle at the nets, and Rowsley in his last letter had been uncertain whether he would be well enough to play the Sappers at the annual fixture. Happily Rowsley was able to reassure his young sister: the ankle was much better and Spillsby was already allowed to walk on it. Isabel then turned her large velvet eyes--gazelle eyes with a world of pathos in their velvet gloom on her elder brother. "Coruscate, Val," she commanded. "You haven't said anything at all yet. We should all try to be bright in the home circle. We cannot all be witty, but-Ow! Rowsley, if you pull my hair I shall hit you in the--in the place where the Gauls fined their soldiers if they stuck out on parade. Oh, Val, that really isn't vulgar, I found it in Matthew Arnold! Their stomachs, you know. They wouldn't have fined you anyhow. You look fagged, darling-- are you?" "Not so much fagged as hungry," said Val in his soft voice. "It's getting on for nine o'clock and I was done out of my tea. I went in to Wanhope, but Laura was out, and Clowes was drinking whisky and soda. I cannot stand whisky at four in the afternoon, and Irish whisky at that. There'll be some supper going before long, won't there?" "Not until half past nine because Jimmy has his Bible class tonight." Jimmy was Mr. Stafford: and perhaps a purist might have objected that Mrs. Clowes and Yvonne Bendish had not done all they might have done to form Isabel's manners. "I'm so sorry, darling," she continued, preparing to leap to her feet. "Shall I get you a biscuit? There are oatmeals in the sideboard, the kind you like, I won't be a minute--" "Thanks very much, I'd rather wait. Did you see Mrs. Clowes today? Clowes said she was at the Castle." "So she was, sitting with Mrs. Morley in an angelic striped cotton. Mrs. Morley was in mauve ninon and a Gainsborough hat. Yvonne says Mr. Morley is a Jew and made his money in I. D. B.'s, which I suppose are some sort of stocks?" Neither of her brothers offered to enlighten her, Rowsley because he was feeling indolent, Val because he never said an unkind word to any one. Isabel, who was enamoured of her own voice flowed on with little delay: "If he really is a Jew, I can't think how she could marry him; I wouldn't. Mrs. Morley can't be very happy or Laura wouldn't go and talk to her. Laura is so sweet, she always sits with people that other people run away from. Oh Val, did Major Clowes tell you their news?" Isabel might refer to her father as Jimmy and to Rowsley's commander as the Old Man, but she rarely failed to give Bernard Clowes his correct prefix. "No--is there any?" "Only that they have some one coming to stay with them. Won't he have a deadly time?" Isabel glanced from Val to Rowsley in the certainty of a common response. "Imagine staying at Wanhope! However, he invited himself, so it's at his own risk. Perhaps he's embarrassed like you, Rose, and wants Laura to feed him. It's rather fun for Laura, though--that is, it will be, if Major Clowes isn't too hopeless." Strange freemasonry of the generations! Mr. Stafford's children loved him dearly and he was wont to say that there were no secrets at the vicarage, yet they lived in a conspiracy of silence, and even Val, who was mentally nearer to his father's age, would have been loth to let Mr. Stafford know as much as Isabel knew about Wanhope. It was assumed that Val's job was the very job Val wanted. Mr. Stafford had indeed a suspicion that it was not all plain sailing: Bernard Clowes retained just so much of the decently bred man as to be courteous to his wife before a mere acquaintance, but the vicar came and went at odd hours, and he observed now and then vague intimations--undertones from Bernard himself, an uncontrollable shrinking on Laura's part, an occasional hesitation or reluctance in Val--which hinted at flying storms. But Val, the father supposed, could make allowance for a cripple: Bernard was so much to be pitied that no man would resent an occasional burst of temper! And there his children left him. The younger generation can trust one another not to interfere, but when the seniors strike in, with their cut and dry precedents and rule of thumb moralities, who knows what mischief may follow? Elder people are so indiscreet! "It's a cousin of Major Clowes," Isabel continued, "but they haven't met for years and years--not since the war. Laura knows him too, she met him before she was married and liked him very much indeed. She's looking forward to it--that is, she would be if she had spirit enough to look forward to anything." "Clowes never said a word to me about it," remarked Val. "Didn't he?" Isabel unfolded herself and stood up. "That means he is going to be tiresome. I must run now, it's five past nine. Which will you both have, cold beef or eggs?" "Oh, anything that's going," said Val. "Eggs," said Rowsley, "not less than four. Without prejudice to the cold beef if it's underdone. Hallo!" "What?" "What's the matter with your skirt?" "Nothing," said Isabel shortly. She screwed her head over her shoulder in a vain endeavour to see her own back. "It's perfectly all right." "It would be, on a scarecrow." Isabel stuck her chin up. "Have you been over to the Castle in that kit, Baby? Well, if Yvonne won't give you some of her old clothes, you might ask the kitchenmaid." "The kitchenmaid has more money than I have," said Isabel cheerfully. "Is it so very bad? It's clean anyway, I washed and ironed it myself." "It looks very nice and so do you," said Val. Isabel eyed him with a softened glance: one could rely on Val to salve one's wounded vanity, but, alas! Val did not know home-made from tailor-made. Reluctantly she owned to herself that she had more faith in Rowsley's judgment. "It seems rather short though," Val added. "I suppose you will have to go into long frocks pretty soon, won't you, and put your hair up?" "Oh bother my hair and my dresses!" said Isabel with a great sigh. "I will pin my hair up when I get some new clothes, but how can I when I haven't any money and Jim hasn't any money and neither of you have any money? Don't you see, idiot," this was exclusively to Rowsley, "when I pin my hair up I shall turn into a grown up lady? And then I shall have to wear proper clothes. At present I'm only a little girl and it doesn't signify what I wear. If any one will give me five pounds I'll pin my hair up like a shot. Oh dear, I wonder what Yvonne would say if Jack expected her to outfit herself for five pounds? I do wish some one would leave me 10,000 pounds a year. Get up now, you lazy beggar, come and help me lay the supper. It's Fanny's evening out." She pulled Rowsley to his feet and they went off together leaving Val alone on the lawn: good comrades those two, and apparently more of an age, in spite of the long gap between them, than Rowsley and Val, who was the eldest by only eighteen months. And Val sat on alone, while stains of coral and amber faded out of the lavender sky, and a rack of sea clouds, which half an hour ago had shone like fiery ripples, dwindled away into smoke--mist --a mere shadow on the breast of the night. Stars began to sparkle, moths and humming cockchafers sailed by him, a chase of bats overhead endlessly fell down airy precipices and rose in long loops of darkling flight: honeysuckle and night-scented stock tinged with their sweet garden perfume the cool airs from the moor. Val lit a cigarette, a rare indulgence. If cigarettes grew on gooseberry bushes Val would have been an inveterate smoker, but good Egyptians were a luxury which he could not often afford The Wanhope agency was ample for his needs, though underpaid as agencies go: but there was Rowsley, always hard up, uncomplaining, but sensitive, as a young fellow in his position is sure to be, and secretly fretting because he could not do as other men did: and there was Isabel, for whom Val felt the anxiety Mr. Stafford ought to have felt, and was trying to make the provision Mr. Stafford ought to have made: and then there was the vicar himself, who laid out a great deal of money in those investments for which we are promised cent per cent interest, but upon a system of deferred payment. Tonight however Val lit a cigarette, and then a second, to the surprise of Isabel, who saw the red spark on the lawn. She thought her brother must be tired, and perhaps it really was the long day without food that made him so restless in mind and so uneasy. Bernard Clowes had been more than usually cranky that afternoon. Even the patient Val had had thoughts of throwing up his job when the cripple made him go through his week's accounts, scrutinizing every entry and cross-examining him on every transaction in such a tone as the head of a firm might employ to a junior clerk suspected of dishonesty. It was Bernard's way: it meant nothing: but it was irksome to Val, especially when he could not soothe himself by dropping into Laura's quiet parlour for a cup of tea. Yet his irritation would not have lingered through a cigarette if Isabel's news had not revived it. This cousin of Bernard's! Val had not much faith in any cousin of Bernard Clowes: nor in the kindness of life. Val was a slight, fair, pleasant-looking man of eight or nine and twenty, quiet of movement, friendly-mannered and as inconspicuous as his own rather worn grey tweeds: one of a class, till he raised his eyes: and then? There was something strange in Val's eyes when they were fully raised, an indrawn arresting brilliance difficult to analyse: imaginative and sympathetic, as if he were at home in dark places: the quality of acceptance of pain. Adepts in old days knew by his eyes a man who had been on the rack. Stafford had been racked: and by the pain that is half shame, the keenest, the most lacerating and destructive of wounds. He had suffered till he could suffer no more, and tonight in the starlit garden he, suffered still, without hope, or rebellion, or defence. Indoors Rowsley and Isabel, with the rapidity of long use, laid the cloth, and Isabel fetched cold beef from the larder and butter and eggs from the dairy, while Rowsley went down the cellar with a jug and a candle and drew from the cask a generous allowance of beer. "Come along in, old Val," said Isabel, reappearing at the open window, "You and Rose are both famishing and I'm not," this was a pious fiction, "so you can begin and I'll wait for Jimmy. I dare say he's gone wandering off somewhere and won't be in till ten." Val came across the dark, cool lawn and climbed over the window sill. A shabby room, large and low: a faded paper, grey toning to blue: a carpet of faded roses on a grey ground: the shaded Dresden lamp and roselit supper table shining like an island in a pool of shadow, and those two beloved heads, both so dark and smooth and young, tam cara capita! Neither of them suspected that Val was unhappy. His feeling for them was more fatherly than fraternal, and Rowsley, strange to say, fell in with Val's attitude, coming to his brother for money as naturally as most young men go to their parents. Val sat at the head of the table because Mr. Stafford could not carve. "There!" said Isabel, giving him his plate. "Mustard? I've just made it so you needn't look to see if it's fresh. Watercress: I picked it myself. Lettuce. Cream and vinegar and sugar. Beer. Now do you feel happy? Lord love you, dear, I like to see you eat." She sat on the arm of Mr. Stafford's mahogany chair. "What time do you want breakfast? Seven o'clock? Major Clowes wouldn't come down at seven if he were your agent. Can you get back to tea tomorrow? Laura may bring the cousin up to tea with her and she wants him to meet you." "Very good of her. Why?" "Oh, because he was in the Army too and all through the war. He went out with the first hundred thousand. He's much older than you are--the same age as Laura. Oh, wait a minute!" exclaimed Isabel in the tone in which a Frenchwoman says Tenez. I forgot. She thinks you must have met him, Val." "Possibly," said Val. "Was he in the Dorchesters?" asked Rowsley--much more interested than his brother, no doubt because he was not so hungry as Val, who was giving all his attention to his supper. "No, in the Winchesters," said Isabel. "Do I mean the Winchesters, Val? What was Major Clowes' old regiment?" "Clowes was in the Wintons." Isabel nodded. "Then so was the cousin. And Laura says he was out there when the Wintons were in the next bit of trench north of the Dorchesters. He was there when--when you were wounded." Such was Val Stafford's modesty that in the family circle it was not in etiquette to refer in other terms to that famous occasion. "I don't remember any fellow named Clowes and I never knew Bernard Clowes had a cousin out there," said Val, mixing himself a salad. "Oh, his name isn't Clowes. It's Ryde or Pride or something like that. I'm sorry to be so vague, but Jack Bendish and Yvonne and Mrs. Morley were all talking at once. Lawrence Pied--Fried--" "Lawrence Hyde?" "Yes, that's it! Then you really do remember him?" "Er--yes. Is that lamp smoking, Rowsley? You might turn it down a trifle, I can't reach." "Let me, let me?-- What was he like?" "Who--Hyde? Oh," said Val vaguely, "he was like the rest of us --very tired." "Tired?" echoed Isabel with a blank face, "but, Val darling, he couldn't have been only tired! What should you think he was like when he wasn't tired?" "That is a question I have occasionally asked myself," Val answered with his faint indecipherable smile. "My dear child, I only saw him once or twice. He was a senior captain and commanded his company. I was a very junior lieutenant." "Still he was there at the time," reflected Isabel. "O Rose! if he's anything like nice, which is almost past praying for in Major Clowes' cousin, let's beguile him into the gooseberry bushes and make him tell us all about it! Val is very dear to his family, but no one, however tenderly attached to him, could call him a brilliant raconteur. Now Mr. Hyde won't have any modest scruples. Val, if there is a slug in that lettuce I wish you would say so. It would hurt my feelings less than for you to sit looking at it in a stony silence. Was he good-looking?" "Possibly he might be," said Val, "when he scraped the dirt off." After a moment he added, "He was very decent to me." "Was he? Then he was nice?" "Gnat," said Rowsley from the middle of his third egg. Isabel rounded him indignantly. "I'm not gnatting! I'm not asking Val anything about himself, am I? Val can't possibly mind telling me about another man in another regiment. You eat your eggs, there's a good boy, before they get cold.-- Laura says the Dorchesters dined the Winchesters once when they were in billets. Was that when you and Mr. Hyde were there?" "Captain Hyde," Val corrected his young sister. "Yes, we both graced the festive board. It was too festive for me. We had Buszard's soup and curried chicken and real cream, and more champagne than was good for us. But it was not on that occasion that Hyde was so decent to me. The day I--the day Dale went down--" Rowsley nodded to him as he raised his glass of beer to his lips--"thank you, Rose.-- As I was saying, that evening I ran across Hyde between the lines. The Dorsets and Wintons had gone over the top together, and he had been left behind with a bullet in his chest. I was done to the world, but he had some brandy left and shared it with me. If it had not been for Hyde I should never have brought Dale in." "Well, I've never heard that before," said Rowsley to his fourth egg. Isabel was silent, and her eyes in the shadow of a momentary gravity were the eyes of a woman and not of a child. She raised them to look out at the evening sky, indigo blue against the lamplit interior, or faintly primrose in the west, and wondered for the thousandth time why it was still such an effort to Val to refer to his brief military experience. Soft country noises came in, peaceful and soothing: the short shrill shriek of a bat, the rustle of a branch of rose-leaves moving like a hand over the window panes, a faint breathing of wind from the moor. Surely the scar of war ought to be healed by now! Isabel kept these thoughts to herself: young as she was, her solitary life--for a woman alone among men is always to some extent solitary--had trained her to a clear perception of what had better not be said. "When is Hyde coming?" asked Val, going on with his salad. "Tomorrow, didn't you hear me say Laura is going to bring him here to tea? He's staying at his own place, Farringay--I think from the way Laura spoke it is what one calls a place--and they expect him by the morning train. Laura's to meet him in the car." "Did you ask her to bring him in to tea," said Rowsley, frowning over the marmalade jar, "when Val is safe to be out and you didn't know I should be here?" "Yes: oughtn't I to have?" "No." "Is there anything else you would like to speak to me about?" said Isabel after a pregnant silence. "Dear Rowsley, you seem determined to look after my manners and morals! I asked him to please Laura. She's nervous of Major Clowes. Jack and Yvonne are coming too." "Oh I don't see that it signifies," said Val. Mrs. Clowes wouldn't have accepted if it weren't all right. I don't see that you or I need worry if she doesn't. Isabel is old enough to pour out tea for herself. In any case, as it happens, you'll be here if I'm not, and I dare say Jimmy will look in for ten minutes." "You are sweet, Val," said Isabel gratefully. "Oh I don't say Rowsley's not right! Prigs generally are: and besides now I come to think of it, Laura did look faintly amused when I asked her. But these stupid things never occur to me till afterwards! After all, what am I to do? I can't manufacture a chaperon, and it would be very bad for the parish if the vicar never entertained. And it's not as if Captain Hyde were a young man; he's thirty-six if he's a day." CHAPTER III When the sea retreats after a storm one finds on the beach all sorts of strange flotsam. Bernard Clowes was a bit of human wreckage left on the sands of society by the storm of the war. When it broke out he was a second lieutenant in the Winchester Regiment, a keen polo player and first class batsman who rarely opened a book. He was sent out with the First Division and carried himself with his usual phlegmatic good humour through almost four years of fighting from Mons to Cambrai. In the March break-through he had his wrist broken by a rifle-bullet and was invalided home, where he took advantage of his leave to get married, partly because most of the men he knew were already married, and partly to please his sister. There were no other brothers, and Mrs. Morrison, a practical lady, but always a little regretful of her own marriage with Morrison's Boot and Shoe Company, recommended him with the family bluntness to arrange for an olive branch before the Huns got him. Laura, a penniless woman two years his senior and handicapped by her disreputable belongings, was not the wife Gertrude Morrison would have chosen for him: still it might have been worse, for Laura was well-born and personally irreproachable, while Clowes, hot-blooded and casual, was as likely as not to have married a chorus-girl. If any disappointment lingered, Gertrude soothed it by trying over in her own mind the irritation that she would be able to produce in Morrison circles: "Where he met her? Oh, when she was staying with her married sister at Castle Wharton . . . .Yvonne, the elder Selincourt girl, married into the Bendish family." Bernard did not care a straw either for the paternal handicap or for the glories of the Wharton connection. He took his love-affair as simply as his cricket and with the same bold confidence. Laura was what he wanted; she would fit into her surroundings at Wanhope as delicately as an old picture fits into an old frame, and one could leave her about--so he put it to himself--without fear of her getting damaged. When Tom Morrison, shrewd business man, dropped a hint about the rashness of marrying the daughter of a scamp like Ferdinand Selincourt, Bernard merely stared at him and let the indiscretion go in silence. He can scarcely be said to have loved his bride, for up to the time of the wedding his nature was not much more developed than that of a prize bull, but he considered her a very pretty woman, and his faith in her was a religion. So they were married, and went to Eastbourne for their honeymoon: an average match, not marked by passion on either side, but destined apparently to an average amount of comfort and good will. They had ten gay days before Laura was left on a victoria platform, gallantly smiling with pale lips and waving her handkerchief after the train that carried Bernard back to the front. Five months later on the eve of the Armistice he was flung out of the service, a broken man, paralysed below the waist, cursing every one who came near him and chiefly the surgeons for not letting him die. No one ever desired life more passionately than Bernard desired death. For some time he clung to the hope that his mind would wear his body out. But his body was too young, too strong, too tenacious of earth to be betrayed by the renegade mind. There came a day when Clowes felt his youth welling up in him like sap in a fallen tree: new energy throbbed in his veins, his heart beat strong and even, it was hard to believe that he could not get off his bed if he liked and go down to the playing fields or throw his leg over a horse. This mood fastened on him without warning in a Surbiton hospital after a calm night without a sleeping draught, when through his open window he could see green branches waving in sunlight, and hear the cries of men playing cricket and the smack of the driven ball: and it was torture. Tears forced their way suddenly into Bernard's eyes. His nurse, who had watched not a few reluctant recoveries, went out of the room. Then his great chest heaved, and he sobbed aloud, lying on his back with face unhidden, his wide black eyes blinking at the sweet pale June sky. No chance of death for him: he was good for ten, twenty, fifty years more: he could not bear it, but it had to be borne. He tried to pull himself up: if he could only have reached the window! But the arms that felt so strong were as weak as an infant's, while the dead weight of his helpless legs dragged on him like lead. The only result of his struggle was a dreadful access of pain. Reaction followed, for he had learnt in his A B C days not to whimper when he was hurt, and by the time the nurse returned Clowes had scourged himself back to his usual savage tranquillity. "Can I have that window shut, please?" he asked, cynically frank. "I used to play cricket myself." Laura Clowes in this period went through an experience almost equally formative. Two years older than Bernard, she was also more mature for her years and had developed more evenly, and from the outset her engagement and marriage had meant more to her then to Bernard, because her girlhood had been unhappy and they provided a way of escape. Her sister Yvonne had met Jack Bendish at a race-meeting and he had fallen madly in love with her and married her in a month in the teeth of

club

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world. Isabel knew every one in Chilmark and every one knew her. Such a range of intensive acquaintance is not so narrow as people who have never lived in a country village are apt to suppose. Past the schoolhouse, past the wide stone bridge where Isabel loved to hang over the parapet watching for trout--but not tonight, for it was late, and Isabel after a "company tea" wanted her supper: by a footpath through the churchyard, closely mown and planted with rosebushes: and so into the church, where, after dropping a hurried professional curtsey to the altar, she set about her evening duties. Isabel called herself the curate, but she did a good deal which is not expected of a curate, such as shutting windows and changing lesson-markers, propping up the trebles when they went astray in the pointing of the Psalms, altering the numbers on the hymn-board, writing out choir papers, putting flowers in the vases and candles in the benediction lights, playing the organ as required and occasionally blowing it. . . . Before leaving the church she fell on her knees, in deference to Mr. Stafford and the text by the door, and said a prayer. What did she pray? "O Lord bless this church and all who worship in it and make father preach a good sermon next Sunday. I wish I'd been playing with Val instead of Jack, we should have won that last set if Jack hadn't muffed his services. . . . Well, this curate was only nineteen." And then, coming out into the fading light, she locked the north door behind her and went off whistling like a blackbird, if a blackbird could whistle the alto of Calkin's Magnificat in B flat. . . . Five minutes climbing of the steep brown floor of the beechwood, and she was out on uplands in the dying fires of day. It had been twilight in the valley, but here the wide plain was sunlit and the air was fresh and dry: in the valley even the river-aspens were almost quiet, but here there was still a sough of wind coming and going, through the dry grass thick set with lemon thyme and lady's slipper, or along the low garden wall where red valerian sprouted out of yellow stonecrop. A wishing gate led into the garden, and Isabel made for an open window, but halfway over the sill she paused, gazing with all her soul in her eyes across the vicarage gooseberry bushes. That grey suit was Val's of course, but who was inside the belted coat and riding breeches? "Rows-lee!" sang out Isabel, tumbling back into the garden with a generous display of leg. The raiders rose up each holding a handful of large red strawberries melting ripe, and Isabel, pitching in her racquet on a sofa, ran across the grass and enfolded her brother in her arms. Rowsley, dark and slight and shrewd, returned her hug with one arm, while carefully guarding his strawberries with the other--"You pig, you perfect pig!" wailed Isabel. "I was saving them for tea tomorrow, Laura's coming and I can't afford a cake. Oh joy, you can buy me one! How long can you stay?" "Over the week end: but I didn't come to buy you cakes, Baby. I haven't any money either. I came because I wanted you to buy me cakes." "O well never mind, I'll make one," Isabel joyously slipped her hand through Rowsley's arm. "Then I can get the flour from the baker and it won't cost anything at all--it'll go down in the bill. Well give me one anyhow, now they're picked it would be a pity to waste them." She helped herself liberally out of Val's hand. "Now stop both of you, you can't have any more." She linked her other arm in Val's and dragged her brothers out of the dangerous proximity of the strawberry beds. Val sat down on a deck chair, one leg thrown over the other, Rowsley dropped at full length on the turf, and Isabel doubled herself up between them, her arms clasped round her knees. "How's the Old Man?" she asked in friendly reference to Rowsley's commanding officer. "Oh Rose, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. Will Spillsby be able to play on the Fourth?" Spillsby, a brother subaltern and a famous bat, had twisted his ankle at the nets, and Rowsley in his last letter had been uncertain whether he would be well enough to play the Sappers at the annual fixture. Happily Rowsley was able to reassure his young sister: the ankle was much better and Spillsby was already allowed to walk on it. Isabel then turned her large velvet eyes--gazelle eyes with a world of pathos in their velvet gloom on her elder brother. "Coruscate, Val," she commanded. "You haven't said anything at all yet. We should all try to be bright in the home circle. We cannot all be witty, but-Ow! Rowsley, if you pull my hair I shall hit you in the--in the place where the Gauls fined their soldiers if they stuck out on parade. Oh, Val, that really isn't vulgar, I found it in Matthew Arnold! Their stomachs, you know. They wouldn't have fined you anyhow. You look fagged, darling-- are you?" "Not so much fagged as hungry," said Val in his soft voice. "It's getting on for nine o'clock and I was done out of my tea. I went in to Wanhope, but Laura was out, and Clowes was drinking whisky and soda. I cannot stand whisky at four in the afternoon, and Irish whisky at that. There'll be some supper going before long, won't there?" "Not until half past nine because Jimmy has his Bible class tonight." Jimmy was Mr. Stafford: and perhaps a purist might have objected that Mrs. Clowes and Yvonne Bendish had not done all they might have done to form Isabel's manners. "I'm so sorry, darling," she continued, preparing to leap to her feet. "Shall I get you a biscuit? There are oatmeals in the sideboard, the kind you like, I won't be a minute--" "Thanks very much, I'd rather wait. Did you see Mrs. Clowes today? Clowes said she was at the Castle." "So she was, sitting with Mrs. Morley in an angelic striped cotton. Mrs. Morley was in mauve ninon and a Gainsborough hat. Yvonne says Mr. Morley is a Jew and made his money in I. D. B.'s, which I suppose are some sort of stocks?" Neither of her brothers offered to enlighten her, Rowsley because he was feeling indolent, Val because he never said an unkind word to any one. Isabel, who was enamoured of her own voice flowed on with little delay: "If he really is a Jew, I can't think how she could marry him; I wouldn't. Mrs. Morley can't be very happy or Laura wouldn't go and talk to her. Laura is so sweet, she always sits with people that other people run away from. Oh Val, did Major Clowes tell you their news?" Isabel might refer to her father as Jimmy and to Rowsley's commander as the Old Man, but she rarely failed to give Bernard Clowes his correct prefix. "No--is there any?" "Only that they have some one coming to stay with them. Won't he have a deadly time?" Isabel glanced from Val to Rowsley in the certainty of a common response. "Imagine staying at Wanhope! However, he invited himself, so it's at his own risk. Perhaps he's embarrassed like you, Rose, and wants Laura to feed him. It's rather fun for Laura, though--that is, it will be, if Major Clowes isn't too hopeless." Strange freemasonry of the generations! Mr. Stafford's children loved him dearly and he was wont to say that there were no secrets at the vicarage, yet they lived in a conspiracy of silence, and even Val, who was mentally nearer to his father's age, would have been loth to let Mr. Stafford know as much as Isabel knew about Wanhope. It was assumed that Val's job was the very job Val wanted. Mr. Stafford had indeed a suspicion that it was not all plain sailing: Bernard Clowes retained just so much of the decently bred man as to be courteous to his wife before a mere acquaintance, but the vicar came and went at odd hours, and he observed now and then vague intimations--undertones from Bernard himself, an uncontrollable shrinking on Laura's part, an occasional hesitation or reluctance in Val--which hinted at flying storms. But Val, the father supposed, could make allowance for a cripple: Bernard was so much to be pitied that no man would resent an occasional burst of temper! And there his children left him. The younger generation can trust one another not to interfere, but when the seniors strike in, with their cut and dry precedents and rule of thumb moralities, who knows what mischief may follow? Elder people are so indiscreet! "It's a cousin of Major Clowes," Isabel continued, "but they haven't met for years and years--not since the war. Laura knows him too, she met him before she was married and liked him very much indeed. She's looking forward to it--that is, she would be if she had spirit enough to look forward to anything." "Clowes never said a word to me about it," remarked Val. "Didn't he?" Isabel unfolded herself and stood up. "That means he is going to be tiresome. I must run now, it's five past nine. Which will you both have, cold beef or eggs?" "Oh, anything that's going," said Val. "Eggs," said Rowsley, "not less than four. Without prejudice to the cold beef if it's underdone. Hallo!" "What?" "What's the matter with your skirt?" "Nothing," said Isabel shortly. She screwed her head over her shoulder in a vain endeavour to see her own back. "It's perfectly all right." "It would be, on a scarecrow." Isabel stuck her chin up. "Have you been over to the Castle in that kit, Baby? Well, if Yvonne won't give you some of her old clothes, you might ask the kitchenmaid." "The kitchenmaid has more money than I have," said Isabel cheerfully. "Is it so very bad? It's clean anyway, I washed and ironed it myself." "It looks very nice and so do you," said Val. Isabel eyed him with a softened glance: one could rely on Val to salve one's wounded vanity, but, alas! Val did not know home-made from tailor-made. Reluctantly she owned to herself that she had more faith in Rowsley's judgment. "It seems rather short though," Val added. "I suppose you will have to go into long frocks pretty soon, won't you, and put your hair up?" "Oh bother my hair and my dresses!" said Isabel with a great sigh. "I will pin my hair up when I get some new clothes, but how can I when I haven't any money and Jim hasn't any money and neither of you have any money? Don't you see, idiot," this was exclusively to Rowsley, "when I pin my hair up I shall turn into a grown up lady? And then I shall have to wear proper clothes. At present I'm only a little girl and it doesn't signify what I wear. If any one will give me five pounds I'll pin my hair up like a shot. Oh dear, I wonder what Yvonne would say if Jack expected her to outfit herself for five pounds? I do wish some one would leave me 10,000 pounds a year. Get up now, you lazy beggar, come and help me lay the supper. It's Fanny's evening out." She pulled Rowsley to his feet and they went off together leaving Val alone on the lawn: good comrades those two, and apparently more of an age, in spite of the long gap between them, than Rowsley and Val, who was the eldest by only eighteen months. And Val sat on alone, while stains of coral and amber faded out of the lavender sky, and a rack of sea clouds, which half an hour ago had shone like fiery ripples, dwindled away into smoke--mist --a mere shadow on the breast of the night. Stars began to sparkle, moths and humming cockchafers sailed by him, a chase of bats overhead endlessly fell down airy precipices and rose in long loops of darkling flight: honeysuckle and night-scented stock tinged with their sweet garden perfume the cool airs from the moor. Val lit a cigarette, a rare indulgence. If cigarettes grew on gooseberry bushes Val would have been an inveterate smoker, but good Egyptians were a luxury which he could not often afford The Wanhope agency was ample for his needs, though underpaid as agencies go: but there was Rowsley, always hard up, uncomplaining, but sensitive, as a young fellow in his position is sure to be, and secretly fretting because he could not do as other men did: and there was Isabel, for whom Val felt the anxiety Mr. Stafford ought to have felt, and was trying to make the provision Mr. Stafford ought to have made: and then there was the vicar himself, who laid out a great deal of money in those investments for which we are promised cent per cent interest, but upon a system of deferred payment. Tonight however Val lit a cigarette, and then a second, to the surprise of Isabel, who saw the red spark on the lawn. She thought her brother must be tired, and perhaps it really was the long day without food that made him so restless in mind and so uneasy. Bernard Clowes had been more than usually cranky that afternoon. Even the patient Val had had thoughts of throwing up his job when the cripple made him go through his week's accounts, scrutinizing every entry and cross-examining him on every transaction in such a tone as the head of a firm might employ to a junior clerk suspected of dishonesty. It was Bernard's way: it meant nothing: but it was irksome to Val, especially when he could not soothe himself by dropping into Laura's quiet parlour for a cup of tea. Yet his irritation would not have lingered through a cigarette if Isabel's news had not revived it. This cousin of Bernard's! Val had not much faith in any cousin of Bernard Clowes: nor in the kindness of life. Val was a slight, fair, pleasant-looking man of eight or nine and twenty, quiet of movement, friendly-mannered and as inconspicuous as his own rather worn grey tweeds: one of a class, till he raised his eyes: and then? There was something strange in Val's eyes when they were fully raised, an indrawn arresting brilliance difficult to analyse: imaginative and sympathetic, as if he were at home in dark places: the quality of acceptance of pain. Adepts in old days knew by his eyes a man who had been on the rack. Stafford had been racked: and by the pain that is half shame, the keenest, the most lacerating and destructive of wounds. He had suffered till he could suffer no more, and tonight in the starlit garden he, suffered still, without hope, or rebellion, or defence. Indoors Rowsley and Isabel, with the rapidity of long use, laid the cloth, and Isabel fetched cold beef from the larder and butter and eggs from the dairy, while Rowsley went down the cellar with a jug and a candle and drew from the cask a generous allowance of beer. "Come along in, old Val," said Isabel, reappearing at the open window, "You and Rose are both famishing and I'm not," this was a pious fiction, "so you can begin and I'll wait for Jimmy. I dare say he's gone wandering off somewhere and won't be in till ten." Val came across the dark, cool lawn and climbed over the window sill. A shabby room, large and low: a faded paper, grey toning to blue: a carpet of faded roses on a grey ground: the shaded Dresden lamp and roselit supper table shining like an island in a pool of shadow, and those two beloved heads, both so dark and smooth and young, tam cara capita! Neither of them suspected that Val was unhappy. His feeling for them was more fatherly than fraternal, and Rowsley, strange to say, fell in with Val's attitude, coming to his brother for money as naturally as most young men go to their parents. Val sat at the head of the table because Mr. Stafford could not carve. "There!" said Isabel, giving him his plate. "Mustard? I've just made it so you needn't look to see if it's fresh. Watercress: I picked it myself. Lettuce. Cream and vinegar and sugar. Beer. Now do you feel happy? Lord love you, dear, I like to see you eat." She sat on the arm of Mr. Stafford's mahogany chair. "What time do you want breakfast? Seven o'clock? Major Clowes wouldn't come down at seven if he were your agent. Can you get back to tea tomorrow? Laura may bring the cousin up to tea with her and she wants him to meet you." "Very good of her. Why?" "Oh, because he was in the Army too and all through the war. He went out with the first hundred thousand. He's much older than you are--the same age as Laura. Oh, wait a minute!" exclaimed Isabel in the tone in which a Frenchwoman says Tenez. I forgot. She thinks you must have met him, Val." "Possibly," said Val. "Was he in the Dorchesters?" asked Rowsley--much more interested than his brother, no doubt because he was not so hungry as Val, who was giving all his attention to his supper. "No, in the Winchesters," said Isabel. "Do I mean the Winchesters, Val? What was Major Clowes' old regiment?" "Clowes was in the Wintons." Isabel nodded. "Then so was the cousin. And Laura says he was out there when the Wintons were in the next bit of trench north of the Dorchesters. He was there when--when you were wounded." Such was Val Stafford's modesty that in the family circle it was not in etiquette to refer in other terms to that famous occasion. "I don't remember any fellow named Clowes and I never knew Bernard Clowes had a cousin out there," said Val, mixing himself a salad. "Oh, his name isn't Clowes. It's Ryde or Pride or something like that. I'm sorry to be so vague, but Jack Bendish and Yvonne and Mrs. Morley were all talking at once. Lawrence Pied--Fried--" "Lawrence Hyde?" "Yes, that's it! Then you really do remember him?" "Er--yes. Is that lamp smoking, Rowsley? You might turn it down a trifle, I can't reach." "Let me, let me?-- What was he like?" "Who--Hyde? Oh," said Val vaguely, "he was like the rest of us --very tired." "Tired?" echoed Isabel with a blank face, "but, Val darling, he couldn't have been only tired! What should you think he was like when he wasn't tired?" "That is a question I have occasionally asked myself," Val answered with his faint indecipherable smile. "My dear child, I only saw him once or twice. He was a senior captain and commanded his company. I was a very junior lieutenant." "Still he was there at the time," reflected Isabel. "O Rose! if he's anything like nice, which is almost past praying for in Major Clowes' cousin, let's beguile him into the gooseberry bushes and make him tell us all about it! Val is very dear to his family, but no one, however tenderly attached to him, could call him a brilliant raconteur. Now Mr. Hyde won't have any modest scruples. Val, if there is a slug in that lettuce I wish you would say so. It would hurt my feelings less than for you to sit looking at it in a stony silence. Was he good-looking?" "Possibly he might be," said Val, "when he scraped the dirt off." After a moment he added, "He was very decent to me." "Was he? Then he was nice?" "Gnat," said Rowsley from the middle of his third egg. Isabel rounded him indignantly. "I'm not gnatting! I'm not asking Val anything about himself, am I? Val can't possibly mind telling me about another man in another regiment. You eat your eggs, there's a good boy, before they get cold.-- Laura says the Dorchesters dined the Winchesters once when they were in billets. Was that when you and Mr. Hyde were there?" "Captain Hyde," Val corrected his young sister. "Yes, we both graced the festive board. It was too festive for me. We had Buszard's soup and curried chicken and real cream, and more champagne than was good for us. But it was not on that occasion that Hyde was so decent to me. The day I--the day Dale went down--" Rowsley nodded to him as he raised his glass of beer to his lips--"thank you, Rose.-- As I was saying, that evening I ran across Hyde between the lines. The Dorsets and Wintons had gone over the top together, and he had been left behind with a bullet in his chest. I was done to the world, but he had some brandy left and shared it with me. If it had not been for Hyde I should never have brought Dale in." "Well, I've never heard that before," said Rowsley to his fourth egg. Isabel was silent, and her eyes in the shadow of a momentary gravity were the eyes of a woman and not of a child. She raised them to look out at the evening sky, indigo blue against the lamplit interior, or faintly primrose in the west, and wondered for the thousandth time why it was still such an effort to Val to refer to his brief military experience. Soft country noises came in, peaceful and soothing: the short shrill shriek of a bat, the rustle of a branch of rose-leaves moving like a hand over the window panes, a faint breathing of wind from the moor. Surely the scar of war ought to be healed by now! Isabel kept these thoughts to herself: young as she was, her solitary life--for a woman alone among men is always to some extent solitary--had trained her to a clear perception of what had better not be said. "When is Hyde coming?" asked Val, going on with his salad. "Tomorrow, didn't you hear me say Laura is going to bring him here to tea? He's staying at his own place, Farringay--I think from the way Laura spoke it is what one calls a place--and they expect him by the morning train. Laura's to meet him in the car." "Did you ask her to bring him in to tea," said Rowsley, frowning over the marmalade jar, "when Val is safe to be out and you didn't know I should be here?" "Yes: oughtn't I to have?" "No." "Is there anything else you would like to speak to me about?" said Isabel after a pregnant silence. "Dear Rowsley, you seem determined to look after my manners and morals! I asked him to please Laura. She's nervous of Major Clowes. Jack and Yvonne are coming too." "Oh I don't see that it signifies," said Val. Mrs. Clowes wouldn't have accepted if it weren't all right. I don't see that you or I need worry if she doesn't. Isabel is old enough to pour out tea for herself. In any case, as it happens, you'll be here if I'm not, and I dare say Jimmy will look in for ten minutes." "You are sweet, Val," said Isabel gratefully. "Oh I don't say Rowsley's not right! Prigs generally are: and besides now I come to think of it, Laura did look faintly amused when I asked her. But these stupid things never occur to me till afterwards! After all, what am I to do? I can't manufacture a chaperon, and it would be very bad for the parish if the vicar never entertained. And it's not as if Captain Hyde were a young man; he's thirty-six if he's a day." CHAPTER III When the sea retreats after a storm one finds on the beach all sorts of strange flotsam. Bernard Clowes was a bit of human wreckage left on the sands of society by the storm of the war. When it broke out he was a second lieutenant in the Winchester Regiment, a keen polo player and first class batsman who rarely opened a book. He was sent out with the First Division and carried himself with his usual phlegmatic good humour through almost four years of fighting from Mons to Cambrai. In the March break-through he had his wrist broken by a rifle-bullet and was invalided home, where he took advantage of his leave to get married, partly because most of the men he knew were already married, and partly to please his sister. There were no other brothers, and Mrs. Morrison, a practical lady, but always a little regretful of her own marriage with Morrison's Boot and Shoe Company, recommended him with the family bluntness to arrange for an olive branch before the Huns got him. Laura, a penniless woman two years his senior and handicapped by her disreputable belongings, was not the wife Gertrude Morrison would have chosen for him: still it might have been worse, for Laura was well-born and personally irreproachable, while Clowes, hot-blooded and casual, was as likely as not to have married a chorus-girl. If any disappointment lingered, Gertrude soothed it by trying over in her own mind the irritation that she would be able to produce in Morrison circles: "Where he met her? Oh, when she was staying with her married sister at Castle Wharton . . . .Yvonne, the elder Selincourt girl, married into the Bendish family." Bernard did not care a straw either for the paternal handicap or for the glories of the Wharton connection. He took his love-affair as simply as his cricket and with the same bold confidence. Laura was what he wanted; she would fit into her surroundings at Wanhope as delicately as an old picture fits into an old frame, and one could leave her about--so he put it to himself--without fear of her getting damaged. When Tom Morrison, shrewd business man, dropped a hint about the rashness of marrying the daughter of a scamp like Ferdinand Selincourt, Bernard merely stared at him and let the indiscretion go in silence. He can scarcely be said to have loved his bride, for up to the time of the wedding his nature was not much more developed than that of a prize bull, but he considered her a very pretty woman, and his faith in her was a religion. So they were married, and went to Eastbourne for their honeymoon: an average match, not marked by passion on either side, but destined apparently to an average amount of comfort and good will. They had ten gay days before Laura was left on a victoria platform, gallantly smiling with pale lips and waving her handkerchief after the train that carried Bernard back to the front. Five months later on the eve of the Armistice he was flung out of the service, a broken man, paralysed below the waist, cursing every one who came near him and chiefly the surgeons for not letting him die. No one ever desired life more passionately than Bernard desired death. For some time he clung to the hope that his mind would wear his body out. But his body was too young, too strong, too tenacious of earth to be betrayed by the renegade mind. There came a day when Clowes felt his youth welling up in him like sap in a fallen tree: new energy throbbed in his veins, his heart beat strong and even, it was hard to believe that he could not get off his bed if he liked and go down to the playing fields or throw his leg over a horse. This mood fastened on him without warning in a Surbiton hospital after a calm night without a sleeping draught, when through his open window he could see green branches waving in sunlight, and hear the cries of men playing cricket and the smack of the driven ball: and it was torture. Tears forced their way suddenly into Bernard's eyes. His nurse, who had watched not a few reluctant recoveries, went out of the room. Then his great chest heaved, and he sobbed aloud, lying on his back with face unhidden, his wide black eyes blinking at the sweet pale June sky. No chance of death for him: he was good for ten, twenty, fifty years more: he could not bear it, but it had to be borne. He tried to pull himself up: if he could only have reached the window! But the arms that felt so strong were as weak as an infant's, while the dead weight of his helpless legs dragged on him like lead. The only result of his struggle was a dreadful access of pain. Reaction followed, for he had learnt in his A B C days not to whimper when he was hurt, and by the time the nurse returned Clowes had scourged himself back to his usual savage tranquillity. "Can I have that window shut, please?" he asked, cynically frank. "I used to play cricket myself." Laura Clowes in this period went through an experience almost equally formative. Two years older than Bernard, she was also more mature for her years and had developed more evenly, and from the outset her engagement and marriage had meant more to her then to Bernard, because her girlhood had been unhappy and they provided a way of escape. Her sister Yvonne had met Jack Bendish at a race-meeting and he had fallen madly in love with her and married her in a month in the teeth of

perhaps

How many times the word 'perhaps' appears in the text?

world. Isabel knew every one in Chilmark and every one knew her. Such a range of intensive acquaintance is not so narrow as people who have never lived in a country village are apt to suppose. Past the schoolhouse, past the wide stone bridge where Isabel loved to hang over the parapet watching for trout--but not tonight, for it was late, and Isabel after a "company tea" wanted her supper: by a footpath through the churchyard, closely mown and planted with rosebushes: and so into the church, where, after dropping a hurried professional curtsey to the altar, she set about her evening duties. Isabel called herself the curate, but she did a good deal which is not expected of a curate, such as shutting windows and changing lesson-markers, propping up the trebles when they went astray in the pointing of the Psalms, altering the numbers on the hymn-board, writing out choir papers, putting flowers in the vases and candles in the benediction lights, playing the organ as required and occasionally blowing it. . . . Before leaving the church she fell on her knees, in deference to Mr. Stafford and the text by the door, and said a prayer. What did she pray? "O Lord bless this church and all who worship in it and make father preach a good sermon next Sunday. I wish I'd been playing with Val instead of Jack, we should have won that last set if Jack hadn't muffed his services. . . . Well, this curate was only nineteen." And then, coming out into the fading light, she locked the north door behind her and went off whistling like a blackbird, if a blackbird could whistle the alto of Calkin's Magnificat in B flat. . . . Five minutes climbing of the steep brown floor of the beechwood, and she was out on uplands in the dying fires of day. It had been twilight in the valley, but here the wide plain was sunlit and the air was fresh and dry: in the valley even the river-aspens were almost quiet, but here there was still a sough of wind coming and going, through the dry grass thick set with lemon thyme and lady's slipper, or along the low garden wall where red valerian sprouted out of yellow stonecrop. A wishing gate led into the garden, and Isabel made for an open window, but halfway over the sill she paused, gazing with all her soul in her eyes across the vicarage gooseberry bushes. That grey suit was Val's of course, but who was inside the belted coat and riding breeches? "Rows-lee!" sang out Isabel, tumbling back into the garden with a generous display of leg. The raiders rose up each holding a handful of large red strawberries melting ripe, and Isabel, pitching in her racquet on a sofa, ran across the grass and enfolded her brother in her arms. Rowsley, dark and slight and shrewd, returned her hug with one arm, while carefully guarding his strawberries with the other--"You pig, you perfect pig!" wailed Isabel. "I was saving them for tea tomorrow, Laura's coming and I can't afford a cake. Oh joy, you can buy me one! How long can you stay?" "Over the week end: but I didn't come to buy you cakes, Baby. I haven't any money either. I came because I wanted you to buy me cakes." "O well never mind, I'll make one," Isabel joyously slipped her hand through Rowsley's arm. "Then I can get the flour from the baker and it won't cost anything at all--it'll go down in the bill. Well give me one anyhow, now they're picked it would be a pity to waste them." She helped herself liberally out of Val's hand. "Now stop both of you, you can't have any more." She linked her other arm in Val's and dragged her brothers out of the dangerous proximity of the strawberry beds. Val sat down on a deck chair, one leg thrown over the other, Rowsley dropped at full length on the turf, and Isabel doubled herself up between them, her arms clasped round her knees. "How's the Old Man?" she asked in friendly reference to Rowsley's commanding officer. "Oh Rose, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. Will Spillsby be able to play on the Fourth?" Spillsby, a brother subaltern and a famous bat, had twisted his ankle at the nets, and Rowsley in his last letter had been uncertain whether he would be well enough to play the Sappers at the annual fixture. Happily Rowsley was able to reassure his young sister: the ankle was much better and Spillsby was already allowed to walk on it. Isabel then turned her large velvet eyes--gazelle eyes with a world of pathos in their velvet gloom on her elder brother. "Coruscate, Val," she commanded. "You haven't said anything at all yet. We should all try to be bright in the home circle. We cannot all be witty, but-Ow! Rowsley, if you pull my hair I shall hit you in the--in the place where the Gauls fined their soldiers if they stuck out on parade. Oh, Val, that really isn't vulgar, I found it in Matthew Arnold! Their stomachs, you know. They wouldn't have fined you anyhow. You look fagged, darling-- are you?" "Not so much fagged as hungry," said Val in his soft voice. "It's getting on for nine o'clock and I was done out of my tea. I went in to Wanhope, but Laura was out, and Clowes was drinking whisky and soda. I cannot stand whisky at four in the afternoon, and Irish whisky at that. There'll be some supper going before long, won't there?" "Not until half past nine because Jimmy has his Bible class tonight." Jimmy was Mr. Stafford: and perhaps a purist might have objected that Mrs. Clowes and Yvonne Bendish had not done all they might have done to form Isabel's manners. "I'm so sorry, darling," she continued, preparing to leap to her feet. "Shall I get you a biscuit? There are oatmeals in the sideboard, the kind you like, I won't be a minute--" "Thanks very much, I'd rather wait. Did you see Mrs. Clowes today? Clowes said she was at the Castle." "So she was, sitting with Mrs. Morley in an angelic striped cotton. Mrs. Morley was in mauve ninon and a Gainsborough hat. Yvonne says Mr. Morley is a Jew and made his money in I. D. B.'s, which I suppose are some sort of stocks?" Neither of her brothers offered to enlighten her, Rowsley because he was feeling indolent, Val because he never said an unkind word to any one. Isabel, who was enamoured of her own voice flowed on with little delay: "If he really is a Jew, I can't think how she could marry him; I wouldn't. Mrs. Morley can't be very happy or Laura wouldn't go and talk to her. Laura is so sweet, she always sits with people that other people run away from. Oh Val, did Major Clowes tell you their news?" Isabel might refer to her father as Jimmy and to Rowsley's commander as the Old Man, but she rarely failed to give Bernard Clowes his correct prefix. "No--is there any?" "Only that they have some one coming to stay with them. Won't he have a deadly time?" Isabel glanced from Val to Rowsley in the certainty of a common response. "Imagine staying at Wanhope! However, he invited himself, so it's at his own risk. Perhaps he's embarrassed like you, Rose, and wants Laura to feed him. It's rather fun for Laura, though--that is, it will be, if Major Clowes isn't too hopeless." Strange freemasonry of the generations! Mr. Stafford's children loved him dearly and he was wont to say that there were no secrets at the vicarage, yet they lived in a conspiracy of silence, and even Val, who was mentally nearer to his father's age, would have been loth to let Mr. Stafford know as much as Isabel knew about Wanhope. It was assumed that Val's job was the very job Val wanted. Mr. Stafford had indeed a suspicion that it was not all plain sailing: Bernard Clowes retained just so much of the decently bred man as to be courteous to his wife before a mere acquaintance, but the vicar came and went at odd hours, and he observed now and then vague intimations--undertones from Bernard himself, an uncontrollable shrinking on Laura's part, an occasional hesitation or reluctance in Val--which hinted at flying storms. But Val, the father supposed, could make allowance for a cripple: Bernard was so much to be pitied that no man would resent an occasional burst of temper! And there his children left him. The younger generation can trust one another not to interfere, but when the seniors strike in, with their cut and dry precedents and rule of thumb moralities, who knows what mischief may follow? Elder people are so indiscreet! "It's a cousin of Major Clowes," Isabel continued, "but they haven't met for years and years--not since the war. Laura knows him too, she met him before she was married and liked him very much indeed. She's looking forward to it--that is, she would be if she had spirit enough to look forward to anything." "Clowes never said a word to me about it," remarked Val. "Didn't he?" Isabel unfolded herself and stood up. "That means he is going to be tiresome. I must run now, it's five past nine. Which will you both have, cold beef or eggs?" "Oh, anything that's going," said Val. "Eggs," said Rowsley, "not less than four. Without prejudice to the cold beef if it's underdone. Hallo!" "What?" "What's the matter with your skirt?" "Nothing," said Isabel shortly. She screwed her head over her shoulder in a vain endeavour to see her own back. "It's perfectly all right." "It would be, on a scarecrow." Isabel stuck her chin up. "Have you been over to the Castle in that kit, Baby? Well, if Yvonne won't give you some of her old clothes, you might ask the kitchenmaid." "The kitchenmaid has more money than I have," said Isabel cheerfully. "Is it so very bad? It's clean anyway, I washed and ironed it myself." "It looks very nice and so do you," said Val. Isabel eyed him with a softened glance: one could rely on Val to salve one's wounded vanity, but, alas! Val did not know home-made from tailor-made. Reluctantly she owned to herself that she had more faith in Rowsley's judgment. "It seems rather short though," Val added. "I suppose you will have to go into long frocks pretty soon, won't you, and put your hair up?" "Oh bother my hair and my dresses!" said Isabel with a great sigh. "I will pin my hair up when I get some new clothes, but how can I when I haven't any money and Jim hasn't any money and neither of you have any money? Don't you see, idiot," this was exclusively to Rowsley, "when I pin my hair up I shall turn into a grown up lady? And then I shall have to wear proper clothes. At present I'm only a little girl and it doesn't signify what I wear. If any one will give me five pounds I'll pin my hair up like a shot. Oh dear, I wonder what Yvonne would say if Jack expected her to outfit herself for five pounds? I do wish some one would leave me 10,000 pounds a year. Get up now, you lazy beggar, come and help me lay the supper. It's Fanny's evening out." She pulled Rowsley to his feet and they went off together leaving Val alone on the lawn: good comrades those two, and apparently more of an age, in spite of the long gap between them, than Rowsley and Val, who was the eldest by only eighteen months. And Val sat on alone, while stains of coral and amber faded out of the lavender sky, and a rack of sea clouds, which half an hour ago had shone like fiery ripples, dwindled away into smoke--mist --a mere shadow on the breast of the night. Stars began to sparkle, moths and humming cockchafers sailed by him, a chase of bats overhead endlessly fell down airy precipices and rose in long loops of darkling flight: honeysuckle and night-scented stock tinged with their sweet garden perfume the cool airs from the moor. Val lit a cigarette, a rare indulgence. If cigarettes grew on gooseberry bushes Val would have been an inveterate smoker, but good Egyptians were a luxury which he could not often afford The Wanhope agency was ample for his needs, though underpaid as agencies go: but there was Rowsley, always hard up, uncomplaining, but sensitive, as a young fellow in his position is sure to be, and secretly fretting because he could not do as other men did: and there was Isabel, for whom Val felt the anxiety Mr. Stafford ought to have felt, and was trying to make the provision Mr. Stafford ought to have made: and then there was the vicar himself, who laid out a great deal of money in those investments for which we are promised cent per cent interest, but upon a system of deferred payment. Tonight however Val lit a cigarette, and then a second, to the surprise of Isabel, who saw the red spark on the lawn. She thought her brother must be tired, and perhaps it really was the long day without food that made him so restless in mind and so uneasy. Bernard Clowes had been more than usually cranky that afternoon. Even the patient Val had had thoughts of throwing up his job when the cripple made him go through his week's accounts, scrutinizing every entry and cross-examining him on every transaction in such a tone as the head of a firm might employ to a junior clerk suspected of dishonesty. It was Bernard's way: it meant nothing: but it was irksome to Val, especially when he could not soothe himself by dropping into Laura's quiet parlour for a cup of tea. Yet his irritation would not have lingered through a cigarette if Isabel's news had not revived it. This cousin of Bernard's! Val had not much faith in any cousin of Bernard Clowes: nor in the kindness of life. Val was a slight, fair, pleasant-looking man of eight or nine and twenty, quiet of movement, friendly-mannered and as inconspicuous as his own rather worn grey tweeds: one of a class, till he raised his eyes: and then? There was something strange in Val's eyes when they were fully raised, an indrawn arresting brilliance difficult to analyse: imaginative and sympathetic, as if he were at home in dark places: the quality of acceptance of pain. Adepts in old days knew by his eyes a man who had been on the rack. Stafford had been racked: and by the pain that is half shame, the keenest, the most lacerating and destructive of wounds. He had suffered till he could suffer no more, and tonight in the starlit garden he, suffered still, without hope, or rebellion, or defence. Indoors Rowsley and Isabel, with the rapidity of long use, laid the cloth, and Isabel fetched cold beef from the larder and butter and eggs from the dairy, while Rowsley went down the cellar with a jug and a candle and drew from the cask a generous allowance of beer. "Come along in, old Val," said Isabel, reappearing at the open window, "You and Rose are both famishing and I'm not," this was a pious fiction, "so you can begin and I'll wait for Jimmy. I dare say he's gone wandering off somewhere and won't be in till ten." Val came across the dark, cool lawn and climbed over the window sill. A shabby room, large and low: a faded paper, grey toning to blue: a carpet of faded roses on a grey ground: the shaded Dresden lamp and roselit supper table shining like an island in a pool of shadow, and those two beloved heads, both so dark and smooth and young, tam cara capita! Neither of them suspected that Val was unhappy. His feeling for them was more fatherly than fraternal, and Rowsley, strange to say, fell in with Val's attitude, coming to his brother for money as naturally as most young men go to their parents. Val sat at the head of the table because Mr. Stafford could not carve. "There!" said Isabel, giving him his plate. "Mustard? I've just made it so you needn't look to see if it's fresh. Watercress: I picked it myself. Lettuce. Cream and vinegar and sugar. Beer. Now do you feel happy? Lord love you, dear, I like to see you eat." She sat on the arm of Mr. Stafford's mahogany chair. "What time do you want breakfast? Seven o'clock? Major Clowes wouldn't come down at seven if he were your agent. Can you get back to tea tomorrow? Laura may bring the cousin up to tea with her and she wants him to meet you." "Very good of her. Why?" "Oh, because he was in the Army too and all through the war. He went out with the first hundred thousand. He's much older than you are--the same age as Laura. Oh, wait a minute!" exclaimed Isabel in the tone in which a Frenchwoman says Tenez. I forgot. She thinks you must have met him, Val." "Possibly," said Val. "Was he in the Dorchesters?" asked Rowsley--much more interested than his brother, no doubt because he was not so hungry as Val, who was giving all his attention to his supper. "No, in the Winchesters," said Isabel. "Do I mean the Winchesters, Val? What was Major Clowes' old regiment?" "Clowes was in the Wintons." Isabel nodded. "Then so was the cousin. And Laura says he was out there when the Wintons were in the next bit of trench north of the Dorchesters. He was there when--when you were wounded." Such was Val Stafford's modesty that in the family circle it was not in etiquette to refer in other terms to that famous occasion. "I don't remember any fellow named Clowes and I never knew Bernard Clowes had a cousin out there," said Val, mixing himself a salad. "Oh, his name isn't Clowes. It's Ryde or Pride or something like that. I'm sorry to be so vague, but Jack Bendish and Yvonne and Mrs. Morley were all talking at once. Lawrence Pied--Fried--" "Lawrence Hyde?" "Yes, that's it! Then you really do remember him?" "Er--yes. Is that lamp smoking, Rowsley? You might turn it down a trifle, I can't reach." "Let me, let me?-- What was he like?" "Who--Hyde? Oh," said Val vaguely, "he was like the rest of us --very tired." "Tired?" echoed Isabel with a blank face, "but, Val darling, he couldn't have been only tired! What should you think he was like when he wasn't tired?" "That is a question I have occasionally asked myself," Val answered with his faint indecipherable smile. "My dear child, I only saw him once or twice. He was a senior captain and commanded his company. I was a very junior lieutenant." "Still he was there at the time," reflected Isabel. "O Rose! if he's anything like nice, which is almost past praying for in Major Clowes' cousin, let's beguile him into the gooseberry bushes and make him tell us all about it! Val is very dear to his family, but no one, however tenderly attached to him, could call him a brilliant raconteur. Now Mr. Hyde won't have any modest scruples. Val, if there is a slug in that lettuce I wish you would say so. It would hurt my feelings less than for you to sit looking at it in a stony silence. Was he good-looking?" "Possibly he might be," said Val, "when he scraped the dirt off." After a moment he added, "He was very decent to me." "Was he? Then he was nice?" "Gnat," said Rowsley from the middle of his third egg. Isabel rounded him indignantly. "I'm not gnatting! I'm not asking Val anything about himself, am I? Val can't possibly mind telling me about another man in another regiment. You eat your eggs, there's a good boy, before they get cold.-- Laura says the Dorchesters dined the Winchesters once when they were in billets. Was that when you and Mr. Hyde were there?" "Captain Hyde," Val corrected his young sister. "Yes, we both graced the festive board. It was too festive for me. We had Buszard's soup and curried chicken and real cream, and more champagne than was good for us. But it was not on that occasion that Hyde was so decent to me. The day I--the day Dale went down--" Rowsley nodded to him as he raised his glass of beer to his lips--"thank you, Rose.-- As I was saying, that evening I ran across Hyde between the lines. The Dorsets and Wintons had gone over the top together, and he had been left behind with a bullet in his chest. I was done to the world, but he had some brandy left and shared it with me. If it had not been for Hyde I should never have brought Dale in." "Well, I've never heard that before," said Rowsley to his fourth egg. Isabel was silent, and her eyes in the shadow of a momentary gravity were the eyes of a woman and not of a child. She raised them to look out at the evening sky, indigo blue against the lamplit interior, or faintly primrose in the west, and wondered for the thousandth time why it was still such an effort to Val to refer to his brief military experience. Soft country noises came in, peaceful and soothing: the short shrill shriek of a bat, the rustle of a branch of rose-leaves moving like a hand over the window panes, a faint breathing of wind from the moor. Surely the scar of war ought to be healed by now! Isabel kept these thoughts to herself: young as she was, her solitary life--for a woman alone among men is always to some extent solitary--had trained her to a clear perception of what had better not be said. "When is Hyde coming?" asked Val, going on with his salad. "Tomorrow, didn't you hear me say Laura is going to bring him here to tea? He's staying at his own place, Farringay--I think from the way Laura spoke it is what one calls a place--and they expect him by the morning train. Laura's to meet him in the car." "Did you ask her to bring him in to tea," said Rowsley, frowning over the marmalade jar, "when Val is safe to be out and you didn't know I should be here?" "Yes: oughtn't I to have?" "No." "Is there anything else you would like to speak to me about?" said Isabel after a pregnant silence. "Dear Rowsley, you seem determined to look after my manners and morals! I asked him to please Laura. She's nervous of Major Clowes. Jack and Yvonne are coming too." "Oh I don't see that it signifies," said Val. Mrs. Clowes wouldn't have accepted if it weren't all right. I don't see that you or I need worry if she doesn't. Isabel is old enough to pour out tea for herself. In any case, as it happens, you'll be here if I'm not, and I dare say Jimmy will look in for ten minutes." "You are sweet, Val," said Isabel gratefully. "Oh I don't say Rowsley's not right! Prigs generally are: and besides now I come to think of it, Laura did look faintly amused when I asked her. But these stupid things never occur to me till afterwards! After all, what am I to do? I can't manufacture a chaperon, and it would be very bad for the parish if the vicar never entertained. And it's not as if Captain Hyde were a young man; he's thirty-six if he's a day." CHAPTER III When the sea retreats after a storm one finds on the beach all sorts of strange flotsam. Bernard Clowes was a bit of human wreckage left on the sands of society by the storm of the war. When it broke out he was a second lieutenant in the Winchester Regiment, a keen polo player and first class batsman who rarely opened a book. He was sent out with the First Division and carried himself with his usual phlegmatic good humour through almost four years of fighting from Mons to Cambrai. In the March break-through he had his wrist broken by a rifle-bullet and was invalided home, where he took advantage of his leave to get married, partly because most of the men he knew were already married, and partly to please his sister. There were no other brothers, and Mrs. Morrison, a practical lady, but always a little regretful of her own marriage with Morrison's Boot and Shoe Company, recommended him with the family bluntness to arrange for an olive branch before the Huns got him. Laura, a penniless woman two years his senior and handicapped by her disreputable belongings, was not the wife Gertrude Morrison would have chosen for him: still it might have been worse, for Laura was well-born and personally irreproachable, while Clowes, hot-blooded and casual, was as likely as not to have married a chorus-girl. If any disappointment lingered, Gertrude soothed it by trying over in her own mind the irritation that she would be able to produce in Morrison circles: "Where he met her? Oh, when she was staying with her married sister at Castle Wharton . . . .Yvonne, the elder Selincourt girl, married into the Bendish family." Bernard did not care a straw either for the paternal handicap or for the glories of the Wharton connection. He took his love-affair as simply as his cricket and with the same bold confidence. Laura was what he wanted; she would fit into her surroundings at Wanhope as delicately as an old picture fits into an old frame, and one could leave her about--so he put it to himself--without fear of her getting damaged. When Tom Morrison, shrewd business man, dropped a hint about the rashness of marrying the daughter of a scamp like Ferdinand Selincourt, Bernard merely stared at him and let the indiscretion go in silence. He can scarcely be said to have loved his bride, for up to the time of the wedding his nature was not much more developed than that of a prize bull, but he considered her a very pretty woman, and his faith in her was a religion. So they were married, and went to Eastbourne for their honeymoon: an average match, not marked by passion on either side, but destined apparently to an average amount of comfort and good will. They had ten gay days before Laura was left on a victoria platform, gallantly smiling with pale lips and waving her handkerchief after the train that carried Bernard back to the front. Five months later on the eve of the Armistice he was flung out of the service, a broken man, paralysed below the waist, cursing every one who came near him and chiefly the surgeons for not letting him die. No one ever desired life more passionately than Bernard desired death. For some time he clung to the hope that his mind would wear his body out. But his body was too young, too strong, too tenacious of earth to be betrayed by the renegade mind. There came a day when Clowes felt his youth welling up in him like sap in a fallen tree: new energy throbbed in his veins, his heart beat strong and even, it was hard to believe that he could not get off his bed if he liked and go down to the playing fields or throw his leg over a horse. This mood fastened on him without warning in a Surbiton hospital after a calm night without a sleeping draught, when through his open window he could see green branches waving in sunlight, and hear the cries of men playing cricket and the smack of the driven ball: and it was torture. Tears forced their way suddenly into Bernard's eyes. His nurse, who had watched not a few reluctant recoveries, went out of the room. Then his great chest heaved, and he sobbed aloud, lying on his back with face unhidden, his wide black eyes blinking at the sweet pale June sky. No chance of death for him: he was good for ten, twenty, fifty years more: he could not bear it, but it had to be borne. He tried to pull himself up: if he could only have reached the window! But the arms that felt so strong were as weak as an infant's, while the dead weight of his helpless legs dragged on him like lead. The only result of his struggle was a dreadful access of pain. Reaction followed, for he had learnt in his A B C days not to whimper when he was hurt, and by the time the nurse returned Clowes had scourged himself back to his usual savage tranquillity. "Can I have that window shut, please?" he asked, cynically frank. "I used to play cricket myself." Laura Clowes in this period went through an experience almost equally formative. Two years older than Bernard, she was also more mature for her years and had developed more evenly, and from the outset her engagement and marriage had meant more to her then to Bernard, because her girlhood had been unhappy and they provided a way of escape. Her sister Yvonne had met Jack Bendish at a race-meeting and he had fallen madly in love with her and married her in a month in the teeth of

lived

How many times the word 'lived' appears in the text?

world. Isabel knew every one in Chilmark and every one knew her. Such a range of intensive acquaintance is not so narrow as people who have never lived in a country village are apt to suppose. Past the schoolhouse, past the wide stone bridge where Isabel loved to hang over the parapet watching for trout--but not tonight, for it was late, and Isabel after a "company tea" wanted her supper: by a footpath through the churchyard, closely mown and planted with rosebushes: and so into the church, where, after dropping a hurried professional curtsey to the altar, she set about her evening duties. Isabel called herself the curate, but she did a good deal which is not expected of a curate, such as shutting windows and changing lesson-markers, propping up the trebles when they went astray in the pointing of the Psalms, altering the numbers on the hymn-board, writing out choir papers, putting flowers in the vases and candles in the benediction lights, playing the organ as required and occasionally blowing it. . . . Before leaving the church she fell on her knees, in deference to Mr. Stafford and the text by the door, and said a prayer. What did she pray? "O Lord bless this church and all who worship in it and make father preach a good sermon next Sunday. I wish I'd been playing with Val instead of Jack, we should have won that last set if Jack hadn't muffed his services. . . . Well, this curate was only nineteen." And then, coming out into the fading light, she locked the north door behind her and went off whistling like a blackbird, if a blackbird could whistle the alto of Calkin's Magnificat in B flat. . . . Five minutes climbing of the steep brown floor of the beechwood, and she was out on uplands in the dying fires of day. It had been twilight in the valley, but here the wide plain was sunlit and the air was fresh and dry: in the valley even the river-aspens were almost quiet, but here there was still a sough of wind coming and going, through the dry grass thick set with lemon thyme and lady's slipper, or along the low garden wall where red valerian sprouted out of yellow stonecrop. A wishing gate led into the garden, and Isabel made for an open window, but halfway over the sill she paused, gazing with all her soul in her eyes across the vicarage gooseberry bushes. That grey suit was Val's of course, but who was inside the belted coat and riding breeches? "Rows-lee!" sang out Isabel, tumbling back into the garden with a generous display of leg. The raiders rose up each holding a handful of large red strawberries melting ripe, and Isabel, pitching in her racquet on a sofa, ran across the grass and enfolded her brother in her arms. Rowsley, dark and slight and shrewd, returned her hug with one arm, while carefully guarding his strawberries with the other--"You pig, you perfect pig!" wailed Isabel. "I was saving them for tea tomorrow, Laura's coming and I can't afford a cake. Oh joy, you can buy me one! How long can you stay?" "Over the week end: but I didn't come to buy you cakes, Baby. I haven't any money either. I came because I wanted you to buy me cakes." "O well never mind, I'll make one," Isabel joyously slipped her hand through Rowsley's arm. "Then I can get the flour from the baker and it won't cost anything at all--it'll go down in the bill. Well give me one anyhow, now they're picked it would be a pity to waste them." She helped herself liberally out of Val's hand. "Now stop both of you, you can't have any more." She linked her other arm in Val's and dragged her brothers out of the dangerous proximity of the strawberry beds. Val sat down on a deck chair, one leg thrown over the other, Rowsley dropped at full length on the turf, and Isabel doubled herself up between them, her arms clasped round her knees. "How's the Old Man?" she asked in friendly reference to Rowsley's commanding officer. "Oh Rose, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. Will Spillsby be able to play on the Fourth?" Spillsby, a brother subaltern and a famous bat, had twisted his ankle at the nets, and Rowsley in his last letter had been uncertain whether he would be well enough to play the Sappers at the annual fixture. Happily Rowsley was able to reassure his young sister: the ankle was much better and Spillsby was already allowed to walk on it. Isabel then turned her large velvet eyes--gazelle eyes with a world of pathos in their velvet gloom on her elder brother. "Coruscate, Val," she commanded. "You haven't said anything at all yet. We should all try to be bright in the home circle. We cannot all be witty, but-Ow! Rowsley, if you pull my hair I shall hit you in the--in the place where the Gauls fined their soldiers if they stuck out on parade. Oh, Val, that really isn't vulgar, I found it in Matthew Arnold! Their stomachs, you know. They wouldn't have fined you anyhow. You look fagged, darling-- are you?" "Not so much fagged as hungry," said Val in his soft voice. "It's getting on for nine o'clock and I was done out of my tea. I went in to Wanhope, but Laura was out, and Clowes was drinking whisky and soda. I cannot stand whisky at four in the afternoon, and Irish whisky at that. There'll be some supper going before long, won't there?" "Not until half past nine because Jimmy has his Bible class tonight." Jimmy was Mr. Stafford: and perhaps a purist might have objected that Mrs. Clowes and Yvonne Bendish had not done all they might have done to form Isabel's manners. "I'm so sorry, darling," she continued, preparing to leap to her feet. "Shall I get you a biscuit? There are oatmeals in the sideboard, the kind you like, I won't be a minute--" "Thanks very much, I'd rather wait. Did you see Mrs. Clowes today? Clowes said she was at the Castle." "So she was, sitting with Mrs. Morley in an angelic striped cotton. Mrs. Morley was in mauve ninon and a Gainsborough hat. Yvonne says Mr. Morley is a Jew and made his money in I. D. B.'s, which I suppose are some sort of stocks?" Neither of her brothers offered to enlighten her, Rowsley because he was feeling indolent, Val because he never said an unkind word to any one. Isabel, who was enamoured of her own voice flowed on with little delay: "If he really is a Jew, I can't think how she could marry him; I wouldn't. Mrs. Morley can't be very happy or Laura wouldn't go and talk to her. Laura is so sweet, she always sits with people that other people run away from. Oh Val, did Major Clowes tell you their news?" Isabel might refer to her father as Jimmy and to Rowsley's commander as the Old Man, but she rarely failed to give Bernard Clowes his correct prefix. "No--is there any?" "Only that they have some one coming to stay with them. Won't he have a deadly time?" Isabel glanced from Val to Rowsley in the certainty of a common response. "Imagine staying at Wanhope! However, he invited himself, so it's at his own risk. Perhaps he's embarrassed like you, Rose, and wants Laura to feed him. It's rather fun for Laura, though--that is, it will be, if Major Clowes isn't too hopeless." Strange freemasonry of the generations! Mr. Stafford's children loved him dearly and he was wont to say that there were no secrets at the vicarage, yet they lived in a conspiracy of silence, and even Val, who was mentally nearer to his father's age, would have been loth to let Mr. Stafford know as much as Isabel knew about Wanhope. It was assumed that Val's job was the very job Val wanted. Mr. Stafford had indeed a suspicion that it was not all plain sailing: Bernard Clowes retained just so much of the decently bred man as to be courteous to his wife before a mere acquaintance, but the vicar came and went at odd hours, and he observed now and then vague intimations--undertones from Bernard himself, an uncontrollable shrinking on Laura's part, an occasional hesitation or reluctance in Val--which hinted at flying storms. But Val, the father supposed, could make allowance for a cripple: Bernard was so much to be pitied that no man would resent an occasional burst of temper! And there his children left him. The younger generation can trust one another not to interfere, but when the seniors strike in, with their cut and dry precedents and rule of thumb moralities, who knows what mischief may follow? Elder people are so indiscreet! "It's a cousin of Major Clowes," Isabel continued, "but they haven't met for years and years--not since the war. Laura knows him too, she met him before she was married and liked him very much indeed. She's looking forward to it--that is, she would be if she had spirit enough to look forward to anything." "Clowes never said a word to me about it," remarked Val. "Didn't he?" Isabel unfolded herself and stood up. "That means he is going to be tiresome. I must run now, it's five past nine. Which will you both have, cold beef or eggs?" "Oh, anything that's going," said Val. "Eggs," said Rowsley, "not less than four. Without prejudice to the cold beef if it's underdone. Hallo!" "What?" "What's the matter with your skirt?" "Nothing," said Isabel shortly. She screwed her head over her shoulder in a vain endeavour to see her own back. "It's perfectly all right." "It would be, on a scarecrow." Isabel stuck her chin up. "Have you been over to the Castle in that kit, Baby? Well, if Yvonne won't give you some of her old clothes, you might ask the kitchenmaid." "The kitchenmaid has more money than I have," said Isabel cheerfully. "Is it so very bad? It's clean anyway, I washed and ironed it myself." "It looks very nice and so do you," said Val. Isabel eyed him with a softened glance: one could rely on Val to salve one's wounded vanity, but, alas! Val did not know home-made from tailor-made. Reluctantly she owned to herself that she had more faith in Rowsley's judgment. "It seems rather short though," Val added. "I suppose you will have to go into long frocks pretty soon, won't you, and put your hair up?" "Oh bother my hair and my dresses!" said Isabel with a great sigh. "I will pin my hair up when I get some new clothes, but how can I when I haven't any money and Jim hasn't any money and neither of you have any money? Don't you see, idiot," this was exclusively to Rowsley, "when I pin my hair up I shall turn into a grown up lady? And then I shall have to wear proper clothes. At present I'm only a little girl and it doesn't signify what I wear. If any one will give me five pounds I'll pin my hair up like a shot. Oh dear, I wonder what Yvonne would say if Jack expected her to outfit herself for five pounds? I do wish some one would leave me 10,000 pounds a year. Get up now, you lazy beggar, come and help me lay the supper. It's Fanny's evening out." She pulled Rowsley to his feet and they went off together leaving Val alone on the lawn: good comrades those two, and apparently more of an age, in spite of the long gap between them, than Rowsley and Val, who was the eldest by only eighteen months. And Val sat on alone, while stains of coral and amber faded out of the lavender sky, and a rack of sea clouds, which half an hour ago had shone like fiery ripples, dwindled away into smoke--mist --a mere shadow on the breast of the night. Stars began to sparkle, moths and humming cockchafers sailed by him, a chase of bats overhead endlessly fell down airy precipices and rose in long loops of darkling flight: honeysuckle and night-scented stock tinged with their sweet garden perfume the cool airs from the moor. Val lit a cigarette, a rare indulgence. If cigarettes grew on gooseberry bushes Val would have been an inveterate smoker, but good Egyptians were a luxury which he could not often afford The Wanhope agency was ample for his needs, though underpaid as agencies go: but there was Rowsley, always hard up, uncomplaining, but sensitive, as a young fellow in his position is sure to be, and secretly fretting because he could not do as other men did: and there was Isabel, for whom Val felt the anxiety Mr. Stafford ought to have felt, and was trying to make the provision Mr. Stafford ought to have made: and then there was the vicar himself, who laid out a great deal of money in those investments for which we are promised cent per cent interest, but upon a system of deferred payment. Tonight however Val lit a cigarette, and then a second, to the surprise of Isabel, who saw the red spark on the lawn. She thought her brother must be tired, and perhaps it really was the long day without food that made him so restless in mind and so uneasy. Bernard Clowes had been more than usually cranky that afternoon. Even the patient Val had had thoughts of throwing up his job when the cripple made him go through his week's accounts, scrutinizing every entry and cross-examining him on every transaction in such a tone as the head of a firm might employ to a junior clerk suspected of dishonesty. It was Bernard's way: it meant nothing: but it was irksome to Val, especially when he could not soothe himself by dropping into Laura's quiet parlour for a cup of tea. Yet his irritation would not have lingered through a cigarette if Isabel's news had not revived it. This cousin of Bernard's! Val had not much faith in any cousin of Bernard Clowes: nor in the kindness of life. Val was a slight, fair, pleasant-looking man of eight or nine and twenty, quiet of movement, friendly-mannered and as inconspicuous as his own rather worn grey tweeds: one of a class, till he raised his eyes: and then? There was something strange in Val's eyes when they were fully raised, an indrawn arresting brilliance difficult to analyse: imaginative and sympathetic, as if he were at home in dark places: the quality of acceptance of pain. Adepts in old days knew by his eyes a man who had been on the rack. Stafford had been racked: and by the pain that is half shame, the keenest, the most lacerating and destructive of wounds. He had suffered till he could suffer no more, and tonight in the starlit garden he, suffered still, without hope, or rebellion, or defence. Indoors Rowsley and Isabel, with the rapidity of long use, laid the cloth, and Isabel fetched cold beef from the larder and butter and eggs from the dairy, while Rowsley went down the cellar with a jug and a candle and drew from the cask a generous allowance of beer. "Come along in, old Val," said Isabel, reappearing at the open window, "You and Rose are both famishing and I'm not," this was a pious fiction, "so you can begin and I'll wait for Jimmy. I dare say he's gone wandering off somewhere and won't be in till ten." Val came across the dark, cool lawn and climbed over the window sill. A shabby room, large and low: a faded paper, grey toning to blue: a carpet of faded roses on a grey ground: the shaded Dresden lamp and roselit supper table shining like an island in a pool of shadow, and those two beloved heads, both so dark and smooth and young, tam cara capita! Neither of them suspected that Val was unhappy. His feeling for them was more fatherly than fraternal, and Rowsley, strange to say, fell in with Val's attitude, coming to his brother for money as naturally as most young men go to their parents. Val sat at the head of the table because Mr. Stafford could not carve. "There!" said Isabel, giving him his plate. "Mustard? I've just made it so you needn't look to see if it's fresh. Watercress: I picked it myself. Lettuce. Cream and vinegar and sugar. Beer. Now do you feel happy? Lord love you, dear, I like to see you eat." She sat on the arm of Mr. Stafford's mahogany chair. "What time do you want breakfast? Seven o'clock? Major Clowes wouldn't come down at seven if he were your agent. Can you get back to tea tomorrow? Laura may bring the cousin up to tea with her and she wants him to meet you." "Very good of her. Why?" "Oh, because he was in the Army too and all through the war. He went out with the first hundred thousand. He's much older than you are--the same age as Laura. Oh, wait a minute!" exclaimed Isabel in the tone in which a Frenchwoman says Tenez. I forgot. She thinks you must have met him, Val." "Possibly," said Val. "Was he in the Dorchesters?" asked Rowsley--much more interested than his brother, no doubt because he was not so hungry as Val, who was giving all his attention to his supper. "No, in the Winchesters," said Isabel. "Do I mean the Winchesters, Val? What was Major Clowes' old regiment?" "Clowes was in the Wintons." Isabel nodded. "Then so was the cousin. And Laura says he was out there when the Wintons were in the next bit of trench north of the Dorchesters. He was there when--when you were wounded." Such was Val Stafford's modesty that in the family circle it was not in etiquette to refer in other terms to that famous occasion. "I don't remember any fellow named Clowes and I never knew Bernard Clowes had a cousin out there," said Val, mixing himself a salad. "Oh, his name isn't Clowes. It's Ryde or Pride or something like that. I'm sorry to be so vague, but Jack Bendish and Yvonne and Mrs. Morley were all talking at once. Lawrence Pied--Fried--" "Lawrence Hyde?" "Yes, that's it! Then you really do remember him?" "Er--yes. Is that lamp smoking, Rowsley? You might turn it down a trifle, I can't reach." "Let me, let me?-- What was he like?" "Who--Hyde? Oh," said Val vaguely, "he was like the rest of us --very tired." "Tired?" echoed Isabel with a blank face, "but, Val darling, he couldn't have been only tired! What should you think he was like when he wasn't tired?" "That is a question I have occasionally asked myself," Val answered with his faint indecipherable smile. "My dear child, I only saw him once or twice. He was a senior captain and commanded his company. I was a very junior lieutenant." "Still he was there at the time," reflected Isabel. "O Rose! if he's anything like nice, which is almost past praying for in Major Clowes' cousin, let's beguile him into the gooseberry bushes and make him tell us all about it! Val is very dear to his family, but no one, however tenderly attached to him, could call him a brilliant raconteur. Now Mr. Hyde won't have any modest scruples. Val, if there is a slug in that lettuce I wish you would say so. It would hurt my feelings less than for you to sit looking at it in a stony silence. Was he good-looking?" "Possibly he might be," said Val, "when he scraped the dirt off." After a moment he added, "He was very decent to me." "Was he? Then he was nice?" "Gnat," said Rowsley from the middle of his third egg. Isabel rounded him indignantly. "I'm not gnatting! I'm not asking Val anything about himself, am I? Val can't possibly mind telling me about another man in another regiment. You eat your eggs, there's a good boy, before they get cold.-- Laura says the Dorchesters dined the Winchesters once when they were in billets. Was that when you and Mr. Hyde were there?" "Captain Hyde," Val corrected his young sister. "Yes, we both graced the festive board. It was too festive for me. We had Buszard's soup and curried chicken and real cream, and more champagne than was good for us. But it was not on that occasion that Hyde was so decent to me. The day I--the day Dale went down--" Rowsley nodded to him as he raised his glass of beer to his lips--"thank you, Rose.-- As I was saying, that evening I ran across Hyde between the lines. The Dorsets and Wintons had gone over the top together, and he had been left behind with a bullet in his chest. I was done to the world, but he had some brandy left and shared it with me. If it had not been for Hyde I should never have brought Dale in." "Well, I've never heard that before," said Rowsley to his fourth egg. Isabel was silent, and her eyes in the shadow of a momentary gravity were the eyes of a woman and not of a child. She raised them to look out at the evening sky, indigo blue against the lamplit interior, or faintly primrose in the west, and wondered for the thousandth time why it was still such an effort to Val to refer to his brief military experience. Soft country noises came in, peaceful and soothing: the short shrill shriek of a bat, the rustle of a branch of rose-leaves moving like a hand over the window panes, a faint breathing of wind from the moor. Surely the scar of war ought to be healed by now! Isabel kept these thoughts to herself: young as she was, her solitary life--for a woman alone among men is always to some extent solitary--had trained her to a clear perception of what had better not be said. "When is Hyde coming?" asked Val, going on with his salad. "Tomorrow, didn't you hear me say Laura is going to bring him here to tea? He's staying at his own place, Farringay--I think from the way Laura spoke it is what one calls a place--and they expect him by the morning train. Laura's to meet him in the car." "Did you ask her to bring him in to tea," said Rowsley, frowning over the marmalade jar, "when Val is safe to be out and you didn't know I should be here?" "Yes: oughtn't I to have?" "No." "Is there anything else you would like to speak to me about?" said Isabel after a pregnant silence. "Dear Rowsley, you seem determined to look after my manners and morals! I asked him to please Laura. She's nervous of Major Clowes. Jack and Yvonne are coming too." "Oh I don't see that it signifies," said Val. Mrs. Clowes wouldn't have accepted if it weren't all right. I don't see that you or I need worry if she doesn't. Isabel is old enough to pour out tea for herself. In any case, as it happens, you'll be here if I'm not, and I dare say Jimmy will look in for ten minutes." "You are sweet, Val," said Isabel gratefully. "Oh I don't say Rowsley's not right! Prigs generally are: and besides now I come to think of it, Laura did look faintly amused when I asked her. But these stupid things never occur to me till afterwards! After all, what am I to do? I can't manufacture a chaperon, and it would be very bad for the parish if the vicar never entertained. And it's not as if Captain Hyde were a young man; he's thirty-six if he's a day." CHAPTER III When the sea retreats after a storm one finds on the beach all sorts of strange flotsam. Bernard Clowes was a bit of human wreckage left on the sands of society by the storm of the war. When it broke out he was a second lieutenant in the Winchester Regiment, a keen polo player and first class batsman who rarely opened a book. He was sent out with the First Division and carried himself with his usual phlegmatic good humour through almost four years of fighting from Mons to Cambrai. In the March break-through he had his wrist broken by a rifle-bullet and was invalided home, where he took advantage of his leave to get married, partly because most of the men he knew were already married, and partly to please his sister. There were no other brothers, and Mrs. Morrison, a practical lady, but always a little regretful of her own marriage with Morrison's Boot and Shoe Company, recommended him with the family bluntness to arrange for an olive branch before the Huns got him. Laura, a penniless woman two years his senior and handicapped by her disreputable belongings, was not the wife Gertrude Morrison would have chosen for him: still it might have been worse, for Laura was well-born and personally irreproachable, while Clowes, hot-blooded and casual, was as likely as not to have married a chorus-girl. If any disappointment lingered, Gertrude soothed it by trying over in her own mind the irritation that she would be able to produce in Morrison circles: "Where he met her? Oh, when she was staying with her married sister at Castle Wharton . . . .Yvonne, the elder Selincourt girl, married into the Bendish family." Bernard did not care a straw either for the paternal handicap or for the glories of the Wharton connection. He took his love-affair as simply as his cricket and with the same bold confidence. Laura was what he wanted; she would fit into her surroundings at Wanhope as delicately as an old picture fits into an old frame, and one could leave her about--so he put it to himself--without fear of her getting damaged. When Tom Morrison, shrewd business man, dropped a hint about the rashness of marrying the daughter of a scamp like Ferdinand Selincourt, Bernard merely stared at him and let the indiscretion go in silence. He can scarcely be said to have loved his bride, for up to the time of the wedding his nature was not much more developed than that of a prize bull, but he considered her a very pretty woman, and his faith in her was a religion. So they were married, and went to Eastbourne for their honeymoon: an average match, not marked by passion on either side, but destined apparently to an average amount of comfort and good will. They had ten gay days before Laura was left on a victoria platform, gallantly smiling with pale lips and waving her handkerchief after the train that carried Bernard back to the front. Five months later on the eve of the Armistice he was flung out of the service, a broken man, paralysed below the waist, cursing every one who came near him and chiefly the surgeons for not letting him die. No one ever desired life more passionately than Bernard desired death. For some time he clung to the hope that his mind would wear his body out. But his body was too young, too strong, too tenacious of earth to be betrayed by the renegade mind. There came a day when Clowes felt his youth welling up in him like sap in a fallen tree: new energy throbbed in his veins, his heart beat strong and even, it was hard to believe that he could not get off his bed if he liked and go down to the playing fields or throw his leg over a horse. This mood fastened on him without warning in a Surbiton hospital after a calm night without a sleeping draught, when through his open window he could see green branches waving in sunlight, and hear the cries of men playing cricket and the smack of the driven ball: and it was torture. Tears forced their way suddenly into Bernard's eyes. His nurse, who had watched not a few reluctant recoveries, went out of the room. Then his great chest heaved, and he sobbed aloud, lying on his back with face unhidden, his wide black eyes blinking at the sweet pale June sky. No chance of death for him: he was good for ten, twenty, fifty years more: he could not bear it, but it had to be borne. He tried to pull himself up: if he could only have reached the window! But the arms that felt so strong were as weak as an infant's, while the dead weight of his helpless legs dragged on him like lead. The only result of his struggle was a dreadful access of pain. Reaction followed, for he had learnt in his A B C days not to whimper when he was hurt, and by the time the nurse returned Clowes had scourged himself back to his usual savage tranquillity. "Can I have that window shut, please?" he asked, cynically frank. "I used to play cricket myself." Laura Clowes in this period went through an experience almost equally formative. Two years older than Bernard, she was also more mature for her years and had developed more evenly, and from the outset her engagement and marriage had meant more to her then to Bernard, because her girlhood had been unhappy and they provided a way of escape. Her sister Yvonne had met Jack Bendish at a race-meeting and he had fallen madly in love with her and married her in a month in the teeth of

weather

How many times the word 'weather' appears in the text?

world. Isabel knew every one in Chilmark and every one knew her. Such a range of intensive acquaintance is not so narrow as people who have never lived in a country village are apt to suppose. Past the schoolhouse, past the wide stone bridge where Isabel loved to hang over the parapet watching for trout--but not tonight, for it was late, and Isabel after a "company tea" wanted her supper: by a footpath through the churchyard, closely mown and planted with rosebushes: and so into the church, where, after dropping a hurried professional curtsey to the altar, she set about her evening duties. Isabel called herself the curate, but she did a good deal which is not expected of a curate, such as shutting windows and changing lesson-markers, propping up the trebles when they went astray in the pointing of the Psalms, altering the numbers on the hymn-board, writing out choir papers, putting flowers in the vases and candles in the benediction lights, playing the organ as required and occasionally blowing it. . . . Before leaving the church she fell on her knees, in deference to Mr. Stafford and the text by the door, and said a prayer. What did she pray? "O Lord bless this church and all who worship in it and make father preach a good sermon next Sunday. I wish I'd been playing with Val instead of Jack, we should have won that last set if Jack hadn't muffed his services. . . . Well, this curate was only nineteen." And then, coming out into the fading light, she locked the north door behind her and went off whistling like a blackbird, if a blackbird could whistle the alto of Calkin's Magnificat in B flat. . . . Five minutes climbing of the steep brown floor of the beechwood, and she was out on uplands in the dying fires of day. It had been twilight in the valley, but here the wide plain was sunlit and the air was fresh and dry: in the valley even the river-aspens were almost quiet, but here there was still a sough of wind coming and going, through the dry grass thick set with lemon thyme and lady's slipper, or along the low garden wall where red valerian sprouted out of yellow stonecrop. A wishing gate led into the garden, and Isabel made for an open window, but halfway over the sill she paused, gazing with all her soul in her eyes across the vicarage gooseberry bushes. That grey suit was Val's of course, but who was inside the belted coat and riding breeches? "Rows-lee!" sang out Isabel, tumbling back into the garden with a generous display of leg. The raiders rose up each holding a handful of large red strawberries melting ripe, and Isabel, pitching in her racquet on a sofa, ran across the grass and enfolded her brother in her arms. Rowsley, dark and slight and shrewd, returned her hug with one arm, while carefully guarding his strawberries with the other--"You pig, you perfect pig!" wailed Isabel. "I was saving them for tea tomorrow, Laura's coming and I can't afford a cake. Oh joy, you can buy me one! How long can you stay?" "Over the week end: but I didn't come to buy you cakes, Baby. I haven't any money either. I came because I wanted you to buy me cakes." "O well never mind, I'll make one," Isabel joyously slipped her hand through Rowsley's arm. "Then I can get the flour from the baker and it won't cost anything at all--it'll go down in the bill. Well give me one anyhow, now they're picked it would be a pity to waste them." She helped herself liberally out of Val's hand. "Now stop both of you, you can't have any more." She linked her other arm in Val's and dragged her brothers out of the dangerous proximity of the strawberry beds. Val sat down on a deck chair, one leg thrown over the other, Rowsley dropped at full length on the turf, and Isabel doubled herself up between them, her arms clasped round her knees. "How's the Old Man?" she asked in friendly reference to Rowsley's commanding officer. "Oh Rose, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. Will Spillsby be able to play on the Fourth?" Spillsby, a brother subaltern and a famous bat, had twisted his ankle at the nets, and Rowsley in his last letter had been uncertain whether he would be well enough to play the Sappers at the annual fixture. Happily Rowsley was able to reassure his young sister: the ankle was much better and Spillsby was already allowed to walk on it. Isabel then turned her large velvet eyes--gazelle eyes with a world of pathos in their velvet gloom on her elder brother. "Coruscate, Val," she commanded. "You haven't said anything at all yet. We should all try to be bright in the home circle. We cannot all be witty, but-Ow! Rowsley, if you pull my hair I shall hit you in the--in the place where the Gauls fined their soldiers if they stuck out on parade. Oh, Val, that really isn't vulgar, I found it in Matthew Arnold! Their stomachs, you know. They wouldn't have fined you anyhow. You look fagged, darling-- are you?" "Not so much fagged as hungry," said Val in his soft voice. "It's getting on for nine o'clock and I was done out of my tea. I went in to Wanhope, but Laura was out, and Clowes was drinking whisky and soda. I cannot stand whisky at four in the afternoon, and Irish whisky at that. There'll be some supper going before long, won't there?" "Not until half past nine because Jimmy has his Bible class tonight." Jimmy was Mr. Stafford: and perhaps a purist might have objected that Mrs. Clowes and Yvonne Bendish had not done all they might have done to form Isabel's manners. "I'm so sorry, darling," she continued, preparing to leap to her feet. "Shall I get you a biscuit? There are oatmeals in the sideboard, the kind you like, I won't be a minute--" "Thanks very much, I'd rather wait. Did you see Mrs. Clowes today? Clowes said she was at the Castle." "So she was, sitting with Mrs. Morley in an angelic striped cotton. Mrs. Morley was in mauve ninon and a Gainsborough hat. Yvonne says Mr. Morley is a Jew and made his money in I. D. B.'s, which I suppose are some sort of stocks?" Neither of her brothers offered to enlighten her, Rowsley because he was feeling indolent, Val because he never said an unkind word to any one. Isabel, who was enamoured of her own voice flowed on with little delay: "If he really is a Jew, I can't think how she could marry him; I wouldn't. Mrs. Morley can't be very happy or Laura wouldn't go and talk to her. Laura is so sweet, she always sits with people that other people run away from. Oh Val, did Major Clowes tell you their news?" Isabel might refer to her father as Jimmy and to Rowsley's commander as the Old Man, but she rarely failed to give Bernard Clowes his correct prefix. "No--is there any?" "Only that they have some one coming to stay with them. Won't he have a deadly time?" Isabel glanced from Val to Rowsley in the certainty of a common response. "Imagine staying at Wanhope! However, he invited himself, so it's at his own risk. Perhaps he's embarrassed like you, Rose, and wants Laura to feed him. It's rather fun for Laura, though--that is, it will be, if Major Clowes isn't too hopeless." Strange freemasonry of the generations! Mr. Stafford's children loved him dearly and he was wont to say that there were no secrets at the vicarage, yet they lived in a conspiracy of silence, and even Val, who was mentally nearer to his father's age, would have been loth to let Mr. Stafford know as much as Isabel knew about Wanhope. It was assumed that Val's job was the very job Val wanted. Mr. Stafford had indeed a suspicion that it was not all plain sailing: Bernard Clowes retained just so much of the decently bred man as to be courteous to his wife before a mere acquaintance, but the vicar came and went at odd hours, and he observed now and then vague intimations--undertones from Bernard himself, an uncontrollable shrinking on Laura's part, an occasional hesitation or reluctance in Val--which hinted at flying storms. But Val, the father supposed, could make allowance for a cripple: Bernard was so much to be pitied that no man would resent an occasional burst of temper! And there his children left him. The younger generation can trust one another not to interfere, but when the seniors strike in, with their cut and dry precedents and rule of thumb moralities, who knows what mischief may follow? Elder people are so indiscreet! "It's a cousin of Major Clowes," Isabel continued, "but they haven't met for years and years--not since the war. Laura knows him too, she met him before she was married and liked him very much indeed. She's looking forward to it--that is, she would be if she had spirit enough to look forward to anything." "Clowes never said a word to me about it," remarked Val. "Didn't he?" Isabel unfolded herself and stood up. "That means he is going to be tiresome. I must run now, it's five past nine. Which will you both have, cold beef or eggs?" "Oh, anything that's going," said Val. "Eggs," said Rowsley, "not less than four. Without prejudice to the cold beef if it's underdone. Hallo!" "What?" "What's the matter with your skirt?" "Nothing," said Isabel shortly. She screwed her head over her shoulder in a vain endeavour to see her own back. "It's perfectly all right." "It would be, on a scarecrow." Isabel stuck her chin up. "Have you been over to the Castle in that kit, Baby? Well, if Yvonne won't give you some of her old clothes, you might ask the kitchenmaid." "The kitchenmaid has more money than I have," said Isabel cheerfully. "Is it so very bad? It's clean anyway, I washed and ironed it myself." "It looks very nice and so do you," said Val. Isabel eyed him with a softened glance: one could rely on Val to salve one's wounded vanity, but, alas! Val did not know home-made from tailor-made. Reluctantly she owned to herself that she had more faith in Rowsley's judgment. "It seems rather short though," Val added. "I suppose you will have to go into long frocks pretty soon, won't you, and put your hair up?" "Oh bother my hair and my dresses!" said Isabel with a great sigh. "I will pin my hair up when I get some new clothes, but how can I when I haven't any money and Jim hasn't any money and neither of you have any money? Don't you see, idiot," this was exclusively to Rowsley, "when I pin my hair up I shall turn into a grown up lady? And then I shall have to wear proper clothes. At present I'm only a little girl and it doesn't signify what I wear. If any one will give me five pounds I'll pin my hair up like a shot. Oh dear, I wonder what Yvonne would say if Jack expected her to outfit herself for five pounds? I do wish some one would leave me 10,000 pounds a year. Get up now, you lazy beggar, come and help me lay the supper. It's Fanny's evening out." She pulled Rowsley to his feet and they went off together leaving Val alone on the lawn: good comrades those two, and apparently more of an age, in spite of the long gap between them, than Rowsley and Val, who was the eldest by only eighteen months. And Val sat on alone, while stains of coral and amber faded out of the lavender sky, and a rack of sea clouds, which half an hour ago had shone like fiery ripples, dwindled away into smoke--mist --a mere shadow on the breast of the night. Stars began to sparkle, moths and humming cockchafers sailed by him, a chase of bats overhead endlessly fell down airy precipices and rose in long loops of darkling flight: honeysuckle and night-scented stock tinged with their sweet garden perfume the cool airs from the moor. Val lit a cigarette, a rare indulgence. If cigarettes grew on gooseberry bushes Val would have been an inveterate smoker, but good Egyptians were a luxury which he could not often afford The Wanhope agency was ample for his needs, though underpaid as agencies go: but there was Rowsley, always hard up, uncomplaining, but sensitive, as a young fellow in his position is sure to be, and secretly fretting because he could not do as other men did: and there was Isabel, for whom Val felt the anxiety Mr. Stafford ought to have felt, and was trying to make the provision Mr. Stafford ought to have made: and then there was the vicar himself, who laid out a great deal of money in those investments for which we are promised cent per cent interest, but upon a system of deferred payment. Tonight however Val lit a cigarette, and then a second, to the surprise of Isabel, who saw the red spark on the lawn. She thought her brother must be tired, and perhaps it really was the long day without food that made him so restless in mind and so uneasy. Bernard Clowes had been more than usually cranky that afternoon. Even the patient Val had had thoughts of throwing up his job when the cripple made him go through his week's accounts, scrutinizing every entry and cross-examining him on every transaction in such a tone as the head of a firm might employ to a junior clerk suspected of dishonesty. It was Bernard's way: it meant nothing: but it was irksome to Val, especially when he could not soothe himself by dropping into Laura's quiet parlour for a cup of tea. Yet his irritation would not have lingered through a cigarette if Isabel's news had not revived it. This cousin of Bernard's! Val had not much faith in any cousin of Bernard Clowes: nor in the kindness of life. Val was a slight, fair, pleasant-looking man of eight or nine and twenty, quiet of movement, friendly-mannered and as inconspicuous as his own rather worn grey tweeds: one of a class, till he raised his eyes: and then? There was something strange in Val's eyes when they were fully raised, an indrawn arresting brilliance difficult to analyse: imaginative and sympathetic, as if he were at home in dark places: the quality of acceptance of pain. Adepts in old days knew by his eyes a man who had been on the rack. Stafford had been racked: and by the pain that is half shame, the keenest, the most lacerating and destructive of wounds. He had suffered till he could suffer no more, and tonight in the starlit garden he, suffered still, without hope, or rebellion, or defence. Indoors Rowsley and Isabel, with the rapidity of long use, laid the cloth, and Isabel fetched cold beef from the larder and butter and eggs from the dairy, while Rowsley went down the cellar with a jug and a candle and drew from the cask a generous allowance of beer. "Come along in, old Val," said Isabel, reappearing at the open window, "You and Rose are both famishing and I'm not," this was a pious fiction, "so you can begin and I'll wait for Jimmy. I dare say he's gone wandering off somewhere and won't be in till ten." Val came across the dark, cool lawn and climbed over the window sill. A shabby room, large and low: a faded paper, grey toning to blue: a carpet of faded roses on a grey ground: the shaded Dresden lamp and roselit supper table shining like an island in a pool of shadow, and those two beloved heads, both so dark and smooth and young, tam cara capita! Neither of them suspected that Val was unhappy. His feeling for them was more fatherly than fraternal, and Rowsley, strange to say, fell in with Val's attitude, coming to his brother for money as naturally as most young men go to their parents. Val sat at the head of the table because Mr. Stafford could not carve. "There!" said Isabel, giving him his plate. "Mustard? I've just made it so you needn't look to see if it's fresh. Watercress: I picked it myself. Lettuce. Cream and vinegar and sugar. Beer. Now do you feel happy? Lord love you, dear, I like to see you eat." She sat on the arm of Mr. Stafford's mahogany chair. "What time do you want breakfast? Seven o'clock? Major Clowes wouldn't come down at seven if he were your agent. Can you get back to tea tomorrow? Laura may bring the cousin up to tea with her and she wants him to meet you." "Very good of her. Why?" "Oh, because he was in the Army too and all through the war. He went out with the first hundred thousand. He's much older than you are--the same age as Laura. Oh, wait a minute!" exclaimed Isabel in the tone in which a Frenchwoman says Tenez. I forgot. She thinks you must have met him, Val." "Possibly," said Val. "Was he in the Dorchesters?" asked Rowsley--much more interested than his brother, no doubt because he was not so hungry as Val, who was giving all his attention to his supper. "No, in the Winchesters," said Isabel. "Do I mean the Winchesters, Val? What was Major Clowes' old regiment?" "Clowes was in the Wintons." Isabel nodded. "Then so was the cousin. And Laura says he was out there when the Wintons were in the next bit of trench north of the Dorchesters. He was there when--when you were wounded." Such was Val Stafford's modesty that in the family circle it was not in etiquette to refer in other terms to that famous occasion. "I don't remember any fellow named Clowes and I never knew Bernard Clowes had a cousin out there," said Val, mixing himself a salad. "Oh, his name isn't Clowes. It's Ryde or Pride or something like that. I'm sorry to be so vague, but Jack Bendish and Yvonne and Mrs. Morley were all talking at once. Lawrence Pied--Fried--" "Lawrence Hyde?" "Yes, that's it! Then you really do remember him?" "Er--yes. Is that lamp smoking, Rowsley? You might turn it down a trifle, I can't reach." "Let me, let me?-- What was he like?" "Who--Hyde? Oh," said Val vaguely, "he was like the rest of us --very tired." "Tired?" echoed Isabel with a blank face, "but, Val darling, he couldn't have been only tired! What should you think he was like when he wasn't tired?" "That is a question I have occasionally asked myself," Val answered with his faint indecipherable smile. "My dear child, I only saw him once or twice. He was a senior captain and commanded his company. I was a very junior lieutenant." "Still he was there at the time," reflected Isabel. "O Rose! if he's anything like nice, which is almost past praying for in Major Clowes' cousin, let's beguile him into the gooseberry bushes and make him tell us all about it! Val is very dear to his family, but no one, however tenderly attached to him, could call him a brilliant raconteur. Now Mr. Hyde won't have any modest scruples. Val, if there is a slug in that lettuce I wish you would say so. It would hurt my feelings less than for you to sit looking at it in a stony silence. Was he good-looking?" "Possibly he might be," said Val, "when he scraped the dirt off." After a moment he added, "He was very decent to me." "Was he? Then he was nice?" "Gnat," said Rowsley from the middle of his third egg. Isabel rounded him indignantly. "I'm not gnatting! I'm not asking Val anything about himself, am I? Val can't possibly mind telling me about another man in another regiment. You eat your eggs, there's a good boy, before they get cold.-- Laura says the Dorchesters dined the Winchesters once when they were in billets. Was that when you and Mr. Hyde were there?" "Captain Hyde," Val corrected his young sister. "Yes, we both graced the festive board. It was too festive for me. We had Buszard's soup and curried chicken and real cream, and more champagne than was good for us. But it was not on that occasion that Hyde was so decent to me. The day I--the day Dale went down--" Rowsley nodded to him as he raised his glass of beer to his lips--"thank you, Rose.-- As I was saying, that evening I ran across Hyde between the lines. The Dorsets and Wintons had gone over the top together, and he had been left behind with a bullet in his chest. I was done to the world, but he had some brandy left and shared it with me. If it had not been for Hyde I should never have brought Dale in." "Well, I've never heard that before," said Rowsley to his fourth egg. Isabel was silent, and her eyes in the shadow of a momentary gravity were the eyes of a woman and not of a child. She raised them to look out at the evening sky, indigo blue against the lamplit interior, or faintly primrose in the west, and wondered for the thousandth time why it was still such an effort to Val to refer to his brief military experience. Soft country noises came in, peaceful and soothing: the short shrill shriek of a bat, the rustle of a branch of rose-leaves moving like a hand over the window panes, a faint breathing of wind from the moor. Surely the scar of war ought to be healed by now! Isabel kept these thoughts to herself: young as she was, her solitary life--for a woman alone among men is always to some extent solitary--had trained her to a clear perception of what had better not be said. "When is Hyde coming?" asked Val, going on with his salad. "Tomorrow, didn't you hear me say Laura is going to bring him here to tea? He's staying at his own place, Farringay--I think from the way Laura spoke it is what one calls a place--and they expect him by the morning train. Laura's to meet him in the car." "Did you ask her to bring him in to tea," said Rowsley, frowning over the marmalade jar, "when Val is safe to be out and you didn't know I should be here?" "Yes: oughtn't I to have?" "No." "Is there anything else you would like to speak to me about?" said Isabel after a pregnant silence. "Dear Rowsley, you seem determined to look after my manners and morals! I asked him to please Laura. She's nervous of Major Clowes. Jack and Yvonne are coming too." "Oh I don't see that it signifies," said Val. Mrs. Clowes wouldn't have accepted if it weren't all right. I don't see that you or I need worry if she doesn't. Isabel is old enough to pour out tea for herself. In any case, as it happens, you'll be here if I'm not, and I dare say Jimmy will look in for ten minutes." "You are sweet, Val," said Isabel gratefully. "Oh I don't say Rowsley's not right! Prigs generally are: and besides now I come to think of it, Laura did look faintly amused when I asked her. But these stupid things never occur to me till afterwards! After all, what am I to do? I can't manufacture a chaperon, and it would be very bad for the parish if the vicar never entertained. And it's not as if Captain Hyde were a young man; he's thirty-six if he's a day." CHAPTER III When the sea retreats after a storm one finds on the beach all sorts of strange flotsam. Bernard Clowes was a bit of human wreckage left on the sands of society by the storm of the war. When it broke out he was a second lieutenant in the Winchester Regiment, a keen polo player and first class batsman who rarely opened a book. He was sent out with the First Division and carried himself with his usual phlegmatic good humour through almost four years of fighting from Mons to Cambrai. In the March break-through he had his wrist broken by a rifle-bullet and was invalided home, where he took advantage of his leave to get married, partly because most of the men he knew were already married, and partly to please his sister. There were no other brothers, and Mrs. Morrison, a practical lady, but always a little regretful of her own marriage with Morrison's Boot and Shoe Company, recommended him with the family bluntness to arrange for an olive branch before the Huns got him. Laura, a penniless woman two years his senior and handicapped by her disreputable belongings, was not the wife Gertrude Morrison would have chosen for him: still it might have been worse, for Laura was well-born and personally irreproachable, while Clowes, hot-blooded and casual, was as likely as not to have married a chorus-girl. If any disappointment lingered, Gertrude soothed it by trying over in her own mind the irritation that she would be able to produce in Morrison circles: "Where he met her? Oh, when she was staying with her married sister at Castle Wharton . . . .Yvonne, the elder Selincourt girl, married into the Bendish family." Bernard did not care a straw either for the paternal handicap or for the glories of the Wharton connection. He took his love-affair as simply as his cricket and with the same bold confidence. Laura was what he wanted; she would fit into her surroundings at Wanhope as delicately as an old picture fits into an old frame, and one could leave her about--so he put it to himself--without fear of her getting damaged. When Tom Morrison, shrewd business man, dropped a hint about the rashness of marrying the daughter of a scamp like Ferdinand Selincourt, Bernard merely stared at him and let the indiscretion go in silence. He can scarcely be said to have loved his bride, for up to the time of the wedding his nature was not much more developed than that of a prize bull, but he considered her a very pretty woman, and his faith in her was a religion. So they were married, and went to Eastbourne for their honeymoon: an average match, not marked by passion on either side, but destined apparently to an average amount of comfort and good will. They had ten gay days before Laura was left on a victoria platform, gallantly smiling with pale lips and waving her handkerchief after the train that carried Bernard back to the front. Five months later on the eve of the Armistice he was flung out of the service, a broken man, paralysed below the waist, cursing every one who came near him and chiefly the surgeons for not letting him die. No one ever desired life more passionately than Bernard desired death. For some time he clung to the hope that his mind would wear his body out. But his body was too young, too strong, too tenacious of earth to be betrayed by the renegade mind. There came a day when Clowes felt his youth welling up in him like sap in a fallen tree: new energy throbbed in his veins, his heart beat strong and even, it was hard to believe that he could not get off his bed if he liked and go down to the playing fields or throw his leg over a horse. This mood fastened on him without warning in a Surbiton hospital after a calm night without a sleeping draught, when through his open window he could see green branches waving in sunlight, and hear the cries of men playing cricket and the smack of the driven ball: and it was torture. Tears forced their way suddenly into Bernard's eyes. His nurse, who had watched not a few reluctant recoveries, went out of the room. Then his great chest heaved, and he sobbed aloud, lying on his back with face unhidden, his wide black eyes blinking at the sweet pale June sky. No chance of death for him: he was good for ten, twenty, fifty years more: he could not bear it, but it had to be borne. He tried to pull himself up: if he could only have reached the window! But the arms that felt so strong were as weak as an infant's, while the dead weight of his helpless legs dragged on him like lead. The only result of his struggle was a dreadful access of pain. Reaction followed, for he had learnt in his A B C days not to whimper when he was hurt, and by the time the nurse returned Clowes had scourged himself back to his usual savage tranquillity. "Can I have that window shut, please?" he asked, cynically frank. "I used to play cricket myself." Laura Clowes in this period went through an experience almost equally formative. Two years older than Bernard, she was also more mature for her years and had developed more evenly, and from the outset her engagement and marriage had meant more to her then to Bernard, because her girlhood had been unhappy and they provided a way of escape. Her sister Yvonne had met Jack Bendish at a race-meeting and he had fallen madly in love with her and married her in a month in the teeth of

job

How many times the word 'job' appears in the text?

world. Isabel knew every one in Chilmark and every one knew her. Such a range of intensive acquaintance is not so narrow as people who have never lived in a country village are apt to suppose. Past the schoolhouse, past the wide stone bridge where Isabel loved to hang over the parapet watching for trout--but not tonight, for it was late, and Isabel after a "company tea" wanted her supper: by a footpath through the churchyard, closely mown and planted with rosebushes: and so into the church, where, after dropping a hurried professional curtsey to the altar, she set about her evening duties. Isabel called herself the curate, but she did a good deal which is not expected of a curate, such as shutting windows and changing lesson-markers, propping up the trebles when they went astray in the pointing of the Psalms, altering the numbers on the hymn-board, writing out choir papers, putting flowers in the vases and candles in the benediction lights, playing the organ as required and occasionally blowing it. . . . Before leaving the church she fell on her knees, in deference to Mr. Stafford and the text by the door, and said a prayer. What did she pray? "O Lord bless this church and all who worship in it and make father preach a good sermon next Sunday. I wish I'd been playing with Val instead of Jack, we should have won that last set if Jack hadn't muffed his services. . . . Well, this curate was only nineteen." And then, coming out into the fading light, she locked the north door behind her and went off whistling like a blackbird, if a blackbird could whistle the alto of Calkin's Magnificat in B flat. . . . Five minutes climbing of the steep brown floor of the beechwood, and she was out on uplands in the dying fires of day. It had been twilight in the valley, but here the wide plain was sunlit and the air was fresh and dry: in the valley even the river-aspens were almost quiet, but here there was still a sough of wind coming and going, through the dry grass thick set with lemon thyme and lady's slipper, or along the low garden wall where red valerian sprouted out of yellow stonecrop. A wishing gate led into the garden, and Isabel made for an open window, but halfway over the sill she paused, gazing with all her soul in her eyes across the vicarage gooseberry bushes. That grey suit was Val's of course, but who was inside the belted coat and riding breeches? "Rows-lee!" sang out Isabel, tumbling back into the garden with a generous display of leg. The raiders rose up each holding a handful of large red strawberries melting ripe, and Isabel, pitching in her racquet on a sofa, ran across the grass and enfolded her brother in her arms. Rowsley, dark and slight and shrewd, returned her hug with one arm, while carefully guarding his strawberries with the other--"You pig, you perfect pig!" wailed Isabel. "I was saving them for tea tomorrow, Laura's coming and I can't afford a cake. Oh joy, you can buy me one! How long can you stay?" "Over the week end: but I didn't come to buy you cakes, Baby. I haven't any money either. I came because I wanted you to buy me cakes." "O well never mind, I'll make one," Isabel joyously slipped her hand through Rowsley's arm. "Then I can get the flour from the baker and it won't cost anything at all--it'll go down in the bill. Well give me one anyhow, now they're picked it would be a pity to waste them." She helped herself liberally out of Val's hand. "Now stop both of you, you can't have any more." She linked her other arm in Val's and dragged her brothers out of the dangerous proximity of the strawberry beds. Val sat down on a deck chair, one leg thrown over the other, Rowsley dropped at full length on the turf, and Isabel doubled herself up between them, her arms clasped round her knees. "How's the Old Man?" she asked in friendly reference to Rowsley's commanding officer. "Oh Rose, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. Will Spillsby be able to play on the Fourth?" Spillsby, a brother subaltern and a famous bat, had twisted his ankle at the nets, and Rowsley in his last letter had been uncertain whether he would be well enough to play the Sappers at the annual fixture. Happily Rowsley was able to reassure his young sister: the ankle was much better and Spillsby was already allowed to walk on it. Isabel then turned her large velvet eyes--gazelle eyes with a world of pathos in their velvet gloom on her elder brother. "Coruscate, Val," she commanded. "You haven't said anything at all yet. We should all try to be bright in the home circle. We cannot all be witty, but-Ow! Rowsley, if you pull my hair I shall hit you in the--in the place where the Gauls fined their soldiers if they stuck out on parade. Oh, Val, that really isn't vulgar, I found it in Matthew Arnold! Their stomachs, you know. They wouldn't have fined you anyhow. You look fagged, darling-- are you?" "Not so much fagged as hungry," said Val in his soft voice. "It's getting on for nine o'clock and I was done out of my tea. I went in to Wanhope, but Laura was out, and Clowes was drinking whisky and soda. I cannot stand whisky at four in the afternoon, and Irish whisky at that. There'll be some supper going before long, won't there?" "Not until half past nine because Jimmy has his Bible class tonight." Jimmy was Mr. Stafford: and perhaps a purist might have objected that Mrs. Clowes and Yvonne Bendish had not done all they might have done to form Isabel's manners. "I'm so sorry, darling," she continued, preparing to leap to her feet. "Shall I get you a biscuit? There are oatmeals in the sideboard, the kind you like, I won't be a minute--" "Thanks very much, I'd rather wait. Did you see Mrs. Clowes today? Clowes said she was at the Castle." "So she was, sitting with Mrs. Morley in an angelic striped cotton. Mrs. Morley was in mauve ninon and a Gainsborough hat. Yvonne says Mr. Morley is a Jew and made his money in I. D. B.'s, which I suppose are some sort of stocks?" Neither of her brothers offered to enlighten her, Rowsley because he was feeling indolent, Val because he never said an unkind word to any one. Isabel, who was enamoured of her own voice flowed on with little delay: "If he really is a Jew, I can't think how she could marry him; I wouldn't. Mrs. Morley can't be very happy or Laura wouldn't go and talk to her. Laura is so sweet, she always sits with people that other people run away from. Oh Val, did Major Clowes tell you their news?" Isabel might refer to her father as Jimmy and to Rowsley's commander as the Old Man, but she rarely failed to give Bernard Clowes his correct prefix. "No--is there any?" "Only that they have some one coming to stay with them. Won't he have a deadly time?" Isabel glanced from Val to Rowsley in the certainty of a common response. "Imagine staying at Wanhope! However, he invited himself, so it's at his own risk. Perhaps he's embarrassed like you, Rose, and wants Laura to feed him. It's rather fun for Laura, though--that is, it will be, if Major Clowes isn't too hopeless." Strange freemasonry of the generations! Mr. Stafford's children loved him dearly and he was wont to say that there were no secrets at the vicarage, yet they lived in a conspiracy of silence, and even Val, who was mentally nearer to his father's age, would have been loth to let Mr. Stafford know as much as Isabel knew about Wanhope. It was assumed that Val's job was the very job Val wanted. Mr. Stafford had indeed a suspicion that it was not all plain sailing: Bernard Clowes retained just so much of the decently bred man as to be courteous to his wife before a mere acquaintance, but the vicar came and went at odd hours, and he observed now and then vague intimations--undertones from Bernard himself, an uncontrollable shrinking on Laura's part, an occasional hesitation or reluctance in Val--which hinted at flying storms. But Val, the father supposed, could make allowance for a cripple: Bernard was so much to be pitied that no man would resent an occasional burst of temper! And there his children left him. The younger generation can trust one another not to interfere, but when the seniors strike in, with their cut and dry precedents and rule of thumb moralities, who knows what mischief may follow? Elder people are so indiscreet! "It's a cousin of Major Clowes," Isabel continued, "but they haven't met for years and years--not since the war. Laura knows him too, she met him before she was married and liked him very much indeed. She's looking forward to it--that is, she would be if she had spirit enough to look forward to anything." "Clowes never said a word to me about it," remarked Val. "Didn't he?" Isabel unfolded herself and stood up. "That means he is going to be tiresome. I must run now, it's five past nine. Which will you both have, cold beef or eggs?" "Oh, anything that's going," said Val. "Eggs," said Rowsley, "not less than four. Without prejudice to the cold beef if it's underdone. Hallo!" "What?" "What's the matter with your skirt?" "Nothing," said Isabel shortly. She screwed her head over her shoulder in a vain endeavour to see her own back. "It's perfectly all right." "It would be, on a scarecrow." Isabel stuck her chin up. "Have you been over to the Castle in that kit, Baby? Well, if Yvonne won't give you some of her old clothes, you might ask the kitchenmaid." "The kitchenmaid has more money than I have," said Isabel cheerfully. "Is it so very bad? It's clean anyway, I washed and ironed it myself." "It looks very nice and so do you," said Val. Isabel eyed him with a softened glance: one could rely on Val to salve one's wounded vanity, but, alas! Val did not know home-made from tailor-made. Reluctantly she owned to herself that she had more faith in Rowsley's judgment. "It seems rather short though," Val added. "I suppose you will have to go into long frocks pretty soon, won't you, and put your hair up?" "Oh bother my hair and my dresses!" said Isabel with a great sigh. "I will pin my hair up when I get some new clothes, but how can I when I haven't any money and Jim hasn't any money and neither of you have any money? Don't you see, idiot," this was exclusively to Rowsley, "when I pin my hair up I shall turn into a grown up lady? And then I shall have to wear proper clothes. At present I'm only a little girl and it doesn't signify what I wear. If any one will give me five pounds I'll pin my hair up like a shot. Oh dear, I wonder what Yvonne would say if Jack expected her to outfit herself for five pounds? I do wish some one would leave me 10,000 pounds a year. Get up now, you lazy beggar, come and help me lay the supper. It's Fanny's evening out." She pulled Rowsley to his feet and they went off together leaving Val alone on the lawn: good comrades those two, and apparently more of an age, in spite of the long gap between them, than Rowsley and Val, who was the eldest by only eighteen months. And Val sat on alone, while stains of coral and amber faded out of the lavender sky, and a rack of sea clouds, which half an hour ago had shone like fiery ripples, dwindled away into smoke--mist --a mere shadow on the breast of the night. Stars began to sparkle, moths and humming cockchafers sailed by him, a chase of bats overhead endlessly fell down airy precipices and rose in long loops of darkling flight: honeysuckle and night-scented stock tinged with their sweet garden perfume the cool airs from the moor. Val lit a cigarette, a rare indulgence. If cigarettes grew on gooseberry bushes Val would have been an inveterate smoker, but good Egyptians were a luxury which he could not often afford The Wanhope agency was ample for his needs, though underpaid as agencies go: but there was Rowsley, always hard up, uncomplaining, but sensitive, as a young fellow in his position is sure to be, and secretly fretting because he could not do as other men did: and there was Isabel, for whom Val felt the anxiety Mr. Stafford ought to have felt, and was trying to make the provision Mr. Stafford ought to have made: and then there was the vicar himself, who laid out a great deal of money in those investments for which we are promised cent per cent interest, but upon a system of deferred payment. Tonight however Val lit a cigarette, and then a second, to the surprise of Isabel, who saw the red spark on the lawn. She thought her brother must be tired, and perhaps it really was the long day without food that made him so restless in mind and so uneasy. Bernard Clowes had been more than usually cranky that afternoon. Even the patient Val had had thoughts of throwing up his job when the cripple made him go through his week's accounts, scrutinizing every entry and cross-examining him on every transaction in such a tone as the head of a firm might employ to a junior clerk suspected of dishonesty. It was Bernard's way: it meant nothing: but it was irksome to Val, especially when he could not soothe himself by dropping into Laura's quiet parlour for a cup of tea. Yet his irritation would not have lingered through a cigarette if Isabel's news had not revived it. This cousin of Bernard's! Val had not much faith in any cousin of Bernard Clowes: nor in the kindness of life. Val was a slight, fair, pleasant-looking man of eight or nine and twenty, quiet of movement, friendly-mannered and as inconspicuous as his own rather worn grey tweeds: one of a class, till he raised his eyes: and then? There was something strange in Val's eyes when they were fully raised, an indrawn arresting brilliance difficult to analyse: imaginative and sympathetic, as if he were at home in dark places: the quality of acceptance of pain. Adepts in old days knew by his eyes a man who had been on the rack. Stafford had been racked: and by the pain that is half shame, the keenest, the most lacerating and destructive of wounds. He had suffered till he could suffer no more, and tonight in the starlit garden he, suffered still, without hope, or rebellion, or defence. Indoors Rowsley and Isabel, with the rapidity of long use, laid the cloth, and Isabel fetched cold beef from the larder and butter and eggs from the dairy, while Rowsley went down the cellar with a jug and a candle and drew from the cask a generous allowance of beer. "Come along in, old Val," said Isabel, reappearing at the open window, "You and Rose are both famishing and I'm not," this was a pious fiction, "so you can begin and I'll wait for Jimmy. I dare say he's gone wandering off somewhere and won't be in till ten." Val came across the dark, cool lawn and climbed over the window sill. A shabby room, large and low: a faded paper, grey toning to blue: a carpet of faded roses on a grey ground: the shaded Dresden lamp and roselit supper table shining like an island in a pool of shadow, and those two beloved heads, both so dark and smooth and young, tam cara capita! Neither of them suspected that Val was unhappy. His feeling for them was more fatherly than fraternal, and Rowsley, strange to say, fell in with Val's attitude, coming to his brother for money as naturally as most young men go to their parents. Val sat at the head of the table because Mr. Stafford could not carve. "There!" said Isabel, giving him his plate. "Mustard? I've just made it so you needn't look to see if it's fresh. Watercress: I picked it myself. Lettuce. Cream and vinegar and sugar. Beer. Now do you feel happy? Lord love you, dear, I like to see you eat." She sat on the arm of Mr. Stafford's mahogany chair. "What time do you want breakfast? Seven o'clock? Major Clowes wouldn't come down at seven if he were your agent. Can you get back to tea tomorrow? Laura may bring the cousin up to tea with her and she wants him to meet you." "Very good of her. Why?" "Oh, because he was in the Army too and all through the war. He went out with the first hundred thousand. He's much older than you are--the same age as Laura. Oh, wait a minute!" exclaimed Isabel in the tone in which a Frenchwoman says Tenez. I forgot. She thinks you must have met him, Val." "Possibly," said Val. "Was he in the Dorchesters?" asked Rowsley--much more interested than his brother, no doubt because he was not so hungry as Val, who was giving all his attention to his supper. "No, in the Winchesters," said Isabel. "Do I mean the Winchesters, Val? What was Major Clowes' old regiment?" "Clowes was in the Wintons." Isabel nodded. "Then so was the cousin. And Laura says he was out there when the Wintons were in the next bit of trench north of the Dorchesters. He was there when--when you were wounded." Such was Val Stafford's modesty that in the family circle it was not in etiquette to refer in other terms to that famous occasion. "I don't remember any fellow named Clowes and I never knew Bernard Clowes had a cousin out there," said Val, mixing himself a salad. "Oh, his name isn't Clowes. It's Ryde or Pride or something like that. I'm sorry to be so vague, but Jack Bendish and Yvonne and Mrs. Morley were all talking at once. Lawrence Pied--Fried--" "Lawrence Hyde?" "Yes, that's it! Then you really do remember him?" "Er--yes. Is that lamp smoking, Rowsley? You might turn it down a trifle, I can't reach." "Let me, let me?-- What was he like?" "Who--Hyde? Oh," said Val vaguely, "he was like the rest of us --very tired." "Tired?" echoed Isabel with a blank face, "but, Val darling, he couldn't have been only tired! What should you think he was like when he wasn't tired?" "That is a question I have occasionally asked myself," Val answered with his faint indecipherable smile. "My dear child, I only saw him once or twice. He was a senior captain and commanded his company. I was a very junior lieutenant." "Still he was there at the time," reflected Isabel. "O Rose! if he's anything like nice, which is almost past praying for in Major Clowes' cousin, let's beguile him into the gooseberry bushes and make him tell us all about it! Val is very dear to his family, but no one, however tenderly attached to him, could call him a brilliant raconteur. Now Mr. Hyde won't have any modest scruples. Val, if there is a slug in that lettuce I wish you would say so. It would hurt my feelings less than for you to sit looking at it in a stony silence. Was he good-looking?" "Possibly he might be," said Val, "when he scraped the dirt off." After a moment he added, "He was very decent to me." "Was he? Then he was nice?" "Gnat," said Rowsley from the middle of his third egg. Isabel rounded him indignantly. "I'm not gnatting! I'm not asking Val anything about himself, am I? Val can't possibly mind telling me about another man in another regiment. You eat your eggs, there's a good boy, before they get cold.-- Laura says the Dorchesters dined the Winchesters once when they were in billets. Was that when you and Mr. Hyde were there?" "Captain Hyde," Val corrected his young sister. "Yes, we both graced the festive board. It was too festive for me. We had Buszard's soup and curried chicken and real cream, and more champagne than was good for us. But it was not on that occasion that Hyde was so decent to me. The day I--the day Dale went down--" Rowsley nodded to him as he raised his glass of beer to his lips--"thank you, Rose.-- As I was saying, that evening I ran across Hyde between the lines. The Dorsets and Wintons had gone over the top together, and he had been left behind with a bullet in his chest. I was done to the world, but he had some brandy left and shared it with me. If it had not been for Hyde I should never have brought Dale in." "Well, I've never heard that before," said Rowsley to his fourth egg. Isabel was silent, and her eyes in the shadow of a momentary gravity were the eyes of a woman and not of a child. She raised them to look out at the evening sky, indigo blue against the lamplit interior, or faintly primrose in the west, and wondered for the thousandth time why it was still such an effort to Val to refer to his brief military experience. Soft country noises came in, peaceful and soothing: the short shrill shriek of a bat, the rustle of a branch of rose-leaves moving like a hand over the window panes, a faint breathing of wind from the moor. Surely the scar of war ought to be healed by now! Isabel kept these thoughts to herself: young as she was, her solitary life--for a woman alone among men is always to some extent solitary--had trained her to a clear perception of what had better not be said. "When is Hyde coming?" asked Val, going on with his salad. "Tomorrow, didn't you hear me say Laura is going to bring him here to tea? He's staying at his own place, Farringay--I think from the way Laura spoke it is what one calls a place--and they expect him by the morning train. Laura's to meet him in the car." "Did you ask her to bring him in to tea," said Rowsley, frowning over the marmalade jar, "when Val is safe to be out and you didn't know I should be here?" "Yes: oughtn't I to have?" "No." "Is there anything else you would like to speak to me about?" said Isabel after a pregnant silence. "Dear Rowsley, you seem determined to look after my manners and morals! I asked him to please Laura. She's nervous of Major Clowes. Jack and Yvonne are coming too." "Oh I don't see that it signifies," said Val. Mrs. Clowes wouldn't have accepted if it weren't all right. I don't see that you or I need worry if she doesn't. Isabel is old enough to pour out tea for herself. In any case, as it happens, you'll be here if I'm not, and I dare say Jimmy will look in for ten minutes." "You are sweet, Val," said Isabel gratefully. "Oh I don't say Rowsley's not right! Prigs generally are: and besides now I come to think of it, Laura did look faintly amused when I asked her. But these stupid things never occur to me till afterwards! After all, what am I to do? I can't manufacture a chaperon, and it would be very bad for the parish if the vicar never entertained. And it's not as if Captain Hyde were a young man; he's thirty-six if he's a day." CHAPTER III When the sea retreats after a storm one finds on the beach all sorts of strange flotsam. Bernard Clowes was a bit of human wreckage left on the sands of society by the storm of the war. When it broke out he was a second lieutenant in the Winchester Regiment, a keen polo player and first class batsman who rarely opened a book. He was sent out with the First Division and carried himself with his usual phlegmatic good humour through almost four years of fighting from Mons to Cambrai. In the March break-through he had his wrist broken by a rifle-bullet and was invalided home, where he took advantage of his leave to get married, partly because most of the men he knew were already married, and partly to please his sister. There were no other brothers, and Mrs. Morrison, a practical lady, but always a little regretful of her own marriage with Morrison's Boot and Shoe Company, recommended him with the family bluntness to arrange for an olive branch before the Huns got him. Laura, a penniless woman two years his senior and handicapped by her disreputable belongings, was not the wife Gertrude Morrison would have chosen for him: still it might have been worse, for Laura was well-born and personally irreproachable, while Clowes, hot-blooded and casual, was as likely as not to have married a chorus-girl. If any disappointment lingered, Gertrude soothed it by trying over in her own mind the irritation that she would be able to produce in Morrison circles: "Where he met her? Oh, when she was staying with her married sister at Castle Wharton . . . .Yvonne, the elder Selincourt girl, married into the Bendish family." Bernard did not care a straw either for the paternal handicap or for the glories of the Wharton connection. He took his love-affair as simply as his cricket and with the same bold confidence. Laura was what he wanted; she would fit into her surroundings at Wanhope as delicately as an old picture fits into an old frame, and one could leave her about--so he put it to himself--without fear of her getting damaged. When Tom Morrison, shrewd business man, dropped a hint about the rashness of marrying the daughter of a scamp like Ferdinand Selincourt, Bernard merely stared at him and let the indiscretion go in silence. He can scarcely be said to have loved his bride, for up to the time of the wedding his nature was not much more developed than that of a prize bull, but he considered her a very pretty woman, and his faith in her was a religion. So they were married, and went to Eastbourne for their honeymoon: an average match, not marked by passion on either side, but destined apparently to an average amount of comfort and good will. They had ten gay days before Laura was left on a victoria platform, gallantly smiling with pale lips and waving her handkerchief after the train that carried Bernard back to the front. Five months later on the eve of the Armistice he was flung out of the service, a broken man, paralysed below the waist, cursing every one who came near him and chiefly the surgeons for not letting him die. No one ever desired life more passionately than Bernard desired death. For some time he clung to the hope that his mind would wear his body out. But his body was too young, too strong, too tenacious of earth to be betrayed by the renegade mind. There came a day when Clowes felt his youth welling up in him like sap in a fallen tree: new energy throbbed in his veins, his heart beat strong and even, it was hard to believe that he could not get off his bed if he liked and go down to the playing fields or throw his leg over a horse. This mood fastened on him without warning in a Surbiton hospital after a calm night without a sleeping draught, when through his open window he could see green branches waving in sunlight, and hear the cries of men playing cricket and the smack of the driven ball: and it was torture. Tears forced their way suddenly into Bernard's eyes. His nurse, who had watched not a few reluctant recoveries, went out of the room. Then his great chest heaved, and he sobbed aloud, lying on his back with face unhidden, his wide black eyes blinking at the sweet pale June sky. No chance of death for him: he was good for ten, twenty, fifty years more: he could not bear it, but it had to be borne. He tried to pull himself up: if he could only have reached the window! But the arms that felt so strong were as weak as an infant's, while the dead weight of his helpless legs dragged on him like lead. The only result of his struggle was a dreadful access of pain. Reaction followed, for he had learnt in his A B C days not to whimper when he was hurt, and by the time the nurse returned Clowes had scourged himself back to his usual savage tranquillity. "Can I have that window shut, please?" he asked, cynically frank. "I used to play cricket myself." Laura Clowes in this period went through an experience almost equally formative. Two years older than Bernard, she was also more mature for her years and had developed more evenly, and from the outset her engagement and marriage had meant more to her then to Bernard, because her girlhood had been unhappy and they provided a way of escape. Her sister Yvonne had met Jack Bendish at a race-meeting and he had fallen madly in love with her and married her in a month in the teeth of

buy

How many times the word 'buy' appears in the text?

world. Isabel knew every one in Chilmark and every one knew her. Such a range of intensive acquaintance is not so narrow as people who have never lived in a country village are apt to suppose. Past the schoolhouse, past the wide stone bridge where Isabel loved to hang over the parapet watching for trout--but not tonight, for it was late, and Isabel after a "company tea" wanted her supper: by a footpath through the churchyard, closely mown and planted with rosebushes: and so into the church, where, after dropping a hurried professional curtsey to the altar, she set about her evening duties. Isabel called herself the curate, but she did a good deal which is not expected of a curate, such as shutting windows and changing lesson-markers, propping up the trebles when they went astray in the pointing of the Psalms, altering the numbers on the hymn-board, writing out choir papers, putting flowers in the vases and candles in the benediction lights, playing the organ as required and occasionally blowing it. . . . Before leaving the church she fell on her knees, in deference to Mr. Stafford and the text by the door, and said a prayer. What did she pray? "O Lord bless this church and all who worship in it and make father preach a good sermon next Sunday. I wish I'd been playing with Val instead of Jack, we should have won that last set if Jack hadn't muffed his services. . . . Well, this curate was only nineteen." And then, coming out into the fading light, she locked the north door behind her and went off whistling like a blackbird, if a blackbird could whistle the alto of Calkin's Magnificat in B flat. . . . Five minutes climbing of the steep brown floor of the beechwood, and she was out on uplands in the dying fires of day. It had been twilight in the valley, but here the wide plain was sunlit and the air was fresh and dry: in the valley even the river-aspens were almost quiet, but here there was still a sough of wind coming and going, through the dry grass thick set with lemon thyme and lady's slipper, or along the low garden wall where red valerian sprouted out of yellow stonecrop. A wishing gate led into the garden, and Isabel made for an open window, but halfway over the sill she paused, gazing with all her soul in her eyes across the vicarage gooseberry bushes. That grey suit was Val's of course, but who was inside the belted coat and riding breeches? "Rows-lee!" sang out Isabel, tumbling back into the garden with a generous display of leg. The raiders rose up each holding a handful of large red strawberries melting ripe, and Isabel, pitching in her racquet on a sofa, ran across the grass and enfolded her brother in her arms. Rowsley, dark and slight and shrewd, returned her hug with one arm, while carefully guarding his strawberries with the other--"You pig, you perfect pig!" wailed Isabel. "I was saving them for tea tomorrow, Laura's coming and I can't afford a cake. Oh joy, you can buy me one! How long can you stay?" "Over the week end: but I didn't come to buy you cakes, Baby. I haven't any money either. I came because I wanted you to buy me cakes." "O well never mind, I'll make one," Isabel joyously slipped her hand through Rowsley's arm. "Then I can get the flour from the baker and it won't cost anything at all--it'll go down in the bill. Well give me one anyhow, now they're picked it would be a pity to waste them." She helped herself liberally out of Val's hand. "Now stop both of you, you can't have any more." She linked her other arm in Val's and dragged her brothers out of the dangerous proximity of the strawberry beds. Val sat down on a deck chair, one leg thrown over the other, Rowsley dropped at full length on the turf, and Isabel doubled herself up between them, her arms clasped round her knees. "How's the Old Man?" she asked in friendly reference to Rowsley's commanding officer. "Oh Rose, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. Will Spillsby be able to play on the Fourth?" Spillsby, a brother subaltern and a famous bat, had twisted his ankle at the nets, and Rowsley in his last letter had been uncertain whether he would be well enough to play the Sappers at the annual fixture. Happily Rowsley was able to reassure his young sister: the ankle was much better and Spillsby was already allowed to walk on it. Isabel then turned her large velvet eyes--gazelle eyes with a world of pathos in their velvet gloom on her elder brother. "Coruscate, Val," she commanded. "You haven't said anything at all yet. We should all try to be bright in the home circle. We cannot all be witty, but-Ow! Rowsley, if you pull my hair I shall hit you in the--in the place where the Gauls fined their soldiers if they stuck out on parade. Oh, Val, that really isn't vulgar, I found it in Matthew Arnold! Their stomachs, you know. They wouldn't have fined you anyhow. You look fagged, darling-- are you?" "Not so much fagged as hungry," said Val in his soft voice. "It's getting on for nine o'clock and I was done out of my tea. I went in to Wanhope, but Laura was out, and Clowes was drinking whisky and soda. I cannot stand whisky at four in the afternoon, and Irish whisky at that. There'll be some supper going before long, won't there?" "Not until half past nine because Jimmy has his Bible class tonight." Jimmy was Mr. Stafford: and perhaps a purist might have objected that Mrs. Clowes and Yvonne Bendish had not done all they might have done to form Isabel's manners. "I'm so sorry, darling," she continued, preparing to leap to her feet. "Shall I get you a biscuit? There are oatmeals in the sideboard, the kind you like, I won't be a minute--" "Thanks very much, I'd rather wait. Did you see Mrs. Clowes today? Clowes said she was at the Castle." "So she was, sitting with Mrs. Morley in an angelic striped cotton. Mrs. Morley was in mauve ninon and a Gainsborough hat. Yvonne says Mr. Morley is a Jew and made his money in I. D. B.'s, which I suppose are some sort of stocks?" Neither of her brothers offered to enlighten her, Rowsley because he was feeling indolent, Val because he never said an unkind word to any one. Isabel, who was enamoured of her own voice flowed on with little delay: "If he really is a Jew, I can't think how she could marry him; I wouldn't. Mrs. Morley can't be very happy or Laura wouldn't go and talk to her. Laura is so sweet, she always sits with people that other people run away from. Oh Val, did Major Clowes tell you their news?" Isabel might refer to her father as Jimmy and to Rowsley's commander as the Old Man, but she rarely failed to give Bernard Clowes his correct prefix. "No--is there any?" "Only that they have some one coming to stay with them. Won't he have a deadly time?" Isabel glanced from Val to Rowsley in the certainty of a common response. "Imagine staying at Wanhope! However, he invited himself, so it's at his own risk. Perhaps he's embarrassed like you, Rose, and wants Laura to feed him. It's rather fun for Laura, though--that is, it will be, if Major Clowes isn't too hopeless." Strange freemasonry of the generations! Mr. Stafford's children loved him dearly and he was wont to say that there were no secrets at the vicarage, yet they lived in a conspiracy of silence, and even Val, who was mentally nearer to his father's age, would have been loth to let Mr. Stafford know as much as Isabel knew about Wanhope. It was assumed that Val's job was the very job Val wanted. Mr. Stafford had indeed a suspicion that it was not all plain sailing: Bernard Clowes retained just so much of the decently bred man as to be courteous to his wife before a mere acquaintance, but the vicar came and went at odd hours, and he observed now and then vague intimations--undertones from Bernard himself, an uncontrollable shrinking on Laura's part, an occasional hesitation or reluctance in Val--which hinted at flying storms. But Val, the father supposed, could make allowance for a cripple: Bernard was so much to be pitied that no man would resent an occasional burst of temper! And there his children left him. The younger generation can trust one another not to interfere, but when the seniors strike in, with their cut and dry precedents and rule of thumb moralities, who knows what mischief may follow? Elder people are so indiscreet! "It's a cousin of Major Clowes," Isabel continued, "but they haven't met for years and years--not since the war. Laura knows him too, she met him before she was married and liked him very much indeed. She's looking forward to it--that is, she would be if she had spirit enough to look forward to anything." "Clowes never said a word to me about it," remarked Val. "Didn't he?" Isabel unfolded herself and stood up. "That means he is going to be tiresome. I must run now, it's five past nine. Which will you both have, cold beef or eggs?" "Oh, anything that's going," said Val. "Eggs," said Rowsley, "not less than four. Without prejudice to the cold beef if it's underdone. Hallo!" "What?" "What's the matter with your skirt?" "Nothing," said Isabel shortly. She screwed her head over her shoulder in a vain endeavour to see her own back. "It's perfectly all right." "It would be, on a scarecrow." Isabel stuck her chin up. "Have you been over to the Castle in that kit, Baby? Well, if Yvonne won't give you some of her old clothes, you might ask the kitchenmaid." "The kitchenmaid has more money than I have," said Isabel cheerfully. "Is it so very bad? It's clean anyway, I washed and ironed it myself." "It looks very nice and so do you," said Val. Isabel eyed him with a softened glance: one could rely on Val to salve one's wounded vanity, but, alas! Val did not know home-made from tailor-made. Reluctantly she owned to herself that she had more faith in Rowsley's judgment. "It seems rather short though," Val added. "I suppose you will have to go into long frocks pretty soon, won't you, and put your hair up?" "Oh bother my hair and my dresses!" said Isabel with a great sigh. "I will pin my hair up when I get some new clothes, but how can I when I haven't any money and Jim hasn't any money and neither of you have any money? Don't you see, idiot," this was exclusively to Rowsley, "when I pin my hair up I shall turn into a grown up lady? And then I shall have to wear proper clothes. At present I'm only a little girl and it doesn't signify what I wear. If any one will give me five pounds I'll pin my hair up like a shot. Oh dear, I wonder what Yvonne would say if Jack expected her to outfit herself for five pounds? I do wish some one would leave me 10,000 pounds a year. Get up now, you lazy beggar, come and help me lay the supper. It's Fanny's evening out." She pulled Rowsley to his feet and they went off together leaving Val alone on the lawn: good comrades those two, and apparently more of an age, in spite of the long gap between them, than Rowsley and Val, who was the eldest by only eighteen months. And Val sat on alone, while stains of coral and amber faded out of the lavender sky, and a rack of sea clouds, which half an hour ago had shone like fiery ripples, dwindled away into smoke--mist --a mere shadow on the breast of the night. Stars began to sparkle, moths and humming cockchafers sailed by him, a chase of bats overhead endlessly fell down airy precipices and rose in long loops of darkling flight: honeysuckle and night-scented stock tinged with their sweet garden perfume the cool airs from the moor. Val lit a cigarette, a rare indulgence. If cigarettes grew on gooseberry bushes Val would have been an inveterate smoker, but good Egyptians were a luxury which he could not often afford The Wanhope agency was ample for his needs, though underpaid as agencies go: but there was Rowsley, always hard up, uncomplaining, but sensitive, as a young fellow in his position is sure to be, and secretly fretting because he could not do as other men did: and there was Isabel, for whom Val felt the anxiety Mr. Stafford ought to have felt, and was trying to make the provision Mr. Stafford ought to have made: and then there was the vicar himself, who laid out a great deal of money in those investments for which we are promised cent per cent interest, but upon a system of deferred payment. Tonight however Val lit a cigarette, and then a second, to the surprise of Isabel, who saw the red spark on the lawn. She thought her brother must be tired, and perhaps it really was the long day without food that made him so restless in mind and so uneasy. Bernard Clowes had been more than usually cranky that afternoon. Even the patient Val had had thoughts of throwing up his job when the cripple made him go through his week's accounts, scrutinizing every entry and cross-examining him on every transaction in such a tone as the head of a firm might employ to a junior clerk suspected of dishonesty. It was Bernard's way: it meant nothing: but it was irksome to Val, especially when he could not soothe himself by dropping into Laura's quiet parlour for a cup of tea. Yet his irritation would not have lingered through a cigarette if Isabel's news had not revived it. This cousin of Bernard's! Val had not much faith in any cousin of Bernard Clowes: nor in the kindness of life. Val was a slight, fair, pleasant-looking man of eight or nine and twenty, quiet of movement, friendly-mannered and as inconspicuous as his own rather worn grey tweeds: one of a class, till he raised his eyes: and then? There was something strange in Val's eyes when they were fully raised, an indrawn arresting brilliance difficult to analyse: imaginative and sympathetic, as if he were at home in dark places: the quality of acceptance of pain. Adepts in old days knew by his eyes a man who had been on the rack. Stafford had been racked: and by the pain that is half shame, the keenest, the most lacerating and destructive of wounds. He had suffered till he could suffer no more, and tonight in the starlit garden he, suffered still, without hope, or rebellion, or defence. Indoors Rowsley and Isabel, with the rapidity of long use, laid the cloth, and Isabel fetched cold beef from the larder and butter and eggs from the dairy, while Rowsley went down the cellar with a jug and a candle and drew from the cask a generous allowance of beer. "Come along in, old Val," said Isabel, reappearing at the open window, "You and Rose are both famishing and I'm not," this was a pious fiction, "so you can begin and I'll wait for Jimmy. I dare say he's gone wandering off somewhere and won't be in till ten." Val came across the dark, cool lawn and climbed over the window sill. A shabby room, large and low: a faded paper, grey toning to blue: a carpet of faded roses on a grey ground: the shaded Dresden lamp and roselit supper table shining like an island in a pool of shadow, and those two beloved heads, both so dark and smooth and young, tam cara capita! Neither of them suspected that Val was unhappy. His feeling for them was more fatherly than fraternal, and Rowsley, strange to say, fell in with Val's attitude, coming to his brother for money as naturally as most young men go to their parents. Val sat at the head of the table because Mr. Stafford could not carve. "There!" said Isabel, giving him his plate. "Mustard? I've just made it so you needn't look to see if it's fresh. Watercress: I picked it myself. Lettuce. Cream and vinegar and sugar. Beer. Now do you feel happy? Lord love you, dear, I like to see you eat." She sat on the arm of Mr. Stafford's mahogany chair. "What time do you want breakfast? Seven o'clock? Major Clowes wouldn't come down at seven if he were your agent. Can you get back to tea tomorrow? Laura may bring the cousin up to tea with her and she wants him to meet you." "Very good of her. Why?" "Oh, because he was in the Army too and all through the war. He went out with the first hundred thousand. He's much older than you are--the same age as Laura. Oh, wait a minute!" exclaimed Isabel in the tone in which a Frenchwoman says Tenez. I forgot. She thinks you must have met him, Val." "Possibly," said Val. "Was he in the Dorchesters?" asked Rowsley--much more interested than his brother, no doubt because he was not so hungry as Val, who was giving all his attention to his supper. "No, in the Winchesters," said Isabel. "Do I mean the Winchesters, Val? What was Major Clowes' old regiment?" "Clowes was in the Wintons." Isabel nodded. "Then so was the cousin. And Laura says he was out there when the Wintons were in the next bit of trench north of the Dorchesters. He was there when--when you were wounded." Such was Val Stafford's modesty that in the family circle it was not in etiquette to refer in other terms to that famous occasion. "I don't remember any fellow named Clowes and I never knew Bernard Clowes had a cousin out there," said Val, mixing himself a salad. "Oh, his name isn't Clowes. It's Ryde or Pride or something like that. I'm sorry to be so vague, but Jack Bendish and Yvonne and Mrs. Morley were all talking at once. Lawrence Pied--Fried--" "Lawrence Hyde?" "Yes, that's it! Then you really do remember him?" "Er--yes. Is that lamp smoking, Rowsley? You might turn it down a trifle, I can't reach." "Let me, let me?-- What was he like?" "Who--Hyde? Oh," said Val vaguely, "he was like the rest of us --very tired." "Tired?" echoed Isabel with a blank face, "but, Val darling, he couldn't have been only tired! What should you think he was like when he wasn't tired?" "That is a question I have occasionally asked myself," Val answered with his faint indecipherable smile. "My dear child, I only saw him once or twice. He was a senior captain and commanded his company. I was a very junior lieutenant." "Still he was there at the time," reflected Isabel. "O Rose! if he's anything like nice, which is almost past praying for in Major Clowes' cousin, let's beguile him into the gooseberry bushes and make him tell us all about it! Val is very dear to his family, but no one, however tenderly attached to him, could call him a brilliant raconteur. Now Mr. Hyde won't have any modest scruples. Val, if there is a slug in that lettuce I wish you would say so. It would hurt my feelings less than for you to sit looking at it in a stony silence. Was he good-looking?" "Possibly he might be," said Val, "when he scraped the dirt off." After a moment he added, "He was very decent to me." "Was he? Then he was nice?" "Gnat," said Rowsley from the middle of his third egg. Isabel rounded him indignantly. "I'm not gnatting! I'm not asking Val anything about himself, am I? Val can't possibly mind telling me about another man in another regiment. You eat your eggs, there's a good boy, before they get cold.-- Laura says the Dorchesters dined the Winchesters once when they were in billets. Was that when you and Mr. Hyde were there?" "Captain Hyde," Val corrected his young sister. "Yes, we both graced the festive board. It was too festive for me. We had Buszard's soup and curried chicken and real cream, and more champagne than was good for us. But it was not on that occasion that Hyde was so decent to me. The day I--the day Dale went down--" Rowsley nodded to him as he raised his glass of beer to his lips--"thank you, Rose.-- As I was saying, that evening I ran across Hyde between the lines. The Dorsets and Wintons had gone over the top together, and he had been left behind with a bullet in his chest. I was done to the world, but he had some brandy left and shared it with me. If it had not been for Hyde I should never have brought Dale in." "Well, I've never heard that before," said Rowsley to his fourth egg. Isabel was silent, and her eyes in the shadow of a momentary gravity were the eyes of a woman and not of a child. She raised them to look out at the evening sky, indigo blue against the lamplit interior, or faintly primrose in the west, and wondered for the thousandth time why it was still such an effort to Val to refer to his brief military experience. Soft country noises came in, peaceful and soothing: the short shrill shriek of a bat, the rustle of a branch of rose-leaves moving like a hand over the window panes, a faint breathing of wind from the moor. Surely the scar of war ought to be healed by now! Isabel kept these thoughts to herself: young as she was, her solitary life--for a woman alone among men is always to some extent solitary--had trained her to a clear perception of what had better not be said. "When is Hyde coming?" asked Val, going on with his salad. "Tomorrow, didn't you hear me say Laura is going to bring him here to tea? He's staying at his own place, Farringay--I think from the way Laura spoke it is what one calls a place--and they expect him by the morning train. Laura's to meet him in the car." "Did you ask her to bring him in to tea," said Rowsley, frowning over the marmalade jar, "when Val is safe to be out and you didn't know I should be here?" "Yes: oughtn't I to have?" "No." "Is there anything else you would like to speak to me about?" said Isabel after a pregnant silence. "Dear Rowsley, you seem determined to look after my manners and morals! I asked him to please Laura. She's nervous of Major Clowes. Jack and Yvonne are coming too." "Oh I don't see that it signifies," said Val. Mrs. Clowes wouldn't have accepted if it weren't all right. I don't see that you or I need worry if she doesn't. Isabel is old enough to pour out tea for herself. In any case, as it happens, you'll be here if I'm not, and I dare say Jimmy will look in for ten minutes." "You are sweet, Val," said Isabel gratefully. "Oh I don't say Rowsley's not right! Prigs generally are: and besides now I come to think of it, Laura did look faintly amused when I asked her. But these stupid things never occur to me till afterwards! After all, what am I to do? I can't manufacture a chaperon, and it would be very bad for the parish if the vicar never entertained. And it's not as if Captain Hyde were a young man; he's thirty-six if he's a day." CHAPTER III When the sea retreats after a storm one finds on the beach all sorts of strange flotsam. Bernard Clowes was a bit of human wreckage left on the sands of society by the storm of the war. When it broke out he was a second lieutenant in the Winchester Regiment, a keen polo player and first class batsman who rarely opened a book. He was sent out with the First Division and carried himself with his usual phlegmatic good humour through almost four years of fighting from Mons to Cambrai. In the March break-through he had his wrist broken by a rifle-bullet and was invalided home, where he took advantage of his leave to get married, partly because most of the men he knew were already married, and partly to please his sister. There were no other brothers, and Mrs. Morrison, a practical lady, but always a little regretful of her own marriage with Morrison's Boot and Shoe Company, recommended him with the family bluntness to arrange for an olive branch before the Huns got him. Laura, a penniless woman two years his senior and handicapped by her disreputable belongings, was not the wife Gertrude Morrison would have chosen for him: still it might have been worse, for Laura was well-born and personally irreproachable, while Clowes, hot-blooded and casual, was as likely as not to have married a chorus-girl. If any disappointment lingered, Gertrude soothed it by trying over in her own mind the irritation that she would be able to produce in Morrison circles: "Where he met her? Oh, when she was staying with her married sister at Castle Wharton . . . .Yvonne, the elder Selincourt girl, married into the Bendish family." Bernard did not care a straw either for the paternal handicap or for the glories of the Wharton connection. He took his love-affair as simply as his cricket and with the same bold confidence. Laura was what he wanted; she would fit into her surroundings at Wanhope as delicately as an old picture fits into an old frame, and one could leave her about--so he put it to himself--without fear of her getting damaged. When Tom Morrison, shrewd business man, dropped a hint about the rashness of marrying the daughter of a scamp like Ferdinand Selincourt, Bernard merely stared at him and let the indiscretion go in silence. He can scarcely be said to have loved his bride, for up to the time of the wedding his nature was not much more developed than that of a prize bull, but he considered her a very pretty woman, and his faith in her was a religion. So they were married, and went to Eastbourne for their honeymoon: an average match, not marked by passion on either side, but destined apparently to an average amount of comfort and good will. They had ten gay days before Laura was left on a victoria platform, gallantly smiling with pale lips and waving her handkerchief after the train that carried Bernard back to the front. Five months later on the eve of the Armistice he was flung out of the service, a broken man, paralysed below the waist, cursing every one who came near him and chiefly the surgeons for not letting him die. No one ever desired life more passionately than Bernard desired death. For some time he clung to the hope that his mind would wear his body out. But his body was too young, too strong, too tenacious of earth to be betrayed by the renegade mind. There came a day when Clowes felt his youth welling up in him like sap in a fallen tree: new energy throbbed in his veins, his heart beat strong and even, it was hard to believe that he could not get off his bed if he liked and go down to the playing fields or throw his leg over a horse. This mood fastened on him without warning in a Surbiton hospital after a calm night without a sleeping draught, when through his open window he could see green branches waving in sunlight, and hear the cries of men playing cricket and the smack of the driven ball: and it was torture. Tears forced their way suddenly into Bernard's eyes. His nurse, who had watched not a few reluctant recoveries, went out of the room. Then his great chest heaved, and he sobbed aloud, lying on his back with face unhidden, his wide black eyes blinking at the sweet pale June sky. No chance of death for him: he was good for ten, twenty, fifty years more: he could not bear it, but it had to be borne. He tried to pull himself up: if he could only have reached the window! But the arms that felt so strong were as weak as an infant's, while the dead weight of his helpless legs dragged on him like lead. The only result of his struggle was a dreadful access of pain. Reaction followed, for he had learnt in his A B C days not to whimper when he was hurt, and by the time the nurse returned Clowes had scourged himself back to his usual savage tranquillity. "Can I have that window shut, please?" he asked, cynically frank. "I used to play cricket myself." Laura Clowes in this period went through an experience almost equally formative. Two years older than Bernard, she was also more mature for her years and had developed more evenly, and from the outset her engagement and marriage had meant more to her then to Bernard, because her girlhood had been unhappy and they provided a way of escape. Her sister Yvonne had met Jack Bendish at a race-meeting and he had fallen madly in love with her and married her in a month in the teeth of

occasional

How many times the word 'occasional' appears in the text?

world. Isabel knew every one in Chilmark and every one knew her. Such a range of intensive acquaintance is not so narrow as people who have never lived in a country village are apt to suppose. Past the schoolhouse, past the wide stone bridge where Isabel loved to hang over the parapet watching for trout--but not tonight, for it was late, and Isabel after a "company tea" wanted her supper: by a footpath through the churchyard, closely mown and planted with rosebushes: and so into the church, where, after dropping a hurried professional curtsey to the altar, she set about her evening duties. Isabel called herself the curate, but she did a good deal which is not expected of a curate, such as shutting windows and changing lesson-markers, propping up the trebles when they went astray in the pointing of the Psalms, altering the numbers on the hymn-board, writing out choir papers, putting flowers in the vases and candles in the benediction lights, playing the organ as required and occasionally blowing it. . . . Before leaving the church she fell on her knees, in deference to Mr. Stafford and the text by the door, and said a prayer. What did she pray? "O Lord bless this church and all who worship in it and make father preach a good sermon next Sunday. I wish I'd been playing with Val instead of Jack, we should have won that last set if Jack hadn't muffed his services. . . . Well, this curate was only nineteen." And then, coming out into the fading light, she locked the north door behind her and went off whistling like a blackbird, if a blackbird could whistle the alto of Calkin's Magnificat in B flat. . . . Five minutes climbing of the steep brown floor of the beechwood, and she was out on uplands in the dying fires of day. It had been twilight in the valley, but here the wide plain was sunlit and the air was fresh and dry: in the valley even the river-aspens were almost quiet, but here there was still a sough of wind coming and going, through the dry grass thick set with lemon thyme and lady's slipper, or along the low garden wall where red valerian sprouted out of yellow stonecrop. A wishing gate led into the garden, and Isabel made for an open window, but halfway over the sill she paused, gazing with all her soul in her eyes across the vicarage gooseberry bushes. That grey suit was Val's of course, but who was inside the belted coat and riding breeches? "Rows-lee!" sang out Isabel, tumbling back into the garden with a generous display of leg. The raiders rose up each holding a handful of large red strawberries melting ripe, and Isabel, pitching in her racquet on a sofa, ran across the grass and enfolded her brother in her arms. Rowsley, dark and slight and shrewd, returned her hug with one arm, while carefully guarding his strawberries with the other--"You pig, you perfect pig!" wailed Isabel. "I was saving them for tea tomorrow, Laura's coming and I can't afford a cake. Oh joy, you can buy me one! How long can you stay?" "Over the week end: but I didn't come to buy you cakes, Baby. I haven't any money either. I came because I wanted you to buy me cakes." "O well never mind, I'll make one," Isabel joyously slipped her hand through Rowsley's arm. "Then I can get the flour from the baker and it won't cost anything at all--it'll go down in the bill. Well give me one anyhow, now they're picked it would be a pity to waste them." She helped herself liberally out of Val's hand. "Now stop both of you, you can't have any more." She linked her other arm in Val's and dragged her brothers out of the dangerous proximity of the strawberry beds. Val sat down on a deck chair, one leg thrown over the other, Rowsley dropped at full length on the turf, and Isabel doubled herself up between them, her arms clasped round her knees. "How's the Old Man?" she asked in friendly reference to Rowsley's commanding officer. "Oh Rose, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. Will Spillsby be able to play on the Fourth?" Spillsby, a brother subaltern and a famous bat, had twisted his ankle at the nets, and Rowsley in his last letter had been uncertain whether he would be well enough to play the Sappers at the annual fixture. Happily Rowsley was able to reassure his young sister: the ankle was much better and Spillsby was already allowed to walk on it. Isabel then turned her large velvet eyes--gazelle eyes with a world of pathos in their velvet gloom on her elder brother. "Coruscate, Val," she commanded. "You haven't said anything at all yet. We should all try to be bright in the home circle. We cannot all be witty, but-Ow! Rowsley, if you pull my hair I shall hit you in the--in the place where the Gauls fined their soldiers if they stuck out on parade. Oh, Val, that really isn't vulgar, I found it in Matthew Arnold! Their stomachs, you know. They wouldn't have fined you anyhow. You look fagged, darling-- are you?" "Not so much fagged as hungry," said Val in his soft voice. "It's getting on for nine o'clock and I was done out of my tea. I went in to Wanhope, but Laura was out, and Clowes was drinking whisky and soda. I cannot stand whisky at four in the afternoon, and Irish whisky at that. There'll be some supper going before long, won't there?" "Not until half past nine because Jimmy has his Bible class tonight." Jimmy was Mr. Stafford: and perhaps a purist might have objected that Mrs. Clowes and Yvonne Bendish had not done all they might have done to form Isabel's manners. "I'm so sorry, darling," she continued, preparing to leap to her feet. "Shall I get you a biscuit? There are oatmeals in the sideboard, the kind you like, I won't be a minute--" "Thanks very much, I'd rather wait. Did you see Mrs. Clowes today? Clowes said she was at the Castle." "So she was, sitting with Mrs. Morley in an angelic striped cotton. Mrs. Morley was in mauve ninon and a Gainsborough hat. Yvonne says Mr. Morley is a Jew and made his money in I. D. B.'s, which I suppose are some sort of stocks?" Neither of her brothers offered to enlighten her, Rowsley because he was feeling indolent, Val because he never said an unkind word to any one. Isabel, who was enamoured of her own voice flowed on with little delay: "If he really is a Jew, I can't think how she could marry him; I wouldn't. Mrs. Morley can't be very happy or Laura wouldn't go and talk to her. Laura is so sweet, she always sits with people that other people run away from. Oh Val, did Major Clowes tell you their news?" Isabel might refer to her father as Jimmy and to Rowsley's commander as the Old Man, but she rarely failed to give Bernard Clowes his correct prefix. "No--is there any?" "Only that they have some one coming to stay with them. Won't he have a deadly time?" Isabel glanced from Val to Rowsley in the certainty of a common response. "Imagine staying at Wanhope! However, he invited himself, so it's at his own risk. Perhaps he's embarrassed like you, Rose, and wants Laura to feed him. It's rather fun for Laura, though--that is, it will be, if Major Clowes isn't too hopeless." Strange freemasonry of the generations! Mr. Stafford's children loved him dearly and he was wont to say that there were no secrets at the vicarage, yet they lived in a conspiracy of silence, and even Val, who was mentally nearer to his father's age, would have been loth to let Mr. Stafford know as much as Isabel knew about Wanhope. It was assumed that Val's job was the very job Val wanted. Mr. Stafford had indeed a suspicion that it was not all plain sailing: Bernard Clowes retained just so much of the decently bred man as to be courteous to his wife before a mere acquaintance, but the vicar came and went at odd hours, and he observed now and then vague intimations--undertones from Bernard himself, an uncontrollable shrinking on Laura's part, an occasional hesitation or reluctance in Val--which hinted at flying storms. But Val, the father supposed, could make allowance for a cripple: Bernard was so much to be pitied that no man would resent an occasional burst of temper! And there his children left him. The younger generation can trust one another not to interfere, but when the seniors strike in, with their cut and dry precedents and rule of thumb moralities, who knows what mischief may follow? Elder people are so indiscreet! "It's a cousin of Major Clowes," Isabel continued, "but they haven't met for years and years--not since the war. Laura knows him too, she met him before she was married and liked him very much indeed. She's looking forward to it--that is, she would be if she had spirit enough to look forward to anything." "Clowes never said a word to me about it," remarked Val. "Didn't he?" Isabel unfolded herself and stood up. "That means he is going to be tiresome. I must run now, it's five past nine. Which will you both have, cold beef or eggs?" "Oh, anything that's going," said Val. "Eggs," said Rowsley, "not less than four. Without prejudice to the cold beef if it's underdone. Hallo!" "What?" "What's the matter with your skirt?" "Nothing," said Isabel shortly. She screwed her head over her shoulder in a vain endeavour to see her own back. "It's perfectly all right." "It would be, on a scarecrow." Isabel stuck her chin up. "Have you been over to the Castle in that kit, Baby? Well, if Yvonne won't give you some of her old clothes, you might ask the kitchenmaid." "The kitchenmaid has more money than I have," said Isabel cheerfully. "Is it so very bad? It's clean anyway, I washed and ironed it myself." "It looks very nice and so do you," said Val. Isabel eyed him with a softened glance: one could rely on Val to salve one's wounded vanity, but, alas! Val did not know home-made from tailor-made. Reluctantly she owned to herself that she had more faith in Rowsley's judgment. "It seems rather short though," Val added. "I suppose you will have to go into long frocks pretty soon, won't you, and put your hair up?" "Oh bother my hair and my dresses!" said Isabel with a great sigh. "I will pin my hair up when I get some new clothes, but how can I when I haven't any money and Jim hasn't any money and neither of you have any money? Don't you see, idiot," this was exclusively to Rowsley, "when I pin my hair up I shall turn into a grown up lady? And then I shall have to wear proper clothes. At present I'm only a little girl and it doesn't signify what I wear. If any one will give me five pounds I'll pin my hair up like a shot. Oh dear, I wonder what Yvonne would say if Jack expected her to outfit herself for five pounds? I do wish some one would leave me 10,000 pounds a year. Get up now, you lazy beggar, come and help me lay the supper. It's Fanny's evening out." She pulled Rowsley to his feet and they went off together leaving Val alone on the lawn: good comrades those two, and apparently more of an age, in spite of the long gap between them, than Rowsley and Val, who was the eldest by only eighteen months. And Val sat on alone, while stains of coral and amber faded out of the lavender sky, and a rack of sea clouds, which half an hour ago had shone like fiery ripples, dwindled away into smoke--mist --a mere shadow on the breast of the night. Stars began to sparkle, moths and humming cockchafers sailed by him, a chase of bats overhead endlessly fell down airy precipices and rose in long loops of darkling flight: honeysuckle and night-scented stock tinged with their sweet garden perfume the cool airs from the moor. Val lit a cigarette, a rare indulgence. If cigarettes grew on gooseberry bushes Val would have been an inveterate smoker, but good Egyptians were a luxury which he could not often afford The Wanhope agency was ample for his needs, though underpaid as agencies go: but there was Rowsley, always hard up, uncomplaining, but sensitive, as a young fellow in his position is sure to be, and secretly fretting because he could not do as other men did: and there was Isabel, for whom Val felt the anxiety Mr. Stafford ought to have felt, and was trying to make the provision Mr. Stafford ought to have made: and then there was the vicar himself, who laid out a great deal of money in those investments for which we are promised cent per cent interest, but upon a system of deferred payment. Tonight however Val lit a cigarette, and then a second, to the surprise of Isabel, who saw the red spark on the lawn. She thought her brother must be tired, and perhaps it really was the long day without food that made him so restless in mind and so uneasy. Bernard Clowes had been more than usually cranky that afternoon. Even the patient Val had had thoughts of throwing up his job when the cripple made him go through his week's accounts, scrutinizing every entry and cross-examining him on every transaction in such a tone as the head of a firm might employ to a junior clerk suspected of dishonesty. It was Bernard's way: it meant nothing: but it was irksome to Val, especially when he could not soothe himself by dropping into Laura's quiet parlour for a cup of tea. Yet his irritation would not have lingered through a cigarette if Isabel's news had not revived it. This cousin of Bernard's! Val had not much faith in any cousin of Bernard Clowes: nor in the kindness of life. Val was a slight, fair, pleasant-looking man of eight or nine and twenty, quiet of movement, friendly-mannered and as inconspicuous as his own rather worn grey tweeds: one of a class, till he raised his eyes: and then? There was something strange in Val's eyes when they were fully raised, an indrawn arresting brilliance difficult to analyse: imaginative and sympathetic, as if he were at home in dark places: the quality of acceptance of pain. Adepts in old days knew by his eyes a man who had been on the rack. Stafford had been racked: and by the pain that is half shame, the keenest, the most lacerating and destructive of wounds. He had suffered till he could suffer no more, and tonight in the starlit garden he, suffered still, without hope, or rebellion, or defence. Indoors Rowsley and Isabel, with the rapidity of long use, laid the cloth, and Isabel fetched cold beef from the larder and butter and eggs from the dairy, while Rowsley went down the cellar with a jug and a candle and drew from the cask a generous allowance of beer. "Come along in, old Val," said Isabel, reappearing at the open window, "You and Rose are both famishing and I'm not," this was a pious fiction, "so you can begin and I'll wait for Jimmy. I dare say he's gone wandering off somewhere and won't be in till ten." Val came across the dark, cool lawn and climbed over the window sill. A shabby room, large and low: a faded paper, grey toning to blue: a carpet of faded roses on a grey ground: the shaded Dresden lamp and roselit supper table shining like an island in a pool of shadow, and those two beloved heads, both so dark and smooth and young, tam cara capita! Neither of them suspected that Val was unhappy. His feeling for them was more fatherly than fraternal, and Rowsley, strange to say, fell in with Val's attitude, coming to his brother for money as naturally as most young men go to their parents. Val sat at the head of the table because Mr. Stafford could not carve. "There!" said Isabel, giving him his plate. "Mustard? I've just made it so you needn't look to see if it's fresh. Watercress: I picked it myself. Lettuce. Cream and vinegar and sugar. Beer. Now do you feel happy? Lord love you, dear, I like to see you eat." She sat on the arm of Mr. Stafford's mahogany chair. "What time do you want breakfast? Seven o'clock? Major Clowes wouldn't come down at seven if he were your agent. Can you get back to tea tomorrow? Laura may bring the cousin up to tea with her and she wants him to meet you." "Very good of her. Why?" "Oh, because he was in the Army too and all through the war. He went out with the first hundred thousand. He's much older than you are--the same age as Laura. Oh, wait a minute!" exclaimed Isabel in the tone in which a Frenchwoman says Tenez. I forgot. She thinks you must have met him, Val." "Possibly," said Val. "Was he in the Dorchesters?" asked Rowsley--much more interested than his brother, no doubt because he was not so hungry as Val, who was giving all his attention to his supper. "No, in the Winchesters," said Isabel. "Do I mean the Winchesters, Val? What was Major Clowes' old regiment?" "Clowes was in the Wintons." Isabel nodded. "Then so was the cousin. And Laura says he was out there when the Wintons were in the next bit of trench north of the Dorchesters. He was there when--when you were wounded." Such was Val Stafford's modesty that in the family circle it was not in etiquette to refer in other terms to that famous occasion. "I don't remember any fellow named Clowes and I never knew Bernard Clowes had a cousin out there," said Val, mixing himself a salad. "Oh, his name isn't Clowes. It's Ryde or Pride or something like that. I'm sorry to be so vague, but Jack Bendish and Yvonne and Mrs. Morley were all talking at once. Lawrence Pied--Fried--" "Lawrence Hyde?" "Yes, that's it! Then you really do remember him?" "Er--yes. Is that lamp smoking, Rowsley? You might turn it down a trifle, I can't reach." "Let me, let me?-- What was he like?" "Who--Hyde? Oh," said Val vaguely, "he was like the rest of us --very tired." "Tired?" echoed Isabel with a blank face, "but, Val darling, he couldn't have been only tired! What should you think he was like when he wasn't tired?" "That is a question I have occasionally asked myself," Val answered with his faint indecipherable smile. "My dear child, I only saw him once or twice. He was a senior captain and commanded his company. I was a very junior lieutenant." "Still he was there at the time," reflected Isabel. "O Rose! if he's anything like nice, which is almost past praying for in Major Clowes' cousin, let's beguile him into the gooseberry bushes and make him tell us all about it! Val is very dear to his family, but no one, however tenderly attached to him, could call him a brilliant raconteur. Now Mr. Hyde won't have any modest scruples. Val, if there is a slug in that lettuce I wish you would say so. It would hurt my feelings less than for you to sit looking at it in a stony silence. Was he good-looking?" "Possibly he might be," said Val, "when he scraped the dirt off." After a moment he added, "He was very decent to me." "Was he? Then he was nice?" "Gnat," said Rowsley from the middle of his third egg. Isabel rounded him indignantly. "I'm not gnatting! I'm not asking Val anything about himself, am I? Val can't possibly mind telling me about another man in another regiment. You eat your eggs, there's a good boy, before they get cold.-- Laura says the Dorchesters dined the Winchesters once when they were in billets. Was that when you and Mr. Hyde were there?" "Captain Hyde," Val corrected his young sister. "Yes, we both graced the festive board. It was too festive for me. We had Buszard's soup and curried chicken and real cream, and more champagne than was good for us. But it was not on that occasion that Hyde was so decent to me. The day I--the day Dale went down--" Rowsley nodded to him as he raised his glass of beer to his lips--"thank you, Rose.-- As I was saying, that evening I ran across Hyde between the lines. The Dorsets and Wintons had gone over the top together, and he had been left behind with a bullet in his chest. I was done to the world, but he had some brandy left and shared it with me. If it had not been for Hyde I should never have brought Dale in." "Well, I've never heard that before," said Rowsley to his fourth egg. Isabel was silent, and her eyes in the shadow of a momentary gravity were the eyes of a woman and not of a child. She raised them to look out at the evening sky, indigo blue against the lamplit interior, or faintly primrose in the west, and wondered for the thousandth time why it was still such an effort to Val to refer to his brief military experience. Soft country noises came in, peaceful and soothing: the short shrill shriek of a bat, the rustle of a branch of rose-leaves moving like a hand over the window panes, a faint breathing of wind from the moor. Surely the scar of war ought to be healed by now! Isabel kept these thoughts to herself: young as she was, her solitary life--for a woman alone among men is always to some extent solitary--had trained her to a clear perception of what had better not be said. "When is Hyde coming?" asked Val, going on with his salad. "Tomorrow, didn't you hear me say Laura is going to bring him here to tea? He's staying at his own place, Farringay--I think from the way Laura spoke it is what one calls a place--and they expect him by the morning train. Laura's to meet him in the car." "Did you ask her to bring him in to tea," said Rowsley, frowning over the marmalade jar, "when Val is safe to be out and you didn't know I should be here?" "Yes: oughtn't I to have?" "No." "Is there anything else you would like to speak to me about?" said Isabel after a pregnant silence. "Dear Rowsley, you seem determined to look after my manners and morals! I asked him to please Laura. She's nervous of Major Clowes. Jack and Yvonne are coming too." "Oh I don't see that it signifies," said Val. Mrs. Clowes wouldn't have accepted if it weren't all right. I don't see that you or I need worry if she doesn't. Isabel is old enough to pour out tea for herself. In any case, as it happens, you'll be here if I'm not, and I dare say Jimmy will look in for ten minutes." "You are sweet, Val," said Isabel gratefully. "Oh I don't say Rowsley's not right! Prigs generally are: and besides now I come to think of it, Laura did look faintly amused when I asked her. But these stupid things never occur to me till afterwards! After all, what am I to do? I can't manufacture a chaperon, and it would be very bad for the parish if the vicar never entertained. And it's not as if Captain Hyde were a young man; he's thirty-six if he's a day." CHAPTER III When the sea retreats after a storm one finds on the beach all sorts of strange flotsam. Bernard Clowes was a bit of human wreckage left on the sands of society by the storm of the war. When it broke out he was a second lieutenant in the Winchester Regiment, a keen polo player and first class batsman who rarely opened a book. He was sent out with the First Division and carried himself with his usual phlegmatic good humour through almost four years of fighting from Mons to Cambrai. In the March break-through he had his wrist broken by a rifle-bullet and was invalided home, where he took advantage of his leave to get married, partly because most of the men he knew were already married, and partly to please his sister. There were no other brothers, and Mrs. Morrison, a practical lady, but always a little regretful of her own marriage with Morrison's Boot and Shoe Company, recommended him with the family bluntness to arrange for an olive branch before the Huns got him. Laura, a penniless woman two years his senior and handicapped by her disreputable belongings, was not the wife Gertrude Morrison would have chosen for him: still it might have been worse, for Laura was well-born and personally irreproachable, while Clowes, hot-blooded and casual, was as likely as not to have married a chorus-girl. If any disappointment lingered, Gertrude soothed it by trying over in her own mind the irritation that she would be able to produce in Morrison circles: "Where he met her? Oh, when she was staying with her married sister at Castle Wharton . . . .Yvonne, the elder Selincourt girl, married into the Bendish family." Bernard did not care a straw either for the paternal handicap or for the glories of the Wharton connection. He took his love-affair as simply as his cricket and with the same bold confidence. Laura was what he wanted; she would fit into her surroundings at Wanhope as delicately as an old picture fits into an old frame, and one could leave her about--so he put it to himself--without fear of her getting damaged. When Tom Morrison, shrewd business man, dropped a hint about the rashness of marrying the daughter of a scamp like Ferdinand Selincourt, Bernard merely stared at him and let the indiscretion go in silence. He can scarcely be said to have loved his bride, for up to the time of the wedding his nature was not much more developed than that of a prize bull, but he considered her a very pretty woman, and his faith in her was a religion. So they were married, and went to Eastbourne for their honeymoon: an average match, not marked by passion on either side, but destined apparently to an average amount of comfort and good will. They had ten gay days before Laura was left on a victoria platform, gallantly smiling with pale lips and waving her handkerchief after the train that carried Bernard back to the front. Five months later on the eve of the Armistice he was flung out of the service, a broken man, paralysed below the waist, cursing every one who came near him and chiefly the surgeons for not letting him die. No one ever desired life more passionately than Bernard desired death. For some time he clung to the hope that his mind would wear his body out. But his body was too young, too strong, too tenacious of earth to be betrayed by the renegade mind. There came a day when Clowes felt his youth welling up in him like sap in a fallen tree: new energy throbbed in his veins, his heart beat strong and even, it was hard to believe that he could not get off his bed if he liked and go down to the playing fields or throw his leg over a horse. This mood fastened on him without warning in a Surbiton hospital after a calm night without a sleeping draught, when through his open window he could see green branches waving in sunlight, and hear the cries of men playing cricket and the smack of the driven ball: and it was torture. Tears forced their way suddenly into Bernard's eyes. His nurse, who had watched not a few reluctant recoveries, went out of the room. Then his great chest heaved, and he sobbed aloud, lying on his back with face unhidden, his wide black eyes blinking at the sweet pale June sky. No chance of death for him: he was good for ten, twenty, fifty years more: he could not bear it, but it had to be borne. He tried to pull himself up: if he could only have reached the window! But the arms that felt so strong were as weak as an infant's, while the dead weight of his helpless legs dragged on him like lead. The only result of his struggle was a dreadful access of pain. Reaction followed, for he had learnt in his A B C days not to whimper when he was hurt, and by the time the nurse returned Clowes had scourged himself back to his usual savage tranquillity. "Can I have that window shut, please?" he asked, cynically frank. "I used to play cricket myself." Laura Clowes in this period went through an experience almost equally formative. Two years older than Bernard, she was also more mature for her years and had developed more evenly, and from the outset her engagement and marriage had meant more to her then to Bernard, because her girlhood had been unhappy and they provided a way of escape. Her sister Yvonne had met Jack Bendish at a race-meeting and he had fallen madly in love with her and married her in a month in the teeth of

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world. Isabel knew every one in Chilmark and every one knew her. Such a range of intensive acquaintance is not so narrow as people who have never lived in a country village are apt to suppose. Past the schoolhouse, past the wide stone bridge where Isabel loved to hang over the parapet watching for trout--but not tonight, for it was late, and Isabel after a "company tea" wanted her supper: by a footpath through the churchyard, closely mown and planted with rosebushes: and so into the church, where, after dropping a hurried professional curtsey to the altar, she set about her evening duties. Isabel called herself the curate, but she did a good deal which is not expected of a curate, such as shutting windows and changing lesson-markers, propping up the trebles when they went astray in the pointing of the Psalms, altering the numbers on the hymn-board, writing out choir papers, putting flowers in the vases and candles in the benediction lights, playing the organ as required and occasionally blowing it. . . . Before leaving the church she fell on her knees, in deference to Mr. Stafford and the text by the door, and said a prayer. What did she pray? "O Lord bless this church and all who worship in it and make father preach a good sermon next Sunday. I wish I'd been playing with Val instead of Jack, we should have won that last set if Jack hadn't muffed his services. . . . Well, this curate was only nineteen." And then, coming out into the fading light, she locked the north door behind her and went off whistling like a blackbird, if a blackbird could whistle the alto of Calkin's Magnificat in B flat. . . . Five minutes climbing of the steep brown floor of the beechwood, and she was out on uplands in the dying fires of day. It had been twilight in the valley, but here the wide plain was sunlit and the air was fresh and dry: in the valley even the river-aspens were almost quiet, but here there was still a sough of wind coming and going, through the dry grass thick set with lemon thyme and lady's slipper, or along the low garden wall where red valerian sprouted out of yellow stonecrop. A wishing gate led into the garden, and Isabel made for an open window, but halfway over the sill she paused, gazing with all her soul in her eyes across the vicarage gooseberry bushes. That grey suit was Val's of course, but who was inside the belted coat and riding breeches? "Rows-lee!" sang out Isabel, tumbling back into the garden with a generous display of leg. The raiders rose up each holding a handful of large red strawberries melting ripe, and Isabel, pitching in her racquet on a sofa, ran across the grass and enfolded her brother in her arms. Rowsley, dark and slight and shrewd, returned her hug with one arm, while carefully guarding his strawberries with the other--"You pig, you perfect pig!" wailed Isabel. "I was saving them for tea tomorrow, Laura's coming and I can't afford a cake. Oh joy, you can buy me one! How long can you stay?" "Over the week end: but I didn't come to buy you cakes, Baby. I haven't any money either. I came because I wanted you to buy me cakes." "O well never mind, I'll make one," Isabel joyously slipped her hand through Rowsley's arm. "Then I can get the flour from the baker and it won't cost anything at all--it'll go down in the bill. Well give me one anyhow, now they're picked it would be a pity to waste them." She helped herself liberally out of Val's hand. "Now stop both of you, you can't have any more." She linked her other arm in Val's and dragged her brothers out of the dangerous proximity of the strawberry beds. Val sat down on a deck chair, one leg thrown over the other, Rowsley dropped at full length on the turf, and Isabel doubled herself up between them, her arms clasped round her knees. "How's the Old Man?" she asked in friendly reference to Rowsley's commanding officer. "Oh Rose, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. Will Spillsby be able to play on the Fourth?" Spillsby, a brother subaltern and a famous bat, had twisted his ankle at the nets, and Rowsley in his last letter had been uncertain whether he would be well enough to play the Sappers at the annual fixture. Happily Rowsley was able to reassure his young sister: the ankle was much better and Spillsby was already allowed to walk on it. Isabel then turned her large velvet eyes--gazelle eyes with a world of pathos in their velvet gloom on her elder brother. "Coruscate, Val," she commanded. "You haven't said anything at all yet. We should all try to be bright in the home circle. We cannot all be witty, but-Ow! Rowsley, if you pull my hair I shall hit you in the--in the place where the Gauls fined their soldiers if they stuck out on parade. Oh, Val, that really isn't vulgar, I found it in Matthew Arnold! Their stomachs, you know. They wouldn't have fined you anyhow. You look fagged, darling-- are you?" "Not so much fagged as hungry," said Val in his soft voice. "It's getting on for nine o'clock and I was done out of my tea. I went in to Wanhope, but Laura was out, and Clowes was drinking whisky and soda. I cannot stand whisky at four in the afternoon, and Irish whisky at that. There'll be some supper going before long, won't there?" "Not until half past nine because Jimmy has his Bible class tonight." Jimmy was Mr. Stafford: and perhaps a purist might have objected that Mrs. Clowes and Yvonne Bendish had not done all they might have done to form Isabel's manners. "I'm so sorry, darling," she continued, preparing to leap to her feet. "Shall I get you a biscuit? There are oatmeals in the sideboard, the kind you like, I won't be a minute--" "Thanks very much, I'd rather wait. Did you see Mrs. Clowes today? Clowes said she was at the Castle." "So she was, sitting with Mrs. Morley in an angelic striped cotton. Mrs. Morley was in mauve ninon and a Gainsborough hat. Yvonne says Mr. Morley is a Jew and made his money in I. D. B.'s, which I suppose are some sort of stocks?" Neither of her brothers offered to enlighten her, Rowsley because he was feeling indolent, Val because he never said an unkind word to any one. Isabel, who was enamoured of her own voice flowed on with little delay: "If he really is a Jew, I can't think how she could marry him; I wouldn't. Mrs. Morley can't be very happy or Laura wouldn't go and talk to her. Laura is so sweet, she always sits with people that other people run away from. Oh Val, did Major Clowes tell you their news?" Isabel might refer to her father as Jimmy and to Rowsley's commander as the Old Man, but she rarely failed to give Bernard Clowes his correct prefix. "No--is there any?" "Only that they have some one coming to stay with them. Won't he have a deadly time?" Isabel glanced from Val to Rowsley in the certainty of a common response. "Imagine staying at Wanhope! However, he invited himself, so it's at his own risk. Perhaps he's embarrassed like you, Rose, and wants Laura to feed him. It's rather fun for Laura, though--that is, it will be, if Major Clowes isn't too hopeless." Strange freemasonry of the generations! Mr. Stafford's children loved him dearly and he was wont to say that there were no secrets at the vicarage, yet they lived in a conspiracy of silence, and even Val, who was mentally nearer to his father's age, would have been loth to let Mr. Stafford know as much as Isabel knew about Wanhope. It was assumed that Val's job was the very job Val wanted. Mr. Stafford had indeed a suspicion that it was not all plain sailing: Bernard Clowes retained just so much of the decently bred man as to be courteous to his wife before a mere acquaintance, but the vicar came and went at odd hours, and he observed now and then vague intimations--undertones from Bernard himself, an uncontrollable shrinking on Laura's part, an occasional hesitation or reluctance in Val--which hinted at flying storms. But Val, the father supposed, could make allowance for a cripple: Bernard was so much to be pitied that no man would resent an occasional burst of temper! And there his children left him. The younger generation can trust one another not to interfere, but when the seniors strike in, with their cut and dry precedents and rule of thumb moralities, who knows what mischief may follow? Elder people are so indiscreet! "It's a cousin of Major Clowes," Isabel continued, "but they haven't met for years and years--not since the war. Laura knows him too, she met him before she was married and liked him very much indeed. She's looking forward to it--that is, she would be if she had spirit enough to look forward to anything." "Clowes never said a word to me about it," remarked Val. "Didn't he?" Isabel unfolded herself and stood up. "That means he is going to be tiresome. I must run now, it's five past nine. Which will you both have, cold beef or eggs?" "Oh, anything that's going," said Val. "Eggs," said Rowsley, "not less than four. Without prejudice to the cold beef if it's underdone. Hallo!" "What?" "What's the matter with your skirt?" "Nothing," said Isabel shortly. She screwed her head over her shoulder in a vain endeavour to see her own back. "It's perfectly all right." "It would be, on a scarecrow." Isabel stuck her chin up. "Have you been over to the Castle in that kit, Baby? Well, if Yvonne won't give you some of her old clothes, you might ask the kitchenmaid." "The kitchenmaid has more money than I have," said Isabel cheerfully. "Is it so very bad? It's clean anyway, I washed and ironed it myself." "It looks very nice and so do you," said Val. Isabel eyed him with a softened glance: one could rely on Val to salve one's wounded vanity, but, alas! Val did not know home-made from tailor-made. Reluctantly she owned to herself that she had more faith in Rowsley's judgment. "It seems rather short though," Val added. "I suppose you will have to go into long frocks pretty soon, won't you, and put your hair up?" "Oh bother my hair and my dresses!" said Isabel with a great sigh. "I will pin my hair up when I get some new clothes, but how can I when I haven't any money and Jim hasn't any money and neither of you have any money? Don't you see, idiot," this was exclusively to Rowsley, "when I pin my hair up I shall turn into a grown up lady? And then I shall have to wear proper clothes. At present I'm only a little girl and it doesn't signify what I wear. If any one will give me five pounds I'll pin my hair up like a shot. Oh dear, I wonder what Yvonne would say if Jack expected her to outfit herself for five pounds? I do wish some one would leave me 10,000 pounds a year. Get up now, you lazy beggar, come and help me lay the supper. It's Fanny's evening out." She pulled Rowsley to his feet and they went off together leaving Val alone on the lawn: good comrades those two, and apparently more of an age, in spite of the long gap between them, than Rowsley and Val, who was the eldest by only eighteen months. And Val sat on alone, while stains of coral and amber faded out of the lavender sky, and a rack of sea clouds, which half an hour ago had shone like fiery ripples, dwindled away into smoke--mist --a mere shadow on the breast of the night. Stars began to sparkle, moths and humming cockchafers sailed by him, a chase of bats overhead endlessly fell down airy precipices and rose in long loops of darkling flight: honeysuckle and night-scented stock tinged with their sweet garden perfume the cool airs from the moor. Val lit a cigarette, a rare indulgence. If cigarettes grew on gooseberry bushes Val would have been an inveterate smoker, but good Egyptians were a luxury which he could not often afford The Wanhope agency was ample for his needs, though underpaid as agencies go: but there was Rowsley, always hard up, uncomplaining, but sensitive, as a young fellow in his position is sure to be, and secretly fretting because he could not do as other men did: and there was Isabel, for whom Val felt the anxiety Mr. Stafford ought to have felt, and was trying to make the provision Mr. Stafford ought to have made: and then there was the vicar himself, who laid out a great deal of money in those investments for which we are promised cent per cent interest, but upon a system of deferred payment. Tonight however Val lit a cigarette, and then a second, to the surprise of Isabel, who saw the red spark on the lawn. She thought her brother must be tired, and perhaps it really was the long day without food that made him so restless in mind and so uneasy. Bernard Clowes had been more than usually cranky that afternoon. Even the patient Val had had thoughts of throwing up his job when the cripple made him go through his week's accounts, scrutinizing every entry and cross-examining him on every transaction in such a tone as the head of a firm might employ to a junior clerk suspected of dishonesty. It was Bernard's way: it meant nothing: but it was irksome to Val, especially when he could not soothe himself by dropping into Laura's quiet parlour for a cup of tea. Yet his irritation would not have lingered through a cigarette if Isabel's news had not revived it. This cousin of Bernard's! Val had not much faith in any cousin of Bernard Clowes: nor in the kindness of life. Val was a slight, fair, pleasant-looking man of eight or nine and twenty, quiet of movement, friendly-mannered and as inconspicuous as his own rather worn grey tweeds: one of a class, till he raised his eyes: and then? There was something strange in Val's eyes when they were fully raised, an indrawn arresting brilliance difficult to analyse: imaginative and sympathetic, as if he were at home in dark places: the quality of acceptance of pain. Adepts in old days knew by his eyes a man who had been on the rack. Stafford had been racked: and by the pain that is half shame, the keenest, the most lacerating and destructive of wounds. He had suffered till he could suffer no more, and tonight in the starlit garden he, suffered still, without hope, or rebellion, or defence. Indoors Rowsley and Isabel, with the rapidity of long use, laid the cloth, and Isabel fetched cold beef from the larder and butter and eggs from the dairy, while Rowsley went down the cellar with a jug and a candle and drew from the cask a generous allowance of beer. "Come along in, old Val," said Isabel, reappearing at the open window, "You and Rose are both famishing and I'm not," this was a pious fiction, "so you can begin and I'll wait for Jimmy. I dare say he's gone wandering off somewhere and won't be in till ten." Val came across the dark, cool lawn and climbed over the window sill. A shabby room, large and low: a faded paper, grey toning to blue: a carpet of faded roses on a grey ground: the shaded Dresden lamp and roselit supper table shining like an island in a pool of shadow, and those two beloved heads, both so dark and smooth and young, tam cara capita! Neither of them suspected that Val was unhappy. His feeling for them was more fatherly than fraternal, and Rowsley, strange to say, fell in with Val's attitude, coming to his brother for money as naturally as most young men go to their parents. Val sat at the head of the table because Mr. Stafford could not carve. "There!" said Isabel, giving him his plate. "Mustard? I've just made it so you needn't look to see if it's fresh. Watercress: I picked it myself. Lettuce. Cream and vinegar and sugar. Beer. Now do you feel happy? Lord love you, dear, I like to see you eat." She sat on the arm of Mr. Stafford's mahogany chair. "What time do you want breakfast? Seven o'clock? Major Clowes wouldn't come down at seven if he were your agent. Can you get back to tea tomorrow? Laura may bring the cousin up to tea with her and she wants him to meet you." "Very good of her. Why?" "Oh, because he was in the Army too and all through the war. He went out with the first hundred thousand. He's much older than you are--the same age as Laura. Oh, wait a minute!" exclaimed Isabel in the tone in which a Frenchwoman says Tenez. I forgot. She thinks you must have met him, Val." "Possibly," said Val. "Was he in the Dorchesters?" asked Rowsley--much more interested than his brother, no doubt because he was not so hungry as Val, who was giving all his attention to his supper. "No, in the Winchesters," said Isabel. "Do I mean the Winchesters, Val? What was Major Clowes' old regiment?" "Clowes was in the Wintons." Isabel nodded. "Then so was the cousin. And Laura says he was out there when the Wintons were in the next bit of trench north of the Dorchesters. He was there when--when you were wounded." Such was Val Stafford's modesty that in the family circle it was not in etiquette to refer in other terms to that famous occasion. "I don't remember any fellow named Clowes and I never knew Bernard Clowes had a cousin out there," said Val, mixing himself a salad. "Oh, his name isn't Clowes. It's Ryde or Pride or something like that. I'm sorry to be so vague, but Jack Bendish and Yvonne and Mrs. Morley were all talking at once. Lawrence Pied--Fried--" "Lawrence Hyde?" "Yes, that's it! Then you really do remember him?" "Er--yes. Is that lamp smoking, Rowsley? You might turn it down a trifle, I can't reach." "Let me, let me?-- What was he like?" "Who--Hyde? Oh," said Val vaguely, "he was like the rest of us --very tired." "Tired?" echoed Isabel with a blank face, "but, Val darling, he couldn't have been only tired! What should you think he was like when he wasn't tired?" "That is a question I have occasionally asked myself," Val answered with his faint indecipherable smile. "My dear child, I only saw him once or twice. He was a senior captain and commanded his company. I was a very junior lieutenant." "Still he was there at the time," reflected Isabel. "O Rose! if he's anything like nice, which is almost past praying for in Major Clowes' cousin, let's beguile him into the gooseberry bushes and make him tell us all about it! Val is very dear to his family, but no one, however tenderly attached to him, could call him a brilliant raconteur. Now Mr. Hyde won't have any modest scruples. Val, if there is a slug in that lettuce I wish you would say so. It would hurt my feelings less than for you to sit looking at it in a stony silence. Was he good-looking?" "Possibly he might be," said Val, "when he scraped the dirt off." After a moment he added, "He was very decent to me." "Was he? Then he was nice?" "Gnat," said Rowsley from the middle of his third egg. Isabel rounded him indignantly. "I'm not gnatting! I'm not asking Val anything about himself, am I? Val can't possibly mind telling me about another man in another regiment. You eat your eggs, there's a good boy, before they get cold.-- Laura says the Dorchesters dined the Winchesters once when they were in billets. Was that when you and Mr. Hyde were there?" "Captain Hyde," Val corrected his young sister. "Yes, we both graced the festive board. It was too festive for me. We had Buszard's soup and curried chicken and real cream, and more champagne than was good for us. But it was not on that occasion that Hyde was so decent to me. The day I--the day Dale went down--" Rowsley nodded to him as he raised his glass of beer to his lips--"thank you, Rose.-- As I was saying, that evening I ran across Hyde between the lines. The Dorsets and Wintons had gone over the top together, and he had been left behind with a bullet in his chest. I was done to the world, but he had some brandy left and shared it with me. If it had not been for Hyde I should never have brought Dale in." "Well, I've never heard that before," said Rowsley to his fourth egg. Isabel was silent, and her eyes in the shadow of a momentary gravity were the eyes of a woman and not of a child. She raised them to look out at the evening sky, indigo blue against the lamplit interior, or faintly primrose in the west, and wondered for the thousandth time why it was still such an effort to Val to refer to his brief military experience. Soft country noises came in, peaceful and soothing: the short shrill shriek of a bat, the rustle of a branch of rose-leaves moving like a hand over the window panes, a faint breathing of wind from the moor. Surely the scar of war ought to be healed by now! Isabel kept these thoughts to herself: young as she was, her solitary life--for a woman alone among men is always to some extent solitary--had trained her to a clear perception of what had better not be said. "When is Hyde coming?" asked Val, going on with his salad. "Tomorrow, didn't you hear me say Laura is going to bring him here to tea? He's staying at his own place, Farringay--I think from the way Laura spoke it is what one calls a place--and they expect him by the morning train. Laura's to meet him in the car." "Did you ask her to bring him in to tea," said Rowsley, frowning over the marmalade jar, "when Val is safe to be out and you didn't know I should be here?" "Yes: oughtn't I to have?" "No." "Is there anything else you would like to speak to me about?" said Isabel after a pregnant silence. "Dear Rowsley, you seem determined to look after my manners and morals! I asked him to please Laura. She's nervous of Major Clowes. Jack and Yvonne are coming too." "Oh I don't see that it signifies," said Val. Mrs. Clowes wouldn't have accepted if it weren't all right. I don't see that you or I need worry if she doesn't. Isabel is old enough to pour out tea for herself. In any case, as it happens, you'll be here if I'm not, and I dare say Jimmy will look in for ten minutes." "You are sweet, Val," said Isabel gratefully. "Oh I don't say Rowsley's not right! Prigs generally are: and besides now I come to think of it, Laura did look faintly amused when I asked her. But these stupid things never occur to me till afterwards! After all, what am I to do? I can't manufacture a chaperon, and it would be very bad for the parish if the vicar never entertained. And it's not as if Captain Hyde were a young man; he's thirty-six if he's a day." CHAPTER III When the sea retreats after a storm one finds on the beach all sorts of strange flotsam. Bernard Clowes was a bit of human wreckage left on the sands of society by the storm of the war. When it broke out he was a second lieutenant in the Winchester Regiment, a keen polo player and first class batsman who rarely opened a book. He was sent out with the First Division and carried himself with his usual phlegmatic good humour through almost four years of fighting from Mons to Cambrai. In the March break-through he had his wrist broken by a rifle-bullet and was invalided home, where he took advantage of his leave to get married, partly because most of the men he knew were already married, and partly to please his sister. There were no other brothers, and Mrs. Morrison, a practical lady, but always a little regretful of her own marriage with Morrison's Boot and Shoe Company, recommended him with the family bluntness to arrange for an olive branch before the Huns got him. Laura, a penniless woman two years his senior and handicapped by her disreputable belongings, was not the wife Gertrude Morrison would have chosen for him: still it might have been worse, for Laura was well-born and personally irreproachable, while Clowes, hot-blooded and casual, was as likely as not to have married a chorus-girl. If any disappointment lingered, Gertrude soothed it by trying over in her own mind the irritation that she would be able to produce in Morrison circles: "Where he met her? Oh, when she was staying with her married sister at Castle Wharton . . . .Yvonne, the elder Selincourt girl, married into the Bendish family." Bernard did not care a straw either for the paternal handicap or for the glories of the Wharton connection. He took his love-affair as simply as his cricket and with the same bold confidence. Laura was what he wanted; she would fit into her surroundings at Wanhope as delicately as an old picture fits into an old frame, and one could leave her about--so he put it to himself--without fear of her getting damaged. When Tom Morrison, shrewd business man, dropped a hint about the rashness of marrying the daughter of a scamp like Ferdinand Selincourt, Bernard merely stared at him and let the indiscretion go in silence. He can scarcely be said to have loved his bride, for up to the time of the wedding his nature was not much more developed than that of a prize bull, but he considered her a very pretty woman, and his faith in her was a religion. So they were married, and went to Eastbourne for their honeymoon: an average match, not marked by passion on either side, but destined apparently to an average amount of comfort and good will. They had ten gay days before Laura was left on a victoria platform, gallantly smiling with pale lips and waving her handkerchief after the train that carried Bernard back to the front. Five months later on the eve of the Armistice he was flung out of the service, a broken man, paralysed below the waist, cursing every one who came near him and chiefly the surgeons for not letting him die. No one ever desired life more passionately than Bernard desired death. For some time he clung to the hope that his mind would wear his body out. But his body was too young, too strong, too tenacious of earth to be betrayed by the renegade mind. There came a day when Clowes felt his youth welling up in him like sap in a fallen tree: new energy throbbed in his veins, his heart beat strong and even, it was hard to believe that he could not get off his bed if he liked and go down to the playing fields or throw his leg over a horse. This mood fastened on him without warning in a Surbiton hospital after a calm night without a sleeping draught, when through his open window he could see green branches waving in sunlight, and hear the cries of men playing cricket and the smack of the driven ball: and it was torture. Tears forced their way suddenly into Bernard's eyes. His nurse, who had watched not a few reluctant recoveries, went out of the room. Then his great chest heaved, and he sobbed aloud, lying on his back with face unhidden, his wide black eyes blinking at the sweet pale June sky. No chance of death for him: he was good for ten, twenty, fifty years more: he could not bear it, but it had to be borne. He tried to pull himself up: if he could only have reached the window! But the arms that felt so strong were as weak as an infant's, while the dead weight of his helpless legs dragged on him like lead. The only result of his struggle was a dreadful access of pain. Reaction followed, for he had learnt in his A B C days not to whimper when he was hurt, and by the time the nurse returned Clowes had scourged himself back to his usual savage tranquillity. "Can I have that window shut, please?" he asked, cynically frank. "I used to play cricket myself." Laura Clowes in this period went through an experience almost equally formative. Two years older than Bernard, she was also more mature for her years and had developed more evenly, and from the outset her engagement and marriage had meant more to her then to Bernard, because her girlhood had been unhappy and they provided a way of escape. Her sister Yvonne had met Jack Bendish at a race-meeting and he had fallen madly in love with her and married her in a month in the teeth of

supper

How many times the word 'supper' appears in the text?

world. Isabel knew every one in Chilmark and every one knew her. Such a range of intensive acquaintance is not so narrow as people who have never lived in a country village are apt to suppose. Past the schoolhouse, past the wide stone bridge where Isabel loved to hang over the parapet watching for trout--but not tonight, for it was late, and Isabel after a "company tea" wanted her supper: by a footpath through the churchyard, closely mown and planted with rosebushes: and so into the church, where, after dropping a hurried professional curtsey to the altar, she set about her evening duties. Isabel called herself the curate, but she did a good deal which is not expected of a curate, such as shutting windows and changing lesson-markers, propping up the trebles when they went astray in the pointing of the Psalms, altering the numbers on the hymn-board, writing out choir papers, putting flowers in the vases and candles in the benediction lights, playing the organ as required and occasionally blowing it. . . . Before leaving the church she fell on her knees, in deference to Mr. Stafford and the text by the door, and said a prayer. What did she pray? "O Lord bless this church and all who worship in it and make father preach a good sermon next Sunday. I wish I'd been playing with Val instead of Jack, we should have won that last set if Jack hadn't muffed his services. . . . Well, this curate was only nineteen." And then, coming out into the fading light, she locked the north door behind her and went off whistling like a blackbird, if a blackbird could whistle the alto of Calkin's Magnificat in B flat. . . . Five minutes climbing of the steep brown floor of the beechwood, and she was out on uplands in the dying fires of day. It had been twilight in the valley, but here the wide plain was sunlit and the air was fresh and dry: in the valley even the river-aspens were almost quiet, but here there was still a sough of wind coming and going, through the dry grass thick set with lemon thyme and lady's slipper, or along the low garden wall where red valerian sprouted out of yellow stonecrop. A wishing gate led into the garden, and Isabel made for an open window, but halfway over the sill she paused, gazing with all her soul in her eyes across the vicarage gooseberry bushes. That grey suit was Val's of course, but who was inside the belted coat and riding breeches? "Rows-lee!" sang out Isabel, tumbling back into the garden with a generous display of leg. The raiders rose up each holding a handful of large red strawberries melting ripe, and Isabel, pitching in her racquet on a sofa, ran across the grass and enfolded her brother in her arms. Rowsley, dark and slight and shrewd, returned her hug with one arm, while carefully guarding his strawberries with the other--"You pig, you perfect pig!" wailed Isabel. "I was saving them for tea tomorrow, Laura's coming and I can't afford a cake. Oh joy, you can buy me one! How long can you stay?" "Over the week end: but I didn't come to buy you cakes, Baby. I haven't any money either. I came because I wanted you to buy me cakes." "O well never mind, I'll make one," Isabel joyously slipped her hand through Rowsley's arm. "Then I can get the flour from the baker and it won't cost anything at all--it'll go down in the bill. Well give me one anyhow, now they're picked it would be a pity to waste them." She helped herself liberally out of Val's hand. "Now stop both of you, you can't have any more." She linked her other arm in Val's and dragged her brothers out of the dangerous proximity of the strawberry beds. Val sat down on a deck chair, one leg thrown over the other, Rowsley dropped at full length on the turf, and Isabel doubled herself up between them, her arms clasped round her knees. "How's the Old Man?" she asked in friendly reference to Rowsley's commanding officer. "Oh Rose, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. Will Spillsby be able to play on the Fourth?" Spillsby, a brother subaltern and a famous bat, had twisted his ankle at the nets, and Rowsley in his last letter had been uncertain whether he would be well enough to play the Sappers at the annual fixture. Happily Rowsley was able to reassure his young sister: the ankle was much better and Spillsby was already allowed to walk on it. Isabel then turned her large velvet eyes--gazelle eyes with a world of pathos in their velvet gloom on her elder brother. "Coruscate, Val," she commanded. "You haven't said anything at all yet. We should all try to be bright in the home circle. We cannot all be witty, but-Ow! Rowsley, if you pull my hair I shall hit you in the--in the place where the Gauls fined their soldiers if they stuck out on parade. Oh, Val, that really isn't vulgar, I found it in Matthew Arnold! Their stomachs, you know. They wouldn't have fined you anyhow. You look fagged, darling-- are you?" "Not so much fagged as hungry," said Val in his soft voice. "It's getting on for nine o'clock and I was done out of my tea. I went in to Wanhope, but Laura was out, and Clowes was drinking whisky and soda. I cannot stand whisky at four in the afternoon, and Irish whisky at that. There'll be some supper going before long, won't there?" "Not until half past nine because Jimmy has his Bible class tonight." Jimmy was Mr. Stafford: and perhaps a purist might have objected that Mrs. Clowes and Yvonne Bendish had not done all they might have done to form Isabel's manners. "I'm so sorry, darling," she continued, preparing to leap to her feet. "Shall I get you a biscuit? There are oatmeals in the sideboard, the kind you like, I won't be a minute--" "Thanks very much, I'd rather wait. Did you see Mrs. Clowes today? Clowes said she was at the Castle." "So she was, sitting with Mrs. Morley in an angelic striped cotton. Mrs. Morley was in mauve ninon and a Gainsborough hat. Yvonne says Mr. Morley is a Jew and made his money in I. D. B.'s, which I suppose are some sort of stocks?" Neither of her brothers offered to enlighten her, Rowsley because he was feeling indolent, Val because he never said an unkind word to any one. Isabel, who was enamoured of her own voice flowed on with little delay: "If he really is a Jew, I can't think how she could marry him; I wouldn't. Mrs. Morley can't be very happy or Laura wouldn't go and talk to her. Laura is so sweet, she always sits with people that other people run away from. Oh Val, did Major Clowes tell you their news?" Isabel might refer to her father as Jimmy and to Rowsley's commander as the Old Man, but she rarely failed to give Bernard Clowes his correct prefix. "No--is there any?" "Only that they have some one coming to stay with them. Won't he have a deadly time?" Isabel glanced from Val to Rowsley in the certainty of a common response. "Imagine staying at Wanhope! However, he invited himself, so it's at his own risk. Perhaps he's embarrassed like you, Rose, and wants Laura to feed him. It's rather fun for Laura, though--that is, it will be, if Major Clowes isn't too hopeless." Strange freemasonry of the generations! Mr. Stafford's children loved him dearly and he was wont to say that there were no secrets at the vicarage, yet they lived in a conspiracy of silence, and even Val, who was mentally nearer to his father's age, would have been loth to let Mr. Stafford know as much as Isabel knew about Wanhope. It was assumed that Val's job was the very job Val wanted. Mr. Stafford had indeed a suspicion that it was not all plain sailing: Bernard Clowes retained just so much of the decently bred man as to be courteous to his wife before a mere acquaintance, but the vicar came and went at odd hours, and he observed now and then vague intimations--undertones from Bernard himself, an uncontrollable shrinking on Laura's part, an occasional hesitation or reluctance in Val--which hinted at flying storms. But Val, the father supposed, could make allowance for a cripple: Bernard was so much to be pitied that no man would resent an occasional burst of temper! And there his children left him. The younger generation can trust one another not to interfere, but when the seniors strike in, with their cut and dry precedents and rule of thumb moralities, who knows what mischief may follow? Elder people are so indiscreet! "It's a cousin of Major Clowes," Isabel continued, "but they haven't met for years and years--not since the war. Laura knows him too, she met him before she was married and liked him very much indeed. She's looking forward to it--that is, she would be if she had spirit enough to look forward to anything." "Clowes never said a word to me about it," remarked Val. "Didn't he?" Isabel unfolded herself and stood up. "That means he is going to be tiresome. I must run now, it's five past nine. Which will you both have, cold beef or eggs?" "Oh, anything that's going," said Val. "Eggs," said Rowsley, "not less than four. Without prejudice to the cold beef if it's underdone. Hallo!" "What?" "What's the matter with your skirt?" "Nothing," said Isabel shortly. She screwed her head over her shoulder in a vain endeavour to see her own back. "It's perfectly all right." "It would be, on a scarecrow." Isabel stuck her chin up. "Have you been over to the Castle in that kit, Baby? Well, if Yvonne won't give you some of her old clothes, you might ask the kitchenmaid." "The kitchenmaid has more money than I have," said Isabel cheerfully. "Is it so very bad? It's clean anyway, I washed and ironed it myself." "It looks very nice and so do you," said Val. Isabel eyed him with a softened glance: one could rely on Val to salve one's wounded vanity, but, alas! Val did not know home-made from tailor-made. Reluctantly she owned to herself that she had more faith in Rowsley's judgment. "It seems rather short though," Val added. "I suppose you will have to go into long frocks pretty soon, won't you, and put your hair up?" "Oh bother my hair and my dresses!" said Isabel with a great sigh. "I will pin my hair up when I get some new clothes, but how can I when I haven't any money and Jim hasn't any money and neither of you have any money? Don't you see, idiot," this was exclusively to Rowsley, "when I pin my hair up I shall turn into a grown up lady? And then I shall have to wear proper clothes. At present I'm only a little girl and it doesn't signify what I wear. If any one will give me five pounds I'll pin my hair up like a shot. Oh dear, I wonder what Yvonne would say if Jack expected her to outfit herself for five pounds? I do wish some one would leave me 10,000 pounds a year. Get up now, you lazy beggar, come and help me lay the supper. It's Fanny's evening out." She pulled Rowsley to his feet and they went off together leaving Val alone on the lawn: good comrades those two, and apparently more of an age, in spite of the long gap between them, than Rowsley and Val, who was the eldest by only eighteen months. And Val sat on alone, while stains of coral and amber faded out of the lavender sky, and a rack of sea clouds, which half an hour ago had shone like fiery ripples, dwindled away into smoke--mist --a mere shadow on the breast of the night. Stars began to sparkle, moths and humming cockchafers sailed by him, a chase of bats overhead endlessly fell down airy precipices and rose in long loops of darkling flight: honeysuckle and night-scented stock tinged with their sweet garden perfume the cool airs from the moor. Val lit a cigarette, a rare indulgence. If cigarettes grew on gooseberry bushes Val would have been an inveterate smoker, but good Egyptians were a luxury which he could not often afford The Wanhope agency was ample for his needs, though underpaid as agencies go: but there was Rowsley, always hard up, uncomplaining, but sensitive, as a young fellow in his position is sure to be, and secretly fretting because he could not do as other men did: and there was Isabel, for whom Val felt the anxiety Mr. Stafford ought to have felt, and was trying to make the provision Mr. Stafford ought to have made: and then there was the vicar himself, who laid out a great deal of money in those investments for which we are promised cent per cent interest, but upon a system of deferred payment. Tonight however Val lit a cigarette, and then a second, to the surprise of Isabel, who saw the red spark on the lawn. She thought her brother must be tired, and perhaps it really was the long day without food that made him so restless in mind and so uneasy. Bernard Clowes had been more than usually cranky that afternoon. Even the patient Val had had thoughts of throwing up his job when the cripple made him go through his week's accounts, scrutinizing every entry and cross-examining him on every transaction in such a tone as the head of a firm might employ to a junior clerk suspected of dishonesty. It was Bernard's way: it meant nothing: but it was irksome to Val, especially when he could not soothe himself by dropping into Laura's quiet parlour for a cup of tea. Yet his irritation would not have lingered through a cigarette if Isabel's news had not revived it. This cousin of Bernard's! Val had not much faith in any cousin of Bernard Clowes: nor in the kindness of life. Val was a slight, fair, pleasant-looking man of eight or nine and twenty, quiet of movement, friendly-mannered and as inconspicuous as his own rather worn grey tweeds: one of a class, till he raised his eyes: and then? There was something strange in Val's eyes when they were fully raised, an indrawn arresting brilliance difficult to analyse: imaginative and sympathetic, as if he were at home in dark places: the quality of acceptance of pain. Adepts in old days knew by his eyes a man who had been on the rack. Stafford had been racked: and by the pain that is half shame, the keenest, the most lacerating and destructive of wounds. He had suffered till he could suffer no more, and tonight in the starlit garden he, suffered still, without hope, or rebellion, or defence. Indoors Rowsley and Isabel, with the rapidity of long use, laid the cloth, and Isabel fetched cold beef from the larder and butter and eggs from the dairy, while Rowsley went down the cellar with a jug and a candle and drew from the cask a generous allowance of beer. "Come along in, old Val," said Isabel, reappearing at the open window, "You and Rose are both famishing and I'm not," this was a pious fiction, "so you can begin and I'll wait for Jimmy. I dare say he's gone wandering off somewhere and won't be in till ten." Val came across the dark, cool lawn and climbed over the window sill. A shabby room, large and low: a faded paper, grey toning to blue: a carpet of faded roses on a grey ground: the shaded Dresden lamp and roselit supper table shining like an island in a pool of shadow, and those two beloved heads, both so dark and smooth and young, tam cara capita! Neither of them suspected that Val was unhappy. His feeling for them was more fatherly than fraternal, and Rowsley, strange to say, fell in with Val's attitude, coming to his brother for money as naturally as most young men go to their parents. Val sat at the head of the table because Mr. Stafford could not carve. "There!" said Isabel, giving him his plate. "Mustard? I've just made it so you needn't look to see if it's fresh. Watercress: I picked it myself. Lettuce. Cream and vinegar and sugar. Beer. Now do you feel happy? Lord love you, dear, I like to see you eat." She sat on the arm of Mr. Stafford's mahogany chair. "What time do you want breakfast? Seven o'clock? Major Clowes wouldn't come down at seven if he were your agent. Can you get back to tea tomorrow? Laura may bring the cousin up to tea with her and she wants him to meet you." "Very good of her. Why?" "Oh, because he was in the Army too and all through the war. He went out with the first hundred thousand. He's much older than you are--the same age as Laura. Oh, wait a minute!" exclaimed Isabel in the tone in which a Frenchwoman says Tenez. I forgot. She thinks you must have met him, Val." "Possibly," said Val. "Was he in the Dorchesters?" asked Rowsley--much more interested than his brother, no doubt because he was not so hungry as Val, who was giving all his attention to his supper. "No, in the Winchesters," said Isabel. "Do I mean the Winchesters, Val? What was Major Clowes' old regiment?" "Clowes was in the Wintons." Isabel nodded. "Then so was the cousin. And Laura says he was out there when the Wintons were in the next bit of trench north of the Dorchesters. He was there when--when you were wounded." Such was Val Stafford's modesty that in the family circle it was not in etiquette to refer in other terms to that famous occasion. "I don't remember any fellow named Clowes and I never knew Bernard Clowes had a cousin out there," said Val, mixing himself a salad. "Oh, his name isn't Clowes. It's Ryde or Pride or something like that. I'm sorry to be so vague, but Jack Bendish and Yvonne and Mrs. Morley were all talking at once. Lawrence Pied--Fried--" "Lawrence Hyde?" "Yes, that's it! Then you really do remember him?" "Er--yes. Is that lamp smoking, Rowsley? You might turn it down a trifle, I can't reach." "Let me, let me?-- What was he like?" "Who--Hyde? Oh," said Val vaguely, "he was like the rest of us --very tired." "Tired?" echoed Isabel with a blank face, "but, Val darling, he couldn't have been only tired! What should you think he was like when he wasn't tired?" "That is a question I have occasionally asked myself," Val answered with his faint indecipherable smile. "My dear child, I only saw him once or twice. He was a senior captain and commanded his company. I was a very junior lieutenant." "Still he was there at the time," reflected Isabel. "O Rose! if he's anything like nice, which is almost past praying for in Major Clowes' cousin, let's beguile him into the gooseberry bushes and make him tell us all about it! Val is very dear to his family, but no one, however tenderly attached to him, could call him a brilliant raconteur. Now Mr. Hyde won't have any modest scruples. Val, if there is a slug in that lettuce I wish you would say so. It would hurt my feelings less than for you to sit looking at it in a stony silence. Was he good-looking?" "Possibly he might be," said Val, "when he scraped the dirt off." After a moment he added, "He was very decent to me." "Was he? Then he was nice?" "Gnat," said Rowsley from the middle of his third egg. Isabel rounded him indignantly. "I'm not gnatting! I'm not asking Val anything about himself, am I? Val can't possibly mind telling me about another man in another regiment. You eat your eggs, there's a good boy, before they get cold.-- Laura says the Dorchesters dined the Winchesters once when they were in billets. Was that when you and Mr. Hyde were there?" "Captain Hyde," Val corrected his young sister. "Yes, we both graced the festive board. It was too festive for me. We had Buszard's soup and curried chicken and real cream, and more champagne than was good for us. But it was not on that occasion that Hyde was so decent to me. The day I--the day Dale went down--" Rowsley nodded to him as he raised his glass of beer to his lips--"thank you, Rose.-- As I was saying, that evening I ran across Hyde between the lines. The Dorsets and Wintons had gone over the top together, and he had been left behind with a bullet in his chest. I was done to the world, but he had some brandy left and shared it with me. If it had not been for Hyde I should never have brought Dale in." "Well, I've never heard that before," said Rowsley to his fourth egg. Isabel was silent, and her eyes in the shadow of a momentary gravity were the eyes of a woman and not of a child. She raised them to look out at the evening sky, indigo blue against the lamplit interior, or faintly primrose in the west, and wondered for the thousandth time why it was still such an effort to Val to refer to his brief military experience. Soft country noises came in, peaceful and soothing: the short shrill shriek of a bat, the rustle of a branch of rose-leaves moving like a hand over the window panes, a faint breathing of wind from the moor. Surely the scar of war ought to be healed by now! Isabel kept these thoughts to herself: young as she was, her solitary life--for a woman alone among men is always to some extent solitary--had trained her to a clear perception of what had better not be said. "When is Hyde coming?" asked Val, going on with his salad. "Tomorrow, didn't you hear me say Laura is going to bring him here to tea? He's staying at his own place, Farringay--I think from the way Laura spoke it is what one calls a place--and they expect him by the morning train. Laura's to meet him in the car." "Did you ask her to bring him in to tea," said Rowsley, frowning over the marmalade jar, "when Val is safe to be out and you didn't know I should be here?" "Yes: oughtn't I to have?" "No." "Is there anything else you would like to speak to me about?" said Isabel after a pregnant silence. "Dear Rowsley, you seem determined to look after my manners and morals! I asked him to please Laura. She's nervous of Major Clowes. Jack and Yvonne are coming too." "Oh I don't see that it signifies," said Val. Mrs. Clowes wouldn't have accepted if it weren't all right. I don't see that you or I need worry if she doesn't. Isabel is old enough to pour out tea for herself. In any case, as it happens, you'll be here if I'm not, and I dare say Jimmy will look in for ten minutes." "You are sweet, Val," said Isabel gratefully. "Oh I don't say Rowsley's not right! Prigs generally are: and besides now I come to think of it, Laura did look faintly amused when I asked her. But these stupid things never occur to me till afterwards! After all, what am I to do? I can't manufacture a chaperon, and it would be very bad for the parish if the vicar never entertained. And it's not as if Captain Hyde were a young man; he's thirty-six if he's a day." CHAPTER III When the sea retreats after a storm one finds on the beach all sorts of strange flotsam. Bernard Clowes was a bit of human wreckage left on the sands of society by the storm of the war. When it broke out he was a second lieutenant in the Winchester Regiment, a keen polo player and first class batsman who rarely opened a book. He was sent out with the First Division and carried himself with his usual phlegmatic good humour through almost four years of fighting from Mons to Cambrai. In the March break-through he had his wrist broken by a rifle-bullet and was invalided home, where he took advantage of his leave to get married, partly because most of the men he knew were already married, and partly to please his sister. There were no other brothers, and Mrs. Morrison, a practical lady, but always a little regretful of her own marriage with Morrison's Boot and Shoe Company, recommended him with the family bluntness to arrange for an olive branch before the Huns got him. Laura, a penniless woman two years his senior and handicapped by her disreputable belongings, was not the wife Gertrude Morrison would have chosen for him: still it might have been worse, for Laura was well-born and personally irreproachable, while Clowes, hot-blooded and casual, was as likely as not to have married a chorus-girl. If any disappointment lingered, Gertrude soothed it by trying over in her own mind the irritation that she would be able to produce in Morrison circles: "Where he met her? Oh, when she was staying with her married sister at Castle Wharton . . . .Yvonne, the elder Selincourt girl, married into the Bendish family." Bernard did not care a straw either for the paternal handicap or for the glories of the Wharton connection. He took his love-affair as simply as his cricket and with the same bold confidence. Laura was what he wanted; she would fit into her surroundings at Wanhope as delicately as an old picture fits into an old frame, and one could leave her about--so he put it to himself--without fear of her getting damaged. When Tom Morrison, shrewd business man, dropped a hint about the rashness of marrying the daughter of a scamp like Ferdinand Selincourt, Bernard merely stared at him and let the indiscretion go in silence. He can scarcely be said to have loved his bride, for up to the time of the wedding his nature was not much more developed than that of a prize bull, but he considered her a very pretty woman, and his faith in her was a religion. So they were married, and went to Eastbourne for their honeymoon: an average match, not marked by passion on either side, but destined apparently to an average amount of comfort and good will. They had ten gay days before Laura was left on a victoria platform, gallantly smiling with pale lips and waving her handkerchief after the train that carried Bernard back to the front. Five months later on the eve of the Armistice he was flung out of the service, a broken man, paralysed below the waist, cursing every one who came near him and chiefly the surgeons for not letting him die. No one ever desired life more passionately than Bernard desired death. For some time he clung to the hope that his mind would wear his body out. But his body was too young, too strong, too tenacious of earth to be betrayed by the renegade mind. There came a day when Clowes felt his youth welling up in him like sap in a fallen tree: new energy throbbed in his veins, his heart beat strong and even, it was hard to believe that he could not get off his bed if he liked and go down to the playing fields or throw his leg over a horse. This mood fastened on him without warning in a Surbiton hospital after a calm night without a sleeping draught, when through his open window he could see green branches waving in sunlight, and hear the cries of men playing cricket and the smack of the driven ball: and it was torture. Tears forced their way suddenly into Bernard's eyes. His nurse, who had watched not a few reluctant recoveries, went out of the room. Then his great chest heaved, and he sobbed aloud, lying on his back with face unhidden, his wide black eyes blinking at the sweet pale June sky. No chance of death for him: he was good for ten, twenty, fifty years more: he could not bear it, but it had to be borne. He tried to pull himself up: if he could only have reached the window! But the arms that felt so strong were as weak as an infant's, while the dead weight of his helpless legs dragged on him like lead. The only result of his struggle was a dreadful access of pain. Reaction followed, for he had learnt in his A B C days not to whimper when he was hurt, and by the time the nurse returned Clowes had scourged himself back to his usual savage tranquillity. "Can I have that window shut, please?" he asked, cynically frank. "I used to play cricket myself." Laura Clowes in this period went through an experience almost equally formative. Two years older than Bernard, she was also more mature for her years and had developed more evenly, and from the outset her engagement and marriage had meant more to her then to Bernard, because her girlhood had been unhappy and they provided a way of escape. Her sister Yvonne had met Jack Bendish at a race-meeting and he had fallen madly in love with her and married her in a month in the teeth of

jew

How many times the word 'jew' appears in the text?

world. Isabel knew every one in Chilmark and every one knew her. Such a range of intensive acquaintance is not so narrow as people who have never lived in a country village are apt to suppose. Past the schoolhouse, past the wide stone bridge where Isabel loved to hang over the parapet watching for trout--but not tonight, for it was late, and Isabel after a "company tea" wanted her supper: by a footpath through the churchyard, closely mown and planted with rosebushes: and so into the church, where, after dropping a hurried professional curtsey to the altar, she set about her evening duties. Isabel called herself the curate, but she did a good deal which is not expected of a curate, such as shutting windows and changing lesson-markers, propping up the trebles when they went astray in the pointing of the Psalms, altering the numbers on the hymn-board, writing out choir papers, putting flowers in the vases and candles in the benediction lights, playing the organ as required and occasionally blowing it. . . . Before leaving the church she fell on her knees, in deference to Mr. Stafford and the text by the door, and said a prayer. What did she pray? "O Lord bless this church and all who worship in it and make father preach a good sermon next Sunday. I wish I'd been playing with Val instead of Jack, we should have won that last set if Jack hadn't muffed his services. . . . Well, this curate was only nineteen." And then, coming out into the fading light, she locked the north door behind her and went off whistling like a blackbird, if a blackbird could whistle the alto of Calkin's Magnificat in B flat. . . . Five minutes climbing of the steep brown floor of the beechwood, and she was out on uplands in the dying fires of day. It had been twilight in the valley, but here the wide plain was sunlit and the air was fresh and dry: in the valley even the river-aspens were almost quiet, but here there was still a sough of wind coming and going, through the dry grass thick set with lemon thyme and lady's slipper, or along the low garden wall where red valerian sprouted out of yellow stonecrop. A wishing gate led into the garden, and Isabel made for an open window, but halfway over the sill she paused, gazing with all her soul in her eyes across the vicarage gooseberry bushes. That grey suit was Val's of course, but who was inside the belted coat and riding breeches? "Rows-lee!" sang out Isabel, tumbling back into the garden with a generous display of leg. The raiders rose up each holding a handful of large red strawberries melting ripe, and Isabel, pitching in her racquet on a sofa, ran across the grass and enfolded her brother in her arms. Rowsley, dark and slight and shrewd, returned her hug with one arm, while carefully guarding his strawberries with the other--"You pig, you perfect pig!" wailed Isabel. "I was saving them for tea tomorrow, Laura's coming and I can't afford a cake. Oh joy, you can buy me one! How long can you stay?" "Over the week end: but I didn't come to buy you cakes, Baby. I haven't any money either. I came because I wanted you to buy me cakes." "O well never mind, I'll make one," Isabel joyously slipped her hand through Rowsley's arm. "Then I can get the flour from the baker and it won't cost anything at all--it'll go down in the bill. Well give me one anyhow, now they're picked it would be a pity to waste them." She helped herself liberally out of Val's hand. "Now stop both of you, you can't have any more." She linked her other arm in Val's and dragged her brothers out of the dangerous proximity of the strawberry beds. Val sat down on a deck chair, one leg thrown over the other, Rowsley dropped at full length on the turf, and Isabel doubled herself up between them, her arms clasped round her knees. "How's the Old Man?" she asked in friendly reference to Rowsley's commanding officer. "Oh Rose, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. Will Spillsby be able to play on the Fourth?" Spillsby, a brother subaltern and a famous bat, had twisted his ankle at the nets, and Rowsley in his last letter had been uncertain whether he would be well enough to play the Sappers at the annual fixture. Happily Rowsley was able to reassure his young sister: the ankle was much better and Spillsby was already allowed to walk on it. Isabel then turned her large velvet eyes--gazelle eyes with a world of pathos in their velvet gloom on her elder brother. "Coruscate, Val," she commanded. "You haven't said anything at all yet. We should all try to be bright in the home circle. We cannot all be witty, but-Ow! Rowsley, if you pull my hair I shall hit you in the--in the place where the Gauls fined their soldiers if they stuck out on parade. Oh, Val, that really isn't vulgar, I found it in Matthew Arnold! Their stomachs, you know. They wouldn't have fined you anyhow. You look fagged, darling-- are you?" "Not so much fagged as hungry," said Val in his soft voice. "It's getting on for nine o'clock and I was done out of my tea. I went in to Wanhope, but Laura was out, and Clowes was drinking whisky and soda. I cannot stand whisky at four in the afternoon, and Irish whisky at that. There'll be some supper going before long, won't there?" "Not until half past nine because Jimmy has his Bible class tonight." Jimmy was Mr. Stafford: and perhaps a purist might have objected that Mrs. Clowes and Yvonne Bendish had not done all they might have done to form Isabel's manners. "I'm so sorry, darling," she continued, preparing to leap to her feet. "Shall I get you a biscuit? There are oatmeals in the sideboard, the kind you like, I won't be a minute--" "Thanks very much, I'd rather wait. Did you see Mrs. Clowes today? Clowes said she was at the Castle." "So she was, sitting with Mrs. Morley in an angelic striped cotton. Mrs. Morley was in mauve ninon and a Gainsborough hat. Yvonne says Mr. Morley is a Jew and made his money in I. D. B.'s, which I suppose are some sort of stocks?" Neither of her brothers offered to enlighten her, Rowsley because he was feeling indolent, Val because he never said an unkind word to any one. Isabel, who was enamoured of her own voice flowed on with little delay: "If he really is a Jew, I can't think how she could marry him; I wouldn't. Mrs. Morley can't be very happy or Laura wouldn't go and talk to her. Laura is so sweet, she always sits with people that other people run away from. Oh Val, did Major Clowes tell you their news?" Isabel might refer to her father as Jimmy and to Rowsley's commander as the Old Man, but she rarely failed to give Bernard Clowes his correct prefix. "No--is there any?" "Only that they have some one coming to stay with them. Won't he have a deadly time?" Isabel glanced from Val to Rowsley in the certainty of a common response. "Imagine staying at Wanhope! However, he invited himself, so it's at his own risk. Perhaps he's embarrassed like you, Rose, and wants Laura to feed him. It's rather fun for Laura, though--that is, it will be, if Major Clowes isn't too hopeless." Strange freemasonry of the generations! Mr. Stafford's children loved him dearly and he was wont to say that there were no secrets at the vicarage, yet they lived in a conspiracy of silence, and even Val, who was mentally nearer to his father's age, would have been loth to let Mr. Stafford know as much as Isabel knew about Wanhope. It was assumed that Val's job was the very job Val wanted. Mr. Stafford had indeed a suspicion that it was not all plain sailing: Bernard Clowes retained just so much of the decently bred man as to be courteous to his wife before a mere acquaintance, but the vicar came and went at odd hours, and he observed now and then vague intimations--undertones from Bernard himself, an uncontrollable shrinking on Laura's part, an occasional hesitation or reluctance in Val--which hinted at flying storms. But Val, the father supposed, could make allowance for a cripple: Bernard was so much to be pitied that no man would resent an occasional burst of temper! And there his children left him. The younger generation can trust one another not to interfere, but when the seniors strike in, with their cut and dry precedents and rule of thumb moralities, who knows what mischief may follow? Elder people are so indiscreet! "It's a cousin of Major Clowes," Isabel continued, "but they haven't met for years and years--not since the war. Laura knows him too, she met him before she was married and liked him very much indeed. She's looking forward to it--that is, she would be if she had spirit enough to look forward to anything." "Clowes never said a word to me about it," remarked Val. "Didn't he?" Isabel unfolded herself and stood up. "That means he is going to be tiresome. I must run now, it's five past nine. Which will you both have, cold beef or eggs?" "Oh, anything that's going," said Val. "Eggs," said Rowsley, "not less than four. Without prejudice to the cold beef if it's underdone. Hallo!" "What?" "What's the matter with your skirt?" "Nothing," said Isabel shortly. She screwed her head over her shoulder in a vain endeavour to see her own back. "It's perfectly all right." "It would be, on a scarecrow." Isabel stuck her chin up. "Have you been over to the Castle in that kit, Baby? Well, if Yvonne won't give you some of her old clothes, you might ask the kitchenmaid." "The kitchenmaid has more money than I have," said Isabel cheerfully. "Is it so very bad? It's clean anyway, I washed and ironed it myself." "It looks very nice and so do you," said Val. Isabel eyed him with a softened glance: one could rely on Val to salve one's wounded vanity, but, alas! Val did not know home-made from tailor-made. Reluctantly she owned to herself that she had more faith in Rowsley's judgment. "It seems rather short though," Val added. "I suppose you will have to go into long frocks pretty soon, won't you, and put your hair up?" "Oh bother my hair and my dresses!" said Isabel with a great sigh. "I will pin my hair up when I get some new clothes, but how can I when I haven't any money and Jim hasn't any money and neither of you have any money? Don't you see, idiot," this was exclusively to Rowsley, "when I pin my hair up I shall turn into a grown up lady? And then I shall have to wear proper clothes. At present I'm only a little girl and it doesn't signify what I wear. If any one will give me five pounds I'll pin my hair up like a shot. Oh dear, I wonder what Yvonne would say if Jack expected her to outfit herself for five pounds? I do wish some one would leave me 10,000 pounds a year. Get up now, you lazy beggar, come and help me lay the supper. It's Fanny's evening out." She pulled Rowsley to his feet and they went off together leaving Val alone on the lawn: good comrades those two, and apparently more of an age, in spite of the long gap between them, than Rowsley and Val, who was the eldest by only eighteen months. And Val sat on alone, while stains of coral and amber faded out of the lavender sky, and a rack of sea clouds, which half an hour ago had shone like fiery ripples, dwindled away into smoke--mist --a mere shadow on the breast of the night. Stars began to sparkle, moths and humming cockchafers sailed by him, a chase of bats overhead endlessly fell down airy precipices and rose in long loops of darkling flight: honeysuckle and night-scented stock tinged with their sweet garden perfume the cool airs from the moor. Val lit a cigarette, a rare indulgence. If cigarettes grew on gooseberry bushes Val would have been an inveterate smoker, but good Egyptians were a luxury which he could not often afford The Wanhope agency was ample for his needs, though underpaid as agencies go: but there was Rowsley, always hard up, uncomplaining, but sensitive, as a young fellow in his position is sure to be, and secretly fretting because he could not do as other men did: and there was Isabel, for whom Val felt the anxiety Mr. Stafford ought to have felt, and was trying to make the provision Mr. Stafford ought to have made: and then there was the vicar himself, who laid out a great deal of money in those investments for which we are promised cent per cent interest, but upon a system of deferred payment. Tonight however Val lit a cigarette, and then a second, to the surprise of Isabel, who saw the red spark on the lawn. She thought her brother must be tired, and perhaps it really was the long day without food that made him so restless in mind and so uneasy. Bernard Clowes had been more than usually cranky that afternoon. Even the patient Val had had thoughts of throwing up his job when the cripple made him go through his week's accounts, scrutinizing every entry and cross-examining him on every transaction in such a tone as the head of a firm might employ to a junior clerk suspected of dishonesty. It was Bernard's way: it meant nothing: but it was irksome to Val, especially when he could not soothe himself by dropping into Laura's quiet parlour for a cup of tea. Yet his irritation would not have lingered through a cigarette if Isabel's news had not revived it. This cousin of Bernard's! Val had not much faith in any cousin of Bernard Clowes: nor in the kindness of life. Val was a slight, fair, pleasant-looking man of eight or nine and twenty, quiet of movement, friendly-mannered and as inconspicuous as his own rather worn grey tweeds: one of a class, till he raised his eyes: and then? There was something strange in Val's eyes when they were fully raised, an indrawn arresting brilliance difficult to analyse: imaginative and sympathetic, as if he were at home in dark places: the quality of acceptance of pain. Adepts in old days knew by his eyes a man who had been on the rack. Stafford had been racked: and by the pain that is half shame, the keenest, the most lacerating and destructive of wounds. He had suffered till he could suffer no more, and tonight in the starlit garden he, suffered still, without hope, or rebellion, or defence. Indoors Rowsley and Isabel, with the rapidity of long use, laid the cloth, and Isabel fetched cold beef from the larder and butter and eggs from the dairy, while Rowsley went down the cellar with a jug and a candle and drew from the cask a generous allowance of beer. "Come along in, old Val," said Isabel, reappearing at the open window, "You and Rose are both famishing and I'm not," this was a pious fiction, "so you can begin and I'll wait for Jimmy. I dare say he's gone wandering off somewhere and won't be in till ten." Val came across the dark, cool lawn and climbed over the window sill. A shabby room, large and low: a faded paper, grey toning to blue: a carpet of faded roses on a grey ground: the shaded Dresden lamp and roselit supper table shining like an island in a pool of shadow, and those two beloved heads, both so dark and smooth and young, tam cara capita! Neither of them suspected that Val was unhappy. His feeling for them was more fatherly than fraternal, and Rowsley, strange to say, fell in with Val's attitude, coming to his brother for money as naturally as most young men go to their parents. Val sat at the head of the table because Mr. Stafford could not carve. "There!" said Isabel, giving him his plate. "Mustard? I've just made it so you needn't look to see if it's fresh. Watercress: I picked it myself. Lettuce. Cream and vinegar and sugar. Beer. Now do you feel happy? Lord love you, dear, I like to see you eat." She sat on the arm of Mr. Stafford's mahogany chair. "What time do you want breakfast? Seven o'clock? Major Clowes wouldn't come down at seven if he were your agent. Can you get back to tea tomorrow? Laura may bring the cousin up to tea with her and she wants him to meet you." "Very good of her. Why?" "Oh, because he was in the Army too and all through the war. He went out with the first hundred thousand. He's much older than you are--the same age as Laura. Oh, wait a minute!" exclaimed Isabel in the tone in which a Frenchwoman says Tenez. I forgot. She thinks you must have met him, Val." "Possibly," said Val. "Was he in the Dorchesters?" asked Rowsley--much more interested than his brother, no doubt because he was not so hungry as Val, who was giving all his attention to his supper. "No, in the Winchesters," said Isabel. "Do I mean the Winchesters, Val? What was Major Clowes' old regiment?" "Clowes was in the Wintons." Isabel nodded. "Then so was the cousin. And Laura says he was out there when the Wintons were in the next bit of trench north of the Dorchesters. He was there when--when you were wounded." Such was Val Stafford's modesty that in the family circle it was not in etiquette to refer in other terms to that famous occasion. "I don't remember any fellow named Clowes and I never knew Bernard Clowes had a cousin out there," said Val, mixing himself a salad. "Oh, his name isn't Clowes. It's Ryde or Pride or something like that. I'm sorry to be so vague, but Jack Bendish and Yvonne and Mrs. Morley were all talking at once. Lawrence Pied--Fried--" "Lawrence Hyde?" "Yes, that's it! Then you really do remember him?" "Er--yes. Is that lamp smoking, Rowsley? You might turn it down a trifle, I can't reach." "Let me, let me?-- What was he like?" "Who--Hyde? Oh," said Val vaguely, "he was like the rest of us --very tired." "Tired?" echoed Isabel with a blank face, "but, Val darling, he couldn't have been only tired! What should you think he was like when he wasn't tired?" "That is a question I have occasionally asked myself," Val answered with his faint indecipherable smile. "My dear child, I only saw him once or twice. He was a senior captain and commanded his company. I was a very junior lieutenant." "Still he was there at the time," reflected Isabel. "O Rose! if he's anything like nice, which is almost past praying for in Major Clowes' cousin, let's beguile him into the gooseberry bushes and make him tell us all about it! Val is very dear to his family, but no one, however tenderly attached to him, could call him a brilliant raconteur. Now Mr. Hyde won't have any modest scruples. Val, if there is a slug in that lettuce I wish you would say so. It would hurt my feelings less than for you to sit looking at it in a stony silence. Was he good-looking?" "Possibly he might be," said Val, "when he scraped the dirt off." After a moment he added, "He was very decent to me." "Was he? Then he was nice?" "Gnat," said Rowsley from the middle of his third egg. Isabel rounded him indignantly. "I'm not gnatting! I'm not asking Val anything about himself, am I? Val can't possibly mind telling me about another man in another regiment. You eat your eggs, there's a good boy, before they get cold.-- Laura says the Dorchesters dined the Winchesters once when they were in billets. Was that when you and Mr. Hyde were there?" "Captain Hyde," Val corrected his young sister. "Yes, we both graced the festive board. It was too festive for me. We had Buszard's soup and curried chicken and real cream, and more champagne than was good for us. But it was not on that occasion that Hyde was so decent to me. The day I--the day Dale went down--" Rowsley nodded to him as he raised his glass of beer to his lips--"thank you, Rose.-- As I was saying, that evening I ran across Hyde between the lines. The Dorsets and Wintons had gone over the top together, and he had been left behind with a bullet in his chest. I was done to the world, but he had some brandy left and shared it with me. If it had not been for Hyde I should never have brought Dale in." "Well, I've never heard that before," said Rowsley to his fourth egg. Isabel was silent, and her eyes in the shadow of a momentary gravity were the eyes of a woman and not of a child. She raised them to look out at the evening sky, indigo blue against the lamplit interior, or faintly primrose in the west, and wondered for the thousandth time why it was still such an effort to Val to refer to his brief military experience. Soft country noises came in, peaceful and soothing: the short shrill shriek of a bat, the rustle of a branch of rose-leaves moving like a hand over the window panes, a faint breathing of wind from the moor. Surely the scar of war ought to be healed by now! Isabel kept these thoughts to herself: young as she was, her solitary life--for a woman alone among men is always to some extent solitary--had trained her to a clear perception of what had better not be said. "When is Hyde coming?" asked Val, going on with his salad. "Tomorrow, didn't you hear me say Laura is going to bring him here to tea? He's staying at his own place, Farringay--I think from the way Laura spoke it is what one calls a place--and they expect him by the morning train. Laura's to meet him in the car." "Did you ask her to bring him in to tea," said Rowsley, frowning over the marmalade jar, "when Val is safe to be out and you didn't know I should be here?" "Yes: oughtn't I to have?" "No." "Is there anything else you would like to speak to me about?" said Isabel after a pregnant silence. "Dear Rowsley, you seem determined to look after my manners and morals! I asked him to please Laura. She's nervous of Major Clowes. Jack and Yvonne are coming too." "Oh I don't see that it signifies," said Val. Mrs. Clowes wouldn't have accepted if it weren't all right. I don't see that you or I need worry if she doesn't. Isabel is old enough to pour out tea for herself. In any case, as it happens, you'll be here if I'm not, and I dare say Jimmy will look in for ten minutes." "You are sweet, Val," said Isabel gratefully. "Oh I don't say Rowsley's not right! Prigs generally are: and besides now I come to think of it, Laura did look faintly amused when I asked her. But these stupid things never occur to me till afterwards! After all, what am I to do? I can't manufacture a chaperon, and it would be very bad for the parish if the vicar never entertained. And it's not as if Captain Hyde were a young man; he's thirty-six if he's a day." CHAPTER III When the sea retreats after a storm one finds on the beach all sorts of strange flotsam. Bernard Clowes was a bit of human wreckage left on the sands of society by the storm of the war. When it broke out he was a second lieutenant in the Winchester Regiment, a keen polo player and first class batsman who rarely opened a book. He was sent out with the First Division and carried himself with his usual phlegmatic good humour through almost four years of fighting from Mons to Cambrai. In the March break-through he had his wrist broken by a rifle-bullet and was invalided home, where he took advantage of his leave to get married, partly because most of the men he knew were already married, and partly to please his sister. There were no other brothers, and Mrs. Morrison, a practical lady, but always a little regretful of her own marriage with Morrison's Boot and Shoe Company, recommended him with the family bluntness to arrange for an olive branch before the Huns got him. Laura, a penniless woman two years his senior and handicapped by her disreputable belongings, was not the wife Gertrude Morrison would have chosen for him: still it might have been worse, for Laura was well-born and personally irreproachable, while Clowes, hot-blooded and casual, was as likely as not to have married a chorus-girl. If any disappointment lingered, Gertrude soothed it by trying over in her own mind the irritation that she would be able to produce in Morrison circles: "Where he met her? Oh, when she was staying with her married sister at Castle Wharton . . . .Yvonne, the elder Selincourt girl, married into the Bendish family." Bernard did not care a straw either for the paternal handicap or for the glories of the Wharton connection. He took his love-affair as simply as his cricket and with the same bold confidence. Laura was what he wanted; she would fit into her surroundings at Wanhope as delicately as an old picture fits into an old frame, and one could leave her about--so he put it to himself--without fear of her getting damaged. When Tom Morrison, shrewd business man, dropped a hint about the rashness of marrying the daughter of a scamp like Ferdinand Selincourt, Bernard merely stared at him and let the indiscretion go in silence. He can scarcely be said to have loved his bride, for up to the time of the wedding his nature was not much more developed than that of a prize bull, but he considered her a very pretty woman, and his faith in her was a religion. So they were married, and went to Eastbourne for their honeymoon: an average match, not marked by passion on either side, but destined apparently to an average amount of comfort and good will. They had ten gay days before Laura was left on a victoria platform, gallantly smiling with pale lips and waving her handkerchief after the train that carried Bernard back to the front. Five months later on the eve of the Armistice he was flung out of the service, a broken man, paralysed below the waist, cursing every one who came near him and chiefly the surgeons for not letting him die. No one ever desired life more passionately than Bernard desired death. For some time he clung to the hope that his mind would wear his body out. But his body was too young, too strong, too tenacious of earth to be betrayed by the renegade mind. There came a day when Clowes felt his youth welling up in him like sap in a fallen tree: new energy throbbed in his veins, his heart beat strong and even, it was hard to believe that he could not get off his bed if he liked and go down to the playing fields or throw his leg over a horse. This mood fastened on him without warning in a Surbiton hospital after a calm night without a sleeping draught, when through his open window he could see green branches waving in sunlight, and hear the cries of men playing cricket and the smack of the driven ball: and it was torture. Tears forced their way suddenly into Bernard's eyes. His nurse, who had watched not a few reluctant recoveries, went out of the room. Then his great chest heaved, and he sobbed aloud, lying on his back with face unhidden, his wide black eyes blinking at the sweet pale June sky. No chance of death for him: he was good for ten, twenty, fifty years more: he could not bear it, but it had to be borne. He tried to pull himself up: if he could only have reached the window! But the arms that felt so strong were as weak as an infant's, while the dead weight of his helpless legs dragged on him like lead. The only result of his struggle was a dreadful access of pain. Reaction followed, for he had learnt in his A B C days not to whimper when he was hurt, and by the time the nurse returned Clowes had scourged himself back to his usual savage tranquillity. "Can I have that window shut, please?" he asked, cynically frank. "I used to play cricket myself." Laura Clowes in this period went through an experience almost equally formative. Two years older than Bernard, she was also more mature for her years and had developed more evenly, and from the outset her engagement and marriage had meant more to her then to Bernard, because her girlhood had been unhappy and they provided a way of escape. Her sister Yvonne had met Jack Bendish at a race-meeting and he had fallen madly in love with her and married her in a month in the teeth of

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world. Isabel knew every one in Chilmark and every one knew her. Such a range of intensive acquaintance is not so narrow as people who have never lived in a country village are apt to suppose. Past the schoolhouse, past the wide stone bridge where Isabel loved to hang over the parapet watching for trout--but not tonight, for it was late, and Isabel after a "company tea" wanted her supper: by a footpath through the churchyard, closely mown and planted with rosebushes: and so into the church, where, after dropping a hurried professional curtsey to the altar, she set about her evening duties. Isabel called herself the curate, but she did a good deal which is not expected of a curate, such as shutting windows and changing lesson-markers, propping up the trebles when they went astray in the pointing of the Psalms, altering the numbers on the hymn-board, writing out choir papers, putting flowers in the vases and candles in the benediction lights, playing the organ as required and occasionally blowing it. . . . Before leaving the church she fell on her knees, in deference to Mr. Stafford and the text by the door, and said a prayer. What did she pray? "O Lord bless this church and all who worship in it and make father preach a good sermon next Sunday. I wish I'd been playing with Val instead of Jack, we should have won that last set if Jack hadn't muffed his services. . . . Well, this curate was only nineteen." And then, coming out into the fading light, she locked the north door behind her and went off whistling like a blackbird, if a blackbird could whistle the alto of Calkin's Magnificat in B flat. . . . Five minutes climbing of the steep brown floor of the beechwood, and she was out on uplands in the dying fires of day. It had been twilight in the valley, but here the wide plain was sunlit and the air was fresh and dry: in the valley even the river-aspens were almost quiet, but here there was still a sough of wind coming and going, through the dry grass thick set with lemon thyme and lady's slipper, or along the low garden wall where red valerian sprouted out of yellow stonecrop. A wishing gate led into the garden, and Isabel made for an open window, but halfway over the sill she paused, gazing with all her soul in her eyes across the vicarage gooseberry bushes. That grey suit was Val's of course, but who was inside the belted coat and riding breeches? "Rows-lee!" sang out Isabel, tumbling back into the garden with a generous display of leg. The raiders rose up each holding a handful of large red strawberries melting ripe, and Isabel, pitching in her racquet on a sofa, ran across the grass and enfolded her brother in her arms. Rowsley, dark and slight and shrewd, returned her hug with one arm, while carefully guarding his strawberries with the other--"You pig, you perfect pig!" wailed Isabel. "I was saving them for tea tomorrow, Laura's coming and I can't afford a cake. Oh joy, you can buy me one! How long can you stay?" "Over the week end: but I didn't come to buy you cakes, Baby. I haven't any money either. I came because I wanted you to buy me cakes." "O well never mind, I'll make one," Isabel joyously slipped her hand through Rowsley's arm. "Then I can get the flour from the baker and it won't cost anything at all--it'll go down in the bill. Well give me one anyhow, now they're picked it would be a pity to waste them." She helped herself liberally out of Val's hand. "Now stop both of you, you can't have any more." She linked her other arm in Val's and dragged her brothers out of the dangerous proximity of the strawberry beds. Val sat down on a deck chair, one leg thrown over the other, Rowsley dropped at full length on the turf, and Isabel doubled herself up between them, her arms clasped round her knees. "How's the Old Man?" she asked in friendly reference to Rowsley's commanding officer. "Oh Rose, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. Will Spillsby be able to play on the Fourth?" Spillsby, a brother subaltern and a famous bat, had twisted his ankle at the nets, and Rowsley in his last letter had been uncertain whether he would be well enough to play the Sappers at the annual fixture. Happily Rowsley was able to reassure his young sister: the ankle was much better and Spillsby was already allowed to walk on it. Isabel then turned her large velvet eyes--gazelle eyes with a world of pathos in their velvet gloom on her elder brother. "Coruscate, Val," she commanded. "You haven't said anything at all yet. We should all try to be bright in the home circle. We cannot all be witty, but-Ow! Rowsley, if you pull my hair I shall hit you in the--in the place where the Gauls fined their soldiers if they stuck out on parade. Oh, Val, that really isn't vulgar, I found it in Matthew Arnold! Their stomachs, you know. They wouldn't have fined you anyhow. You look fagged, darling-- are you?" "Not so much fagged as hungry," said Val in his soft voice. "It's getting on for nine o'clock and I was done out of my tea. I went in to Wanhope, but Laura was out, and Clowes was drinking whisky and soda. I cannot stand whisky at four in the afternoon, and Irish whisky at that. There'll be some supper going before long, won't there?" "Not until half past nine because Jimmy has his Bible class tonight." Jimmy was Mr. Stafford: and perhaps a purist might have objected that Mrs. Clowes and Yvonne Bendish had not done all they might have done to form Isabel's manners. "I'm so sorry, darling," she continued, preparing to leap to her feet. "Shall I get you a biscuit? There are oatmeals in the sideboard, the kind you like, I won't be a minute--" "Thanks very much, I'd rather wait. Did you see Mrs. Clowes today? Clowes said she was at the Castle." "So she was, sitting with Mrs. Morley in an angelic striped cotton. Mrs. Morley was in mauve ninon and a Gainsborough hat. Yvonne says Mr. Morley is a Jew and made his money in I. D. B.'s, which I suppose are some sort of stocks?" Neither of her brothers offered to enlighten her, Rowsley because he was feeling indolent, Val because he never said an unkind word to any one. Isabel, who was enamoured of her own voice flowed on with little delay: "If he really is a Jew, I can't think how she could marry him; I wouldn't. Mrs. Morley can't be very happy or Laura wouldn't go and talk to her. Laura is so sweet, she always sits with people that other people run away from. Oh Val, did Major Clowes tell you their news?" Isabel might refer to her father as Jimmy and to Rowsley's commander as the Old Man, but she rarely failed to give Bernard Clowes his correct prefix. "No--is there any?" "Only that they have some one coming to stay with them. Won't he have a deadly time?" Isabel glanced from Val to Rowsley in the certainty of a common response. "Imagine staying at Wanhope! However, he invited himself, so it's at his own risk. Perhaps he's embarrassed like you, Rose, and wants Laura to feed him. It's rather fun for Laura, though--that is, it will be, if Major Clowes isn't too hopeless." Strange freemasonry of the generations! Mr. Stafford's children loved him dearly and he was wont to say that there were no secrets at the vicarage, yet they lived in a conspiracy of silence, and even Val, who was mentally nearer to his father's age, would have been loth to let Mr. Stafford know as much as Isabel knew about Wanhope. It was assumed that Val's job was the very job Val wanted. Mr. Stafford had indeed a suspicion that it was not all plain sailing: Bernard Clowes retained just so much of the decently bred man as to be courteous to his wife before a mere acquaintance, but the vicar came and went at odd hours, and he observed now and then vague intimations--undertones from Bernard himself, an uncontrollable shrinking on Laura's part, an occasional hesitation or reluctance in Val--which hinted at flying storms. But Val, the father supposed, could make allowance for a cripple: Bernard was so much to be pitied that no man would resent an occasional burst of temper! And there his children left him. The younger generation can trust one another not to interfere, but when the seniors strike in, with their cut and dry precedents and rule of thumb moralities, who knows what mischief may follow? Elder people are so indiscreet! "It's a cousin of Major Clowes," Isabel continued, "but they haven't met for years and years--not since the war. Laura knows him too, she met him before she was married and liked him very much indeed. She's looking forward to it--that is, she would be if she had spirit enough to look forward to anything." "Clowes never said a word to me about it," remarked Val. "Didn't he?" Isabel unfolded herself and stood up. "That means he is going to be tiresome. I must run now, it's five past nine. Which will you both have, cold beef or eggs?" "Oh, anything that's going," said Val. "Eggs," said Rowsley, "not less than four. Without prejudice to the cold beef if it's underdone. Hallo!" "What?" "What's the matter with your skirt?" "Nothing," said Isabel shortly. She screwed her head over her shoulder in a vain endeavour to see her own back. "It's perfectly all right." "It would be, on a scarecrow." Isabel stuck her chin up. "Have you been over to the Castle in that kit, Baby? Well, if Yvonne won't give you some of her old clothes, you might ask the kitchenmaid." "The kitchenmaid has more money than I have," said Isabel cheerfully. "Is it so very bad? It's clean anyway, I washed and ironed it myself." "It looks very nice and so do you," said Val. Isabel eyed him with a softened glance: one could rely on Val to salve one's wounded vanity, but, alas! Val did not know home-made from tailor-made. Reluctantly she owned to herself that she had more faith in Rowsley's judgment. "It seems rather short though," Val added. "I suppose you will have to go into long frocks pretty soon, won't you, and put your hair up?" "Oh bother my hair and my dresses!" said Isabel with a great sigh. "I will pin my hair up when I get some new clothes, but how can I when I haven't any money and Jim hasn't any money and neither of you have any money? Don't you see, idiot," this was exclusively to Rowsley, "when I pin my hair up I shall turn into a grown up lady? And then I shall have to wear proper clothes. At present I'm only a little girl and it doesn't signify what I wear. If any one will give me five pounds I'll pin my hair up like a shot. Oh dear, I wonder what Yvonne would say if Jack expected her to outfit herself for five pounds? I do wish some one would leave me 10,000 pounds a year. Get up now, you lazy beggar, come and help me lay the supper. It's Fanny's evening out." She pulled Rowsley to his feet and they went off together leaving Val alone on the lawn: good comrades those two, and apparently more of an age, in spite of the long gap between them, than Rowsley and Val, who was the eldest by only eighteen months. And Val sat on alone, while stains of coral and amber faded out of the lavender sky, and a rack of sea clouds, which half an hour ago had shone like fiery ripples, dwindled away into smoke--mist --a mere shadow on the breast of the night. Stars began to sparkle, moths and humming cockchafers sailed by him, a chase of bats overhead endlessly fell down airy precipices and rose in long loops of darkling flight: honeysuckle and night-scented stock tinged with their sweet garden perfume the cool airs from the moor. Val lit a cigarette, a rare indulgence. If cigarettes grew on gooseberry bushes Val would have been an inveterate smoker, but good Egyptians were a luxury which he could not often afford The Wanhope agency was ample for his needs, though underpaid as agencies go: but there was Rowsley, always hard up, uncomplaining, but sensitive, as a young fellow in his position is sure to be, and secretly fretting because he could not do as other men did: and there was Isabel, for whom Val felt the anxiety Mr. Stafford ought to have felt, and was trying to make the provision Mr. Stafford ought to have made: and then there was the vicar himself, who laid out a great deal of money in those investments for which we are promised cent per cent interest, but upon a system of deferred payment. Tonight however Val lit a cigarette, and then a second, to the surprise of Isabel, who saw the red spark on the lawn. She thought her brother must be tired, and perhaps it really was the long day without food that made him so restless in mind and so uneasy. Bernard Clowes had been more than usually cranky that afternoon. Even the patient Val had had thoughts of throwing up his job when the cripple made him go through his week's accounts, scrutinizing every entry and cross-examining him on every transaction in such a tone as the head of a firm might employ to a junior clerk suspected of dishonesty. It was Bernard's way: it meant nothing: but it was irksome to Val, especially when he could not soothe himself by dropping into Laura's quiet parlour for a cup of tea. Yet his irritation would not have lingered through a cigarette if Isabel's news had not revived it. This cousin of Bernard's! Val had not much faith in any cousin of Bernard Clowes: nor in the kindness of life. Val was a slight, fair, pleasant-looking man of eight or nine and twenty, quiet of movement, friendly-mannered and as inconspicuous as his own rather worn grey tweeds: one of a class, till he raised his eyes: and then? There was something strange in Val's eyes when they were fully raised, an indrawn arresting brilliance difficult to analyse: imaginative and sympathetic, as if he were at home in dark places: the quality of acceptance of pain. Adepts in old days knew by his eyes a man who had been on the rack. Stafford had been racked: and by the pain that is half shame, the keenest, the most lacerating and destructive of wounds. He had suffered till he could suffer no more, and tonight in the starlit garden he, suffered still, without hope, or rebellion, or defence. Indoors Rowsley and Isabel, with the rapidity of long use, laid the cloth, and Isabel fetched cold beef from the larder and butter and eggs from the dairy, while Rowsley went down the cellar with a jug and a candle and drew from the cask a generous allowance of beer. "Come along in, old Val," said Isabel, reappearing at the open window, "You and Rose are both famishing and I'm not," this was a pious fiction, "so you can begin and I'll wait for Jimmy. I dare say he's gone wandering off somewhere and won't be in till ten." Val came across the dark, cool lawn and climbed over the window sill. A shabby room, large and low: a faded paper, grey toning to blue: a carpet of faded roses on a grey ground: the shaded Dresden lamp and roselit supper table shining like an island in a pool of shadow, and those two beloved heads, both so dark and smooth and young, tam cara capita! Neither of them suspected that Val was unhappy. His feeling for them was more fatherly than fraternal, and Rowsley, strange to say, fell in with Val's attitude, coming to his brother for money as naturally as most young men go to their parents. Val sat at the head of the table because Mr. Stafford could not carve. "There!" said Isabel, giving him his plate. "Mustard? I've just made it so you needn't look to see if it's fresh. Watercress: I picked it myself. Lettuce. Cream and vinegar and sugar. Beer. Now do you feel happy? Lord love you, dear, I like to see you eat." She sat on the arm of Mr. Stafford's mahogany chair. "What time do you want breakfast? Seven o'clock? Major Clowes wouldn't come down at seven if he were your agent. Can you get back to tea tomorrow? Laura may bring the cousin up to tea with her and she wants him to meet you." "Very good of her. Why?" "Oh, because he was in the Army too and all through the war. He went out with the first hundred thousand. He's much older than you are--the same age as Laura. Oh, wait a minute!" exclaimed Isabel in the tone in which a Frenchwoman says Tenez. I forgot. She thinks you must have met him, Val." "Possibly," said Val. "Was he in the Dorchesters?" asked Rowsley--much more interested than his brother, no doubt because he was not so hungry as Val, who was giving all his attention to his supper. "No, in the Winchesters," said Isabel. "Do I mean the Winchesters, Val? What was Major Clowes' old regiment?" "Clowes was in the Wintons." Isabel nodded. "Then so was the cousin. And Laura says he was out there when the Wintons were in the next bit of trench north of the Dorchesters. He was there when--when you were wounded." Such was Val Stafford's modesty that in the family circle it was not in etiquette to refer in other terms to that famous occasion. "I don't remember any fellow named Clowes and I never knew Bernard Clowes had a cousin out there," said Val, mixing himself a salad. "Oh, his name isn't Clowes. It's Ryde or Pride or something like that. I'm sorry to be so vague, but Jack Bendish and Yvonne and Mrs. Morley were all talking at once. Lawrence Pied--Fried--" "Lawrence Hyde?" "Yes, that's it! Then you really do remember him?" "Er--yes. Is that lamp smoking, Rowsley? You might turn it down a trifle, I can't reach." "Let me, let me?-- What was he like?" "Who--Hyde? Oh," said Val vaguely, "he was like the rest of us --very tired." "Tired?" echoed Isabel with a blank face, "but, Val darling, he couldn't have been only tired! What should you think he was like when he wasn't tired?" "That is a question I have occasionally asked myself," Val answered with his faint indecipherable smile. "My dear child, I only saw him once or twice. He was a senior captain and commanded his company. I was a very junior lieutenant." "Still he was there at the time," reflected Isabel. "O Rose! if he's anything like nice, which is almost past praying for in Major Clowes' cousin, let's beguile him into the gooseberry bushes and make him tell us all about it! Val is very dear to his family, but no one, however tenderly attached to him, could call him a brilliant raconteur. Now Mr. Hyde won't have any modest scruples. Val, if there is a slug in that lettuce I wish you would say so. It would hurt my feelings less than for you to sit looking at it in a stony silence. Was he good-looking?" "Possibly he might be," said Val, "when he scraped the dirt off." After a moment he added, "He was very decent to me." "Was he? Then he was nice?" "Gnat," said Rowsley from the middle of his third egg. Isabel rounded him indignantly. "I'm not gnatting! I'm not asking Val anything about himself, am I? Val can't possibly mind telling me about another man in another regiment. You eat your eggs, there's a good boy, before they get cold.-- Laura says the Dorchesters dined the Winchesters once when they were in billets. Was that when you and Mr. Hyde were there?" "Captain Hyde," Val corrected his young sister. "Yes, we both graced the festive board. It was too festive for me. We had Buszard's soup and curried chicken and real cream, and more champagne than was good for us. But it was not on that occasion that Hyde was so decent to me. The day I--the day Dale went down--" Rowsley nodded to him as he raised his glass of beer to his lips--"thank you, Rose.-- As I was saying, that evening I ran across Hyde between the lines. The Dorsets and Wintons had gone over the top together, and he had been left behind with a bullet in his chest. I was done to the world, but he had some brandy left and shared it with me. If it had not been for Hyde I should never have brought Dale in." "Well, I've never heard that before," said Rowsley to his fourth egg. Isabel was silent, and her eyes in the shadow of a momentary gravity were the eyes of a woman and not of a child. She raised them to look out at the evening sky, indigo blue against the lamplit interior, or faintly primrose in the west, and wondered for the thousandth time why it was still such an effort to Val to refer to his brief military experience. Soft country noises came in, peaceful and soothing: the short shrill shriek of a bat, the rustle of a branch of rose-leaves moving like a hand over the window panes, a faint breathing of wind from the moor. Surely the scar of war ought to be healed by now! Isabel kept these thoughts to herself: young as she was, her solitary life--for a woman alone among men is always to some extent solitary--had trained her to a clear perception of what had better not be said. "When is Hyde coming?" asked Val, going on with his salad. "Tomorrow, didn't you hear me say Laura is going to bring him here to tea? He's staying at his own place, Farringay--I think from the way Laura spoke it is what one calls a place--and they expect him by the morning train. Laura's to meet him in the car." "Did you ask her to bring him in to tea," said Rowsley, frowning over the marmalade jar, "when Val is safe to be out and you didn't know I should be here?" "Yes: oughtn't I to have?" "No." "Is there anything else you would like to speak to me about?" said Isabel after a pregnant silence. "Dear Rowsley, you seem determined to look after my manners and morals! I asked him to please Laura. She's nervous of Major Clowes. Jack and Yvonne are coming too." "Oh I don't see that it signifies," said Val. Mrs. Clowes wouldn't have accepted if it weren't all right. I don't see that you or I need worry if she doesn't. Isabel is old enough to pour out tea for herself. In any case, as it happens, you'll be here if I'm not, and I dare say Jimmy will look in for ten minutes." "You are sweet, Val," said Isabel gratefully. "Oh I don't say Rowsley's not right! Prigs generally are: and besides now I come to think of it, Laura did look faintly amused when I asked her. But these stupid things never occur to me till afterwards! After all, what am I to do? I can't manufacture a chaperon, and it would be very bad for the parish if the vicar never entertained. And it's not as if Captain Hyde were a young man; he's thirty-six if he's a day." CHAPTER III When the sea retreats after a storm one finds on the beach all sorts of strange flotsam. Bernard Clowes was a bit of human wreckage left on the sands of society by the storm of the war. When it broke out he was a second lieutenant in the Winchester Regiment, a keen polo player and first class batsman who rarely opened a book. He was sent out with the First Division and carried himself with his usual phlegmatic good humour through almost four years of fighting from Mons to Cambrai. In the March break-through he had his wrist broken by a rifle-bullet and was invalided home, where he took advantage of his leave to get married, partly because most of the men he knew were already married, and partly to please his sister. There were no other brothers, and Mrs. Morrison, a practical lady, but always a little regretful of her own marriage with Morrison's Boot and Shoe Company, recommended him with the family bluntness to arrange for an olive branch before the Huns got him. Laura, a penniless woman two years his senior and handicapped by her disreputable belongings, was not the wife Gertrude Morrison would have chosen for him: still it might have been worse, for Laura was well-born and personally irreproachable, while Clowes, hot-blooded and casual, was as likely as not to have married a chorus-girl. If any disappointment lingered, Gertrude soothed it by trying over in her own mind the irritation that she would be able to produce in Morrison circles: "Where he met her? Oh, when she was staying with her married sister at Castle Wharton . . . .Yvonne, the elder Selincourt girl, married into the Bendish family." Bernard did not care a straw either for the paternal handicap or for the glories of the Wharton connection. He took his love-affair as simply as his cricket and with the same bold confidence. Laura was what he wanted; she would fit into her surroundings at Wanhope as delicately as an old picture fits into an old frame, and one could leave her about--so he put it to himself--without fear of her getting damaged. When Tom Morrison, shrewd business man, dropped a hint about the rashness of marrying the daughter of a scamp like Ferdinand Selincourt, Bernard merely stared at him and let the indiscretion go in silence. He can scarcely be said to have loved his bride, for up to the time of the wedding his nature was not much more developed than that of a prize bull, but he considered her a very pretty woman, and his faith in her was a religion. So they were married, and went to Eastbourne for their honeymoon: an average match, not marked by passion on either side, but destined apparently to an average amount of comfort and good will. They had ten gay days before Laura was left on a victoria platform, gallantly smiling with pale lips and waving her handkerchief after the train that carried Bernard back to the front. Five months later on the eve of the Armistice he was flung out of the service, a broken man, paralysed below the waist, cursing every one who came near him and chiefly the surgeons for not letting him die. No one ever desired life more passionately than Bernard desired death. For some time he clung to the hope that his mind would wear his body out. But his body was too young, too strong, too tenacious of earth to be betrayed by the renegade mind. There came a day when Clowes felt his youth welling up in him like sap in a fallen tree: new energy throbbed in his veins, his heart beat strong and even, it was hard to believe that he could not get off his bed if he liked and go down to the playing fields or throw his leg over a horse. This mood fastened on him without warning in a Surbiton hospital after a calm night without a sleeping draught, when through his open window he could see green branches waving in sunlight, and hear the cries of men playing cricket and the smack of the driven ball: and it was torture. Tears forced their way suddenly into Bernard's eyes. His nurse, who had watched not a few reluctant recoveries, went out of the room. Then his great chest heaved, and he sobbed aloud, lying on his back with face unhidden, his wide black eyes blinking at the sweet pale June sky. No chance of death for him: he was good for ten, twenty, fifty years more: he could not bear it, but it had to be borne. He tried to pull himself up: if he could only have reached the window! But the arms that felt so strong were as weak as an infant's, while the dead weight of his helpless legs dragged on him like lead. The only result of his struggle was a dreadful access of pain. Reaction followed, for he had learnt in his A B C days not to whimper when he was hurt, and by the time the nurse returned Clowes had scourged himself back to his usual savage tranquillity. "Can I have that window shut, please?" he asked, cynically frank. "I used to play cricket myself." Laura Clowes in this period went through an experience almost equally formative. Two years older than Bernard, she was also more mature for her years and had developed more evenly, and from the outset her engagement and marriage had meant more to her then to Bernard, because her girlhood had been unhappy and they provided a way of escape. Her sister Yvonne had met Jack Bendish at a race-meeting and he had fallen madly in love with her and married her in a month in the teeth of

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world. Isabel knew every one in Chilmark and every one knew her. Such a range of intensive acquaintance is not so narrow as people who have never lived in a country village are apt to suppose. Past the schoolhouse, past the wide stone bridge where Isabel loved to hang over the parapet watching for trout--but not tonight, for it was late, and Isabel after a "company tea" wanted her supper: by a footpath through the churchyard, closely mown and planted with rosebushes: and so into the church, where, after dropping a hurried professional curtsey to the altar, she set about her evening duties. Isabel called herself the curate, but she did a good deal which is not expected of a curate, such as shutting windows and changing lesson-markers, propping up the trebles when they went astray in the pointing of the Psalms, altering the numbers on the hymn-board, writing out choir papers, putting flowers in the vases and candles in the benediction lights, playing the organ as required and occasionally blowing it. . . . Before leaving the church she fell on her knees, in deference to Mr. Stafford and the text by the door, and said a prayer. What did she pray? "O Lord bless this church and all who worship in it and make father preach a good sermon next Sunday. I wish I'd been playing with Val instead of Jack, we should have won that last set if Jack hadn't muffed his services. . . . Well, this curate was only nineteen." And then, coming out into the fading light, she locked the north door behind her and went off whistling like a blackbird, if a blackbird could whistle the alto of Calkin's Magnificat in B flat. . . . Five minutes climbing of the steep brown floor of the beechwood, and she was out on uplands in the dying fires of day. It had been twilight in the valley, but here the wide plain was sunlit and the air was fresh and dry: in the valley even the river-aspens were almost quiet, but here there was still a sough of wind coming and going, through the dry grass thick set with lemon thyme and lady's slipper, or along the low garden wall where red valerian sprouted out of yellow stonecrop. A wishing gate led into the garden, and Isabel made for an open window, but halfway over the sill she paused, gazing with all her soul in her eyes across the vicarage gooseberry bushes. That grey suit was Val's of course, but who was inside the belted coat and riding breeches? "Rows-lee!" sang out Isabel, tumbling back into the garden with a generous display of leg. The raiders rose up each holding a handful of large red strawberries melting ripe, and Isabel, pitching in her racquet on a sofa, ran across the grass and enfolded her brother in her arms. Rowsley, dark and slight and shrewd, returned her hug with one arm, while carefully guarding his strawberries with the other--"You pig, you perfect pig!" wailed Isabel. "I was saving them for tea tomorrow, Laura's coming and I can't afford a cake. Oh joy, you can buy me one! How long can you stay?" "Over the week end: but I didn't come to buy you cakes, Baby. I haven't any money either. I came because I wanted you to buy me cakes." "O well never mind, I'll make one," Isabel joyously slipped her hand through Rowsley's arm. "Then I can get the flour from the baker and it won't cost anything at all--it'll go down in the bill. Well give me one anyhow, now they're picked it would be a pity to waste them." She helped herself liberally out of Val's hand. "Now stop both of you, you can't have any more." She linked her other arm in Val's and dragged her brothers out of the dangerous proximity of the strawberry beds. Val sat down on a deck chair, one leg thrown over the other, Rowsley dropped at full length on the turf, and Isabel doubled herself up between them, her arms clasped round her knees. "How's the Old Man?" she asked in friendly reference to Rowsley's commanding officer. "Oh Rose, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. Will Spillsby be able to play on the Fourth?" Spillsby, a brother subaltern and a famous bat, had twisted his ankle at the nets, and Rowsley in his last letter had been uncertain whether he would be well enough to play the Sappers at the annual fixture. Happily Rowsley was able to reassure his young sister: the ankle was much better and Spillsby was already allowed to walk on it. Isabel then turned her large velvet eyes--gazelle eyes with a world of pathos in their velvet gloom on her elder brother. "Coruscate, Val," she commanded. "You haven't said anything at all yet. We should all try to be bright in the home circle. We cannot all be witty, but-Ow! Rowsley, if you pull my hair I shall hit you in the--in the place where the Gauls fined their soldiers if they stuck out on parade. Oh, Val, that really isn't vulgar, I found it in Matthew Arnold! Their stomachs, you know. They wouldn't have fined you anyhow. You look fagged, darling-- are you?" "Not so much fagged as hungry," said Val in his soft voice. "It's getting on for nine o'clock and I was done out of my tea. I went in to Wanhope, but Laura was out, and Clowes was drinking whisky and soda. I cannot stand whisky at four in the afternoon, and Irish whisky at that. There'll be some supper going before long, won't there?" "Not until half past nine because Jimmy has his Bible class tonight." Jimmy was Mr. Stafford: and perhaps a purist might have objected that Mrs. Clowes and Yvonne Bendish had not done all they might have done to form Isabel's manners. "I'm so sorry, darling," she continued, preparing to leap to her feet. "Shall I get you a biscuit? There are oatmeals in the sideboard, the kind you like, I won't be a minute--" "Thanks very much, I'd rather wait. Did you see Mrs. Clowes today? Clowes said she was at the Castle." "So she was, sitting with Mrs. Morley in an angelic striped cotton. Mrs. Morley was in mauve ninon and a Gainsborough hat. Yvonne says Mr. Morley is a Jew and made his money in I. D. B.'s, which I suppose are some sort of stocks?" Neither of her brothers offered to enlighten her, Rowsley because he was feeling indolent, Val because he never said an unkind word to any one. Isabel, who was enamoured of her own voice flowed on with little delay: "If he really is a Jew, I can't think how she could marry him; I wouldn't. Mrs. Morley can't be very happy or Laura wouldn't go and talk to her. Laura is so sweet, she always sits with people that other people run away from. Oh Val, did Major Clowes tell you their news?" Isabel might refer to her father as Jimmy and to Rowsley's commander as the Old Man, but she rarely failed to give Bernard Clowes his correct prefix. "No--is there any?" "Only that they have some one coming to stay with them. Won't he have a deadly time?" Isabel glanced from Val to Rowsley in the certainty of a common response. "Imagine staying at Wanhope! However, he invited himself, so it's at his own risk. Perhaps he's embarrassed like you, Rose, and wants Laura to feed him. It's rather fun for Laura, though--that is, it will be, if Major Clowes isn't too hopeless." Strange freemasonry of the generations! Mr. Stafford's children loved him dearly and he was wont to say that there were no secrets at the vicarage, yet they lived in a conspiracy of silence, and even Val, who was mentally nearer to his father's age, would have been loth to let Mr. Stafford know as much as Isabel knew about Wanhope. It was assumed that Val's job was the very job Val wanted. Mr. Stafford had indeed a suspicion that it was not all plain sailing: Bernard Clowes retained just so much of the decently bred man as to be courteous to his wife before a mere acquaintance, but the vicar came and went at odd hours, and he observed now and then vague intimations--undertones from Bernard himself, an uncontrollable shrinking on Laura's part, an occasional hesitation or reluctance in Val--which hinted at flying storms. But Val, the father supposed, could make allowance for a cripple: Bernard was so much to be pitied that no man would resent an occasional burst of temper! And there his children left him. The younger generation can trust one another not to interfere, but when the seniors strike in, with their cut and dry precedents and rule of thumb moralities, who knows what mischief may follow? Elder people are so indiscreet! "It's a cousin of Major Clowes," Isabel continued, "but they haven't met for years and years--not since the war. Laura knows him too, she met him before she was married and liked him very much indeed. She's looking forward to it--that is, she would be if she had spirit enough to look forward to anything." "Clowes never said a word to me about it," remarked Val. "Didn't he?" Isabel unfolded herself and stood up. "That means he is going to be tiresome. I must run now, it's five past nine. Which will you both have, cold beef or eggs?" "Oh, anything that's going," said Val. "Eggs," said Rowsley, "not less than four. Without prejudice to the cold beef if it's underdone. Hallo!" "What?" "What's the matter with your skirt?" "Nothing," said Isabel shortly. She screwed her head over her shoulder in a vain endeavour to see her own back. "It's perfectly all right." "It would be, on a scarecrow." Isabel stuck her chin up. "Have you been over to the Castle in that kit, Baby? Well, if Yvonne won't give you some of her old clothes, you might ask the kitchenmaid." "The kitchenmaid has more money than I have," said Isabel cheerfully. "Is it so very bad? It's clean anyway, I washed and ironed it myself." "It looks very nice and so do you," said Val. Isabel eyed him with a softened glance: one could rely on Val to salve one's wounded vanity, but, alas! Val did not know home-made from tailor-made. Reluctantly she owned to herself that she had more faith in Rowsley's judgment. "It seems rather short though," Val added. "I suppose you will have to go into long frocks pretty soon, won't you, and put your hair up?" "Oh bother my hair and my dresses!" said Isabel with a great sigh. "I will pin my hair up when I get some new clothes, but how can I when I haven't any money and Jim hasn't any money and neither of you have any money? Don't you see, idiot," this was exclusively to Rowsley, "when I pin my hair up I shall turn into a grown up lady? And then I shall have to wear proper clothes. At present I'm only a little girl and it doesn't signify what I wear. If any one will give me five pounds I'll pin my hair up like a shot. Oh dear, I wonder what Yvonne would say if Jack expected her to outfit herself for five pounds? I do wish some one would leave me 10,000 pounds a year. Get up now, you lazy beggar, come and help me lay the supper. It's Fanny's evening out." She pulled Rowsley to his feet and they went off together leaving Val alone on the lawn: good comrades those two, and apparently more of an age, in spite of the long gap between them, than Rowsley and Val, who was the eldest by only eighteen months. And Val sat on alone, while stains of coral and amber faded out of the lavender sky, and a rack of sea clouds, which half an hour ago had shone like fiery ripples, dwindled away into smoke--mist --a mere shadow on the breast of the night. Stars began to sparkle, moths and humming cockchafers sailed by him, a chase of bats overhead endlessly fell down airy precipices and rose in long loops of darkling flight: honeysuckle and night-scented stock tinged with their sweet garden perfume the cool airs from the moor. Val lit a cigarette, a rare indulgence. If cigarettes grew on gooseberry bushes Val would have been an inveterate smoker, but good Egyptians were a luxury which he could not often afford The Wanhope agency was ample for his needs, though underpaid as agencies go: but there was Rowsley, always hard up, uncomplaining, but sensitive, as a young fellow in his position is sure to be, and secretly fretting because he could not do as other men did: and there was Isabel, for whom Val felt the anxiety Mr. Stafford ought to have felt, and was trying to make the provision Mr. Stafford ought to have made: and then there was the vicar himself, who laid out a great deal of money in those investments for which we are promised cent per cent interest, but upon a system of deferred payment. Tonight however Val lit a cigarette, and then a second, to the surprise of Isabel, who saw the red spark on the lawn. She thought her brother must be tired, and perhaps it really was the long day without food that made him so restless in mind and so uneasy. Bernard Clowes had been more than usually cranky that afternoon. Even the patient Val had had thoughts of throwing up his job when the cripple made him go through his week's accounts, scrutinizing every entry and cross-examining him on every transaction in such a tone as the head of a firm might employ to a junior clerk suspected of dishonesty. It was Bernard's way: it meant nothing: but it was irksome to Val, especially when he could not soothe himself by dropping into Laura's quiet parlour for a cup of tea. Yet his irritation would not have lingered through a cigarette if Isabel's news had not revived it. This cousin of Bernard's! Val had not much faith in any cousin of Bernard Clowes: nor in the kindness of life. Val was a slight, fair, pleasant-looking man of eight or nine and twenty, quiet of movement, friendly-mannered and as inconspicuous as his own rather worn grey tweeds: one of a class, till he raised his eyes: and then? There was something strange in Val's eyes when they were fully raised, an indrawn arresting brilliance difficult to analyse: imaginative and sympathetic, as if he were at home in dark places: the quality of acceptance of pain. Adepts in old days knew by his eyes a man who had been on the rack. Stafford had been racked: and by the pain that is half shame, the keenest, the most lacerating and destructive of wounds. He had suffered till he could suffer no more, and tonight in the starlit garden he, suffered still, without hope, or rebellion, or defence. Indoors Rowsley and Isabel, with the rapidity of long use, laid the cloth, and Isabel fetched cold beef from the larder and butter and eggs from the dairy, while Rowsley went down the cellar with a jug and a candle and drew from the cask a generous allowance of beer. "Come along in, old Val," said Isabel, reappearing at the open window, "You and Rose are both famishing and I'm not," this was a pious fiction, "so you can begin and I'll wait for Jimmy. I dare say he's gone wandering off somewhere and won't be in till ten." Val came across the dark, cool lawn and climbed over the window sill. A shabby room, large and low: a faded paper, grey toning to blue: a carpet of faded roses on a grey ground: the shaded Dresden lamp and roselit supper table shining like an island in a pool of shadow, and those two beloved heads, both so dark and smooth and young, tam cara capita! Neither of them suspected that Val was unhappy. His feeling for them was more fatherly than fraternal, and Rowsley, strange to say, fell in with Val's attitude, coming to his brother for money as naturally as most young men go to their parents. Val sat at the head of the table because Mr. Stafford could not carve. "There!" said Isabel, giving him his plate. "Mustard? I've just made it so you needn't look to see if it's fresh. Watercress: I picked it myself. Lettuce. Cream and vinegar and sugar. Beer. Now do you feel happy? Lord love you, dear, I like to see you eat." She sat on the arm of Mr. Stafford's mahogany chair. "What time do you want breakfast? Seven o'clock? Major Clowes wouldn't come down at seven if he were your agent. Can you get back to tea tomorrow? Laura may bring the cousin up to tea with her and she wants him to meet you." "Very good of her. Why?" "Oh, because he was in the Army too and all through the war. He went out with the first hundred thousand. He's much older than you are--the same age as Laura. Oh, wait a minute!" exclaimed Isabel in the tone in which a Frenchwoman says Tenez. I forgot. She thinks you must have met him, Val." "Possibly," said Val. "Was he in the Dorchesters?" asked Rowsley--much more interested than his brother, no doubt because he was not so hungry as Val, who was giving all his attention to his supper. "No, in the Winchesters," said Isabel. "Do I mean the Winchesters, Val? What was Major Clowes' old regiment?" "Clowes was in the Wintons." Isabel nodded. "Then so was the cousin. And Laura says he was out there when the Wintons were in the next bit of trench north of the Dorchesters. He was there when--when you were wounded." Such was Val Stafford's modesty that in the family circle it was not in etiquette to refer in other terms to that famous occasion. "I don't remember any fellow named Clowes and I never knew Bernard Clowes had a cousin out there," said Val, mixing himself a salad. "Oh, his name isn't Clowes. It's Ryde or Pride or something like that. I'm sorry to be so vague, but Jack Bendish and Yvonne and Mrs. Morley were all talking at once. Lawrence Pied--Fried--" "Lawrence Hyde?" "Yes, that's it! Then you really do remember him?" "Er--yes. Is that lamp smoking, Rowsley? You might turn it down a trifle, I can't reach." "Let me, let me?-- What was he like?" "Who--Hyde? Oh," said Val vaguely, "he was like the rest of us --very tired." "Tired?" echoed Isabel with a blank face, "but, Val darling, he couldn't have been only tired! What should you think he was like when he wasn't tired?" "That is a question I have occasionally asked myself," Val answered with his faint indecipherable smile. "My dear child, I only saw him once or twice. He was a senior captain and commanded his company. I was a very junior lieutenant." "Still he was there at the time," reflected Isabel. "O Rose! if he's anything like nice, which is almost past praying for in Major Clowes' cousin, let's beguile him into the gooseberry bushes and make him tell us all about it! Val is very dear to his family, but no one, however tenderly attached to him, could call him a brilliant raconteur. Now Mr. Hyde won't have any modest scruples. Val, if there is a slug in that lettuce I wish you would say so. It would hurt my feelings less than for you to sit looking at it in a stony silence. Was he good-looking?" "Possibly he might be," said Val, "when he scraped the dirt off." After a moment he added, "He was very decent to me." "Was he? Then he was nice?" "Gnat," said Rowsley from the middle of his third egg. Isabel rounded him indignantly. "I'm not gnatting! I'm not asking Val anything about himself, am I? Val can't possibly mind telling me about another man in another regiment. You eat your eggs, there's a good boy, before they get cold.-- Laura says the Dorchesters dined the Winchesters once when they were in billets. Was that when you and Mr. Hyde were there?" "Captain Hyde," Val corrected his young sister. "Yes, we both graced the festive board. It was too festive for me. We had Buszard's soup and curried chicken and real cream, and more champagne than was good for us. But it was not on that occasion that Hyde was so decent to me. The day I--the day Dale went down--" Rowsley nodded to him as he raised his glass of beer to his lips--"thank you, Rose.-- As I was saying, that evening I ran across Hyde between the lines. The Dorsets and Wintons had gone over the top together, and he had been left behind with a bullet in his chest. I was done to the world, but he had some brandy left and shared it with me. If it had not been for Hyde I should never have brought Dale in." "Well, I've never heard that before," said Rowsley to his fourth egg. Isabel was silent, and her eyes in the shadow of a momentary gravity were the eyes of a woman and not of a child. She raised them to look out at the evening sky, indigo blue against the lamplit interior, or faintly primrose in the west, and wondered for the thousandth time why it was still such an effort to Val to refer to his brief military experience. Soft country noises came in, peaceful and soothing: the short shrill shriek of a bat, the rustle of a branch of rose-leaves moving like a hand over the window panes, a faint breathing of wind from the moor. Surely the scar of war ought to be healed by now! Isabel kept these thoughts to herself: young as she was, her solitary life--for a woman alone among men is always to some extent solitary--had trained her to a clear perception of what had better not be said. "When is Hyde coming?" asked Val, going on with his salad. "Tomorrow, didn't you hear me say Laura is going to bring him here to tea? He's staying at his own place, Farringay--I think from the way Laura spoke it is what one calls a place--and they expect him by the morning train. Laura's to meet him in the car." "Did you ask her to bring him in to tea," said Rowsley, frowning over the marmalade jar, "when Val is safe to be out and you didn't know I should be here?" "Yes: oughtn't I to have?" "No." "Is there anything else you would like to speak to me about?" said Isabel after a pregnant silence. "Dear Rowsley, you seem determined to look after my manners and morals! I asked him to please Laura. She's nervous of Major Clowes. Jack and Yvonne are coming too." "Oh I don't see that it signifies," said Val. Mrs. Clowes wouldn't have accepted if it weren't all right. I don't see that you or I need worry if she doesn't. Isabel is old enough to pour out tea for herself. In any case, as it happens, you'll be here if I'm not, and I dare say Jimmy will look in for ten minutes." "You are sweet, Val," said Isabel gratefully. "Oh I don't say Rowsley's not right! Prigs generally are: and besides now I come to think of it, Laura did look faintly amused when I asked her. But these stupid things never occur to me till afterwards! After all, what am I to do? I can't manufacture a chaperon, and it would be very bad for the parish if the vicar never entertained. And it's not as if Captain Hyde were a young man; he's thirty-six if he's a day." CHAPTER III When the sea retreats after a storm one finds on the beach all sorts of strange flotsam. Bernard Clowes was a bit of human wreckage left on the sands of society by the storm of the war. When it broke out he was a second lieutenant in the Winchester Regiment, a keen polo player and first class batsman who rarely opened a book. He was sent out with the First Division and carried himself with his usual phlegmatic good humour through almost four years of fighting from Mons to Cambrai. In the March break-through he had his wrist broken by a rifle-bullet and was invalided home, where he took advantage of his leave to get married, partly because most of the men he knew were already married, and partly to please his sister. There were no other brothers, and Mrs. Morrison, a practical lady, but always a little regretful of her own marriage with Morrison's Boot and Shoe Company, recommended him with the family bluntness to arrange for an olive branch before the Huns got him. Laura, a penniless woman two years his senior and handicapped by her disreputable belongings, was not the wife Gertrude Morrison would have chosen for him: still it might have been worse, for Laura was well-born and personally irreproachable, while Clowes, hot-blooded and casual, was as likely as not to have married a chorus-girl. If any disappointment lingered, Gertrude soothed it by trying over in her own mind the irritation that she would be able to produce in Morrison circles: "Where he met her? Oh, when she was staying with her married sister at Castle Wharton . . . .Yvonne, the elder Selincourt girl, married into the Bendish family." Bernard did not care a straw either for the paternal handicap or for the glories of the Wharton connection. He took his love-affair as simply as his cricket and with the same bold confidence. Laura was what he wanted; she would fit into her surroundings at Wanhope as delicately as an old picture fits into an old frame, and one could leave her about--so he put it to himself--without fear of her getting damaged. When Tom Morrison, shrewd business man, dropped a hint about the rashness of marrying the daughter of a scamp like Ferdinand Selincourt, Bernard merely stared at him and let the indiscretion go in silence. He can scarcely be said to have loved his bride, for up to the time of the wedding his nature was not much more developed than that of a prize bull, but he considered her a very pretty woman, and his faith in her was a religion. So they were married, and went to Eastbourne for their honeymoon: an average match, not marked by passion on either side, but destined apparently to an average amount of comfort and good will. They had ten gay days before Laura was left on a victoria platform, gallantly smiling with pale lips and waving her handkerchief after the train that carried Bernard back to the front. Five months later on the eve of the Armistice he was flung out of the service, a broken man, paralysed below the waist, cursing every one who came near him and chiefly the surgeons for not letting him die. No one ever desired life more passionately than Bernard desired death. For some time he clung to the hope that his mind would wear his body out. But his body was too young, too strong, too tenacious of earth to be betrayed by the renegade mind. There came a day when Clowes felt his youth welling up in him like sap in a fallen tree: new energy throbbed in his veins, his heart beat strong and even, it was hard to believe that he could not get off his bed if he liked and go down to the playing fields or throw his leg over a horse. This mood fastened on him without warning in a Surbiton hospital after a calm night without a sleeping draught, when through his open window he could see green branches waving in sunlight, and hear the cries of men playing cricket and the smack of the driven ball: and it was torture. Tears forced their way suddenly into Bernard's eyes. His nurse, who had watched not a few reluctant recoveries, went out of the room. Then his great chest heaved, and he sobbed aloud, lying on his back with face unhidden, his wide black eyes blinking at the sweet pale June sky. No chance of death for him: he was good for ten, twenty, fifty years more: he could not bear it, but it had to be borne. He tried to pull himself up: if he could only have reached the window! But the arms that felt so strong were as weak as an infant's, while the dead weight of his helpless legs dragged on him like lead. The only result of his struggle was a dreadful access of pain. Reaction followed, for he had learnt in his A B C days not to whimper when he was hurt, and by the time the nurse returned Clowes had scourged himself back to his usual savage tranquillity. "Can I have that window shut, please?" he asked, cynically frank. "I used to play cricket myself." Laura Clowes in this period went through an experience almost equally formative. Two years older than Bernard, she was also more mature for her years and had developed more evenly, and from the outset her engagement and marriage had meant more to her then to Bernard, because her girlhood had been unhappy and they provided a way of escape. Her sister Yvonne had met Jack Bendish at a race-meeting and he had fallen madly in love with her and married her in a month in the teeth of

going

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world. Isabel knew every one in Chilmark and every one knew her. Such a range of intensive acquaintance is not so narrow as people who have never lived in a country village are apt to suppose. Past the schoolhouse, past the wide stone bridge where Isabel loved to hang over the parapet watching for trout--but not tonight, for it was late, and Isabel after a "company tea" wanted her supper: by a footpath through the churchyard, closely mown and planted with rosebushes: and so into the church, where, after dropping a hurried professional curtsey to the altar, she set about her evening duties. Isabel called herself the curate, but she did a good deal which is not expected of a curate, such as shutting windows and changing lesson-markers, propping up the trebles when they went astray in the pointing of the Psalms, altering the numbers on the hymn-board, writing out choir papers, putting flowers in the vases and candles in the benediction lights, playing the organ as required and occasionally blowing it. . . . Before leaving the church she fell on her knees, in deference to Mr. Stafford and the text by the door, and said a prayer. What did she pray? "O Lord bless this church and all who worship in it and make father preach a good sermon next Sunday. I wish I'd been playing with Val instead of Jack, we should have won that last set if Jack hadn't muffed his services. . . . Well, this curate was only nineteen." And then, coming out into the fading light, she locked the north door behind her and went off whistling like a blackbird, if a blackbird could whistle the alto of Calkin's Magnificat in B flat. . . . Five minutes climbing of the steep brown floor of the beechwood, and she was out on uplands in the dying fires of day. It had been twilight in the valley, but here the wide plain was sunlit and the air was fresh and dry: in the valley even the river-aspens were almost quiet, but here there was still a sough of wind coming and going, through the dry grass thick set with lemon thyme and lady's slipper, or along the low garden wall where red valerian sprouted out of yellow stonecrop. A wishing gate led into the garden, and Isabel made for an open window, but halfway over the sill she paused, gazing with all her soul in her eyes across the vicarage gooseberry bushes. That grey suit was Val's of course, but who was inside the belted coat and riding breeches? "Rows-lee!" sang out Isabel, tumbling back into the garden with a generous display of leg. The raiders rose up each holding a handful of large red strawberries melting ripe, and Isabel, pitching in her racquet on a sofa, ran across the grass and enfolded her brother in her arms. Rowsley, dark and slight and shrewd, returned her hug with one arm, while carefully guarding his strawberries with the other--"You pig, you perfect pig!" wailed Isabel. "I was saving them for tea tomorrow, Laura's coming and I can't afford a cake. Oh joy, you can buy me one! How long can you stay?" "Over the week end: but I didn't come to buy you cakes, Baby. I haven't any money either. I came because I wanted you to buy me cakes." "O well never mind, I'll make one," Isabel joyously slipped her hand through Rowsley's arm. "Then I can get the flour from the baker and it won't cost anything at all--it'll go down in the bill. Well give me one anyhow, now they're picked it would be a pity to waste them." She helped herself liberally out of Val's hand. "Now stop both of you, you can't have any more." She linked her other arm in Val's and dragged her brothers out of the dangerous proximity of the strawberry beds. Val sat down on a deck chair, one leg thrown over the other, Rowsley dropped at full length on the turf, and Isabel doubled herself up between them, her arms clasped round her knees. "How's the Old Man?" she asked in friendly reference to Rowsley's commanding officer. "Oh Rose, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. Will Spillsby be able to play on the Fourth?" Spillsby, a brother subaltern and a famous bat, had twisted his ankle at the nets, and Rowsley in his last letter had been uncertain whether he would be well enough to play the Sappers at the annual fixture. Happily Rowsley was able to reassure his young sister: the ankle was much better and Spillsby was already allowed to walk on it. Isabel then turned her large velvet eyes--gazelle eyes with a world of pathos in their velvet gloom on her elder brother. "Coruscate, Val," she commanded. "You haven't said anything at all yet. We should all try to be bright in the home circle. We cannot all be witty, but-Ow! Rowsley, if you pull my hair I shall hit you in the--in the place where the Gauls fined their soldiers if they stuck out on parade. Oh, Val, that really isn't vulgar, I found it in Matthew Arnold! Their stomachs, you know. They wouldn't have fined you anyhow. You look fagged, darling-- are you?" "Not so much fagged as hungry," said Val in his soft voice. "It's getting on for nine o'clock and I was done out of my tea. I went in to Wanhope, but Laura was out, and Clowes was drinking whisky and soda. I cannot stand whisky at four in the afternoon, and Irish whisky at that. There'll be some supper going before long, won't there?" "Not until half past nine because Jimmy has his Bible class tonight." Jimmy was Mr. Stafford: and perhaps a purist might have objected that Mrs. Clowes and Yvonne Bendish had not done all they might have done to form Isabel's manners. "I'm so sorry, darling," she continued, preparing to leap to her feet. "Shall I get you a biscuit? There are oatmeals in the sideboard, the kind you like, I won't be a minute--" "Thanks very much, I'd rather wait. Did you see Mrs. Clowes today? Clowes said she was at the Castle." "So she was, sitting with Mrs. Morley in an angelic striped cotton. Mrs. Morley was in mauve ninon and a Gainsborough hat. Yvonne says Mr. Morley is a Jew and made his money in I. D. B.'s, which I suppose are some sort of stocks?" Neither of her brothers offered to enlighten her, Rowsley because he was feeling indolent, Val because he never said an unkind word to any one. Isabel, who was enamoured of her own voice flowed on with little delay: "If he really is a Jew, I can't think how she could marry him; I wouldn't. Mrs. Morley can't be very happy or Laura wouldn't go and talk to her. Laura is so sweet, she always sits with people that other people run away from. Oh Val, did Major Clowes tell you their news?" Isabel might refer to her father as Jimmy and to Rowsley's commander as the Old Man, but she rarely failed to give Bernard Clowes his correct prefix. "No--is there any?" "Only that they have some one coming to stay with them. Won't he have a deadly time?" Isabel glanced from Val to Rowsley in the certainty of a common response. "Imagine staying at Wanhope! However, he invited himself, so it's at his own risk. Perhaps he's embarrassed like you, Rose, and wants Laura to feed him. It's rather fun for Laura, though--that is, it will be, if Major Clowes isn't too hopeless." Strange freemasonry of the generations! Mr. Stafford's children loved him dearly and he was wont to say that there were no secrets at the vicarage, yet they lived in a conspiracy of silence, and even Val, who was mentally nearer to his father's age, would have been loth to let Mr. Stafford know as much as Isabel knew about Wanhope. It was assumed that Val's job was the very job Val wanted. Mr. Stafford had indeed a suspicion that it was not all plain sailing: Bernard Clowes retained just so much of the decently bred man as to be courteous to his wife before a mere acquaintance, but the vicar came and went at odd hours, and he observed now and then vague intimations--undertones from Bernard himself, an uncontrollable shrinking on Laura's part, an occasional hesitation or reluctance in Val--which hinted at flying storms. But Val, the father supposed, could make allowance for a cripple: Bernard was so much to be pitied that no man would resent an occasional burst of temper! And there his children left him. The younger generation can trust one another not to interfere, but when the seniors strike in, with their cut and dry precedents and rule of thumb moralities, who knows what mischief may follow? Elder people are so indiscreet! "It's a cousin of Major Clowes," Isabel continued, "but they haven't met for years and years--not since the war. Laura knows him too, she met him before she was married and liked him very much indeed. She's looking forward to it--that is, she would be if she had spirit enough to look forward to anything." "Clowes never said a word to me about it," remarked Val. "Didn't he?" Isabel unfolded herself and stood up. "That means he is going to be tiresome. I must run now, it's five past nine. Which will you both have, cold beef or eggs?" "Oh, anything that's going," said Val. "Eggs," said Rowsley, "not less than four. Without prejudice to the cold beef if it's underdone. Hallo!" "What?" "What's the matter with your skirt?" "Nothing," said Isabel shortly. She screwed her head over her shoulder in a vain endeavour to see her own back. "It's perfectly all right." "It would be, on a scarecrow." Isabel stuck her chin up. "Have you been over to the Castle in that kit, Baby? Well, if Yvonne won't give you some of her old clothes, you might ask the kitchenmaid." "The kitchenmaid has more money than I have," said Isabel cheerfully. "Is it so very bad? It's clean anyway, I washed and ironed it myself." "It looks very nice and so do you," said Val. Isabel eyed him with a softened glance: one could rely on Val to salve one's wounded vanity, but, alas! Val did not know home-made from tailor-made. Reluctantly she owned to herself that she had more faith in Rowsley's judgment. "It seems rather short though," Val added. "I suppose you will have to go into long frocks pretty soon, won't you, and put your hair up?" "Oh bother my hair and my dresses!" said Isabel with a great sigh. "I will pin my hair up when I get some new clothes, but how can I when I haven't any money and Jim hasn't any money and neither of you have any money? Don't you see, idiot," this was exclusively to Rowsley, "when I pin my hair up I shall turn into a grown up lady? And then I shall have to wear proper clothes. At present I'm only a little girl and it doesn't signify what I wear. If any one will give me five pounds I'll pin my hair up like a shot. Oh dear, I wonder what Yvonne would say if Jack expected her to outfit herself for five pounds? I do wish some one would leave me 10,000 pounds a year. Get up now, you lazy beggar, come and help me lay the supper. It's Fanny's evening out." She pulled Rowsley to his feet and they went off together leaving Val alone on the lawn: good comrades those two, and apparently more of an age, in spite of the long gap between them, than Rowsley and Val, who was the eldest by only eighteen months. And Val sat on alone, while stains of coral and amber faded out of the lavender sky, and a rack of sea clouds, which half an hour ago had shone like fiery ripples, dwindled away into smoke--mist --a mere shadow on the breast of the night. Stars began to sparkle, moths and humming cockchafers sailed by him, a chase of bats overhead endlessly fell down airy precipices and rose in long loops of darkling flight: honeysuckle and night-scented stock tinged with their sweet garden perfume the cool airs from the moor. Val lit a cigarette, a rare indulgence. If cigarettes grew on gooseberry bushes Val would have been an inveterate smoker, but good Egyptians were a luxury which he could not often afford The Wanhope agency was ample for his needs, though underpaid as agencies go: but there was Rowsley, always hard up, uncomplaining, but sensitive, as a young fellow in his position is sure to be, and secretly fretting because he could not do as other men did: and there was Isabel, for whom Val felt the anxiety Mr. Stafford ought to have felt, and was trying to make the provision Mr. Stafford ought to have made: and then there was the vicar himself, who laid out a great deal of money in those investments for which we are promised cent per cent interest, but upon a system of deferred payment. Tonight however Val lit a cigarette, and then a second, to the surprise of Isabel, who saw the red spark on the lawn. She thought her brother must be tired, and perhaps it really was the long day without food that made him so restless in mind and so uneasy. Bernard Clowes had been more than usually cranky that afternoon. Even the patient Val had had thoughts of throwing up his job when the cripple made him go through his week's accounts, scrutinizing every entry and cross-examining him on every transaction in such a tone as the head of a firm might employ to a junior clerk suspected of dishonesty. It was Bernard's way: it meant nothing: but it was irksome to Val, especially when he could not soothe himself by dropping into Laura's quiet parlour for a cup of tea. Yet his irritation would not have lingered through a cigarette if Isabel's news had not revived it. This cousin of Bernard's! Val had not much faith in any cousin of Bernard Clowes: nor in the kindness of life. Val was a slight, fair, pleasant-looking man of eight or nine and twenty, quiet of movement, friendly-mannered and as inconspicuous as his own rather worn grey tweeds: one of a class, till he raised his eyes: and then? There was something strange in Val's eyes when they were fully raised, an indrawn arresting brilliance difficult to analyse: imaginative and sympathetic, as if he were at home in dark places: the quality of acceptance of pain. Adepts in old days knew by his eyes a man who had been on the rack. Stafford had been racked: and by the pain that is half shame, the keenest, the most lacerating and destructive of wounds. He had suffered till he could suffer no more, and tonight in the starlit garden he, suffered still, without hope, or rebellion, or defence. Indoors Rowsley and Isabel, with the rapidity of long use, laid the cloth, and Isabel fetched cold beef from the larder and butter and eggs from the dairy, while Rowsley went down the cellar with a jug and a candle and drew from the cask a generous allowance of beer. "Come along in, old Val," said Isabel, reappearing at the open window, "You and Rose are both famishing and I'm not," this was a pious fiction, "so you can begin and I'll wait for Jimmy. I dare say he's gone wandering off somewhere and won't be in till ten." Val came across the dark, cool lawn and climbed over the window sill. A shabby room, large and low: a faded paper, grey toning to blue: a carpet of faded roses on a grey ground: the shaded Dresden lamp and roselit supper table shining like an island in a pool of shadow, and those two beloved heads, both so dark and smooth and young, tam cara capita! Neither of them suspected that Val was unhappy. His feeling for them was more fatherly than fraternal, and Rowsley, strange to say, fell in with Val's attitude, coming to his brother for money as naturally as most young men go to their parents. Val sat at the head of the table because Mr. Stafford could not carve. "There!" said Isabel, giving him his plate. "Mustard? I've just made it so you needn't look to see if it's fresh. Watercress: I picked it myself. Lettuce. Cream and vinegar and sugar. Beer. Now do you feel happy? Lord love you, dear, I like to see you eat." She sat on the arm of Mr. Stafford's mahogany chair. "What time do you want breakfast? Seven o'clock? Major Clowes wouldn't come down at seven if he were your agent. Can you get back to tea tomorrow? Laura may bring the cousin up to tea with her and she wants him to meet you." "Very good of her. Why?" "Oh, because he was in the Army too and all through the war. He went out with the first hundred thousand. He's much older than you are--the same age as Laura. Oh, wait a minute!" exclaimed Isabel in the tone in which a Frenchwoman says Tenez. I forgot. She thinks you must have met him, Val." "Possibly," said Val. "Was he in the Dorchesters?" asked Rowsley--much more interested than his brother, no doubt because he was not so hungry as Val, who was giving all his attention to his supper. "No, in the Winchesters," said Isabel. "Do I mean the Winchesters, Val? What was Major Clowes' old regiment?" "Clowes was in the Wintons." Isabel nodded. "Then so was the cousin. And Laura says he was out there when the Wintons were in the next bit of trench north of the Dorchesters. He was there when--when you were wounded." Such was Val Stafford's modesty that in the family circle it was not in etiquette to refer in other terms to that famous occasion. "I don't remember any fellow named Clowes and I never knew Bernard Clowes had a cousin out there," said Val, mixing himself a salad. "Oh, his name isn't Clowes. It's Ryde or Pride or something like that. I'm sorry to be so vague, but Jack Bendish and Yvonne and Mrs. Morley were all talking at once. Lawrence Pied--Fried--" "Lawrence Hyde?" "Yes, that's it! Then you really do remember him?" "Er--yes. Is that lamp smoking, Rowsley? You might turn it down a trifle, I can't reach." "Let me, let me?-- What was he like?" "Who--Hyde? Oh," said Val vaguely, "he was like the rest of us --very tired." "Tired?" echoed Isabel with a blank face, "but, Val darling, he couldn't have been only tired! What should you think he was like when he wasn't tired?" "That is a question I have occasionally asked myself," Val answered with his faint indecipherable smile. "My dear child, I only saw him once or twice. He was a senior captain and commanded his company. I was a very junior lieutenant." "Still he was there at the time," reflected Isabel. "O Rose! if he's anything like nice, which is almost past praying for in Major Clowes' cousin, let's beguile him into the gooseberry bushes and make him tell us all about it! Val is very dear to his family, but no one, however tenderly attached to him, could call him a brilliant raconteur. Now Mr. Hyde won't have any modest scruples. Val, if there is a slug in that lettuce I wish you would say so. It would hurt my feelings less than for you to sit looking at it in a stony silence. Was he good-looking?" "Possibly he might be," said Val, "when he scraped the dirt off." After a moment he added, "He was very decent to me." "Was he? Then he was nice?" "Gnat," said Rowsley from the middle of his third egg. Isabel rounded him indignantly. "I'm not gnatting! I'm not asking Val anything about himself, am I? Val can't possibly mind telling me about another man in another regiment. You eat your eggs, there's a good boy, before they get cold.-- Laura says the Dorchesters dined the Winchesters once when they were in billets. Was that when you and Mr. Hyde were there?" "Captain Hyde," Val corrected his young sister. "Yes, we both graced the festive board. It was too festive for me. We had Buszard's soup and curried chicken and real cream, and more champagne than was good for us. But it was not on that occasion that Hyde was so decent to me. The day I--the day Dale went down--" Rowsley nodded to him as he raised his glass of beer to his lips--"thank you, Rose.-- As I was saying, that evening I ran across Hyde between the lines. The Dorsets and Wintons had gone over the top together, and he had been left behind with a bullet in his chest. I was done to the world, but he had some brandy left and shared it with me. If it had not been for Hyde I should never have brought Dale in." "Well, I've never heard that before," said Rowsley to his fourth egg. Isabel was silent, and her eyes in the shadow of a momentary gravity were the eyes of a woman and not of a child. She raised them to look out at the evening sky, indigo blue against the lamplit interior, or faintly primrose in the west, and wondered for the thousandth time why it was still such an effort to Val to refer to his brief military experience. Soft country noises came in, peaceful and soothing: the short shrill shriek of a bat, the rustle of a branch of rose-leaves moving like a hand over the window panes, a faint breathing of wind from the moor. Surely the scar of war ought to be healed by now! Isabel kept these thoughts to herself: young as she was, her solitary life--for a woman alone among men is always to some extent solitary--had trained her to a clear perception of what had better not be said. "When is Hyde coming?" asked Val, going on with his salad. "Tomorrow, didn't you hear me say Laura is going to bring him here to tea? He's staying at his own place, Farringay--I think from the way Laura spoke it is what one calls a place--and they expect him by the morning train. Laura's to meet him in the car." "Did you ask her to bring him in to tea," said Rowsley, frowning over the marmalade jar, "when Val is safe to be out and you didn't know I should be here?" "Yes: oughtn't I to have?" "No." "Is there anything else you would like to speak to me about?" said Isabel after a pregnant silence. "Dear Rowsley, you seem determined to look after my manners and morals! I asked him to please Laura. She's nervous of Major Clowes. Jack and Yvonne are coming too." "Oh I don't see that it signifies," said Val. Mrs. Clowes wouldn't have accepted if it weren't all right. I don't see that you or I need worry if she doesn't. Isabel is old enough to pour out tea for herself. In any case, as it happens, you'll be here if I'm not, and I dare say Jimmy will look in for ten minutes." "You are sweet, Val," said Isabel gratefully. "Oh I don't say Rowsley's not right! Prigs generally are: and besides now I come to think of it, Laura did look faintly amused when I asked her. But these stupid things never occur to me till afterwards! After all, what am I to do? I can't manufacture a chaperon, and it would be very bad for the parish if the vicar never entertained. And it's not as if Captain Hyde were a young man; he's thirty-six if he's a day." CHAPTER III When the sea retreats after a storm one finds on the beach all sorts of strange flotsam. Bernard Clowes was a bit of human wreckage left on the sands of society by the storm of the war. When it broke out he was a second lieutenant in the Winchester Regiment, a keen polo player and first class batsman who rarely opened a book. He was sent out with the First Division and carried himself with his usual phlegmatic good humour through almost four years of fighting from Mons to Cambrai. In the March break-through he had his wrist broken by a rifle-bullet and was invalided home, where he took advantage of his leave to get married, partly because most of the men he knew were already married, and partly to please his sister. There were no other brothers, and Mrs. Morrison, a practical lady, but always a little regretful of her own marriage with Morrison's Boot and Shoe Company, recommended him with the family bluntness to arrange for an olive branch before the Huns got him. Laura, a penniless woman two years his senior and handicapped by her disreputable belongings, was not the wife Gertrude Morrison would have chosen for him: still it might have been worse, for Laura was well-born and personally irreproachable, while Clowes, hot-blooded and casual, was as likely as not to have married a chorus-girl. If any disappointment lingered, Gertrude soothed it by trying over in her own mind the irritation that she would be able to produce in Morrison circles: "Where he met her? Oh, when she was staying with her married sister at Castle Wharton . . . .Yvonne, the elder Selincourt girl, married into the Bendish family." Bernard did not care a straw either for the paternal handicap or for the glories of the Wharton connection. He took his love-affair as simply as his cricket and with the same bold confidence. Laura was what he wanted; she would fit into her surroundings at Wanhope as delicately as an old picture fits into an old frame, and one could leave her about--so he put it to himself--without fear of her getting damaged. When Tom Morrison, shrewd business man, dropped a hint about the rashness of marrying the daughter of a scamp like Ferdinand Selincourt, Bernard merely stared at him and let the indiscretion go in silence. He can scarcely be said to have loved his bride, for up to the time of the wedding his nature was not much more developed than that of a prize bull, but he considered her a very pretty woman, and his faith in her was a religion. So they were married, and went to Eastbourne for their honeymoon: an average match, not marked by passion on either side, but destined apparently to an average amount of comfort and good will. They had ten gay days before Laura was left on a victoria platform, gallantly smiling with pale lips and waving her handkerchief after the train that carried Bernard back to the front. Five months later on the eve of the Armistice he was flung out of the service, a broken man, paralysed below the waist, cursing every one who came near him and chiefly the surgeons for not letting him die. No one ever desired life more passionately than Bernard desired death. For some time he clung to the hope that his mind would wear his body out. But his body was too young, too strong, too tenacious of earth to be betrayed by the renegade mind. There came a day when Clowes felt his youth welling up in him like sap in a fallen tree: new energy throbbed in his veins, his heart beat strong and even, it was hard to believe that he could not get off his bed if he liked and go down to the playing fields or throw his leg over a horse. This mood fastened on him without warning in a Surbiton hospital after a calm night without a sleeping draught, when through his open window he could see green branches waving in sunlight, and hear the cries of men playing cricket and the smack of the driven ball: and it was torture. Tears forced their way suddenly into Bernard's eyes. His nurse, who had watched not a few reluctant recoveries, went out of the room. Then his great chest heaved, and he sobbed aloud, lying on his back with face unhidden, his wide black eyes blinking at the sweet pale June sky. No chance of death for him: he was good for ten, twenty, fifty years more: he could not bear it, but it had to be borne. He tried to pull himself up: if he could only have reached the window! But the arms that felt so strong were as weak as an infant's, while the dead weight of his helpless legs dragged on him like lead. The only result of his struggle was a dreadful access of pain. Reaction followed, for he had learnt in his A B C days not to whimper when he was hurt, and by the time the nurse returned Clowes had scourged himself back to his usual savage tranquillity. "Can I have that window shut, please?" he asked, cynically frank. "I used to play cricket myself." Laura Clowes in this period went through an experience almost equally formative. Two years older than Bernard, she was also more mature for her years and had developed more evenly, and from the outset her engagement and marriage had meant more to her then to Bernard, because her girlhood had been unhappy and they provided a way of escape. Her sister Yvonne had met Jack Bendish at a race-meeting and he had fallen madly in love with her and married her in a month in the teeth of

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worn by a man above the mechanic ranks), but it was patched with dirt of many kinds, and held together by a most inadequate supply of buttons. At present he wore no collar, and his waistcoat, half-open, exposed a red shirt. 'Why, you're all a-blowin' and a-growin' this morning, Peckover,' was his first observation, as he dropped heavily into a wooden arm-chair. 'I shall begin to think that colour of yours ain't natural. Dare you let me rub it with a handkerchief?' 'Course I dare,' replied Clem, tossing her head. 'Don't be so forward, Mr. Snowdon.' 'Forward? Not I. I'm behind time if anything. I hope I haven't kept you from church.' He chuckled at his double joke. Mother and daughter laughed appreciatively. 'Will you take your eggs boiled or fried?' inquired Mrs. Peckover. 'Going to give me eggs, are you? Well, I've no objection, I assure you. And I think I'll have them fried, Mrs. Peckover. But, I say, you mustn't be running up too big a bill. The Lord only knows when I shall get anything to do, and it ain't very likely to be a thousand a year when it does come.' 'Oh, that's all right,' replied the landlady, as if sordid calculation were a thing impossible to her. 'I can't say as you behaved quite straightforward years ago, Mr. Snowdon, but I ain't one to make a row about bygones, an' as you say you'll put it all straight as soon as you can, well, I won't refuse to trust you once more.' Mr. Snowdon lay back in the chair, his hands in his waistcoat pockets, his legs outstretched upon the fender. He was smiling placidly, now at the preparing breakfast, now at Clem. The latter he plainly regarded with much admiration, and cared not to conceal it. When, in a few minutes, it was announced to him that the meal was ready, he dragged his chair up to the table and reseated himself with a sigh of satisfaction. A dish of excellent ham, and eggs as nearly fresh as can be obtained in Clerkenwell, invited him with appetising odour; a large cup of what is known to the generality of English people as coffee steamed at his right hand; slices of new bread lay ready cut upon a plate; a slab of the most expensive substitute for butter caught his eye with yellow promise; vinegar and mustard appealed to the refinements of his taste. 'I've got a couple more eggs, if you'd like them doin',' said Mrs. Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the viands. 'I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,' returned Mr. Snowdon. As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly in consequence of the activity of his mind. He was, in fact, musing upon a question which he found it very difficult to answer in any satisfactory way. 'What's the meaning of all this?' he asked himself, and not for the first time. 'What makes them treat me in this fashion? A week ago I came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just because I'd run down to my last penny, and I didn't know where to find a night's lodging. I'd got an idea, too, that I should like to find out what had become of my child, whom I left here nine or ten years ago; possibly she was still alive, and might welcome the duty of supporting her parent. The chance was, to be sure, that the girl had long since been in her grave, and that Mrs. Peckover no longer lived in the old quarters; if I discovered the woman, on the other hand, she was not very likely to give me an affectionate reception, seeing that I found it inconvenient to keep sending her money for Jane's keep in the old days. The queer thing is, that everything turned out exactly the opposite of what I had expected. Mrs. Peckover had rather a sour face at first, but after a little talk she began to seem quite glad to see me. She put me into a room, undertook to board me for a while--till I find work, and I wonder when _that_'ll be?--and blest if this strapping daughter of hers doesn't seem to have fallen in love with me from the first go off! As for my girl, I'm told she was carried off by her grandfather, my old dad, three years ago, and where they went nobody knows. Very puzzling all this. How on earth came it that Mrs. Peckover kept the child so long, and didn't send her to the workhouse? If I'm to believe _her_, she took a motherly kindness for the poor brat. But that won't exactly go down with J. J. Snowdon; he's seen a bit too much in his knocking about the world, Still, what if I'm making a mistake about the old woman? There _are_ some people do things of that sort; upon my soul, I've known people be kind even to me, without a chance of being paid back! You may think you know a man or a woman, and then all at once they'll go and do something you'd have taken your davy couldn't possibly happen. I'd have sworn she was nothing but a skinflint and a lying old witch. And so she maybe; the chances are there's some game going on that I can't see through. Make inquiries? Why, so I have done, as far as I know how. I've only been able to hit on one person who knows anything about the matter, and he tells me it's true enough the girl was taken away about three years ago, but he's no idea where she went to. Surely the old man must be dead b now, though he _was_ tough. Well, the fact of the matter is, I've got a good berth, and I'm a precious sight too lazy to go on the private detective job. Here's this girl Clem, the finest bit of flesh I've seen for a long time; I've more than half a mind to see if she won't be fool enough to marry me. I'm not a bad-looking fellow, that's the truth, and she may have taken a real liking to me. Seems to me that I should have come in for a Comfortable thing in my old age; if I haven't a daughter to provide for my needs, at all events I shall have a wife who can be persuaded into doing so. When the old woman gets out of the way I must have a little quiet talk with Clem.' The opportunity he desired was not long in offering itself. Having made an excellent breakfast, he dragged his chair up to the fender again, and reached a pipe from the mantel-piece, where he had left it last night. Tobacco he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket; it came forth in the form of yellowish dust, intermingled with all sorts of alien scraps. When he had lit his pipe, he poised the chair on its hind-legs, clasped his hands over his bald crown, and continued his musing with an air of amiable calm. Smoke curled up from the corner of his loose lips, and occasionally, removing his pipe for an instant, he spat skilfully between the bars of the grate. Assured of his comfort, Mrs. Peckover said she must go and look after certain domestic duties. Her daughter had begun to clean some vegetables that would be cooked for dinner. 'How old may you be, Clem?' Mr. Snowdon inquired genially, when they had been alone together for a few minutes. 'What's that to you? Guess.' 'Why, let me see; you was not much more than a baby when I went away. You'll be eighteen or nineteen, I suppose.' 'Yes, I'm nineteen--last sixth of February. Pity you come too late to give me a birthday present, ain't it?' 'Ah! And who'd have thought you'd have grown up such a beauty! I say, Clem, how many of the young chaps about here have been wanting to marry you, eh?' 'A dozen or two, I dessay,' Clem replied, shrugging her shoulders scornfully. Mr. Snowdon laughed, and then spat into the fire. 'Tell me about some o' them, will you? Who is it you're keeping company with now?' 'Who, indeed? Why, there isn't one I'd look at! Several of 'em's took to drinking 'cause I won't have nothing to do with 'em.' This excited Mr. Snowdon's mirth in a high degree; he rolled on his chair, and almost pitched backwards. 'I suppose you give one or other a bit of encouragement now and then, just to make a fool of him, eh?' 'Course I do. There was Bob Hewett; he used to lodge here, but that was after your time. I kep' him off an' on till he couldn't bear it no longer; then he went an' married a common slut of a thing, just because he thought it 'ud make me mad. Ha, ha! I believe he'd give her poison an' risk it any day, if only I promised to marry him afterwards. Then there was a feller called Jeck Bartley. I set him an' Bob fightin' one Bank-holiday--you should a' seen 'em go at it! Jack went an' got married a year ago to a girl called Suke Jollop; her mother forced him. How I did laugh! Last Christmas Day they smashed up their 'ome an' threw the bits out into the street. Jack got one of his eyes knocked out--I thought I should a' died o' laughin' when I saw him next mornin'.' The hearer became uproarious in merriment. 'Tell you what it is, Clem,' he cried, 'you're something like a girl! Darn me if I don't like you! I say, I wonder what my daughter's grown up? Like her mother, I suppose. You an' she was sort of sisters, wasn't you?' He observed her closely. Clem laughed and shrugged her shoulders. 'Queer sort o' sisters. She was a bit too quiet-like for me. There never was no fun in her.' 'Aye, like her mother. And where did you say she went to with the old man?' 'Where she went to?' repeated Clem, regarding him steadily with her big eyes, 'I never said nothing about it, 'cause I didn't know.' 'Well, I shan't cry about her, and I don't suppose she misses me much, wherever she is. All the same, Clem, I'm a domesticated sort of man; you can see that, can't you? I shouldn't wonder if I marry again one of these first days. Just tell me where to find a girl of the right sort. I dare say you know heaps.' 'Dessay I do. What sort do you want?' 'Oh, a littlish girl--yellow hair, you know--one of them that look as if they didn't weigh half-a-stone.' 'I'll throw this parsnip at you, Mr. Snowdon!' 'What's up now. You don't Call yourself littlish, do you?' Clem snapped the small end off the vegetable she was paring, and aimed it at his head. He ducked just in time. Then there was an outburst of laughter from both. 'Say, Clem, you haven't got a glass of beer in the house?' 'You'll have to wait till openin' time,' replied the girl sourly, going away to the far end of the room. 'Have I offended you, Clem?' 'Offended, indeed. As if I cared what you say!' 'Do you care what I think?' 'Not I!' 'That means you do. Say, Clem, just come here; I've something to tell you.' 'You're a nuisance. Let me get on with my work, can't you?' 'No, I can't. You just come here. You'd better not give me the trouble of fetching you!' The girl obeyed him. Her cheeks were very hot, and the danger-signal was flashing in her eyes. Ten minutes later she went upstairs, and had a vivacious dialogue of whispers with Mrs. Peckover. CHAPTER XV SUNLIGHT IN DREARY PLACES Among the by-ways of Clerkenwell you might, with some difficulty, have discovered an establishment known in its neighbourhood as 'Whitehead's.' It was an artificial-flower factory, and the rooms of which it consisted were only to be reached by traversing a timber-yard, and then mounting a wooden staircase outside a saw-mill. Here at busy seasons worked some threescore women and girls, who, owing to the nature of their occupation, were spoken of by the jocose youth of the locality as 'Whitehead's pastepots.' Naturally they varied much in age and aspect. There was the child who had newly left school, and was now invited to consider the question of how to keep herself alive; there was the woman of uncertain age, who had spent long years of long days in the atmosphere of workrooms, and showed the result in her parchmenty cheek and lack-lustre eye; and between these extremes came all the various types of the London crafts-girl: she who is young enough to hope that disappointments may yet be made up for by the future; she who is already tasting such scanty good as life had in store for her; she who has outlived her illusions and no longer cares to look beyond the close of the week. If regularly engaged as time-workers, they made themselves easy in the prospect of wages that allowed them to sleep under a roof and eat at certain intervals of the day; if employed on piece-work they might at any moment find themselves wageless, but this, being a familiar state of things, did not trouble them. With few exceptions, they were clad neatly; on the whole, they plied their task in wonderful contentment. The general tone of conversation among them was not high; moralists unfamiliar with the ways of the nether world would probably have applied a term other than negative to the laughing discussions which now and then enlivened this or that group; but it was very seldom indeed that a child newly arriving heard anything with which she was not already perfectly familiar. One afternoon at the end of May there penetrated into the largest of the workrooms that rarest of visitants, a stray sunbeam. Only if the sun happened to shine at given moments could any of its light fall directly into the room I speak of; this afternoon, however, all circumstances were favourable, and behold the floor chequered with uncertain gleam. The workers were arranged in groups of three, called 'parties,' consisting of a learner, an improver, and a hand. All sat with sleeves pushed up to their elbows, and had a habit of rocking to and fro as they plied their mechanical industry. Owing to the movement of a cloud, the sunlight spread gradually towards one of these groups; it touched the skirt, the arms, the head of one of the girls, who, as if gladdened by the kindly warmth, looked round and smiled. A smile you would have been pleased to observe--unconscious, gently thoughtful, rich in possibilities of happiness. She was quite a young girl, certainly not seventeen, and wore a smooth grey dress, with a white linen collar; her brown hair was closely plaited, her head well-shaped, the bend of her neck very graceful. From her bare arms it could be seen that she was anything but robustly made, yet her general appearance was not one of ill-health, and she held herself, even thus late in the day, far more uprightly than most of her companions. Had you watched her for a while, you would have noticed that her eyes occasionally strayed beyond the work-table, and, perhaps unconsciously, fixed themselves for some moments on one or other of the girls near her; when she remembered herself and looked down again upon her task, there rose to her face a smile of the subtlest meaning, the outcome of busy reflection. By her side was a little girl just beginning to learn the work, whose employment it was to paper wires and make 'centres.' This toil always results in blistered fingers, and frequent was the child's appeal to her neighbour for sympathy. 'It'll be easier soon,' said the latter, on one of these occasions, bending her head to speak in a low voice. 'You should have seen what blisters I had when I began.' 'It's all very well to say that. I can't do no more, so there Oh, when'll it be five o'clock?' 'It's a quarter to. Try and go on, Annie.' Five o'clock did come at length, and with it twenty minutes' rest for tea. The rule at Whitehead's was, that you could either bring your own tea, sugar, and eatables, or purchase them here from a forewoman; most of the workers chose to provide themselves. It was customary for each 'party' to club together, emptying their several contributions of tea out of little twists of newspaper into one teapot. Wholesome bustle and confusion succeeded to the former silence. One of the learners, whose turn it was to run on errands, was overwhelmed with commissions to a chandler's shop close by; a wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and they called her, because of her slowness, the 'funeral horse.' She had strange habits, which made laughter for those who knew of them; for instance, it was her custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her poor scraps on a doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a companion that the odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a relish. From her present errand she returned with a strange variety of dainties--for it was early in the week, and the girls still had coppers in their pockets; for two or three she had purchased a farthing's-worth of jam, which she carried in paper. A bite of this and a taste of that rewarded her for her trouble. The quiet-mannered girl whom we were observing took her cup of tea from the pot in which she had a share, and from her bag produced some folded pieces of bread and butter. She had begun her meal, when there came and sat down by her a young woman of very different appearance--our friend, Miss Peckover. They were old acquaintances; but when we first saw them together it would have been difficult to imagine that they would ever sit and converse as at present, apparently in all friendliness. Strange to say, it was Clem who, during the past three years, had been the active one in seeking to obliterate disagreeable memories. The younger girl had never repelled her, but was long in overcoming the dread excited by Clem's proximity. Even now she never looked straight into Miss Peckover's face, as she did when speaking with others; there was reserve in her manner, reserve unmistakable, though clothed with her pleasant smile and amiable voice. 'I've got something to tell you, Jane,' Clem began, in a tone inaudible to those who were sitting near. 'Something as'll surprise you.' 'What is it, I wonder?' 'You must swear you won't tell nobody.' Jane nodded. Then the other brought her head a little nearer, and whispered: 'I'm goin' to be married!' 'Are you really?' 'In a week. Who do you think it is? Somebody as you know of, but if you guessed till next Christmas you'd never come right.' Nor had Clem any intention of revealing the name, but she laughed consumedly, as if her reticence covered the most amusing situation conceivable. 'It'll be the biggest surprise you ever had in your life. You've swore you won't speak about it. I don't think I shall come to work after this week--but you'll have to come an' see us. You'll promise to, won't you?' Still convulsed with mirth, Clem went off to another part of the room. From Jane's countenance the look of amusement which she had perforce summoned soon passed; it was succeeded by a shadow almost of pain, and not till she had been at work again for nearly an hour was the former placidity restored to her. When final release came, Jane was among the first to hasten down the wooden staircase and get clear of the timber yard. By the direct way, it took her twenty minutes to walk from Whitehead's to her home in Hanover Street, but this evening she had an object in turning aside. The visit she wished to pay took her into a disagreeable quarter, a street of squalid houses, swarming with yet more squalid children. On all the doorsteps Bat little girls, themselves only just out of infancy, nursing or neglecting bald, red-eyed, doughy-limbed abortions in every stage of babyhood, hapless spawn of diseased humanity, born to embitter and brutalise yet further the lot of those who unwillingly gave them life. With wide, pitiful eyes Jane looked at each group she passed. Three years ago she would have seen nothing but the ordinary and the inevitable in such spectacles, but since then her moral and intellectual being had grown on rare nourishment; there was indignation as well as heartache in the feeling with which she had learnt to regard the world of her familiarity. To enter the house at which she paused it was necessary to squeeze through a conglomerate of dirty little bodies. At the head of the first flight of stairs she came upon a girl sitting in a weary attitude on the top step and beating the wood listlessly with the last remnant of a hearth-brush; on her lap was one more specimen of the infinitely-multiplied baby, and a child of two years sprawled behind her on the landing. 'Waiting for him to come home, Pennyloaf?' said Jane. 'Oh, is that you, Miss Snowdon!' exclaimed the other, returning to consciousness and manifesting some shame at being discovered in this position. Hastily she drew together the front of her dress, which for the baby's sake had been wide open, and rose to her feet. Pennyloaf was not a bit more womanly in figure than on the day of her marriage; her voice was still an immature treble; the same rueful irresponsibility marked her features; but all her poor prettiness was wasted under the disfigurement of pains and cares, Incongruously enough, she wore a gown of bright-patterned calico, and about her neck had a collar of pretentious lace; her hair was dressed as if for a holiday, and a daub recently made on her cheeks by the baby's fingers lent emphasis to the fact that she had but a little while ago washed herself with much care. 'I can't stop,' said Jane, 'but I thought I'd just look in and speak a word. How have you been getting on?' 'Oh, do come in for just a minute!' pleaded Pennyloaf, moving backwards to an open door, whither Jane followed. They entered a room--much like other rooms that we have looked into from time to time. Following the nomadic custom of their kind, Bob Hewett and his wife had lived in six or seven different lodgings since their honeymoon in Shooter's Gardens. Mrs. Candy first of all made a change necessary, as might have been anticipated, and the restlessness of domestic ill-being subsequently drove them from place to place. 'Come in 'ere, Johnny,' she Called to the child lying on the landing. 'What's the good o' washin' you, I'd like to know? Just see, Miss Snowdon, he's made his face all white with the milk as the boy spilt on the stairs! Take this brush an' play with it, do! I _can't_ keep 'em clean, Miss Snowdon, so it's no use talkin'.' 'Are you going somewhere to-night?' Jane inquired, with a glance at the strange costume. Pennyloaf looked up and down in a shamefaced way. 'I only did it just because I thought he might like to see me. He promised me faithful as he'd come 'ome to-night, and I thought--it's only somethink as got into my 'ed to-day, Miss Snowdon.' 'But hasn't he been coming home since I saw you last?' 'He did just once, an' then it was all the old ways again. I did what you told me; I did, as sure as I'm a-standin' 'ere! I made the room so clean you wouldn't have believed; I scrubbed the floor an' the table, an' I washed the winders--you can see they ain't dirty yet. An' he'd never a' paid a bit o' notice if I hadn't told him, He was jolly enough for one night, just like he can be when he likes. But I knew as it wouldn't last, an' the next night he was off with a lot o' fellers an' girls, same as ever. I didn't make no row when he came 'ome; I wish I may die if I said a word to set his back up! An' I've gone on just the same all the week; we haven't had not the least bit of a row; so you see I kep' my promise. But it's no good; he won't come 'ome; he's always got fellers an' girls to go round with. He took his hoath as he'd come back to-night, an' then it come into my 'ed as I'd put my best things on, just to--you know what I mean, Miss Snowdon. But he won't come before twelve o'clock; I know he won't. An' I get that low sittin' 'ere, you can't think I can't go nowhere, because o' the children. If it wasn't for them I could go to work again, an' I'd be that glad; I feel as if my 'ed would drop off sometimes! I _ham_ so glad you just come in!' Jane had tried so many forms of encouragement, of consolation, on previous occasions that she knew not how to repeat herself. She was ashamed to speak words which sounded so hollow and profitless. This silence was only too significant to Pennyloaf, and in a moment she exclaimed with querulous energy: 'I know what'll be the bend of it! I'll go an' do like mother does--I will! I will! I'll put my ring away, an' I'll go an' sit all night in the public-'ouse! It's what all the others does, an' I'll do the same. I often feel I'm a fool to go on like this. I don't know what I live for, P'r'aps he'll be sorry when I get run in like mother.' 'Don't talk like that, Pennyloaf!' cried Jane, stamping her foot, (It was odd how completely difference of character had reversed their natural relations to each other; Pennyloaf was the child, Jane the mature woman.) 'You know better, and you've no right to give way to such thoughts. I was going to say I'd come and be with you all Saturday afternoon, but I don't know whether I shall now. And I'd been thinking you might like to come and see me on Sunday, but I can't have people that go to the public-house, so we won't say anything more about it. I shall have to be off; good-bye!' She stepped to the door. 'Miss Snowdon!' Jane turned, and after an instant of mock severity, broke into a laugh which seemed to fill the wretched den with sunlight. Words, too, she found; words of soothing influence such as leap from the heart to the tongue in spite of the heavy thoughts that try to check them. Pennyloaf was learning to depend upon these words for strength in her desolation. They did not excite her to much hopefulness, but there was a sustaining power in their sweet sincerity which made all the difference between despair tending to evil and the sigh of renewed effort. 'I don't care,' Pennyloaf had got into the habit of thinking, after her friend's departure, 'I won't give up as long as she looks in now and then.' Out from the swarm of babies Jane hurried homewards. She had a reason for wishing to be back in good time to-night; it was Wednesday, and on Wednesday evening there was wont to come a visitor, who sat for a couple of hours in her grandfather's room and talked, talked--the most interesting talk Jane had ever heard or could imagine. A latch-key admitted her; she ran up to the second floor. A voice from the front-room caught her ear; certainly not _his_ voice--it was too early--but that of some unusual visitor. She was on the point of entering her own chamber, when the other door opened, and somebody exclaimed, 'Ah, here she is!' The speaker was an old gentleman, dressed in black, bald, with small and rather rugged features; his voice was pleasant. A gold chain and a bunch of seals shone against his waistcoat, also a pair of eye-glasses. A professional man, obviously. Jane remembered that she had seen him once before, about a year ago, when he had talked with her for a few minutes, very kindly. 'Will you come in here, Jane?' her grandfather's voice called to her. Snowdon had changed much. Old age was heavy upon his shoulders, and had even produced a slight tremulousness in his hands; his voice told the same story of enfeeblement. Even more noticeable was the ageing of his countenance. Something more, however, than the progress of time seemed to be here at work. He looked strangely careworn; his forehead was set in lines of anxiety; his mouth expressed a nervousness of which formerly there had been no trace. One would have said that some harassing preoccupation must have seized his mind. His eyes were no longer merely sad and absent, but restless with fatiguing thought. As Jane entered the room he fixed his gaze upon her--a gaze that appeared to reveal worrying apprehension. 'You remember Mr. Percival, Jane,' he said. The old gentleman thus presented held out his hand with something of fatherly geniality. 'Miss Snowdon, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again before long, but just now I am carrying off your grandfather for a couple of hours, and indeed we

whole

How many times the word 'whole' appears in the text?

worn by a man above the mechanic ranks), but it was patched with dirt of many kinds, and held together by a most inadequate supply of buttons. At present he wore no collar, and his waistcoat, half-open, exposed a red shirt. 'Why, you're all a-blowin' and a-growin' this morning, Peckover,' was his first observation, as he dropped heavily into a wooden arm-chair. 'I shall begin to think that colour of yours ain't natural. Dare you let me rub it with a handkerchief?' 'Course I dare,' replied Clem, tossing her head. 'Don't be so forward, Mr. Snowdon.' 'Forward? Not I. I'm behind time if anything. I hope I haven't kept you from church.' He chuckled at his double joke. Mother and daughter laughed appreciatively. 'Will you take your eggs boiled or fried?' inquired Mrs. Peckover. 'Going to give me eggs, are you? Well, I've no objection, I assure you. And I think I'll have them fried, Mrs. Peckover. But, I say, you mustn't be running up too big a bill. The Lord only knows when I shall get anything to do, and it ain't very likely to be a thousand a year when it does come.' 'Oh, that's all right,' replied the landlady, as if sordid calculation were a thing impossible to her. 'I can't say as you behaved quite straightforward years ago, Mr. Snowdon, but I ain't one to make a row about bygones, an' as you say you'll put it all straight as soon as you can, well, I won't refuse to trust you once more.' Mr. Snowdon lay back in the chair, his hands in his waistcoat pockets, his legs outstretched upon the fender. He was smiling placidly, now at the preparing breakfast, now at Clem. The latter he plainly regarded with much admiration, and cared not to conceal it. When, in a few minutes, it was announced to him that the meal was ready, he dragged his chair up to the table and reseated himself with a sigh of satisfaction. A dish of excellent ham, and eggs as nearly fresh as can be obtained in Clerkenwell, invited him with appetising odour; a large cup of what is known to the generality of English people as coffee steamed at his right hand; slices of new bread lay ready cut upon a plate; a slab of the most expensive substitute for butter caught his eye with yellow promise; vinegar and mustard appealed to the refinements of his taste. 'I've got a couple more eggs, if you'd like them doin',' said Mrs. Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the viands. 'I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,' returned Mr. Snowdon. As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly in consequence of the activity of his mind. He was, in fact, musing upon a question which he found it very difficult to answer in any satisfactory way. 'What's the meaning of all this?' he asked himself, and not for the first time. 'What makes them treat me in this fashion? A week ago I came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just because I'd run down to my last penny, and I didn't know where to find a night's lodging. I'd got an idea, too, that I should like to find out what had become of my child, whom I left here nine or ten years ago; possibly she was still alive, and might welcome the duty of supporting her parent. The chance was, to be sure, that the girl had long since been in her grave, and that Mrs. Peckover no longer lived in the old quarters; if I discovered the woman, on the other hand, she was not very likely to give me an affectionate reception, seeing that I found it inconvenient to keep sending her money for Jane's keep in the old days. The queer thing is, that everything turned out exactly the opposite of what I had expected. Mrs. Peckover had rather a sour face at first, but after a little talk she began to seem quite glad to see me. She put me into a room, undertook to board me for a while--till I find work, and I wonder when _that_'ll be?--and blest if this strapping daughter of hers doesn't seem to have fallen in love with me from the first go off! As for my girl, I'm told she was carried off by her grandfather, my old dad, three years ago, and where they went nobody knows. Very puzzling all this. How on earth came it that Mrs. Peckover kept the child so long, and didn't send her to the workhouse? If I'm to believe _her_, she took a motherly kindness for the poor brat. But that won't exactly go down with J. J. Snowdon; he's seen a bit too much in his knocking about the world, Still, what if I'm making a mistake about the old woman? There _are_ some people do things of that sort; upon my soul, I've known people be kind even to me, without a chance of being paid back! You may think you know a man or a woman, and then all at once they'll go and do something you'd have taken your davy couldn't possibly happen. I'd have sworn she was nothing but a skinflint and a lying old witch. And so she maybe; the chances are there's some game going on that I can't see through. Make inquiries? Why, so I have done, as far as I know how. I've only been able to hit on one person who knows anything about the matter, and he tells me it's true enough the girl was taken away about three years ago, but he's no idea where she went to. Surely the old man must be dead b now, though he _was_ tough. Well, the fact of the matter is, I've got a good berth, and I'm a precious sight too lazy to go on the private detective job. Here's this girl Clem, the finest bit of flesh I've seen for a long time; I've more than half a mind to see if she won't be fool enough to marry me. I'm not a bad-looking fellow, that's the truth, and she may have taken a real liking to me. Seems to me that I should have come in for a Comfortable thing in my old age; if I haven't a daughter to provide for my needs, at all events I shall have a wife who can be persuaded into doing so. When the old woman gets out of the way I must have a little quiet talk with Clem.' The opportunity he desired was not long in offering itself. Having made an excellent breakfast, he dragged his chair up to the fender again, and reached a pipe from the mantel-piece, where he had left it last night. Tobacco he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket; it came forth in the form of yellowish dust, intermingled with all sorts of alien scraps. When he had lit his pipe, he poised the chair on its hind-legs, clasped his hands over his bald crown, and continued his musing with an air of amiable calm. Smoke curled up from the corner of his loose lips, and occasionally, removing his pipe for an instant, he spat skilfully between the bars of the grate. Assured of his comfort, Mrs. Peckover said she must go and look after certain domestic duties. Her daughter had begun to clean some vegetables that would be cooked for dinner. 'How old may you be, Clem?' Mr. Snowdon inquired genially, when they had been alone together for a few minutes. 'What's that to you? Guess.' 'Why, let me see; you was not much more than a baby when I went away. You'll be eighteen or nineteen, I suppose.' 'Yes, I'm nineteen--last sixth of February. Pity you come too late to give me a birthday present, ain't it?' 'Ah! And who'd have thought you'd have grown up such a beauty! I say, Clem, how many of the young chaps about here have been wanting to marry you, eh?' 'A dozen or two, I dessay,' Clem replied, shrugging her shoulders scornfully. Mr. Snowdon laughed, and then spat into the fire. 'Tell me about some o' them, will you? Who is it you're keeping company with now?' 'Who, indeed? Why, there isn't one I'd look at! Several of 'em's took to drinking 'cause I won't have nothing to do with 'em.' This excited Mr. Snowdon's mirth in a high degree; he rolled on his chair, and almost pitched backwards. 'I suppose you give one or other a bit of encouragement now and then, just to make a fool of him, eh?' 'Course I do. There was Bob Hewett; he used to lodge here, but that was after your time. I kep' him off an' on till he couldn't bear it no longer; then he went an' married a common slut of a thing, just because he thought it 'ud make me mad. Ha, ha! I believe he'd give her poison an' risk it any day, if only I promised to marry him afterwards. Then there was a feller called Jeck Bartley. I set him an' Bob fightin' one Bank-holiday--you should a' seen 'em go at it! Jack went an' got married a year ago to a girl called Suke Jollop; her mother forced him. How I did laugh! Last Christmas Day they smashed up their 'ome an' threw the bits out into the street. Jack got one of his eyes knocked out--I thought I should a' died o' laughin' when I saw him next mornin'.' The hearer became uproarious in merriment. 'Tell you what it is, Clem,' he cried, 'you're something like a girl! Darn me if I don't like you! I say, I wonder what my daughter's grown up? Like her mother, I suppose. You an' she was sort of sisters, wasn't you?' He observed her closely. Clem laughed and shrugged her shoulders. 'Queer sort o' sisters. She was a bit too quiet-like for me. There never was no fun in her.' 'Aye, like her mother. And where did you say she went to with the old man?' 'Where she went to?' repeated Clem, regarding him steadily with her big eyes, 'I never said nothing about it, 'cause I didn't know.' 'Well, I shan't cry about her, and I don't suppose she misses me much, wherever she is. All the same, Clem, I'm a domesticated sort of man; you can see that, can't you? I shouldn't wonder if I marry again one of these first days. Just tell me where to find a girl of the right sort. I dare say you know heaps.' 'Dessay I do. What sort do you want?' 'Oh, a littlish girl--yellow hair, you know--one of them that look as if they didn't weigh half-a-stone.' 'I'll throw this parsnip at you, Mr. Snowdon!' 'What's up now. You don't Call yourself littlish, do you?' Clem snapped the small end off the vegetable she was paring, and aimed it at his head. He ducked just in time. Then there was an outburst of laughter from both. 'Say, Clem, you haven't got a glass of beer in the house?' 'You'll have to wait till openin' time,' replied the girl sourly, going away to the far end of the room. 'Have I offended you, Clem?' 'Offended, indeed. As if I cared what you say!' 'Do you care what I think?' 'Not I!' 'That means you do. Say, Clem, just come here; I've something to tell you.' 'You're a nuisance. Let me get on with my work, can't you?' 'No, I can't. You just come here. You'd better not give me the trouble of fetching you!' The girl obeyed him. Her cheeks were very hot, and the danger-signal was flashing in her eyes. Ten minutes later she went upstairs, and had a vivacious dialogue of whispers with Mrs. Peckover. CHAPTER XV SUNLIGHT IN DREARY PLACES Among the by-ways of Clerkenwell you might, with some difficulty, have discovered an establishment known in its neighbourhood as 'Whitehead's.' It was an artificial-flower factory, and the rooms of which it consisted were only to be reached by traversing a timber-yard, and then mounting a wooden staircase outside a saw-mill. Here at busy seasons worked some threescore women and girls, who, owing to the nature of their occupation, were spoken of by the jocose youth of the locality as 'Whitehead's pastepots.' Naturally they varied much in age and aspect. There was the child who had newly left school, and was now invited to consider the question of how to keep herself alive; there was the woman of uncertain age, who had spent long years of long days in the atmosphere of workrooms, and showed the result in her parchmenty cheek and lack-lustre eye; and between these extremes came all the various types of the London crafts-girl: she who is young enough to hope that disappointments may yet be made up for by the future; she who is already tasting such scanty good as life had in store for her; she who has outlived her illusions and no longer cares to look beyond the close of the week. If regularly engaged as time-workers, they made themselves easy in the prospect of wages that allowed them to sleep under a roof and eat at certain intervals of the day; if employed on piece-work they might at any moment find themselves wageless, but this, being a familiar state of things, did not trouble them. With few exceptions, they were clad neatly; on the whole, they plied their task in wonderful contentment. The general tone of conversation among them was not high; moralists unfamiliar with the ways of the nether world would probably have applied a term other than negative to the laughing discussions which now and then enlivened this or that group; but it was very seldom indeed that a child newly arriving heard anything with which she was not already perfectly familiar. One afternoon at the end of May there penetrated into the largest of the workrooms that rarest of visitants, a stray sunbeam. Only if the sun happened to shine at given moments could any of its light fall directly into the room I speak of; this afternoon, however, all circumstances were favourable, and behold the floor chequered with uncertain gleam. The workers were arranged in groups of three, called 'parties,' consisting of a learner, an improver, and a hand. All sat with sleeves pushed up to their elbows, and had a habit of rocking to and fro as they plied their mechanical industry. Owing to the movement of a cloud, the sunlight spread gradually towards one of these groups; it touched the skirt, the arms, the head of one of the girls, who, as if gladdened by the kindly warmth, looked round and smiled. A smile you would have been pleased to observe--unconscious, gently thoughtful, rich in possibilities of happiness. She was quite a young girl, certainly not seventeen, and wore a smooth grey dress, with a white linen collar; her brown hair was closely plaited, her head well-shaped, the bend of her neck very graceful. From her bare arms it could be seen that she was anything but robustly made, yet her general appearance was not one of ill-health, and she held herself, even thus late in the day, far more uprightly than most of her companions. Had you watched her for a while, you would have noticed that her eyes occasionally strayed beyond the work-table, and, perhaps unconsciously, fixed themselves for some moments on one or other of the girls near her; when she remembered herself and looked down again upon her task, there rose to her face a smile of the subtlest meaning, the outcome of busy reflection. By her side was a little girl just beginning to learn the work, whose employment it was to paper wires and make 'centres.' This toil always results in blistered fingers, and frequent was the child's appeal to her neighbour for sympathy. 'It'll be easier soon,' said the latter, on one of these occasions, bending her head to speak in a low voice. 'You should have seen what blisters I had when I began.' 'It's all very well to say that. I can't do no more, so there Oh, when'll it be five o'clock?' 'It's a quarter to. Try and go on, Annie.' Five o'clock did come at length, and with it twenty minutes' rest for tea. The rule at Whitehead's was, that you could either bring your own tea, sugar, and eatables, or purchase them here from a forewoman; most of the workers chose to provide themselves. It was customary for each 'party' to club together, emptying their several contributions of tea out of little twists of newspaper into one teapot. Wholesome bustle and confusion succeeded to the former silence. One of the learners, whose turn it was to run on errands, was overwhelmed with commissions to a chandler's shop close by; a wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and they called her, because of her slowness, the 'funeral horse.' She had strange habits, which made laughter for those who knew of them; for instance, it was her custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her poor scraps on a doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a companion that the odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a relish. From her present errand she returned with a strange variety of dainties--for it was early in the week, and the girls still had coppers in their pockets; for two or three she had purchased a farthing's-worth of jam, which she carried in paper. A bite of this and a taste of that rewarded her for her trouble. The quiet-mannered girl whom we were observing took her cup of tea from the pot in which she had a share, and from her bag produced some folded pieces of bread and butter. She had begun her meal, when there came and sat down by her a young woman of very different appearance--our friend, Miss Peckover. They were old acquaintances; but when we first saw them together it would have been difficult to imagine that they would ever sit and converse as at present, apparently in all friendliness. Strange to say, it was Clem who, during the past three years, had been the active one in seeking to obliterate disagreeable memories. The younger girl had never repelled her, but was long in overcoming the dread excited by Clem's proximity. Even now she never looked straight into Miss Peckover's face, as she did when speaking with others; there was reserve in her manner, reserve unmistakable, though clothed with her pleasant smile and amiable voice. 'I've got something to tell you, Jane,' Clem began, in a tone inaudible to those who were sitting near. 'Something as'll surprise you.' 'What is it, I wonder?' 'You must swear you won't tell nobody.' Jane nodded. Then the other brought her head a little nearer, and whispered: 'I'm goin' to be married!' 'Are you really?' 'In a week. Who do you think it is? Somebody as you know of, but if you guessed till next Christmas you'd never come right.' Nor had Clem any intention of revealing the name, but she laughed consumedly, as if her reticence covered the most amusing situation conceivable. 'It'll be the biggest surprise you ever had in your life. You've swore you won't speak about it. I don't think I shall come to work after this week--but you'll have to come an' see us. You'll promise to, won't you?' Still convulsed with mirth, Clem went off to another part of the room. From Jane's countenance the look of amusement which she had perforce summoned soon passed; it was succeeded by a shadow almost of pain, and not till she had been at work again for nearly an hour was the former placidity restored to her. When final release came, Jane was among the first to hasten down the wooden staircase and get clear of the timber yard. By the direct way, it took her twenty minutes to walk from Whitehead's to her home in Hanover Street, but this evening she had an object in turning aside. The visit she wished to pay took her into a disagreeable quarter, a street of squalid houses, swarming with yet more squalid children. On all the doorsteps Bat little girls, themselves only just out of infancy, nursing or neglecting bald, red-eyed, doughy-limbed abortions in every stage of babyhood, hapless spawn of diseased humanity, born to embitter and brutalise yet further the lot of those who unwillingly gave them life. With wide, pitiful eyes Jane looked at each group she passed. Three years ago she would have seen nothing but the ordinary and the inevitable in such spectacles, but since then her moral and intellectual being had grown on rare nourishment; there was indignation as well as heartache in the feeling with which she had learnt to regard the world of her familiarity. To enter the house at which she paused it was necessary to squeeze through a conglomerate of dirty little bodies. At the head of the first flight of stairs she came upon a girl sitting in a weary attitude on the top step and beating the wood listlessly with the last remnant of a hearth-brush; on her lap was one more specimen of the infinitely-multiplied baby, and a child of two years sprawled behind her on the landing. 'Waiting for him to come home, Pennyloaf?' said Jane. 'Oh, is that you, Miss Snowdon!' exclaimed the other, returning to consciousness and manifesting some shame at being discovered in this position. Hastily she drew together the front of her dress, which for the baby's sake had been wide open, and rose to her feet. Pennyloaf was not a bit more womanly in figure than on the day of her marriage; her voice was still an immature treble; the same rueful irresponsibility marked her features; but all her poor prettiness was wasted under the disfigurement of pains and cares, Incongruously enough, she wore a gown of bright-patterned calico, and about her neck had a collar of pretentious lace; her hair was dressed as if for a holiday, and a daub recently made on her cheeks by the baby's fingers lent emphasis to the fact that she had but a little while ago washed herself with much care. 'I can't stop,' said Jane, 'but I thought I'd just look in and speak a word. How have you been getting on?' 'Oh, do come in for just a minute!' pleaded Pennyloaf, moving backwards to an open door, whither Jane followed. They entered a room--much like other rooms that we have looked into from time to time. Following the nomadic custom of their kind, Bob Hewett and his wife had lived in six or seven different lodgings since their honeymoon in Shooter's Gardens. Mrs. Candy first of all made a change necessary, as might have been anticipated, and the restlessness of domestic ill-being subsequently drove them from place to place. 'Come in 'ere, Johnny,' she Called to the child lying on the landing. 'What's the good o' washin' you, I'd like to know? Just see, Miss Snowdon, he's made his face all white with the milk as the boy spilt on the stairs! Take this brush an' play with it, do! I _can't_ keep 'em clean, Miss Snowdon, so it's no use talkin'.' 'Are you going somewhere to-night?' Jane inquired, with a glance at the strange costume. Pennyloaf looked up and down in a shamefaced way. 'I only did it just because I thought he might like to see me. He promised me faithful as he'd come 'ome to-night, and I thought--it's only somethink as got into my 'ed to-day, Miss Snowdon.' 'But hasn't he been coming home since I saw you last?' 'He did just once, an' then it was all the old ways again. I did what you told me; I did, as sure as I'm a-standin' 'ere! I made the room so clean you wouldn't have believed; I scrubbed the floor an' the table, an' I washed the winders--you can see they ain't dirty yet. An' he'd never a' paid a bit o' notice if I hadn't told him, He was jolly enough for one night, just like he can be when he likes. But I knew as it wouldn't last, an' the next night he was off with a lot o' fellers an' girls, same as ever. I didn't make no row when he came 'ome; I wish I may die if I said a word to set his back up! An' I've gone on just the same all the week; we haven't had not the least bit of a row; so you see I kep' my promise. But it's no good; he won't come 'ome; he's always got fellers an' girls to go round with. He took his hoath as he'd come back to-night, an' then it come into my 'ed as I'd put my best things on, just to--you know what I mean, Miss Snowdon. But he won't come before twelve o'clock; I know he won't. An' I get that low sittin' 'ere, you can't think I can't go nowhere, because o' the children. If it wasn't for them I could go to work again, an' I'd be that glad; I feel as if my 'ed would drop off sometimes! I _ham_ so glad you just come in!' Jane had tried so many forms of encouragement, of consolation, on previous occasions that she knew not how to repeat herself. She was ashamed to speak words which sounded so hollow and profitless. This silence was only too significant to Pennyloaf, and in a moment she exclaimed with querulous energy: 'I know what'll be the bend of it! I'll go an' do like mother does--I will! I will! I'll put my ring away, an' I'll go an' sit all night in the public-'ouse! It's what all the others does, an' I'll do the same. I often feel I'm a fool to go on like this. I don't know what I live for, P'r'aps he'll be sorry when I get run in like mother.' 'Don't talk like that, Pennyloaf!' cried Jane, stamping her foot, (It was odd how completely difference of character had reversed their natural relations to each other; Pennyloaf was the child, Jane the mature woman.) 'You know better, and you've no right to give way to such thoughts. I was going to say I'd come and be with you all Saturday afternoon, but I don't know whether I shall now. And I'd been thinking you might like to come and see me on Sunday, but I can't have people that go to the public-house, so we won't say anything more about it. I shall have to be off; good-bye!' She stepped to the door. 'Miss Snowdon!' Jane turned, and after an instant of mock severity, broke into a laugh which seemed to fill the wretched den with sunlight. Words, too, she found; words of soothing influence such as leap from the heart to the tongue in spite of the heavy thoughts that try to check them. Pennyloaf was learning to depend upon these words for strength in her desolation. They did not excite her to much hopefulness, but there was a sustaining power in their sweet sincerity which made all the difference between despair tending to evil and the sigh of renewed effort. 'I don't care,' Pennyloaf had got into the habit of thinking, after her friend's departure, 'I won't give up as long as she looks in now and then.' Out from the swarm of babies Jane hurried homewards. She had a reason for wishing to be back in good time to-night; it was Wednesday, and on Wednesday evening there was wont to come a visitor, who sat for a couple of hours in her grandfather's room and talked, talked--the most interesting talk Jane had ever heard or could imagine. A latch-key admitted her; she ran up to the second floor. A voice from the front-room caught her ear; certainly not _his_ voice--it was too early--but that of some unusual visitor. She was on the point of entering her own chamber, when the other door opened, and somebody exclaimed, 'Ah, here she is!' The speaker was an old gentleman, dressed in black, bald, with small and rather rugged features; his voice was pleasant. A gold chain and a bunch of seals shone against his waistcoat, also a pair of eye-glasses. A professional man, obviously. Jane remembered that she had seen him once before, about a year ago, when he had talked with her for a few minutes, very kindly. 'Will you come in here, Jane?' her grandfather's voice called to her. Snowdon had changed much. Old age was heavy upon his shoulders, and had even produced a slight tremulousness in his hands; his voice told the same story of enfeeblement. Even more noticeable was the ageing of his countenance. Something more, however, than the progress of time seemed to be here at work. He looked strangely careworn; his forehead was set in lines of anxiety; his mouth expressed a nervousness of which formerly there had been no trace. One would have said that some harassing preoccupation must have seized his mind. His eyes were no longer merely sad and absent, but restless with fatiguing thought. As Jane entered the room he fixed his gaze upon her--a gaze that appeared to reveal worrying apprehension. 'You remember Mr. Percival, Jane,' he said. The old gentleman thus presented held out his hand with something of fatherly geniality. 'Miss Snowdon, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again before long, but just now I am carrying off your grandfather for a couple of hours, and indeed we

bits

How many times the word 'bits' appears in the text?

worn by a man above the mechanic ranks), but it was patched with dirt of many kinds, and held together by a most inadequate supply of buttons. At present he wore no collar, and his waistcoat, half-open, exposed a red shirt. 'Why, you're all a-blowin' and a-growin' this morning, Peckover,' was his first observation, as he dropped heavily into a wooden arm-chair. 'I shall begin to think that colour of yours ain't natural. Dare you let me rub it with a handkerchief?' 'Course I dare,' replied Clem, tossing her head. 'Don't be so forward, Mr. Snowdon.' 'Forward? Not I. I'm behind time if anything. I hope I haven't kept you from church.' He chuckled at his double joke. Mother and daughter laughed appreciatively. 'Will you take your eggs boiled or fried?' inquired Mrs. Peckover. 'Going to give me eggs, are you? Well, I've no objection, I assure you. And I think I'll have them fried, Mrs. Peckover. But, I say, you mustn't be running up too big a bill. The Lord only knows when I shall get anything to do, and it ain't very likely to be a thousand a year when it does come.' 'Oh, that's all right,' replied the landlady, as if sordid calculation were a thing impossible to her. 'I can't say as you behaved quite straightforward years ago, Mr. Snowdon, but I ain't one to make a row about bygones, an' as you say you'll put it all straight as soon as you can, well, I won't refuse to trust you once more.' Mr. Snowdon lay back in the chair, his hands in his waistcoat pockets, his legs outstretched upon the fender. He was smiling placidly, now at the preparing breakfast, now at Clem. The latter he plainly regarded with much admiration, and cared not to conceal it. When, in a few minutes, it was announced to him that the meal was ready, he dragged his chair up to the table and reseated himself with a sigh of satisfaction. A dish of excellent ham, and eggs as nearly fresh as can be obtained in Clerkenwell, invited him with appetising odour; a large cup of what is known to the generality of English people as coffee steamed at his right hand; slices of new bread lay ready cut upon a plate; a slab of the most expensive substitute for butter caught his eye with yellow promise; vinegar and mustard appealed to the refinements of his taste. 'I've got a couple more eggs, if you'd like them doin',' said Mrs. Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the viands. 'I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,' returned Mr. Snowdon. As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly in consequence of the activity of his mind. He was, in fact, musing upon a question which he found it very difficult to answer in any satisfactory way. 'What's the meaning of all this?' he asked himself, and not for the first time. 'What makes them treat me in this fashion? A week ago I came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just because I'd run down to my last penny, and I didn't know where to find a night's lodging. I'd got an idea, too, that I should like to find out what had become of my child, whom I left here nine or ten years ago; possibly she was still alive, and might welcome the duty of supporting her parent. The chance was, to be sure, that the girl had long since been in her grave, and that Mrs. Peckover no longer lived in the old quarters; if I discovered the woman, on the other hand, she was not very likely to give me an affectionate reception, seeing that I found it inconvenient to keep sending her money for Jane's keep in the old days. The queer thing is, that everything turned out exactly the opposite of what I had expected. Mrs. Peckover had rather a sour face at first, but after a little talk she began to seem quite glad to see me. She put me into a room, undertook to board me for a while--till I find work, and I wonder when _that_'ll be?--and blest if this strapping daughter of hers doesn't seem to have fallen in love with me from the first go off! As for my girl, I'm told she was carried off by her grandfather, my old dad, three years ago, and where they went nobody knows. Very puzzling all this. How on earth came it that Mrs. Peckover kept the child so long, and didn't send her to the workhouse? If I'm to believe _her_, she took a motherly kindness for the poor brat. But that won't exactly go down with J. J. Snowdon; he's seen a bit too much in his knocking about the world, Still, what if I'm making a mistake about the old woman? There _are_ some people do things of that sort; upon my soul, I've known people be kind even to me, without a chance of being paid back! You may think you know a man or a woman, and then all at once they'll go and do something you'd have taken your davy couldn't possibly happen. I'd have sworn she was nothing but a skinflint and a lying old witch. And so she maybe; the chances are there's some game going on that I can't see through. Make inquiries? Why, so I have done, as far as I know how. I've only been able to hit on one person who knows anything about the matter, and he tells me it's true enough the girl was taken away about three years ago, but he's no idea where she went to. Surely the old man must be dead b now, though he _was_ tough. Well, the fact of the matter is, I've got a good berth, and I'm a precious sight too lazy to go on the private detective job. Here's this girl Clem, the finest bit of flesh I've seen for a long time; I've more than half a mind to see if she won't be fool enough to marry me. I'm not a bad-looking fellow, that's the truth, and she may have taken a real liking to me. Seems to me that I should have come in for a Comfortable thing in my old age; if I haven't a daughter to provide for my needs, at all events I shall have a wife who can be persuaded into doing so. When the old woman gets out of the way I must have a little quiet talk with Clem.' The opportunity he desired was not long in offering itself. Having made an excellent breakfast, he dragged his chair up to the fender again, and reached a pipe from the mantel-piece, where he had left it last night. Tobacco he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket; it came forth in the form of yellowish dust, intermingled with all sorts of alien scraps. When he had lit his pipe, he poised the chair on its hind-legs, clasped his hands over his bald crown, and continued his musing with an air of amiable calm. Smoke curled up from the corner of his loose lips, and occasionally, removing his pipe for an instant, he spat skilfully between the bars of the grate. Assured of his comfort, Mrs. Peckover said she must go and look after certain domestic duties. Her daughter had begun to clean some vegetables that would be cooked for dinner. 'How old may you be, Clem?' Mr. Snowdon inquired genially, when they had been alone together for a few minutes. 'What's that to you? Guess.' 'Why, let me see; you was not much more than a baby when I went away. You'll be eighteen or nineteen, I suppose.' 'Yes, I'm nineteen--last sixth of February. Pity you come too late to give me a birthday present, ain't it?' 'Ah! And who'd have thought you'd have grown up such a beauty! I say, Clem, how many of the young chaps about here have been wanting to marry you, eh?' 'A dozen or two, I dessay,' Clem replied, shrugging her shoulders scornfully. Mr. Snowdon laughed, and then spat into the fire. 'Tell me about some o' them, will you? Who is it you're keeping company with now?' 'Who, indeed? Why, there isn't one I'd look at! Several of 'em's took to drinking 'cause I won't have nothing to do with 'em.' This excited Mr. Snowdon's mirth in a high degree; he rolled on his chair, and almost pitched backwards. 'I suppose you give one or other a bit of encouragement now and then, just to make a fool of him, eh?' 'Course I do. There was Bob Hewett; he used to lodge here, but that was after your time. I kep' him off an' on till he couldn't bear it no longer; then he went an' married a common slut of a thing, just because he thought it 'ud make me mad. Ha, ha! I believe he'd give her poison an' risk it any day, if only I promised to marry him afterwards. Then there was a feller called Jeck Bartley. I set him an' Bob fightin' one Bank-holiday--you should a' seen 'em go at it! Jack went an' got married a year ago to a girl called Suke Jollop; her mother forced him. How I did laugh! Last Christmas Day they smashed up their 'ome an' threw the bits out into the street. Jack got one of his eyes knocked out--I thought I should a' died o' laughin' when I saw him next mornin'.' The hearer became uproarious in merriment. 'Tell you what it is, Clem,' he cried, 'you're something like a girl! Darn me if I don't like you! I say, I wonder what my daughter's grown up? Like her mother, I suppose. You an' she was sort of sisters, wasn't you?' He observed her closely. Clem laughed and shrugged her shoulders. 'Queer sort o' sisters. She was a bit too quiet-like for me. There never was no fun in her.' 'Aye, like her mother. And where did you say she went to with the old man?' 'Where she went to?' repeated Clem, regarding him steadily with her big eyes, 'I never said nothing about it, 'cause I didn't know.' 'Well, I shan't cry about her, and I don't suppose she misses me much, wherever she is. All the same, Clem, I'm a domesticated sort of man; you can see that, can't you? I shouldn't wonder if I marry again one of these first days. Just tell me where to find a girl of the right sort. I dare say you know heaps.' 'Dessay I do. What sort do you want?' 'Oh, a littlish girl--yellow hair, you know--one of them that look as if they didn't weigh half-a-stone.' 'I'll throw this parsnip at you, Mr. Snowdon!' 'What's up now. You don't Call yourself littlish, do you?' Clem snapped the small end off the vegetable she was paring, and aimed it at his head. He ducked just in time. Then there was an outburst of laughter from both. 'Say, Clem, you haven't got a glass of beer in the house?' 'You'll have to wait till openin' time,' replied the girl sourly, going away to the far end of the room. 'Have I offended you, Clem?' 'Offended, indeed. As if I cared what you say!' 'Do you care what I think?' 'Not I!' 'That means you do. Say, Clem, just come here; I've something to tell you.' 'You're a nuisance. Let me get on with my work, can't you?' 'No, I can't. You just come here. You'd better not give me the trouble of fetching you!' The girl obeyed him. Her cheeks were very hot, and the danger-signal was flashing in her eyes. Ten minutes later she went upstairs, and had a vivacious dialogue of whispers with Mrs. Peckover. CHAPTER XV SUNLIGHT IN DREARY PLACES Among the by-ways of Clerkenwell you might, with some difficulty, have discovered an establishment known in its neighbourhood as 'Whitehead's.' It was an artificial-flower factory, and the rooms of which it consisted were only to be reached by traversing a timber-yard, and then mounting a wooden staircase outside a saw-mill. Here at busy seasons worked some threescore women and girls, who, owing to the nature of their occupation, were spoken of by the jocose youth of the locality as 'Whitehead's pastepots.' Naturally they varied much in age and aspect. There was the child who had newly left school, and was now invited to consider the question of how to keep herself alive; there was the woman of uncertain age, who had spent long years of long days in the atmosphere of workrooms, and showed the result in her parchmenty cheek and lack-lustre eye; and between these extremes came all the various types of the London crafts-girl: she who is young enough to hope that disappointments may yet be made up for by the future; she who is already tasting such scanty good as life had in store for her; she who has outlived her illusions and no longer cares to look beyond the close of the week. If regularly engaged as time-workers, they made themselves easy in the prospect of wages that allowed them to sleep under a roof and eat at certain intervals of the day; if employed on piece-work they might at any moment find themselves wageless, but this, being a familiar state of things, did not trouble them. With few exceptions, they were clad neatly; on the whole, they plied their task in wonderful contentment. The general tone of conversation among them was not high; moralists unfamiliar with the ways of the nether world would probably have applied a term other than negative to the laughing discussions which now and then enlivened this or that group; but it was very seldom indeed that a child newly arriving heard anything with which she was not already perfectly familiar. One afternoon at the end of May there penetrated into the largest of the workrooms that rarest of visitants, a stray sunbeam. Only if the sun happened to shine at given moments could any of its light fall directly into the room I speak of; this afternoon, however, all circumstances were favourable, and behold the floor chequered with uncertain gleam. The workers were arranged in groups of three, called 'parties,' consisting of a learner, an improver, and a hand. All sat with sleeves pushed up to their elbows, and had a habit of rocking to and fro as they plied their mechanical industry. Owing to the movement of a cloud, the sunlight spread gradually towards one of these groups; it touched the skirt, the arms, the head of one of the girls, who, as if gladdened by the kindly warmth, looked round and smiled. A smile you would have been pleased to observe--unconscious, gently thoughtful, rich in possibilities of happiness. She was quite a young girl, certainly not seventeen, and wore a smooth grey dress, with a white linen collar; her brown hair was closely plaited, her head well-shaped, the bend of her neck very graceful. From her bare arms it could be seen that she was anything but robustly made, yet her general appearance was not one of ill-health, and she held herself, even thus late in the day, far more uprightly than most of her companions. Had you watched her for a while, you would have noticed that her eyes occasionally strayed beyond the work-table, and, perhaps unconsciously, fixed themselves for some moments on one or other of the girls near her; when she remembered herself and looked down again upon her task, there rose to her face a smile of the subtlest meaning, the outcome of busy reflection. By her side was a little girl just beginning to learn the work, whose employment it was to paper wires and make 'centres.' This toil always results in blistered fingers, and frequent was the child's appeal to her neighbour for sympathy. 'It'll be easier soon,' said the latter, on one of these occasions, bending her head to speak in a low voice. 'You should have seen what blisters I had when I began.' 'It's all very well to say that. I can't do no more, so there Oh, when'll it be five o'clock?' 'It's a quarter to. Try and go on, Annie.' Five o'clock did come at length, and with it twenty minutes' rest for tea. The rule at Whitehead's was, that you could either bring your own tea, sugar, and eatables, or purchase them here from a forewoman; most of the workers chose to provide themselves. It was customary for each 'party' to club together, emptying their several contributions of tea out of little twists of newspaper into one teapot. Wholesome bustle and confusion succeeded to the former silence. One of the learners, whose turn it was to run on errands, was overwhelmed with commissions to a chandler's shop close by; a wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and they called her, because of her slowness, the 'funeral horse.' She had strange habits, which made laughter for those who knew of them; for instance, it was her custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her poor scraps on a doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a companion that the odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a relish. From her present errand she returned with a strange variety of dainties--for it was early in the week, and the girls still had coppers in their pockets; for two or three she had purchased a farthing's-worth of jam, which she carried in paper. A bite of this and a taste of that rewarded her for her trouble. The quiet-mannered girl whom we were observing took her cup of tea from the pot in which she had a share, and from her bag produced some folded pieces of bread and butter. She had begun her meal, when there came and sat down by her a young woman of very different appearance--our friend, Miss Peckover. They were old acquaintances; but when we first saw them together it would have been difficult to imagine that they would ever sit and converse as at present, apparently in all friendliness. Strange to say, it was Clem who, during the past three years, had been the active one in seeking to obliterate disagreeable memories. The younger girl had never repelled her, but was long in overcoming the dread excited by Clem's proximity. Even now she never looked straight into Miss Peckover's face, as she did when speaking with others; there was reserve in her manner, reserve unmistakable, though clothed with her pleasant smile and amiable voice. 'I've got something to tell you, Jane,' Clem began, in a tone inaudible to those who were sitting near. 'Something as'll surprise you.' 'What is it, I wonder?' 'You must swear you won't tell nobody.' Jane nodded. Then the other brought her head a little nearer, and whispered: 'I'm goin' to be married!' 'Are you really?' 'In a week. Who do you think it is? Somebody as you know of, but if you guessed till next Christmas you'd never come right.' Nor had Clem any intention of revealing the name, but she laughed consumedly, as if her reticence covered the most amusing situation conceivable. 'It'll be the biggest surprise you ever had in your life. You've swore you won't speak about it. I don't think I shall come to work after this week--but you'll have to come an' see us. You'll promise to, won't you?' Still convulsed with mirth, Clem went off to another part of the room. From Jane's countenance the look of amusement which she had perforce summoned soon passed; it was succeeded by a shadow almost of pain, and not till she had been at work again for nearly an hour was the former placidity restored to her. When final release came, Jane was among the first to hasten down the wooden staircase and get clear of the timber yard. By the direct way, it took her twenty minutes to walk from Whitehead's to her home in Hanover Street, but this evening she had an object in turning aside. The visit she wished to pay took her into a disagreeable quarter, a street of squalid houses, swarming with yet more squalid children. On all the doorsteps Bat little girls, themselves only just out of infancy, nursing or neglecting bald, red-eyed, doughy-limbed abortions in every stage of babyhood, hapless spawn of diseased humanity, born to embitter and brutalise yet further the lot of those who unwillingly gave them life. With wide, pitiful eyes Jane looked at each group she passed. Three years ago she would have seen nothing but the ordinary and the inevitable in such spectacles, but since then her moral and intellectual being had grown on rare nourishment; there was indignation as well as heartache in the feeling with which she had learnt to regard the world of her familiarity. To enter the house at which she paused it was necessary to squeeze through a conglomerate of dirty little bodies. At the head of the first flight of stairs she came upon a girl sitting in a weary attitude on the top step and beating the wood listlessly with the last remnant of a hearth-brush; on her lap was one more specimen of the infinitely-multiplied baby, and a child of two years sprawled behind her on the landing. 'Waiting for him to come home, Pennyloaf?' said Jane. 'Oh, is that you, Miss Snowdon!' exclaimed the other, returning to consciousness and manifesting some shame at being discovered in this position. Hastily she drew together the front of her dress, which for the baby's sake had been wide open, and rose to her feet. Pennyloaf was not a bit more womanly in figure than on the day of her marriage; her voice was still an immature treble; the same rueful irresponsibility marked her features; but all her poor prettiness was wasted under the disfigurement of pains and cares, Incongruously enough, she wore a gown of bright-patterned calico, and about her neck had a collar of pretentious lace; her hair was dressed as if for a holiday, and a daub recently made on her cheeks by the baby's fingers lent emphasis to the fact that she had but a little while ago washed herself with much care. 'I can't stop,' said Jane, 'but I thought I'd just look in and speak a word. How have you been getting on?' 'Oh, do come in for just a minute!' pleaded Pennyloaf, moving backwards to an open door, whither Jane followed. They entered a room--much like other rooms that we have looked into from time to time. Following the nomadic custom of their kind, Bob Hewett and his wife had lived in six or seven different lodgings since their honeymoon in Shooter's Gardens. Mrs. Candy first of all made a change necessary, as might have been anticipated, and the restlessness of domestic ill-being subsequently drove them from place to place. 'Come in 'ere, Johnny,' she Called to the child lying on the landing. 'What's the good o' washin' you, I'd like to know? Just see, Miss Snowdon, he's made his face all white with the milk as the boy spilt on the stairs! Take this brush an' play with it, do! I _can't_ keep 'em clean, Miss Snowdon, so it's no use talkin'.' 'Are you going somewhere to-night?' Jane inquired, with a glance at the strange costume. Pennyloaf looked up and down in a shamefaced way. 'I only did it just because I thought he might like to see me. He promised me faithful as he'd come 'ome to-night, and I thought--it's only somethink as got into my 'ed to-day, Miss Snowdon.' 'But hasn't he been coming home since I saw you last?' 'He did just once, an' then it was all the old ways again. I did what you told me; I did, as sure as I'm a-standin' 'ere! I made the room so clean you wouldn't have believed; I scrubbed the floor an' the table, an' I washed the winders--you can see they ain't dirty yet. An' he'd never a' paid a bit o' notice if I hadn't told him, He was jolly enough for one night, just like he can be when he likes. But I knew as it wouldn't last, an' the next night he was off with a lot o' fellers an' girls, same as ever. I didn't make no row when he came 'ome; I wish I may die if I said a word to set his back up! An' I've gone on just the same all the week; we haven't had not the least bit of a row; so you see I kep' my promise. But it's no good; he won't come 'ome; he's always got fellers an' girls to go round with. He took his hoath as he'd come back to-night, an' then it come into my 'ed as I'd put my best things on, just to--you know what I mean, Miss Snowdon. But he won't come before twelve o'clock; I know he won't. An' I get that low sittin' 'ere, you can't think I can't go nowhere, because o' the children. If it wasn't for them I could go to work again, an' I'd be that glad; I feel as if my 'ed would drop off sometimes! I _ham_ so glad you just come in!' Jane had tried so many forms of encouragement, of consolation, on previous occasions that she knew not how to repeat herself. She was ashamed to speak words which sounded so hollow and profitless. This silence was only too significant to Pennyloaf, and in a moment she exclaimed with querulous energy: 'I know what'll be the bend of it! I'll go an' do like mother does--I will! I will! I'll put my ring away, an' I'll go an' sit all night in the public-'ouse! It's what all the others does, an' I'll do the same. I often feel I'm a fool to go on like this. I don't know what I live for, P'r'aps he'll be sorry when I get run in like mother.' 'Don't talk like that, Pennyloaf!' cried Jane, stamping her foot, (It was odd how completely difference of character had reversed their natural relations to each other; Pennyloaf was the child, Jane the mature woman.) 'You know better, and you've no right to give way to such thoughts. I was going to say I'd come and be with you all Saturday afternoon, but I don't know whether I shall now. And I'd been thinking you might like to come and see me on Sunday, but I can't have people that go to the public-house, so we won't say anything more about it. I shall have to be off; good-bye!' She stepped to the door. 'Miss Snowdon!' Jane turned, and after an instant of mock severity, broke into a laugh which seemed to fill the wretched den with sunlight. Words, too, she found; words of soothing influence such as leap from the heart to the tongue in spite of the heavy thoughts that try to check them. Pennyloaf was learning to depend upon these words for strength in her desolation. They did not excite her to much hopefulness, but there was a sustaining power in their sweet sincerity which made all the difference between despair tending to evil and the sigh of renewed effort. 'I don't care,' Pennyloaf had got into the habit of thinking, after her friend's departure, 'I won't give up as long as she looks in now and then.' Out from the swarm of babies Jane hurried homewards. She had a reason for wishing to be back in good time to-night; it was Wednesday, and on Wednesday evening there was wont to come a visitor, who sat for a couple of hours in her grandfather's room and talked, talked--the most interesting talk Jane had ever heard or could imagine. A latch-key admitted her; she ran up to the second floor. A voice from the front-room caught her ear; certainly not _his_ voice--it was too early--but that of some unusual visitor. She was on the point of entering her own chamber, when the other door opened, and somebody exclaimed, 'Ah, here she is!' The speaker was an old gentleman, dressed in black, bald, with small and rather rugged features; his voice was pleasant. A gold chain and a bunch of seals shone against his waistcoat, also a pair of eye-glasses. A professional man, obviously. Jane remembered that she had seen him once before, about a year ago, when he had talked with her for a few minutes, very kindly. 'Will you come in here, Jane?' her grandfather's voice called to her. Snowdon had changed much. Old age was heavy upon his shoulders, and had even produced a slight tremulousness in his hands; his voice told the same story of enfeeblement. Even more noticeable was the ageing of his countenance. Something more, however, than the progress of time seemed to be here at work. He looked strangely careworn; his forehead was set in lines of anxiety; his mouth expressed a nervousness of which formerly there had been no trace. One would have said that some harassing preoccupation must have seized his mind. His eyes were no longer merely sad and absent, but restless with fatiguing thought. As Jane entered the room he fixed his gaze upon her--a gaze that appeared to reveal worrying apprehension. 'You remember Mr. Percival, Jane,' he said. The old gentleman thus presented held out his hand with something of fatherly geniality. 'Miss Snowdon, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again before long, but just now I am carrying off your grandfather for a couple of hours, and indeed we

employed

How many times the word 'employed' appears in the text?

worn by a man above the mechanic ranks), but it was patched with dirt of many kinds, and held together by a most inadequate supply of buttons. At present he wore no collar, and his waistcoat, half-open, exposed a red shirt. 'Why, you're all a-blowin' and a-growin' this morning, Peckover,' was his first observation, as he dropped heavily into a wooden arm-chair. 'I shall begin to think that colour of yours ain't natural. Dare you let me rub it with a handkerchief?' 'Course I dare,' replied Clem, tossing her head. 'Don't be so forward, Mr. Snowdon.' 'Forward? Not I. I'm behind time if anything. I hope I haven't kept you from church.' He chuckled at his double joke. Mother and daughter laughed appreciatively. 'Will you take your eggs boiled or fried?' inquired Mrs. Peckover. 'Going to give me eggs, are you? Well, I've no objection, I assure you. And I think I'll have them fried, Mrs. Peckover. But, I say, you mustn't be running up too big a bill. The Lord only knows when I shall get anything to do, and it ain't very likely to be a thousand a year when it does come.' 'Oh, that's all right,' replied the landlady, as if sordid calculation were a thing impossible to her. 'I can't say as you behaved quite straightforward years ago, Mr. Snowdon, but I ain't one to make a row about bygones, an' as you say you'll put it all straight as soon as you can, well, I won't refuse to trust you once more.' Mr. Snowdon lay back in the chair, his hands in his waistcoat pockets, his legs outstretched upon the fender. He was smiling placidly, now at the preparing breakfast, now at Clem. The latter he plainly regarded with much admiration, and cared not to conceal it. When, in a few minutes, it was announced to him that the meal was ready, he dragged his chair up to the table and reseated himself with a sigh of satisfaction. A dish of excellent ham, and eggs as nearly fresh as can be obtained in Clerkenwell, invited him with appetising odour; a large cup of what is known to the generality of English people as coffee steamed at his right hand; slices of new bread lay ready cut upon a plate; a slab of the most expensive substitute for butter caught his eye with yellow promise; vinegar and mustard appealed to the refinements of his taste. 'I've got a couple more eggs, if you'd like them doin',' said Mrs. Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the viands. 'I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,' returned Mr. Snowdon. As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly in consequence of the activity of his mind. He was, in fact, musing upon a question which he found it very difficult to answer in any satisfactory way. 'What's the meaning of all this?' he asked himself, and not for the first time. 'What makes them treat me in this fashion? A week ago I came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just because I'd run down to my last penny, and I didn't know where to find a night's lodging. I'd got an idea, too, that I should like to find out what had become of my child, whom I left here nine or ten years ago; possibly she was still alive, and might welcome the duty of supporting her parent. The chance was, to be sure, that the girl had long since been in her grave, and that Mrs. Peckover no longer lived in the old quarters; if I discovered the woman, on the other hand, she was not very likely to give me an affectionate reception, seeing that I found it inconvenient to keep sending her money for Jane's keep in the old days. The queer thing is, that everything turned out exactly the opposite of what I had expected. Mrs. Peckover had rather a sour face at first, but after a little talk she began to seem quite glad to see me. She put me into a room, undertook to board me for a while--till I find work, and I wonder when _that_'ll be?--and blest if this strapping daughter of hers doesn't seem to have fallen in love with me from the first go off! As for my girl, I'm told she was carried off by her grandfather, my old dad, three years ago, and where they went nobody knows. Very puzzling all this. How on earth came it that Mrs. Peckover kept the child so long, and didn't send her to the workhouse? If I'm to believe _her_, she took a motherly kindness for the poor brat. But that won't exactly go down with J. J. Snowdon; he's seen a bit too much in his knocking about the world, Still, what if I'm making a mistake about the old woman? There _are_ some people do things of that sort; upon my soul, I've known people be kind even to me, without a chance of being paid back! You may think you know a man or a woman, and then all at once they'll go and do something you'd have taken your davy couldn't possibly happen. I'd have sworn she was nothing but a skinflint and a lying old witch. And so she maybe; the chances are there's some game going on that I can't see through. Make inquiries? Why, so I have done, as far as I know how. I've only been able to hit on one person who knows anything about the matter, and he tells me it's true enough the girl was taken away about three years ago, but he's no idea where she went to. Surely the old man must be dead b now, though he _was_ tough. Well, the fact of the matter is, I've got a good berth, and I'm a precious sight too lazy to go on the private detective job. Here's this girl Clem, the finest bit of flesh I've seen for a long time; I've more than half a mind to see if she won't be fool enough to marry me. I'm not a bad-looking fellow, that's the truth, and she may have taken a real liking to me. Seems to me that I should have come in for a Comfortable thing in my old age; if I haven't a daughter to provide for my needs, at all events I shall have a wife who can be persuaded into doing so. When the old woman gets out of the way I must have a little quiet talk with Clem.' The opportunity he desired was not long in offering itself. Having made an excellent breakfast, he dragged his chair up to the fender again, and reached a pipe from the mantel-piece, where he had left it last night. Tobacco he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket; it came forth in the form of yellowish dust, intermingled with all sorts of alien scraps. When he had lit his pipe, he poised the chair on its hind-legs, clasped his hands over his bald crown, and continued his musing with an air of amiable calm. Smoke curled up from the corner of his loose lips, and occasionally, removing his pipe for an instant, he spat skilfully between the bars of the grate. Assured of his comfort, Mrs. Peckover said she must go and look after certain domestic duties. Her daughter had begun to clean some vegetables that would be cooked for dinner. 'How old may you be, Clem?' Mr. Snowdon inquired genially, when they had been alone together for a few minutes. 'What's that to you? Guess.' 'Why, let me see; you was not much more than a baby when I went away. You'll be eighteen or nineteen, I suppose.' 'Yes, I'm nineteen--last sixth of February. Pity you come too late to give me a birthday present, ain't it?' 'Ah! And who'd have thought you'd have grown up such a beauty! I say, Clem, how many of the young chaps about here have been wanting to marry you, eh?' 'A dozen or two, I dessay,' Clem replied, shrugging her shoulders scornfully. Mr. Snowdon laughed, and then spat into the fire. 'Tell me about some o' them, will you? Who is it you're keeping company with now?' 'Who, indeed? Why, there isn't one I'd look at! Several of 'em's took to drinking 'cause I won't have nothing to do with 'em.' This excited Mr. Snowdon's mirth in a high degree; he rolled on his chair, and almost pitched backwards. 'I suppose you give one or other a bit of encouragement now and then, just to make a fool of him, eh?' 'Course I do. There was Bob Hewett; he used to lodge here, but that was after your time. I kep' him off an' on till he couldn't bear it no longer; then he went an' married a common slut of a thing, just because he thought it 'ud make me mad. Ha, ha! I believe he'd give her poison an' risk it any day, if only I promised to marry him afterwards. Then there was a feller called Jeck Bartley. I set him an' Bob fightin' one Bank-holiday--you should a' seen 'em go at it! Jack went an' got married a year ago to a girl called Suke Jollop; her mother forced him. How I did laugh! Last Christmas Day they smashed up their 'ome an' threw the bits out into the street. Jack got one of his eyes knocked out--I thought I should a' died o' laughin' when I saw him next mornin'.' The hearer became uproarious in merriment. 'Tell you what it is, Clem,' he cried, 'you're something like a girl! Darn me if I don't like you! I say, I wonder what my daughter's grown up? Like her mother, I suppose. You an' she was sort of sisters, wasn't you?' He observed her closely. Clem laughed and shrugged her shoulders. 'Queer sort o' sisters. She was a bit too quiet-like for me. There never was no fun in her.' 'Aye, like her mother. And where did you say she went to with the old man?' 'Where she went to?' repeated Clem, regarding him steadily with her big eyes, 'I never said nothing about it, 'cause I didn't know.' 'Well, I shan't cry about her, and I don't suppose she misses me much, wherever she is. All the same, Clem, I'm a domesticated sort of man; you can see that, can't you? I shouldn't wonder if I marry again one of these first days. Just tell me where to find a girl of the right sort. I dare say you know heaps.' 'Dessay I do. What sort do you want?' 'Oh, a littlish girl--yellow hair, you know--one of them that look as if they didn't weigh half-a-stone.' 'I'll throw this parsnip at you, Mr. Snowdon!' 'What's up now. You don't Call yourself littlish, do you?' Clem snapped the small end off the vegetable she was paring, and aimed it at his head. He ducked just in time. Then there was an outburst of laughter from both. 'Say, Clem, you haven't got a glass of beer in the house?' 'You'll have to wait till openin' time,' replied the girl sourly, going away to the far end of the room. 'Have I offended you, Clem?' 'Offended, indeed. As if I cared what you say!' 'Do you care what I think?' 'Not I!' 'That means you do. Say, Clem, just come here; I've something to tell you.' 'You're a nuisance. Let me get on with my work, can't you?' 'No, I can't. You just come here. You'd better not give me the trouble of fetching you!' The girl obeyed him. Her cheeks were very hot, and the danger-signal was flashing in her eyes. Ten minutes later she went upstairs, and had a vivacious dialogue of whispers with Mrs. Peckover. CHAPTER XV SUNLIGHT IN DREARY PLACES Among the by-ways of Clerkenwell you might, with some difficulty, have discovered an establishment known in its neighbourhood as 'Whitehead's.' It was an artificial-flower factory, and the rooms of which it consisted were only to be reached by traversing a timber-yard, and then mounting a wooden staircase outside a saw-mill. Here at busy seasons worked some threescore women and girls, who, owing to the nature of their occupation, were spoken of by the jocose youth of the locality as 'Whitehead's pastepots.' Naturally they varied much in age and aspect. There was the child who had newly left school, and was now invited to consider the question of how to keep herself alive; there was the woman of uncertain age, who had spent long years of long days in the atmosphere of workrooms, and showed the result in her parchmenty cheek and lack-lustre eye; and between these extremes came all the various types of the London crafts-girl: she who is young enough to hope that disappointments may yet be made up for by the future; she who is already tasting such scanty good as life had in store for her; she who has outlived her illusions and no longer cares to look beyond the close of the week. If regularly engaged as time-workers, they made themselves easy in the prospect of wages that allowed them to sleep under a roof and eat at certain intervals of the day; if employed on piece-work they might at any moment find themselves wageless, but this, being a familiar state of things, did not trouble them. With few exceptions, they were clad neatly; on the whole, they plied their task in wonderful contentment. The general tone of conversation among them was not high; moralists unfamiliar with the ways of the nether world would probably have applied a term other than negative to the laughing discussions which now and then enlivened this or that group; but it was very seldom indeed that a child newly arriving heard anything with which she was not already perfectly familiar. One afternoon at the end of May there penetrated into the largest of the workrooms that rarest of visitants, a stray sunbeam. Only if the sun happened to shine at given moments could any of its light fall directly into the room I speak of; this afternoon, however, all circumstances were favourable, and behold the floor chequered with uncertain gleam. The workers were arranged in groups of three, called 'parties,' consisting of a learner, an improver, and a hand. All sat with sleeves pushed up to their elbows, and had a habit of rocking to and fro as they plied their mechanical industry. Owing to the movement of a cloud, the sunlight spread gradually towards one of these groups; it touched the skirt, the arms, the head of one of the girls, who, as if gladdened by the kindly warmth, looked round and smiled. A smile you would have been pleased to observe--unconscious, gently thoughtful, rich in possibilities of happiness. She was quite a young girl, certainly not seventeen, and wore a smooth grey dress, with a white linen collar; her brown hair was closely plaited, her head well-shaped, the bend of her neck very graceful. From her bare arms it could be seen that she was anything but robustly made, yet her general appearance was not one of ill-health, and she held herself, even thus late in the day, far more uprightly than most of her companions. Had you watched her for a while, you would have noticed that her eyes occasionally strayed beyond the work-table, and, perhaps unconsciously, fixed themselves for some moments on one or other of the girls near her; when she remembered herself and looked down again upon her task, there rose to her face a smile of the subtlest meaning, the outcome of busy reflection. By her side was a little girl just beginning to learn the work, whose employment it was to paper wires and make 'centres.' This toil always results in blistered fingers, and frequent was the child's appeal to her neighbour for sympathy. 'It'll be easier soon,' said the latter, on one of these occasions, bending her head to speak in a low voice. 'You should have seen what blisters I had when I began.' 'It's all very well to say that. I can't do no more, so there Oh, when'll it be five o'clock?' 'It's a quarter to. Try and go on, Annie.' Five o'clock did come at length, and with it twenty minutes' rest for tea. The rule at Whitehead's was, that you could either bring your own tea, sugar, and eatables, or purchase them here from a forewoman; most of the workers chose to provide themselves. It was customary for each 'party' to club together, emptying their several contributions of tea out of little twists of newspaper into one teapot. Wholesome bustle and confusion succeeded to the former silence. One of the learners, whose turn it was to run on errands, was overwhelmed with commissions to a chandler's shop close by; a wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and they called her, because of her slowness, the 'funeral horse.' She had strange habits, which made laughter for those who knew of them; for instance, it was her custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her poor scraps on a doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a companion that the odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a relish. From her present errand she returned with a strange variety of dainties--for it was early in the week, and the girls still had coppers in their pockets; for two or three she had purchased a farthing's-worth of jam, which she carried in paper. A bite of this and a taste of that rewarded her for her trouble. The quiet-mannered girl whom we were observing took her cup of tea from the pot in which she had a share, and from her bag produced some folded pieces of bread and butter. She had begun her meal, when there came and sat down by her a young woman of very different appearance--our friend, Miss Peckover. They were old acquaintances; but when we first saw them together it would have been difficult to imagine that they would ever sit and converse as at present, apparently in all friendliness. Strange to say, it was Clem who, during the past three years, had been the active one in seeking to obliterate disagreeable memories. The younger girl had never repelled her, but was long in overcoming the dread excited by Clem's proximity. Even now she never looked straight into Miss Peckover's face, as she did when speaking with others; there was reserve in her manner, reserve unmistakable, though clothed with her pleasant smile and amiable voice. 'I've got something to tell you, Jane,' Clem began, in a tone inaudible to those who were sitting near. 'Something as'll surprise you.' 'What is it, I wonder?' 'You must swear you won't tell nobody.' Jane nodded. Then the other brought her head a little nearer, and whispered: 'I'm goin' to be married!' 'Are you really?' 'In a week. Who do you think it is? Somebody as you know of, but if you guessed till next Christmas you'd never come right.' Nor had Clem any intention of revealing the name, but she laughed consumedly, as if her reticence covered the most amusing situation conceivable. 'It'll be the biggest surprise you ever had in your life. You've swore you won't speak about it. I don't think I shall come to work after this week--but you'll have to come an' see us. You'll promise to, won't you?' Still convulsed with mirth, Clem went off to another part of the room. From Jane's countenance the look of amusement which she had perforce summoned soon passed; it was succeeded by a shadow almost of pain, and not till she had been at work again for nearly an hour was the former placidity restored to her. When final release came, Jane was among the first to hasten down the wooden staircase and get clear of the timber yard. By the direct way, it took her twenty minutes to walk from Whitehead's to her home in Hanover Street, but this evening she had an object in turning aside. The visit she wished to pay took her into a disagreeable quarter, a street of squalid houses, swarming with yet more squalid children. On all the doorsteps Bat little girls, themselves only just out of infancy, nursing or neglecting bald, red-eyed, doughy-limbed abortions in every stage of babyhood, hapless spawn of diseased humanity, born to embitter and brutalise yet further the lot of those who unwillingly gave them life. With wide, pitiful eyes Jane looked at each group she passed. Three years ago she would have seen nothing but the ordinary and the inevitable in such spectacles, but since then her moral and intellectual being had grown on rare nourishment; there was indignation as well as heartache in the feeling with which she had learnt to regard the world of her familiarity. To enter the house at which she paused it was necessary to squeeze through a conglomerate of dirty little bodies. At the head of the first flight of stairs she came upon a girl sitting in a weary attitude on the top step and beating the wood listlessly with the last remnant of a hearth-brush; on her lap was one more specimen of the infinitely-multiplied baby, and a child of two years sprawled behind her on the landing. 'Waiting for him to come home, Pennyloaf?' said Jane. 'Oh, is that you, Miss Snowdon!' exclaimed the other, returning to consciousness and manifesting some shame at being discovered in this position. Hastily she drew together the front of her dress, which for the baby's sake had been wide open, and rose to her feet. Pennyloaf was not a bit more womanly in figure than on the day of her marriage; her voice was still an immature treble; the same rueful irresponsibility marked her features; but all her poor prettiness was wasted under the disfigurement of pains and cares, Incongruously enough, she wore a gown of bright-patterned calico, and about her neck had a collar of pretentious lace; her hair was dressed as if for a holiday, and a daub recently made on her cheeks by the baby's fingers lent emphasis to the fact that she had but a little while ago washed herself with much care. 'I can't stop,' said Jane, 'but I thought I'd just look in and speak a word. How have you been getting on?' 'Oh, do come in for just a minute!' pleaded Pennyloaf, moving backwards to an open door, whither Jane followed. They entered a room--much like other rooms that we have looked into from time to time. Following the nomadic custom of their kind, Bob Hewett and his wife had lived in six or seven different lodgings since their honeymoon in Shooter's Gardens. Mrs. Candy first of all made a change necessary, as might have been anticipated, and the restlessness of domestic ill-being subsequently drove them from place to place. 'Come in 'ere, Johnny,' she Called to the child lying on the landing. 'What's the good o' washin' you, I'd like to know? Just see, Miss Snowdon, he's made his face all white with the milk as the boy spilt on the stairs! Take this brush an' play with it, do! I _can't_ keep 'em clean, Miss Snowdon, so it's no use talkin'.' 'Are you going somewhere to-night?' Jane inquired, with a glance at the strange costume. Pennyloaf looked up and down in a shamefaced way. 'I only did it just because I thought he might like to see me. He promised me faithful as he'd come 'ome to-night, and I thought--it's only somethink as got into my 'ed to-day, Miss Snowdon.' 'But hasn't he been coming home since I saw you last?' 'He did just once, an' then it was all the old ways again. I did what you told me; I did, as sure as I'm a-standin' 'ere! I made the room so clean you wouldn't have believed; I scrubbed the floor an' the table, an' I washed the winders--you can see they ain't dirty yet. An' he'd never a' paid a bit o' notice if I hadn't told him, He was jolly enough for one night, just like he can be when he likes. But I knew as it wouldn't last, an' the next night he was off with a lot o' fellers an' girls, same as ever. I didn't make no row when he came 'ome; I wish I may die if I said a word to set his back up! An' I've gone on just the same all the week; we haven't had not the least bit of a row; so you see I kep' my promise. But it's no good; he won't come 'ome; he's always got fellers an' girls to go round with. He took his hoath as he'd come back to-night, an' then it come into my 'ed as I'd put my best things on, just to--you know what I mean, Miss Snowdon. But he won't come before twelve o'clock; I know he won't. An' I get that low sittin' 'ere, you can't think I can't go nowhere, because o' the children. If it wasn't for them I could go to work again, an' I'd be that glad; I feel as if my 'ed would drop off sometimes! I _ham_ so glad you just come in!' Jane had tried so many forms of encouragement, of consolation, on previous occasions that she knew not how to repeat herself. She was ashamed to speak words which sounded so hollow and profitless. This silence was only too significant to Pennyloaf, and in a moment she exclaimed with querulous energy: 'I know what'll be the bend of it! I'll go an' do like mother does--I will! I will! I'll put my ring away, an' I'll go an' sit all night in the public-'ouse! It's what all the others does, an' I'll do the same. I often feel I'm a fool to go on like this. I don't know what I live for, P'r'aps he'll be sorry when I get run in like mother.' 'Don't talk like that, Pennyloaf!' cried Jane, stamping her foot, (It was odd how completely difference of character had reversed their natural relations to each other; Pennyloaf was the child, Jane the mature woman.) 'You know better, and you've no right to give way to such thoughts. I was going to say I'd come and be with you all Saturday afternoon, but I don't know whether I shall now. And I'd been thinking you might like to come and see me on Sunday, but I can't have people that go to the public-house, so we won't say anything more about it. I shall have to be off; good-bye!' She stepped to the door. 'Miss Snowdon!' Jane turned, and after an instant of mock severity, broke into a laugh which seemed to fill the wretched den with sunlight. Words, too, she found; words of soothing influence such as leap from the heart to the tongue in spite of the heavy thoughts that try to check them. Pennyloaf was learning to depend upon these words for strength in her desolation. They did not excite her to much hopefulness, but there was a sustaining power in their sweet sincerity which made all the difference between despair tending to evil and the sigh of renewed effort. 'I don't care,' Pennyloaf had got into the habit of thinking, after her friend's departure, 'I won't give up as long as she looks in now and then.' Out from the swarm of babies Jane hurried homewards. She had a reason for wishing to be back in good time to-night; it was Wednesday, and on Wednesday evening there was wont to come a visitor, who sat for a couple of hours in her grandfather's room and talked, talked--the most interesting talk Jane had ever heard or could imagine. A latch-key admitted her; she ran up to the second floor. A voice from the front-room caught her ear; certainly not _his_ voice--it was too early--but that of some unusual visitor. She was on the point of entering her own chamber, when the other door opened, and somebody exclaimed, 'Ah, here she is!' The speaker was an old gentleman, dressed in black, bald, with small and rather rugged features; his voice was pleasant. A gold chain and a bunch of seals shone against his waistcoat, also a pair of eye-glasses. A professional man, obviously. Jane remembered that she had seen him once before, about a year ago, when he had talked with her for a few minutes, very kindly. 'Will you come in here, Jane?' her grandfather's voice called to her. Snowdon had changed much. Old age was heavy upon his shoulders, and had even produced a slight tremulousness in his hands; his voice told the same story of enfeeblement. Even more noticeable was the ageing of his countenance. Something more, however, than the progress of time seemed to be here at work. He looked strangely careworn; his forehead was set in lines of anxiety; his mouth expressed a nervousness of which formerly there had been no trace. One would have said that some harassing preoccupation must have seized his mind. His eyes were no longer merely sad and absent, but restless with fatiguing thought. As Jane entered the room he fixed his gaze upon her--a gaze that appeared to reveal worrying apprehension. 'You remember Mr. Percival, Jane,' he said. The old gentleman thus presented held out his hand with something of fatherly geniality. 'Miss Snowdon, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again before long, but just now I am carrying off your grandfather for a couple of hours, and indeed we

accel-

How many times the word 'accel-' appears in the text?

worn by a man above the mechanic ranks), but it was patched with dirt of many kinds, and held together by a most inadequate supply of buttons. At present he wore no collar, and his waistcoat, half-open, exposed a red shirt. 'Why, you're all a-blowin' and a-growin' this morning, Peckover,' was his first observation, as he dropped heavily into a wooden arm-chair. 'I shall begin to think that colour of yours ain't natural. Dare you let me rub it with a handkerchief?' 'Course I dare,' replied Clem, tossing her head. 'Don't be so forward, Mr. Snowdon.' 'Forward? Not I. I'm behind time if anything. I hope I haven't kept you from church.' He chuckled at his double joke. Mother and daughter laughed appreciatively. 'Will you take your eggs boiled or fried?' inquired Mrs. Peckover. 'Going to give me eggs, are you? Well, I've no objection, I assure you. And I think I'll have them fried, Mrs. Peckover. But, I say, you mustn't be running up too big a bill. The Lord only knows when I shall get anything to do, and it ain't very likely to be a thousand a year when it does come.' 'Oh, that's all right,' replied the landlady, as if sordid calculation were a thing impossible to her. 'I can't say as you behaved quite straightforward years ago, Mr. Snowdon, but I ain't one to make a row about bygones, an' as you say you'll put it all straight as soon as you can, well, I won't refuse to trust you once more.' Mr. Snowdon lay back in the chair, his hands in his waistcoat pockets, his legs outstretched upon the fender. He was smiling placidly, now at the preparing breakfast, now at Clem. The latter he plainly regarded with much admiration, and cared not to conceal it. When, in a few minutes, it was announced to him that the meal was ready, he dragged his chair up to the table and reseated himself with a sigh of satisfaction. A dish of excellent ham, and eggs as nearly fresh as can be obtained in Clerkenwell, invited him with appetising odour; a large cup of what is known to the generality of English people as coffee steamed at his right hand; slices of new bread lay ready cut upon a plate; a slab of the most expensive substitute for butter caught his eye with yellow promise; vinegar and mustard appealed to the refinements of his taste. 'I've got a couple more eggs, if you'd like them doin',' said Mrs. Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the viands. 'I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,' returned Mr. Snowdon. As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly in consequence of the activity of his mind. He was, in fact, musing upon a question which he found it very difficult to answer in any satisfactory way. 'What's the meaning of all this?' he asked himself, and not for the first time. 'What makes them treat me in this fashion? A week ago I came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just because I'd run down to my last penny, and I didn't know where to find a night's lodging. I'd got an idea, too, that I should like to find out what had become of my child, whom I left here nine or ten years ago; possibly she was still alive, and might welcome the duty of supporting her parent. The chance was, to be sure, that the girl had long since been in her grave, and that Mrs. Peckover no longer lived in the old quarters; if I discovered the woman, on the other hand, she was not very likely to give me an affectionate reception, seeing that I found it inconvenient to keep sending her money for Jane's keep in the old days. The queer thing is, that everything turned out exactly the opposite of what I had expected. Mrs. Peckover had rather a sour face at first, but after a little talk she began to seem quite glad to see me. She put me into a room, undertook to board me for a while--till I find work, and I wonder when _that_'ll be?--and blest if this strapping daughter of hers doesn't seem to have fallen in love with me from the first go off! As for my girl, I'm told she was carried off by her grandfather, my old dad, three years ago, and where they went nobody knows. Very puzzling all this. How on earth came it that Mrs. Peckover kept the child so long, and didn't send her to the workhouse? If I'm to believe _her_, she took a motherly kindness for the poor brat. But that won't exactly go down with J. J. Snowdon; he's seen a bit too much in his knocking about the world, Still, what if I'm making a mistake about the old woman? There _are_ some people do things of that sort; upon my soul, I've known people be kind even to me, without a chance of being paid back! You may think you know a man or a woman, and then all at once they'll go and do something you'd have taken your davy couldn't possibly happen. I'd have sworn she was nothing but a skinflint and a lying old witch. And so she maybe; the chances are there's some game going on that I can't see through. Make inquiries? Why, so I have done, as far as I know how. I've only been able to hit on one person who knows anything about the matter, and he tells me it's true enough the girl was taken away about three years ago, but he's no idea where she went to. Surely the old man must be dead b now, though he _was_ tough. Well, the fact of the matter is, I've got a good berth, and I'm a precious sight too lazy to go on the private detective job. Here's this girl Clem, the finest bit of flesh I've seen for a long time; I've more than half a mind to see if she won't be fool enough to marry me. I'm not a bad-looking fellow, that's the truth, and she may have taken a real liking to me. Seems to me that I should have come in for a Comfortable thing in my old age; if I haven't a daughter to provide for my needs, at all events I shall have a wife who can be persuaded into doing so. When the old woman gets out of the way I must have a little quiet talk with Clem.' The opportunity he desired was not long in offering itself. Having made an excellent breakfast, he dragged his chair up to the fender again, and reached a pipe from the mantel-piece, where he had left it last night. Tobacco he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket; it came forth in the form of yellowish dust, intermingled with all sorts of alien scraps. When he had lit his pipe, he poised the chair on its hind-legs, clasped his hands over his bald crown, and continued his musing with an air of amiable calm. Smoke curled up from the corner of his loose lips, and occasionally, removing his pipe for an instant, he spat skilfully between the bars of the grate. Assured of his comfort, Mrs. Peckover said she must go and look after certain domestic duties. Her daughter had begun to clean some vegetables that would be cooked for dinner. 'How old may you be, Clem?' Mr. Snowdon inquired genially, when they had been alone together for a few minutes. 'What's that to you? Guess.' 'Why, let me see; you was not much more than a baby when I went away. You'll be eighteen or nineteen, I suppose.' 'Yes, I'm nineteen--last sixth of February. Pity you come too late to give me a birthday present, ain't it?' 'Ah! And who'd have thought you'd have grown up such a beauty! I say, Clem, how many of the young chaps about here have been wanting to marry you, eh?' 'A dozen or two, I dessay,' Clem replied, shrugging her shoulders scornfully. Mr. Snowdon laughed, and then spat into the fire. 'Tell me about some o' them, will you? Who is it you're keeping company with now?' 'Who, indeed? Why, there isn't one I'd look at! Several of 'em's took to drinking 'cause I won't have nothing to do with 'em.' This excited Mr. Snowdon's mirth in a high degree; he rolled on his chair, and almost pitched backwards. 'I suppose you give one or other a bit of encouragement now and then, just to make a fool of him, eh?' 'Course I do. There was Bob Hewett; he used to lodge here, but that was after your time. I kep' him off an' on till he couldn't bear it no longer; then he went an' married a common slut of a thing, just because he thought it 'ud make me mad. Ha, ha! I believe he'd give her poison an' risk it any day, if only I promised to marry him afterwards. Then there was a feller called Jeck Bartley. I set him an' Bob fightin' one Bank-holiday--you should a' seen 'em go at it! Jack went an' got married a year ago to a girl called Suke Jollop; her mother forced him. How I did laugh! Last Christmas Day they smashed up their 'ome an' threw the bits out into the street. Jack got one of his eyes knocked out--I thought I should a' died o' laughin' when I saw him next mornin'.' The hearer became uproarious in merriment. 'Tell you what it is, Clem,' he cried, 'you're something like a girl! Darn me if I don't like you! I say, I wonder what my daughter's grown up? Like her mother, I suppose. You an' she was sort of sisters, wasn't you?' He observed her closely. Clem laughed and shrugged her shoulders. 'Queer sort o' sisters. She was a bit too quiet-like for me. There never was no fun in her.' 'Aye, like her mother. And where did you say she went to with the old man?' 'Where she went to?' repeated Clem, regarding him steadily with her big eyes, 'I never said nothing about it, 'cause I didn't know.' 'Well, I shan't cry about her, and I don't suppose she misses me much, wherever she is. All the same, Clem, I'm a domesticated sort of man; you can see that, can't you? I shouldn't wonder if I marry again one of these first days. Just tell me where to find a girl of the right sort. I dare say you know heaps.' 'Dessay I do. What sort do you want?' 'Oh, a littlish girl--yellow hair, you know--one of them that look as if they didn't weigh half-a-stone.' 'I'll throw this parsnip at you, Mr. Snowdon!' 'What's up now. You don't Call yourself littlish, do you?' Clem snapped the small end off the vegetable she was paring, and aimed it at his head. He ducked just in time. Then there was an outburst of laughter from both. 'Say, Clem, you haven't got a glass of beer in the house?' 'You'll have to wait till openin' time,' replied the girl sourly, going away to the far end of the room. 'Have I offended you, Clem?' 'Offended, indeed. As if I cared what you say!' 'Do you care what I think?' 'Not I!' 'That means you do. Say, Clem, just come here; I've something to tell you.' 'You're a nuisance. Let me get on with my work, can't you?' 'No, I can't. You just come here. You'd better not give me the trouble of fetching you!' The girl obeyed him. Her cheeks were very hot, and the danger-signal was flashing in her eyes. Ten minutes later she went upstairs, and had a vivacious dialogue of whispers with Mrs. Peckover. CHAPTER XV SUNLIGHT IN DREARY PLACES Among the by-ways of Clerkenwell you might, with some difficulty, have discovered an establishment known in its neighbourhood as 'Whitehead's.' It was an artificial-flower factory, and the rooms of which it consisted were only to be reached by traversing a timber-yard, and then mounting a wooden staircase outside a saw-mill. Here at busy seasons worked some threescore women and girls, who, owing to the nature of their occupation, were spoken of by the jocose youth of the locality as 'Whitehead's pastepots.' Naturally they varied much in age and aspect. There was the child who had newly left school, and was now invited to consider the question of how to keep herself alive; there was the woman of uncertain age, who had spent long years of long days in the atmosphere of workrooms, and showed the result in her parchmenty cheek and lack-lustre eye; and between these extremes came all the various types of the London crafts-girl: she who is young enough to hope that disappointments may yet be made up for by the future; she who is already tasting such scanty good as life had in store for her; she who has outlived her illusions and no longer cares to look beyond the close of the week. If regularly engaged as time-workers, they made themselves easy in the prospect of wages that allowed them to sleep under a roof and eat at certain intervals of the day; if employed on piece-work they might at any moment find themselves wageless, but this, being a familiar state of things, did not trouble them. With few exceptions, they were clad neatly; on the whole, they plied their task in wonderful contentment. The general tone of conversation among them was not high; moralists unfamiliar with the ways of the nether world would probably have applied a term other than negative to the laughing discussions which now and then enlivened this or that group; but it was very seldom indeed that a child newly arriving heard anything with which she was not already perfectly familiar. One afternoon at the end of May there penetrated into the largest of the workrooms that rarest of visitants, a stray sunbeam. Only if the sun happened to shine at given moments could any of its light fall directly into the room I speak of; this afternoon, however, all circumstances were favourable, and behold the floor chequered with uncertain gleam. The workers were arranged in groups of three, called 'parties,' consisting of a learner, an improver, and a hand. All sat with sleeves pushed up to their elbows, and had a habit of rocking to and fro as they plied their mechanical industry. Owing to the movement of a cloud, the sunlight spread gradually towards one of these groups; it touched the skirt, the arms, the head of one of the girls, who, as if gladdened by the kindly warmth, looked round and smiled. A smile you would have been pleased to observe--unconscious, gently thoughtful, rich in possibilities of happiness. She was quite a young girl, certainly not seventeen, and wore a smooth grey dress, with a white linen collar; her brown hair was closely plaited, her head well-shaped, the bend of her neck very graceful. From her bare arms it could be seen that she was anything but robustly made, yet her general appearance was not one of ill-health, and she held herself, even thus late in the day, far more uprightly than most of her companions. Had you watched her for a while, you would have noticed that her eyes occasionally strayed beyond the work-table, and, perhaps unconsciously, fixed themselves for some moments on one or other of the girls near her; when she remembered herself and looked down again upon her task, there rose to her face a smile of the subtlest meaning, the outcome of busy reflection. By her side was a little girl just beginning to learn the work, whose employment it was to paper wires and make 'centres.' This toil always results in blistered fingers, and frequent was the child's appeal to her neighbour for sympathy. 'It'll be easier soon,' said the latter, on one of these occasions, bending her head to speak in a low voice. 'You should have seen what blisters I had when I began.' 'It's all very well to say that. I can't do no more, so there Oh, when'll it be five o'clock?' 'It's a quarter to. Try and go on, Annie.' Five o'clock did come at length, and with it twenty minutes' rest for tea. The rule at Whitehead's was, that you could either bring your own tea, sugar, and eatables, or purchase them here from a forewoman; most of the workers chose to provide themselves. It was customary for each 'party' to club together, emptying their several contributions of tea out of little twists of newspaper into one teapot. Wholesome bustle and confusion succeeded to the former silence. One of the learners, whose turn it was to run on errands, was overwhelmed with commissions to a chandler's shop close by; a wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and they called her, because of her slowness, the 'funeral horse.' She had strange habits, which made laughter for those who knew of them; for instance, it was her custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her poor scraps on a doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a companion that the odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a relish. From her present errand she returned with a strange variety of dainties--for it was early in the week, and the girls still had coppers in their pockets; for two or three she had purchased a farthing's-worth of jam, which she carried in paper. A bite of this and a taste of that rewarded her for her trouble. The quiet-mannered girl whom we were observing took her cup of tea from the pot in which she had a share, and from her bag produced some folded pieces of bread and butter. She had begun her meal, when there came and sat down by her a young woman of very different appearance--our friend, Miss Peckover. They were old acquaintances; but when we first saw them together it would have been difficult to imagine that they would ever sit and converse as at present, apparently in all friendliness. Strange to say, it was Clem who, during the past three years, had been the active one in seeking to obliterate disagreeable memories. The younger girl had never repelled her, but was long in overcoming the dread excited by Clem's proximity. Even now she never looked straight into Miss Peckover's face, as she did when speaking with others; there was reserve in her manner, reserve unmistakable, though clothed with her pleasant smile and amiable voice. 'I've got something to tell you, Jane,' Clem began, in a tone inaudible to those who were sitting near. 'Something as'll surprise you.' 'What is it, I wonder?' 'You must swear you won't tell nobody.' Jane nodded. Then the other brought her head a little nearer, and whispered: 'I'm goin' to be married!' 'Are you really?' 'In a week. Who do you think it is? Somebody as you know of, but if you guessed till next Christmas you'd never come right.' Nor had Clem any intention of revealing the name, but she laughed consumedly, as if her reticence covered the most amusing situation conceivable. 'It'll be the biggest surprise you ever had in your life. You've swore you won't speak about it. I don't think I shall come to work after this week--but you'll have to come an' see us. You'll promise to, won't you?' Still convulsed with mirth, Clem went off to another part of the room. From Jane's countenance the look of amusement which she had perforce summoned soon passed; it was succeeded by a shadow almost of pain, and not till she had been at work again for nearly an hour was the former placidity restored to her. When final release came, Jane was among the first to hasten down the wooden staircase and get clear of the timber yard. By the direct way, it took her twenty minutes to walk from Whitehead's to her home in Hanover Street, but this evening she had an object in turning aside. The visit she wished to pay took her into a disagreeable quarter, a street of squalid houses, swarming with yet more squalid children. On all the doorsteps Bat little girls, themselves only just out of infancy, nursing or neglecting bald, red-eyed, doughy-limbed abortions in every stage of babyhood, hapless spawn of diseased humanity, born to embitter and brutalise yet further the lot of those who unwillingly gave them life. With wide, pitiful eyes Jane looked at each group she passed. Three years ago she would have seen nothing but the ordinary and the inevitable in such spectacles, but since then her moral and intellectual being had grown on rare nourishment; there was indignation as well as heartache in the feeling with which she had learnt to regard the world of her familiarity. To enter the house at which she paused it was necessary to squeeze through a conglomerate of dirty little bodies. At the head of the first flight of stairs she came upon a girl sitting in a weary attitude on the top step and beating the wood listlessly with the last remnant of a hearth-brush; on her lap was one more specimen of the infinitely-multiplied baby, and a child of two years sprawled behind her on the landing. 'Waiting for him to come home, Pennyloaf?' said Jane. 'Oh, is that you, Miss Snowdon!' exclaimed the other, returning to consciousness and manifesting some shame at being discovered in this position. Hastily she drew together the front of her dress, which for the baby's sake had been wide open, and rose to her feet. Pennyloaf was not a bit more womanly in figure than on the day of her marriage; her voice was still an immature treble; the same rueful irresponsibility marked her features; but all her poor prettiness was wasted under the disfigurement of pains and cares, Incongruously enough, she wore a gown of bright-patterned calico, and about her neck had a collar of pretentious lace; her hair was dressed as if for a holiday, and a daub recently made on her cheeks by the baby's fingers lent emphasis to the fact that she had but a little while ago washed herself with much care. 'I can't stop,' said Jane, 'but I thought I'd just look in and speak a word. How have you been getting on?' 'Oh, do come in for just a minute!' pleaded Pennyloaf, moving backwards to an open door, whither Jane followed. They entered a room--much like other rooms that we have looked into from time to time. Following the nomadic custom of their kind, Bob Hewett and his wife had lived in six or seven different lodgings since their honeymoon in Shooter's Gardens. Mrs. Candy first of all made a change necessary, as might have been anticipated, and the restlessness of domestic ill-being subsequently drove them from place to place. 'Come in 'ere, Johnny,' she Called to the child lying on the landing. 'What's the good o' washin' you, I'd like to know? Just see, Miss Snowdon, he's made his face all white with the milk as the boy spilt on the stairs! Take this brush an' play with it, do! I _can't_ keep 'em clean, Miss Snowdon, so it's no use talkin'.' 'Are you going somewhere to-night?' Jane inquired, with a glance at the strange costume. Pennyloaf looked up and down in a shamefaced way. 'I only did it just because I thought he might like to see me. He promised me faithful as he'd come 'ome to-night, and I thought--it's only somethink as got into my 'ed to-day, Miss Snowdon.' 'But hasn't he been coming home since I saw you last?' 'He did just once, an' then it was all the old ways again. I did what you told me; I did, as sure as I'm a-standin' 'ere! I made the room so clean you wouldn't have believed; I scrubbed the floor an' the table, an' I washed the winders--you can see they ain't dirty yet. An' he'd never a' paid a bit o' notice if I hadn't told him, He was jolly enough for one night, just like he can be when he likes. But I knew as it wouldn't last, an' the next night he was off with a lot o' fellers an' girls, same as ever. I didn't make no row when he came 'ome; I wish I may die if I said a word to set his back up! An' I've gone on just the same all the week; we haven't had not the least bit of a row; so you see I kep' my promise. But it's no good; he won't come 'ome; he's always got fellers an' girls to go round with. He took his hoath as he'd come back to-night, an' then it come into my 'ed as I'd put my best things on, just to--you know what I mean, Miss Snowdon. But he won't come before twelve o'clock; I know he won't. An' I get that low sittin' 'ere, you can't think I can't go nowhere, because o' the children. If it wasn't for them I could go to work again, an' I'd be that glad; I feel as if my 'ed would drop off sometimes! I _ham_ so glad you just come in!' Jane had tried so many forms of encouragement, of consolation, on previous occasions that she knew not how to repeat herself. She was ashamed to speak words which sounded so hollow and profitless. This silence was only too significant to Pennyloaf, and in a moment she exclaimed with querulous energy: 'I know what'll be the bend of it! I'll go an' do like mother does--I will! I will! I'll put my ring away, an' I'll go an' sit all night in the public-'ouse! It's what all the others does, an' I'll do the same. I often feel I'm a fool to go on like this. I don't know what I live for, P'r'aps he'll be sorry when I get run in like mother.' 'Don't talk like that, Pennyloaf!' cried Jane, stamping her foot, (It was odd how completely difference of character had reversed their natural relations to each other; Pennyloaf was the child, Jane the mature woman.) 'You know better, and you've no right to give way to such thoughts. I was going to say I'd come and be with you all Saturday afternoon, but I don't know whether I shall now. And I'd been thinking you might like to come and see me on Sunday, but I can't have people that go to the public-house, so we won't say anything more about it. I shall have to be off; good-bye!' She stepped to the door. 'Miss Snowdon!' Jane turned, and after an instant of mock severity, broke into a laugh which seemed to fill the wretched den with sunlight. Words, too, she found; words of soothing influence such as leap from the heart to the tongue in spite of the heavy thoughts that try to check them. Pennyloaf was learning to depend upon these words for strength in her desolation. They did not excite her to much hopefulness, but there was a sustaining power in their sweet sincerity which made all the difference between despair tending to evil and the sigh of renewed effort. 'I don't care,' Pennyloaf had got into the habit of thinking, after her friend's departure, 'I won't give up as long as she looks in now and then.' Out from the swarm of babies Jane hurried homewards. She had a reason for wishing to be back in good time to-night; it was Wednesday, and on Wednesday evening there was wont to come a visitor, who sat for a couple of hours in her grandfather's room and talked, talked--the most interesting talk Jane had ever heard or could imagine. A latch-key admitted her; she ran up to the second floor. A voice from the front-room caught her ear; certainly not _his_ voice--it was too early--but that of some unusual visitor. She was on the point of entering her own chamber, when the other door opened, and somebody exclaimed, 'Ah, here she is!' The speaker was an old gentleman, dressed in black, bald, with small and rather rugged features; his voice was pleasant. A gold chain and a bunch of seals shone against his waistcoat, also a pair of eye-glasses. A professional man, obviously. Jane remembered that she had seen him once before, about a year ago, when he had talked with her for a few minutes, very kindly. 'Will you come in here, Jane?' her grandfather's voice called to her. Snowdon had changed much. Old age was heavy upon his shoulders, and had even produced a slight tremulousness in his hands; his voice told the same story of enfeeblement. Even more noticeable was the ageing of his countenance. Something more, however, than the progress of time seemed to be here at work. He looked strangely careworn; his forehead was set in lines of anxiety; his mouth expressed a nervousness of which formerly there had been no trace. One would have said that some harassing preoccupation must have seized his mind. His eyes were no longer merely sad and absent, but restless with fatiguing thought. As Jane entered the room he fixed his gaze upon her--a gaze that appeared to reveal worrying apprehension. 'You remember Mr. Percival, Jane,' he said. The old gentleman thus presented held out his hand with something of fatherly geniality. 'Miss Snowdon, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again before long, but just now I am carrying off your grandfather for a couple of hours, and indeed we

well

How many times the word 'well' appears in the text?

worn by a man above the mechanic ranks), but it was patched with dirt of many kinds, and held together by a most inadequate supply of buttons. At present he wore no collar, and his waistcoat, half-open, exposed a red shirt. 'Why, you're all a-blowin' and a-growin' this morning, Peckover,' was his first observation, as he dropped heavily into a wooden arm-chair. 'I shall begin to think that colour of yours ain't natural. Dare you let me rub it with a handkerchief?' 'Course I dare,' replied Clem, tossing her head. 'Don't be so forward, Mr. Snowdon.' 'Forward? Not I. I'm behind time if anything. I hope I haven't kept you from church.' He chuckled at his double joke. Mother and daughter laughed appreciatively. 'Will you take your eggs boiled or fried?' inquired Mrs. Peckover. 'Going to give me eggs, are you? Well, I've no objection, I assure you. And I think I'll have them fried, Mrs. Peckover. But, I say, you mustn't be running up too big a bill. The Lord only knows when I shall get anything to do, and it ain't very likely to be a thousand a year when it does come.' 'Oh, that's all right,' replied the landlady, as if sordid calculation were a thing impossible to her. 'I can't say as you behaved quite straightforward years ago, Mr. Snowdon, but I ain't one to make a row about bygones, an' as you say you'll put it all straight as soon as you can, well, I won't refuse to trust you once more.' Mr. Snowdon lay back in the chair, his hands in his waistcoat pockets, his legs outstretched upon the fender. He was smiling placidly, now at the preparing breakfast, now at Clem. The latter he plainly regarded with much admiration, and cared not to conceal it. When, in a few minutes, it was announced to him that the meal was ready, he dragged his chair up to the table and reseated himself with a sigh of satisfaction. A dish of excellent ham, and eggs as nearly fresh as can be obtained in Clerkenwell, invited him with appetising odour; a large cup of what is known to the generality of English people as coffee steamed at his right hand; slices of new bread lay ready cut upon a plate; a slab of the most expensive substitute for butter caught his eye with yellow promise; vinegar and mustard appealed to the refinements of his taste. 'I've got a couple more eggs, if you'd like them doin',' said Mrs. Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the viands. 'I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,' returned Mr. Snowdon. As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly in consequence of the activity of his mind. He was, in fact, musing upon a question which he found it very difficult to answer in any satisfactory way. 'What's the meaning of all this?' he asked himself, and not for the first time. 'What makes them treat me in this fashion? A week ago I came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just because I'd run down to my last penny, and I didn't know where to find a night's lodging. I'd got an idea, too, that I should like to find out what had become of my child, whom I left here nine or ten years ago; possibly she was still alive, and might welcome the duty of supporting her parent. The chance was, to be sure, that the girl had long since been in her grave, and that Mrs. Peckover no longer lived in the old quarters; if I discovered the woman, on the other hand, she was not very likely to give me an affectionate reception, seeing that I found it inconvenient to keep sending her money for Jane's keep in the old days. The queer thing is, that everything turned out exactly the opposite of what I had expected. Mrs. Peckover had rather a sour face at first, but after a little talk she began to seem quite glad to see me. She put me into a room, undertook to board me for a while--till I find work, and I wonder when _that_'ll be?--and blest if this strapping daughter of hers doesn't seem to have fallen in love with me from the first go off! As for my girl, I'm told she was carried off by her grandfather, my old dad, three years ago, and where they went nobody knows. Very puzzling all this. How on earth came it that Mrs. Peckover kept the child so long, and didn't send her to the workhouse? If I'm to believe _her_, she took a motherly kindness for the poor brat. But that won't exactly go down with J. J. Snowdon; he's seen a bit too much in his knocking about the world, Still, what if I'm making a mistake about the old woman? There _are_ some people do things of that sort; upon my soul, I've known people be kind even to me, without a chance of being paid back! You may think you know a man or a woman, and then all at once they'll go and do something you'd have taken your davy couldn't possibly happen. I'd have sworn she was nothing but a skinflint and a lying old witch. And so she maybe; the chances are there's some game going on that I can't see through. Make inquiries? Why, so I have done, as far as I know how. I've only been able to hit on one person who knows anything about the matter, and he tells me it's true enough the girl was taken away about three years ago, but he's no idea where she went to. Surely the old man must be dead b now, though he _was_ tough. Well, the fact of the matter is, I've got a good berth, and I'm a precious sight too lazy to go on the private detective job. Here's this girl Clem, the finest bit of flesh I've seen for a long time; I've more than half a mind to see if she won't be fool enough to marry me. I'm not a bad-looking fellow, that's the truth, and she may have taken a real liking to me. Seems to me that I should have come in for a Comfortable thing in my old age; if I haven't a daughter to provide for my needs, at all events I shall have a wife who can be persuaded into doing so. When the old woman gets out of the way I must have a little quiet talk with Clem.' The opportunity he desired was not long in offering itself. Having made an excellent breakfast, he dragged his chair up to the fender again, and reached a pipe from the mantel-piece, where he had left it last night. Tobacco he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket; it came forth in the form of yellowish dust, intermingled with all sorts of alien scraps. When he had lit his pipe, he poised the chair on its hind-legs, clasped his hands over his bald crown, and continued his musing with an air of amiable calm. Smoke curled up from the corner of his loose lips, and occasionally, removing his pipe for an instant, he spat skilfully between the bars of the grate. Assured of his comfort, Mrs. Peckover said she must go and look after certain domestic duties. Her daughter had begun to clean some vegetables that would be cooked for dinner. 'How old may you be, Clem?' Mr. Snowdon inquired genially, when they had been alone together for a few minutes. 'What's that to you? Guess.' 'Why, let me see; you was not much more than a baby when I went away. You'll be eighteen or nineteen, I suppose.' 'Yes, I'm nineteen--last sixth of February. Pity you come too late to give me a birthday present, ain't it?' 'Ah! And who'd have thought you'd have grown up such a beauty! I say, Clem, how many of the young chaps about here have been wanting to marry you, eh?' 'A dozen or two, I dessay,' Clem replied, shrugging her shoulders scornfully. Mr. Snowdon laughed, and then spat into the fire. 'Tell me about some o' them, will you? Who is it you're keeping company with now?' 'Who, indeed? Why, there isn't one I'd look at! Several of 'em's took to drinking 'cause I won't have nothing to do with 'em.' This excited Mr. Snowdon's mirth in a high degree; he rolled on his chair, and almost pitched backwards. 'I suppose you give one or other a bit of encouragement now and then, just to make a fool of him, eh?' 'Course I do. There was Bob Hewett; he used to lodge here, but that was after your time. I kep' him off an' on till he couldn't bear it no longer; then he went an' married a common slut of a thing, just because he thought it 'ud make me mad. Ha, ha! I believe he'd give her poison an' risk it any day, if only I promised to marry him afterwards. Then there was a feller called Jeck Bartley. I set him an' Bob fightin' one Bank-holiday--you should a' seen 'em go at it! Jack went an' got married a year ago to a girl called Suke Jollop; her mother forced him. How I did laugh! Last Christmas Day they smashed up their 'ome an' threw the bits out into the street. Jack got one of his eyes knocked out--I thought I should a' died o' laughin' when I saw him next mornin'.' The hearer became uproarious in merriment. 'Tell you what it is, Clem,' he cried, 'you're something like a girl! Darn me if I don't like you! I say, I wonder what my daughter's grown up? Like her mother, I suppose. You an' she was sort of sisters, wasn't you?' He observed her closely. Clem laughed and shrugged her shoulders. 'Queer sort o' sisters. She was a bit too quiet-like for me. There never was no fun in her.' 'Aye, like her mother. And where did you say she went to with the old man?' 'Where she went to?' repeated Clem, regarding him steadily with her big eyes, 'I never said nothing about it, 'cause I didn't know.' 'Well, I shan't cry about her, and I don't suppose she misses me much, wherever she is. All the same, Clem, I'm a domesticated sort of man; you can see that, can't you? I shouldn't wonder if I marry again one of these first days. Just tell me where to find a girl of the right sort. I dare say you know heaps.' 'Dessay I do. What sort do you want?' 'Oh, a littlish girl--yellow hair, you know--one of them that look as if they didn't weigh half-a-stone.' 'I'll throw this parsnip at you, Mr. Snowdon!' 'What's up now. You don't Call yourself littlish, do you?' Clem snapped the small end off the vegetable she was paring, and aimed it at his head. He ducked just in time. Then there was an outburst of laughter from both. 'Say, Clem, you haven't got a glass of beer in the house?' 'You'll have to wait till openin' time,' replied the girl sourly, going away to the far end of the room. 'Have I offended you, Clem?' 'Offended, indeed. As if I cared what you say!' 'Do you care what I think?' 'Not I!' 'That means you do. Say, Clem, just come here; I've something to tell you.' 'You're a nuisance. Let me get on with my work, can't you?' 'No, I can't. You just come here. You'd better not give me the trouble of fetching you!' The girl obeyed him. Her cheeks were very hot, and the danger-signal was flashing in her eyes. Ten minutes later she went upstairs, and had a vivacious dialogue of whispers with Mrs. Peckover. CHAPTER XV SUNLIGHT IN DREARY PLACES Among the by-ways of Clerkenwell you might, with some difficulty, have discovered an establishment known in its neighbourhood as 'Whitehead's.' It was an artificial-flower factory, and the rooms of which it consisted were only to be reached by traversing a timber-yard, and then mounting a wooden staircase outside a saw-mill. Here at busy seasons worked some threescore women and girls, who, owing to the nature of their occupation, were spoken of by the jocose youth of the locality as 'Whitehead's pastepots.' Naturally they varied much in age and aspect. There was the child who had newly left school, and was now invited to consider the question of how to keep herself alive; there was the woman of uncertain age, who had spent long years of long days in the atmosphere of workrooms, and showed the result in her parchmenty cheek and lack-lustre eye; and between these extremes came all the various types of the London crafts-girl: she who is young enough to hope that disappointments may yet be made up for by the future; she who is already tasting such scanty good as life had in store for her; she who has outlived her illusions and no longer cares to look beyond the close of the week. If regularly engaged as time-workers, they made themselves easy in the prospect of wages that allowed them to sleep under a roof and eat at certain intervals of the day; if employed on piece-work they might at any moment find themselves wageless, but this, being a familiar state of things, did not trouble them. With few exceptions, they were clad neatly; on the whole, they plied their task in wonderful contentment. The general tone of conversation among them was not high; moralists unfamiliar with the ways of the nether world would probably have applied a term other than negative to the laughing discussions which now and then enlivened this or that group; but it was very seldom indeed that a child newly arriving heard anything with which she was not already perfectly familiar. One afternoon at the end of May there penetrated into the largest of the workrooms that rarest of visitants, a stray sunbeam. Only if the sun happened to shine at given moments could any of its light fall directly into the room I speak of; this afternoon, however, all circumstances were favourable, and behold the floor chequered with uncertain gleam. The workers were arranged in groups of three, called 'parties,' consisting of a learner, an improver, and a hand. All sat with sleeves pushed up to their elbows, and had a habit of rocking to and fro as they plied their mechanical industry. Owing to the movement of a cloud, the sunlight spread gradually towards one of these groups; it touched the skirt, the arms, the head of one of the girls, who, as if gladdened by the kindly warmth, looked round and smiled. A smile you would have been pleased to observe--unconscious, gently thoughtful, rich in possibilities of happiness. She was quite a young girl, certainly not seventeen, and wore a smooth grey dress, with a white linen collar; her brown hair was closely plaited, her head well-shaped, the bend of her neck very graceful. From her bare arms it could be seen that she was anything but robustly made, yet her general appearance was not one of ill-health, and she held herself, even thus late in the day, far more uprightly than most of her companions. Had you watched her for a while, you would have noticed that her eyes occasionally strayed beyond the work-table, and, perhaps unconsciously, fixed themselves for some moments on one or other of the girls near her; when she remembered herself and looked down again upon her task, there rose to her face a smile of the subtlest meaning, the outcome of busy reflection. By her side was a little girl just beginning to learn the work, whose employment it was to paper wires and make 'centres.' This toil always results in blistered fingers, and frequent was the child's appeal to her neighbour for sympathy. 'It'll be easier soon,' said the latter, on one of these occasions, bending her head to speak in a low voice. 'You should have seen what blisters I had when I began.' 'It's all very well to say that. I can't do no more, so there Oh, when'll it be five o'clock?' 'It's a quarter to. Try and go on, Annie.' Five o'clock did come at length, and with it twenty minutes' rest for tea. The rule at Whitehead's was, that you could either bring your own tea, sugar, and eatables, or purchase them here from a forewoman; most of the workers chose to provide themselves. It was customary for each 'party' to club together, emptying their several contributions of tea out of little twists of newspaper into one teapot. Wholesome bustle and confusion succeeded to the former silence. One of the learners, whose turn it was to run on errands, was overwhelmed with commissions to a chandler's shop close by; a wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and they called her, because of her slowness, the 'funeral horse.' She had strange habits, which made laughter for those who knew of them; for instance, it was her custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her poor scraps on a doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a companion that the odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a relish. From her present errand she returned with a strange variety of dainties--for it was early in the week, and the girls still had coppers in their pockets; for two or three she had purchased a farthing's-worth of jam, which she carried in paper. A bite of this and a taste of that rewarded her for her trouble. The quiet-mannered girl whom we were observing took her cup of tea from the pot in which she had a share, and from her bag produced some folded pieces of bread and butter. She had begun her meal, when there came and sat down by her a young woman of very different appearance--our friend, Miss Peckover. They were old acquaintances; but when we first saw them together it would have been difficult to imagine that they would ever sit and converse as at present, apparently in all friendliness. Strange to say, it was Clem who, during the past three years, had been the active one in seeking to obliterate disagreeable memories. The younger girl had never repelled her, but was long in overcoming the dread excited by Clem's proximity. Even now she never looked straight into Miss Peckover's face, as she did when speaking with others; there was reserve in her manner, reserve unmistakable, though clothed with her pleasant smile and amiable voice. 'I've got something to tell you, Jane,' Clem began, in a tone inaudible to those who were sitting near. 'Something as'll surprise you.' 'What is it, I wonder?' 'You must swear you won't tell nobody.' Jane nodded. Then the other brought her head a little nearer, and whispered: 'I'm goin' to be married!' 'Are you really?' 'In a week. Who do you think it is? Somebody as you know of, but if you guessed till next Christmas you'd never come right.' Nor had Clem any intention of revealing the name, but she laughed consumedly, as if her reticence covered the most amusing situation conceivable. 'It'll be the biggest surprise you ever had in your life. You've swore you won't speak about it. I don't think I shall come to work after this week--but you'll have to come an' see us. You'll promise to, won't you?' Still convulsed with mirth, Clem went off to another part of the room. From Jane's countenance the look of amusement which she had perforce summoned soon passed; it was succeeded by a shadow almost of pain, and not till she had been at work again for nearly an hour was the former placidity restored to her. When final release came, Jane was among the first to hasten down the wooden staircase and get clear of the timber yard. By the direct way, it took her twenty minutes to walk from Whitehead's to her home in Hanover Street, but this evening she had an object in turning aside. The visit she wished to pay took her into a disagreeable quarter, a street of squalid houses, swarming with yet more squalid children. On all the doorsteps Bat little girls, themselves only just out of infancy, nursing or neglecting bald, red-eyed, doughy-limbed abortions in every stage of babyhood, hapless spawn of diseased humanity, born to embitter and brutalise yet further the lot of those who unwillingly gave them life. With wide, pitiful eyes Jane looked at each group she passed. Three years ago she would have seen nothing but the ordinary and the inevitable in such spectacles, but since then her moral and intellectual being had grown on rare nourishment; there was indignation as well as heartache in the feeling with which she had learnt to regard the world of her familiarity. To enter the house at which she paused it was necessary to squeeze through a conglomerate of dirty little bodies. At the head of the first flight of stairs she came upon a girl sitting in a weary attitude on the top step and beating the wood listlessly with the last remnant of a hearth-brush; on her lap was one more specimen of the infinitely-multiplied baby, and a child of two years sprawled behind her on the landing. 'Waiting for him to come home, Pennyloaf?' said Jane. 'Oh, is that you, Miss Snowdon!' exclaimed the other, returning to consciousness and manifesting some shame at being discovered in this position. Hastily she drew together the front of her dress, which for the baby's sake had been wide open, and rose to her feet. Pennyloaf was not a bit more womanly in figure than on the day of her marriage; her voice was still an immature treble; the same rueful irresponsibility marked her features; but all her poor prettiness was wasted under the disfigurement of pains and cares, Incongruously enough, she wore a gown of bright-patterned calico, and about her neck had a collar of pretentious lace; her hair was dressed as if for a holiday, and a daub recently made on her cheeks by the baby's fingers lent emphasis to the fact that she had but a little while ago washed herself with much care. 'I can't stop,' said Jane, 'but I thought I'd just look in and speak a word. How have you been getting on?' 'Oh, do come in for just a minute!' pleaded Pennyloaf, moving backwards to an open door, whither Jane followed. They entered a room--much like other rooms that we have looked into from time to time. Following the nomadic custom of their kind, Bob Hewett and his wife had lived in six or seven different lodgings since their honeymoon in Shooter's Gardens. Mrs. Candy first of all made a change necessary, as might have been anticipated, and the restlessness of domestic ill-being subsequently drove them from place to place. 'Come in 'ere, Johnny,' she Called to the child lying on the landing. 'What's the good o' washin' you, I'd like to know? Just see, Miss Snowdon, he's made his face all white with the milk as the boy spilt on the stairs! Take this brush an' play with it, do! I _can't_ keep 'em clean, Miss Snowdon, so it's no use talkin'.' 'Are you going somewhere to-night?' Jane inquired, with a glance at the strange costume. Pennyloaf looked up and down in a shamefaced way. 'I only did it just because I thought he might like to see me. He promised me faithful as he'd come 'ome to-night, and I thought--it's only somethink as got into my 'ed to-day, Miss Snowdon.' 'But hasn't he been coming home since I saw you last?' 'He did just once, an' then it was all the old ways again. I did what you told me; I did, as sure as I'm a-standin' 'ere! I made the room so clean you wouldn't have believed; I scrubbed the floor an' the table, an' I washed the winders--you can see they ain't dirty yet. An' he'd never a' paid a bit o' notice if I hadn't told him, He was jolly enough for one night, just like he can be when he likes. But I knew as it wouldn't last, an' the next night he was off with a lot o' fellers an' girls, same as ever. I didn't make no row when he came 'ome; I wish I may die if I said a word to set his back up! An' I've gone on just the same all the week; we haven't had not the least bit of a row; so you see I kep' my promise. But it's no good; he won't come 'ome; he's always got fellers an' girls to go round with. He took his hoath as he'd come back to-night, an' then it come into my 'ed as I'd put my best things on, just to--you know what I mean, Miss Snowdon. But he won't come before twelve o'clock; I know he won't. An' I get that low sittin' 'ere, you can't think I can't go nowhere, because o' the children. If it wasn't for them I could go to work again, an' I'd be that glad; I feel as if my 'ed would drop off sometimes! I _ham_ so glad you just come in!' Jane had tried so many forms of encouragement, of consolation, on previous occasions that she knew not how to repeat herself. She was ashamed to speak words which sounded so hollow and profitless. This silence was only too significant to Pennyloaf, and in a moment she exclaimed with querulous energy: 'I know what'll be the bend of it! I'll go an' do like mother does--I will! I will! I'll put my ring away, an' I'll go an' sit all night in the public-'ouse! It's what all the others does, an' I'll do the same. I often feel I'm a fool to go on like this. I don't know what I live for, P'r'aps he'll be sorry when I get run in like mother.' 'Don't talk like that, Pennyloaf!' cried Jane, stamping her foot, (It was odd how completely difference of character had reversed their natural relations to each other; Pennyloaf was the child, Jane the mature woman.) 'You know better, and you've no right to give way to such thoughts. I was going to say I'd come and be with you all Saturday afternoon, but I don't know whether I shall now. And I'd been thinking you might like to come and see me on Sunday, but I can't have people that go to the public-house, so we won't say anything more about it. I shall have to be off; good-bye!' She stepped to the door. 'Miss Snowdon!' Jane turned, and after an instant of mock severity, broke into a laugh which seemed to fill the wretched den with sunlight. Words, too, she found; words of soothing influence such as leap from the heart to the tongue in spite of the heavy thoughts that try to check them. Pennyloaf was learning to depend upon these words for strength in her desolation. They did not excite her to much hopefulness, but there was a sustaining power in their sweet sincerity which made all the difference between despair tending to evil and the sigh of renewed effort. 'I don't care,' Pennyloaf had got into the habit of thinking, after her friend's departure, 'I won't give up as long as she looks in now and then.' Out from the swarm of babies Jane hurried homewards. She had a reason for wishing to be back in good time to-night; it was Wednesday, and on Wednesday evening there was wont to come a visitor, who sat for a couple of hours in her grandfather's room and talked, talked--the most interesting talk Jane had ever heard or could imagine. A latch-key admitted her; she ran up to the second floor. A voice from the front-room caught her ear; certainly not _his_ voice--it was too early--but that of some unusual visitor. She was on the point of entering her own chamber, when the other door opened, and somebody exclaimed, 'Ah, here she is!' The speaker was an old gentleman, dressed in black, bald, with small and rather rugged features; his voice was pleasant. A gold chain and a bunch of seals shone against his waistcoat, also a pair of eye-glasses. A professional man, obviously. Jane remembered that she had seen him once before, about a year ago, when he had talked with her for a few minutes, very kindly. 'Will you come in here, Jane?' her grandfather's voice called to her. Snowdon had changed much. Old age was heavy upon his shoulders, and had even produced a slight tremulousness in his hands; his voice told the same story of enfeeblement. Even more noticeable was the ageing of his countenance. Something more, however, than the progress of time seemed to be here at work. He looked strangely careworn; his forehead was set in lines of anxiety; his mouth expressed a nervousness of which formerly there had been no trace. One would have said that some harassing preoccupation must have seized his mind. His eyes were no longer merely sad and absent, but restless with fatiguing thought. As Jane entered the room he fixed his gaze upon her--a gaze that appeared to reveal worrying apprehension. 'You remember Mr. Percival, Jane,' he said. The old gentleman thus presented held out his hand with something of fatherly geniality. 'Miss Snowdon, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again before long, but just now I am carrying off your grandfather for a couple of hours, and indeed we

how

How many times the word 'how' appears in the text?

worn by a man above the mechanic ranks), but it was patched with dirt of many kinds, and held together by a most inadequate supply of buttons. At present he wore no collar, and his waistcoat, half-open, exposed a red shirt. 'Why, you're all a-blowin' and a-growin' this morning, Peckover,' was his first observation, as he dropped heavily into a wooden arm-chair. 'I shall begin to think that colour of yours ain't natural. Dare you let me rub it with a handkerchief?' 'Course I dare,' replied Clem, tossing her head. 'Don't be so forward, Mr. Snowdon.' 'Forward? Not I. I'm behind time if anything. I hope I haven't kept you from church.' He chuckled at his double joke. Mother and daughter laughed appreciatively. 'Will you take your eggs boiled or fried?' inquired Mrs. Peckover. 'Going to give me eggs, are you? Well, I've no objection, I assure you. And I think I'll have them fried, Mrs. Peckover. But, I say, you mustn't be running up too big a bill. The Lord only knows when I shall get anything to do, and it ain't very likely to be a thousand a year when it does come.' 'Oh, that's all right,' replied the landlady, as if sordid calculation were a thing impossible to her. 'I can't say as you behaved quite straightforward years ago, Mr. Snowdon, but I ain't one to make a row about bygones, an' as you say you'll put it all straight as soon as you can, well, I won't refuse to trust you once more.' Mr. Snowdon lay back in the chair, his hands in his waistcoat pockets, his legs outstretched upon the fender. He was smiling placidly, now at the preparing breakfast, now at Clem. The latter he plainly regarded with much admiration, and cared not to conceal it. When, in a few minutes, it was announced to him that the meal was ready, he dragged his chair up to the table and reseated himself with a sigh of satisfaction. A dish of excellent ham, and eggs as nearly fresh as can be obtained in Clerkenwell, invited him with appetising odour; a large cup of what is known to the generality of English people as coffee steamed at his right hand; slices of new bread lay ready cut upon a plate; a slab of the most expensive substitute for butter caught his eye with yellow promise; vinegar and mustard appealed to the refinements of his taste. 'I've got a couple more eggs, if you'd like them doin',' said Mrs. Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the viands. 'I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,' returned Mr. Snowdon. As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly in consequence of the activity of his mind. He was, in fact, musing upon a question which he found it very difficult to answer in any satisfactory way. 'What's the meaning of all this?' he asked himself, and not for the first time. 'What makes them treat me in this fashion? A week ago I came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just because I'd run down to my last penny, and I didn't know where to find a night's lodging. I'd got an idea, too, that I should like to find out what had become of my child, whom I left here nine or ten years ago; possibly she was still alive, and might welcome the duty of supporting her parent. The chance was, to be sure, that the girl had long since been in her grave, and that Mrs. Peckover no longer lived in the old quarters; if I discovered the woman, on the other hand, she was not very likely to give me an affectionate reception, seeing that I found it inconvenient to keep sending her money for Jane's keep in the old days. The queer thing is, that everything turned out exactly the opposite of what I had expected. Mrs. Peckover had rather a sour face at first, but after a little talk she began to seem quite glad to see me. She put me into a room, undertook to board me for a while--till I find work, and I wonder when _that_'ll be?--and blest if this strapping daughter of hers doesn't seem to have fallen in love with me from the first go off! As for my girl, I'm told she was carried off by her grandfather, my old dad, three years ago, and where they went nobody knows. Very puzzling all this. How on earth came it that Mrs. Peckover kept the child so long, and didn't send her to the workhouse? If I'm to believe _her_, she took a motherly kindness for the poor brat. But that won't exactly go down with J. J. Snowdon; he's seen a bit too much in his knocking about the world, Still, what if I'm making a mistake about the old woman? There _are_ some people do things of that sort; upon my soul, I've known people be kind even to me, without a chance of being paid back! You may think you know a man or a woman, and then all at once they'll go and do something you'd have taken your davy couldn't possibly happen. I'd have sworn she was nothing but a skinflint and a lying old witch. And so she maybe; the chances are there's some game going on that I can't see through. Make inquiries? Why, so I have done, as far as I know how. I've only been able to hit on one person who knows anything about the matter, and he tells me it's true enough the girl was taken away about three years ago, but he's no idea where she went to. Surely the old man must be dead b now, though he _was_ tough. Well, the fact of the matter is, I've got a good berth, and I'm a precious sight too lazy to go on the private detective job. Here's this girl Clem, the finest bit of flesh I've seen for a long time; I've more than half a mind to see if she won't be fool enough to marry me. I'm not a bad-looking fellow, that's the truth, and she may have taken a real liking to me. Seems to me that I should have come in for a Comfortable thing in my old age; if I haven't a daughter to provide for my needs, at all events I shall have a wife who can be persuaded into doing so. When the old woman gets out of the way I must have a little quiet talk with Clem.' The opportunity he desired was not long in offering itself. Having made an excellent breakfast, he dragged his chair up to the fender again, and reached a pipe from the mantel-piece, where he had left it last night. Tobacco he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket; it came forth in the form of yellowish dust, intermingled with all sorts of alien scraps. When he had lit his pipe, he poised the chair on its hind-legs, clasped his hands over his bald crown, and continued his musing with an air of amiable calm. Smoke curled up from the corner of his loose lips, and occasionally, removing his pipe for an instant, he spat skilfully between the bars of the grate. Assured of his comfort, Mrs. Peckover said she must go and look after certain domestic duties. Her daughter had begun to clean some vegetables that would be cooked for dinner. 'How old may you be, Clem?' Mr. Snowdon inquired genially, when they had been alone together for a few minutes. 'What's that to you? Guess.' 'Why, let me see; you was not much more than a baby when I went away. You'll be eighteen or nineteen, I suppose.' 'Yes, I'm nineteen--last sixth of February. Pity you come too late to give me a birthday present, ain't it?' 'Ah! And who'd have thought you'd have grown up such a beauty! I say, Clem, how many of the young chaps about here have been wanting to marry you, eh?' 'A dozen or two, I dessay,' Clem replied, shrugging her shoulders scornfully. Mr. Snowdon laughed, and then spat into the fire. 'Tell me about some o' them, will you? Who is it you're keeping company with now?' 'Who, indeed? Why, there isn't one I'd look at! Several of 'em's took to drinking 'cause I won't have nothing to do with 'em.' This excited Mr. Snowdon's mirth in a high degree; he rolled on his chair, and almost pitched backwards. 'I suppose you give one or other a bit of encouragement now and then, just to make a fool of him, eh?' 'Course I do. There was Bob Hewett; he used to lodge here, but that was after your time. I kep' him off an' on till he couldn't bear it no longer; then he went an' married a common slut of a thing, just because he thought it 'ud make me mad. Ha, ha! I believe he'd give her poison an' risk it any day, if only I promised to marry him afterwards. Then there was a feller called Jeck Bartley. I set him an' Bob fightin' one Bank-holiday--you should a' seen 'em go at it! Jack went an' got married a year ago to a girl called Suke Jollop; her mother forced him. How I did laugh! Last Christmas Day they smashed up their 'ome an' threw the bits out into the street. Jack got one of his eyes knocked out--I thought I should a' died o' laughin' when I saw him next mornin'.' The hearer became uproarious in merriment. 'Tell you what it is, Clem,' he cried, 'you're something like a girl! Darn me if I don't like you! I say, I wonder what my daughter's grown up? Like her mother, I suppose. You an' she was sort of sisters, wasn't you?' He observed her closely. Clem laughed and shrugged her shoulders. 'Queer sort o' sisters. She was a bit too quiet-like for me. There never was no fun in her.' 'Aye, like her mother. And where did you say she went to with the old man?' 'Where she went to?' repeated Clem, regarding him steadily with her big eyes, 'I never said nothing about it, 'cause I didn't know.' 'Well, I shan't cry about her, and I don't suppose she misses me much, wherever she is. All the same, Clem, I'm a domesticated sort of man; you can see that, can't you? I shouldn't wonder if I marry again one of these first days. Just tell me where to find a girl of the right sort. I dare say you know heaps.' 'Dessay I do. What sort do you want?' 'Oh, a littlish girl--yellow hair, you know--one of them that look as if they didn't weigh half-a-stone.' 'I'll throw this parsnip at you, Mr. Snowdon!' 'What's up now. You don't Call yourself littlish, do you?' Clem snapped the small end off the vegetable she was paring, and aimed it at his head. He ducked just in time. Then there was an outburst of laughter from both. 'Say, Clem, you haven't got a glass of beer in the house?' 'You'll have to wait till openin' time,' replied the girl sourly, going away to the far end of the room. 'Have I offended you, Clem?' 'Offended, indeed. As if I cared what you say!' 'Do you care what I think?' 'Not I!' 'That means you do. Say, Clem, just come here; I've something to tell you.' 'You're a nuisance. Let me get on with my work, can't you?' 'No, I can't. You just come here. You'd better not give me the trouble of fetching you!' The girl obeyed him. Her cheeks were very hot, and the danger-signal was flashing in her eyes. Ten minutes later she went upstairs, and had a vivacious dialogue of whispers with Mrs. Peckover. CHAPTER XV SUNLIGHT IN DREARY PLACES Among the by-ways of Clerkenwell you might, with some difficulty, have discovered an establishment known in its neighbourhood as 'Whitehead's.' It was an artificial-flower factory, and the rooms of which it consisted were only to be reached by traversing a timber-yard, and then mounting a wooden staircase outside a saw-mill. Here at busy seasons worked some threescore women and girls, who, owing to the nature of their occupation, were spoken of by the jocose youth of the locality as 'Whitehead's pastepots.' Naturally they varied much in age and aspect. There was the child who had newly left school, and was now invited to consider the question of how to keep herself alive; there was the woman of uncertain age, who had spent long years of long days in the atmosphere of workrooms, and showed the result in her parchmenty cheek and lack-lustre eye; and between these extremes came all the various types of the London crafts-girl: she who is young enough to hope that disappointments may yet be made up for by the future; she who is already tasting such scanty good as life had in store for her; she who has outlived her illusions and no longer cares to look beyond the close of the week. If regularly engaged as time-workers, they made themselves easy in the prospect of wages that allowed them to sleep under a roof and eat at certain intervals of the day; if employed on piece-work they might at any moment find themselves wageless, but this, being a familiar state of things, did not trouble them. With few exceptions, they were clad neatly; on the whole, they plied their task in wonderful contentment. The general tone of conversation among them was not high; moralists unfamiliar with the ways of the nether world would probably have applied a term other than negative to the laughing discussions which now and then enlivened this or that group; but it was very seldom indeed that a child newly arriving heard anything with which she was not already perfectly familiar. One afternoon at the end of May there penetrated into the largest of the workrooms that rarest of visitants, a stray sunbeam. Only if the sun happened to shine at given moments could any of its light fall directly into the room I speak of; this afternoon, however, all circumstances were favourable, and behold the floor chequered with uncertain gleam. The workers were arranged in groups of three, called 'parties,' consisting of a learner, an improver, and a hand. All sat with sleeves pushed up to their elbows, and had a habit of rocking to and fro as they plied their mechanical industry. Owing to the movement of a cloud, the sunlight spread gradually towards one of these groups; it touched the skirt, the arms, the head of one of the girls, who, as if gladdened by the kindly warmth, looked round and smiled. A smile you would have been pleased to observe--unconscious, gently thoughtful, rich in possibilities of happiness. She was quite a young girl, certainly not seventeen, and wore a smooth grey dress, with a white linen collar; her brown hair was closely plaited, her head well-shaped, the bend of her neck very graceful. From her bare arms it could be seen that she was anything but robustly made, yet her general appearance was not one of ill-health, and she held herself, even thus late in the day, far more uprightly than most of her companions. Had you watched her for a while, you would have noticed that her eyes occasionally strayed beyond the work-table, and, perhaps unconsciously, fixed themselves for some moments on one or other of the girls near her; when she remembered herself and looked down again upon her task, there rose to her face a smile of the subtlest meaning, the outcome of busy reflection. By her side was a little girl just beginning to learn the work, whose employment it was to paper wires and make 'centres.' This toil always results in blistered fingers, and frequent was the child's appeal to her neighbour for sympathy. 'It'll be easier soon,' said the latter, on one of these occasions, bending her head to speak in a low voice. 'You should have seen what blisters I had when I began.' 'It's all very well to say that. I can't do no more, so there Oh, when'll it be five o'clock?' 'It's a quarter to. Try and go on, Annie.' Five o'clock did come at length, and with it twenty minutes' rest for tea. The rule at Whitehead's was, that you could either bring your own tea, sugar, and eatables, or purchase them here from a forewoman; most of the workers chose to provide themselves. It was customary for each 'party' to club together, emptying their several contributions of tea out of little twists of newspaper into one teapot. Wholesome bustle and confusion succeeded to the former silence. One of the learners, whose turn it was to run on errands, was overwhelmed with commissions to a chandler's shop close by; a wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and they called her, because of her slowness, the 'funeral horse.' She had strange habits, which made laughter for those who knew of them; for instance, it was her custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her poor scraps on a doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a companion that the odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a relish. From her present errand she returned with a strange variety of dainties--for it was early in the week, and the girls still had coppers in their pockets; for two or three she had purchased a farthing's-worth of jam, which she carried in paper. A bite of this and a taste of that rewarded her for her trouble. The quiet-mannered girl whom we were observing took her cup of tea from the pot in which she had a share, and from her bag produced some folded pieces of bread and butter. She had begun her meal, when there came and sat down by her a young woman of very different appearance--our friend, Miss Peckover. They were old acquaintances; but when we first saw them together it would have been difficult to imagine that they would ever sit and converse as at present, apparently in all friendliness. Strange to say, it was Clem who, during the past three years, had been the active one in seeking to obliterate disagreeable memories. The younger girl had never repelled her, but was long in overcoming the dread excited by Clem's proximity. Even now she never looked straight into Miss Peckover's face, as she did when speaking with others; there was reserve in her manner, reserve unmistakable, though clothed with her pleasant smile and amiable voice. 'I've got something to tell you, Jane,' Clem began, in a tone inaudible to those who were sitting near. 'Something as'll surprise you.' 'What is it, I wonder?' 'You must swear you won't tell nobody.' Jane nodded. Then the other brought her head a little nearer, and whispered: 'I'm goin' to be married!' 'Are you really?' 'In a week. Who do you think it is? Somebody as you know of, but if you guessed till next Christmas you'd never come right.' Nor had Clem any intention of revealing the name, but she laughed consumedly, as if her reticence covered the most amusing situation conceivable. 'It'll be the biggest surprise you ever had in your life. You've swore you won't speak about it. I don't think I shall come to work after this week--but you'll have to come an' see us. You'll promise to, won't you?' Still convulsed with mirth, Clem went off to another part of the room. From Jane's countenance the look of amusement which she had perforce summoned soon passed; it was succeeded by a shadow almost of pain, and not till she had been at work again for nearly an hour was the former placidity restored to her. When final release came, Jane was among the first to hasten down the wooden staircase and get clear of the timber yard. By the direct way, it took her twenty minutes to walk from Whitehead's to her home in Hanover Street, but this evening she had an object in turning aside. The visit she wished to pay took her into a disagreeable quarter, a street of squalid houses, swarming with yet more squalid children. On all the doorsteps Bat little girls, themselves only just out of infancy, nursing or neglecting bald, red-eyed, doughy-limbed abortions in every stage of babyhood, hapless spawn of diseased humanity, born to embitter and brutalise yet further the lot of those who unwillingly gave them life. With wide, pitiful eyes Jane looked at each group she passed. Three years ago she would have seen nothing but the ordinary and the inevitable in such spectacles, but since then her moral and intellectual being had grown on rare nourishment; there was indignation as well as heartache in the feeling with which she had learnt to regard the world of her familiarity. To enter the house at which she paused it was necessary to squeeze through a conglomerate of dirty little bodies. At the head of the first flight of stairs she came upon a girl sitting in a weary attitude on the top step and beating the wood listlessly with the last remnant of a hearth-brush; on her lap was one more specimen of the infinitely-multiplied baby, and a child of two years sprawled behind her on the landing. 'Waiting for him to come home, Pennyloaf?' said Jane. 'Oh, is that you, Miss Snowdon!' exclaimed the other, returning to consciousness and manifesting some shame at being discovered in this position. Hastily she drew together the front of her dress, which for the baby's sake had been wide open, and rose to her feet. Pennyloaf was not a bit more womanly in figure than on the day of her marriage; her voice was still an immature treble; the same rueful irresponsibility marked her features; but all her poor prettiness was wasted under the disfigurement of pains and cares, Incongruously enough, she wore a gown of bright-patterned calico, and about her neck had a collar of pretentious lace; her hair was dressed as if for a holiday, and a daub recently made on her cheeks by the baby's fingers lent emphasis to the fact that she had but a little while ago washed herself with much care. 'I can't stop,' said Jane, 'but I thought I'd just look in and speak a word. How have you been getting on?' 'Oh, do come in for just a minute!' pleaded Pennyloaf, moving backwards to an open door, whither Jane followed. They entered a room--much like other rooms that we have looked into from time to time. Following the nomadic custom of their kind, Bob Hewett and his wife had lived in six or seven different lodgings since their honeymoon in Shooter's Gardens. Mrs. Candy first of all made a change necessary, as might have been anticipated, and the restlessness of domestic ill-being subsequently drove them from place to place. 'Come in 'ere, Johnny,' she Called to the child lying on the landing. 'What's the good o' washin' you, I'd like to know? Just see, Miss Snowdon, he's made his face all white with the milk as the boy spilt on the stairs! Take this brush an' play with it, do! I _can't_ keep 'em clean, Miss Snowdon, so it's no use talkin'.' 'Are you going somewhere to-night?' Jane inquired, with a glance at the strange costume. Pennyloaf looked up and down in a shamefaced way. 'I only did it just because I thought he might like to see me. He promised me faithful as he'd come 'ome to-night, and I thought--it's only somethink as got into my 'ed to-day, Miss Snowdon.' 'But hasn't he been coming home since I saw you last?' 'He did just once, an' then it was all the old ways again. I did what you told me; I did, as sure as I'm a-standin' 'ere! I made the room so clean you wouldn't have believed; I scrubbed the floor an' the table, an' I washed the winders--you can see they ain't dirty yet. An' he'd never a' paid a bit o' notice if I hadn't told him, He was jolly enough for one night, just like he can be when he likes. But I knew as it wouldn't last, an' the next night he was off with a lot o' fellers an' girls, same as ever. I didn't make no row when he came 'ome; I wish I may die if I said a word to set his back up! An' I've gone on just the same all the week; we haven't had not the least bit of a row; so you see I kep' my promise. But it's no good; he won't come 'ome; he's always got fellers an' girls to go round with. He took his hoath as he'd come back to-night, an' then it come into my 'ed as I'd put my best things on, just to--you know what I mean, Miss Snowdon. But he won't come before twelve o'clock; I know he won't. An' I get that low sittin' 'ere, you can't think I can't go nowhere, because o' the children. If it wasn't for them I could go to work again, an' I'd be that glad; I feel as if my 'ed would drop off sometimes! I _ham_ so glad you just come in!' Jane had tried so many forms of encouragement, of consolation, on previous occasions that she knew not how to repeat herself. She was ashamed to speak words which sounded so hollow and profitless. This silence was only too significant to Pennyloaf, and in a moment she exclaimed with querulous energy: 'I know what'll be the bend of it! I'll go an' do like mother does--I will! I will! I'll put my ring away, an' I'll go an' sit all night in the public-'ouse! It's what all the others does, an' I'll do the same. I often feel I'm a fool to go on like this. I don't know what I live for, P'r'aps he'll be sorry when I get run in like mother.' 'Don't talk like that, Pennyloaf!' cried Jane, stamping her foot, (It was odd how completely difference of character had reversed their natural relations to each other; Pennyloaf was the child, Jane the mature woman.) 'You know better, and you've no right to give way to such thoughts. I was going to say I'd come and be with you all Saturday afternoon, but I don't know whether I shall now. And I'd been thinking you might like to come and see me on Sunday, but I can't have people that go to the public-house, so we won't say anything more about it. I shall have to be off; good-bye!' She stepped to the door. 'Miss Snowdon!' Jane turned, and after an instant of mock severity, broke into a laugh which seemed to fill the wretched den with sunlight. Words, too, she found; words of soothing influence such as leap from the heart to the tongue in spite of the heavy thoughts that try to check them. Pennyloaf was learning to depend upon these words for strength in her desolation. They did not excite her to much hopefulness, but there was a sustaining power in their sweet sincerity which made all the difference between despair tending to evil and the sigh of renewed effort. 'I don't care,' Pennyloaf had got into the habit of thinking, after her friend's departure, 'I won't give up as long as she looks in now and then.' Out from the swarm of babies Jane hurried homewards. She had a reason for wishing to be back in good time to-night; it was Wednesday, and on Wednesday evening there was wont to come a visitor, who sat for a couple of hours in her grandfather's room and talked, talked--the most interesting talk Jane had ever heard or could imagine. A latch-key admitted her; she ran up to the second floor. A voice from the front-room caught her ear; certainly not _his_ voice--it was too early--but that of some unusual visitor. She was on the point of entering her own chamber, when the other door opened, and somebody exclaimed, 'Ah, here she is!' The speaker was an old gentleman, dressed in black, bald, with small and rather rugged features; his voice was pleasant. A gold chain and a bunch of seals shone against his waistcoat, also a pair of eye-glasses. A professional man, obviously. Jane remembered that she had seen him once before, about a year ago, when he had talked with her for a few minutes, very kindly. 'Will you come in here, Jane?' her grandfather's voice called to her. Snowdon had changed much. Old age was heavy upon his shoulders, and had even produced a slight tremulousness in his hands; his voice told the same story of enfeeblement. Even more noticeable was the ageing of his countenance. Something more, however, than the progress of time seemed to be here at work. He looked strangely careworn; his forehead was set in lines of anxiety; his mouth expressed a nervousness of which formerly there had been no trace. One would have said that some harassing preoccupation must have seized his mind. His eyes were no longer merely sad and absent, but restless with fatiguing thought. As Jane entered the room he fixed his gaze upon her--a gaze that appeared to reveal worrying apprehension. 'You remember Mr. Percival, Jane,' he said. The old gentleman thus presented held out his hand with something of fatherly geniality. 'Miss Snowdon, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again before long, but just now I am carrying off your grandfather for a couple of hours, and indeed we

smiling

How many times the word 'smiling' appears in the text?

worn by a man above the mechanic ranks), but it was patched with dirt of many kinds, and held together by a most inadequate supply of buttons. At present he wore no collar, and his waistcoat, half-open, exposed a red shirt. 'Why, you're all a-blowin' and a-growin' this morning, Peckover,' was his first observation, as he dropped heavily into a wooden arm-chair. 'I shall begin to think that colour of yours ain't natural. Dare you let me rub it with a handkerchief?' 'Course I dare,' replied Clem, tossing her head. 'Don't be so forward, Mr. Snowdon.' 'Forward? Not I. I'm behind time if anything. I hope I haven't kept you from church.' He chuckled at his double joke. Mother and daughter laughed appreciatively. 'Will you take your eggs boiled or fried?' inquired Mrs. Peckover. 'Going to give me eggs, are you? Well, I've no objection, I assure you. And I think I'll have them fried, Mrs. Peckover. But, I say, you mustn't be running up too big a bill. The Lord only knows when I shall get anything to do, and it ain't very likely to be a thousand a year when it does come.' 'Oh, that's all right,' replied the landlady, as if sordid calculation were a thing impossible to her. 'I can't say as you behaved quite straightforward years ago, Mr. Snowdon, but I ain't one to make a row about bygones, an' as you say you'll put it all straight as soon as you can, well, I won't refuse to trust you once more.' Mr. Snowdon lay back in the chair, his hands in his waistcoat pockets, his legs outstretched upon the fender. He was smiling placidly, now at the preparing breakfast, now at Clem. The latter he plainly regarded with much admiration, and cared not to conceal it. When, in a few minutes, it was announced to him that the meal was ready, he dragged his chair up to the table and reseated himself with a sigh of satisfaction. A dish of excellent ham, and eggs as nearly fresh as can be obtained in Clerkenwell, invited him with appetising odour; a large cup of what is known to the generality of English people as coffee steamed at his right hand; slices of new bread lay ready cut upon a plate; a slab of the most expensive substitute for butter caught his eye with yellow promise; vinegar and mustard appealed to the refinements of his taste. 'I've got a couple more eggs, if you'd like them doin',' said Mrs. Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the viands. 'I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,' returned Mr. Snowdon. As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly in consequence of the activity of his mind. He was, in fact, musing upon a question which he found it very difficult to answer in any satisfactory way. 'What's the meaning of all this?' he asked himself, and not for the first time. 'What makes them treat me in this fashion? A week ago I came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just because I'd run down to my last penny, and I didn't know where to find a night's lodging. I'd got an idea, too, that I should like to find out what had become of my child, whom I left here nine or ten years ago; possibly she was still alive, and might welcome the duty of supporting her parent. The chance was, to be sure, that the girl had long since been in her grave, and that Mrs. Peckover no longer lived in the old quarters; if I discovered the woman, on the other hand, she was not very likely to give me an affectionate reception, seeing that I found it inconvenient to keep sending her money for Jane's keep in the old days. The queer thing is, that everything turned out exactly the opposite of what I had expected. Mrs. Peckover had rather a sour face at first, but after a little talk she began to seem quite glad to see me. She put me into a room, undertook to board me for a while--till I find work, and I wonder when _that_'ll be?--and blest if this strapping daughter of hers doesn't seem to have fallen in love with me from the first go off! As for my girl, I'm told she was carried off by her grandfather, my old dad, three years ago, and where they went nobody knows. Very puzzling all this. How on earth came it that Mrs. Peckover kept the child so long, and didn't send her to the workhouse? If I'm to believe _her_, she took a motherly kindness for the poor brat. But that won't exactly go down with J. J. Snowdon; he's seen a bit too much in his knocking about the world, Still, what if I'm making a mistake about the old woman? There _are_ some people do things of that sort; upon my soul, I've known people be kind even to me, without a chance of being paid back! You may think you know a man or a woman, and then all at once they'll go and do something you'd have taken your davy couldn't possibly happen. I'd have sworn she was nothing but a skinflint and a lying old witch. And so she maybe; the chances are there's some game going on that I can't see through. Make inquiries? Why, so I have done, as far as I know how. I've only been able to hit on one person who knows anything about the matter, and he tells me it's true enough the girl was taken away about three years ago, but he's no idea where she went to. Surely the old man must be dead b now, though he _was_ tough. Well, the fact of the matter is, I've got a good berth, and I'm a precious sight too lazy to go on the private detective job. Here's this girl Clem, the finest bit of flesh I've seen for a long time; I've more than half a mind to see if she won't be fool enough to marry me. I'm not a bad-looking fellow, that's the truth, and she may have taken a real liking to me. Seems to me that I should have come in for a Comfortable thing in my old age; if I haven't a daughter to provide for my needs, at all events I shall have a wife who can be persuaded into doing so. When the old woman gets out of the way I must have a little quiet talk with Clem.' The opportunity he desired was not long in offering itself. Having made an excellent breakfast, he dragged his chair up to the fender again, and reached a pipe from the mantel-piece, where he had left it last night. Tobacco he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket; it came forth in the form of yellowish dust, intermingled with all sorts of alien scraps. When he had lit his pipe, he poised the chair on its hind-legs, clasped his hands over his bald crown, and continued his musing with an air of amiable calm. Smoke curled up from the corner of his loose lips, and occasionally, removing his pipe for an instant, he spat skilfully between the bars of the grate. Assured of his comfort, Mrs. Peckover said she must go and look after certain domestic duties. Her daughter had begun to clean some vegetables that would be cooked for dinner. 'How old may you be, Clem?' Mr. Snowdon inquired genially, when they had been alone together for a few minutes. 'What's that to you? Guess.' 'Why, let me see; you was not much more than a baby when I went away. You'll be eighteen or nineteen, I suppose.' 'Yes, I'm nineteen--last sixth of February. Pity you come too late to give me a birthday present, ain't it?' 'Ah! And who'd have thought you'd have grown up such a beauty! I say, Clem, how many of the young chaps about here have been wanting to marry you, eh?' 'A dozen or two, I dessay,' Clem replied, shrugging her shoulders scornfully. Mr. Snowdon laughed, and then spat into the fire. 'Tell me about some o' them, will you? Who is it you're keeping company with now?' 'Who, indeed? Why, there isn't one I'd look at! Several of 'em's took to drinking 'cause I won't have nothing to do with 'em.' This excited Mr. Snowdon's mirth in a high degree; he rolled on his chair, and almost pitched backwards. 'I suppose you give one or other a bit of encouragement now and then, just to make a fool of him, eh?' 'Course I do. There was Bob Hewett; he used to lodge here, but that was after your time. I kep' him off an' on till he couldn't bear it no longer; then he went an' married a common slut of a thing, just because he thought it 'ud make me mad. Ha, ha! I believe he'd give her poison an' risk it any day, if only I promised to marry him afterwards. Then there was a feller called Jeck Bartley. I set him an' Bob fightin' one Bank-holiday--you should a' seen 'em go at it! Jack went an' got married a year ago to a girl called Suke Jollop; her mother forced him. How I did laugh! Last Christmas Day they smashed up their 'ome an' threw the bits out into the street. Jack got one of his eyes knocked out--I thought I should a' died o' laughin' when I saw him next mornin'.' The hearer became uproarious in merriment. 'Tell you what it is, Clem,' he cried, 'you're something like a girl! Darn me if I don't like you! I say, I wonder what my daughter's grown up? Like her mother, I suppose. You an' she was sort of sisters, wasn't you?' He observed her closely. Clem laughed and shrugged her shoulders. 'Queer sort o' sisters. She was a bit too quiet-like for me. There never was no fun in her.' 'Aye, like her mother. And where did you say she went to with the old man?' 'Where she went to?' repeated Clem, regarding him steadily with her big eyes, 'I never said nothing about it, 'cause I didn't know.' 'Well, I shan't cry about her, and I don't suppose she misses me much, wherever she is. All the same, Clem, I'm a domesticated sort of man; you can see that, can't you? I shouldn't wonder if I marry again one of these first days. Just tell me where to find a girl of the right sort. I dare say you know heaps.' 'Dessay I do. What sort do you want?' 'Oh, a littlish girl--yellow hair, you know--one of them that look as if they didn't weigh half-a-stone.' 'I'll throw this parsnip at you, Mr. Snowdon!' 'What's up now. You don't Call yourself littlish, do you?' Clem snapped the small end off the vegetable she was paring, and aimed it at his head. He ducked just in time. Then there was an outburst of laughter from both. 'Say, Clem, you haven't got a glass of beer in the house?' 'You'll have to wait till openin' time,' replied the girl sourly, going away to the far end of the room. 'Have I offended you, Clem?' 'Offended, indeed. As if I cared what you say!' 'Do you care what I think?' 'Not I!' 'That means you do. Say, Clem, just come here; I've something to tell you.' 'You're a nuisance. Let me get on with my work, can't you?' 'No, I can't. You just come here. You'd better not give me the trouble of fetching you!' The girl obeyed him. Her cheeks were very hot, and the danger-signal was flashing in her eyes. Ten minutes later she went upstairs, and had a vivacious dialogue of whispers with Mrs. Peckover. CHAPTER XV SUNLIGHT IN DREARY PLACES Among the by-ways of Clerkenwell you might, with some difficulty, have discovered an establishment known in its neighbourhood as 'Whitehead's.' It was an artificial-flower factory, and the rooms of which it consisted were only to be reached by traversing a timber-yard, and then mounting a wooden staircase outside a saw-mill. Here at busy seasons worked some threescore women and girls, who, owing to the nature of their occupation, were spoken of by the jocose youth of the locality as 'Whitehead's pastepots.' Naturally they varied much in age and aspect. There was the child who had newly left school, and was now invited to consider the question of how to keep herself alive; there was the woman of uncertain age, who had spent long years of long days in the atmosphere of workrooms, and showed the result in her parchmenty cheek and lack-lustre eye; and between these extremes came all the various types of the London crafts-girl: she who is young enough to hope that disappointments may yet be made up for by the future; she who is already tasting such scanty good as life had in store for her; she who has outlived her illusions and no longer cares to look beyond the close of the week. If regularly engaged as time-workers, they made themselves easy in the prospect of wages that allowed them to sleep under a roof and eat at certain intervals of the day; if employed on piece-work they might at any moment find themselves wageless, but this, being a familiar state of things, did not trouble them. With few exceptions, they were clad neatly; on the whole, they plied their task in wonderful contentment. The general tone of conversation among them was not high; moralists unfamiliar with the ways of the nether world would probably have applied a term other than negative to the laughing discussions which now and then enlivened this or that group; but it was very seldom indeed that a child newly arriving heard anything with which she was not already perfectly familiar. One afternoon at the end of May there penetrated into the largest of the workrooms that rarest of visitants, a stray sunbeam. Only if the sun happened to shine at given moments could any of its light fall directly into the room I speak of; this afternoon, however, all circumstances were favourable, and behold the floor chequered with uncertain gleam. The workers were arranged in groups of three, called 'parties,' consisting of a learner, an improver, and a hand. All sat with sleeves pushed up to their elbows, and had a habit of rocking to and fro as they plied their mechanical industry. Owing to the movement of a cloud, the sunlight spread gradually towards one of these groups; it touched the skirt, the arms, the head of one of the girls, who, as if gladdened by the kindly warmth, looked round and smiled. A smile you would have been pleased to observe--unconscious, gently thoughtful, rich in possibilities of happiness. She was quite a young girl, certainly not seventeen, and wore a smooth grey dress, with a white linen collar; her brown hair was closely plaited, her head well-shaped, the bend of her neck very graceful. From her bare arms it could be seen that she was anything but robustly made, yet her general appearance was not one of ill-health, and she held herself, even thus late in the day, far more uprightly than most of her companions. Had you watched her for a while, you would have noticed that her eyes occasionally strayed beyond the work-table, and, perhaps unconsciously, fixed themselves for some moments on one or other of the girls near her; when she remembered herself and looked down again upon her task, there rose to her face a smile of the subtlest meaning, the outcome of busy reflection. By her side was a little girl just beginning to learn the work, whose employment it was to paper wires and make 'centres.' This toil always results in blistered fingers, and frequent was the child's appeal to her neighbour for sympathy. 'It'll be easier soon,' said the latter, on one of these occasions, bending her head to speak in a low voice. 'You should have seen what blisters I had when I began.' 'It's all very well to say that. I can't do no more, so there Oh, when'll it be five o'clock?' 'It's a quarter to. Try and go on, Annie.' Five o'clock did come at length, and with it twenty minutes' rest for tea. The rule at Whitehead's was, that you could either bring your own tea, sugar, and eatables, or purchase them here from a forewoman; most of the workers chose to provide themselves. It was customary for each 'party' to club together, emptying their several contributions of tea out of little twists of newspaper into one teapot. Wholesome bustle and confusion succeeded to the former silence. One of the learners, whose turn it was to run on errands, was overwhelmed with commissions to a chandler's shop close by; a wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and they called her, because of her slowness, the 'funeral horse.' She had strange habits, which made laughter for those who knew of them; for instance, it was her custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her poor scraps on a doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a companion that the odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a relish. From her present errand she returned with a strange variety of dainties--for it was early in the week, and the girls still had coppers in their pockets; for two or three she had purchased a farthing's-worth of jam, which she carried in paper. A bite of this and a taste of that rewarded her for her trouble. The quiet-mannered girl whom we were observing took her cup of tea from the pot in which she had a share, and from her bag produced some folded pieces of bread and butter. She had begun her meal, when there came and sat down by her a young woman of very different appearance--our friend, Miss Peckover. They were old acquaintances; but when we first saw them together it would have been difficult to imagine that they would ever sit and converse as at present, apparently in all friendliness. Strange to say, it was Clem who, during the past three years, had been the active one in seeking to obliterate disagreeable memories. The younger girl had never repelled her, but was long in overcoming the dread excited by Clem's proximity. Even now she never looked straight into Miss Peckover's face, as she did when speaking with others; there was reserve in her manner, reserve unmistakable, though clothed with her pleasant smile and amiable voice. 'I've got something to tell you, Jane,' Clem began, in a tone inaudible to those who were sitting near. 'Something as'll surprise you.' 'What is it, I wonder?' 'You must swear you won't tell nobody.' Jane nodded. Then the other brought her head a little nearer, and whispered: 'I'm goin' to be married!' 'Are you really?' 'In a week. Who do you think it is? Somebody as you know of, but if you guessed till next Christmas you'd never come right.' Nor had Clem any intention of revealing the name, but she laughed consumedly, as if her reticence covered the most amusing situation conceivable. 'It'll be the biggest surprise you ever had in your life. You've swore you won't speak about it. I don't think I shall come to work after this week--but you'll have to come an' see us. You'll promise to, won't you?' Still convulsed with mirth, Clem went off to another part of the room. From Jane's countenance the look of amusement which she had perforce summoned soon passed; it was succeeded by a shadow almost of pain, and not till she had been at work again for nearly an hour was the former placidity restored to her. When final release came, Jane was among the first to hasten down the wooden staircase and get clear of the timber yard. By the direct way, it took her twenty minutes to walk from Whitehead's to her home in Hanover Street, but this evening she had an object in turning aside. The visit she wished to pay took her into a disagreeable quarter, a street of squalid houses, swarming with yet more squalid children. On all the doorsteps Bat little girls, themselves only just out of infancy, nursing or neglecting bald, red-eyed, doughy-limbed abortions in every stage of babyhood, hapless spawn of diseased humanity, born to embitter and brutalise yet further the lot of those who unwillingly gave them life. With wide, pitiful eyes Jane looked at each group she passed. Three years ago she would have seen nothing but the ordinary and the inevitable in such spectacles, but since then her moral and intellectual being had grown on rare nourishment; there was indignation as well as heartache in the feeling with which she had learnt to regard the world of her familiarity. To enter the house at which she paused it was necessary to squeeze through a conglomerate of dirty little bodies. At the head of the first flight of stairs she came upon a girl sitting in a weary attitude on the top step and beating the wood listlessly with the last remnant of a hearth-brush; on her lap was one more specimen of the infinitely-multiplied baby, and a child of two years sprawled behind her on the landing. 'Waiting for him to come home, Pennyloaf?' said Jane. 'Oh, is that you, Miss Snowdon!' exclaimed the other, returning to consciousness and manifesting some shame at being discovered in this position. Hastily she drew together the front of her dress, which for the baby's sake had been wide open, and rose to her feet. Pennyloaf was not a bit more womanly in figure than on the day of her marriage; her voice was still an immature treble; the same rueful irresponsibility marked her features; but all her poor prettiness was wasted under the disfigurement of pains and cares, Incongruously enough, she wore a gown of bright-patterned calico, and about her neck had a collar of pretentious lace; her hair was dressed as if for a holiday, and a daub recently made on her cheeks by the baby's fingers lent emphasis to the fact that she had but a little while ago washed herself with much care. 'I can't stop,' said Jane, 'but I thought I'd just look in and speak a word. How have you been getting on?' 'Oh, do come in for just a minute!' pleaded Pennyloaf, moving backwards to an open door, whither Jane followed. They entered a room--much like other rooms that we have looked into from time to time. Following the nomadic custom of their kind, Bob Hewett and his wife had lived in six or seven different lodgings since their honeymoon in Shooter's Gardens. Mrs. Candy first of all made a change necessary, as might have been anticipated, and the restlessness of domestic ill-being subsequently drove them from place to place. 'Come in 'ere, Johnny,' she Called to the child lying on the landing. 'What's the good o' washin' you, I'd like to know? Just see, Miss Snowdon, he's made his face all white with the milk as the boy spilt on the stairs! Take this brush an' play with it, do! I _can't_ keep 'em clean, Miss Snowdon, so it's no use talkin'.' 'Are you going somewhere to-night?' Jane inquired, with a glance at the strange costume. Pennyloaf looked up and down in a shamefaced way. 'I only did it just because I thought he might like to see me. He promised me faithful as he'd come 'ome to-night, and I thought--it's only somethink as got into my 'ed to-day, Miss Snowdon.' 'But hasn't he been coming home since I saw you last?' 'He did just once, an' then it was all the old ways again. I did what you told me; I did, as sure as I'm a-standin' 'ere! I made the room so clean you wouldn't have believed; I scrubbed the floor an' the table, an' I washed the winders--you can see they ain't dirty yet. An' he'd never a' paid a bit o' notice if I hadn't told him, He was jolly enough for one night, just like he can be when he likes. But I knew as it wouldn't last, an' the next night he was off with a lot o' fellers an' girls, same as ever. I didn't make no row when he came 'ome; I wish I may die if I said a word to set his back up! An' I've gone on just the same all the week; we haven't had not the least bit of a row; so you see I kep' my promise. But it's no good; he won't come 'ome; he's always got fellers an' girls to go round with. He took his hoath as he'd come back to-night, an' then it come into my 'ed as I'd put my best things on, just to--you know what I mean, Miss Snowdon. But he won't come before twelve o'clock; I know he won't. An' I get that low sittin' 'ere, you can't think I can't go nowhere, because o' the children. If it wasn't for them I could go to work again, an' I'd be that glad; I feel as if my 'ed would drop off sometimes! I _ham_ so glad you just come in!' Jane had tried so many forms of encouragement, of consolation, on previous occasions that she knew not how to repeat herself. She was ashamed to speak words which sounded so hollow and profitless. This silence was only too significant to Pennyloaf, and in a moment she exclaimed with querulous energy: 'I know what'll be the bend of it! I'll go an' do like mother does--I will! I will! I'll put my ring away, an' I'll go an' sit all night in the public-'ouse! It's what all the others does, an' I'll do the same. I often feel I'm a fool to go on like this. I don't know what I live for, P'r'aps he'll be sorry when I get run in like mother.' 'Don't talk like that, Pennyloaf!' cried Jane, stamping her foot, (It was odd how completely difference of character had reversed their natural relations to each other; Pennyloaf was the child, Jane the mature woman.) 'You know better, and you've no right to give way to such thoughts. I was going to say I'd come and be with you all Saturday afternoon, but I don't know whether I shall now. And I'd been thinking you might like to come and see me on Sunday, but I can't have people that go to the public-house, so we won't say anything more about it. I shall have to be off; good-bye!' She stepped to the door. 'Miss Snowdon!' Jane turned, and after an instant of mock severity, broke into a laugh which seemed to fill the wretched den with sunlight. Words, too, she found; words of soothing influence such as leap from the heart to the tongue in spite of the heavy thoughts that try to check them. Pennyloaf was learning to depend upon these words for strength in her desolation. They did not excite her to much hopefulness, but there was a sustaining power in their sweet sincerity which made all the difference between despair tending to evil and the sigh of renewed effort. 'I don't care,' Pennyloaf had got into the habit of thinking, after her friend's departure, 'I won't give up as long as she looks in now and then.' Out from the swarm of babies Jane hurried homewards. She had a reason for wishing to be back in good time to-night; it was Wednesday, and on Wednesday evening there was wont to come a visitor, who sat for a couple of hours in her grandfather's room and talked, talked--the most interesting talk Jane had ever heard or could imagine. A latch-key admitted her; she ran up to the second floor. A voice from the front-room caught her ear; certainly not _his_ voice--it was too early--but that of some unusual visitor. She was on the point of entering her own chamber, when the other door opened, and somebody exclaimed, 'Ah, here she is!' The speaker was an old gentleman, dressed in black, bald, with small and rather rugged features; his voice was pleasant. A gold chain and a bunch of seals shone against his waistcoat, also a pair of eye-glasses. A professional man, obviously. Jane remembered that she had seen him once before, about a year ago, when he had talked with her for a few minutes, very kindly. 'Will you come in here, Jane?' her grandfather's voice called to her. Snowdon had changed much. Old age was heavy upon his shoulders, and had even produced a slight tremulousness in his hands; his voice told the same story of enfeeblement. Even more noticeable was the ageing of his countenance. Something more, however, than the progress of time seemed to be here at work. He looked strangely careworn; his forehead was set in lines of anxiety; his mouth expressed a nervousness of which formerly there had been no trace. One would have said that some harassing preoccupation must have seized his mind. His eyes were no longer merely sad and absent, but restless with fatiguing thought. As Jane entered the room he fixed his gaze upon her--a gaze that appeared to reveal worrying apprehension. 'You remember Mr. Percival, Jane,' he said. The old gentleman thus presented held out his hand with something of fatherly geniality. 'Miss Snowdon, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again before long, but just now I am carrying off your grandfather for a couple of hours, and indeed we

years

How many times the word 'years' appears in the text?

worn by a man above the mechanic ranks), but it was patched with dirt of many kinds, and held together by a most inadequate supply of buttons. At present he wore no collar, and his waistcoat, half-open, exposed a red shirt. 'Why, you're all a-blowin' and a-growin' this morning, Peckover,' was his first observation, as he dropped heavily into a wooden arm-chair. 'I shall begin to think that colour of yours ain't natural. Dare you let me rub it with a handkerchief?' 'Course I dare,' replied Clem, tossing her head. 'Don't be so forward, Mr. Snowdon.' 'Forward? Not I. I'm behind time if anything. I hope I haven't kept you from church.' He chuckled at his double joke. Mother and daughter laughed appreciatively. 'Will you take your eggs boiled or fried?' inquired Mrs. Peckover. 'Going to give me eggs, are you? Well, I've no objection, I assure you. And I think I'll have them fried, Mrs. Peckover. But, I say, you mustn't be running up too big a bill. The Lord only knows when I shall get anything to do, and it ain't very likely to be a thousand a year when it does come.' 'Oh, that's all right,' replied the landlady, as if sordid calculation were a thing impossible to her. 'I can't say as you behaved quite straightforward years ago, Mr. Snowdon, but I ain't one to make a row about bygones, an' as you say you'll put it all straight as soon as you can, well, I won't refuse to trust you once more.' Mr. Snowdon lay back in the chair, his hands in his waistcoat pockets, his legs outstretched upon the fender. He was smiling placidly, now at the preparing breakfast, now at Clem. The latter he plainly regarded with much admiration, and cared not to conceal it. When, in a few minutes, it was announced to him that the meal was ready, he dragged his chair up to the table and reseated himself with a sigh of satisfaction. A dish of excellent ham, and eggs as nearly fresh as can be obtained in Clerkenwell, invited him with appetising odour; a large cup of what is known to the generality of English people as coffee steamed at his right hand; slices of new bread lay ready cut upon a plate; a slab of the most expensive substitute for butter caught his eye with yellow promise; vinegar and mustard appealed to the refinements of his taste. 'I've got a couple more eggs, if you'd like them doin',' said Mrs. Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the viands. 'I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,' returned Mr. Snowdon. As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly in consequence of the activity of his mind. He was, in fact, musing upon a question which he found it very difficult to answer in any satisfactory way. 'What's the meaning of all this?' he asked himself, and not for the first time. 'What makes them treat me in this fashion? A week ago I came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just because I'd run down to my last penny, and I didn't know where to find a night's lodging. I'd got an idea, too, that I should like to find out what had become of my child, whom I left here nine or ten years ago; possibly she was still alive, and might welcome the duty of supporting her parent. The chance was, to be sure, that the girl had long since been in her grave, and that Mrs. Peckover no longer lived in the old quarters; if I discovered the woman, on the other hand, she was not very likely to give me an affectionate reception, seeing that I found it inconvenient to keep sending her money for Jane's keep in the old days. The queer thing is, that everything turned out exactly the opposite of what I had expected. Mrs. Peckover had rather a sour face at first, but after a little talk she began to seem quite glad to see me. She put me into a room, undertook to board me for a while--till I find work, and I wonder when _that_'ll be?--and blest if this strapping daughter of hers doesn't seem to have fallen in love with me from the first go off! As for my girl, I'm told she was carried off by her grandfather, my old dad, three years ago, and where they went nobody knows. Very puzzling all this. How on earth came it that Mrs. Peckover kept the child so long, and didn't send her to the workhouse? If I'm to believe _her_, she took a motherly kindness for the poor brat. But that won't exactly go down with J. J. Snowdon; he's seen a bit too much in his knocking about the world, Still, what if I'm making a mistake about the old woman? There _are_ some people do things of that sort; upon my soul, I've known people be kind even to me, without a chance of being paid back! You may think you know a man or a woman, and then all at once they'll go and do something you'd have taken your davy couldn't possibly happen. I'd have sworn she was nothing but a skinflint and a lying old witch. And so she maybe; the chances are there's some game going on that I can't see through. Make inquiries? Why, so I have done, as far as I know how. I've only been able to hit on one person who knows anything about the matter, and he tells me it's true enough the girl was taken away about three years ago, but he's no idea where she went to. Surely the old man must be dead b now, though he _was_ tough. Well, the fact of the matter is, I've got a good berth, and I'm a precious sight too lazy to go on the private detective job. Here's this girl Clem, the finest bit of flesh I've seen for a long time; I've more than half a mind to see if she won't be fool enough to marry me. I'm not a bad-looking fellow, that's the truth, and she may have taken a real liking to me. Seems to me that I should have come in for a Comfortable thing in my old age; if I haven't a daughter to provide for my needs, at all events I shall have a wife who can be persuaded into doing so. When the old woman gets out of the way I must have a little quiet talk with Clem.' The opportunity he desired was not long in offering itself. Having made an excellent breakfast, he dragged his chair up to the fender again, and reached a pipe from the mantel-piece, where he had left it last night. Tobacco he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket; it came forth in the form of yellowish dust, intermingled with all sorts of alien scraps. When he had lit his pipe, he poised the chair on its hind-legs, clasped his hands over his bald crown, and continued his musing with an air of amiable calm. Smoke curled up from the corner of his loose lips, and occasionally, removing his pipe for an instant, he spat skilfully between the bars of the grate. Assured of his comfort, Mrs. Peckover said she must go and look after certain domestic duties. Her daughter had begun to clean some vegetables that would be cooked for dinner. 'How old may you be, Clem?' Mr. Snowdon inquired genially, when they had been alone together for a few minutes. 'What's that to you? Guess.' 'Why, let me see; you was not much more than a baby when I went away. You'll be eighteen or nineteen, I suppose.' 'Yes, I'm nineteen--last sixth of February. Pity you come too late to give me a birthday present, ain't it?' 'Ah! And who'd have thought you'd have grown up such a beauty! I say, Clem, how many of the young chaps about here have been wanting to marry you, eh?' 'A dozen or two, I dessay,' Clem replied, shrugging her shoulders scornfully. Mr. Snowdon laughed, and then spat into the fire. 'Tell me about some o' them, will you? Who is it you're keeping company with now?' 'Who, indeed? Why, there isn't one I'd look at! Several of 'em's took to drinking 'cause I won't have nothing to do with 'em.' This excited Mr. Snowdon's mirth in a high degree; he rolled on his chair, and almost pitched backwards. 'I suppose you give one or other a bit of encouragement now and then, just to make a fool of him, eh?' 'Course I do. There was Bob Hewett; he used to lodge here, but that was after your time. I kep' him off an' on till he couldn't bear it no longer; then he went an' married a common slut of a thing, just because he thought it 'ud make me mad. Ha, ha! I believe he'd give her poison an' risk it any day, if only I promised to marry him afterwards. Then there was a feller called Jeck Bartley. I set him an' Bob fightin' one Bank-holiday--you should a' seen 'em go at it! Jack went an' got married a year ago to a girl called Suke Jollop; her mother forced him. How I did laugh! Last Christmas Day they smashed up their 'ome an' threw the bits out into the street. Jack got one of his eyes knocked out--I thought I should a' died o' laughin' when I saw him next mornin'.' The hearer became uproarious in merriment. 'Tell you what it is, Clem,' he cried, 'you're something like a girl! Darn me if I don't like you! I say, I wonder what my daughter's grown up? Like her mother, I suppose. You an' she was sort of sisters, wasn't you?' He observed her closely. Clem laughed and shrugged her shoulders. 'Queer sort o' sisters. She was a bit too quiet-like for me. There never was no fun in her.' 'Aye, like her mother. And where did you say she went to with the old man?' 'Where she went to?' repeated Clem, regarding him steadily with her big eyes, 'I never said nothing about it, 'cause I didn't know.' 'Well, I shan't cry about her, and I don't suppose she misses me much, wherever she is. All the same, Clem, I'm a domesticated sort of man; you can see that, can't you? I shouldn't wonder if I marry again one of these first days. Just tell me where to find a girl of the right sort. I dare say you know heaps.' 'Dessay I do. What sort do you want?' 'Oh, a littlish girl--yellow hair, you know--one of them that look as if they didn't weigh half-a-stone.' 'I'll throw this parsnip at you, Mr. Snowdon!' 'What's up now. You don't Call yourself littlish, do you?' Clem snapped the small end off the vegetable she was paring, and aimed it at his head. He ducked just in time. Then there was an outburst of laughter from both. 'Say, Clem, you haven't got a glass of beer in the house?' 'You'll have to wait till openin' time,' replied the girl sourly, going away to the far end of the room. 'Have I offended you, Clem?' 'Offended, indeed. As if I cared what you say!' 'Do you care what I think?' 'Not I!' 'That means you do. Say, Clem, just come here; I've something to tell you.' 'You're a nuisance. Let me get on with my work, can't you?' 'No, I can't. You just come here. You'd better not give me the trouble of fetching you!' The girl obeyed him. Her cheeks were very hot, and the danger-signal was flashing in her eyes. Ten minutes later she went upstairs, and had a vivacious dialogue of whispers with Mrs. Peckover. CHAPTER XV SUNLIGHT IN DREARY PLACES Among the by-ways of Clerkenwell you might, with some difficulty, have discovered an establishment known in its neighbourhood as 'Whitehead's.' It was an artificial-flower factory, and the rooms of which it consisted were only to be reached by traversing a timber-yard, and then mounting a wooden staircase outside a saw-mill. Here at busy seasons worked some threescore women and girls, who, owing to the nature of their occupation, were spoken of by the jocose youth of the locality as 'Whitehead's pastepots.' Naturally they varied much in age and aspect. There was the child who had newly left school, and was now invited to consider the question of how to keep herself alive; there was the woman of uncertain age, who had spent long years of long days in the atmosphere of workrooms, and showed the result in her parchmenty cheek and lack-lustre eye; and between these extremes came all the various types of the London crafts-girl: she who is young enough to hope that disappointments may yet be made up for by the future; she who is already tasting such scanty good as life had in store for her; she who has outlived her illusions and no longer cares to look beyond the close of the week. If regularly engaged as time-workers, they made themselves easy in the prospect of wages that allowed them to sleep under a roof and eat at certain intervals of the day; if employed on piece-work they might at any moment find themselves wageless, but this, being a familiar state of things, did not trouble them. With few exceptions, they were clad neatly; on the whole, they plied their task in wonderful contentment. The general tone of conversation among them was not high; moralists unfamiliar with the ways of the nether world would probably have applied a term other than negative to the laughing discussions which now and then enlivened this or that group; but it was very seldom indeed that a child newly arriving heard anything with which she was not already perfectly familiar. One afternoon at the end of May there penetrated into the largest of the workrooms that rarest of visitants, a stray sunbeam. Only if the sun happened to shine at given moments could any of its light fall directly into the room I speak of; this afternoon, however, all circumstances were favourable, and behold the floor chequered with uncertain gleam. The workers were arranged in groups of three, called 'parties,' consisting of a learner, an improver, and a hand. All sat with sleeves pushed up to their elbows, and had a habit of rocking to and fro as they plied their mechanical industry. Owing to the movement of a cloud, the sunlight spread gradually towards one of these groups; it touched the skirt, the arms, the head of one of the girls, who, as if gladdened by the kindly warmth, looked round and smiled. A smile you would have been pleased to observe--unconscious, gently thoughtful, rich in possibilities of happiness. She was quite a young girl, certainly not seventeen, and wore a smooth grey dress, with a white linen collar; her brown hair was closely plaited, her head well-shaped, the bend of her neck very graceful. From her bare arms it could be seen that she was anything but robustly made, yet her general appearance was not one of ill-health, and she held herself, even thus late in the day, far more uprightly than most of her companions. Had you watched her for a while, you would have noticed that her eyes occasionally strayed beyond the work-table, and, perhaps unconsciously, fixed themselves for some moments on one or other of the girls near her; when she remembered herself and looked down again upon her task, there rose to her face a smile of the subtlest meaning, the outcome of busy reflection. By her side was a little girl just beginning to learn the work, whose employment it was to paper wires and make 'centres.' This toil always results in blistered fingers, and frequent was the child's appeal to her neighbour for sympathy. 'It'll be easier soon,' said the latter, on one of these occasions, bending her head to speak in a low voice. 'You should have seen what blisters I had when I began.' 'It's all very well to say that. I can't do no more, so there Oh, when'll it be five o'clock?' 'It's a quarter to. Try and go on, Annie.' Five o'clock did come at length, and with it twenty minutes' rest for tea. The rule at Whitehead's was, that you could either bring your own tea, sugar, and eatables, or purchase them here from a forewoman; most of the workers chose to provide themselves. It was customary for each 'party' to club together, emptying their several contributions of tea out of little twists of newspaper into one teapot. Wholesome bustle and confusion succeeded to the former silence. One of the learners, whose turn it was to run on errands, was overwhelmed with commissions to a chandler's shop close by; a wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and they called her, because of her slowness, the 'funeral horse.' She had strange habits, which made laughter for those who knew of them; for instance, it was her custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her poor scraps on a doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a companion that the odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a relish. From her present errand she returned with a strange variety of dainties--for it was early in the week, and the girls still had coppers in their pockets; for two or three she had purchased a farthing's-worth of jam, which she carried in paper. A bite of this and a taste of that rewarded her for her trouble. The quiet-mannered girl whom we were observing took her cup of tea from the pot in which she had a share, and from her bag produced some folded pieces of bread and butter. She had begun her meal, when there came and sat down by her a young woman of very different appearance--our friend, Miss Peckover. They were old acquaintances; but when we first saw them together it would have been difficult to imagine that they would ever sit and converse as at present, apparently in all friendliness. Strange to say, it was Clem who, during the past three years, had been the active one in seeking to obliterate disagreeable memories. The younger girl had never repelled her, but was long in overcoming the dread excited by Clem's proximity. Even now she never looked straight into Miss Peckover's face, as she did when speaking with others; there was reserve in her manner, reserve unmistakable, though clothed with her pleasant smile and amiable voice. 'I've got something to tell you, Jane,' Clem began, in a tone inaudible to those who were sitting near. 'Something as'll surprise you.' 'What is it, I wonder?' 'You must swear you won't tell nobody.' Jane nodded. Then the other brought her head a little nearer, and whispered: 'I'm goin' to be married!' 'Are you really?' 'In a week. Who do you think it is? Somebody as you know of, but if you guessed till next Christmas you'd never come right.' Nor had Clem any intention of revealing the name, but she laughed consumedly, as if her reticence covered the most amusing situation conceivable. 'It'll be the biggest surprise you ever had in your life. You've swore you won't speak about it. I don't think I shall come to work after this week--but you'll have to come an' see us. You'll promise to, won't you?' Still convulsed with mirth, Clem went off to another part of the room. From Jane's countenance the look of amusement which she had perforce summoned soon passed; it was succeeded by a shadow almost of pain, and not till she had been at work again for nearly an hour was the former placidity restored to her. When final release came, Jane was among the first to hasten down the wooden staircase and get clear of the timber yard. By the direct way, it took her twenty minutes to walk from Whitehead's to her home in Hanover Street, but this evening she had an object in turning aside. The visit she wished to pay took her into a disagreeable quarter, a street of squalid houses, swarming with yet more squalid children. On all the doorsteps Bat little girls, themselves only just out of infancy, nursing or neglecting bald, red-eyed, doughy-limbed abortions in every stage of babyhood, hapless spawn of diseased humanity, born to embitter and brutalise yet further the lot of those who unwillingly gave them life. With wide, pitiful eyes Jane looked at each group she passed. Three years ago she would have seen nothing but the ordinary and the inevitable in such spectacles, but since then her moral and intellectual being had grown on rare nourishment; there was indignation as well as heartache in the feeling with which she had learnt to regard the world of her familiarity. To enter the house at which she paused it was necessary to squeeze through a conglomerate of dirty little bodies. At the head of the first flight of stairs she came upon a girl sitting in a weary attitude on the top step and beating the wood listlessly with the last remnant of a hearth-brush; on her lap was one more specimen of the infinitely-multiplied baby, and a child of two years sprawled behind her on the landing. 'Waiting for him to come home, Pennyloaf?' said Jane. 'Oh, is that you, Miss Snowdon!' exclaimed the other, returning to consciousness and manifesting some shame at being discovered in this position. Hastily she drew together the front of her dress, which for the baby's sake had been wide open, and rose to her feet. Pennyloaf was not a bit more womanly in figure than on the day of her marriage; her voice was still an immature treble; the same rueful irresponsibility marked her features; but all her poor prettiness was wasted under the disfigurement of pains and cares, Incongruously enough, she wore a gown of bright-patterned calico, and about her neck had a collar of pretentious lace; her hair was dressed as if for a holiday, and a daub recently made on her cheeks by the baby's fingers lent emphasis to the fact that she had but a little while ago washed herself with much care. 'I can't stop,' said Jane, 'but I thought I'd just look in and speak a word. How have you been getting on?' 'Oh, do come in for just a minute!' pleaded Pennyloaf, moving backwards to an open door, whither Jane followed. They entered a room--much like other rooms that we have looked into from time to time. Following the nomadic custom of their kind, Bob Hewett and his wife had lived in six or seven different lodgings since their honeymoon in Shooter's Gardens. Mrs. Candy first of all made a change necessary, as might have been anticipated, and the restlessness of domestic ill-being subsequently drove them from place to place. 'Come in 'ere, Johnny,' she Called to the child lying on the landing. 'What's the good o' washin' you, I'd like to know? Just see, Miss Snowdon, he's made his face all white with the milk as the boy spilt on the stairs! Take this brush an' play with it, do! I _can't_ keep 'em clean, Miss Snowdon, so it's no use talkin'.' 'Are you going somewhere to-night?' Jane inquired, with a glance at the strange costume. Pennyloaf looked up and down in a shamefaced way. 'I only did it just because I thought he might like to see me. He promised me faithful as he'd come 'ome to-night, and I thought--it's only somethink as got into my 'ed to-day, Miss Snowdon.' 'But hasn't he been coming home since I saw you last?' 'He did just once, an' then it was all the old ways again. I did what you told me; I did, as sure as I'm a-standin' 'ere! I made the room so clean you wouldn't have believed; I scrubbed the floor an' the table, an' I washed the winders--you can see they ain't dirty yet. An' he'd never a' paid a bit o' notice if I hadn't told him, He was jolly enough for one night, just like he can be when he likes. But I knew as it wouldn't last, an' the next night he was off with a lot o' fellers an' girls, same as ever. I didn't make no row when he came 'ome; I wish I may die if I said a word to set his back up! An' I've gone on just the same all the week; we haven't had not the least bit of a row; so you see I kep' my promise. But it's no good; he won't come 'ome; he's always got fellers an' girls to go round with. He took his hoath as he'd come back to-night, an' then it come into my 'ed as I'd put my best things on, just to--you know what I mean, Miss Snowdon. But he won't come before twelve o'clock; I know he won't. An' I get that low sittin' 'ere, you can't think I can't go nowhere, because o' the children. If it wasn't for them I could go to work again, an' I'd be that glad; I feel as if my 'ed would drop off sometimes! I _ham_ so glad you just come in!' Jane had tried so many forms of encouragement, of consolation, on previous occasions that she knew not how to repeat herself. She was ashamed to speak words which sounded so hollow and profitless. This silence was only too significant to Pennyloaf, and in a moment she exclaimed with querulous energy: 'I know what'll be the bend of it! I'll go an' do like mother does--I will! I will! I'll put my ring away, an' I'll go an' sit all night in the public-'ouse! It's what all the others does, an' I'll do the same. I often feel I'm a fool to go on like this. I don't know what I live for, P'r'aps he'll be sorry when I get run in like mother.' 'Don't talk like that, Pennyloaf!' cried Jane, stamping her foot, (It was odd how completely difference of character had reversed their natural relations to each other; Pennyloaf was the child, Jane the mature woman.) 'You know better, and you've no right to give way to such thoughts. I was going to say I'd come and be with you all Saturday afternoon, but I don't know whether I shall now. And I'd been thinking you might like to come and see me on Sunday, but I can't have people that go to the public-house, so we won't say anything more about it. I shall have to be off; good-bye!' She stepped to the door. 'Miss Snowdon!' Jane turned, and after an instant of mock severity, broke into a laugh which seemed to fill the wretched den with sunlight. Words, too, she found; words of soothing influence such as leap from the heart to the tongue in spite of the heavy thoughts that try to check them. Pennyloaf was learning to depend upon these words for strength in her desolation. They did not excite her to much hopefulness, but there was a sustaining power in their sweet sincerity which made all the difference between despair tending to evil and the sigh of renewed effort. 'I don't care,' Pennyloaf had got into the habit of thinking, after her friend's departure, 'I won't give up as long as she looks in now and then.' Out from the swarm of babies Jane hurried homewards. She had a reason for wishing to be back in good time to-night; it was Wednesday, and on Wednesday evening there was wont to come a visitor, who sat for a couple of hours in her grandfather's room and talked, talked--the most interesting talk Jane had ever heard or could imagine. A latch-key admitted her; she ran up to the second floor. A voice from the front-room caught her ear; certainly not _his_ voice--it was too early--but that of some unusual visitor. She was on the point of entering her own chamber, when the other door opened, and somebody exclaimed, 'Ah, here she is!' The speaker was an old gentleman, dressed in black, bald, with small and rather rugged features; his voice was pleasant. A gold chain and a bunch of seals shone against his waistcoat, also a pair of eye-glasses. A professional man, obviously. Jane remembered that she had seen him once before, about a year ago, when he had talked with her for a few minutes, very kindly. 'Will you come in here, Jane?' her grandfather's voice called to her. Snowdon had changed much. Old age was heavy upon his shoulders, and had even produced a slight tremulousness in his hands; his voice told the same story of enfeeblement. Even more noticeable was the ageing of his countenance. Something more, however, than the progress of time seemed to be here at work. He looked strangely careworn; his forehead was set in lines of anxiety; his mouth expressed a nervousness of which formerly there had been no trace. One would have said that some harassing preoccupation must have seized his mind. His eyes were no longer merely sad and absent, but restless with fatiguing thought. As Jane entered the room he fixed his gaze upon her--a gaze that appeared to reveal worrying apprehension. 'You remember Mr. Percival, Jane,' he said. The old gentleman thus presented held out his hand with something of fatherly geniality. 'Miss Snowdon, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again before long, but just now I am carrying off your grandfather for a couple of hours, and indeed we

out

How many times the word 'out' appears in the text?

worn by a man above the mechanic ranks), but it was patched with dirt of many kinds, and held together by a most inadequate supply of buttons. At present he wore no collar, and his waistcoat, half-open, exposed a red shirt. 'Why, you're all a-blowin' and a-growin' this morning, Peckover,' was his first observation, as he dropped heavily into a wooden arm-chair. 'I shall begin to think that colour of yours ain't natural. Dare you let me rub it with a handkerchief?' 'Course I dare,' replied Clem, tossing her head. 'Don't be so forward, Mr. Snowdon.' 'Forward? Not I. I'm behind time if anything. I hope I haven't kept you from church.' He chuckled at his double joke. Mother and daughter laughed appreciatively. 'Will you take your eggs boiled or fried?' inquired Mrs. Peckover. 'Going to give me eggs, are you? Well, I've no objection, I assure you. And I think I'll have them fried, Mrs. Peckover. But, I say, you mustn't be running up too big a bill. The Lord only knows when I shall get anything to do, and it ain't very likely to be a thousand a year when it does come.' 'Oh, that's all right,' replied the landlady, as if sordid calculation were a thing impossible to her. 'I can't say as you behaved quite straightforward years ago, Mr. Snowdon, but I ain't one to make a row about bygones, an' as you say you'll put it all straight as soon as you can, well, I won't refuse to trust you once more.' Mr. Snowdon lay back in the chair, his hands in his waistcoat pockets, his legs outstretched upon the fender. He was smiling placidly, now at the preparing breakfast, now at Clem. The latter he plainly regarded with much admiration, and cared not to conceal it. When, in a few minutes, it was announced to him that the meal was ready, he dragged his chair up to the table and reseated himself with a sigh of satisfaction. A dish of excellent ham, and eggs as nearly fresh as can be obtained in Clerkenwell, invited him with appetising odour; a large cup of what is known to the generality of English people as coffee steamed at his right hand; slices of new bread lay ready cut upon a plate; a slab of the most expensive substitute for butter caught his eye with yellow promise; vinegar and mustard appealed to the refinements of his taste. 'I've got a couple more eggs, if you'd like them doin',' said Mrs. Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the viands. 'I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,' returned Mr. Snowdon. As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly in consequence of the activity of his mind. He was, in fact, musing upon a question which he found it very difficult to answer in any satisfactory way. 'What's the meaning of all this?' he asked himself, and not for the first time. 'What makes them treat me in this fashion? A week ago I came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just because I'd run down to my last penny, and I didn't know where to find a night's lodging. I'd got an idea, too, that I should like to find out what had become of my child, whom I left here nine or ten years ago; possibly she was still alive, and might welcome the duty of supporting her parent. The chance was, to be sure, that the girl had long since been in her grave, and that Mrs. Peckover no longer lived in the old quarters; if I discovered the woman, on the other hand, she was not very likely to give me an affectionate reception, seeing that I found it inconvenient to keep sending her money for Jane's keep in the old days. The queer thing is, that everything turned out exactly the opposite of what I had expected. Mrs. Peckover had rather a sour face at first, but after a little talk she began to seem quite glad to see me. She put me into a room, undertook to board me for a while--till I find work, and I wonder when _that_'ll be?--and blest if this strapping daughter of hers doesn't seem to have fallen in love with me from the first go off! As for my girl, I'm told she was carried off by her grandfather, my old dad, three years ago, and where they went nobody knows. Very puzzling all this. How on earth came it that Mrs. Peckover kept the child so long, and didn't send her to the workhouse? If I'm to believe _her_, she took a motherly kindness for the poor brat. But that won't exactly go down with J. J. Snowdon; he's seen a bit too much in his knocking about the world, Still, what if I'm making a mistake about the old woman? There _are_ some people do things of that sort; upon my soul, I've known people be kind even to me, without a chance of being paid back! You may think you know a man or a woman, and then all at once they'll go and do something you'd have taken your davy couldn't possibly happen. I'd have sworn she was nothing but a skinflint and a lying old witch. And so she maybe; the chances are there's some game going on that I can't see through. Make inquiries? Why, so I have done, as far as I know how. I've only been able to hit on one person who knows anything about the matter, and he tells me it's true enough the girl was taken away about three years ago, but he's no idea where she went to. Surely the old man must be dead b now, though he _was_ tough. Well, the fact of the matter is, I've got a good berth, and I'm a precious sight too lazy to go on the private detective job. Here's this girl Clem, the finest bit of flesh I've seen for a long time; I've more than half a mind to see if she won't be fool enough to marry me. I'm not a bad-looking fellow, that's the truth, and she may have taken a real liking to me. Seems to me that I should have come in for a Comfortable thing in my old age; if I haven't a daughter to provide for my needs, at all events I shall have a wife who can be persuaded into doing so. When the old woman gets out of the way I must have a little quiet talk with Clem.' The opportunity he desired was not long in offering itself. Having made an excellent breakfast, he dragged his chair up to the fender again, and reached a pipe from the mantel-piece, where he had left it last night. Tobacco he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket; it came forth in the form of yellowish dust, intermingled with all sorts of alien scraps. When he had lit his pipe, he poised the chair on its hind-legs, clasped his hands over his bald crown, and continued his musing with an air of amiable calm. Smoke curled up from the corner of his loose lips, and occasionally, removing his pipe for an instant, he spat skilfully between the bars of the grate. Assured of his comfort, Mrs. Peckover said she must go and look after certain domestic duties. Her daughter had begun to clean some vegetables that would be cooked for dinner. 'How old may you be, Clem?' Mr. Snowdon inquired genially, when they had been alone together for a few minutes. 'What's that to you? Guess.' 'Why, let me see; you was not much more than a baby when I went away. You'll be eighteen or nineteen, I suppose.' 'Yes, I'm nineteen--last sixth of February. Pity you come too late to give me a birthday present, ain't it?' 'Ah! And who'd have thought you'd have grown up such a beauty! I say, Clem, how many of the young chaps about here have been wanting to marry you, eh?' 'A dozen or two, I dessay,' Clem replied, shrugging her shoulders scornfully. Mr. Snowdon laughed, and then spat into the fire. 'Tell me about some o' them, will you? Who is it you're keeping company with now?' 'Who, indeed? Why, there isn't one I'd look at! Several of 'em's took to drinking 'cause I won't have nothing to do with 'em.' This excited Mr. Snowdon's mirth in a high degree; he rolled on his chair, and almost pitched backwards. 'I suppose you give one or other a bit of encouragement now and then, just to make a fool of him, eh?' 'Course I do. There was Bob Hewett; he used to lodge here, but that was after your time. I kep' him off an' on till he couldn't bear it no longer; then he went an' married a common slut of a thing, just because he thought it 'ud make me mad. Ha, ha! I believe he'd give her poison an' risk it any day, if only I promised to marry him afterwards. Then there was a feller called Jeck Bartley. I set him an' Bob fightin' one Bank-holiday--you should a' seen 'em go at it! Jack went an' got married a year ago to a girl called Suke Jollop; her mother forced him. How I did laugh! Last Christmas Day they smashed up their 'ome an' threw the bits out into the street. Jack got one of his eyes knocked out--I thought I should a' died o' laughin' when I saw him next mornin'.' The hearer became uproarious in merriment. 'Tell you what it is, Clem,' he cried, 'you're something like a girl! Darn me if I don't like you! I say, I wonder what my daughter's grown up? Like her mother, I suppose. You an' she was sort of sisters, wasn't you?' He observed her closely. Clem laughed and shrugged her shoulders. 'Queer sort o' sisters. She was a bit too quiet-like for me. There never was no fun in her.' 'Aye, like her mother. And where did you say she went to with the old man?' 'Where she went to?' repeated Clem, regarding him steadily with her big eyes, 'I never said nothing about it, 'cause I didn't know.' 'Well, I shan't cry about her, and I don't suppose she misses me much, wherever she is. All the same, Clem, I'm a domesticated sort of man; you can see that, can't you? I shouldn't wonder if I marry again one of these first days. Just tell me where to find a girl of the right sort. I dare say you know heaps.' 'Dessay I do. What sort do you want?' 'Oh, a littlish girl--yellow hair, you know--one of them that look as if they didn't weigh half-a-stone.' 'I'll throw this parsnip at you, Mr. Snowdon!' 'What's up now. You don't Call yourself littlish, do you?' Clem snapped the small end off the vegetable she was paring, and aimed it at his head. He ducked just in time. Then there was an outburst of laughter from both. 'Say, Clem, you haven't got a glass of beer in the house?' 'You'll have to wait till openin' time,' replied the girl sourly, going away to the far end of the room. 'Have I offended you, Clem?' 'Offended, indeed. As if I cared what you say!' 'Do you care what I think?' 'Not I!' 'That means you do. Say, Clem, just come here; I've something to tell you.' 'You're a nuisance. Let me get on with my work, can't you?' 'No, I can't. You just come here. You'd better not give me the trouble of fetching you!' The girl obeyed him. Her cheeks were very hot, and the danger-signal was flashing in her eyes. Ten minutes later she went upstairs, and had a vivacious dialogue of whispers with Mrs. Peckover. CHAPTER XV SUNLIGHT IN DREARY PLACES Among the by-ways of Clerkenwell you might, with some difficulty, have discovered an establishment known in its neighbourhood as 'Whitehead's.' It was an artificial-flower factory, and the rooms of which it consisted were only to be reached by traversing a timber-yard, and then mounting a wooden staircase outside a saw-mill. Here at busy seasons worked some threescore women and girls, who, owing to the nature of their occupation, were spoken of by the jocose youth of the locality as 'Whitehead's pastepots.' Naturally they varied much in age and aspect. There was the child who had newly left school, and was now invited to consider the question of how to keep herself alive; there was the woman of uncertain age, who had spent long years of long days in the atmosphere of workrooms, and showed the result in her parchmenty cheek and lack-lustre eye; and between these extremes came all the various types of the London crafts-girl: she who is young enough to hope that disappointments may yet be made up for by the future; she who is already tasting such scanty good as life had in store for her; she who has outlived her illusions and no longer cares to look beyond the close of the week. If regularly engaged as time-workers, they made themselves easy in the prospect of wages that allowed them to sleep under a roof and eat at certain intervals of the day; if employed on piece-work they might at any moment find themselves wageless, but this, being a familiar state of things, did not trouble them. With few exceptions, they were clad neatly; on the whole, they plied their task in wonderful contentment. The general tone of conversation among them was not high; moralists unfamiliar with the ways of the nether world would probably have applied a term other than negative to the laughing discussions which now and then enlivened this or that group; but it was very seldom indeed that a child newly arriving heard anything with which she was not already perfectly familiar. One afternoon at the end of May there penetrated into the largest of the workrooms that rarest of visitants, a stray sunbeam. Only if the sun happened to shine at given moments could any of its light fall directly into the room I speak of; this afternoon, however, all circumstances were favourable, and behold the floor chequered with uncertain gleam. The workers were arranged in groups of three, called 'parties,' consisting of a learner, an improver, and a hand. All sat with sleeves pushed up to their elbows, and had a habit of rocking to and fro as they plied their mechanical industry. Owing to the movement of a cloud, the sunlight spread gradually towards one of these groups; it touched the skirt, the arms, the head of one of the girls, who, as if gladdened by the kindly warmth, looked round and smiled. A smile you would have been pleased to observe--unconscious, gently thoughtful, rich in possibilities of happiness. She was quite a young girl, certainly not seventeen, and wore a smooth grey dress, with a white linen collar; her brown hair was closely plaited, her head well-shaped, the bend of her neck very graceful. From her bare arms it could be seen that she was anything but robustly made, yet her general appearance was not one of ill-health, and she held herself, even thus late in the day, far more uprightly than most of her companions. Had you watched her for a while, you would have noticed that her eyes occasionally strayed beyond the work-table, and, perhaps unconsciously, fixed themselves for some moments on one or other of the girls near her; when she remembered herself and looked down again upon her task, there rose to her face a smile of the subtlest meaning, the outcome of busy reflection. By her side was a little girl just beginning to learn the work, whose employment it was to paper wires and make 'centres.' This toil always results in blistered fingers, and frequent was the child's appeal to her neighbour for sympathy. 'It'll be easier soon,' said the latter, on one of these occasions, bending her head to speak in a low voice. 'You should have seen what blisters I had when I began.' 'It's all very well to say that. I can't do no more, so there Oh, when'll it be five o'clock?' 'It's a quarter to. Try and go on, Annie.' Five o'clock did come at length, and with it twenty minutes' rest for tea. The rule at Whitehead's was, that you could either bring your own tea, sugar, and eatables, or purchase them here from a forewoman; most of the workers chose to provide themselves. It was customary for each 'party' to club together, emptying their several contributions of tea out of little twists of newspaper into one teapot. Wholesome bustle and confusion succeeded to the former silence. One of the learners, whose turn it was to run on errands, was overwhelmed with commissions to a chandler's shop close by; a wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and they called her, because of her slowness, the 'funeral horse.' She had strange habits, which made laughter for those who knew of them; for instance, it was her custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her poor scraps on a doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a companion that the odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a relish. From her present errand she returned with a strange variety of dainties--for it was early in the week, and the girls still had coppers in their pockets; for two or three she had purchased a farthing's-worth of jam, which she carried in paper. A bite of this and a taste of that rewarded her for her trouble. The quiet-mannered girl whom we were observing took her cup of tea from the pot in which she had a share, and from her bag produced some folded pieces of bread and butter. She had begun her meal, when there came and sat down by her a young woman of very different appearance--our friend, Miss Peckover. They were old acquaintances; but when we first saw them together it would have been difficult to imagine that they would ever sit and converse as at present, apparently in all friendliness. Strange to say, it was Clem who, during the past three years, had been the active one in seeking to obliterate disagreeable memories. The younger girl had never repelled her, but was long in overcoming the dread excited by Clem's proximity. Even now she never looked straight into Miss Peckover's face, as she did when speaking with others; there was reserve in her manner, reserve unmistakable, though clothed with her pleasant smile and amiable voice. 'I've got something to tell you, Jane,' Clem began, in a tone inaudible to those who were sitting near. 'Something as'll surprise you.' 'What is it, I wonder?' 'You must swear you won't tell nobody.' Jane nodded. Then the other brought her head a little nearer, and whispered: 'I'm goin' to be married!' 'Are you really?' 'In a week. Who do you think it is? Somebody as you know of, but if you guessed till next Christmas you'd never come right.' Nor had Clem any intention of revealing the name, but she laughed consumedly, as if her reticence covered the most amusing situation conceivable. 'It'll be the biggest surprise you ever had in your life. You've swore you won't speak about it. I don't think I shall come to work after this week--but you'll have to come an' see us. You'll promise to, won't you?' Still convulsed with mirth, Clem went off to another part of the room. From Jane's countenance the look of amusement which she had perforce summoned soon passed; it was succeeded by a shadow almost of pain, and not till she had been at work again for nearly an hour was the former placidity restored to her. When final release came, Jane was among the first to hasten down the wooden staircase and get clear of the timber yard. By the direct way, it took her twenty minutes to walk from Whitehead's to her home in Hanover Street, but this evening she had an object in turning aside. The visit she wished to pay took her into a disagreeable quarter, a street of squalid houses, swarming with yet more squalid children. On all the doorsteps Bat little girls, themselves only just out of infancy, nursing or neglecting bald, red-eyed, doughy-limbed abortions in every stage of babyhood, hapless spawn of diseased humanity, born to embitter and brutalise yet further the lot of those who unwillingly gave them life. With wide, pitiful eyes Jane looked at each group she passed. Three years ago she would have seen nothing but the ordinary and the inevitable in such spectacles, but since then her moral and intellectual being had grown on rare nourishment; there was indignation as well as heartache in the feeling with which she had learnt to regard the world of her familiarity. To enter the house at which she paused it was necessary to squeeze through a conglomerate of dirty little bodies. At the head of the first flight of stairs she came upon a girl sitting in a weary attitude on the top step and beating the wood listlessly with the last remnant of a hearth-brush; on her lap was one more specimen of the infinitely-multiplied baby, and a child of two years sprawled behind her on the landing. 'Waiting for him to come home, Pennyloaf?' said Jane. 'Oh, is that you, Miss Snowdon!' exclaimed the other, returning to consciousness and manifesting some shame at being discovered in this position. Hastily she drew together the front of her dress, which for the baby's sake had been wide open, and rose to her feet. Pennyloaf was not a bit more womanly in figure than on the day of her marriage; her voice was still an immature treble; the same rueful irresponsibility marked her features; but all her poor prettiness was wasted under the disfigurement of pains and cares, Incongruously enough, she wore a gown of bright-patterned calico, and about her neck had a collar of pretentious lace; her hair was dressed as if for a holiday, and a daub recently made on her cheeks by the baby's fingers lent emphasis to the fact that she had but a little while ago washed herself with much care. 'I can't stop,' said Jane, 'but I thought I'd just look in and speak a word. How have you been getting on?' 'Oh, do come in for just a minute!' pleaded Pennyloaf, moving backwards to an open door, whither Jane followed. They entered a room--much like other rooms that we have looked into from time to time. Following the nomadic custom of their kind, Bob Hewett and his wife had lived in six or seven different lodgings since their honeymoon in Shooter's Gardens. Mrs. Candy first of all made a change necessary, as might have been anticipated, and the restlessness of domestic ill-being subsequently drove them from place to place. 'Come in 'ere, Johnny,' she Called to the child lying on the landing. 'What's the good o' washin' you, I'd like to know? Just see, Miss Snowdon, he's made his face all white with the milk as the boy spilt on the stairs! Take this brush an' play with it, do! I _can't_ keep 'em clean, Miss Snowdon, so it's no use talkin'.' 'Are you going somewhere to-night?' Jane inquired, with a glance at the strange costume. Pennyloaf looked up and down in a shamefaced way. 'I only did it just because I thought he might like to see me. He promised me faithful as he'd come 'ome to-night, and I thought--it's only somethink as got into my 'ed to-day, Miss Snowdon.' 'But hasn't he been coming home since I saw you last?' 'He did just once, an' then it was all the old ways again. I did what you told me; I did, as sure as I'm a-standin' 'ere! I made the room so clean you wouldn't have believed; I scrubbed the floor an' the table, an' I washed the winders--you can see they ain't dirty yet. An' he'd never a' paid a bit o' notice if I hadn't told him, He was jolly enough for one night, just like he can be when he likes. But I knew as it wouldn't last, an' the next night he was off with a lot o' fellers an' girls, same as ever. I didn't make no row when he came 'ome; I wish I may die if I said a word to set his back up! An' I've gone on just the same all the week; we haven't had not the least bit of a row; so you see I kep' my promise. But it's no good; he won't come 'ome; he's always got fellers an' girls to go round with. He took his hoath as he'd come back to-night, an' then it come into my 'ed as I'd put my best things on, just to--you know what I mean, Miss Snowdon. But he won't come before twelve o'clock; I know he won't. An' I get that low sittin' 'ere, you can't think I can't go nowhere, because o' the children. If it wasn't for them I could go to work again, an' I'd be that glad; I feel as if my 'ed would drop off sometimes! I _ham_ so glad you just come in!' Jane had tried so many forms of encouragement, of consolation, on previous occasions that she knew not how to repeat herself. She was ashamed to speak words which sounded so hollow and profitless. This silence was only too significant to Pennyloaf, and in a moment she exclaimed with querulous energy: 'I know what'll be the bend of it! I'll go an' do like mother does--I will! I will! I'll put my ring away, an' I'll go an' sit all night in the public-'ouse! It's what all the others does, an' I'll do the same. I often feel I'm a fool to go on like this. I don't know what I live for, P'r'aps he'll be sorry when I get run in like mother.' 'Don't talk like that, Pennyloaf!' cried Jane, stamping her foot, (It was odd how completely difference of character had reversed their natural relations to each other; Pennyloaf was the child, Jane the mature woman.) 'You know better, and you've no right to give way to such thoughts. I was going to say I'd come and be with you all Saturday afternoon, but I don't know whether I shall now. And I'd been thinking you might like to come and see me on Sunday, but I can't have people that go to the public-house, so we won't say anything more about it. I shall have to be off; good-bye!' She stepped to the door. 'Miss Snowdon!' Jane turned, and after an instant of mock severity, broke into a laugh which seemed to fill the wretched den with sunlight. Words, too, she found; words of soothing influence such as leap from the heart to the tongue in spite of the heavy thoughts that try to check them. Pennyloaf was learning to depend upon these words for strength in her desolation. They did not excite her to much hopefulness, but there was a sustaining power in their sweet sincerity which made all the difference between despair tending to evil and the sigh of renewed effort. 'I don't care,' Pennyloaf had got into the habit of thinking, after her friend's departure, 'I won't give up as long as she looks in now and then.' Out from the swarm of babies Jane hurried homewards. She had a reason for wishing to be back in good time to-night; it was Wednesday, and on Wednesday evening there was wont to come a visitor, who sat for a couple of hours in her grandfather's room and talked, talked--the most interesting talk Jane had ever heard or could imagine. A latch-key admitted her; she ran up to the second floor. A voice from the front-room caught her ear; certainly not _his_ voice--it was too early--but that of some unusual visitor. She was on the point of entering her own chamber, when the other door opened, and somebody exclaimed, 'Ah, here she is!' The speaker was an old gentleman, dressed in black, bald, with small and rather rugged features; his voice was pleasant. A gold chain and a bunch of seals shone against his waistcoat, also a pair of eye-glasses. A professional man, obviously. Jane remembered that she had seen him once before, about a year ago, when he had talked with her for a few minutes, very kindly. 'Will you come in here, Jane?' her grandfather's voice called to her. Snowdon had changed much. Old age was heavy upon his shoulders, and had even produced a slight tremulousness in his hands; his voice told the same story of enfeeblement. Even more noticeable was the ageing of his countenance. Something more, however, than the progress of time seemed to be here at work. He looked strangely careworn; his forehead was set in lines of anxiety; his mouth expressed a nervousness of which formerly there had been no trace. One would have said that some harassing preoccupation must have seized his mind. His eyes were no longer merely sad and absent, but restless with fatiguing thought. As Jane entered the room he fixed his gaze upon her--a gaze that appeared to reveal worrying apprehension. 'You remember Mr. Percival, Jane,' he said. The old gentleman thus presented held out his hand with something of fatherly geniality. 'Miss Snowdon, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again before long, but just now I am carrying off your grandfather for a couple of hours, and indeed we

days

How many times the word 'days' appears in the text?

worn by a man above the mechanic ranks), but it was patched with dirt of many kinds, and held together by a most inadequate supply of buttons. At present he wore no collar, and his waistcoat, half-open, exposed a red shirt. 'Why, you're all a-blowin' and a-growin' this morning, Peckover,' was his first observation, as he dropped heavily into a wooden arm-chair. 'I shall begin to think that colour of yours ain't natural. Dare you let me rub it with a handkerchief?' 'Course I dare,' replied Clem, tossing her head. 'Don't be so forward, Mr. Snowdon.' 'Forward? Not I. I'm behind time if anything. I hope I haven't kept you from church.' He chuckled at his double joke. Mother and daughter laughed appreciatively. 'Will you take your eggs boiled or fried?' inquired Mrs. Peckover. 'Going to give me eggs, are you? Well, I've no objection, I assure you. And I think I'll have them fried, Mrs. Peckover. But, I say, you mustn't be running up too big a bill. The Lord only knows when I shall get anything to do, and it ain't very likely to be a thousand a year when it does come.' 'Oh, that's all right,' replied the landlady, as if sordid calculation were a thing impossible to her. 'I can't say as you behaved quite straightforward years ago, Mr. Snowdon, but I ain't one to make a row about bygones, an' as you say you'll put it all straight as soon as you can, well, I won't refuse to trust you once more.' Mr. Snowdon lay back in the chair, his hands in his waistcoat pockets, his legs outstretched upon the fender. He was smiling placidly, now at the preparing breakfast, now at Clem. The latter he plainly regarded with much admiration, and cared not to conceal it. When, in a few minutes, it was announced to him that the meal was ready, he dragged his chair up to the table and reseated himself with a sigh of satisfaction. A dish of excellent ham, and eggs as nearly fresh as can be obtained in Clerkenwell, invited him with appetising odour; a large cup of what is known to the generality of English people as coffee steamed at his right hand; slices of new bread lay ready cut upon a plate; a slab of the most expensive substitute for butter caught his eye with yellow promise; vinegar and mustard appealed to the refinements of his taste. 'I've got a couple more eggs, if you'd like them doin',' said Mrs. Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the viands. 'I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,' returned Mr. Snowdon. As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly in consequence of the activity of his mind. He was, in fact, musing upon a question which he found it very difficult to answer in any satisfactory way. 'What's the meaning of all this?' he asked himself, and not for the first time. 'What makes them treat me in this fashion? A week ago I came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just because I'd run down to my last penny, and I didn't know where to find a night's lodging. I'd got an idea, too, that I should like to find out what had become of my child, whom I left here nine or ten years ago; possibly she was still alive, and might welcome the duty of supporting her parent. The chance was, to be sure, that the girl had long since been in her grave, and that Mrs. Peckover no longer lived in the old quarters; if I discovered the woman, on the other hand, she was not very likely to give me an affectionate reception, seeing that I found it inconvenient to keep sending her money for Jane's keep in the old days. The queer thing is, that everything turned out exactly the opposite of what I had expected. Mrs. Peckover had rather a sour face at first, but after a little talk she began to seem quite glad to see me. She put me into a room, undertook to board me for a while--till I find work, and I wonder when _that_'ll be?--and blest if this strapping daughter of hers doesn't seem to have fallen in love with me from the first go off! As for my girl, I'm told she was carried off by her grandfather, my old dad, three years ago, and where they went nobody knows. Very puzzling all this. How on earth came it that Mrs. Peckover kept the child so long, and didn't send her to the workhouse? If I'm to believe _her_, she took a motherly kindness for the poor brat. But that won't exactly go down with J. J. Snowdon; he's seen a bit too much in his knocking about the world, Still, what if I'm making a mistake about the old woman? There _are_ some people do things of that sort; upon my soul, I've known people be kind even to me, without a chance of being paid back! You may think you know a man or a woman, and then all at once they'll go and do something you'd have taken your davy couldn't possibly happen. I'd have sworn she was nothing but a skinflint and a lying old witch. And so she maybe; the chances are there's some game going on that I can't see through. Make inquiries? Why, so I have done, as far as I know how. I've only been able to hit on one person who knows anything about the matter, and he tells me it's true enough the girl was taken away about three years ago, but he's no idea where she went to. Surely the old man must be dead b now, though he _was_ tough. Well, the fact of the matter is, I've got a good berth, and I'm a precious sight too lazy to go on the private detective job. Here's this girl Clem, the finest bit of flesh I've seen for a long time; I've more than half a mind to see if she won't be fool enough to marry me. I'm not a bad-looking fellow, that's the truth, and she may have taken a real liking to me. Seems to me that I should have come in for a Comfortable thing in my old age; if I haven't a daughter to provide for my needs, at all events I shall have a wife who can be persuaded into doing so. When the old woman gets out of the way I must have a little quiet talk with Clem.' The opportunity he desired was not long in offering itself. Having made an excellent breakfast, he dragged his chair up to the fender again, and reached a pipe from the mantel-piece, where he had left it last night. Tobacco he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket; it came forth in the form of yellowish dust, intermingled with all sorts of alien scraps. When he had lit his pipe, he poised the chair on its hind-legs, clasped his hands over his bald crown, and continued his musing with an air of amiable calm. Smoke curled up from the corner of his loose lips, and occasionally, removing his pipe for an instant, he spat skilfully between the bars of the grate. Assured of his comfort, Mrs. Peckover said she must go and look after certain domestic duties. Her daughter had begun to clean some vegetables that would be cooked for dinner. 'How old may you be, Clem?' Mr. Snowdon inquired genially, when they had been alone together for a few minutes. 'What's that to you? Guess.' 'Why, let me see; you was not much more than a baby when I went away. You'll be eighteen or nineteen, I suppose.' 'Yes, I'm nineteen--last sixth of February. Pity you come too late to give me a birthday present, ain't it?' 'Ah! And who'd have thought you'd have grown up such a beauty! I say, Clem, how many of the young chaps about here have been wanting to marry you, eh?' 'A dozen or two, I dessay,' Clem replied, shrugging her shoulders scornfully. Mr. Snowdon laughed, and then spat into the fire. 'Tell me about some o' them, will you? Who is it you're keeping company with now?' 'Who, indeed? Why, there isn't one I'd look at! Several of 'em's took to drinking 'cause I won't have nothing to do with 'em.' This excited Mr. Snowdon's mirth in a high degree; he rolled on his chair, and almost pitched backwards. 'I suppose you give one or other a bit of encouragement now and then, just to make a fool of him, eh?' 'Course I do. There was Bob Hewett; he used to lodge here, but that was after your time. I kep' him off an' on till he couldn't bear it no longer; then he went an' married a common slut of a thing, just because he thought it 'ud make me mad. Ha, ha! I believe he'd give her poison an' risk it any day, if only I promised to marry him afterwards. Then there was a feller called Jeck Bartley. I set him an' Bob fightin' one Bank-holiday--you should a' seen 'em go at it! Jack went an' got married a year ago to a girl called Suke Jollop; her mother forced him. How I did laugh! Last Christmas Day they smashed up their 'ome an' threw the bits out into the street. Jack got one of his eyes knocked out--I thought I should a' died o' laughin' when I saw him next mornin'.' The hearer became uproarious in merriment. 'Tell you what it is, Clem,' he cried, 'you're something like a girl! Darn me if I don't like you! I say, I wonder what my daughter's grown up? Like her mother, I suppose. You an' she was sort of sisters, wasn't you?' He observed her closely. Clem laughed and shrugged her shoulders. 'Queer sort o' sisters. She was a bit too quiet-like for me. There never was no fun in her.' 'Aye, like her mother. And where did you say she went to with the old man?' 'Where she went to?' repeated Clem, regarding him steadily with her big eyes, 'I never said nothing about it, 'cause I didn't know.' 'Well, I shan't cry about her, and I don't suppose she misses me much, wherever she is. All the same, Clem, I'm a domesticated sort of man; you can see that, can't you? I shouldn't wonder if I marry again one of these first days. Just tell me where to find a girl of the right sort. I dare say you know heaps.' 'Dessay I do. What sort do you want?' 'Oh, a littlish girl--yellow hair, you know--one of them that look as if they didn't weigh half-a-stone.' 'I'll throw this parsnip at you, Mr. Snowdon!' 'What's up now. You don't Call yourself littlish, do you?' Clem snapped the small end off the vegetable she was paring, and aimed it at his head. He ducked just in time. Then there was an outburst of laughter from both. 'Say, Clem, you haven't got a glass of beer in the house?' 'You'll have to wait till openin' time,' replied the girl sourly, going away to the far end of the room. 'Have I offended you, Clem?' 'Offended, indeed. As if I cared what you say!' 'Do you care what I think?' 'Not I!' 'That means you do. Say, Clem, just come here; I've something to tell you.' 'You're a nuisance. Let me get on with my work, can't you?' 'No, I can't. You just come here. You'd better not give me the trouble of fetching you!' The girl obeyed him. Her cheeks were very hot, and the danger-signal was flashing in her eyes. Ten minutes later she went upstairs, and had a vivacious dialogue of whispers with Mrs. Peckover. CHAPTER XV SUNLIGHT IN DREARY PLACES Among the by-ways of Clerkenwell you might, with some difficulty, have discovered an establishment known in its neighbourhood as 'Whitehead's.' It was an artificial-flower factory, and the rooms of which it consisted were only to be reached by traversing a timber-yard, and then mounting a wooden staircase outside a saw-mill. Here at busy seasons worked some threescore women and girls, who, owing to the nature of their occupation, were spoken of by the jocose youth of the locality as 'Whitehead's pastepots.' Naturally they varied much in age and aspect. There was the child who had newly left school, and was now invited to consider the question of how to keep herself alive; there was the woman of uncertain age, who had spent long years of long days in the atmosphere of workrooms, and showed the result in her parchmenty cheek and lack-lustre eye; and between these extremes came all the various types of the London crafts-girl: she who is young enough to hope that disappointments may yet be made up for by the future; she who is already tasting such scanty good as life had in store for her; she who has outlived her illusions and no longer cares to look beyond the close of the week. If regularly engaged as time-workers, they made themselves easy in the prospect of wages that allowed them to sleep under a roof and eat at certain intervals of the day; if employed on piece-work they might at any moment find themselves wageless, but this, being a familiar state of things, did not trouble them. With few exceptions, they were clad neatly; on the whole, they plied their task in wonderful contentment. The general tone of conversation among them was not high; moralists unfamiliar with the ways of the nether world would probably have applied a term other than negative to the laughing discussions which now and then enlivened this or that group; but it was very seldom indeed that a child newly arriving heard anything with which she was not already perfectly familiar. One afternoon at the end of May there penetrated into the largest of the workrooms that rarest of visitants, a stray sunbeam. Only if the sun happened to shine at given moments could any of its light fall directly into the room I speak of; this afternoon, however, all circumstances were favourable, and behold the floor chequered with uncertain gleam. The workers were arranged in groups of three, called 'parties,' consisting of a learner, an improver, and a hand. All sat with sleeves pushed up to their elbows, and had a habit of rocking to and fro as they plied their mechanical industry. Owing to the movement of a cloud, the sunlight spread gradually towards one of these groups; it touched the skirt, the arms, the head of one of the girls, who, as if gladdened by the kindly warmth, looked round and smiled. A smile you would have been pleased to observe--unconscious, gently thoughtful, rich in possibilities of happiness. She was quite a young girl, certainly not seventeen, and wore a smooth grey dress, with a white linen collar; her brown hair was closely plaited, her head well-shaped, the bend of her neck very graceful. From her bare arms it could be seen that she was anything but robustly made, yet her general appearance was not one of ill-health, and she held herself, even thus late in the day, far more uprightly than most of her companions. Had you watched her for a while, you would have noticed that her eyes occasionally strayed beyond the work-table, and, perhaps unconsciously, fixed themselves for some moments on one or other of the girls near her; when she remembered herself and looked down again upon her task, there rose to her face a smile of the subtlest meaning, the outcome of busy reflection. By her side was a little girl just beginning to learn the work, whose employment it was to paper wires and make 'centres.' This toil always results in blistered fingers, and frequent was the child's appeal to her neighbour for sympathy. 'It'll be easier soon,' said the latter, on one of these occasions, bending her head to speak in a low voice. 'You should have seen what blisters I had when I began.' 'It's all very well to say that. I can't do no more, so there Oh, when'll it be five o'clock?' 'It's a quarter to. Try and go on, Annie.' Five o'clock did come at length, and with it twenty minutes' rest for tea. The rule at Whitehead's was, that you could either bring your own tea, sugar, and eatables, or purchase them here from a forewoman; most of the workers chose to provide themselves. It was customary for each 'party' to club together, emptying their several contributions of tea out of little twists of newspaper into one teapot. Wholesome bustle and confusion succeeded to the former silence. One of the learners, whose turn it was to run on errands, was overwhelmed with commissions to a chandler's shop close by; a wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and they called her, because of her slowness, the 'funeral horse.' She had strange habits, which made laughter for those who knew of them; for instance, it was her custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her poor scraps on a doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a companion that the odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a relish. From her present errand she returned with a strange variety of dainties--for it was early in the week, and the girls still had coppers in their pockets; for two or three she had purchased a farthing's-worth of jam, which she carried in paper. A bite of this and a taste of that rewarded her for her trouble. The quiet-mannered girl whom we were observing took her cup of tea from the pot in which she had a share, and from her bag produced some folded pieces of bread and butter. She had begun her meal, when there came and sat down by her a young woman of very different appearance--our friend, Miss Peckover. They were old acquaintances; but when we first saw them together it would have been difficult to imagine that they would ever sit and converse as at present, apparently in all friendliness. Strange to say, it was Clem who, during the past three years, had been the active one in seeking to obliterate disagreeable memories. The younger girl had never repelled her, but was long in overcoming the dread excited by Clem's proximity. Even now she never looked straight into Miss Peckover's face, as she did when speaking with others; there was reserve in her manner, reserve unmistakable, though clothed with her pleasant smile and amiable voice. 'I've got something to tell you, Jane,' Clem began, in a tone inaudible to those who were sitting near. 'Something as'll surprise you.' 'What is it, I wonder?' 'You must swear you won't tell nobody.' Jane nodded. Then the other brought her head a little nearer, and whispered: 'I'm goin' to be married!' 'Are you really?' 'In a week. Who do you think it is? Somebody as you know of, but if you guessed till next Christmas you'd never come right.' Nor had Clem any intention of revealing the name, but she laughed consumedly, as if her reticence covered the most amusing situation conceivable. 'It'll be the biggest surprise you ever had in your life. You've swore you won't speak about it. I don't think I shall come to work after this week--but you'll have to come an' see us. You'll promise to, won't you?' Still convulsed with mirth, Clem went off to another part of the room. From Jane's countenance the look of amusement which she had perforce summoned soon passed; it was succeeded by a shadow almost of pain, and not till she had been at work again for nearly an hour was the former placidity restored to her. When final release came, Jane was among the first to hasten down the wooden staircase and get clear of the timber yard. By the direct way, it took her twenty minutes to walk from Whitehead's to her home in Hanover Street, but this evening she had an object in turning aside. The visit she wished to pay took her into a disagreeable quarter, a street of squalid houses, swarming with yet more squalid children. On all the doorsteps Bat little girls, themselves only just out of infancy, nursing or neglecting bald, red-eyed, doughy-limbed abortions in every stage of babyhood, hapless spawn of diseased humanity, born to embitter and brutalise yet further the lot of those who unwillingly gave them life. With wide, pitiful eyes Jane looked at each group she passed. Three years ago she would have seen nothing but the ordinary and the inevitable in such spectacles, but since then her moral and intellectual being had grown on rare nourishment; there was indignation as well as heartache in the feeling with which she had learnt to regard the world of her familiarity. To enter the house at which she paused it was necessary to squeeze through a conglomerate of dirty little bodies. At the head of the first flight of stairs she came upon a girl sitting in a weary attitude on the top step and beating the wood listlessly with the last remnant of a hearth-brush; on her lap was one more specimen of the infinitely-multiplied baby, and a child of two years sprawled behind her on the landing. 'Waiting for him to come home, Pennyloaf?' said Jane. 'Oh, is that you, Miss Snowdon!' exclaimed the other, returning to consciousness and manifesting some shame at being discovered in this position. Hastily she drew together the front of her dress, which for the baby's sake had been wide open, and rose to her feet. Pennyloaf was not a bit more womanly in figure than on the day of her marriage; her voice was still an immature treble; the same rueful irresponsibility marked her features; but all her poor prettiness was wasted under the disfigurement of pains and cares, Incongruously enough, she wore a gown of bright-patterned calico, and about her neck had a collar of pretentious lace; her hair was dressed as if for a holiday, and a daub recently made on her cheeks by the baby's fingers lent emphasis to the fact that she had but a little while ago washed herself with much care. 'I can't stop,' said Jane, 'but I thought I'd just look in and speak a word. How have you been getting on?' 'Oh, do come in for just a minute!' pleaded Pennyloaf, moving backwards to an open door, whither Jane followed. They entered a room--much like other rooms that we have looked into from time to time. Following the nomadic custom of their kind, Bob Hewett and his wife had lived in six or seven different lodgings since their honeymoon in Shooter's Gardens. Mrs. Candy first of all made a change necessary, as might have been anticipated, and the restlessness of domestic ill-being subsequently drove them from place to place. 'Come in 'ere, Johnny,' she Called to the child lying on the landing. 'What's the good o' washin' you, I'd like to know? Just see, Miss Snowdon, he's made his face all white with the milk as the boy spilt on the stairs! Take this brush an' play with it, do! I _can't_ keep 'em clean, Miss Snowdon, so it's no use talkin'.' 'Are you going somewhere to-night?' Jane inquired, with a glance at the strange costume. Pennyloaf looked up and down in a shamefaced way. 'I only did it just because I thought he might like to see me. He promised me faithful as he'd come 'ome to-night, and I thought--it's only somethink as got into my 'ed to-day, Miss Snowdon.' 'But hasn't he been coming home since I saw you last?' 'He did just once, an' then it was all the old ways again. I did what you told me; I did, as sure as I'm a-standin' 'ere! I made the room so clean you wouldn't have believed; I scrubbed the floor an' the table, an' I washed the winders--you can see they ain't dirty yet. An' he'd never a' paid a bit o' notice if I hadn't told him, He was jolly enough for one night, just like he can be when he likes. But I knew as it wouldn't last, an' the next night he was off with a lot o' fellers an' girls, same as ever. I didn't make no row when he came 'ome; I wish I may die if I said a word to set his back up! An' I've gone on just the same all the week; we haven't had not the least bit of a row; so you see I kep' my promise. But it's no good; he won't come 'ome; he's always got fellers an' girls to go round with. He took his hoath as he'd come back to-night, an' then it come into my 'ed as I'd put my best things on, just to--you know what I mean, Miss Snowdon. But he won't come before twelve o'clock; I know he won't. An' I get that low sittin' 'ere, you can't think I can't go nowhere, because o' the children. If it wasn't for them I could go to work again, an' I'd be that glad; I feel as if my 'ed would drop off sometimes! I _ham_ so glad you just come in!' Jane had tried so many forms of encouragement, of consolation, on previous occasions that she knew not how to repeat herself. She was ashamed to speak words which sounded so hollow and profitless. This silence was only too significant to Pennyloaf, and in a moment she exclaimed with querulous energy: 'I know what'll be the bend of it! I'll go an' do like mother does--I will! I will! I'll put my ring away, an' I'll go an' sit all night in the public-'ouse! It's what all the others does, an' I'll do the same. I often feel I'm a fool to go on like this. I don't know what I live for, P'r'aps he'll be sorry when I get run in like mother.' 'Don't talk like that, Pennyloaf!' cried Jane, stamping her foot, (It was odd how completely difference of character had reversed their natural relations to each other; Pennyloaf was the child, Jane the mature woman.) 'You know better, and you've no right to give way to such thoughts. I was going to say I'd come and be with you all Saturday afternoon, but I don't know whether I shall now. And I'd been thinking you might like to come and see me on Sunday, but I can't have people that go to the public-house, so we won't say anything more about it. I shall have to be off; good-bye!' She stepped to the door. 'Miss Snowdon!' Jane turned, and after an instant of mock severity, broke into a laugh which seemed to fill the wretched den with sunlight. Words, too, she found; words of soothing influence such as leap from the heart to the tongue in spite of the heavy thoughts that try to check them. Pennyloaf was learning to depend upon these words for strength in her desolation. They did not excite her to much hopefulness, but there was a sustaining power in their sweet sincerity which made all the difference between despair tending to evil and the sigh of renewed effort. 'I don't care,' Pennyloaf had got into the habit of thinking, after her friend's departure, 'I won't give up as long as she looks in now and then.' Out from the swarm of babies Jane hurried homewards. She had a reason for wishing to be back in good time to-night; it was Wednesday, and on Wednesday evening there was wont to come a visitor, who sat for a couple of hours in her grandfather's room and talked, talked--the most interesting talk Jane had ever heard or could imagine. A latch-key admitted her; she ran up to the second floor. A voice from the front-room caught her ear; certainly not _his_ voice--it was too early--but that of some unusual visitor. She was on the point of entering her own chamber, when the other door opened, and somebody exclaimed, 'Ah, here she is!' The speaker was an old gentleman, dressed in black, bald, with small and rather rugged features; his voice was pleasant. A gold chain and a bunch of seals shone against his waistcoat, also a pair of eye-glasses. A professional man, obviously. Jane remembered that she had seen him once before, about a year ago, when he had talked with her for a few minutes, very kindly. 'Will you come in here, Jane?' her grandfather's voice called to her. Snowdon had changed much. Old age was heavy upon his shoulders, and had even produced a slight tremulousness in his hands; his voice told the same story of enfeeblement. Even more noticeable was the ageing of his countenance. Something more, however, than the progress of time seemed to be here at work. He looked strangely careworn; his forehead was set in lines of anxiety; his mouth expressed a nervousness of which formerly there had been no trace. One would have said that some harassing preoccupation must have seized his mind. His eyes were no longer merely sad and absent, but restless with fatiguing thought. As Jane entered the room he fixed his gaze upon her--a gaze that appeared to reveal worrying apprehension. 'You remember Mr. Percival, Jane,' he said. The old gentleman thus presented held out his hand with something of fatherly geniality. 'Miss Snowdon, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again before long, but just now I am carrying off your grandfather for a couple of hours, and indeed we

dessay

How many times the word 'dessay' appears in the text?

worn by a man above the mechanic ranks), but it was patched with dirt of many kinds, and held together by a most inadequate supply of buttons. At present he wore no collar, and his waistcoat, half-open, exposed a red shirt. 'Why, you're all a-blowin' and a-growin' this morning, Peckover,' was his first observation, as he dropped heavily into a wooden arm-chair. 'I shall begin to think that colour of yours ain't natural. Dare you let me rub it with a handkerchief?' 'Course I dare,' replied Clem, tossing her head. 'Don't be so forward, Mr. Snowdon.' 'Forward? Not I. I'm behind time if anything. I hope I haven't kept you from church.' He chuckled at his double joke. Mother and daughter laughed appreciatively. 'Will you take your eggs boiled or fried?' inquired Mrs. Peckover. 'Going to give me eggs, are you? Well, I've no objection, I assure you. And I think I'll have them fried, Mrs. Peckover. But, I say, you mustn't be running up too big a bill. The Lord only knows when I shall get anything to do, and it ain't very likely to be a thousand a year when it does come.' 'Oh, that's all right,' replied the landlady, as if sordid calculation were a thing impossible to her. 'I can't say as you behaved quite straightforward years ago, Mr. Snowdon, but I ain't one to make a row about bygones, an' as you say you'll put it all straight as soon as you can, well, I won't refuse to trust you once more.' Mr. Snowdon lay back in the chair, his hands in his waistcoat pockets, his legs outstretched upon the fender. He was smiling placidly, now at the preparing breakfast, now at Clem. The latter he plainly regarded with much admiration, and cared not to conceal it. When, in a few minutes, it was announced to him that the meal was ready, he dragged his chair up to the table and reseated himself with a sigh of satisfaction. A dish of excellent ham, and eggs as nearly fresh as can be obtained in Clerkenwell, invited him with appetising odour; a large cup of what is known to the generality of English people as coffee steamed at his right hand; slices of new bread lay ready cut upon a plate; a slab of the most expensive substitute for butter caught his eye with yellow promise; vinegar and mustard appealed to the refinements of his taste. 'I've got a couple more eggs, if you'd like them doin',' said Mrs. Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the viands. 'I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,' returned Mr. Snowdon. As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly in consequence of the activity of his mind. He was, in fact, musing upon a question which he found it very difficult to answer in any satisfactory way. 'What's the meaning of all this?' he asked himself, and not for the first time. 'What makes them treat me in this fashion? A week ago I came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just because I'd run down to my last penny, and I didn't know where to find a night's lodging. I'd got an idea, too, that I should like to find out what had become of my child, whom I left here nine or ten years ago; possibly she was still alive, and might welcome the duty of supporting her parent. The chance was, to be sure, that the girl had long since been in her grave, and that Mrs. Peckover no longer lived in the old quarters; if I discovered the woman, on the other hand, she was not very likely to give me an affectionate reception, seeing that I found it inconvenient to keep sending her money for Jane's keep in the old days. The queer thing is, that everything turned out exactly the opposite of what I had expected. Mrs. Peckover had rather a sour face at first, but after a little talk she began to seem quite glad to see me. She put me into a room, undertook to board me for a while--till I find work, and I wonder when _that_'ll be?--and blest if this strapping daughter of hers doesn't seem to have fallen in love with me from the first go off! As for my girl, I'm told she was carried off by her grandfather, my old dad, three years ago, and where they went nobody knows. Very puzzling all this. How on earth came it that Mrs. Peckover kept the child so long, and didn't send her to the workhouse? If I'm to believe _her_, she took a motherly kindness for the poor brat. But that won't exactly go down with J. J. Snowdon; he's seen a bit too much in his knocking about the world, Still, what if I'm making a mistake about the old woman? There _are_ some people do things of that sort; upon my soul, I've known people be kind even to me, without a chance of being paid back! You may think you know a man or a woman, and then all at once they'll go and do something you'd have taken your davy couldn't possibly happen. I'd have sworn she was nothing but a skinflint and a lying old witch. And so she maybe; the chances are there's some game going on that I can't see through. Make inquiries? Why, so I have done, as far as I know how. I've only been able to hit on one person who knows anything about the matter, and he tells me it's true enough the girl was taken away about three years ago, but he's no idea where she went to. Surely the old man must be dead b now, though he _was_ tough. Well, the fact of the matter is, I've got a good berth, and I'm a precious sight too lazy to go on the private detective job. Here's this girl Clem, the finest bit of flesh I've seen for a long time; I've more than half a mind to see if she won't be fool enough to marry me. I'm not a bad-looking fellow, that's the truth, and she may have taken a real liking to me. Seems to me that I should have come in for a Comfortable thing in my old age; if I haven't a daughter to provide for my needs, at all events I shall have a wife who can be persuaded into doing so. When the old woman gets out of the way I must have a little quiet talk with Clem.' The opportunity he desired was not long in offering itself. Having made an excellent breakfast, he dragged his chair up to the fender again, and reached a pipe from the mantel-piece, where he had left it last night. Tobacco he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket; it came forth in the form of yellowish dust, intermingled with all sorts of alien scraps. When he had lit his pipe, he poised the chair on its hind-legs, clasped his hands over his bald crown, and continued his musing with an air of amiable calm. Smoke curled up from the corner of his loose lips, and occasionally, removing his pipe for an instant, he spat skilfully between the bars of the grate. Assured of his comfort, Mrs. Peckover said she must go and look after certain domestic duties. Her daughter had begun to clean some vegetables that would be cooked for dinner. 'How old may you be, Clem?' Mr. Snowdon inquired genially, when they had been alone together for a few minutes. 'What's that to you? Guess.' 'Why, let me see; you was not much more than a baby when I went away. You'll be eighteen or nineteen, I suppose.' 'Yes, I'm nineteen--last sixth of February. Pity you come too late to give me a birthday present, ain't it?' 'Ah! And who'd have thought you'd have grown up such a beauty! I say, Clem, how many of the young chaps about here have been wanting to marry you, eh?' 'A dozen or two, I dessay,' Clem replied, shrugging her shoulders scornfully. Mr. Snowdon laughed, and then spat into the fire. 'Tell me about some o' them, will you? Who is it you're keeping company with now?' 'Who, indeed? Why, there isn't one I'd look at! Several of 'em's took to drinking 'cause I won't have nothing to do with 'em.' This excited Mr. Snowdon's mirth in a high degree; he rolled on his chair, and almost pitched backwards. 'I suppose you give one or other a bit of encouragement now and then, just to make a fool of him, eh?' 'Course I do. There was Bob Hewett; he used to lodge here, but that was after your time. I kep' him off an' on till he couldn't bear it no longer; then he went an' married a common slut of a thing, just because he thought it 'ud make me mad. Ha, ha! I believe he'd give her poison an' risk it any day, if only I promised to marry him afterwards. Then there was a feller called Jeck Bartley. I set him an' Bob fightin' one Bank-holiday--you should a' seen 'em go at it! Jack went an' got married a year ago to a girl called Suke Jollop; her mother forced him. How I did laugh! Last Christmas Day they smashed up their 'ome an' threw the bits out into the street. Jack got one of his eyes knocked out--I thought I should a' died o' laughin' when I saw him next mornin'.' The hearer became uproarious in merriment. 'Tell you what it is, Clem,' he cried, 'you're something like a girl! Darn me if I don't like you! I say, I wonder what my daughter's grown up? Like her mother, I suppose. You an' she was sort of sisters, wasn't you?' He observed her closely. Clem laughed and shrugged her shoulders. 'Queer sort o' sisters. She was a bit too quiet-like for me. There never was no fun in her.' 'Aye, like her mother. And where did you say she went to with the old man?' 'Where she went to?' repeated Clem, regarding him steadily with her big eyes, 'I never said nothing about it, 'cause I didn't know.' 'Well, I shan't cry about her, and I don't suppose she misses me much, wherever she is. All the same, Clem, I'm a domesticated sort of man; you can see that, can't you? I shouldn't wonder if I marry again one of these first days. Just tell me where to find a girl of the right sort. I dare say you know heaps.' 'Dessay I do. What sort do you want?' 'Oh, a littlish girl--yellow hair, you know--one of them that look as if they didn't weigh half-a-stone.' 'I'll throw this parsnip at you, Mr. Snowdon!' 'What's up now. You don't Call yourself littlish, do you?' Clem snapped the small end off the vegetable she was paring, and aimed it at his head. He ducked just in time. Then there was an outburst of laughter from both. 'Say, Clem, you haven't got a glass of beer in the house?' 'You'll have to wait till openin' time,' replied the girl sourly, going away to the far end of the room. 'Have I offended you, Clem?' 'Offended, indeed. As if I cared what you say!' 'Do you care what I think?' 'Not I!' 'That means you do. Say, Clem, just come here; I've something to tell you.' 'You're a nuisance. Let me get on with my work, can't you?' 'No, I can't. You just come here. You'd better not give me the trouble of fetching you!' The girl obeyed him. Her cheeks were very hot, and the danger-signal was flashing in her eyes. Ten minutes later she went upstairs, and had a vivacious dialogue of whispers with Mrs. Peckover. CHAPTER XV SUNLIGHT IN DREARY PLACES Among the by-ways of Clerkenwell you might, with some difficulty, have discovered an establishment known in its neighbourhood as 'Whitehead's.' It was an artificial-flower factory, and the rooms of which it consisted were only to be reached by traversing a timber-yard, and then mounting a wooden staircase outside a saw-mill. Here at busy seasons worked some threescore women and girls, who, owing to the nature of their occupation, were spoken of by the jocose youth of the locality as 'Whitehead's pastepots.' Naturally they varied much in age and aspect. There was the child who had newly left school, and was now invited to consider the question of how to keep herself alive; there was the woman of uncertain age, who had spent long years of long days in the atmosphere of workrooms, and showed the result in her parchmenty cheek and lack-lustre eye; and between these extremes came all the various types of the London crafts-girl: she who is young enough to hope that disappointments may yet be made up for by the future; she who is already tasting such scanty good as life had in store for her; she who has outlived her illusions and no longer cares to look beyond the close of the week. If regularly engaged as time-workers, they made themselves easy in the prospect of wages that allowed them to sleep under a roof and eat at certain intervals of the day; if employed on piece-work they might at any moment find themselves wageless, but this, being a familiar state of things, did not trouble them. With few exceptions, they were clad neatly; on the whole, they plied their task in wonderful contentment. The general tone of conversation among them was not high; moralists unfamiliar with the ways of the nether world would probably have applied a term other than negative to the laughing discussions which now and then enlivened this or that group; but it was very seldom indeed that a child newly arriving heard anything with which she was not already perfectly familiar. One afternoon at the end of May there penetrated into the largest of the workrooms that rarest of visitants, a stray sunbeam. Only if the sun happened to shine at given moments could any of its light fall directly into the room I speak of; this afternoon, however, all circumstances were favourable, and behold the floor chequered with uncertain gleam. The workers were arranged in groups of three, called 'parties,' consisting of a learner, an improver, and a hand. All sat with sleeves pushed up to their elbows, and had a habit of rocking to and fro as they plied their mechanical industry. Owing to the movement of a cloud, the sunlight spread gradually towards one of these groups; it touched the skirt, the arms, the head of one of the girls, who, as if gladdened by the kindly warmth, looked round and smiled. A smile you would have been pleased to observe--unconscious, gently thoughtful, rich in possibilities of happiness. She was quite a young girl, certainly not seventeen, and wore a smooth grey dress, with a white linen collar; her brown hair was closely plaited, her head well-shaped, the bend of her neck very graceful. From her bare arms it could be seen that she was anything but robustly made, yet her general appearance was not one of ill-health, and she held herself, even thus late in the day, far more uprightly than most of her companions. Had you watched her for a while, you would have noticed that her eyes occasionally strayed beyond the work-table, and, perhaps unconsciously, fixed themselves for some moments on one or other of the girls near her; when she remembered herself and looked down again upon her task, there rose to her face a smile of the subtlest meaning, the outcome of busy reflection. By her side was a little girl just beginning to learn the work, whose employment it was to paper wires and make 'centres.' This toil always results in blistered fingers, and frequent was the child's appeal to her neighbour for sympathy. 'It'll be easier soon,' said the latter, on one of these occasions, bending her head to speak in a low voice. 'You should have seen what blisters I had when I began.' 'It's all very well to say that. I can't do no more, so there Oh, when'll it be five o'clock?' 'It's a quarter to. Try and go on, Annie.' Five o'clock did come at length, and with it twenty minutes' rest for tea. The rule at Whitehead's was, that you could either bring your own tea, sugar, and eatables, or purchase them here from a forewoman; most of the workers chose to provide themselves. It was customary for each 'party' to club together, emptying their several contributions of tea out of little twists of newspaper into one teapot. Wholesome bustle and confusion succeeded to the former silence. One of the learners, whose turn it was to run on errands, was overwhelmed with commissions to a chandler's shop close by; a wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and they called her, because of her slowness, the 'funeral horse.' She had strange habits, which made laughter for those who knew of them; for instance, it was her custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her poor scraps on a doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a companion that the odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a relish. From her present errand she returned with a strange variety of dainties--for it was early in the week, and the girls still had coppers in their pockets; for two or three she had purchased a farthing's-worth of jam, which she carried in paper. A bite of this and a taste of that rewarded her for her trouble. The quiet-mannered girl whom we were observing took her cup of tea from the pot in which she had a share, and from her bag produced some folded pieces of bread and butter. She had begun her meal, when there came and sat down by her a young woman of very different appearance--our friend, Miss Peckover. They were old acquaintances; but when we first saw them together it would have been difficult to imagine that they would ever sit and converse as at present, apparently in all friendliness. Strange to say, it was Clem who, during the past three years, had been the active one in seeking to obliterate disagreeable memories. The younger girl had never repelled her, but was long in overcoming the dread excited by Clem's proximity. Even now she never looked straight into Miss Peckover's face, as she did when speaking with others; there was reserve in her manner, reserve unmistakable, though clothed with her pleasant smile and amiable voice. 'I've got something to tell you, Jane,' Clem began, in a tone inaudible to those who were sitting near. 'Something as'll surprise you.' 'What is it, I wonder?' 'You must swear you won't tell nobody.' Jane nodded. Then the other brought her head a little nearer, and whispered: 'I'm goin' to be married!' 'Are you really?' 'In a week. Who do you think it is? Somebody as you know of, but if you guessed till next Christmas you'd never come right.' Nor had Clem any intention of revealing the name, but she laughed consumedly, as if her reticence covered the most amusing situation conceivable. 'It'll be the biggest surprise you ever had in your life. You've swore you won't speak about it. I don't think I shall come to work after this week--but you'll have to come an' see us. You'll promise to, won't you?' Still convulsed with mirth, Clem went off to another part of the room. From Jane's countenance the look of amusement which she had perforce summoned soon passed; it was succeeded by a shadow almost of pain, and not till she had been at work again for nearly an hour was the former placidity restored to her. When final release came, Jane was among the first to hasten down the wooden staircase and get clear of the timber yard. By the direct way, it took her twenty minutes to walk from Whitehead's to her home in Hanover Street, but this evening she had an object in turning aside. The visit she wished to pay took her into a disagreeable quarter, a street of squalid houses, swarming with yet more squalid children. On all the doorsteps Bat little girls, themselves only just out of infancy, nursing or neglecting bald, red-eyed, doughy-limbed abortions in every stage of babyhood, hapless spawn of diseased humanity, born to embitter and brutalise yet further the lot of those who unwillingly gave them life. With wide, pitiful eyes Jane looked at each group she passed. Three years ago she would have seen nothing but the ordinary and the inevitable in such spectacles, but since then her moral and intellectual being had grown on rare nourishment; there was indignation as well as heartache in the feeling with which she had learnt to regard the world of her familiarity. To enter the house at which she paused it was necessary to squeeze through a conglomerate of dirty little bodies. At the head of the first flight of stairs she came upon a girl sitting in a weary attitude on the top step and beating the wood listlessly with the last remnant of a hearth-brush; on her lap was one more specimen of the infinitely-multiplied baby, and a child of two years sprawled behind her on the landing. 'Waiting for him to come home, Pennyloaf?' said Jane. 'Oh, is that you, Miss Snowdon!' exclaimed the other, returning to consciousness and manifesting some shame at being discovered in this position. Hastily she drew together the front of her dress, which for the baby's sake had been wide open, and rose to her feet. Pennyloaf was not a bit more womanly in figure than on the day of her marriage; her voice was still an immature treble; the same rueful irresponsibility marked her features; but all her poor prettiness was wasted under the disfigurement of pains and cares, Incongruously enough, she wore a gown of bright-patterned calico, and about her neck had a collar of pretentious lace; her hair was dressed as if for a holiday, and a daub recently made on her cheeks by the baby's fingers lent emphasis to the fact that she had but a little while ago washed herself with much care. 'I can't stop,' said Jane, 'but I thought I'd just look in and speak a word. How have you been getting on?' 'Oh, do come in for just a minute!' pleaded Pennyloaf, moving backwards to an open door, whither Jane followed. They entered a room--much like other rooms that we have looked into from time to time. Following the nomadic custom of their kind, Bob Hewett and his wife had lived in six or seven different lodgings since their honeymoon in Shooter's Gardens. Mrs. Candy first of all made a change necessary, as might have been anticipated, and the restlessness of domestic ill-being subsequently drove them from place to place. 'Come in 'ere, Johnny,' she Called to the child lying on the landing. 'What's the good o' washin' you, I'd like to know? Just see, Miss Snowdon, he's made his face all white with the milk as the boy spilt on the stairs! Take this brush an' play with it, do! I _can't_ keep 'em clean, Miss Snowdon, so it's no use talkin'.' 'Are you going somewhere to-night?' Jane inquired, with a glance at the strange costume. Pennyloaf looked up and down in a shamefaced way. 'I only did it just because I thought he might like to see me. He promised me faithful as he'd come 'ome to-night, and I thought--it's only somethink as got into my 'ed to-day, Miss Snowdon.' 'But hasn't he been coming home since I saw you last?' 'He did just once, an' then it was all the old ways again. I did what you told me; I did, as sure as I'm a-standin' 'ere! I made the room so clean you wouldn't have believed; I scrubbed the floor an' the table, an' I washed the winders--you can see they ain't dirty yet. An' he'd never a' paid a bit o' notice if I hadn't told him, He was jolly enough for one night, just like he can be when he likes. But I knew as it wouldn't last, an' the next night he was off with a lot o' fellers an' girls, same as ever. I didn't make no row when he came 'ome; I wish I may die if I said a word to set his back up! An' I've gone on just the same all the week; we haven't had not the least bit of a row; so you see I kep' my promise. But it's no good; he won't come 'ome; he's always got fellers an' girls to go round with. He took his hoath as he'd come back to-night, an' then it come into my 'ed as I'd put my best things on, just to--you know what I mean, Miss Snowdon. But he won't come before twelve o'clock; I know he won't. An' I get that low sittin' 'ere, you can't think I can't go nowhere, because o' the children. If it wasn't for them I could go to work again, an' I'd be that glad; I feel as if my 'ed would drop off sometimes! I _ham_ so glad you just come in!' Jane had tried so many forms of encouragement, of consolation, on previous occasions that she knew not how to repeat herself. She was ashamed to speak words which sounded so hollow and profitless. This silence was only too significant to Pennyloaf, and in a moment she exclaimed with querulous energy: 'I know what'll be the bend of it! I'll go an' do like mother does--I will! I will! I'll put my ring away, an' I'll go an' sit all night in the public-'ouse! It's what all the others does, an' I'll do the same. I often feel I'm a fool to go on like this. I don't know what I live for, P'r'aps he'll be sorry when I get run in like mother.' 'Don't talk like that, Pennyloaf!' cried Jane, stamping her foot, (It was odd how completely difference of character had reversed their natural relations to each other; Pennyloaf was the child, Jane the mature woman.) 'You know better, and you've no right to give way to such thoughts. I was going to say I'd come and be with you all Saturday afternoon, but I don't know whether I shall now. And I'd been thinking you might like to come and see me on Sunday, but I can't have people that go to the public-house, so we won't say anything more about it. I shall have to be off; good-bye!' She stepped to the door. 'Miss Snowdon!' Jane turned, and after an instant of mock severity, broke into a laugh which seemed to fill the wretched den with sunlight. Words, too, she found; words of soothing influence such as leap from the heart to the tongue in spite of the heavy thoughts that try to check them. Pennyloaf was learning to depend upon these words for strength in her desolation. They did not excite her to much hopefulness, but there was a sustaining power in their sweet sincerity which made all the difference between despair tending to evil and the sigh of renewed effort. 'I don't care,' Pennyloaf had got into the habit of thinking, after her friend's departure, 'I won't give up as long as she looks in now and then.' Out from the swarm of babies Jane hurried homewards. She had a reason for wishing to be back in good time to-night; it was Wednesday, and on Wednesday evening there was wont to come a visitor, who sat for a couple of hours in her grandfather's room and talked, talked--the most interesting talk Jane had ever heard or could imagine. A latch-key admitted her; she ran up to the second floor. A voice from the front-room caught her ear; certainly not _his_ voice--it was too early--but that of some unusual visitor. She was on the point of entering her own chamber, when the other door opened, and somebody exclaimed, 'Ah, here she is!' The speaker was an old gentleman, dressed in black, bald, with small and rather rugged features; his voice was pleasant. A gold chain and a bunch of seals shone against his waistcoat, also a pair of eye-glasses. A professional man, obviously. Jane remembered that she had seen him once before, about a year ago, when he had talked with her for a few minutes, very kindly. 'Will you come in here, Jane?' her grandfather's voice called to her. Snowdon had changed much. Old age was heavy upon his shoulders, and had even produced a slight tremulousness in his hands; his voice told the same story of enfeeblement. Even more noticeable was the ageing of his countenance. Something more, however, than the progress of time seemed to be here at work. He looked strangely careworn; his forehead was set in lines of anxiety; his mouth expressed a nervousness of which formerly there had been no trace. One would have said that some harassing preoccupation must have seized his mind. His eyes were no longer merely sad and absent, but restless with fatiguing thought. As Jane entered the room he fixed his gaze upon her--a gaze that appeared to reveal worrying apprehension. 'You remember Mr. Percival, Jane,' he said. The old gentleman thus presented held out his hand with something of fatherly geniality. 'Miss Snowdon, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again before long, but just now I am carrying off your grandfather for a couple of hours, and indeed we

dare

How many times the word 'dare' appears in the text?

worn by a man above the mechanic ranks), but it was patched with dirt of many kinds, and held together by a most inadequate supply of buttons. At present he wore no collar, and his waistcoat, half-open, exposed a red shirt. 'Why, you're all a-blowin' and a-growin' this morning, Peckover,' was his first observation, as he dropped heavily into a wooden arm-chair. 'I shall begin to think that colour of yours ain't natural. Dare you let me rub it with a handkerchief?' 'Course I dare,' replied Clem, tossing her head. 'Don't be so forward, Mr. Snowdon.' 'Forward? Not I. I'm behind time if anything. I hope I haven't kept you from church.' He chuckled at his double joke. Mother and daughter laughed appreciatively. 'Will you take your eggs boiled or fried?' inquired Mrs. Peckover. 'Going to give me eggs, are you? Well, I've no objection, I assure you. And I think I'll have them fried, Mrs. Peckover. But, I say, you mustn't be running up too big a bill. The Lord only knows when I shall get anything to do, and it ain't very likely to be a thousand a year when it does come.' 'Oh, that's all right,' replied the landlady, as if sordid calculation were a thing impossible to her. 'I can't say as you behaved quite straightforward years ago, Mr. Snowdon, but I ain't one to make a row about bygones, an' as you say you'll put it all straight as soon as you can, well, I won't refuse to trust you once more.' Mr. Snowdon lay back in the chair, his hands in his waistcoat pockets, his legs outstretched upon the fender. He was smiling placidly, now at the preparing breakfast, now at Clem. The latter he plainly regarded with much admiration, and cared not to conceal it. When, in a few minutes, it was announced to him that the meal was ready, he dragged his chair up to the table and reseated himself with a sigh of satisfaction. A dish of excellent ham, and eggs as nearly fresh as can be obtained in Clerkenwell, invited him with appetising odour; a large cup of what is known to the generality of English people as coffee steamed at his right hand; slices of new bread lay ready cut upon a plate; a slab of the most expensive substitute for butter caught his eye with yellow promise; vinegar and mustard appealed to the refinements of his taste. 'I've got a couple more eggs, if you'd like them doin',' said Mrs. Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the viands. 'I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,' returned Mr. Snowdon. As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly in consequence of the activity of his mind. He was, in fact, musing upon a question which he found it very difficult to answer in any satisfactory way. 'What's the meaning of all this?' he asked himself, and not for the first time. 'What makes them treat me in this fashion? A week ago I came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just because I'd run down to my last penny, and I didn't know where to find a night's lodging. I'd got an idea, too, that I should like to find out what had become of my child, whom I left here nine or ten years ago; possibly she was still alive, and might welcome the duty of supporting her parent. The chance was, to be sure, that the girl had long since been in her grave, and that Mrs. Peckover no longer lived in the old quarters; if I discovered the woman, on the other hand, she was not very likely to give me an affectionate reception, seeing that I found it inconvenient to keep sending her money for Jane's keep in the old days. The queer thing is, that everything turned out exactly the opposite of what I had expected. Mrs. Peckover had rather a sour face at first, but after a little talk she began to seem quite glad to see me. She put me into a room, undertook to board me for a while--till I find work, and I wonder when _that_'ll be?--and blest if this strapping daughter of hers doesn't seem to have fallen in love with me from the first go off! As for my girl, I'm told she was carried off by her grandfather, my old dad, three years ago, and where they went nobody knows. Very puzzling all this. How on earth came it that Mrs. Peckover kept the child so long, and didn't send her to the workhouse? If I'm to believe _her_, she took a motherly kindness for the poor brat. But that won't exactly go down with J. J. Snowdon; he's seen a bit too much in his knocking about the world, Still, what if I'm making a mistake about the old woman? There _are_ some people do things of that sort; upon my soul, I've known people be kind even to me, without a chance of being paid back! You may think you know a man or a woman, and then all at once they'll go and do something you'd have taken your davy couldn't possibly happen. I'd have sworn she was nothing but a skinflint and a lying old witch. And so she maybe; the chances are there's some game going on that I can't see through. Make inquiries? Why, so I have done, as far as I know how. I've only been able to hit on one person who knows anything about the matter, and he tells me it's true enough the girl was taken away about three years ago, but he's no idea where she went to. Surely the old man must be dead b now, though he _was_ tough. Well, the fact of the matter is, I've got a good berth, and I'm a precious sight too lazy to go on the private detective job. Here's this girl Clem, the finest bit of flesh I've seen for a long time; I've more than half a mind to see if she won't be fool enough to marry me. I'm not a bad-looking fellow, that's the truth, and she may have taken a real liking to me. Seems to me that I should have come in for a Comfortable thing in my old age; if I haven't a daughter to provide for my needs, at all events I shall have a wife who can be persuaded into doing so. When the old woman gets out of the way I must have a little quiet talk with Clem.' The opportunity he desired was not long in offering itself. Having made an excellent breakfast, he dragged his chair up to the fender again, and reached a pipe from the mantel-piece, where he had left it last night. Tobacco he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket; it came forth in the form of yellowish dust, intermingled with all sorts of alien scraps. When he had lit his pipe, he poised the chair on its hind-legs, clasped his hands over his bald crown, and continued his musing with an air of amiable calm. Smoke curled up from the corner of his loose lips, and occasionally, removing his pipe for an instant, he spat skilfully between the bars of the grate. Assured of his comfort, Mrs. Peckover said she must go and look after certain domestic duties. Her daughter had begun to clean some vegetables that would be cooked for dinner. 'How old may you be, Clem?' Mr. Snowdon inquired genially, when they had been alone together for a few minutes. 'What's that to you? Guess.' 'Why, let me see; you was not much more than a baby when I went away. You'll be eighteen or nineteen, I suppose.' 'Yes, I'm nineteen--last sixth of February. Pity you come too late to give me a birthday present, ain't it?' 'Ah! And who'd have thought you'd have grown up such a beauty! I say, Clem, how many of the young chaps about here have been wanting to marry you, eh?' 'A dozen or two, I dessay,' Clem replied, shrugging her shoulders scornfully. Mr. Snowdon laughed, and then spat into the fire. 'Tell me about some o' them, will you? Who is it you're keeping company with now?' 'Who, indeed? Why, there isn't one I'd look at! Several of 'em's took to drinking 'cause I won't have nothing to do with 'em.' This excited Mr. Snowdon's mirth in a high degree; he rolled on his chair, and almost pitched backwards. 'I suppose you give one or other a bit of encouragement now and then, just to make a fool of him, eh?' 'Course I do. There was Bob Hewett; he used to lodge here, but that was after your time. I kep' him off an' on till he couldn't bear it no longer; then he went an' married a common slut of a thing, just because he thought it 'ud make me mad. Ha, ha! I believe he'd give her poison an' risk it any day, if only I promised to marry him afterwards. Then there was a feller called Jeck Bartley. I set him an' Bob fightin' one Bank-holiday--you should a' seen 'em go at it! Jack went an' got married a year ago to a girl called Suke Jollop; her mother forced him. How I did laugh! Last Christmas Day they smashed up their 'ome an' threw the bits out into the street. Jack got one of his eyes knocked out--I thought I should a' died o' laughin' when I saw him next mornin'.' The hearer became uproarious in merriment. 'Tell you what it is, Clem,' he cried, 'you're something like a girl! Darn me if I don't like you! I say, I wonder what my daughter's grown up? Like her mother, I suppose. You an' she was sort of sisters, wasn't you?' He observed her closely. Clem laughed and shrugged her shoulders. 'Queer sort o' sisters. She was a bit too quiet-like for me. There never was no fun in her.' 'Aye, like her mother. And where did you say she went to with the old man?' 'Where she went to?' repeated Clem, regarding him steadily with her big eyes, 'I never said nothing about it, 'cause I didn't know.' 'Well, I shan't cry about her, and I don't suppose she misses me much, wherever she is. All the same, Clem, I'm a domesticated sort of man; you can see that, can't you? I shouldn't wonder if I marry again one of these first days. Just tell me where to find a girl of the right sort. I dare say you know heaps.' 'Dessay I do. What sort do you want?' 'Oh, a littlish girl--yellow hair, you know--one of them that look as if they didn't weigh half-a-stone.' 'I'll throw this parsnip at you, Mr. Snowdon!' 'What's up now. You don't Call yourself littlish, do you?' Clem snapped the small end off the vegetable she was paring, and aimed it at his head. He ducked just in time. Then there was an outburst of laughter from both. 'Say, Clem, you haven't got a glass of beer in the house?' 'You'll have to wait till openin' time,' replied the girl sourly, going away to the far end of the room. 'Have I offended you, Clem?' 'Offended, indeed. As if I cared what you say!' 'Do you care what I think?' 'Not I!' 'That means you do. Say, Clem, just come here; I've something to tell you.' 'You're a nuisance. Let me get on with my work, can't you?' 'No, I can't. You just come here. You'd better not give me the trouble of fetching you!' The girl obeyed him. Her cheeks were very hot, and the danger-signal was flashing in her eyes. Ten minutes later she went upstairs, and had a vivacious dialogue of whispers with Mrs. Peckover. CHAPTER XV SUNLIGHT IN DREARY PLACES Among the by-ways of Clerkenwell you might, with some difficulty, have discovered an establishment known in its neighbourhood as 'Whitehead's.' It was an artificial-flower factory, and the rooms of which it consisted were only to be reached by traversing a timber-yard, and then mounting a wooden staircase outside a saw-mill. Here at busy seasons worked some threescore women and girls, who, owing to the nature of their occupation, were spoken of by the jocose youth of the locality as 'Whitehead's pastepots.' Naturally they varied much in age and aspect. There was the child who had newly left school, and was now invited to consider the question of how to keep herself alive; there was the woman of uncertain age, who had spent long years of long days in the atmosphere of workrooms, and showed the result in her parchmenty cheek and lack-lustre eye; and between these extremes came all the various types of the London crafts-girl: she who is young enough to hope that disappointments may yet be made up for by the future; she who is already tasting such scanty good as life had in store for her; she who has outlived her illusions and no longer cares to look beyond the close of the week. If regularly engaged as time-workers, they made themselves easy in the prospect of wages that allowed them to sleep under a roof and eat at certain intervals of the day; if employed on piece-work they might at any moment find themselves wageless, but this, being a familiar state of things, did not trouble them. With few exceptions, they were clad neatly; on the whole, they plied their task in wonderful contentment. The general tone of conversation among them was not high; moralists unfamiliar with the ways of the nether world would probably have applied a term other than negative to the laughing discussions which now and then enlivened this or that group; but it was very seldom indeed that a child newly arriving heard anything with which she was not already perfectly familiar. One afternoon at the end of May there penetrated into the largest of the workrooms that rarest of visitants, a stray sunbeam. Only if the sun happened to shine at given moments could any of its light fall directly into the room I speak of; this afternoon, however, all circumstances were favourable, and behold the floor chequered with uncertain gleam. The workers were arranged in groups of three, called 'parties,' consisting of a learner, an improver, and a hand. All sat with sleeves pushed up to their elbows, and had a habit of rocking to and fro as they plied their mechanical industry. Owing to the movement of a cloud, the sunlight spread gradually towards one of these groups; it touched the skirt, the arms, the head of one of the girls, who, as if gladdened by the kindly warmth, looked round and smiled. A smile you would have been pleased to observe--unconscious, gently thoughtful, rich in possibilities of happiness. She was quite a young girl, certainly not seventeen, and wore a smooth grey dress, with a white linen collar; her brown hair was closely plaited, her head well-shaped, the bend of her neck very graceful. From her bare arms it could be seen that she was anything but robustly made, yet her general appearance was not one of ill-health, and she held herself, even thus late in the day, far more uprightly than most of her companions. Had you watched her for a while, you would have noticed that her eyes occasionally strayed beyond the work-table, and, perhaps unconsciously, fixed themselves for some moments on one or other of the girls near her; when she remembered herself and looked down again upon her task, there rose to her face a smile of the subtlest meaning, the outcome of busy reflection. By her side was a little girl just beginning to learn the work, whose employment it was to paper wires and make 'centres.' This toil always results in blistered fingers, and frequent was the child's appeal to her neighbour for sympathy. 'It'll be easier soon,' said the latter, on one of these occasions, bending her head to speak in a low voice. 'You should have seen what blisters I had when I began.' 'It's all very well to say that. I can't do no more, so there Oh, when'll it be five o'clock?' 'It's a quarter to. Try and go on, Annie.' Five o'clock did come at length, and with it twenty minutes' rest for tea. The rule at Whitehead's was, that you could either bring your own tea, sugar, and eatables, or purchase them here from a forewoman; most of the workers chose to provide themselves. It was customary for each 'party' to club together, emptying their several contributions of tea out of little twists of newspaper into one teapot. Wholesome bustle and confusion succeeded to the former silence. One of the learners, whose turn it was to run on errands, was overwhelmed with commissions to a chandler's shop close by; a wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and they called her, because of her slowness, the 'funeral horse.' She had strange habits, which made laughter for those who knew of them; for instance, it was her custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her poor scraps on a doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a companion that the odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a relish. From her present errand she returned with a strange variety of dainties--for it was early in the week, and the girls still had coppers in their pockets; for two or three she had purchased a farthing's-worth of jam, which she carried in paper. A bite of this and a taste of that rewarded her for her trouble. The quiet-mannered girl whom we were observing took her cup of tea from the pot in which she had a share, and from her bag produced some folded pieces of bread and butter. She had begun her meal, when there came and sat down by her a young woman of very different appearance--our friend, Miss Peckover. They were old acquaintances; but when we first saw them together it would have been difficult to imagine that they would ever sit and converse as at present, apparently in all friendliness. Strange to say, it was Clem who, during the past three years, had been the active one in seeking to obliterate disagreeable memories. The younger girl had never repelled her, but was long in overcoming the dread excited by Clem's proximity. Even now she never looked straight into Miss Peckover's face, as she did when speaking with others; there was reserve in her manner, reserve unmistakable, though clothed with her pleasant smile and amiable voice. 'I've got something to tell you, Jane,' Clem began, in a tone inaudible to those who were sitting near. 'Something as'll surprise you.' 'What is it, I wonder?' 'You must swear you won't tell nobody.' Jane nodded. Then the other brought her head a little nearer, and whispered: 'I'm goin' to be married!' 'Are you really?' 'In a week. Who do you think it is? Somebody as you know of, but if you guessed till next Christmas you'd never come right.' Nor had Clem any intention of revealing the name, but she laughed consumedly, as if her reticence covered the most amusing situation conceivable. 'It'll be the biggest surprise you ever had in your life. You've swore you won't speak about it. I don't think I shall come to work after this week--but you'll have to come an' see us. You'll promise to, won't you?' Still convulsed with mirth, Clem went off to another part of the room. From Jane's countenance the look of amusement which she had perforce summoned soon passed; it was succeeded by a shadow almost of pain, and not till she had been at work again for nearly an hour was the former placidity restored to her. When final release came, Jane was among the first to hasten down the wooden staircase and get clear of the timber yard. By the direct way, it took her twenty minutes to walk from Whitehead's to her home in Hanover Street, but this evening she had an object in turning aside. The visit she wished to pay took her into a disagreeable quarter, a street of squalid houses, swarming with yet more squalid children. On all the doorsteps Bat little girls, themselves only just out of infancy, nursing or neglecting bald, red-eyed, doughy-limbed abortions in every stage of babyhood, hapless spawn of diseased humanity, born to embitter and brutalise yet further the lot of those who unwillingly gave them life. With wide, pitiful eyes Jane looked at each group she passed. Three years ago she would have seen nothing but the ordinary and the inevitable in such spectacles, but since then her moral and intellectual being had grown on rare nourishment; there was indignation as well as heartache in the feeling with which she had learnt to regard the world of her familiarity. To enter the house at which she paused it was necessary to squeeze through a conglomerate of dirty little bodies. At the head of the first flight of stairs she came upon a girl sitting in a weary attitude on the top step and beating the wood listlessly with the last remnant of a hearth-brush; on her lap was one more specimen of the infinitely-multiplied baby, and a child of two years sprawled behind her on the landing. 'Waiting for him to come home, Pennyloaf?' said Jane. 'Oh, is that you, Miss Snowdon!' exclaimed the other, returning to consciousness and manifesting some shame at being discovered in this position. Hastily she drew together the front of her dress, which for the baby's sake had been wide open, and rose to her feet. Pennyloaf was not a bit more womanly in figure than on the day of her marriage; her voice was still an immature treble; the same rueful irresponsibility marked her features; but all her poor prettiness was wasted under the disfigurement of pains and cares, Incongruously enough, she wore a gown of bright-patterned calico, and about her neck had a collar of pretentious lace; her hair was dressed as if for a holiday, and a daub recently made on her cheeks by the baby's fingers lent emphasis to the fact that she had but a little while ago washed herself with much care. 'I can't stop,' said Jane, 'but I thought I'd just look in and speak a word. How have you been getting on?' 'Oh, do come in for just a minute!' pleaded Pennyloaf, moving backwards to an open door, whither Jane followed. They entered a room--much like other rooms that we have looked into from time to time. Following the nomadic custom of their kind, Bob Hewett and his wife had lived in six or seven different lodgings since their honeymoon in Shooter's Gardens. Mrs. Candy first of all made a change necessary, as might have been anticipated, and the restlessness of domestic ill-being subsequently drove them from place to place. 'Come in 'ere, Johnny,' she Called to the child lying on the landing. 'What's the good o' washin' you, I'd like to know? Just see, Miss Snowdon, he's made his face all white with the milk as the boy spilt on the stairs! Take this brush an' play with it, do! I _can't_ keep 'em clean, Miss Snowdon, so it's no use talkin'.' 'Are you going somewhere to-night?' Jane inquired, with a glance at the strange costume. Pennyloaf looked up and down in a shamefaced way. 'I only did it just because I thought he might like to see me. He promised me faithful as he'd come 'ome to-night, and I thought--it's only somethink as got into my 'ed to-day, Miss Snowdon.' 'But hasn't he been coming home since I saw you last?' 'He did just once, an' then it was all the old ways again. I did what you told me; I did, as sure as I'm a-standin' 'ere! I made the room so clean you wouldn't have believed; I scrubbed the floor an' the table, an' I washed the winders--you can see they ain't dirty yet. An' he'd never a' paid a bit o' notice if I hadn't told him, He was jolly enough for one night, just like he can be when he likes. But I knew as it wouldn't last, an' the next night he was off with a lot o' fellers an' girls, same as ever. I didn't make no row when he came 'ome; I wish I may die if I said a word to set his back up! An' I've gone on just the same all the week; we haven't had not the least bit of a row; so you see I kep' my promise. But it's no good; he won't come 'ome; he's always got fellers an' girls to go round with. He took his hoath as he'd come back to-night, an' then it come into my 'ed as I'd put my best things on, just to--you know what I mean, Miss Snowdon. But he won't come before twelve o'clock; I know he won't. An' I get that low sittin' 'ere, you can't think I can't go nowhere, because o' the children. If it wasn't for them I could go to work again, an' I'd be that glad; I feel as if my 'ed would drop off sometimes! I _ham_ so glad you just come in!' Jane had tried so many forms of encouragement, of consolation, on previous occasions that she knew not how to repeat herself. She was ashamed to speak words which sounded so hollow and profitless. This silence was only too significant to Pennyloaf, and in a moment she exclaimed with querulous energy: 'I know what'll be the bend of it! I'll go an' do like mother does--I will! I will! I'll put my ring away, an' I'll go an' sit all night in the public-'ouse! It's what all the others does, an' I'll do the same. I often feel I'm a fool to go on like this. I don't know what I live for, P'r'aps he'll be sorry when I get run in like mother.' 'Don't talk like that, Pennyloaf!' cried Jane, stamping her foot, (It was odd how completely difference of character had reversed their natural relations to each other; Pennyloaf was the child, Jane the mature woman.) 'You know better, and you've no right to give way to such thoughts. I was going to say I'd come and be with you all Saturday afternoon, but I don't know whether I shall now. And I'd been thinking you might like to come and see me on Sunday, but I can't have people that go to the public-house, so we won't say anything more about it. I shall have to be off; good-bye!' She stepped to the door. 'Miss Snowdon!' Jane turned, and after an instant of mock severity, broke into a laugh which seemed to fill the wretched den with sunlight. Words, too, she found; words of soothing influence such as leap from the heart to the tongue in spite of the heavy thoughts that try to check them. Pennyloaf was learning to depend upon these words for strength in her desolation. They did not excite her to much hopefulness, but there was a sustaining power in their sweet sincerity which made all the difference between despair tending to evil and the sigh of renewed effort. 'I don't care,' Pennyloaf had got into the habit of thinking, after her friend's departure, 'I won't give up as long as she looks in now and then.' Out from the swarm of babies Jane hurried homewards. She had a reason for wishing to be back in good time to-night; it was Wednesday, and on Wednesday evening there was wont to come a visitor, who sat for a couple of hours in her grandfather's room and talked, talked--the most interesting talk Jane had ever heard or could imagine. A latch-key admitted her; she ran up to the second floor. A voice from the front-room caught her ear; certainly not _his_ voice--it was too early--but that of some unusual visitor. She was on the point of entering her own chamber, when the other door opened, and somebody exclaimed, 'Ah, here she is!' The speaker was an old gentleman, dressed in black, bald, with small and rather rugged features; his voice was pleasant. A gold chain and a bunch of seals shone against his waistcoat, also a pair of eye-glasses. A professional man, obviously. Jane remembered that she had seen him once before, about a year ago, when he had talked with her for a few minutes, very kindly. 'Will you come in here, Jane?' her grandfather's voice called to her. Snowdon had changed much. Old age was heavy upon his shoulders, and had even produced a slight tremulousness in his hands; his voice told the same story of enfeeblement. Even more noticeable was the ageing of his countenance. Something more, however, than the progress of time seemed to be here at work. He looked strangely careworn; his forehead was set in lines of anxiety; his mouth expressed a nervousness of which formerly there had been no trace. One would have said that some harassing preoccupation must have seized his mind. His eyes were no longer merely sad and absent, but restless with fatiguing thought. As Jane entered the room he fixed his gaze upon her--a gaze that appeared to reveal worrying apprehension. 'You remember Mr. Percival, Jane,' he said. The old gentleman thus presented held out his hand with something of fatherly geniality. 'Miss Snowdon, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again before long, but just now I am carrying off your grandfather for a couple of hours, and indeed we

do

How many times the word 'do' appears in the text?

worn by a man above the mechanic ranks), but it was patched with dirt of many kinds, and held together by a most inadequate supply of buttons. At present he wore no collar, and his waistcoat, half-open, exposed a red shirt. 'Why, you're all a-blowin' and a-growin' this morning, Peckover,' was his first observation, as he dropped heavily into a wooden arm-chair. 'I shall begin to think that colour of yours ain't natural. Dare you let me rub it with a handkerchief?' 'Course I dare,' replied Clem, tossing her head. 'Don't be so forward, Mr. Snowdon.' 'Forward? Not I. I'm behind time if anything. I hope I haven't kept you from church.' He chuckled at his double joke. Mother and daughter laughed appreciatively. 'Will you take your eggs boiled or fried?' inquired Mrs. Peckover. 'Going to give me eggs, are you? Well, I've no objection, I assure you. And I think I'll have them fried, Mrs. Peckover. But, I say, you mustn't be running up too big a bill. The Lord only knows when I shall get anything to do, and it ain't very likely to be a thousand a year when it does come.' 'Oh, that's all right,' replied the landlady, as if sordid calculation were a thing impossible to her. 'I can't say as you behaved quite straightforward years ago, Mr. Snowdon, but I ain't one to make a row about bygones, an' as you say you'll put it all straight as soon as you can, well, I won't refuse to trust you once more.' Mr. Snowdon lay back in the chair, his hands in his waistcoat pockets, his legs outstretched upon the fender. He was smiling placidly, now at the preparing breakfast, now at Clem. The latter he plainly regarded with much admiration, and cared not to conceal it. When, in a few minutes, it was announced to him that the meal was ready, he dragged his chair up to the table and reseated himself with a sigh of satisfaction. A dish of excellent ham, and eggs as nearly fresh as can be obtained in Clerkenwell, invited him with appetising odour; a large cup of what is known to the generality of English people as coffee steamed at his right hand; slices of new bread lay ready cut upon a plate; a slab of the most expensive substitute for butter caught his eye with yellow promise; vinegar and mustard appealed to the refinements of his taste. 'I've got a couple more eggs, if you'd like them doin',' said Mrs. Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the viands. 'I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,' returned Mr. Snowdon. As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly in consequence of the activity of his mind. He was, in fact, musing upon a question which he found it very difficult to answer in any satisfactory way. 'What's the meaning of all this?' he asked himself, and not for the first time. 'What makes them treat me in this fashion? A week ago I came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just because I'd run down to my last penny, and I didn't know where to find a night's lodging. I'd got an idea, too, that I should like to find out what had become of my child, whom I left here nine or ten years ago; possibly she was still alive, and might welcome the duty of supporting her parent. The chance was, to be sure, that the girl had long since been in her grave, and that Mrs. Peckover no longer lived in the old quarters; if I discovered the woman, on the other hand, she was not very likely to give me an affectionate reception, seeing that I found it inconvenient to keep sending her money for Jane's keep in the old days. The queer thing is, that everything turned out exactly the opposite of what I had expected. Mrs. Peckover had rather a sour face at first, but after a little talk she began to seem quite glad to see me. She put me into a room, undertook to board me for a while--till I find work, and I wonder when _that_'ll be?--and blest if this strapping daughter of hers doesn't seem to have fallen in love with me from the first go off! As for my girl, I'm told she was carried off by her grandfather, my old dad, three years ago, and where they went nobody knows. Very puzzling all this. How on earth came it that Mrs. Peckover kept the child so long, and didn't send her to the workhouse? If I'm to believe _her_, she took a motherly kindness for the poor brat. But that won't exactly go down with J. J. Snowdon; he's seen a bit too much in his knocking about the world, Still, what if I'm making a mistake about the old woman? There _are_ some people do things of that sort; upon my soul, I've known people be kind even to me, without a chance of being paid back! You may think you know a man or a woman, and then all at once they'll go and do something you'd have taken your davy couldn't possibly happen. I'd have sworn she was nothing but a skinflint and a lying old witch. And so she maybe; the chances are there's some game going on that I can't see through. Make inquiries? Why, so I have done, as far as I know how. I've only been able to hit on one person who knows anything about the matter, and he tells me it's true enough the girl was taken away about three years ago, but he's no idea where she went to. Surely the old man must be dead b now, though he _was_ tough. Well, the fact of the matter is, I've got a good berth, and I'm a precious sight too lazy to go on the private detective job. Here's this girl Clem, the finest bit of flesh I've seen for a long time; I've more than half a mind to see if she won't be fool enough to marry me. I'm not a bad-looking fellow, that's the truth, and she may have taken a real liking to me. Seems to me that I should have come in for a Comfortable thing in my old age; if I haven't a daughter to provide for my needs, at all events I shall have a wife who can be persuaded into doing so. When the old woman gets out of the way I must have a little quiet talk with Clem.' The opportunity he desired was not long in offering itself. Having made an excellent breakfast, he dragged his chair up to the fender again, and reached a pipe from the mantel-piece, where he had left it last night. Tobacco he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket; it came forth in the form of yellowish dust, intermingled with all sorts of alien scraps. When he had lit his pipe, he poised the chair on its hind-legs, clasped his hands over his bald crown, and continued his musing with an air of amiable calm. Smoke curled up from the corner of his loose lips, and occasionally, removing his pipe for an instant, he spat skilfully between the bars of the grate. Assured of his comfort, Mrs. Peckover said she must go and look after certain domestic duties. Her daughter had begun to clean some vegetables that would be cooked for dinner. 'How old may you be, Clem?' Mr. Snowdon inquired genially, when they had been alone together for a few minutes. 'What's that to you? Guess.' 'Why, let me see; you was not much more than a baby when I went away. You'll be eighteen or nineteen, I suppose.' 'Yes, I'm nineteen--last sixth of February. Pity you come too late to give me a birthday present, ain't it?' 'Ah! And who'd have thought you'd have grown up such a beauty! I say, Clem, how many of the young chaps about here have been wanting to marry you, eh?' 'A dozen or two, I dessay,' Clem replied, shrugging her shoulders scornfully. Mr. Snowdon laughed, and then spat into the fire. 'Tell me about some o' them, will you? Who is it you're keeping company with now?' 'Who, indeed? Why, there isn't one I'd look at! Several of 'em's took to drinking 'cause I won't have nothing to do with 'em.' This excited Mr. Snowdon's mirth in a high degree; he rolled on his chair, and almost pitched backwards. 'I suppose you give one or other a bit of encouragement now and then, just to make a fool of him, eh?' 'Course I do. There was Bob Hewett; he used to lodge here, but that was after your time. I kep' him off an' on till he couldn't bear it no longer; then he went an' married a common slut of a thing, just because he thought it 'ud make me mad. Ha, ha! I believe he'd give her poison an' risk it any day, if only I promised to marry him afterwards. Then there was a feller called Jeck Bartley. I set him an' Bob fightin' one Bank-holiday--you should a' seen 'em go at it! Jack went an' got married a year ago to a girl called Suke Jollop; her mother forced him. How I did laugh! Last Christmas Day they smashed up their 'ome an' threw the bits out into the street. Jack got one of his eyes knocked out--I thought I should a' died o' laughin' when I saw him next mornin'.' The hearer became uproarious in merriment. 'Tell you what it is, Clem,' he cried, 'you're something like a girl! Darn me if I don't like you! I say, I wonder what my daughter's grown up? Like her mother, I suppose. You an' she was sort of sisters, wasn't you?' He observed her closely. Clem laughed and shrugged her shoulders. 'Queer sort o' sisters. She was a bit too quiet-like for me. There never was no fun in her.' 'Aye, like her mother. And where did you say she went to with the old man?' 'Where she went to?' repeated Clem, regarding him steadily with her big eyes, 'I never said nothing about it, 'cause I didn't know.' 'Well, I shan't cry about her, and I don't suppose she misses me much, wherever she is. All the same, Clem, I'm a domesticated sort of man; you can see that, can't you? I shouldn't wonder if I marry again one of these first days. Just tell me where to find a girl of the right sort. I dare say you know heaps.' 'Dessay I do. What sort do you want?' 'Oh, a littlish girl--yellow hair, you know--one of them that look as if they didn't weigh half-a-stone.' 'I'll throw this parsnip at you, Mr. Snowdon!' 'What's up now. You don't Call yourself littlish, do you?' Clem snapped the small end off the vegetable she was paring, and aimed it at his head. He ducked just in time. Then there was an outburst of laughter from both. 'Say, Clem, you haven't got a glass of beer in the house?' 'You'll have to wait till openin' time,' replied the girl sourly, going away to the far end of the room. 'Have I offended you, Clem?' 'Offended, indeed. As if I cared what you say!' 'Do you care what I think?' 'Not I!' 'That means you do. Say, Clem, just come here; I've something to tell you.' 'You're a nuisance. Let me get on with my work, can't you?' 'No, I can't. You just come here. You'd better not give me the trouble of fetching you!' The girl obeyed him. Her cheeks were very hot, and the danger-signal was flashing in her eyes. Ten minutes later she went upstairs, and had a vivacious dialogue of whispers with Mrs. Peckover. CHAPTER XV SUNLIGHT IN DREARY PLACES Among the by-ways of Clerkenwell you might, with some difficulty, have discovered an establishment known in its neighbourhood as 'Whitehead's.' It was an artificial-flower factory, and the rooms of which it consisted were only to be reached by traversing a timber-yard, and then mounting a wooden staircase outside a saw-mill. Here at busy seasons worked some threescore women and girls, who, owing to the nature of their occupation, were spoken of by the jocose youth of the locality as 'Whitehead's pastepots.' Naturally they varied much in age and aspect. There was the child who had newly left school, and was now invited to consider the question of how to keep herself alive; there was the woman of uncertain age, who had spent long years of long days in the atmosphere of workrooms, and showed the result in her parchmenty cheek and lack-lustre eye; and between these extremes came all the various types of the London crafts-girl: she who is young enough to hope that disappointments may yet be made up for by the future; she who is already tasting such scanty good as life had in store for her; she who has outlived her illusions and no longer cares to look beyond the close of the week. If regularly engaged as time-workers, they made themselves easy in the prospect of wages that allowed them to sleep under a roof and eat at certain intervals of the day; if employed on piece-work they might at any moment find themselves wageless, but this, being a familiar state of things, did not trouble them. With few exceptions, they were clad neatly; on the whole, they plied their task in wonderful contentment. The general tone of conversation among them was not high; moralists unfamiliar with the ways of the nether world would probably have applied a term other than negative to the laughing discussions which now and then enlivened this or that group; but it was very seldom indeed that a child newly arriving heard anything with which she was not already perfectly familiar. One afternoon at the end of May there penetrated into the largest of the workrooms that rarest of visitants, a stray sunbeam. Only if the sun happened to shine at given moments could any of its light fall directly into the room I speak of; this afternoon, however, all circumstances were favourable, and behold the floor chequered with uncertain gleam. The workers were arranged in groups of three, called 'parties,' consisting of a learner, an improver, and a hand. All sat with sleeves pushed up to their elbows, and had a habit of rocking to and fro as they plied their mechanical industry. Owing to the movement of a cloud, the sunlight spread gradually towards one of these groups; it touched the skirt, the arms, the head of one of the girls, who, as if gladdened by the kindly warmth, looked round and smiled. A smile you would have been pleased to observe--unconscious, gently thoughtful, rich in possibilities of happiness. She was quite a young girl, certainly not seventeen, and wore a smooth grey dress, with a white linen collar; her brown hair was closely plaited, her head well-shaped, the bend of her neck very graceful. From her bare arms it could be seen that she was anything but robustly made, yet her general appearance was not one of ill-health, and she held herself, even thus late in the day, far more uprightly than most of her companions. Had you watched her for a while, you would have noticed that her eyes occasionally strayed beyond the work-table, and, perhaps unconsciously, fixed themselves for some moments on one or other of the girls near her; when she remembered herself and looked down again upon her task, there rose to her face a smile of the subtlest meaning, the outcome of busy reflection. By her side was a little girl just beginning to learn the work, whose employment it was to paper wires and make 'centres.' This toil always results in blistered fingers, and frequent was the child's appeal to her neighbour for sympathy. 'It'll be easier soon,' said the latter, on one of these occasions, bending her head to speak in a low voice. 'You should have seen what blisters I had when I began.' 'It's all very well to say that. I can't do no more, so there Oh, when'll it be five o'clock?' 'It's a quarter to. Try and go on, Annie.' Five o'clock did come at length, and with it twenty minutes' rest for tea. The rule at Whitehead's was, that you could either bring your own tea, sugar, and eatables, or purchase them here from a forewoman; most of the workers chose to provide themselves. It was customary for each 'party' to club together, emptying their several contributions of tea out of little twists of newspaper into one teapot. Wholesome bustle and confusion succeeded to the former silence. One of the learners, whose turn it was to run on errands, was overwhelmed with commissions to a chandler's shop close by; a wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and they called her, because of her slowness, the 'funeral horse.' She had strange habits, which made laughter for those who knew of them; for instance, it was her custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her poor scraps on a doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a companion that the odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a relish. From her present errand she returned with a strange variety of dainties--for it was early in the week, and the girls still had coppers in their pockets; for two or three she had purchased a farthing's-worth of jam, which she carried in paper. A bite of this and a taste of that rewarded her for her trouble. The quiet-mannered girl whom we were observing took her cup of tea from the pot in which she had a share, and from her bag produced some folded pieces of bread and butter. She had begun her meal, when there came and sat down by her a young woman of very different appearance--our friend, Miss Peckover. They were old acquaintances; but when we first saw them together it would have been difficult to imagine that they would ever sit and converse as at present, apparently in all friendliness. Strange to say, it was Clem who, during the past three years, had been the active one in seeking to obliterate disagreeable memories. The younger girl had never repelled her, but was long in overcoming the dread excited by Clem's proximity. Even now she never looked straight into Miss Peckover's face, as she did when speaking with others; there was reserve in her manner, reserve unmistakable, though clothed with her pleasant smile and amiable voice. 'I've got something to tell you, Jane,' Clem began, in a tone inaudible to those who were sitting near. 'Something as'll surprise you.' 'What is it, I wonder?' 'You must swear you won't tell nobody.' Jane nodded. Then the other brought her head a little nearer, and whispered: 'I'm goin' to be married!' 'Are you really?' 'In a week. Who do you think it is? Somebody as you know of, but if you guessed till next Christmas you'd never come right.' Nor had Clem any intention of revealing the name, but she laughed consumedly, as if her reticence covered the most amusing situation conceivable. 'It'll be the biggest surprise you ever had in your life. You've swore you won't speak about it. I don't think I shall come to work after this week--but you'll have to come an' see us. You'll promise to, won't you?' Still convulsed with mirth, Clem went off to another part of the room. From Jane's countenance the look of amusement which she had perforce summoned soon passed; it was succeeded by a shadow almost of pain, and not till she had been at work again for nearly an hour was the former placidity restored to her. When final release came, Jane was among the first to hasten down the wooden staircase and get clear of the timber yard. By the direct way, it took her twenty minutes to walk from Whitehead's to her home in Hanover Street, but this evening she had an object in turning aside. The visit she wished to pay took her into a disagreeable quarter, a street of squalid houses, swarming with yet more squalid children. On all the doorsteps Bat little girls, themselves only just out of infancy, nursing or neglecting bald, red-eyed, doughy-limbed abortions in every stage of babyhood, hapless spawn of diseased humanity, born to embitter and brutalise yet further the lot of those who unwillingly gave them life. With wide, pitiful eyes Jane looked at each group she passed. Three years ago she would have seen nothing but the ordinary and the inevitable in such spectacles, but since then her moral and intellectual being had grown on rare nourishment; there was indignation as well as heartache in the feeling with which she had learnt to regard the world of her familiarity. To enter the house at which she paused it was necessary to squeeze through a conglomerate of dirty little bodies. At the head of the first flight of stairs she came upon a girl sitting in a weary attitude on the top step and beating the wood listlessly with the last remnant of a hearth-brush; on her lap was one more specimen of the infinitely-multiplied baby, and a child of two years sprawled behind her on the landing. 'Waiting for him to come home, Pennyloaf?' said Jane. 'Oh, is that you, Miss Snowdon!' exclaimed the other, returning to consciousness and manifesting some shame at being discovered in this position. Hastily she drew together the front of her dress, which for the baby's sake had been wide open, and rose to her feet. Pennyloaf was not a bit more womanly in figure than on the day of her marriage; her voice was still an immature treble; the same rueful irresponsibility marked her features; but all her poor prettiness was wasted under the disfigurement of pains and cares, Incongruously enough, she wore a gown of bright-patterned calico, and about her neck had a collar of pretentious lace; her hair was dressed as if for a holiday, and a daub recently made on her cheeks by the baby's fingers lent emphasis to the fact that she had but a little while ago washed herself with much care. 'I can't stop,' said Jane, 'but I thought I'd just look in and speak a word. How have you been getting on?' 'Oh, do come in for just a minute!' pleaded Pennyloaf, moving backwards to an open door, whither Jane followed. They entered a room--much like other rooms that we have looked into from time to time. Following the nomadic custom of their kind, Bob Hewett and his wife had lived in six or seven different lodgings since their honeymoon in Shooter's Gardens. Mrs. Candy first of all made a change necessary, as might have been anticipated, and the restlessness of domestic ill-being subsequently drove them from place to place. 'Come in 'ere, Johnny,' she Called to the child lying on the landing. 'What's the good o' washin' you, I'd like to know? Just see, Miss Snowdon, he's made his face all white with the milk as the boy spilt on the stairs! Take this brush an' play with it, do! I _can't_ keep 'em clean, Miss Snowdon, so it's no use talkin'.' 'Are you going somewhere to-night?' Jane inquired, with a glance at the strange costume. Pennyloaf looked up and down in a shamefaced way. 'I only did it just because I thought he might like to see me. He promised me faithful as he'd come 'ome to-night, and I thought--it's only somethink as got into my 'ed to-day, Miss Snowdon.' 'But hasn't he been coming home since I saw you last?' 'He did just once, an' then it was all the old ways again. I did what you told me; I did, as sure as I'm a-standin' 'ere! I made the room so clean you wouldn't have believed; I scrubbed the floor an' the table, an' I washed the winders--you can see they ain't dirty yet. An' he'd never a' paid a bit o' notice if I hadn't told him, He was jolly enough for one night, just like he can be when he likes. But I knew as it wouldn't last, an' the next night he was off with a lot o' fellers an' girls, same as ever. I didn't make no row when he came 'ome; I wish I may die if I said a word to set his back up! An' I've gone on just the same all the week; we haven't had not the least bit of a row; so you see I kep' my promise. But it's no good; he won't come 'ome; he's always got fellers an' girls to go round with. He took his hoath as he'd come back to-night, an' then it come into my 'ed as I'd put my best things on, just to--you know what I mean, Miss Snowdon. But he won't come before twelve o'clock; I know he won't. An' I get that low sittin' 'ere, you can't think I can't go nowhere, because o' the children. If it wasn't for them I could go to work again, an' I'd be that glad; I feel as if my 'ed would drop off sometimes! I _ham_ so glad you just come in!' Jane had tried so many forms of encouragement, of consolation, on previous occasions that she knew not how to repeat herself. She was ashamed to speak words which sounded so hollow and profitless. This silence was only too significant to Pennyloaf, and in a moment she exclaimed with querulous energy: 'I know what'll be the bend of it! I'll go an' do like mother does--I will! I will! I'll put my ring away, an' I'll go an' sit all night in the public-'ouse! It's what all the others does, an' I'll do the same. I often feel I'm a fool to go on like this. I don't know what I live for, P'r'aps he'll be sorry when I get run in like mother.' 'Don't talk like that, Pennyloaf!' cried Jane, stamping her foot, (It was odd how completely difference of character had reversed their natural relations to each other; Pennyloaf was the child, Jane the mature woman.) 'You know better, and you've no right to give way to such thoughts. I was going to say I'd come and be with you all Saturday afternoon, but I don't know whether I shall now. And I'd been thinking you might like to come and see me on Sunday, but I can't have people that go to the public-house, so we won't say anything more about it. I shall have to be off; good-bye!' She stepped to the door. 'Miss Snowdon!' Jane turned, and after an instant of mock severity, broke into a laugh which seemed to fill the wretched den with sunlight. Words, too, she found; words of soothing influence such as leap from the heart to the tongue in spite of the heavy thoughts that try to check them. Pennyloaf was learning to depend upon these words for strength in her desolation. They did not excite her to much hopefulness, but there was a sustaining power in their sweet sincerity which made all the difference between despair tending to evil and the sigh of renewed effort. 'I don't care,' Pennyloaf had got into the habit of thinking, after her friend's departure, 'I won't give up as long as she looks in now and then.' Out from the swarm of babies Jane hurried homewards. She had a reason for wishing to be back in good time to-night; it was Wednesday, and on Wednesday evening there was wont to come a visitor, who sat for a couple of hours in her grandfather's room and talked, talked--the most interesting talk Jane had ever heard or could imagine. A latch-key admitted her; she ran up to the second floor. A voice from the front-room caught her ear; certainly not _his_ voice--it was too early--but that of some unusual visitor. She was on the point of entering her own chamber, when the other door opened, and somebody exclaimed, 'Ah, here she is!' The speaker was an old gentleman, dressed in black, bald, with small and rather rugged features; his voice was pleasant. A gold chain and a bunch of seals shone against his waistcoat, also a pair of eye-glasses. A professional man, obviously. Jane remembered that she had seen him once before, about a year ago, when he had talked with her for a few minutes, very kindly. 'Will you come in here, Jane?' her grandfather's voice called to her. Snowdon had changed much. Old age was heavy upon his shoulders, and had even produced a slight tremulousness in his hands; his voice told the same story of enfeeblement. Even more noticeable was the ageing of his countenance. Something more, however, than the progress of time seemed to be here at work. He looked strangely careworn; his forehead was set in lines of anxiety; his mouth expressed a nervousness of which formerly there had been no trace. One would have said that some harassing preoccupation must have seized his mind. His eyes were no longer merely sad and absent, but restless with fatiguing thought. As Jane entered the room he fixed his gaze upon her--a gaze that appeared to reveal worrying apprehension. 'You remember Mr. Percival, Jane,' he said. The old gentleman thus presented held out his hand with something of fatherly geniality. 'Miss Snowdon, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again before long, but just now I am carrying off your grandfather for a couple of hours, and indeed we

result

How many times the word 'result' appears in the text?

worn by a man above the mechanic ranks), but it was patched with dirt of many kinds, and held together by a most inadequate supply of buttons. At present he wore no collar, and his waistcoat, half-open, exposed a red shirt. 'Why, you're all a-blowin' and a-growin' this morning, Peckover,' was his first observation, as he dropped heavily into a wooden arm-chair. 'I shall begin to think that colour of yours ain't natural. Dare you let me rub it with a handkerchief?' 'Course I dare,' replied Clem, tossing her head. 'Don't be so forward, Mr. Snowdon.' 'Forward? Not I. I'm behind time if anything. I hope I haven't kept you from church.' He chuckled at his double joke. Mother and daughter laughed appreciatively. 'Will you take your eggs boiled or fried?' inquired Mrs. Peckover. 'Going to give me eggs, are you? Well, I've no objection, I assure you. And I think I'll have them fried, Mrs. Peckover. But, I say, you mustn't be running up too big a bill. The Lord only knows when I shall get anything to do, and it ain't very likely to be a thousand a year when it does come.' 'Oh, that's all right,' replied the landlady, as if sordid calculation were a thing impossible to her. 'I can't say as you behaved quite straightforward years ago, Mr. Snowdon, but I ain't one to make a row about bygones, an' as you say you'll put it all straight as soon as you can, well, I won't refuse to trust you once more.' Mr. Snowdon lay back in the chair, his hands in his waistcoat pockets, his legs outstretched upon the fender. He was smiling placidly, now at the preparing breakfast, now at Clem. The latter he plainly regarded with much admiration, and cared not to conceal it. When, in a few minutes, it was announced to him that the meal was ready, he dragged his chair up to the table and reseated himself with a sigh of satisfaction. A dish of excellent ham, and eggs as nearly fresh as can be obtained in Clerkenwell, invited him with appetising odour; a large cup of what is known to the generality of English people as coffee steamed at his right hand; slices of new bread lay ready cut upon a plate; a slab of the most expensive substitute for butter caught his eye with yellow promise; vinegar and mustard appealed to the refinements of his taste. 'I've got a couple more eggs, if you'd like them doin',' said Mrs. Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the viands. 'I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,' returned Mr. Snowdon. As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly in consequence of the activity of his mind. He was, in fact, musing upon a question which he found it very difficult to answer in any satisfactory way. 'What's the meaning of all this?' he asked himself, and not for the first time. 'What makes them treat me in this fashion? A week ago I came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just because I'd run down to my last penny, and I didn't know where to find a night's lodging. I'd got an idea, too, that I should like to find out what had become of my child, whom I left here nine or ten years ago; possibly she was still alive, and might welcome the duty of supporting her parent. The chance was, to be sure, that the girl had long since been in her grave, and that Mrs. Peckover no longer lived in the old quarters; if I discovered the woman, on the other hand, she was not very likely to give me an affectionate reception, seeing that I found it inconvenient to keep sending her money for Jane's keep in the old days. The queer thing is, that everything turned out exactly the opposite of what I had expected. Mrs. Peckover had rather a sour face at first, but after a little talk she began to seem quite glad to see me. She put me into a room, undertook to board me for a while--till I find work, and I wonder when _that_'ll be?--and blest if this strapping daughter of hers doesn't seem to have fallen in love with me from the first go off! As for my girl, I'm told she was carried off by her grandfather, my old dad, three years ago, and where they went nobody knows. Very puzzling all this. How on earth came it that Mrs. Peckover kept the child so long, and didn't send her to the workhouse? If I'm to believe _her_, she took a motherly kindness for the poor brat. But that won't exactly go down with J. J. Snowdon; he's seen a bit too much in his knocking about the world, Still, what if I'm making a mistake about the old woman? There _are_ some people do things of that sort; upon my soul, I've known people be kind even to me, without a chance of being paid back! You may think you know a man or a woman, and then all at once they'll go and do something you'd have taken your davy couldn't possibly happen. I'd have sworn she was nothing but a skinflint and a lying old witch. And so she maybe; the chances are there's some game going on that I can't see through. Make inquiries? Why, so I have done, as far as I know how. I've only been able to hit on one person who knows anything about the matter, and he tells me it's true enough the girl was taken away about three years ago, but he's no idea where she went to. Surely the old man must be dead b now, though he _was_ tough. Well, the fact of the matter is, I've got a good berth, and I'm a precious sight too lazy to go on the private detective job. Here's this girl Clem, the finest bit of flesh I've seen for a long time; I've more than half a mind to see if she won't be fool enough to marry me. I'm not a bad-looking fellow, that's the truth, and she may have taken a real liking to me. Seems to me that I should have come in for a Comfortable thing in my old age; if I haven't a daughter to provide for my needs, at all events I shall have a wife who can be persuaded into doing so. When the old woman gets out of the way I must have a little quiet talk with Clem.' The opportunity he desired was not long in offering itself. Having made an excellent breakfast, he dragged his chair up to the fender again, and reached a pipe from the mantel-piece, where he had left it last night. Tobacco he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket; it came forth in the form of yellowish dust, intermingled with all sorts of alien scraps. When he had lit his pipe, he poised the chair on its hind-legs, clasped his hands over his bald crown, and continued his musing with an air of amiable calm. Smoke curled up from the corner of his loose lips, and occasionally, removing his pipe for an instant, he spat skilfully between the bars of the grate. Assured of his comfort, Mrs. Peckover said she must go and look after certain domestic duties. Her daughter had begun to clean some vegetables that would be cooked for dinner. 'How old may you be, Clem?' Mr. Snowdon inquired genially, when they had been alone together for a few minutes. 'What's that to you? Guess.' 'Why, let me see; you was not much more than a baby when I went away. You'll be eighteen or nineteen, I suppose.' 'Yes, I'm nineteen--last sixth of February. Pity you come too late to give me a birthday present, ain't it?' 'Ah! And who'd have thought you'd have grown up such a beauty! I say, Clem, how many of the young chaps about here have been wanting to marry you, eh?' 'A dozen or two, I dessay,' Clem replied, shrugging her shoulders scornfully. Mr. Snowdon laughed, and then spat into the fire. 'Tell me about some o' them, will you? Who is it you're keeping company with now?' 'Who, indeed? Why, there isn't one I'd look at! Several of 'em's took to drinking 'cause I won't have nothing to do with 'em.' This excited Mr. Snowdon's mirth in a high degree; he rolled on his chair, and almost pitched backwards. 'I suppose you give one or other a bit of encouragement now and then, just to make a fool of him, eh?' 'Course I do. There was Bob Hewett; he used to lodge here, but that was after your time. I kep' him off an' on till he couldn't bear it no longer; then he went an' married a common slut of a thing, just because he thought it 'ud make me mad. Ha, ha! I believe he'd give her poison an' risk it any day, if only I promised to marry him afterwards. Then there was a feller called Jeck Bartley. I set him an' Bob fightin' one Bank-holiday--you should a' seen 'em go at it! Jack went an' got married a year ago to a girl called Suke Jollop; her mother forced him. How I did laugh! Last Christmas Day they smashed up their 'ome an' threw the bits out into the street. Jack got one of his eyes knocked out--I thought I should a' died o' laughin' when I saw him next mornin'.' The hearer became uproarious in merriment. 'Tell you what it is, Clem,' he cried, 'you're something like a girl! Darn me if I don't like you! I say, I wonder what my daughter's grown up? Like her mother, I suppose. You an' she was sort of sisters, wasn't you?' He observed her closely. Clem laughed and shrugged her shoulders. 'Queer sort o' sisters. She was a bit too quiet-like for me. There never was no fun in her.' 'Aye, like her mother. And where did you say she went to with the old man?' 'Where she went to?' repeated Clem, regarding him steadily with her big eyes, 'I never said nothing about it, 'cause I didn't know.' 'Well, I shan't cry about her, and I don't suppose she misses me much, wherever she is. All the same, Clem, I'm a domesticated sort of man; you can see that, can't you? I shouldn't wonder if I marry again one of these first days. Just tell me where to find a girl of the right sort. I dare say you know heaps.' 'Dessay I do. What sort do you want?' 'Oh, a littlish girl--yellow hair, you know--one of them that look as if they didn't weigh half-a-stone.' 'I'll throw this parsnip at you, Mr. Snowdon!' 'What's up now. You don't Call yourself littlish, do you?' Clem snapped the small end off the vegetable she was paring, and aimed it at his head. He ducked just in time. Then there was an outburst of laughter from both. 'Say, Clem, you haven't got a glass of beer in the house?' 'You'll have to wait till openin' time,' replied the girl sourly, going away to the far end of the room. 'Have I offended you, Clem?' 'Offended, indeed. As if I cared what you say!' 'Do you care what I think?' 'Not I!' 'That means you do. Say, Clem, just come here; I've something to tell you.' 'You're a nuisance. Let me get on with my work, can't you?' 'No, I can't. You just come here. You'd better not give me the trouble of fetching you!' The girl obeyed him. Her cheeks were very hot, and the danger-signal was flashing in her eyes. Ten minutes later she went upstairs, and had a vivacious dialogue of whispers with Mrs. Peckover. CHAPTER XV SUNLIGHT IN DREARY PLACES Among the by-ways of Clerkenwell you might, with some difficulty, have discovered an establishment known in its neighbourhood as 'Whitehead's.' It was an artificial-flower factory, and the rooms of which it consisted were only to be reached by traversing a timber-yard, and then mounting a wooden staircase outside a saw-mill. Here at busy seasons worked some threescore women and girls, who, owing to the nature of their occupation, were spoken of by the jocose youth of the locality as 'Whitehead's pastepots.' Naturally they varied much in age and aspect. There was the child who had newly left school, and was now invited to consider the question of how to keep herself alive; there was the woman of uncertain age, who had spent long years of long days in the atmosphere of workrooms, and showed the result in her parchmenty cheek and lack-lustre eye; and between these extremes came all the various types of the London crafts-girl: she who is young enough to hope that disappointments may yet be made up for by the future; she who is already tasting such scanty good as life had in store for her; she who has outlived her illusions and no longer cares to look beyond the close of the week. If regularly engaged as time-workers, they made themselves easy in the prospect of wages that allowed them to sleep under a roof and eat at certain intervals of the day; if employed on piece-work they might at any moment find themselves wageless, but this, being a familiar state of things, did not trouble them. With few exceptions, they were clad neatly; on the whole, they plied their task in wonderful contentment. The general tone of conversation among them was not high; moralists unfamiliar with the ways of the nether world would probably have applied a term other than negative to the laughing discussions which now and then enlivened this or that group; but it was very seldom indeed that a child newly arriving heard anything with which she was not already perfectly familiar. One afternoon at the end of May there penetrated into the largest of the workrooms that rarest of visitants, a stray sunbeam. Only if the sun happened to shine at given moments could any of its light fall directly into the room I speak of; this afternoon, however, all circumstances were favourable, and behold the floor chequered with uncertain gleam. The workers were arranged in groups of three, called 'parties,' consisting of a learner, an improver, and a hand. All sat with sleeves pushed up to their elbows, and had a habit of rocking to and fro as they plied their mechanical industry. Owing to the movement of a cloud, the sunlight spread gradually towards one of these groups; it touched the skirt, the arms, the head of one of the girls, who, as if gladdened by the kindly warmth, looked round and smiled. A smile you would have been pleased to observe--unconscious, gently thoughtful, rich in possibilities of happiness. She was quite a young girl, certainly not seventeen, and wore a smooth grey dress, with a white linen collar; her brown hair was closely plaited, her head well-shaped, the bend of her neck very graceful. From her bare arms it could be seen that she was anything but robustly made, yet her general appearance was not one of ill-health, and she held herself, even thus late in the day, far more uprightly than most of her companions. Had you watched her for a while, you would have noticed that her eyes occasionally strayed beyond the work-table, and, perhaps unconsciously, fixed themselves for some moments on one or other of the girls near her; when she remembered herself and looked down again upon her task, there rose to her face a smile of the subtlest meaning, the outcome of busy reflection. By her side was a little girl just beginning to learn the work, whose employment it was to paper wires and make 'centres.' This toil always results in blistered fingers, and frequent was the child's appeal to her neighbour for sympathy. 'It'll be easier soon,' said the latter, on one of these occasions, bending her head to speak in a low voice. 'You should have seen what blisters I had when I began.' 'It's all very well to say that. I can't do no more, so there Oh, when'll it be five o'clock?' 'It's a quarter to. Try and go on, Annie.' Five o'clock did come at length, and with it twenty minutes' rest for tea. The rule at Whitehead's was, that you could either bring your own tea, sugar, and eatables, or purchase them here from a forewoman; most of the workers chose to provide themselves. It was customary for each 'party' to club together, emptying their several contributions of tea out of little twists of newspaper into one teapot. Wholesome bustle and confusion succeeded to the former silence. One of the learners, whose turn it was to run on errands, was overwhelmed with commissions to a chandler's shop close by; a wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and they called her, because of her slowness, the 'funeral horse.' She had strange habits, which made laughter for those who knew of them; for instance, it was her custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her poor scraps on a doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a companion that the odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a relish. From her present errand she returned with a strange variety of dainties--for it was early in the week, and the girls still had coppers in their pockets; for two or three she had purchased a farthing's-worth of jam, which she carried in paper. A bite of this and a taste of that rewarded her for her trouble. The quiet-mannered girl whom we were observing took her cup of tea from the pot in which she had a share, and from her bag produced some folded pieces of bread and butter. She had begun her meal, when there came and sat down by her a young woman of very different appearance--our friend, Miss Peckover. They were old acquaintances; but when we first saw them together it would have been difficult to imagine that they would ever sit and converse as at present, apparently in all friendliness. Strange to say, it was Clem who, during the past three years, had been the active one in seeking to obliterate disagreeable memories. The younger girl had never repelled her, but was long in overcoming the dread excited by Clem's proximity. Even now she never looked straight into Miss Peckover's face, as she did when speaking with others; there was reserve in her manner, reserve unmistakable, though clothed with her pleasant smile and amiable voice. 'I've got something to tell you, Jane,' Clem began, in a tone inaudible to those who were sitting near. 'Something as'll surprise you.' 'What is it, I wonder?' 'You must swear you won't tell nobody.' Jane nodded. Then the other brought her head a little nearer, and whispered: 'I'm goin' to be married!' 'Are you really?' 'In a week. Who do you think it is? Somebody as you know of, but if you guessed till next Christmas you'd never come right.' Nor had Clem any intention of revealing the name, but she laughed consumedly, as if her reticence covered the most amusing situation conceivable. 'It'll be the biggest surprise you ever had in your life. You've swore you won't speak about it. I don't think I shall come to work after this week--but you'll have to come an' see us. You'll promise to, won't you?' Still convulsed with mirth, Clem went off to another part of the room. From Jane's countenance the look of amusement which she had perforce summoned soon passed; it was succeeded by a shadow almost of pain, and not till she had been at work again for nearly an hour was the former placidity restored to her. When final release came, Jane was among the first to hasten down the wooden staircase and get clear of the timber yard. By the direct way, it took her twenty minutes to walk from Whitehead's to her home in Hanover Street, but this evening she had an object in turning aside. The visit she wished to pay took her into a disagreeable quarter, a street of squalid houses, swarming with yet more squalid children. On all the doorsteps Bat little girls, themselves only just out of infancy, nursing or neglecting bald, red-eyed, doughy-limbed abortions in every stage of babyhood, hapless spawn of diseased humanity, born to embitter and brutalise yet further the lot of those who unwillingly gave them life. With wide, pitiful eyes Jane looked at each group she passed. Three years ago she would have seen nothing but the ordinary and the inevitable in such spectacles, but since then her moral and intellectual being had grown on rare nourishment; there was indignation as well as heartache in the feeling with which she had learnt to regard the world of her familiarity. To enter the house at which she paused it was necessary to squeeze through a conglomerate of dirty little bodies. At the head of the first flight of stairs she came upon a girl sitting in a weary attitude on the top step and beating the wood listlessly with the last remnant of a hearth-brush; on her lap was one more specimen of the infinitely-multiplied baby, and a child of two years sprawled behind her on the landing. 'Waiting for him to come home, Pennyloaf?' said Jane. 'Oh, is that you, Miss Snowdon!' exclaimed the other, returning to consciousness and manifesting some shame at being discovered in this position. Hastily she drew together the front of her dress, which for the baby's sake had been wide open, and rose to her feet. Pennyloaf was not a bit more womanly in figure than on the day of her marriage; her voice was still an immature treble; the same rueful irresponsibility marked her features; but all her poor prettiness was wasted under the disfigurement of pains and cares, Incongruously enough, she wore a gown of bright-patterned calico, and about her neck had a collar of pretentious lace; her hair was dressed as if for a holiday, and a daub recently made on her cheeks by the baby's fingers lent emphasis to the fact that she had but a little while ago washed herself with much care. 'I can't stop,' said Jane, 'but I thought I'd just look in and speak a word. How have you been getting on?' 'Oh, do come in for just a minute!' pleaded Pennyloaf, moving backwards to an open door, whither Jane followed. They entered a room--much like other rooms that we have looked into from time to time. Following the nomadic custom of their kind, Bob Hewett and his wife had lived in six or seven different lodgings since their honeymoon in Shooter's Gardens. Mrs. Candy first of all made a change necessary, as might have been anticipated, and the restlessness of domestic ill-being subsequently drove them from place to place. 'Come in 'ere, Johnny,' she Called to the child lying on the landing. 'What's the good o' washin' you, I'd like to know? Just see, Miss Snowdon, he's made his face all white with the milk as the boy spilt on the stairs! Take this brush an' play with it, do! I _can't_ keep 'em clean, Miss Snowdon, so it's no use talkin'.' 'Are you going somewhere to-night?' Jane inquired, with a glance at the strange costume. Pennyloaf looked up and down in a shamefaced way. 'I only did it just because I thought he might like to see me. He promised me faithful as he'd come 'ome to-night, and I thought--it's only somethink as got into my 'ed to-day, Miss Snowdon.' 'But hasn't he been coming home since I saw you last?' 'He did just once, an' then it was all the old ways again. I did what you told me; I did, as sure as I'm a-standin' 'ere! I made the room so clean you wouldn't have believed; I scrubbed the floor an' the table, an' I washed the winders--you can see they ain't dirty yet. An' he'd never a' paid a bit o' notice if I hadn't told him, He was jolly enough for one night, just like he can be when he likes. But I knew as it wouldn't last, an' the next night he was off with a lot o' fellers an' girls, same as ever. I didn't make no row when he came 'ome; I wish I may die if I said a word to set his back up! An' I've gone on just the same all the week; we haven't had not the least bit of a row; so you see I kep' my promise. But it's no good; he won't come 'ome; he's always got fellers an' girls to go round with. He took his hoath as he'd come back to-night, an' then it come into my 'ed as I'd put my best things on, just to--you know what I mean, Miss Snowdon. But he won't come before twelve o'clock; I know he won't. An' I get that low sittin' 'ere, you can't think I can't go nowhere, because o' the children. If it wasn't for them I could go to work again, an' I'd be that glad; I feel as if my 'ed would drop off sometimes! I _ham_ so glad you just come in!' Jane had tried so many forms of encouragement, of consolation, on previous occasions that she knew not how to repeat herself. She was ashamed to speak words which sounded so hollow and profitless. This silence was only too significant to Pennyloaf, and in a moment she exclaimed with querulous energy: 'I know what'll be the bend of it! I'll go an' do like mother does--I will! I will! I'll put my ring away, an' I'll go an' sit all night in the public-'ouse! It's what all the others does, an' I'll do the same. I often feel I'm a fool to go on like this. I don't know what I live for, P'r'aps he'll be sorry when I get run in like mother.' 'Don't talk like that, Pennyloaf!' cried Jane, stamping her foot, (It was odd how completely difference of character had reversed their natural relations to each other; Pennyloaf was the child, Jane the mature woman.) 'You know better, and you've no right to give way to such thoughts. I was going to say I'd come and be with you all Saturday afternoon, but I don't know whether I shall now. And I'd been thinking you might like to come and see me on Sunday, but I can't have people that go to the public-house, so we won't say anything more about it. I shall have to be off; good-bye!' She stepped to the door. 'Miss Snowdon!' Jane turned, and after an instant of mock severity, broke into a laugh which seemed to fill the wretched den with sunlight. Words, too, she found; words of soothing influence such as leap from the heart to the tongue in spite of the heavy thoughts that try to check them. Pennyloaf was learning to depend upon these words for strength in her desolation. They did not excite her to much hopefulness, but there was a sustaining power in their sweet sincerity which made all the difference between despair tending to evil and the sigh of renewed effort. 'I don't care,' Pennyloaf had got into the habit of thinking, after her friend's departure, 'I won't give up as long as she looks in now and then.' Out from the swarm of babies Jane hurried homewards. She had a reason for wishing to be back in good time to-night; it was Wednesday, and on Wednesday evening there was wont to come a visitor, who sat for a couple of hours in her grandfather's room and talked, talked--the most interesting talk Jane had ever heard or could imagine. A latch-key admitted her; she ran up to the second floor. A voice from the front-room caught her ear; certainly not _his_ voice--it was too early--but that of some unusual visitor. She was on the point of entering her own chamber, when the other door opened, and somebody exclaimed, 'Ah, here she is!' The speaker was an old gentleman, dressed in black, bald, with small and rather rugged features; his voice was pleasant. A gold chain and a bunch of seals shone against his waistcoat, also a pair of eye-glasses. A professional man, obviously. Jane remembered that she had seen him once before, about a year ago, when he had talked with her for a few minutes, very kindly. 'Will you come in here, Jane?' her grandfather's voice called to her. Snowdon had changed much. Old age was heavy upon his shoulders, and had even produced a slight tremulousness in his hands; his voice told the same story of enfeeblement. Even more noticeable was the ageing of his countenance. Something more, however, than the progress of time seemed to be here at work. He looked strangely careworn; his forehead was set in lines of anxiety; his mouth expressed a nervousness of which formerly there had been no trace. One would have said that some harassing preoccupation must have seized his mind. His eyes were no longer merely sad and absent, but restless with fatiguing thought. As Jane entered the room he fixed his gaze upon her--a gaze that appeared to reveal worrying apprehension. 'You remember Mr. Percival, Jane,' he said. The old gentleman thus presented held out his hand with something of fatherly geniality. 'Miss Snowdon, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again before long, but just now I am carrying off your grandfather for a couple of hours, and indeed we

taken

How many times the word 'taken' appears in the text?

worn by a man above the mechanic ranks), but it was patched with dirt of many kinds, and held together by a most inadequate supply of buttons. At present he wore no collar, and his waistcoat, half-open, exposed a red shirt. 'Why, you're all a-blowin' and a-growin' this morning, Peckover,' was his first observation, as he dropped heavily into a wooden arm-chair. 'I shall begin to think that colour of yours ain't natural. Dare you let me rub it with a handkerchief?' 'Course I dare,' replied Clem, tossing her head. 'Don't be so forward, Mr. Snowdon.' 'Forward? Not I. I'm behind time if anything. I hope I haven't kept you from church.' He chuckled at his double joke. Mother and daughter laughed appreciatively. 'Will you take your eggs boiled or fried?' inquired Mrs. Peckover. 'Going to give me eggs, are you? Well, I've no objection, I assure you. And I think I'll have them fried, Mrs. Peckover. But, I say, you mustn't be running up too big a bill. The Lord only knows when I shall get anything to do, and it ain't very likely to be a thousand a year when it does come.' 'Oh, that's all right,' replied the landlady, as if sordid calculation were a thing impossible to her. 'I can't say as you behaved quite straightforward years ago, Mr. Snowdon, but I ain't one to make a row about bygones, an' as you say you'll put it all straight as soon as you can, well, I won't refuse to trust you once more.' Mr. Snowdon lay back in the chair, his hands in his waistcoat pockets, his legs outstretched upon the fender. He was smiling placidly, now at the preparing breakfast, now at Clem. The latter he plainly regarded with much admiration, and cared not to conceal it. When, in a few minutes, it was announced to him that the meal was ready, he dragged his chair up to the table and reseated himself with a sigh of satisfaction. A dish of excellent ham, and eggs as nearly fresh as can be obtained in Clerkenwell, invited him with appetising odour; a large cup of what is known to the generality of English people as coffee steamed at his right hand; slices of new bread lay ready cut upon a plate; a slab of the most expensive substitute for butter caught his eye with yellow promise; vinegar and mustard appealed to the refinements of his taste. 'I've got a couple more eggs, if you'd like them doin',' said Mrs. Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the viands. 'I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,' returned Mr. Snowdon. As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly in consequence of the activity of his mind. He was, in fact, musing upon a question which he found it very difficult to answer in any satisfactory way. 'What's the meaning of all this?' he asked himself, and not for the first time. 'What makes them treat me in this fashion? A week ago I came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just because I'd run down to my last penny, and I didn't know where to find a night's lodging. I'd got an idea, too, that I should like to find out what had become of my child, whom I left here nine or ten years ago; possibly she was still alive, and might welcome the duty of supporting her parent. The chance was, to be sure, that the girl had long since been in her grave, and that Mrs. Peckover no longer lived in the old quarters; if I discovered the woman, on the other hand, she was not very likely to give me an affectionate reception, seeing that I found it inconvenient to keep sending her money for Jane's keep in the old days. The queer thing is, that everything turned out exactly the opposite of what I had expected. Mrs. Peckover had rather a sour face at first, but after a little talk she began to seem quite glad to see me. She put me into a room, undertook to board me for a while--till I find work, and I wonder when _that_'ll be?--and blest if this strapping daughter of hers doesn't seem to have fallen in love with me from the first go off! As for my girl, I'm told she was carried off by her grandfather, my old dad, three years ago, and where they went nobody knows. Very puzzling all this. How on earth came it that Mrs. Peckover kept the child so long, and didn't send her to the workhouse? If I'm to believe _her_, she took a motherly kindness for the poor brat. But that won't exactly go down with J. J. Snowdon; he's seen a bit too much in his knocking about the world, Still, what if I'm making a mistake about the old woman? There _are_ some people do things of that sort; upon my soul, I've known people be kind even to me, without a chance of being paid back! You may think you know a man or a woman, and then all at once they'll go and do something you'd have taken your davy couldn't possibly happen. I'd have sworn she was nothing but a skinflint and a lying old witch. And so she maybe; the chances are there's some game going on that I can't see through. Make inquiries? Why, so I have done, as far as I know how. I've only been able to hit on one person who knows anything about the matter, and he tells me it's true enough the girl was taken away about three years ago, but he's no idea where she went to. Surely the old man must be dead b now, though he _was_ tough. Well, the fact of the matter is, I've got a good berth, and I'm a precious sight too lazy to go on the private detective job. Here's this girl Clem, the finest bit of flesh I've seen for a long time; I've more than half a mind to see if she won't be fool enough to marry me. I'm not a bad-looking fellow, that's the truth, and she may have taken a real liking to me. Seems to me that I should have come in for a Comfortable thing in my old age; if I haven't a daughter to provide for my needs, at all events I shall have a wife who can be persuaded into doing so. When the old woman gets out of the way I must have a little quiet talk with Clem.' The opportunity he desired was not long in offering itself. Having made an excellent breakfast, he dragged his chair up to the fender again, and reached a pipe from the mantel-piece, where he had left it last night. Tobacco he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket; it came forth in the form of yellowish dust, intermingled with all sorts of alien scraps. When he had lit his pipe, he poised the chair on its hind-legs, clasped his hands over his bald crown, and continued his musing with an air of amiable calm. Smoke curled up from the corner of his loose lips, and occasionally, removing his pipe for an instant, he spat skilfully between the bars of the grate. Assured of his comfort, Mrs. Peckover said she must go and look after certain domestic duties. Her daughter had begun to clean some vegetables that would be cooked for dinner. 'How old may you be, Clem?' Mr. Snowdon inquired genially, when they had been alone together for a few minutes. 'What's that to you? Guess.' 'Why, let me see; you was not much more than a baby when I went away. You'll be eighteen or nineteen, I suppose.' 'Yes, I'm nineteen--last sixth of February. Pity you come too late to give me a birthday present, ain't it?' 'Ah! And who'd have thought you'd have grown up such a beauty! I say, Clem, how many of the young chaps about here have been wanting to marry you, eh?' 'A dozen or two, I dessay,' Clem replied, shrugging her shoulders scornfully. Mr. Snowdon laughed, and then spat into the fire. 'Tell me about some o' them, will you? Who is it you're keeping company with now?' 'Who, indeed? Why, there isn't one I'd look at! Several of 'em's took to drinking 'cause I won't have nothing to do with 'em.' This excited Mr. Snowdon's mirth in a high degree; he rolled on his chair, and almost pitched backwards. 'I suppose you give one or other a bit of encouragement now and then, just to make a fool of him, eh?' 'Course I do. There was Bob Hewett; he used to lodge here, but that was after your time. I kep' him off an' on till he couldn't bear it no longer; then he went an' married a common slut of a thing, just because he thought it 'ud make me mad. Ha, ha! I believe he'd give her poison an' risk it any day, if only I promised to marry him afterwards. Then there was a feller called Jeck Bartley. I set him an' Bob fightin' one Bank-holiday--you should a' seen 'em go at it! Jack went an' got married a year ago to a girl called Suke Jollop; her mother forced him. How I did laugh! Last Christmas Day they smashed up their 'ome an' threw the bits out into the street. Jack got one of his eyes knocked out--I thought I should a' died o' laughin' when I saw him next mornin'.' The hearer became uproarious in merriment. 'Tell you what it is, Clem,' he cried, 'you're something like a girl! Darn me if I don't like you! I say, I wonder what my daughter's grown up? Like her mother, I suppose. You an' she was sort of sisters, wasn't you?' He observed her closely. Clem laughed and shrugged her shoulders. 'Queer sort o' sisters. She was a bit too quiet-like for me. There never was no fun in her.' 'Aye, like her mother. And where did you say she went to with the old man?' 'Where she went to?' repeated Clem, regarding him steadily with her big eyes, 'I never said nothing about it, 'cause I didn't know.' 'Well, I shan't cry about her, and I don't suppose she misses me much, wherever she is. All the same, Clem, I'm a domesticated sort of man; you can see that, can't you? I shouldn't wonder if I marry again one of these first days. Just tell me where to find a girl of the right sort. I dare say you know heaps.' 'Dessay I do. What sort do you want?' 'Oh, a littlish girl--yellow hair, you know--one of them that look as if they didn't weigh half-a-stone.' 'I'll throw this parsnip at you, Mr. Snowdon!' 'What's up now. You don't Call yourself littlish, do you?' Clem snapped the small end off the vegetable she was paring, and aimed it at his head. He ducked just in time. Then there was an outburst of laughter from both. 'Say, Clem, you haven't got a glass of beer in the house?' 'You'll have to wait till openin' time,' replied the girl sourly, going away to the far end of the room. 'Have I offended you, Clem?' 'Offended, indeed. As if I cared what you say!' 'Do you care what I think?' 'Not I!' 'That means you do. Say, Clem, just come here; I've something to tell you.' 'You're a nuisance. Let me get on with my work, can't you?' 'No, I can't. You just come here. You'd better not give me the trouble of fetching you!' The girl obeyed him. Her cheeks were very hot, and the danger-signal was flashing in her eyes. Ten minutes later she went upstairs, and had a vivacious dialogue of whispers with Mrs. Peckover. CHAPTER XV SUNLIGHT IN DREARY PLACES Among the by-ways of Clerkenwell you might, with some difficulty, have discovered an establishment known in its neighbourhood as 'Whitehead's.' It was an artificial-flower factory, and the rooms of which it consisted were only to be reached by traversing a timber-yard, and then mounting a wooden staircase outside a saw-mill. Here at busy seasons worked some threescore women and girls, who, owing to the nature of their occupation, were spoken of by the jocose youth of the locality as 'Whitehead's pastepots.' Naturally they varied much in age and aspect. There was the child who had newly left school, and was now invited to consider the question of how to keep herself alive; there was the woman of uncertain age, who had spent long years of long days in the atmosphere of workrooms, and showed the result in her parchmenty cheek and lack-lustre eye; and between these extremes came all the various types of the London crafts-girl: she who is young enough to hope that disappointments may yet be made up for by the future; she who is already tasting such scanty good as life had in store for her; she who has outlived her illusions and no longer cares to look beyond the close of the week. If regularly engaged as time-workers, they made themselves easy in the prospect of wages that allowed them to sleep under a roof and eat at certain intervals of the day; if employed on piece-work they might at any moment find themselves wageless, but this, being a familiar state of things, did not trouble them. With few exceptions, they were clad neatly; on the whole, they plied their task in wonderful contentment. The general tone of conversation among them was not high; moralists unfamiliar with the ways of the nether world would probably have applied a term other than negative to the laughing discussions which now and then enlivened this or that group; but it was very seldom indeed that a child newly arriving heard anything with which she was not already perfectly familiar. One afternoon at the end of May there penetrated into the largest of the workrooms that rarest of visitants, a stray sunbeam. Only if the sun happened to shine at given moments could any of its light fall directly into the room I speak of; this afternoon, however, all circumstances were favourable, and behold the floor chequered with uncertain gleam. The workers were arranged in groups of three, called 'parties,' consisting of a learner, an improver, and a hand. All sat with sleeves pushed up to their elbows, and had a habit of rocking to and fro as they plied their mechanical industry. Owing to the movement of a cloud, the sunlight spread gradually towards one of these groups; it touched the skirt, the arms, the head of one of the girls, who, as if gladdened by the kindly warmth, looked round and smiled. A smile you would have been pleased to observe--unconscious, gently thoughtful, rich in possibilities of happiness. She was quite a young girl, certainly not seventeen, and wore a smooth grey dress, with a white linen collar; her brown hair was closely plaited, her head well-shaped, the bend of her neck very graceful. From her bare arms it could be seen that she was anything but robustly made, yet her general appearance was not one of ill-health, and she held herself, even thus late in the day, far more uprightly than most of her companions. Had you watched her for a while, you would have noticed that her eyes occasionally strayed beyond the work-table, and, perhaps unconsciously, fixed themselves for some moments on one or other of the girls near her; when she remembered herself and looked down again upon her task, there rose to her face a smile of the subtlest meaning, the outcome of busy reflection. By her side was a little girl just beginning to learn the work, whose employment it was to paper wires and make 'centres.' This toil always results in blistered fingers, and frequent was the child's appeal to her neighbour for sympathy. 'It'll be easier soon,' said the latter, on one of these occasions, bending her head to speak in a low voice. 'You should have seen what blisters I had when I began.' 'It's all very well to say that. I can't do no more, so there Oh, when'll it be five o'clock?' 'It's a quarter to. Try and go on, Annie.' Five o'clock did come at length, and with it twenty minutes' rest for tea. The rule at Whitehead's was, that you could either bring your own tea, sugar, and eatables, or purchase them here from a forewoman; most of the workers chose to provide themselves. It was customary for each 'party' to club together, emptying their several contributions of tea out of little twists of newspaper into one teapot. Wholesome bustle and confusion succeeded to the former silence. One of the learners, whose turn it was to run on errands, was overwhelmed with commissions to a chandler's shop close by; a wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and they called her, because of her slowness, the 'funeral horse.' She had strange habits, which made laughter for those who knew of them; for instance, it was her custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her poor scraps on a doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a companion that the odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a relish. From her present errand she returned with a strange variety of dainties--for it was early in the week, and the girls still had coppers in their pockets; for two or three she had purchased a farthing's-worth of jam, which she carried in paper. A bite of this and a taste of that rewarded her for her trouble. The quiet-mannered girl whom we were observing took her cup of tea from the pot in which she had a share, and from her bag produced some folded pieces of bread and butter. She had begun her meal, when there came and sat down by her a young woman of very different appearance--our friend, Miss Peckover. They were old acquaintances; but when we first saw them together it would have been difficult to imagine that they would ever sit and converse as at present, apparently in all friendliness. Strange to say, it was Clem who, during the past three years, had been the active one in seeking to obliterate disagreeable memories. The younger girl had never repelled her, but was long in overcoming the dread excited by Clem's proximity. Even now she never looked straight into Miss Peckover's face, as she did when speaking with others; there was reserve in her manner, reserve unmistakable, though clothed with her pleasant smile and amiable voice. 'I've got something to tell you, Jane,' Clem began, in a tone inaudible to those who were sitting near. 'Something as'll surprise you.' 'What is it, I wonder?' 'You must swear you won't tell nobody.' Jane nodded. Then the other brought her head a little nearer, and whispered: 'I'm goin' to be married!' 'Are you really?' 'In a week. Who do you think it is? Somebody as you know of, but if you guessed till next Christmas you'd never come right.' Nor had Clem any intention of revealing the name, but she laughed consumedly, as if her reticence covered the most amusing situation conceivable. 'It'll be the biggest surprise you ever had in your life. You've swore you won't speak about it. I don't think I shall come to work after this week--but you'll have to come an' see us. You'll promise to, won't you?' Still convulsed with mirth, Clem went off to another part of the room. From Jane's countenance the look of amusement which she had perforce summoned soon passed; it was succeeded by a shadow almost of pain, and not till she had been at work again for nearly an hour was the former placidity restored to her. When final release came, Jane was among the first to hasten down the wooden staircase and get clear of the timber yard. By the direct way, it took her twenty minutes to walk from Whitehead's to her home in Hanover Street, but this evening she had an object in turning aside. The visit she wished to pay took her into a disagreeable quarter, a street of squalid houses, swarming with yet more squalid children. On all the doorsteps Bat little girls, themselves only just out of infancy, nursing or neglecting bald, red-eyed, doughy-limbed abortions in every stage of babyhood, hapless spawn of diseased humanity, born to embitter and brutalise yet further the lot of those who unwillingly gave them life. With wide, pitiful eyes Jane looked at each group she passed. Three years ago she would have seen nothing but the ordinary and the inevitable in such spectacles, but since then her moral and intellectual being had grown on rare nourishment; there was indignation as well as heartache in the feeling with which she had learnt to regard the world of her familiarity. To enter the house at which she paused it was necessary to squeeze through a conglomerate of dirty little bodies. At the head of the first flight of stairs she came upon a girl sitting in a weary attitude on the top step and beating the wood listlessly with the last remnant of a hearth-brush; on her lap was one more specimen of the infinitely-multiplied baby, and a child of two years sprawled behind her on the landing. 'Waiting for him to come home, Pennyloaf?' said Jane. 'Oh, is that you, Miss Snowdon!' exclaimed the other, returning to consciousness and manifesting some shame at being discovered in this position. Hastily she drew together the front of her dress, which for the baby's sake had been wide open, and rose to her feet. Pennyloaf was not a bit more womanly in figure than on the day of her marriage; her voice was still an immature treble; the same rueful irresponsibility marked her features; but all her poor prettiness was wasted under the disfigurement of pains and cares, Incongruously enough, she wore a gown of bright-patterned calico, and about her neck had a collar of pretentious lace; her hair was dressed as if for a holiday, and a daub recently made on her cheeks by the baby's fingers lent emphasis to the fact that she had but a little while ago washed herself with much care. 'I can't stop,' said Jane, 'but I thought I'd just look in and speak a word. How have you been getting on?' 'Oh, do come in for just a minute!' pleaded Pennyloaf, moving backwards to an open door, whither Jane followed. They entered a room--much like other rooms that we have looked into from time to time. Following the nomadic custom of their kind, Bob Hewett and his wife had lived in six or seven different lodgings since their honeymoon in Shooter's Gardens. Mrs. Candy first of all made a change necessary, as might have been anticipated, and the restlessness of domestic ill-being subsequently drove them from place to place. 'Come in 'ere, Johnny,' she Called to the child lying on the landing. 'What's the good o' washin' you, I'd like to know? Just see, Miss Snowdon, he's made his face all white with the milk as the boy spilt on the stairs! Take this brush an' play with it, do! I _can't_ keep 'em clean, Miss Snowdon, so it's no use talkin'.' 'Are you going somewhere to-night?' Jane inquired, with a glance at the strange costume. Pennyloaf looked up and down in a shamefaced way. 'I only did it just because I thought he might like to see me. He promised me faithful as he'd come 'ome to-night, and I thought--it's only somethink as got into my 'ed to-day, Miss Snowdon.' 'But hasn't he been coming home since I saw you last?' 'He did just once, an' then it was all the old ways again. I did what you told me; I did, as sure as I'm a-standin' 'ere! I made the room so clean you wouldn't have believed; I scrubbed the floor an' the table, an' I washed the winders--you can see they ain't dirty yet. An' he'd never a' paid a bit o' notice if I hadn't told him, He was jolly enough for one night, just like he can be when he likes. But I knew as it wouldn't last, an' the next night he was off with a lot o' fellers an' girls, same as ever. I didn't make no row when he came 'ome; I wish I may die if I said a word to set his back up! An' I've gone on just the same all the week; we haven't had not the least bit of a row; so you see I kep' my promise. But it's no good; he won't come 'ome; he's always got fellers an' girls to go round with. He took his hoath as he'd come back to-night, an' then it come into my 'ed as I'd put my best things on, just to--you know what I mean, Miss Snowdon. But he won't come before twelve o'clock; I know he won't. An' I get that low sittin' 'ere, you can't think I can't go nowhere, because o' the children. If it wasn't for them I could go to work again, an' I'd be that glad; I feel as if my 'ed would drop off sometimes! I _ham_ so glad you just come in!' Jane had tried so many forms of encouragement, of consolation, on previous occasions that she knew not how to repeat herself. She was ashamed to speak words which sounded so hollow and profitless. This silence was only too significant to Pennyloaf, and in a moment she exclaimed with querulous energy: 'I know what'll be the bend of it! I'll go an' do like mother does--I will! I will! I'll put my ring away, an' I'll go an' sit all night in the public-'ouse! It's what all the others does, an' I'll do the same. I often feel I'm a fool to go on like this. I don't know what I live for, P'r'aps he'll be sorry when I get run in like mother.' 'Don't talk like that, Pennyloaf!' cried Jane, stamping her foot, (It was odd how completely difference of character had reversed their natural relations to each other; Pennyloaf was the child, Jane the mature woman.) 'You know better, and you've no right to give way to such thoughts. I was going to say I'd come and be with you all Saturday afternoon, but I don't know whether I shall now. And I'd been thinking you might like to come and see me on Sunday, but I can't have people that go to the public-house, so we won't say anything more about it. I shall have to be off; good-bye!' She stepped to the door. 'Miss Snowdon!' Jane turned, and after an instant of mock severity, broke into a laugh which seemed to fill the wretched den with sunlight. Words, too, she found; words of soothing influence such as leap from the heart to the tongue in spite of the heavy thoughts that try to check them. Pennyloaf was learning to depend upon these words for strength in her desolation. They did not excite her to much hopefulness, but there was a sustaining power in their sweet sincerity which made all the difference between despair tending to evil and the sigh of renewed effort. 'I don't care,' Pennyloaf had got into the habit of thinking, after her friend's departure, 'I won't give up as long as she looks in now and then.' Out from the swarm of babies Jane hurried homewards. She had a reason for wishing to be back in good time to-night; it was Wednesday, and on Wednesday evening there was wont to come a visitor, who sat for a couple of hours in her grandfather's room and talked, talked--the most interesting talk Jane had ever heard or could imagine. A latch-key admitted her; she ran up to the second floor. A voice from the front-room caught her ear; certainly not _his_ voice--it was too early--but that of some unusual visitor. She was on the point of entering her own chamber, when the other door opened, and somebody exclaimed, 'Ah, here she is!' The speaker was an old gentleman, dressed in black, bald, with small and rather rugged features; his voice was pleasant. A gold chain and a bunch of seals shone against his waistcoat, also a pair of eye-glasses. A professional man, obviously. Jane remembered that she had seen him once before, about a year ago, when he had talked with her for a few minutes, very kindly. 'Will you come in here, Jane?' her grandfather's voice called to her. Snowdon had changed much. Old age was heavy upon his shoulders, and had even produced a slight tremulousness in his hands; his voice told the same story of enfeeblement. Even more noticeable was the ageing of his countenance. Something more, however, than the progress of time seemed to be here at work. He looked strangely careworn; his forehead was set in lines of anxiety; his mouth expressed a nervousness of which formerly there had been no trace. One would have said that some harassing preoccupation must have seized his mind. His eyes were no longer merely sad and absent, but restless with fatiguing thought. As Jane entered the room he fixed his gaze upon her--a gaze that appeared to reveal worrying apprehension. 'You remember Mr. Percival, Jane,' he said. The old gentleman thus presented held out his hand with something of fatherly geniality. 'Miss Snowdon, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again before long, but just now I am carrying off your grandfather for a couple of hours, and indeed we

proscribing

How many times the word 'proscribing' appears in the text?

worn by a man above the mechanic ranks), but it was patched with dirt of many kinds, and held together by a most inadequate supply of buttons. At present he wore no collar, and his waistcoat, half-open, exposed a red shirt. 'Why, you're all a-blowin' and a-growin' this morning, Peckover,' was his first observation, as he dropped heavily into a wooden arm-chair. 'I shall begin to think that colour of yours ain't natural. Dare you let me rub it with a handkerchief?' 'Course I dare,' replied Clem, tossing her head. 'Don't be so forward, Mr. Snowdon.' 'Forward? Not I. I'm behind time if anything. I hope I haven't kept you from church.' He chuckled at his double joke. Mother and daughter laughed appreciatively. 'Will you take your eggs boiled or fried?' inquired Mrs. Peckover. 'Going to give me eggs, are you? Well, I've no objection, I assure you. And I think I'll have them fried, Mrs. Peckover. But, I say, you mustn't be running up too big a bill. The Lord only knows when I shall get anything to do, and it ain't very likely to be a thousand a year when it does come.' 'Oh, that's all right,' replied the landlady, as if sordid calculation were a thing impossible to her. 'I can't say as you behaved quite straightforward years ago, Mr. Snowdon, but I ain't one to make a row about bygones, an' as you say you'll put it all straight as soon as you can, well, I won't refuse to trust you once more.' Mr. Snowdon lay back in the chair, his hands in his waistcoat pockets, his legs outstretched upon the fender. He was smiling placidly, now at the preparing breakfast, now at Clem. The latter he plainly regarded with much admiration, and cared not to conceal it. When, in a few minutes, it was announced to him that the meal was ready, he dragged his chair up to the table and reseated himself with a sigh of satisfaction. A dish of excellent ham, and eggs as nearly fresh as can be obtained in Clerkenwell, invited him with appetising odour; a large cup of what is known to the generality of English people as coffee steamed at his right hand; slices of new bread lay ready cut upon a plate; a slab of the most expensive substitute for butter caught his eye with yellow promise; vinegar and mustard appealed to the refinements of his taste. 'I've got a couple more eggs, if you'd like them doin',' said Mrs. Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the viands. 'I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,' returned Mr. Snowdon. As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly in consequence of the activity of his mind. He was, in fact, musing upon a question which he found it very difficult to answer in any satisfactory way. 'What's the meaning of all this?' he asked himself, and not for the first time. 'What makes them treat me in this fashion? A week ago I came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just because I'd run down to my last penny, and I didn't know where to find a night's lodging. I'd got an idea, too, that I should like to find out what had become of my child, whom I left here nine or ten years ago; possibly she was still alive, and might welcome the duty of supporting her parent. The chance was, to be sure, that the girl had long since been in her grave, and that Mrs. Peckover no longer lived in the old quarters; if I discovered the woman, on the other hand, she was not very likely to give me an affectionate reception, seeing that I found it inconvenient to keep sending her money for Jane's keep in the old days. The queer thing is, that everything turned out exactly the opposite of what I had expected. Mrs. Peckover had rather a sour face at first, but after a little talk she began to seem quite glad to see me. She put me into a room, undertook to board me for a while--till I find work, and I wonder when _that_'ll be?--and blest if this strapping daughter of hers doesn't seem to have fallen in love with me from the first go off! As for my girl, I'm told she was carried off by her grandfather, my old dad, three years ago, and where they went nobody knows. Very puzzling all this. How on earth came it that Mrs. Peckover kept the child so long, and didn't send her to the workhouse? If I'm to believe _her_, she took a motherly kindness for the poor brat. But that won't exactly go down with J. J. Snowdon; he's seen a bit too much in his knocking about the world, Still, what if I'm making a mistake about the old woman? There _are_ some people do things of that sort; upon my soul, I've known people be kind even to me, without a chance of being paid back! You may think you know a man or a woman, and then all at once they'll go and do something you'd have taken your davy couldn't possibly happen. I'd have sworn she was nothing but a skinflint and a lying old witch. And so she maybe; the chances are there's some game going on that I can't see through. Make inquiries? Why, so I have done, as far as I know how. I've only been able to hit on one person who knows anything about the matter, and he tells me it's true enough the girl was taken away about three years ago, but he's no idea where she went to. Surely the old man must be dead b now, though he _was_ tough. Well, the fact of the matter is, I've got a good berth, and I'm a precious sight too lazy to go on the private detective job. Here's this girl Clem, the finest bit of flesh I've seen for a long time; I've more than half a mind to see if she won't be fool enough to marry me. I'm not a bad-looking fellow, that's the truth, and she may have taken a real liking to me. Seems to me that I should have come in for a Comfortable thing in my old age; if I haven't a daughter to provide for my needs, at all events I shall have a wife who can be persuaded into doing so. When the old woman gets out of the way I must have a little quiet talk with Clem.' The opportunity he desired was not long in offering itself. Having made an excellent breakfast, he dragged his chair up to the fender again, and reached a pipe from the mantel-piece, where he had left it last night. Tobacco he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket; it came forth in the form of yellowish dust, intermingled with all sorts of alien scraps. When he had lit his pipe, he poised the chair on its hind-legs, clasped his hands over his bald crown, and continued his musing with an air of amiable calm. Smoke curled up from the corner of his loose lips, and occasionally, removing his pipe for an instant, he spat skilfully between the bars of the grate. Assured of his comfort, Mrs. Peckover said she must go and look after certain domestic duties. Her daughter had begun to clean some vegetables that would be cooked for dinner. 'How old may you be, Clem?' Mr. Snowdon inquired genially, when they had been alone together for a few minutes. 'What's that to you? Guess.' 'Why, let me see; you was not much more than a baby when I went away. You'll be eighteen or nineteen, I suppose.' 'Yes, I'm nineteen--last sixth of February. Pity you come too late to give me a birthday present, ain't it?' 'Ah! And who'd have thought you'd have grown up such a beauty! I say, Clem, how many of the young chaps about here have been wanting to marry you, eh?' 'A dozen or two, I dessay,' Clem replied, shrugging her shoulders scornfully. Mr. Snowdon laughed, and then spat into the fire. 'Tell me about some o' them, will you? Who is it you're keeping company with now?' 'Who, indeed? Why, there isn't one I'd look at! Several of 'em's took to drinking 'cause I won't have nothing to do with 'em.' This excited Mr. Snowdon's mirth in a high degree; he rolled on his chair, and almost pitched backwards. 'I suppose you give one or other a bit of encouragement now and then, just to make a fool of him, eh?' 'Course I do. There was Bob Hewett; he used to lodge here, but that was after your time. I kep' him off an' on till he couldn't bear it no longer; then he went an' married a common slut of a thing, just because he thought it 'ud make me mad. Ha, ha! I believe he'd give her poison an' risk it any day, if only I promised to marry him afterwards. Then there was a feller called Jeck Bartley. I set him an' Bob fightin' one Bank-holiday--you should a' seen 'em go at it! Jack went an' got married a year ago to a girl called Suke Jollop; her mother forced him. How I did laugh! Last Christmas Day they smashed up their 'ome an' threw the bits out into the street. Jack got one of his eyes knocked out--I thought I should a' died o' laughin' when I saw him next mornin'.' The hearer became uproarious in merriment. 'Tell you what it is, Clem,' he cried, 'you're something like a girl! Darn me if I don't like you! I say, I wonder what my daughter's grown up? Like her mother, I suppose. You an' she was sort of sisters, wasn't you?' He observed her closely. Clem laughed and shrugged her shoulders. 'Queer sort o' sisters. She was a bit too quiet-like for me. There never was no fun in her.' 'Aye, like her mother. And where did you say she went to with the old man?' 'Where she went to?' repeated Clem, regarding him steadily with her big eyes, 'I never said nothing about it, 'cause I didn't know.' 'Well, I shan't cry about her, and I don't suppose she misses me much, wherever she is. All the same, Clem, I'm a domesticated sort of man; you can see that, can't you? I shouldn't wonder if I marry again one of these first days. Just tell me where to find a girl of the right sort. I dare say you know heaps.' 'Dessay I do. What sort do you want?' 'Oh, a littlish girl--yellow hair, you know--one of them that look as if they didn't weigh half-a-stone.' 'I'll throw this parsnip at you, Mr. Snowdon!' 'What's up now. You don't Call yourself littlish, do you?' Clem snapped the small end off the vegetable she was paring, and aimed it at his head. He ducked just in time. Then there was an outburst of laughter from both. 'Say, Clem, you haven't got a glass of beer in the house?' 'You'll have to wait till openin' time,' replied the girl sourly, going away to the far end of the room. 'Have I offended you, Clem?' 'Offended, indeed. As if I cared what you say!' 'Do you care what I think?' 'Not I!' 'That means you do. Say, Clem, just come here; I've something to tell you.' 'You're a nuisance. Let me get on with my work, can't you?' 'No, I can't. You just come here. You'd better not give me the trouble of fetching you!' The girl obeyed him. Her cheeks were very hot, and the danger-signal was flashing in her eyes. Ten minutes later she went upstairs, and had a vivacious dialogue of whispers with Mrs. Peckover. CHAPTER XV SUNLIGHT IN DREARY PLACES Among the by-ways of Clerkenwell you might, with some difficulty, have discovered an establishment known in its neighbourhood as 'Whitehead's.' It was an artificial-flower factory, and the rooms of which it consisted were only to be reached by traversing a timber-yard, and then mounting a wooden staircase outside a saw-mill. Here at busy seasons worked some threescore women and girls, who, owing to the nature of their occupation, were spoken of by the jocose youth of the locality as 'Whitehead's pastepots.' Naturally they varied much in age and aspect. There was the child who had newly left school, and was now invited to consider the question of how to keep herself alive; there was the woman of uncertain age, who had spent long years of long days in the atmosphere of workrooms, and showed the result in her parchmenty cheek and lack-lustre eye; and between these extremes came all the various types of the London crafts-girl: she who is young enough to hope that disappointments may yet be made up for by the future; she who is already tasting such scanty good as life had in store for her; she who has outlived her illusions and no longer cares to look beyond the close of the week. If regularly engaged as time-workers, they made themselves easy in the prospect of wages that allowed them to sleep under a roof and eat at certain intervals of the day; if employed on piece-work they might at any moment find themselves wageless, but this, being a familiar state of things, did not trouble them. With few exceptions, they were clad neatly; on the whole, they plied their task in wonderful contentment. The general tone of conversation among them was not high; moralists unfamiliar with the ways of the nether world would probably have applied a term other than negative to the laughing discussions which now and then enlivened this or that group; but it was very seldom indeed that a child newly arriving heard anything with which she was not already perfectly familiar. One afternoon at the end of May there penetrated into the largest of the workrooms that rarest of visitants, a stray sunbeam. Only if the sun happened to shine at given moments could any of its light fall directly into the room I speak of; this afternoon, however, all circumstances were favourable, and behold the floor chequered with uncertain gleam. The workers were arranged in groups of three, called 'parties,' consisting of a learner, an improver, and a hand. All sat with sleeves pushed up to their elbows, and had a habit of rocking to and fro as they plied their mechanical industry. Owing to the movement of a cloud, the sunlight spread gradually towards one of these groups; it touched the skirt, the arms, the head of one of the girls, who, as if gladdened by the kindly warmth, looked round and smiled. A smile you would have been pleased to observe--unconscious, gently thoughtful, rich in possibilities of happiness. She was quite a young girl, certainly not seventeen, and wore a smooth grey dress, with a white linen collar; her brown hair was closely plaited, her head well-shaped, the bend of her neck very graceful. From her bare arms it could be seen that she was anything but robustly made, yet her general appearance was not one of ill-health, and she held herself, even thus late in the day, far more uprightly than most of her companions. Had you watched her for a while, you would have noticed that her eyes occasionally strayed beyond the work-table, and, perhaps unconsciously, fixed themselves for some moments on one or other of the girls near her; when she remembered herself and looked down again upon her task, there rose to her face a smile of the subtlest meaning, the outcome of busy reflection. By her side was a little girl just beginning to learn the work, whose employment it was to paper wires and make 'centres.' This toil always results in blistered fingers, and frequent was the child's appeal to her neighbour for sympathy. 'It'll be easier soon,' said the latter, on one of these occasions, bending her head to speak in a low voice. 'You should have seen what blisters I had when I began.' 'It's all very well to say that. I can't do no more, so there Oh, when'll it be five o'clock?' 'It's a quarter to. Try and go on, Annie.' Five o'clock did come at length, and with it twenty minutes' rest for tea. The rule at Whitehead's was, that you could either bring your own tea, sugar, and eatables, or purchase them here from a forewoman; most of the workers chose to provide themselves. It was customary for each 'party' to club together, emptying their several contributions of tea out of little twists of newspaper into one teapot. Wholesome bustle and confusion succeeded to the former silence. One of the learners, whose turn it was to run on errands, was overwhelmed with commissions to a chandler's shop close by; a wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and they called her, because of her slowness, the 'funeral horse.' She had strange habits, which made laughter for those who knew of them; for instance, it was her custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her poor scraps on a doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a companion that the odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a relish. From her present errand she returned with a strange variety of dainties--for it was early in the week, and the girls still had coppers in their pockets; for two or three she had purchased a farthing's-worth of jam, which she carried in paper. A bite of this and a taste of that rewarded her for her trouble. The quiet-mannered girl whom we were observing took her cup of tea from the pot in which she had a share, and from her bag produced some folded pieces of bread and butter. She had begun her meal, when there came and sat down by her a young woman of very different appearance--our friend, Miss Peckover. They were old acquaintances; but when we first saw them together it would have been difficult to imagine that they would ever sit and converse as at present, apparently in all friendliness. Strange to say, it was Clem who, during the past three years, had been the active one in seeking to obliterate disagreeable memories. The younger girl had never repelled her, but was long in overcoming the dread excited by Clem's proximity. Even now she never looked straight into Miss Peckover's face, as she did when speaking with others; there was reserve in her manner, reserve unmistakable, though clothed with her pleasant smile and amiable voice. 'I've got something to tell you, Jane,' Clem began, in a tone inaudible to those who were sitting near. 'Something as'll surprise you.' 'What is it, I wonder?' 'You must swear you won't tell nobody.' Jane nodded. Then the other brought her head a little nearer, and whispered: 'I'm goin' to be married!' 'Are you really?' 'In a week. Who do you think it is? Somebody as you know of, but if you guessed till next Christmas you'd never come right.' Nor had Clem any intention of revealing the name, but she laughed consumedly, as if her reticence covered the most amusing situation conceivable. 'It'll be the biggest surprise you ever had in your life. You've swore you won't speak about it. I don't think I shall come to work after this week--but you'll have to come an' see us. You'll promise to, won't you?' Still convulsed with mirth, Clem went off to another part of the room. From Jane's countenance the look of amusement which she had perforce summoned soon passed; it was succeeded by a shadow almost of pain, and not till she had been at work again for nearly an hour was the former placidity restored to her. When final release came, Jane was among the first to hasten down the wooden staircase and get clear of the timber yard. By the direct way, it took her twenty minutes to walk from Whitehead's to her home in Hanover Street, but this evening she had an object in turning aside. The visit she wished to pay took her into a disagreeable quarter, a street of squalid houses, swarming with yet more squalid children. On all the doorsteps Bat little girls, themselves only just out of infancy, nursing or neglecting bald, red-eyed, doughy-limbed abortions in every stage of babyhood, hapless spawn of diseased humanity, born to embitter and brutalise yet further the lot of those who unwillingly gave them life. With wide, pitiful eyes Jane looked at each group she passed. Three years ago she would have seen nothing but the ordinary and the inevitable in such spectacles, but since then her moral and intellectual being had grown on rare nourishment; there was indignation as well as heartache in the feeling with which she had learnt to regard the world of her familiarity. To enter the house at which she paused it was necessary to squeeze through a conglomerate of dirty little bodies. At the head of the first flight of stairs she came upon a girl sitting in a weary attitude on the top step and beating the wood listlessly with the last remnant of a hearth-brush; on her lap was one more specimen of the infinitely-multiplied baby, and a child of two years sprawled behind her on the landing. 'Waiting for him to come home, Pennyloaf?' said Jane. 'Oh, is that you, Miss Snowdon!' exclaimed the other, returning to consciousness and manifesting some shame at being discovered in this position. Hastily she drew together the front of her dress, which for the baby's sake had been wide open, and rose to her feet. Pennyloaf was not a bit more womanly in figure than on the day of her marriage; her voice was still an immature treble; the same rueful irresponsibility marked her features; but all her poor prettiness was wasted under the disfigurement of pains and cares, Incongruously enough, she wore a gown of bright-patterned calico, and about her neck had a collar of pretentious lace; her hair was dressed as if for a holiday, and a daub recently made on her cheeks by the baby's fingers lent emphasis to the fact that she had but a little while ago washed herself with much care. 'I can't stop,' said Jane, 'but I thought I'd just look in and speak a word. How have you been getting on?' 'Oh, do come in for just a minute!' pleaded Pennyloaf, moving backwards to an open door, whither Jane followed. They entered a room--much like other rooms that we have looked into from time to time. Following the nomadic custom of their kind, Bob Hewett and his wife had lived in six or seven different lodgings since their honeymoon in Shooter's Gardens. Mrs. Candy first of all made a change necessary, as might have been anticipated, and the restlessness of domestic ill-being subsequently drove them from place to place. 'Come in 'ere, Johnny,' she Called to the child lying on the landing. 'What's the good o' washin' you, I'd like to know? Just see, Miss Snowdon, he's made his face all white with the milk as the boy spilt on the stairs! Take this brush an' play with it, do! I _can't_ keep 'em clean, Miss Snowdon, so it's no use talkin'.' 'Are you going somewhere to-night?' Jane inquired, with a glance at the strange costume. Pennyloaf looked up and down in a shamefaced way. 'I only did it just because I thought he might like to see me. He promised me faithful as he'd come 'ome to-night, and I thought--it's only somethink as got into my 'ed to-day, Miss Snowdon.' 'But hasn't he been coming home since I saw you last?' 'He did just once, an' then it was all the old ways again. I did what you told me; I did, as sure as I'm a-standin' 'ere! I made the room so clean you wouldn't have believed; I scrubbed the floor an' the table, an' I washed the winders--you can see they ain't dirty yet. An' he'd never a' paid a bit o' notice if I hadn't told him, He was jolly enough for one night, just like he can be when he likes. But I knew as it wouldn't last, an' the next night he was off with a lot o' fellers an' girls, same as ever. I didn't make no row when he came 'ome; I wish I may die if I said a word to set his back up! An' I've gone on just the same all the week; we haven't had not the least bit of a row; so you see I kep' my promise. But it's no good; he won't come 'ome; he's always got fellers an' girls to go round with. He took his hoath as he'd come back to-night, an' then it come into my 'ed as I'd put my best things on, just to--you know what I mean, Miss Snowdon. But he won't come before twelve o'clock; I know he won't. An' I get that low sittin' 'ere, you can't think I can't go nowhere, because o' the children. If it wasn't for them I could go to work again, an' I'd be that glad; I feel as if my 'ed would drop off sometimes! I _ham_ so glad you just come in!' Jane had tried so many forms of encouragement, of consolation, on previous occasions that she knew not how to repeat herself. She was ashamed to speak words which sounded so hollow and profitless. This silence was only too significant to Pennyloaf, and in a moment she exclaimed with querulous energy: 'I know what'll be the bend of it! I'll go an' do like mother does--I will! I will! I'll put my ring away, an' I'll go an' sit all night in the public-'ouse! It's what all the others does, an' I'll do the same. I often feel I'm a fool to go on like this. I don't know what I live for, P'r'aps he'll be sorry when I get run in like mother.' 'Don't talk like that, Pennyloaf!' cried Jane, stamping her foot, (It was odd how completely difference of character had reversed their natural relations to each other; Pennyloaf was the child, Jane the mature woman.) 'You know better, and you've no right to give way to such thoughts. I was going to say I'd come and be with you all Saturday afternoon, but I don't know whether I shall now. And I'd been thinking you might like to come and see me on Sunday, but I can't have people that go to the public-house, so we won't say anything more about it. I shall have to be off; good-bye!' She stepped to the door. 'Miss Snowdon!' Jane turned, and after an instant of mock severity, broke into a laugh which seemed to fill the wretched den with sunlight. Words, too, she found; words of soothing influence such as leap from the heart to the tongue in spite of the heavy thoughts that try to check them. Pennyloaf was learning to depend upon these words for strength in her desolation. They did not excite her to much hopefulness, but there was a sustaining power in their sweet sincerity which made all the difference between despair tending to evil and the sigh of renewed effort. 'I don't care,' Pennyloaf had got into the habit of thinking, after her friend's departure, 'I won't give up as long as she looks in now and then.' Out from the swarm of babies Jane hurried homewards. She had a reason for wishing to be back in good time to-night; it was Wednesday, and on Wednesday evening there was wont to come a visitor, who sat for a couple of hours in her grandfather's room and talked, talked--the most interesting talk Jane had ever heard or could imagine. A latch-key admitted her; she ran up to the second floor. A voice from the front-room caught her ear; certainly not _his_ voice--it was too early--but that of some unusual visitor. She was on the point of entering her own chamber, when the other door opened, and somebody exclaimed, 'Ah, here she is!' The speaker was an old gentleman, dressed in black, bald, with small and rather rugged features; his voice was pleasant. A gold chain and a bunch of seals shone against his waistcoat, also a pair of eye-glasses. A professional man, obviously. Jane remembered that she had seen him once before, about a year ago, when he had talked with her for a few minutes, very kindly. 'Will you come in here, Jane?' her grandfather's voice called to her. Snowdon had changed much. Old age was heavy upon his shoulders, and had even produced a slight tremulousness in his hands; his voice told the same story of enfeeblement. Even more noticeable was the ageing of his countenance. Something more, however, than the progress of time seemed to be here at work. He looked strangely careworn; his forehead was set in lines of anxiety; his mouth expressed a nervousness of which formerly there had been no trace. One would have said that some harassing preoccupation must have seized his mind. His eyes were no longer merely sad and absent, but restless with fatiguing thought. As Jane entered the room he fixed his gaze upon her--a gaze that appeared to reveal worrying apprehension. 'You remember Mr. Percival, Jane,' he said. The old gentleman thus presented held out his hand with something of fatherly geniality. 'Miss Snowdon, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again before long, but just now I am carrying off your grandfather for a couple of hours, and indeed we

quiet

How many times the word 'quiet' appears in the text?

worn by a man above the mechanic ranks), but it was patched with dirt of many kinds, and held together by a most inadequate supply of buttons. At present he wore no collar, and his waistcoat, half-open, exposed a red shirt. 'Why, you're all a-blowin' and a-growin' this morning, Peckover,' was his first observation, as he dropped heavily into a wooden arm-chair. 'I shall begin to think that colour of yours ain't natural. Dare you let me rub it with a handkerchief?' 'Course I dare,' replied Clem, tossing her head. 'Don't be so forward, Mr. Snowdon.' 'Forward? Not I. I'm behind time if anything. I hope I haven't kept you from church.' He chuckled at his double joke. Mother and daughter laughed appreciatively. 'Will you take your eggs boiled or fried?' inquired Mrs. Peckover. 'Going to give me eggs, are you? Well, I've no objection, I assure you. And I think I'll have them fried, Mrs. Peckover. But, I say, you mustn't be running up too big a bill. The Lord only knows when I shall get anything to do, and it ain't very likely to be a thousand a year when it does come.' 'Oh, that's all right,' replied the landlady, as if sordid calculation were a thing impossible to her. 'I can't say as you behaved quite straightforward years ago, Mr. Snowdon, but I ain't one to make a row about bygones, an' as you say you'll put it all straight as soon as you can, well, I won't refuse to trust you once more.' Mr. Snowdon lay back in the chair, his hands in his waistcoat pockets, his legs outstretched upon the fender. He was smiling placidly, now at the preparing breakfast, now at Clem. The latter he plainly regarded with much admiration, and cared not to conceal it. When, in a few minutes, it was announced to him that the meal was ready, he dragged his chair up to the table and reseated himself with a sigh of satisfaction. A dish of excellent ham, and eggs as nearly fresh as can be obtained in Clerkenwell, invited him with appetising odour; a large cup of what is known to the generality of English people as coffee steamed at his right hand; slices of new bread lay ready cut upon a plate; a slab of the most expensive substitute for butter caught his eye with yellow promise; vinegar and mustard appealed to the refinements of his taste. 'I've got a couple more eggs, if you'd like them doin',' said Mrs. Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the viands. 'I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,' returned Mr. Snowdon. As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly in consequence of the activity of his mind. He was, in fact, musing upon a question which he found it very difficult to answer in any satisfactory way. 'What's the meaning of all this?' he asked himself, and not for the first time. 'What makes them treat me in this fashion? A week ago I came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just because I'd run down to my last penny, and I didn't know where to find a night's lodging. I'd got an idea, too, that I should like to find out what had become of my child, whom I left here nine or ten years ago; possibly she was still alive, and might welcome the duty of supporting her parent. The chance was, to be sure, that the girl had long since been in her grave, and that Mrs. Peckover no longer lived in the old quarters; if I discovered the woman, on the other hand, she was not very likely to give me an affectionate reception, seeing that I found it inconvenient to keep sending her money for Jane's keep in the old days. The queer thing is, that everything turned out exactly the opposite of what I had expected. Mrs. Peckover had rather a sour face at first, but after a little talk she began to seem quite glad to see me. She put me into a room, undertook to board me for a while--till I find work, and I wonder when _that_'ll be?--and blest if this strapping daughter of hers doesn't seem to have fallen in love with me from the first go off! As for my girl, I'm told she was carried off by her grandfather, my old dad, three years ago, and where they went nobody knows. Very puzzling all this. How on earth came it that Mrs. Peckover kept the child so long, and didn't send her to the workhouse? If I'm to believe _her_, she took a motherly kindness for the poor brat. But that won't exactly go down with J. J. Snowdon; he's seen a bit too much in his knocking about the world, Still, what if I'm making a mistake about the old woman? There _are_ some people do things of that sort; upon my soul, I've known people be kind even to me, without a chance of being paid back! You may think you know a man or a woman, and then all at once they'll go and do something you'd have taken your davy couldn't possibly happen. I'd have sworn she was nothing but a skinflint and a lying old witch. And so she maybe; the chances are there's some game going on that I can't see through. Make inquiries? Why, so I have done, as far as I know how. I've only been able to hit on one person who knows anything about the matter, and he tells me it's true enough the girl was taken away about three years ago, but he's no idea where she went to. Surely the old man must be dead b now, though he _was_ tough. Well, the fact of the matter is, I've got a good berth, and I'm a precious sight too lazy to go on the private detective job. Here's this girl Clem, the finest bit of flesh I've seen for a long time; I've more than half a mind to see if she won't be fool enough to marry me. I'm not a bad-looking fellow, that's the truth, and she may have taken a real liking to me. Seems to me that I should have come in for a Comfortable thing in my old age; if I haven't a daughter to provide for my needs, at all events I shall have a wife who can be persuaded into doing so. When the old woman gets out of the way I must have a little quiet talk with Clem.' The opportunity he desired was not long in offering itself. Having made an excellent breakfast, he dragged his chair up to the fender again, and reached a pipe from the mantel-piece, where he had left it last night. Tobacco he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket; it came forth in the form of yellowish dust, intermingled with all sorts of alien scraps. When he had lit his pipe, he poised the chair on its hind-legs, clasped his hands over his bald crown, and continued his musing with an air of amiable calm. Smoke curled up from the corner of his loose lips, and occasionally, removing his pipe for an instant, he spat skilfully between the bars of the grate. Assured of his comfort, Mrs. Peckover said she must go and look after certain domestic duties. Her daughter had begun to clean some vegetables that would be cooked for dinner. 'How old may you be, Clem?' Mr. Snowdon inquired genially, when they had been alone together for a few minutes. 'What's that to you? Guess.' 'Why, let me see; you was not much more than a baby when I went away. You'll be eighteen or nineteen, I suppose.' 'Yes, I'm nineteen--last sixth of February. Pity you come too late to give me a birthday present, ain't it?' 'Ah! And who'd have thought you'd have grown up such a beauty! I say, Clem, how many of the young chaps about here have been wanting to marry you, eh?' 'A dozen or two, I dessay,' Clem replied, shrugging her shoulders scornfully. Mr. Snowdon laughed, and then spat into the fire. 'Tell me about some o' them, will you? Who is it you're keeping company with now?' 'Who, indeed? Why, there isn't one I'd look at! Several of 'em's took to drinking 'cause I won't have nothing to do with 'em.' This excited Mr. Snowdon's mirth in a high degree; he rolled on his chair, and almost pitched backwards. 'I suppose you give one or other a bit of encouragement now and then, just to make a fool of him, eh?' 'Course I do. There was Bob Hewett; he used to lodge here, but that was after your time. I kep' him off an' on till he couldn't bear it no longer; then he went an' married a common slut of a thing, just because he thought it 'ud make me mad. Ha, ha! I believe he'd give her poison an' risk it any day, if only I promised to marry him afterwards. Then there was a feller called Jeck Bartley. I set him an' Bob fightin' one Bank-holiday--you should a' seen 'em go at it! Jack went an' got married a year ago to a girl called Suke Jollop; her mother forced him. How I did laugh! Last Christmas Day they smashed up their 'ome an' threw the bits out into the street. Jack got one of his eyes knocked out--I thought I should a' died o' laughin' when I saw him next mornin'.' The hearer became uproarious in merriment. 'Tell you what it is, Clem,' he cried, 'you're something like a girl! Darn me if I don't like you! I say, I wonder what my daughter's grown up? Like her mother, I suppose. You an' she was sort of sisters, wasn't you?' He observed her closely. Clem laughed and shrugged her shoulders. 'Queer sort o' sisters. She was a bit too quiet-like for me. There never was no fun in her.' 'Aye, like her mother. And where did you say she went to with the old man?' 'Where she went to?' repeated Clem, regarding him steadily with her big eyes, 'I never said nothing about it, 'cause I didn't know.' 'Well, I shan't cry about her, and I don't suppose she misses me much, wherever she is. All the same, Clem, I'm a domesticated sort of man; you can see that, can't you? I shouldn't wonder if I marry again one of these first days. Just tell me where to find a girl of the right sort. I dare say you know heaps.' 'Dessay I do. What sort do you want?' 'Oh, a littlish girl--yellow hair, you know--one of them that look as if they didn't weigh half-a-stone.' 'I'll throw this parsnip at you, Mr. Snowdon!' 'What's up now. You don't Call yourself littlish, do you?' Clem snapped the small end off the vegetable she was paring, and aimed it at his head. He ducked just in time. Then there was an outburst of laughter from both. 'Say, Clem, you haven't got a glass of beer in the house?' 'You'll have to wait till openin' time,' replied the girl sourly, going away to the far end of the room. 'Have I offended you, Clem?' 'Offended, indeed. As if I cared what you say!' 'Do you care what I think?' 'Not I!' 'That means you do. Say, Clem, just come here; I've something to tell you.' 'You're a nuisance. Let me get on with my work, can't you?' 'No, I can't. You just come here. You'd better not give me the trouble of fetching you!' The girl obeyed him. Her cheeks were very hot, and the danger-signal was flashing in her eyes. Ten minutes later she went upstairs, and had a vivacious dialogue of whispers with Mrs. Peckover. CHAPTER XV SUNLIGHT IN DREARY PLACES Among the by-ways of Clerkenwell you might, with some difficulty, have discovered an establishment known in its neighbourhood as 'Whitehead's.' It was an artificial-flower factory, and the rooms of which it consisted were only to be reached by traversing a timber-yard, and then mounting a wooden staircase outside a saw-mill. Here at busy seasons worked some threescore women and girls, who, owing to the nature of their occupation, were spoken of by the jocose youth of the locality as 'Whitehead's pastepots.' Naturally they varied much in age and aspect. There was the child who had newly left school, and was now invited to consider the question of how to keep herself alive; there was the woman of uncertain age, who had spent long years of long days in the atmosphere of workrooms, and showed the result in her parchmenty cheek and lack-lustre eye; and between these extremes came all the various types of the London crafts-girl: she who is young enough to hope that disappointments may yet be made up for by the future; she who is already tasting such scanty good as life had in store for her; she who has outlived her illusions and no longer cares to look beyond the close of the week. If regularly engaged as time-workers, they made themselves easy in the prospect of wages that allowed them to sleep under a roof and eat at certain intervals of the day; if employed on piece-work they might at any moment find themselves wageless, but this, being a familiar state of things, did not trouble them. With few exceptions, they were clad neatly; on the whole, they plied their task in wonderful contentment. The general tone of conversation among them was not high; moralists unfamiliar with the ways of the nether world would probably have applied a term other than negative to the laughing discussions which now and then enlivened this or that group; but it was very seldom indeed that a child newly arriving heard anything with which she was not already perfectly familiar. One afternoon at the end of May there penetrated into the largest of the workrooms that rarest of visitants, a stray sunbeam. Only if the sun happened to shine at given moments could any of its light fall directly into the room I speak of; this afternoon, however, all circumstances were favourable, and behold the floor chequered with uncertain gleam. The workers were arranged in groups of three, called 'parties,' consisting of a learner, an improver, and a hand. All sat with sleeves pushed up to their elbows, and had a habit of rocking to and fro as they plied their mechanical industry. Owing to the movement of a cloud, the sunlight spread gradually towards one of these groups; it touched the skirt, the arms, the head of one of the girls, who, as if gladdened by the kindly warmth, looked round and smiled. A smile you would have been pleased to observe--unconscious, gently thoughtful, rich in possibilities of happiness. She was quite a young girl, certainly not seventeen, and wore a smooth grey dress, with a white linen collar; her brown hair was closely plaited, her head well-shaped, the bend of her neck very graceful. From her bare arms it could be seen that she was anything but robustly made, yet her general appearance was not one of ill-health, and she held herself, even thus late in the day, far more uprightly than most of her companions. Had you watched her for a while, you would have noticed that her eyes occasionally strayed beyond the work-table, and, perhaps unconsciously, fixed themselves for some moments on one or other of the girls near her; when she remembered herself and looked down again upon her task, there rose to her face a smile of the subtlest meaning, the outcome of busy reflection. By her side was a little girl just beginning to learn the work, whose employment it was to paper wires and make 'centres.' This toil always results in blistered fingers, and frequent was the child's appeal to her neighbour for sympathy. 'It'll be easier soon,' said the latter, on one of these occasions, bending her head to speak in a low voice. 'You should have seen what blisters I had when I began.' 'It's all very well to say that. I can't do no more, so there Oh, when'll it be five o'clock?' 'It's a quarter to. Try and go on, Annie.' Five o'clock did come at length, and with it twenty minutes' rest for tea. The rule at Whitehead's was, that you could either bring your own tea, sugar, and eatables, or purchase them here from a forewoman; most of the workers chose to provide themselves. It was customary for each 'party' to club together, emptying their several contributions of tea out of little twists of newspaper into one teapot. Wholesome bustle and confusion succeeded to the former silence. One of the learners, whose turn it was to run on errands, was overwhelmed with commissions to a chandler's shop close by; a wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and they called her, because of her slowness, the 'funeral horse.' She had strange habits, which made laughter for those who knew of them; for instance, it was her custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her poor scraps on a doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a companion that the odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a relish. From her present errand she returned with a strange variety of dainties--for it was early in the week, and the girls still had coppers in their pockets; for two or three she had purchased a farthing's-worth of jam, which she carried in paper. A bite of this and a taste of that rewarded her for her trouble. The quiet-mannered girl whom we were observing took her cup of tea from the pot in which she had a share, and from her bag produced some folded pieces of bread and butter. She had begun her meal, when there came and sat down by her a young woman of very different appearance--our friend, Miss Peckover. They were old acquaintances; but when we first saw them together it would have been difficult to imagine that they would ever sit and converse as at present, apparently in all friendliness. Strange to say, it was Clem who, during the past three years, had been the active one in seeking to obliterate disagreeable memories. The younger girl had never repelled her, but was long in overcoming the dread excited by Clem's proximity. Even now she never looked straight into Miss Peckover's face, as she did when speaking with others; there was reserve in her manner, reserve unmistakable, though clothed with her pleasant smile and amiable voice. 'I've got something to tell you, Jane,' Clem began, in a tone inaudible to those who were sitting near. 'Something as'll surprise you.' 'What is it, I wonder?' 'You must swear you won't tell nobody.' Jane nodded. Then the other brought her head a little nearer, and whispered: 'I'm goin' to be married!' 'Are you really?' 'In a week. Who do you think it is? Somebody as you know of, but if you guessed till next Christmas you'd never come right.' Nor had Clem any intention of revealing the name, but she laughed consumedly, as if her reticence covered the most amusing situation conceivable. 'It'll be the biggest surprise you ever had in your life. You've swore you won't speak about it. I don't think I shall come to work after this week--but you'll have to come an' see us. You'll promise to, won't you?' Still convulsed with mirth, Clem went off to another part of the room. From Jane's countenance the look of amusement which she had perforce summoned soon passed; it was succeeded by a shadow almost of pain, and not till she had been at work again for nearly an hour was the former placidity restored to her. When final release came, Jane was among the first to hasten down the wooden staircase and get clear of the timber yard. By the direct way, it took her twenty minutes to walk from Whitehead's to her home in Hanover Street, but this evening she had an object in turning aside. The visit she wished to pay took her into a disagreeable quarter, a street of squalid houses, swarming with yet more squalid children. On all the doorsteps Bat little girls, themselves only just out of infancy, nursing or neglecting bald, red-eyed, doughy-limbed abortions in every stage of babyhood, hapless spawn of diseased humanity, born to embitter and brutalise yet further the lot of those who unwillingly gave them life. With wide, pitiful eyes Jane looked at each group she passed. Three years ago she would have seen nothing but the ordinary and the inevitable in such spectacles, but since then her moral and intellectual being had grown on rare nourishment; there was indignation as well as heartache in the feeling with which she had learnt to regard the world of her familiarity. To enter the house at which she paused it was necessary to squeeze through a conglomerate of dirty little bodies. At the head of the first flight of stairs she came upon a girl sitting in a weary attitude on the top step and beating the wood listlessly with the last remnant of a hearth-brush; on her lap was one more specimen of the infinitely-multiplied baby, and a child of two years sprawled behind her on the landing. 'Waiting for him to come home, Pennyloaf?' said Jane. 'Oh, is that you, Miss Snowdon!' exclaimed the other, returning to consciousness and manifesting some shame at being discovered in this position. Hastily she drew together the front of her dress, which for the baby's sake had been wide open, and rose to her feet. Pennyloaf was not a bit more womanly in figure than on the day of her marriage; her voice was still an immature treble; the same rueful irresponsibility marked her features; but all her poor prettiness was wasted under the disfigurement of pains and cares, Incongruously enough, she wore a gown of bright-patterned calico, and about her neck had a collar of pretentious lace; her hair was dressed as if for a holiday, and a daub recently made on her cheeks by the baby's fingers lent emphasis to the fact that she had but a little while ago washed herself with much care. 'I can't stop,' said Jane, 'but I thought I'd just look in and speak a word. How have you been getting on?' 'Oh, do come in for just a minute!' pleaded Pennyloaf, moving backwards to an open door, whither Jane followed. They entered a room--much like other rooms that we have looked into from time to time. Following the nomadic custom of their kind, Bob Hewett and his wife had lived in six or seven different lodgings since their honeymoon in Shooter's Gardens. Mrs. Candy first of all made a change necessary, as might have been anticipated, and the restlessness of domestic ill-being subsequently drove them from place to place. 'Come in 'ere, Johnny,' she Called to the child lying on the landing. 'What's the good o' washin' you, I'd like to know? Just see, Miss Snowdon, he's made his face all white with the milk as the boy spilt on the stairs! Take this brush an' play with it, do! I _can't_ keep 'em clean, Miss Snowdon, so it's no use talkin'.' 'Are you going somewhere to-night?' Jane inquired, with a glance at the strange costume. Pennyloaf looked up and down in a shamefaced way. 'I only did it just because I thought he might like to see me. He promised me faithful as he'd come 'ome to-night, and I thought--it's only somethink as got into my 'ed to-day, Miss Snowdon.' 'But hasn't he been coming home since I saw you last?' 'He did just once, an' then it was all the old ways again. I did what you told me; I did, as sure as I'm a-standin' 'ere! I made the room so clean you wouldn't have believed; I scrubbed the floor an' the table, an' I washed the winders--you can see they ain't dirty yet. An' he'd never a' paid a bit o' notice if I hadn't told him, He was jolly enough for one night, just like he can be when he likes. But I knew as it wouldn't last, an' the next night he was off with a lot o' fellers an' girls, same as ever. I didn't make no row when he came 'ome; I wish I may die if I said a word to set his back up! An' I've gone on just the same all the week; we haven't had not the least bit of a row; so you see I kep' my promise. But it's no good; he won't come 'ome; he's always got fellers an' girls to go round with. He took his hoath as he'd come back to-night, an' then it come into my 'ed as I'd put my best things on, just to--you know what I mean, Miss Snowdon. But he won't come before twelve o'clock; I know he won't. An' I get that low sittin' 'ere, you can't think I can't go nowhere, because o' the children. If it wasn't for them I could go to work again, an' I'd be that glad; I feel as if my 'ed would drop off sometimes! I _ham_ so glad you just come in!' Jane had tried so many forms of encouragement, of consolation, on previous occasions that she knew not how to repeat herself. She was ashamed to speak words which sounded so hollow and profitless. This silence was only too significant to Pennyloaf, and in a moment she exclaimed with querulous energy: 'I know what'll be the bend of it! I'll go an' do like mother does--I will! I will! I'll put my ring away, an' I'll go an' sit all night in the public-'ouse! It's what all the others does, an' I'll do the same. I often feel I'm a fool to go on like this. I don't know what I live for, P'r'aps he'll be sorry when I get run in like mother.' 'Don't talk like that, Pennyloaf!' cried Jane, stamping her foot, (It was odd how completely difference of character had reversed their natural relations to each other; Pennyloaf was the child, Jane the mature woman.) 'You know better, and you've no right to give way to such thoughts. I was going to say I'd come and be with you all Saturday afternoon, but I don't know whether I shall now. And I'd been thinking you might like to come and see me on Sunday, but I can't have people that go to the public-house, so we won't say anything more about it. I shall have to be off; good-bye!' She stepped to the door. 'Miss Snowdon!' Jane turned, and after an instant of mock severity, broke into a laugh which seemed to fill the wretched den with sunlight. Words, too, she found; words of soothing influence such as leap from the heart to the tongue in spite of the heavy thoughts that try to check them. Pennyloaf was learning to depend upon these words for strength in her desolation. They did not excite her to much hopefulness, but there was a sustaining power in their sweet sincerity which made all the difference between despair tending to evil and the sigh of renewed effort. 'I don't care,' Pennyloaf had got into the habit of thinking, after her friend's departure, 'I won't give up as long as she looks in now and then.' Out from the swarm of babies Jane hurried homewards. She had a reason for wishing to be back in good time to-night; it was Wednesday, and on Wednesday evening there was wont to come a visitor, who sat for a couple of hours in her grandfather's room and talked, talked--the most interesting talk Jane had ever heard or could imagine. A latch-key admitted her; she ran up to the second floor. A voice from the front-room caught her ear; certainly not _his_ voice--it was too early--but that of some unusual visitor. She was on the point of entering her own chamber, when the other door opened, and somebody exclaimed, 'Ah, here she is!' The speaker was an old gentleman, dressed in black, bald, with small and rather rugged features; his voice was pleasant. A gold chain and a bunch of seals shone against his waistcoat, also a pair of eye-glasses. A professional man, obviously. Jane remembered that she had seen him once before, about a year ago, when he had talked with her for a few minutes, very kindly. 'Will you come in here, Jane?' her grandfather's voice called to her. Snowdon had changed much. Old age was heavy upon his shoulders, and had even produced a slight tremulousness in his hands; his voice told the same story of enfeeblement. Even more noticeable was the ageing of his countenance. Something more, however, than the progress of time seemed to be here at work. He looked strangely careworn; his forehead was set in lines of anxiety; his mouth expressed a nervousness of which formerly there had been no trace. One would have said that some harassing preoccupation must have seized his mind. His eyes were no longer merely sad and absent, but restless with fatiguing thought. As Jane entered the room he fixed his gaze upon her--a gaze that appeared to reveal worrying apprehension. 'You remember Mr. Percival, Jane,' he said. The old gentleman thus presented held out his hand with something of fatherly geniality. 'Miss Snowdon, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again before long, but just now I am carrying off your grandfather for a couple of hours, and indeed we

william

How many times the word 'william' appears in the text?

worn by a man above the mechanic ranks), but it was patched with dirt of many kinds, and held together by a most inadequate supply of buttons. At present he wore no collar, and his waistcoat, half-open, exposed a red shirt. 'Why, you're all a-blowin' and a-growin' this morning, Peckover,' was his first observation, as he dropped heavily into a wooden arm-chair. 'I shall begin to think that colour of yours ain't natural. Dare you let me rub it with a handkerchief?' 'Course I dare,' replied Clem, tossing her head. 'Don't be so forward, Mr. Snowdon.' 'Forward? Not I. I'm behind time if anything. I hope I haven't kept you from church.' He chuckled at his double joke. Mother and daughter laughed appreciatively. 'Will you take your eggs boiled or fried?' inquired Mrs. Peckover. 'Going to give me eggs, are you? Well, I've no objection, I assure you. And I think I'll have them fried, Mrs. Peckover. But, I say, you mustn't be running up too big a bill. The Lord only knows when I shall get anything to do, and it ain't very likely to be a thousand a year when it does come.' 'Oh, that's all right,' replied the landlady, as if sordid calculation were a thing impossible to her. 'I can't say as you behaved quite straightforward years ago, Mr. Snowdon, but I ain't one to make a row about bygones, an' as you say you'll put it all straight as soon as you can, well, I won't refuse to trust you once more.' Mr. Snowdon lay back in the chair, his hands in his waistcoat pockets, his legs outstretched upon the fender. He was smiling placidly, now at the preparing breakfast, now at Clem. The latter he plainly regarded with much admiration, and cared not to conceal it. When, in a few minutes, it was announced to him that the meal was ready, he dragged his chair up to the table and reseated himself with a sigh of satisfaction. A dish of excellent ham, and eggs as nearly fresh as can be obtained in Clerkenwell, invited him with appetising odour; a large cup of what is known to the generality of English people as coffee steamed at his right hand; slices of new bread lay ready cut upon a plate; a slab of the most expensive substitute for butter caught his eye with yellow promise; vinegar and mustard appealed to the refinements of his taste. 'I've got a couple more eggs, if you'd like them doin',' said Mrs. Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the viands. 'I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,' returned Mr. Snowdon. As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly in consequence of the activity of his mind. He was, in fact, musing upon a question which he found it very difficult to answer in any satisfactory way. 'What's the meaning of all this?' he asked himself, and not for the first time. 'What makes them treat me in this fashion? A week ago I came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just because I'd run down to my last penny, and I didn't know where to find a night's lodging. I'd got an idea, too, that I should like to find out what had become of my child, whom I left here nine or ten years ago; possibly she was still alive, and might welcome the duty of supporting her parent. The chance was, to be sure, that the girl had long since been in her grave, and that Mrs. Peckover no longer lived in the old quarters; if I discovered the woman, on the other hand, she was not very likely to give me an affectionate reception, seeing that I found it inconvenient to keep sending her money for Jane's keep in the old days. The queer thing is, that everything turned out exactly the opposite of what I had expected. Mrs. Peckover had rather a sour face at first, but after a little talk she began to seem quite glad to see me. She put me into a room, undertook to board me for a while--till I find work, and I wonder when _that_'ll be?--and blest if this strapping daughter of hers doesn't seem to have fallen in love with me from the first go off! As for my girl, I'm told she was carried off by her grandfather, my old dad, three years ago, and where they went nobody knows. Very puzzling all this. How on earth came it that Mrs. Peckover kept the child so long, and didn't send her to the workhouse? If I'm to believe _her_, she took a motherly kindness for the poor brat. But that won't exactly go down with J. J. Snowdon; he's seen a bit too much in his knocking about the world, Still, what if I'm making a mistake about the old woman? There _are_ some people do things of that sort; upon my soul, I've known people be kind even to me, without a chance of being paid back! You may think you know a man or a woman, and then all at once they'll go and do something you'd have taken your davy couldn't possibly happen. I'd have sworn she was nothing but a skinflint and a lying old witch. And so she maybe; the chances are there's some game going on that I can't see through. Make inquiries? Why, so I have done, as far as I know how. I've only been able to hit on one person who knows anything about the matter, and he tells me it's true enough the girl was taken away about three years ago, but he's no idea where she went to. Surely the old man must be dead b now, though he _was_ tough. Well, the fact of the matter is, I've got a good berth, and I'm a precious sight too lazy to go on the private detective job. Here's this girl Clem, the finest bit of flesh I've seen for a long time; I've more than half a mind to see if she won't be fool enough to marry me. I'm not a bad-looking fellow, that's the truth, and she may have taken a real liking to me. Seems to me that I should have come in for a Comfortable thing in my old age; if I haven't a daughter to provide for my needs, at all events I shall have a wife who can be persuaded into doing so. When the old woman gets out of the way I must have a little quiet talk with Clem.' The opportunity he desired was not long in offering itself. Having made an excellent breakfast, he dragged his chair up to the fender again, and reached a pipe from the mantel-piece, where he had left it last night. Tobacco he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket; it came forth in the form of yellowish dust, intermingled with all sorts of alien scraps. When he had lit his pipe, he poised the chair on its hind-legs, clasped his hands over his bald crown, and continued his musing with an air of amiable calm. Smoke curled up from the corner of his loose lips, and occasionally, removing his pipe for an instant, he spat skilfully between the bars of the grate. Assured of his comfort, Mrs. Peckover said she must go and look after certain domestic duties. Her daughter had begun to clean some vegetables that would be cooked for dinner. 'How old may you be, Clem?' Mr. Snowdon inquired genially, when they had been alone together for a few minutes. 'What's that to you? Guess.' 'Why, let me see; you was not much more than a baby when I went away. You'll be eighteen or nineteen, I suppose.' 'Yes, I'm nineteen--last sixth of February. Pity you come too late to give me a birthday present, ain't it?' 'Ah! And who'd have thought you'd have grown up such a beauty! I say, Clem, how many of the young chaps about here have been wanting to marry you, eh?' 'A dozen or two, I dessay,' Clem replied, shrugging her shoulders scornfully. Mr. Snowdon laughed, and then spat into the fire. 'Tell me about some o' them, will you? Who is it you're keeping company with now?' 'Who, indeed? Why, there isn't one I'd look at! Several of 'em's took to drinking 'cause I won't have nothing to do with 'em.' This excited Mr. Snowdon's mirth in a high degree; he rolled on his chair, and almost pitched backwards. 'I suppose you give one or other a bit of encouragement now and then, just to make a fool of him, eh?' 'Course I do. There was Bob Hewett; he used to lodge here, but that was after your time. I kep' him off an' on till he couldn't bear it no longer; then he went an' married a common slut of a thing, just because he thought it 'ud make me mad. Ha, ha! I believe he'd give her poison an' risk it any day, if only I promised to marry him afterwards. Then there was a feller called Jeck Bartley. I set him an' Bob fightin' one Bank-holiday--you should a' seen 'em go at it! Jack went an' got married a year ago to a girl called Suke Jollop; her mother forced him. How I did laugh! Last Christmas Day they smashed up their 'ome an' threw the bits out into the street. Jack got one of his eyes knocked out--I thought I should a' died o' laughin' when I saw him next mornin'.' The hearer became uproarious in merriment. 'Tell you what it is, Clem,' he cried, 'you're something like a girl! Darn me if I don't like you! I say, I wonder what my daughter's grown up? Like her mother, I suppose. You an' she was sort of sisters, wasn't you?' He observed her closely. Clem laughed and shrugged her shoulders. 'Queer sort o' sisters. She was a bit too quiet-like for me. There never was no fun in her.' 'Aye, like her mother. And where did you say she went to with the old man?' 'Where she went to?' repeated Clem, regarding him steadily with her big eyes, 'I never said nothing about it, 'cause I didn't know.' 'Well, I shan't cry about her, and I don't suppose she misses me much, wherever she is. All the same, Clem, I'm a domesticated sort of man; you can see that, can't you? I shouldn't wonder if I marry again one of these first days. Just tell me where to find a girl of the right sort. I dare say you know heaps.' 'Dessay I do. What sort do you want?' 'Oh, a littlish girl--yellow hair, you know--one of them that look as if they didn't weigh half-a-stone.' 'I'll throw this parsnip at you, Mr. Snowdon!' 'What's up now. You don't Call yourself littlish, do you?' Clem snapped the small end off the vegetable she was paring, and aimed it at his head. He ducked just in time. Then there was an outburst of laughter from both. 'Say, Clem, you haven't got a glass of beer in the house?' 'You'll have to wait till openin' time,' replied the girl sourly, going away to the far end of the room. 'Have I offended you, Clem?' 'Offended, indeed. As if I cared what you say!' 'Do you care what I think?' 'Not I!' 'That means you do. Say, Clem, just come here; I've something to tell you.' 'You're a nuisance. Let me get on with my work, can't you?' 'No, I can't. You just come here. You'd better not give me the trouble of fetching you!' The girl obeyed him. Her cheeks were very hot, and the danger-signal was flashing in her eyes. Ten minutes later she went upstairs, and had a vivacious dialogue of whispers with Mrs. Peckover. CHAPTER XV SUNLIGHT IN DREARY PLACES Among the by-ways of Clerkenwell you might, with some difficulty, have discovered an establishment known in its neighbourhood as 'Whitehead's.' It was an artificial-flower factory, and the rooms of which it consisted were only to be reached by traversing a timber-yard, and then mounting a wooden staircase outside a saw-mill. Here at busy seasons worked some threescore women and girls, who, owing to the nature of their occupation, were spoken of by the jocose youth of the locality as 'Whitehead's pastepots.' Naturally they varied much in age and aspect. There was the child who had newly left school, and was now invited to consider the question of how to keep herself alive; there was the woman of uncertain age, who had spent long years of long days in the atmosphere of workrooms, and showed the result in her parchmenty cheek and lack-lustre eye; and between these extremes came all the various types of the London crafts-girl: she who is young enough to hope that disappointments may yet be made up for by the future; she who is already tasting such scanty good as life had in store for her; she who has outlived her illusions and no longer cares to look beyond the close of the week. If regularly engaged as time-workers, they made themselves easy in the prospect of wages that allowed them to sleep under a roof and eat at certain intervals of the day; if employed on piece-work they might at any moment find themselves wageless, but this, being a familiar state of things, did not trouble them. With few exceptions, they were clad neatly; on the whole, they plied their task in wonderful contentment. The general tone of conversation among them was not high; moralists unfamiliar with the ways of the nether world would probably have applied a term other than negative to the laughing discussions which now and then enlivened this or that group; but it was very seldom indeed that a child newly arriving heard anything with which she was not already perfectly familiar. One afternoon at the end of May there penetrated into the largest of the workrooms that rarest of visitants, a stray sunbeam. Only if the sun happened to shine at given moments could any of its light fall directly into the room I speak of; this afternoon, however, all circumstances were favourable, and behold the floor chequered with uncertain gleam. The workers were arranged in groups of three, called 'parties,' consisting of a learner, an improver, and a hand. All sat with sleeves pushed up to their elbows, and had a habit of rocking to and fro as they plied their mechanical industry. Owing to the movement of a cloud, the sunlight spread gradually towards one of these groups; it touched the skirt, the arms, the head of one of the girls, who, as if gladdened by the kindly warmth, looked round and smiled. A smile you would have been pleased to observe--unconscious, gently thoughtful, rich in possibilities of happiness. She was quite a young girl, certainly not seventeen, and wore a smooth grey dress, with a white linen collar; her brown hair was closely plaited, her head well-shaped, the bend of her neck very graceful. From her bare arms it could be seen that she was anything but robustly made, yet her general appearance was not one of ill-health, and she held herself, even thus late in the day, far more uprightly than most of her companions. Had you watched her for a while, you would have noticed that her eyes occasionally strayed beyond the work-table, and, perhaps unconsciously, fixed themselves for some moments on one or other of the girls near her; when she remembered herself and looked down again upon her task, there rose to her face a smile of the subtlest meaning, the outcome of busy reflection. By her side was a little girl just beginning to learn the work, whose employment it was to paper wires and make 'centres.' This toil always results in blistered fingers, and frequent was the child's appeal to her neighbour for sympathy. 'It'll be easier soon,' said the latter, on one of these occasions, bending her head to speak in a low voice. 'You should have seen what blisters I had when I began.' 'It's all very well to say that. I can't do no more, so there Oh, when'll it be five o'clock?' 'It's a quarter to. Try and go on, Annie.' Five o'clock did come at length, and with it twenty minutes' rest for tea. The rule at Whitehead's was, that you could either bring your own tea, sugar, and eatables, or purchase them here from a forewoman; most of the workers chose to provide themselves. It was customary for each 'party' to club together, emptying their several contributions of tea out of little twists of newspaper into one teapot. Wholesome bustle and confusion succeeded to the former silence. One of the learners, whose turn it was to run on errands, was overwhelmed with commissions to a chandler's shop close by; a wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and they called her, because of her slowness, the 'funeral horse.' She had strange habits, which made laughter for those who knew of them; for instance, it was her custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her poor scraps on a doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a companion that the odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a relish. From her present errand she returned with a strange variety of dainties--for it was early in the week, and the girls still had coppers in their pockets; for two or three she had purchased a farthing's-worth of jam, which she carried in paper. A bite of this and a taste of that rewarded her for her trouble. The quiet-mannered girl whom we were observing took her cup of tea from the pot in which she had a share, and from her bag produced some folded pieces of bread and butter. She had begun her meal, when there came and sat down by her a young woman of very different appearance--our friend, Miss Peckover. They were old acquaintances; but when we first saw them together it would have been difficult to imagine that they would ever sit and converse as at present, apparently in all friendliness. Strange to say, it was Clem who, during the past three years, had been the active one in seeking to obliterate disagreeable memories. The younger girl had never repelled her, but was long in overcoming the dread excited by Clem's proximity. Even now she never looked straight into Miss Peckover's face, as she did when speaking with others; there was reserve in her manner, reserve unmistakable, though clothed with her pleasant smile and amiable voice. 'I've got something to tell you, Jane,' Clem began, in a tone inaudible to those who were sitting near. 'Something as'll surprise you.' 'What is it, I wonder?' 'You must swear you won't tell nobody.' Jane nodded. Then the other brought her head a little nearer, and whispered: 'I'm goin' to be married!' 'Are you really?' 'In a week. Who do you think it is? Somebody as you know of, but if you guessed till next Christmas you'd never come right.' Nor had Clem any intention of revealing the name, but she laughed consumedly, as if her reticence covered the most amusing situation conceivable. 'It'll be the biggest surprise you ever had in your life. You've swore you won't speak about it. I don't think I shall come to work after this week--but you'll have to come an' see us. You'll promise to, won't you?' Still convulsed with mirth, Clem went off to another part of the room. From Jane's countenance the look of amusement which she had perforce summoned soon passed; it was succeeded by a shadow almost of pain, and not till she had been at work again for nearly an hour was the former placidity restored to her. When final release came, Jane was among the first to hasten down the wooden staircase and get clear of the timber yard. By the direct way, it took her twenty minutes to walk from Whitehead's to her home in Hanover Street, but this evening she had an object in turning aside. The visit she wished to pay took her into a disagreeable quarter, a street of squalid houses, swarming with yet more squalid children. On all the doorsteps Bat little girls, themselves only just out of infancy, nursing or neglecting bald, red-eyed, doughy-limbed abortions in every stage of babyhood, hapless spawn of diseased humanity, born to embitter and brutalise yet further the lot of those who unwillingly gave them life. With wide, pitiful eyes Jane looked at each group she passed. Three years ago she would have seen nothing but the ordinary and the inevitable in such spectacles, but since then her moral and intellectual being had grown on rare nourishment; there was indignation as well as heartache in the feeling with which she had learnt to regard the world of her familiarity. To enter the house at which she paused it was necessary to squeeze through a conglomerate of dirty little bodies. At the head of the first flight of stairs she came upon a girl sitting in a weary attitude on the top step and beating the wood listlessly with the last remnant of a hearth-brush; on her lap was one more specimen of the infinitely-multiplied baby, and a child of two years sprawled behind her on the landing. 'Waiting for him to come home, Pennyloaf?' said Jane. 'Oh, is that you, Miss Snowdon!' exclaimed the other, returning to consciousness and manifesting some shame at being discovered in this position. Hastily she drew together the front of her dress, which for the baby's sake had been wide open, and rose to her feet. Pennyloaf was not a bit more womanly in figure than on the day of her marriage; her voice was still an immature treble; the same rueful irresponsibility marked her features; but all her poor prettiness was wasted under the disfigurement of pains and cares, Incongruously enough, she wore a gown of bright-patterned calico, and about her neck had a collar of pretentious lace; her hair was dressed as if for a holiday, and a daub recently made on her cheeks by the baby's fingers lent emphasis to the fact that she had but a little while ago washed herself with much care. 'I can't stop,' said Jane, 'but I thought I'd just look in and speak a word. How have you been getting on?' 'Oh, do come in for just a minute!' pleaded Pennyloaf, moving backwards to an open door, whither Jane followed. They entered a room--much like other rooms that we have looked into from time to time. Following the nomadic custom of their kind, Bob Hewett and his wife had lived in six or seven different lodgings since their honeymoon in Shooter's Gardens. Mrs. Candy first of all made a change necessary, as might have been anticipated, and the restlessness of domestic ill-being subsequently drove them from place to place. 'Come in 'ere, Johnny,' she Called to the child lying on the landing. 'What's the good o' washin' you, I'd like to know? Just see, Miss Snowdon, he's made his face all white with the milk as the boy spilt on the stairs! Take this brush an' play with it, do! I _can't_ keep 'em clean, Miss Snowdon, so it's no use talkin'.' 'Are you going somewhere to-night?' Jane inquired, with a glance at the strange costume. Pennyloaf looked up and down in a shamefaced way. 'I only did it just because I thought he might like to see me. He promised me faithful as he'd come 'ome to-night, and I thought--it's only somethink as got into my 'ed to-day, Miss Snowdon.' 'But hasn't he been coming home since I saw you last?' 'He did just once, an' then it was all the old ways again. I did what you told me; I did, as sure as I'm a-standin' 'ere! I made the room so clean you wouldn't have believed; I scrubbed the floor an' the table, an' I washed the winders--you can see they ain't dirty yet. An' he'd never a' paid a bit o' notice if I hadn't told him, He was jolly enough for one night, just like he can be when he likes. But I knew as it wouldn't last, an' the next night he was off with a lot o' fellers an' girls, same as ever. I didn't make no row when he came 'ome; I wish I may die if I said a word to set his back up! An' I've gone on just the same all the week; we haven't had not the least bit of a row; so you see I kep' my promise. But it's no good; he won't come 'ome; he's always got fellers an' girls to go round with. He took his hoath as he'd come back to-night, an' then it come into my 'ed as I'd put my best things on, just to--you know what I mean, Miss Snowdon. But he won't come before twelve o'clock; I know he won't. An' I get that low sittin' 'ere, you can't think I can't go nowhere, because o' the children. If it wasn't for them I could go to work again, an' I'd be that glad; I feel as if my 'ed would drop off sometimes! I _ham_ so glad you just come in!' Jane had tried so many forms of encouragement, of consolation, on previous occasions that she knew not how to repeat herself. She was ashamed to speak words which sounded so hollow and profitless. This silence was only too significant to Pennyloaf, and in a moment she exclaimed with querulous energy: 'I know what'll be the bend of it! I'll go an' do like mother does--I will! I will! I'll put my ring away, an' I'll go an' sit all night in the public-'ouse! It's what all the others does, an' I'll do the same. I often feel I'm a fool to go on like this. I don't know what I live for, P'r'aps he'll be sorry when I get run in like mother.' 'Don't talk like that, Pennyloaf!' cried Jane, stamping her foot, (It was odd how completely difference of character had reversed their natural relations to each other; Pennyloaf was the child, Jane the mature woman.) 'You know better, and you've no right to give way to such thoughts. I was going to say I'd come and be with you all Saturday afternoon, but I don't know whether I shall now. And I'd been thinking you might like to come and see me on Sunday, but I can't have people that go to the public-house, so we won't say anything more about it. I shall have to be off; good-bye!' She stepped to the door. 'Miss Snowdon!' Jane turned, and after an instant of mock severity, broke into a laugh which seemed to fill the wretched den with sunlight. Words, too, she found; words of soothing influence such as leap from the heart to the tongue in spite of the heavy thoughts that try to check them. Pennyloaf was learning to depend upon these words for strength in her desolation. They did not excite her to much hopefulness, but there was a sustaining power in their sweet sincerity which made all the difference between despair tending to evil and the sigh of renewed effort. 'I don't care,' Pennyloaf had got into the habit of thinking, after her friend's departure, 'I won't give up as long as she looks in now and then.' Out from the swarm of babies Jane hurried homewards. She had a reason for wishing to be back in good time to-night; it was Wednesday, and on Wednesday evening there was wont to come a visitor, who sat for a couple of hours in her grandfather's room and talked, talked--the most interesting talk Jane had ever heard or could imagine. A latch-key admitted her; she ran up to the second floor. A voice from the front-room caught her ear; certainly not _his_ voice--it was too early--but that of some unusual visitor. She was on the point of entering her own chamber, when the other door opened, and somebody exclaimed, 'Ah, here she is!' The speaker was an old gentleman, dressed in black, bald, with small and rather rugged features; his voice was pleasant. A gold chain and a bunch of seals shone against his waistcoat, also a pair of eye-glasses. A professional man, obviously. Jane remembered that she had seen him once before, about a year ago, when he had talked with her for a few minutes, very kindly. 'Will you come in here, Jane?' her grandfather's voice called to her. Snowdon had changed much. Old age was heavy upon his shoulders, and had even produced a slight tremulousness in his hands; his voice told the same story of enfeeblement. Even more noticeable was the ageing of his countenance. Something more, however, than the progress of time seemed to be here at work. He looked strangely careworn; his forehead was set in lines of anxiety; his mouth expressed a nervousness of which formerly there had been no trace. One would have said that some harassing preoccupation must have seized his mind. His eyes were no longer merely sad and absent, but restless with fatiguing thought. As Jane entered the room he fixed his gaze upon her--a gaze that appeared to reveal worrying apprehension. 'You remember Mr. Percival, Jane,' he said. The old gentleman thus presented held out his hand with something of fatherly geniality. 'Miss Snowdon, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again before long, but just now I am carrying off your grandfather for a couple of hours, and indeed we

socialists

How many times the word 'socialists' appears in the text?

worn by a man above the mechanic ranks), but it was patched with dirt of many kinds, and held together by a most inadequate supply of buttons. At present he wore no collar, and his waistcoat, half-open, exposed a red shirt. 'Why, you're all a-blowin' and a-growin' this morning, Peckover,' was his first observation, as he dropped heavily into a wooden arm-chair. 'I shall begin to think that colour of yours ain't natural. Dare you let me rub it with a handkerchief?' 'Course I dare,' replied Clem, tossing her head. 'Don't be so forward, Mr. Snowdon.' 'Forward? Not I. I'm behind time if anything. I hope I haven't kept you from church.' He chuckled at his double joke. Mother and daughter laughed appreciatively. 'Will you take your eggs boiled or fried?' inquired Mrs. Peckover. 'Going to give me eggs, are you? Well, I've no objection, I assure you. And I think I'll have them fried, Mrs. Peckover. But, I say, you mustn't be running up too big a bill. The Lord only knows when I shall get anything to do, and it ain't very likely to be a thousand a year when it does come.' 'Oh, that's all right,' replied the landlady, as if sordid calculation were a thing impossible to her. 'I can't say as you behaved quite straightforward years ago, Mr. Snowdon, but I ain't one to make a row about bygones, an' as you say you'll put it all straight as soon as you can, well, I won't refuse to trust you once more.' Mr. Snowdon lay back in the chair, his hands in his waistcoat pockets, his legs outstretched upon the fender. He was smiling placidly, now at the preparing breakfast, now at Clem. The latter he plainly regarded with much admiration, and cared not to conceal it. When, in a few minutes, it was announced to him that the meal was ready, he dragged his chair up to the table and reseated himself with a sigh of satisfaction. A dish of excellent ham, and eggs as nearly fresh as can be obtained in Clerkenwell, invited him with appetising odour; a large cup of what is known to the generality of English people as coffee steamed at his right hand; slices of new bread lay ready cut upon a plate; a slab of the most expensive substitute for butter caught his eye with yellow promise; vinegar and mustard appealed to the refinements of his taste. 'I've got a couple more eggs, if you'd like them doin',' said Mrs. Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the viands. 'I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,' returned Mr. Snowdon. As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly in consequence of the activity of his mind. He was, in fact, musing upon a question which he found it very difficult to answer in any satisfactory way. 'What's the meaning of all this?' he asked himself, and not for the first time. 'What makes them treat me in this fashion? A week ago I came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just because I'd run down to my last penny, and I didn't know where to find a night's lodging. I'd got an idea, too, that I should like to find out what had become of my child, whom I left here nine or ten years ago; possibly she was still alive, and might welcome the duty of supporting her parent. The chance was, to be sure, that the girl had long since been in her grave, and that Mrs. Peckover no longer lived in the old quarters; if I discovered the woman, on the other hand, she was not very likely to give me an affectionate reception, seeing that I found it inconvenient to keep sending her money for Jane's keep in the old days. The queer thing is, that everything turned out exactly the opposite of what I had expected. Mrs. Peckover had rather a sour face at first, but after a little talk she began to seem quite glad to see me. She put me into a room, undertook to board me for a while--till I find work, and I wonder when _that_'ll be?--and blest if this strapping daughter of hers doesn't seem to have fallen in love with me from the first go off! As for my girl, I'm told she was carried off by her grandfather, my old dad, three years ago, and where they went nobody knows. Very puzzling all this. How on earth came it that Mrs. Peckover kept the child so long, and didn't send her to the workhouse? If I'm to believe _her_, she took a motherly kindness for the poor brat. But that won't exactly go down with J. J. Snowdon; he's seen a bit too much in his knocking about the world, Still, what if I'm making a mistake about the old woman? There _are_ some people do things of that sort; upon my soul, I've known people be kind even to me, without a chance of being paid back! You may think you know a man or a woman, and then all at once they'll go and do something you'd have taken your davy couldn't possibly happen. I'd have sworn she was nothing but a skinflint and a lying old witch. And so she maybe; the chances are there's some game going on that I can't see through. Make inquiries? Why, so I have done, as far as I know how. I've only been able to hit on one person who knows anything about the matter, and he tells me it's true enough the girl was taken away about three years ago, but he's no idea where she went to. Surely the old man must be dead b now, though he _was_ tough. Well, the fact of the matter is, I've got a good berth, and I'm a precious sight too lazy to go on the private detective job. Here's this girl Clem, the finest bit of flesh I've seen for a long time; I've more than half a mind to see if she won't be fool enough to marry me. I'm not a bad-looking fellow, that's the truth, and she may have taken a real liking to me. Seems to me that I should have come in for a Comfortable thing in my old age; if I haven't a daughter to provide for my needs, at all events I shall have a wife who can be persuaded into doing so. When the old woman gets out of the way I must have a little quiet talk with Clem.' The opportunity he desired was not long in offering itself. Having made an excellent breakfast, he dragged his chair up to the fender again, and reached a pipe from the mantel-piece, where he had left it last night. Tobacco he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket; it came forth in the form of yellowish dust, intermingled with all sorts of alien scraps. When he had lit his pipe, he poised the chair on its hind-legs, clasped his hands over his bald crown, and continued his musing with an air of amiable calm. Smoke curled up from the corner of his loose lips, and occasionally, removing his pipe for an instant, he spat skilfully between the bars of the grate. Assured of his comfort, Mrs. Peckover said she must go and look after certain domestic duties. Her daughter had begun to clean some vegetables that would be cooked for dinner. 'How old may you be, Clem?' Mr. Snowdon inquired genially, when they had been alone together for a few minutes. 'What's that to you? Guess.' 'Why, let me see; you was not much more than a baby when I went away. You'll be eighteen or nineteen, I suppose.' 'Yes, I'm nineteen--last sixth of February. Pity you come too late to give me a birthday present, ain't it?' 'Ah! And who'd have thought you'd have grown up such a beauty! I say, Clem, how many of the young chaps about here have been wanting to marry you, eh?' 'A dozen or two, I dessay,' Clem replied, shrugging her shoulders scornfully. Mr. Snowdon laughed, and then spat into the fire. 'Tell me about some o' them, will you? Who is it you're keeping company with now?' 'Who, indeed? Why, there isn't one I'd look at! Several of 'em's took to drinking 'cause I won't have nothing to do with 'em.' This excited Mr. Snowdon's mirth in a high degree; he rolled on his chair, and almost pitched backwards. 'I suppose you give one or other a bit of encouragement now and then, just to make a fool of him, eh?' 'Course I do. There was Bob Hewett; he used to lodge here, but that was after your time. I kep' him off an' on till he couldn't bear it no longer; then he went an' married a common slut of a thing, just because he thought it 'ud make me mad. Ha, ha! I believe he'd give her poison an' risk it any day, if only I promised to marry him afterwards. Then there was a feller called Jeck Bartley. I set him an' Bob fightin' one Bank-holiday--you should a' seen 'em go at it! Jack went an' got married a year ago to a girl called Suke Jollop; her mother forced him. How I did laugh! Last Christmas Day they smashed up their 'ome an' threw the bits out into the street. Jack got one of his eyes knocked out--I thought I should a' died o' laughin' when I saw him next mornin'.' The hearer became uproarious in merriment. 'Tell you what it is, Clem,' he cried, 'you're something like a girl! Darn me if I don't like you! I say, I wonder what my daughter's grown up? Like her mother, I suppose. You an' she was sort of sisters, wasn't you?' He observed her closely. Clem laughed and shrugged her shoulders. 'Queer sort o' sisters. She was a bit too quiet-like for me. There never was no fun in her.' 'Aye, like her mother. And where did you say she went to with the old man?' 'Where she went to?' repeated Clem, regarding him steadily with her big eyes, 'I never said nothing about it, 'cause I didn't know.' 'Well, I shan't cry about her, and I don't suppose she misses me much, wherever she is. All the same, Clem, I'm a domesticated sort of man; you can see that, can't you? I shouldn't wonder if I marry again one of these first days. Just tell me where to find a girl of the right sort. I dare say you know heaps.' 'Dessay I do. What sort do you want?' 'Oh, a littlish girl--yellow hair, you know--one of them that look as if they didn't weigh half-a-stone.' 'I'll throw this parsnip at you, Mr. Snowdon!' 'What's up now. You don't Call yourself littlish, do you?' Clem snapped the small end off the vegetable she was paring, and aimed it at his head. He ducked just in time. Then there was an outburst of laughter from both. 'Say, Clem, you haven't got a glass of beer in the house?' 'You'll have to wait till openin' time,' replied the girl sourly, going away to the far end of the room. 'Have I offended you, Clem?' 'Offended, indeed. As if I cared what you say!' 'Do you care what I think?' 'Not I!' 'That means you do. Say, Clem, just come here; I've something to tell you.' 'You're a nuisance. Let me get on with my work, can't you?' 'No, I can't. You just come here. You'd better not give me the trouble of fetching you!' The girl obeyed him. Her cheeks were very hot, and the danger-signal was flashing in her eyes. Ten minutes later she went upstairs, and had a vivacious dialogue of whispers with Mrs. Peckover. CHAPTER XV SUNLIGHT IN DREARY PLACES Among the by-ways of Clerkenwell you might, with some difficulty, have discovered an establishment known in its neighbourhood as 'Whitehead's.' It was an artificial-flower factory, and the rooms of which it consisted were only to be reached by traversing a timber-yard, and then mounting a wooden staircase outside a saw-mill. Here at busy seasons worked some threescore women and girls, who, owing to the nature of their occupation, were spoken of by the jocose youth of the locality as 'Whitehead's pastepots.' Naturally they varied much in age and aspect. There was the child who had newly left school, and was now invited to consider the question of how to keep herself alive; there was the woman of uncertain age, who had spent long years of long days in the atmosphere of workrooms, and showed the result in her parchmenty cheek and lack-lustre eye; and between these extremes came all the various types of the London crafts-girl: she who is young enough to hope that disappointments may yet be made up for by the future; she who is already tasting such scanty good as life had in store for her; she who has outlived her illusions and no longer cares to look beyond the close of the week. If regularly engaged as time-workers, they made themselves easy in the prospect of wages that allowed them to sleep under a roof and eat at certain intervals of the day; if employed on piece-work they might at any moment find themselves wageless, but this, being a familiar state of things, did not trouble them. With few exceptions, they were clad neatly; on the whole, they plied their task in wonderful contentment. The general tone of conversation among them was not high; moralists unfamiliar with the ways of the nether world would probably have applied a term other than negative to the laughing discussions which now and then enlivened this or that group; but it was very seldom indeed that a child newly arriving heard anything with which she was not already perfectly familiar. One afternoon at the end of May there penetrated into the largest of the workrooms that rarest of visitants, a stray sunbeam. Only if the sun happened to shine at given moments could any of its light fall directly into the room I speak of; this afternoon, however, all circumstances were favourable, and behold the floor chequered with uncertain gleam. The workers were arranged in groups of three, called 'parties,' consisting of a learner, an improver, and a hand. All sat with sleeves pushed up to their elbows, and had a habit of rocking to and fro as they plied their mechanical industry. Owing to the movement of a cloud, the sunlight spread gradually towards one of these groups; it touched the skirt, the arms, the head of one of the girls, who, as if gladdened by the kindly warmth, looked round and smiled. A smile you would have been pleased to observe--unconscious, gently thoughtful, rich in possibilities of happiness. She was quite a young girl, certainly not seventeen, and wore a smooth grey dress, with a white linen collar; her brown hair was closely plaited, her head well-shaped, the bend of her neck very graceful. From her bare arms it could be seen that she was anything but robustly made, yet her general appearance was not one of ill-health, and she held herself, even thus late in the day, far more uprightly than most of her companions. Had you watched her for a while, you would have noticed that her eyes occasionally strayed beyond the work-table, and, perhaps unconsciously, fixed themselves for some moments on one or other of the girls near her; when she remembered herself and looked down again upon her task, there rose to her face a smile of the subtlest meaning, the outcome of busy reflection. By her side was a little girl just beginning to learn the work, whose employment it was to paper wires and make 'centres.' This toil always results in blistered fingers, and frequent was the child's appeal to her neighbour for sympathy. 'It'll be easier soon,' said the latter, on one of these occasions, bending her head to speak in a low voice. 'You should have seen what blisters I had when I began.' 'It's all very well to say that. I can't do no more, so there Oh, when'll it be five o'clock?' 'It's a quarter to. Try and go on, Annie.' Five o'clock did come at length, and with it twenty minutes' rest for tea. The rule at Whitehead's was, that you could either bring your own tea, sugar, and eatables, or purchase them here from a forewoman; most of the workers chose to provide themselves. It was customary for each 'party' to club together, emptying their several contributions of tea out of little twists of newspaper into one teapot. Wholesome bustle and confusion succeeded to the former silence. One of the learners, whose turn it was to run on errands, was overwhelmed with commissions to a chandler's shop close by; a wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and they called her, because of her slowness, the 'funeral horse.' She had strange habits, which made laughter for those who knew of them; for instance, it was her custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her poor scraps on a doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a companion that the odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a relish. From her present errand she returned with a strange variety of dainties--for it was early in the week, and the girls still had coppers in their pockets; for two or three she had purchased a farthing's-worth of jam, which she carried in paper. A bite of this and a taste of that rewarded her for her trouble. The quiet-mannered girl whom we were observing took her cup of tea from the pot in which she had a share, and from her bag produced some folded pieces of bread and butter. She had begun her meal, when there came and sat down by her a young woman of very different appearance--our friend, Miss Peckover. They were old acquaintances; but when we first saw them together it would have been difficult to imagine that they would ever sit and converse as at present, apparently in all friendliness. Strange to say, it was Clem who, during the past three years, had been the active one in seeking to obliterate disagreeable memories. The younger girl had never repelled her, but was long in overcoming the dread excited by Clem's proximity. Even now she never looked straight into Miss Peckover's face, as she did when speaking with others; there was reserve in her manner, reserve unmistakable, though clothed with her pleasant smile and amiable voice. 'I've got something to tell you, Jane,' Clem began, in a tone inaudible to those who were sitting near. 'Something as'll surprise you.' 'What is it, I wonder?' 'You must swear you won't tell nobody.' Jane nodded. Then the other brought her head a little nearer, and whispered: 'I'm goin' to be married!' 'Are you really?' 'In a week. Who do you think it is? Somebody as you know of, but if you guessed till next Christmas you'd never come right.' Nor had Clem any intention of revealing the name, but she laughed consumedly, as if her reticence covered the most amusing situation conceivable. 'It'll be the biggest surprise you ever had in your life. You've swore you won't speak about it. I don't think I shall come to work after this week--but you'll have to come an' see us. You'll promise to, won't you?' Still convulsed with mirth, Clem went off to another part of the room. From Jane's countenance the look of amusement which she had perforce summoned soon passed; it was succeeded by a shadow almost of pain, and not till she had been at work again for nearly an hour was the former placidity restored to her. When final release came, Jane was among the first to hasten down the wooden staircase and get clear of the timber yard. By the direct way, it took her twenty minutes to walk from Whitehead's to her home in Hanover Street, but this evening she had an object in turning aside. The visit she wished to pay took her into a disagreeable quarter, a street of squalid houses, swarming with yet more squalid children. On all the doorsteps Bat little girls, themselves only just out of infancy, nursing or neglecting bald, red-eyed, doughy-limbed abortions in every stage of babyhood, hapless spawn of diseased humanity, born to embitter and brutalise yet further the lot of those who unwillingly gave them life. With wide, pitiful eyes Jane looked at each group she passed. Three years ago she would have seen nothing but the ordinary and the inevitable in such spectacles, but since then her moral and intellectual being had grown on rare nourishment; there was indignation as well as heartache in the feeling with which she had learnt to regard the world of her familiarity. To enter the house at which she paused it was necessary to squeeze through a conglomerate of dirty little bodies. At the head of the first flight of stairs she came upon a girl sitting in a weary attitude on the top step and beating the wood listlessly with the last remnant of a hearth-brush; on her lap was one more specimen of the infinitely-multiplied baby, and a child of two years sprawled behind her on the landing. 'Waiting for him to come home, Pennyloaf?' said Jane. 'Oh, is that you, Miss Snowdon!' exclaimed the other, returning to consciousness and manifesting some shame at being discovered in this position. Hastily she drew together the front of her dress, which for the baby's sake had been wide open, and rose to her feet. Pennyloaf was not a bit more womanly in figure than on the day of her marriage; her voice was still an immature treble; the same rueful irresponsibility marked her features; but all her poor prettiness was wasted under the disfigurement of pains and cares, Incongruously enough, she wore a gown of bright-patterned calico, and about her neck had a collar of pretentious lace; her hair was dressed as if for a holiday, and a daub recently made on her cheeks by the baby's fingers lent emphasis to the fact that she had but a little while ago washed herself with much care. 'I can't stop,' said Jane, 'but I thought I'd just look in and speak a word. How have you been getting on?' 'Oh, do come in for just a minute!' pleaded Pennyloaf, moving backwards to an open door, whither Jane followed. They entered a room--much like other rooms that we have looked into from time to time. Following the nomadic custom of their kind, Bob Hewett and his wife had lived in six or seven different lodgings since their honeymoon in Shooter's Gardens. Mrs. Candy first of all made a change necessary, as might have been anticipated, and the restlessness of domestic ill-being subsequently drove them from place to place. 'Come in 'ere, Johnny,' she Called to the child lying on the landing. 'What's the good o' washin' you, I'd like to know? Just see, Miss Snowdon, he's made his face all white with the milk as the boy spilt on the stairs! Take this brush an' play with it, do! I _can't_ keep 'em clean, Miss Snowdon, so it's no use talkin'.' 'Are you going somewhere to-night?' Jane inquired, with a glance at the strange costume. Pennyloaf looked up and down in a shamefaced way. 'I only did it just because I thought he might like to see me. He promised me faithful as he'd come 'ome to-night, and I thought--it's only somethink as got into my 'ed to-day, Miss Snowdon.' 'But hasn't he been coming home since I saw you last?' 'He did just once, an' then it was all the old ways again. I did what you told me; I did, as sure as I'm a-standin' 'ere! I made the room so clean you wouldn't have believed; I scrubbed the floor an' the table, an' I washed the winders--you can see they ain't dirty yet. An' he'd never a' paid a bit o' notice if I hadn't told him, He was jolly enough for one night, just like he can be when he likes. But I knew as it wouldn't last, an' the next night he was off with a lot o' fellers an' girls, same as ever. I didn't make no row when he came 'ome; I wish I may die if I said a word to set his back up! An' I've gone on just the same all the week; we haven't had not the least bit of a row; so you see I kep' my promise. But it's no good; he won't come 'ome; he's always got fellers an' girls to go round with. He took his hoath as he'd come back to-night, an' then it come into my 'ed as I'd put my best things on, just to--you know what I mean, Miss Snowdon. But he won't come before twelve o'clock; I know he won't. An' I get that low sittin' 'ere, you can't think I can't go nowhere, because o' the children. If it wasn't for them I could go to work again, an' I'd be that glad; I feel as if my 'ed would drop off sometimes! I _ham_ so glad you just come in!' Jane had tried so many forms of encouragement, of consolation, on previous occasions that she knew not how to repeat herself. She was ashamed to speak words which sounded so hollow and profitless. This silence was only too significant to Pennyloaf, and in a moment she exclaimed with querulous energy: 'I know what'll be the bend of it! I'll go an' do like mother does--I will! I will! I'll put my ring away, an' I'll go an' sit all night in the public-'ouse! It's what all the others does, an' I'll do the same. I often feel I'm a fool to go on like this. I don't know what I live for, P'r'aps he'll be sorry when I get run in like mother.' 'Don't talk like that, Pennyloaf!' cried Jane, stamping her foot, (It was odd how completely difference of character had reversed their natural relations to each other; Pennyloaf was the child, Jane the mature woman.) 'You know better, and you've no right to give way to such thoughts. I was going to say I'd come and be with you all Saturday afternoon, but I don't know whether I shall now. And I'd been thinking you might like to come and see me on Sunday, but I can't have people that go to the public-house, so we won't say anything more about it. I shall have to be off; good-bye!' She stepped to the door. 'Miss Snowdon!' Jane turned, and after an instant of mock severity, broke into a laugh which seemed to fill the wretched den with sunlight. Words, too, she found; words of soothing influence such as leap from the heart to the tongue in spite of the heavy thoughts that try to check them. Pennyloaf was learning to depend upon these words for strength in her desolation. They did not excite her to much hopefulness, but there was a sustaining power in their sweet sincerity which made all the difference between despair tending to evil and the sigh of renewed effort. 'I don't care,' Pennyloaf had got into the habit of thinking, after her friend's departure, 'I won't give up as long as she looks in now and then.' Out from the swarm of babies Jane hurried homewards. She had a reason for wishing to be back in good time to-night; it was Wednesday, and on Wednesday evening there was wont to come a visitor, who sat for a couple of hours in her grandfather's room and talked, talked--the most interesting talk Jane had ever heard or could imagine. A latch-key admitted her; she ran up to the second floor. A voice from the front-room caught her ear; certainly not _his_ voice--it was too early--but that of some unusual visitor. She was on the point of entering her own chamber, when the other door opened, and somebody exclaimed, 'Ah, here she is!' The speaker was an old gentleman, dressed in black, bald, with small and rather rugged features; his voice was pleasant. A gold chain and a bunch of seals shone against his waistcoat, also a pair of eye-glasses. A professional man, obviously. Jane remembered that she had seen him once before, about a year ago, when he had talked with her for a few minutes, very kindly. 'Will you come in here, Jane?' her grandfather's voice called to her. Snowdon had changed much. Old age was heavy upon his shoulders, and had even produced a slight tremulousness in his hands; his voice told the same story of enfeeblement. Even more noticeable was the ageing of his countenance. Something more, however, than the progress of time seemed to be here at work. He looked strangely careworn; his forehead was set in lines of anxiety; his mouth expressed a nervousness of which formerly there had been no trace. One would have said that some harassing preoccupation must have seized his mind. His eyes were no longer merely sad and absent, but restless with fatiguing thought. As Jane entered the room he fixed his gaze upon her--a gaze that appeared to reveal worrying apprehension. 'You remember Mr. Percival, Jane,' he said. The old gentleman thus presented held out his hand with something of fatherly geniality. 'Miss Snowdon, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again before long, but just now I am carrying off your grandfather for a couple of hours, and indeed we

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would discover my identity and leave me, yet at the same time, wishing that he would recognize me and pardon me. . . . It is only one week that I have been with him. I disguise my voice when I can, and avoid words that may reveal the truth . . . but this cannot keep up much longer. It is only in novels that such painful situations turn out happily." Doubt suddenly overwhelmed her. "I believe," she continued, "that he has recognized me from the first. . . . He is silent and feigns ignorance because he despises me . . . because he can never bring himself to pardon me. I have been so bad! . . . I have wronged him so!". . . She was recalling the long and reflective silences of the wounded man after she had dropped some imprudent words. After two days of submission to her care, he had been somewhat rebellious, avoiding going out with her for a walk. Because of his blind helplessness, and comprehending the uselessness of his resistance, he had finally yielded in passive silence. "Let him think what he will!" concluded Marguerite courageously. "Let him despise me! I am here where I ought to be. I need his forgiveness, but if he does not pardon me, I shall stay with him just the same. . . . There are moments when I wish that he may never recover his sight, so that he may always need me, so that I may pass my life at his side, sacrificing everything for him." "And I?" said Desnoyers. Marguerite looked at him with clouded eyes as though she were just awaking. It was true--and the other one? . . . Kindled by the proposed sacrifice which was to be her expiation, she had forgotten the man before her. "You!" she said after a long pause. "You must leave me. . . . Life is not what we have thought it. Had it not been for the war, we might, perhaps, have realized our dream, but now! . . . Listen carefully and try to understand. For the remainder of my life, I shall carry the heaviest burden, and yet at the same time it will be sweet, since the more it weighs me down the greater will my atonement be. Never will I leave this man whom I have so grievously wronged, now that he is more alone in the world and will need protection like a child. Why do you come to share my fate? How could it be possible for you to live with a nurse constantly at the side of a blind and worthy man whom we would constantly offend with our passion? . . . No, it is better for us to part. Go your way, alone and untrammelled. Leave me; you will meet other women who will make you more happy than I. Yours is the temperament that finds new pleasures at every step." She stood firmly to her decision. Her voice was calm, but back of it trembled the emotion of a last farewell to a joy which was going from her forever. The man would be loved by others . . . and she was giving him up! . . . But the noble sadness of the sacrifice restored her courage. Only by this renunciation could she expiate her sins. Julio dropped his eyes, vanquished and perplexed. The picture of the future outlined by Marguerite terrified him. To live with her as a nurse taking advantage of her patient's blindness would be to offer him fresh insult every day. . . . Ah, no! That would be villainy, indeed! He was now ashamed to recall the malignity with which, a little while before, he had regarded this innocent unfortunate. He realized that he was powerless to contend with him. Weak and helpless as he was sitting there on the garden bench, he was stronger and more deserving of respect than Julio Desnoyers with all his youth and elegance. The victim had amounted to something in his life; he had done what Julio had not dared to do. This sudden conviction of his inferiority made him cry out like an abandoned child, "What will become of me?" . . . Marguerite, too--contemplating the love which was going from her forever, her vanished hopes, the future illumined by the satisfaction of duty fulfilled but monotonous and painful--cried out: "And I. . . . What will become of me?" . . . As though he had suddenly found a solution which was reviving his courage, Desnoyers said: "Listen, Marguerite: I can read your soul. You love this man, and you do well. He is superior to me, and women are always attracted by superiority. . . . I am a coward. Yes, do not protest, I am a coward with all my youth, with all my strength. Why should you not have been impressed by the conduct of this man! . . . But I will atone for past wrongs. This country is yours, Marguerite; I will fight for it. Do not say no. . . ." And moved by his hasty heroism, he outlined the plan more definitely. He was going to be a soldier. Soon she would hear him well spoken of. His idea was either to be stretched on the battlefield in his first encounter, or to astound the world by his bravery. In this way the impossible situation would settle itself--either the oblivion of death or glory. "No, no!" interrupted Marguerite in an anguished tone. "You, no! One is enough. . . . How horrible! You, too, wounded, mutilated forever, perhaps dead! . . . No, you must live. I want you to live, even though you might belong to another. . . . Let me know that you exist, let me see you sometimes, even though you may have forgotten me, even though you may pass me with indifference, as if you did not know me." In this outburst her deep love for him rang true--her heroic and inflexible love which would accept all penalties for herself, if only the beloved one might continue to live. But then, in order that Julio might not feel any false hopes, she added:--"Live; you must not die; that would be for me another torment. . . . But live without me. No matter how much we may talk about it, my destiny beside the other one is marked out forever." "Ah, how you love him! . . . How you have deceived me!" In a last desperate attempt at explanation she again repeated what she had said at the beginning of their interview. She loved Julio . . . and she loved her husband. They were different kinds of love. She could not say which was the stronger, but misfortune was forcing her to choose between the two, and she was accepting the most difficult, the one demanding the greatest sacrifices. "You are a man, and you will never be able to understand me. . . . A woman would comprehend me." It seemed to Julio, as he looked around him, as though the afternoon were undergoing some celestial phenomenon. The garden was still illuminated by the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the ground, the blue of the sky, all appeared to him as dark and shadowy as though a rain of ashes were falling. "Then . . . all is over between us?" His pleading, trembling voice charged with tears made her turn her head to hide her emotion. Then in the painful silence the two despairs formed one and the same question, as if interrogating the shades of the future: "What will become of me?" murmured the man. And like an echo her lips repeated, "What will become of me?" All had been said. Hopeless words came between the two like an obstacle momentarily increasing in size, impelling them in opposite directions. Why prolong the painful interview? . . . Marguerite showed the ready and energetic decision of a woman who wishes to bring a scene to a close. "Good-bye!" Her face had assumed a yellowish cast, her pupils had become dull and clouded like the glass of a lantern when the light dies out. "Good-bye!" She must go to her patient. She went away without looking at him, and Desnoyers instinctively went in the opposite direction. As he became more self-controlled and turned to look at her again, he saw her moving on and giving her arm to the blind man, without once turning her head. He now felt convinced that he should never see her again, and became oppressed by an almost suffocating agony. And could two beings, who had formerly considered the universe concentrated in their persons, thus easily be separated forever? . . . His desperation at finding himself alone made him accuse himself of stupidity. Now his thoughts came tumbling over each other in a tumultuous throng, and each one of them seemed to him sufficient to have convinced Marguerite. He certainly had not known how to express himself. He would have to talk with her again . . . and he decided to remain in Lourdes. He passed a night of torture in the hotel, listening to the ripple of the river among its stones. Insomnia had him in his fierce jaws, gnawing him with interminable agony. He turned on the light several times, but was not able to read. His eyes looked with stupid fixity at the patterns of the wall paper and the pious pictures around the room which had evidently served as the lodging place of some rich traveller. He remained motionless and as abstracted as an Oriental who thinks himself into an absolute lack of thought. One idea only was dancing in the vacuum in his skull--"I shall never see her again. . . . Can such a thing be possible?" He drowsed for a few seconds, only to be awakened with the sensation that some horrible explosion was sending him through the air. And so, with sweats of anguish, he wakefully passed the hours until in the gloom of his room the dawn showed a milky rectangle of light, and began to be reflected on the window curtains. The velvet-like caress of day finally closed his eyes. Upon awaking he found that the morning was well advanced, and he hurried to the garden of the grotto. . . . Oh, the hours of tremulous and unavailing waiting, believing that he recognized Marguerite in every white-clad lady that came along, guiding a wounded patient! By afternoon, after a lunch whose dishes filed past him untouched, he returned to the garden in search of her. Beholding her in the distance with the blind man leaning on her arm, a feeling of faintness came over him. She looked to him taller, thinner, her face sharper, with two dark hollows in her cheeks and her eyes bright with fever, the lids drawn with weariness. He suspected that she, too, had passed an anguished night of tenacious, self-centred thought, of grievous stupefaction like his own, in the room of her hotel. Suddenly he felt all the weight of insomnia and listlessness, all the depressing emotion of the cruel sensations experienced in the last few hours. Oh, how miserable they both were! . . . She was walking warily, looking from one side to the other, as though foreseeing danger. Upon discovering him she clung to her charge, casting upon her former lover a look of entreaty, of desperation, imploring pity. . . Ay, that look! He felt ashamed of himself; his personality appeared to be unrolling itself before him, and he surveyed himself with the eyes of a judge. What was this seduced and useless man, called Julio Desnoyers, doing there, tormenting with his presence a poor woman, trying to turn her from her righteous repentance, insisting on his selfish and petty desires when all humanity was thinking of other things? . . . His cowardice angered him. Like a thief taking advantage of the sleep of his victim, he was stalking around this brave and true man who could not see him, who could not defend himself, in order to rob him of the only affection that he had in the world which had so miraculously returned to him! Very well, Gentleman Desnoyers! . . . Ah, what a scoundrel he was! Such subconscious insults made him draw himself erect, in haughty, cruel and inexorable defiance against that other I who so richly deserved the judge's scorn. He turned his head away; he could not meet Marguerite's piteous eyes; he feared their mute reproach. Neither did he dare to look at the blind man in his shabby and heroic uniform, with his countenance aged by duty and glory. He feared him like remorse. So the vanquished lover turned his back on the two and went away with a firm step. Good-bye, Love! Goodbye, Happiness! . . . He marched quickly and bravely on; a miracle had just taken place within him! he had found the right road at last! To Paris! . . . A new impetus was going to fill the vacuum of his objectless existence. CHAPTER V THE INVASION Don Marcelo was fleeing to take refuge in his castle when he met the mayor of Villeblanche. The noise of the firing had made him hurry to the barricade. When he learned of the apparition of the group of stragglers he threw up his hands in despair. They were crazy. Their resistance was going to be fatal for the village, and he ran on to beg them to cease. For some time nothing happened to disturb the morning calm. Desnoyers had climbed to the top of his towers and was surveying the country with his field glasses. He couldn't make out the highway through the nearest group of trees, but he suspected that underneath their branches great activity was going on--masses of men on guard, troops preparing for the attack. The unexpected defense of the fugitives had upset the advance of the invasion. Desnoyers thought despairingly of that handful of mad fellows and their stubborn chief. What was their fate going to be? . . . Focussing his glasses on the village, he saw the red spots of kepis waving like poppies over the green of the meadows. They were the retreating men, now convinced of the uselessness of their resistance. Perhaps they had found a ford or forgotten boat by which they might cross the Maine, and so were continuing their retreat toward the river. At any minute now the Germans were going to enter Villeblanche. Half an hour of profound silence passed by. The village lay silhouetted against a background of hills--a mass of roofs beneath the church tower finished with its cross and iron weather cock. Everything seemed as tranquil as in the best days of peace. Suddenly he noticed that the grove was vomiting forth something noisy and penetrating--a bubble of vapor accompanied by a deafening report. Something was hurtling through the air with a strident curve. Then a roof in the village opened like a crater, vomiting forth flying wood, fragments of plaster and broken furniture. All the interior of the house seemed to be escaping in a stream of smoke, dirt and splinters. The invaders were bombarding Villeblanche before attempting attack, as though fearing to encounter persistent resistance in its streets. More projectiles fell. Some passed over the houses, exploding between the hamlet and the castle. The towers of the Desnoyers property were beginning to attract the aim of the artillerymen. The owner was therefore about to abandon his dangerous observatory when he saw something white like a tablecloth or sheet floating from the church tower. His neighbors had hoisted this signal of peace in order to avoid bombardment. A few more missiles fell and then there was silence. When Don Marcelo reached his park he found the Warden burying at the foot of a tree the sporting rifles still remaining in his castle. Then he went toward the great iron gates. The enemies were going to come, and he had to receive them. While uneasily awaiting their arrival his compunctions again tormented him. What was he doing there? Why had he remained? . . . But his obstinate temperament immediately put aside the promptings of fear. He was there because he had to guard his own. Besides, it was too late now to think about such things. Suddenly the morning stillness was broken by a sound like the deafening tearing of strong cloth. "Shots, Master," said the Warden. "Firing! It must be in the square." A few minutes after they saw running toward them a woman from the village, an old soul, dried up and darkened by age, who was panting from her great exertion, and looking wildly around her. She was fleeing blindly, trying to escape from danger and shut out horrible visions. Desnoyers and the Keeper's family listened to her explanations interrupted with hiccoughs of terror. The Germans were in Villeblanche. They had entered first in an automobile driven at full speed from one end of the village to the other. Its mitrailleuse was firing at random against closed houses and open doors, knocking down all the people in sight. The old woman flung up her arms with a gesture of terror. . . . Dead . . . many dead . . . wounded . . . blood! Then other iron-plated vehicles had stopped in the square, and behind them cavalrymen, battalions of infantry, many battalions coming from everywhere. The helmeted men seemed furious; they accused the villagers of having fired at them. In the square they had struck the mayor and villagers who had come forward to meet them. The priest, bending over some of the dying, had also been trodden under foot. . . . All prisoners! The Germans were talking of shooting them. The old dame's words were cut short by the rumble of approaching automobiles. "Open the gates," commanded the owner to the Warden. The massive iron grill work swung open, and was never again closed. All property rights were at an end. An enormous automobile, covered with dust and filled with men, stopped at the entrance. Behind them sounded the horns of other vehicles that were putting on the brakes. Desnoyers saw soldiers leaping out, all wearing the greenish-gray uniform with a sheath of the same tone covering the pointed casque. The one who marched at their head put his revolver to the millionaire's forehead. "Where are the sharpshooters?" he asked. He was pale with the pallor of wrath, vengeance and fear. His face was trembling under the influence of his triple emotion. Don Marcelo explained slowly, contemplating at a short distance from his eyes the black circle of the threatening tube. He had not seen any sharpshooters. The only inhabitants of the castle were the Warden with his family and himself, the owner of the castle. The officer surveyed the edifice and then examined Desnoyers with evident astonishment as though he thought his appearance too unpretentious for a proprietor. He had taken him for a simple employee, and his respect for social rank made him lower his revolver. He did not, however, alter his haughty attitude. He pressed Don Marcelo into the service as a guide, making him search ahead of him while forty soldiers grouped themselves at his back. They advanced in two files to the shelter of the trees which bordered the central avenue, with their guns ready to shoot, and looking uneasily at the castle windows as though expecting to receive from them hidden shots. Desnoyers marched tranquilly through the centre, and the official, who had been imitating the precautions of his men, finally joined him when he was crossing the drawbridge. The armed men scattered through the rooms in search of the enemy. They ran their bayonets through beds and divans. Some, with automatic destructiveness, slit the draperies and the rich bed coverings. The owner protested; what was the sense in such useless destruction? . . . He was suffering unbearable torture at seeing the enormous boots spotting the rugs with mud, on hearing the clash of guns and knapsacks against the most fragile, choicest pieces of furniture. Poor historic mansion! . . . The officer looked amazed that he should protest for such trifling cause, but he gave orders in German and his men ceased their rude explorations. Then, in justification of this extraordinary respect, he added in French: "I believe that you are going to have the honor of entertaining here the general of our division." The certainty that the castle did not hold any hidden enemies made him more amiable. He, nevertheless, persisted in his wrath against the sharpshooters. A group of the villagers had opened fire upon the Uhlans when they were entering unsuspiciously after the retreat of the French. Desnoyers felt it necessary to protest. They were neither inhabitants nor sharpshooters; they were French soldiers. He took good care to be silent about their presence at the barricade, but he insisted that he had distinguished their uniforms from a tower of the castle. The official made a threatening face. "You, too? . . . You, who appear a reasonable man, can repeat such yarns as these?" And in order to close the conversation, he said, arrogantly: "They were wearing uniforms, then, if you persist in saying so, but they were sharpshooters just the same. The French Government has distributed arms and uniforms among the farmers that they may assassinate us. . . . Belgium did the same thing. . . . But we know their tricks, and we know how to punish them, too!" The village was going to be burned. It was necessary to avenge the four German dead lying on the outskirts of Villeblanche, near the barricade. The mayor, the priest, the principal inhabitants would all be shot. By the time they reached the top floor Desnoyers could see floating above the boughs of his park dark clouds whose outlines were reddened by the sun. The top of the bell tower was the only thing that he could distinguish at that distance. Around the iron weathercock were flying long thin fringes like black cobwebs lifted by the breeze. An odor of burning wood came toward the castle. The German greeted this spectacle with a cruel smile. Then on descending to the park, he ordered Desnoyers to follow him. His liberty and his dignity had come to an end. Henceforth he was going to be an underling at the beck and call of these men who would dispose of him as their whims directed. Ay, why had he remained? . . . He obeyed, climbing into an automobile beside the officer, who was still carrying his revolver in his right hand. His men distributed themselves through the castle and outbuildings, in order to prevent the flight of an imaginary enemy. The Warden and his family seemed to be saying good-bye to him with their eyes. Perhaps they were taking him to his death. . . . Beyond the castle woods a new world was coming into existence. The short cut to Villeblanche seemed to Desnoyers a leap of millions of leagues, a fall into a red planet where men and things were covered with the film of smoke and the glare of fire. He saw the village under a dark canopy spotted with sparks and glowing embers. The bell tower was burning like an enormous torch; the roof of the church was breaking into flames with a crashing fury. The glare of the holocaust seemed to shrivel and grow pale in the impassive light of the sun. Running across the fields with the haste of desperation were shrieking women and children. The animals had escaped from the stables, and driven forth by the flames were racing wildly across the country. The cow and the work horse were dragging their halters broken by their flight. Their flanks were smoking and smelt of burnt hair. The pigs, the sheep and the chickens were all tearing along mingled with the cats and the dogs. All the domestic animals were returning to a brute existence, fleeing from civilized man. Shots were heard and hellish ha-ha's. The soldiers outside of the village were making themselves merry in this hunt for fugitives. Their guns were aimed at beasts and were hitting people. Desnoyers saw men, many men, men everywhere. They were like gray ants, marching in endless files towards the South, coming out from the woods, filling the roads, crossing the fields. The green of vegetation was disappearing under their tread; the dust was rising in spirals behind the dull roll of the cannons and the measured trot of thousands of horses. On the roadside several battalions had halted, with their accompaniment of vehicles and draw horses. They were resting before renewing their march. He knew this army. He had seen it in Berlin on parade, and yet it seemed to have changed its former appearance. There now remained very little of the heavy and imposing glitter, of the mute and vainglorious haughtiness which had made his relatives-in-law weep with admiration. War, with its realism, had wiped out all that was theatrical about this formidable organization of death. The soldiers appeared dirty and tired, out. The respiration of fat and sweaty bodies, mixed with the strong smell of leather, floated over the regiments. All the men had hungry faces. For days and nights they had been following the heels of an enemy which was always just eluding their grasp. In this forced advance the provisions of the administration would often arrive so late at the cantonments that they could depend only on what they happened to have in their knapsacks. Desnoyers saw them lined up near the road devouring hunks of black bread and mouldy sausages. Some had scattered through the fields to dig up beet roots and other tubers, chewing with loud crunchings the hard pulp to which the grit still adhered. An ensign was shaking the fruit trees using as a catch-all the flag of his regiment. That glorious standard, adorned with souvenirs of 1870, was serving as a receptacle for green plums. Those who were seated on the ground were improving this rest by drawing their perspiring, swollen feet from high boots which were sending out an insufferable smell. The regiments of infantry which Desnoyers had seen in Berlin reflecting the light on metal and leather straps, the magnificent and terrifying Hussars, the Cuirassiers in pure white uniform like the paladins of the Holy Grail, the artillerymen with breasts crossed with white bands, all the military variations that on parade had drawn forth the Hartrotts' sighs of admiration--these were now all unified and mixed together, of uniform color, all in greenish mustard like the dusty lizards that, slipping along, try to be confounded with the earth. The persistency of the iron discipline was easily discernible. A word from the chiefs, the sound of a whistle, and they all grouped themselves together, the human being disappearing in the throngs of automatons; but danger, weariness, and the uncertainty of triumph had for the time being brought officers and men nearer together, obliterating caste distinction. The officers were coming part way out of their overbearing, haughty seclusion, and were condescending to talk with the lower orders so as to revive their courage. One effort more and they would overwhelm both French and English, repeating the triumph of Sedan, whose anniversary they were going to celebrate in a few days! They were going to enter Paris; it was only a matter of a week. Paris! Great shops filled with luxurious things, famous restaurants, women, champagne, money. . . . And the men, flattered that their commanders were stooping to chat with them, forgot fatigue and hunger, reviving like the throngs of the Crusade before the image of Jerusalem. "Nach Paris!" The joyous shout circulated from the head to the tail of the marching columns. "To Paris! To Paris!" The scarcity of their food supply was here supplemented by the products of a country rich in wines. When sacking houses they rarely found eatables, but invariably a wine cellar. The humble German, the perpetual beer drinker, who had always looked upon wine as a privilege of the rich, could now open up casks with blows from his weapons, even bathing his feet in the stream of precious liquid. Every battalion left as a souvenir of its passing a wake of empty bottles; a halt in camp sowed the land with glass cylinders. The regimental trucks, unable to renew their stores of provisions, were accustomed to seize the wine in all the towns. The soldier, lacking bread, would receive alcohol. . . . This donation was always accompanied by the good counsels of the officers--War is war; no pity toward our adversaries who do not deserve it. The French were shooting their prisoners, and their women were putting out the eyes of the wounded. Every dwelling was a den of traps. The simple-hearted and innocent German entering therein was going to certain death. The beds were made over subterranean caves, the wardrobes were make-believe doors, in every corner was lurking an assassin. This traitorous nation, which was arranging its ground like the scenario of a melodrama, would have to be chastised. The municipal officers, the priests, the schoolmasters were directing and protecting the sharpshooters. Desnoyers was shocked at the indifference with which these men were stalking around the burning village. They did not appear to see the fire and destruction; it was just an ordinary spectacle, not worth looking at. Ever since they had crossed the frontier, smoldering and blasted villages, fired by the advance guard, had marked their halting places on Belgian and French soil. When entering Villeblanche the automobile had

atoms

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would discover my identity and leave me, yet at the same time, wishing that he would recognize me and pardon me. . . . It is only one week that I have been with him. I disguise my voice when I can, and avoid words that may reveal the truth . . . but this cannot keep up much longer. It is only in novels that such painful situations turn out happily." Doubt suddenly overwhelmed her. "I believe," she continued, "that he has recognized me from the first. . . . He is silent and feigns ignorance because he despises me . . . because he can never bring himself to pardon me. I have been so bad! . . . I have wronged him so!". . . She was recalling the long and reflective silences of the wounded man after she had dropped some imprudent words. After two days of submission to her care, he had been somewhat rebellious, avoiding going out with her for a walk. Because of his blind helplessness, and comprehending the uselessness of his resistance, he had finally yielded in passive silence. "Let him think what he will!" concluded Marguerite courageously. "Let him despise me! I am here where I ought to be. I need his forgiveness, but if he does not pardon me, I shall stay with him just the same. . . . There are moments when I wish that he may never recover his sight, so that he may always need me, so that I may pass my life at his side, sacrificing everything for him." "And I?" said Desnoyers. Marguerite looked at him with clouded eyes as though she were just awaking. It was true--and the other one? . . . Kindled by the proposed sacrifice which was to be her expiation, she had forgotten the man before her. "You!" she said after a long pause. "You must leave me. . . . Life is not what we have thought it. Had it not been for the war, we might, perhaps, have realized our dream, but now! . . . Listen carefully and try to understand. For the remainder of my life, I shall carry the heaviest burden, and yet at the same time it will be sweet, since the more it weighs me down the greater will my atonement be. Never will I leave this man whom I have so grievously wronged, now that he is more alone in the world and will need protection like a child. Why do you come to share my fate? How could it be possible for you to live with a nurse constantly at the side of a blind and worthy man whom we would constantly offend with our passion? . . . No, it is better for us to part. Go your way, alone and untrammelled. Leave me; you will meet other women who will make you more happy than I. Yours is the temperament that finds new pleasures at every step." She stood firmly to her decision. Her voice was calm, but back of it trembled the emotion of a last farewell to a joy which was going from her forever. The man would be loved by others . . . and she was giving him up! . . . But the noble sadness of the sacrifice restored her courage. Only by this renunciation could she expiate her sins. Julio dropped his eyes, vanquished and perplexed. The picture of the future outlined by Marguerite terrified him. To live with her as a nurse taking advantage of her patient's blindness would be to offer him fresh insult every day. . . . Ah, no! That would be villainy, indeed! He was now ashamed to recall the malignity with which, a little while before, he had regarded this innocent unfortunate. He realized that he was powerless to contend with him. Weak and helpless as he was sitting there on the garden bench, he was stronger and more deserving of respect than Julio Desnoyers with all his youth and elegance. The victim had amounted to something in his life; he had done what Julio had not dared to do. This sudden conviction of his inferiority made him cry out like an abandoned child, "What will become of me?" . . . Marguerite, too--contemplating the love which was going from her forever, her vanished hopes, the future illumined by the satisfaction of duty fulfilled but monotonous and painful--cried out: "And I. . . . What will become of me?" . . . As though he had suddenly found a solution which was reviving his courage, Desnoyers said: "Listen, Marguerite: I can read your soul. You love this man, and you do well. He is superior to me, and women are always attracted by superiority. . . . I am a coward. Yes, do not protest, I am a coward with all my youth, with all my strength. Why should you not have been impressed by the conduct of this man! . . . But I will atone for past wrongs. This country is yours, Marguerite; I will fight for it. Do not say no. . . ." And moved by his hasty heroism, he outlined the plan more definitely. He was going to be a soldier. Soon she would hear him well spoken of. His idea was either to be stretched on the battlefield in his first encounter, or to astound the world by his bravery. In this way the impossible situation would settle itself--either the oblivion of death or glory. "No, no!" interrupted Marguerite in an anguished tone. "You, no! One is enough. . . . How horrible! You, too, wounded, mutilated forever, perhaps dead! . . . No, you must live. I want you to live, even though you might belong to another. . . . Let me know that you exist, let me see you sometimes, even though you may have forgotten me, even though you may pass me with indifference, as if you did not know me." In this outburst her deep love for him rang true--her heroic and inflexible love which would accept all penalties for herself, if only the beloved one might continue to live. But then, in order that Julio might not feel any false hopes, she added:--"Live; you must not die; that would be for me another torment. . . . But live without me. No matter how much we may talk about it, my destiny beside the other one is marked out forever." "Ah, how you love him! . . . How you have deceived me!" In a last desperate attempt at explanation she again repeated what she had said at the beginning of their interview. She loved Julio . . . and she loved her husband. They were different kinds of love. She could not say which was the stronger, but misfortune was forcing her to choose between the two, and she was accepting the most difficult, the one demanding the greatest sacrifices. "You are a man, and you will never be able to understand me. . . . A woman would comprehend me." It seemed to Julio, as he looked around him, as though the afternoon were undergoing some celestial phenomenon. The garden was still illuminated by the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the ground, the blue of the sky, all appeared to him as dark and shadowy as though a rain of ashes were falling. "Then . . . all is over between us?" His pleading, trembling voice charged with tears made her turn her head to hide her emotion. Then in the painful silence the two despairs formed one and the same question, as if interrogating the shades of the future: "What will become of me?" murmured the man. And like an echo her lips repeated, "What will become of me?" All had been said. Hopeless words came between the two like an obstacle momentarily increasing in size, impelling them in opposite directions. Why prolong the painful interview? . . . Marguerite showed the ready and energetic decision of a woman who wishes to bring a scene to a close. "Good-bye!" Her face had assumed a yellowish cast, her pupils had become dull and clouded like the glass of a lantern when the light dies out. "Good-bye!" She must go to her patient. She went away without looking at him, and Desnoyers instinctively went in the opposite direction. As he became more self-controlled and turned to look at her again, he saw her moving on and giving her arm to the blind man, without once turning her head. He now felt convinced that he should never see her again, and became oppressed by an almost suffocating agony. And could two beings, who had formerly considered the universe concentrated in their persons, thus easily be separated forever? . . . His desperation at finding himself alone made him accuse himself of stupidity. Now his thoughts came tumbling over each other in a tumultuous throng, and each one of them seemed to him sufficient to have convinced Marguerite. He certainly had not known how to express himself. He would have to talk with her again . . . and he decided to remain in Lourdes. He passed a night of torture in the hotel, listening to the ripple of the river among its stones. Insomnia had him in his fierce jaws, gnawing him with interminable agony. He turned on the light several times, but was not able to read. His eyes looked with stupid fixity at the patterns of the wall paper and the pious pictures around the room which had evidently served as the lodging place of some rich traveller. He remained motionless and as abstracted as an Oriental who thinks himself into an absolute lack of thought. One idea only was dancing in the vacuum in his skull--"I shall never see her again. . . . Can such a thing be possible?" He drowsed for a few seconds, only to be awakened with the sensation that some horrible explosion was sending him through the air. And so, with sweats of anguish, he wakefully passed the hours until in the gloom of his room the dawn showed a milky rectangle of light, and began to be reflected on the window curtains. The velvet-like caress of day finally closed his eyes. Upon awaking he found that the morning was well advanced, and he hurried to the garden of the grotto. . . . Oh, the hours of tremulous and unavailing waiting, believing that he recognized Marguerite in every white-clad lady that came along, guiding a wounded patient! By afternoon, after a lunch whose dishes filed past him untouched, he returned to the garden in search of her. Beholding her in the distance with the blind man leaning on her arm, a feeling of faintness came over him. She looked to him taller, thinner, her face sharper, with two dark hollows in her cheeks and her eyes bright with fever, the lids drawn with weariness. He suspected that she, too, had passed an anguished night of tenacious, self-centred thought, of grievous stupefaction like his own, in the room of her hotel. Suddenly he felt all the weight of insomnia and listlessness, all the depressing emotion of the cruel sensations experienced in the last few hours. Oh, how miserable they both were! . . . She was walking warily, looking from one side to the other, as though foreseeing danger. Upon discovering him she clung to her charge, casting upon her former lover a look of entreaty, of desperation, imploring pity. . . Ay, that look! He felt ashamed of himself; his personality appeared to be unrolling itself before him, and he surveyed himself with the eyes of a judge. What was this seduced and useless man, called Julio Desnoyers, doing there, tormenting with his presence a poor woman, trying to turn her from her righteous repentance, insisting on his selfish and petty desires when all humanity was thinking of other things? . . . His cowardice angered him. Like a thief taking advantage of the sleep of his victim, he was stalking around this brave and true man who could not see him, who could not defend himself, in order to rob him of the only affection that he had in the world which had so miraculously returned to him! Very well, Gentleman Desnoyers! . . . Ah, what a scoundrel he was! Such subconscious insults made him draw himself erect, in haughty, cruel and inexorable defiance against that other I who so richly deserved the judge's scorn. He turned his head away; he could not meet Marguerite's piteous eyes; he feared their mute reproach. Neither did he dare to look at the blind man in his shabby and heroic uniform, with his countenance aged by duty and glory. He feared him like remorse. So the vanquished lover turned his back on the two and went away with a firm step. Good-bye, Love! Goodbye, Happiness! . . . He marched quickly and bravely on; a miracle had just taken place within him! he had found the right road at last! To Paris! . . . A new impetus was going to fill the vacuum of his objectless existence. CHAPTER V THE INVASION Don Marcelo was fleeing to take refuge in his castle when he met the mayor of Villeblanche. The noise of the firing had made him hurry to the barricade. When he learned of the apparition of the group of stragglers he threw up his hands in despair. They were crazy. Their resistance was going to be fatal for the village, and he ran on to beg them to cease. For some time nothing happened to disturb the morning calm. Desnoyers had climbed to the top of his towers and was surveying the country with his field glasses. He couldn't make out the highway through the nearest group of trees, but he suspected that underneath their branches great activity was going on--masses of men on guard, troops preparing for the attack. The unexpected defense of the fugitives had upset the advance of the invasion. Desnoyers thought despairingly of that handful of mad fellows and their stubborn chief. What was their fate going to be? . . . Focussing his glasses on the village, he saw the red spots of kepis waving like poppies over the green of the meadows. They were the retreating men, now convinced of the uselessness of their resistance. Perhaps they had found a ford or forgotten boat by which they might cross the Maine, and so were continuing their retreat toward the river. At any minute now the Germans were going to enter Villeblanche. Half an hour of profound silence passed by. The village lay silhouetted against a background of hills--a mass of roofs beneath the church tower finished with its cross and iron weather cock. Everything seemed as tranquil as in the best days of peace. Suddenly he noticed that the grove was vomiting forth something noisy and penetrating--a bubble of vapor accompanied by a deafening report. Something was hurtling through the air with a strident curve. Then a roof in the village opened like a crater, vomiting forth flying wood, fragments of plaster and broken furniture. All the interior of the house seemed to be escaping in a stream of smoke, dirt and splinters. The invaders were bombarding Villeblanche before attempting attack, as though fearing to encounter persistent resistance in its streets. More projectiles fell. Some passed over the houses, exploding between the hamlet and the castle. The towers of the Desnoyers property were beginning to attract the aim of the artillerymen. The owner was therefore about to abandon his dangerous observatory when he saw something white like a tablecloth or sheet floating from the church tower. His neighbors had hoisted this signal of peace in order to avoid bombardment. A few more missiles fell and then there was silence. When Don Marcelo reached his park he found the Warden burying at the foot of a tree the sporting rifles still remaining in his castle. Then he went toward the great iron gates. The enemies were going to come, and he had to receive them. While uneasily awaiting their arrival his compunctions again tormented him. What was he doing there? Why had he remained? . . . But his obstinate temperament immediately put aside the promptings of fear. He was there because he had to guard his own. Besides, it was too late now to think about such things. Suddenly the morning stillness was broken by a sound like the deafening tearing of strong cloth. "Shots, Master," said the Warden. "Firing! It must be in the square." A few minutes after they saw running toward them a woman from the village, an old soul, dried up and darkened by age, who was panting from her great exertion, and looking wildly around her. She was fleeing blindly, trying to escape from danger and shut out horrible visions. Desnoyers and the Keeper's family listened to her explanations interrupted with hiccoughs of terror. The Germans were in Villeblanche. They had entered first in an automobile driven at full speed from one end of the village to the other. Its mitrailleuse was firing at random against closed houses and open doors, knocking down all the people in sight. The old woman flung up her arms with a gesture of terror. . . . Dead . . . many dead . . . wounded . . . blood! Then other iron-plated vehicles had stopped in the square, and behind them cavalrymen, battalions of infantry, many battalions coming from everywhere. The helmeted men seemed furious; they accused the villagers of having fired at them. In the square they had struck the mayor and villagers who had come forward to meet them. The priest, bending over some of the dying, had also been trodden under foot. . . . All prisoners! The Germans were talking of shooting them. The old dame's words were cut short by the rumble of approaching automobiles. "Open the gates," commanded the owner to the Warden. The massive iron grill work swung open, and was never again closed. All property rights were at an end. An enormous automobile, covered with dust and filled with men, stopped at the entrance. Behind them sounded the horns of other vehicles that were putting on the brakes. Desnoyers saw soldiers leaping out, all wearing the greenish-gray uniform with a sheath of the same tone covering the pointed casque. The one who marched at their head put his revolver to the millionaire's forehead. "Where are the sharpshooters?" he asked. He was pale with the pallor of wrath, vengeance and fear. His face was trembling under the influence of his triple emotion. Don Marcelo explained slowly, contemplating at a short distance from his eyes the black circle of the threatening tube. He had not seen any sharpshooters. The only inhabitants of the castle were the Warden with his family and himself, the owner of the castle. The officer surveyed the edifice and then examined Desnoyers with evident astonishment as though he thought his appearance too unpretentious for a proprietor. He had taken him for a simple employee, and his respect for social rank made him lower his revolver. He did not, however, alter his haughty attitude. He pressed Don Marcelo into the service as a guide, making him search ahead of him while forty soldiers grouped themselves at his back. They advanced in two files to the shelter of the trees which bordered the central avenue, with their guns ready to shoot, and looking uneasily at the castle windows as though expecting to receive from them hidden shots. Desnoyers marched tranquilly through the centre, and the official, who had been imitating the precautions of his men, finally joined him when he was crossing the drawbridge. The armed men scattered through the rooms in search of the enemy. They ran their bayonets through beds and divans. Some, with automatic destructiveness, slit the draperies and the rich bed coverings. The owner protested; what was the sense in such useless destruction? . . . He was suffering unbearable torture at seeing the enormous boots spotting the rugs with mud, on hearing the clash of guns and knapsacks against the most fragile, choicest pieces of furniture. Poor historic mansion! . . . The officer looked amazed that he should protest for such trifling cause, but he gave orders in German and his men ceased their rude explorations. Then, in justification of this extraordinary respect, he added in French: "I believe that you are going to have the honor of entertaining here the general of our division." The certainty that the castle did not hold any hidden enemies made him more amiable. He, nevertheless, persisted in his wrath against the sharpshooters. A group of the villagers had opened fire upon the Uhlans when they were entering unsuspiciously after the retreat of the French. Desnoyers felt it necessary to protest. They were neither inhabitants nor sharpshooters; they were French soldiers. He took good care to be silent about their presence at the barricade, but he insisted that he had distinguished their uniforms from a tower of the castle. The official made a threatening face. "You, too? . . . You, who appear a reasonable man, can repeat such yarns as these?" And in order to close the conversation, he said, arrogantly: "They were wearing uniforms, then, if you persist in saying so, but they were sharpshooters just the same. The French Government has distributed arms and uniforms among the farmers that they may assassinate us. . . . Belgium did the same thing. . . . But we know their tricks, and we know how to punish them, too!" The village was going to be burned. It was necessary to avenge the four German dead lying on the outskirts of Villeblanche, near the barricade. The mayor, the priest, the principal inhabitants would all be shot. By the time they reached the top floor Desnoyers could see floating above the boughs of his park dark clouds whose outlines were reddened by the sun. The top of the bell tower was the only thing that he could distinguish at that distance. Around the iron weathercock were flying long thin fringes like black cobwebs lifted by the breeze. An odor of burning wood came toward the castle. The German greeted this spectacle with a cruel smile. Then on descending to the park, he ordered Desnoyers to follow him. His liberty and his dignity had come to an end. Henceforth he was going to be an underling at the beck and call of these men who would dispose of him as their whims directed. Ay, why had he remained? . . . He obeyed, climbing into an automobile beside the officer, who was still carrying his revolver in his right hand. His men distributed themselves through the castle and outbuildings, in order to prevent the flight of an imaginary enemy. The Warden and his family seemed to be saying good-bye to him with their eyes. Perhaps they were taking him to his death. . . . Beyond the castle woods a new world was coming into existence. The short cut to Villeblanche seemed to Desnoyers a leap of millions of leagues, a fall into a red planet where men and things were covered with the film of smoke and the glare of fire. He saw the village under a dark canopy spotted with sparks and glowing embers. The bell tower was burning like an enormous torch; the roof of the church was breaking into flames with a crashing fury. The glare of the holocaust seemed to shrivel and grow pale in the impassive light of the sun. Running across the fields with the haste of desperation were shrieking women and children. The animals had escaped from the stables, and driven forth by the flames were racing wildly across the country. The cow and the work horse were dragging their halters broken by their flight. Their flanks were smoking and smelt of burnt hair. The pigs, the sheep and the chickens were all tearing along mingled with the cats and the dogs. All the domestic animals were returning to a brute existence, fleeing from civilized man. Shots were heard and hellish ha-ha's. The soldiers outside of the village were making themselves merry in this hunt for fugitives. Their guns were aimed at beasts and were hitting people. Desnoyers saw men, many men, men everywhere. They were like gray ants, marching in endless files towards the South, coming out from the woods, filling the roads, crossing the fields. The green of vegetation was disappearing under their tread; the dust was rising in spirals behind the dull roll of the cannons and the measured trot of thousands of horses. On the roadside several battalions had halted, with their accompaniment of vehicles and draw horses. They were resting before renewing their march. He knew this army. He had seen it in Berlin on parade, and yet it seemed to have changed its former appearance. There now remained very little of the heavy and imposing glitter, of the mute and vainglorious haughtiness which had made his relatives-in-law weep with admiration. War, with its realism, had wiped out all that was theatrical about this formidable organization of death. The soldiers appeared dirty and tired, out. The respiration of fat and sweaty bodies, mixed with the strong smell of leather, floated over the regiments. All the men had hungry faces. For days and nights they had been following the heels of an enemy which was always just eluding their grasp. In this forced advance the provisions of the administration would often arrive so late at the cantonments that they could depend only on what they happened to have in their knapsacks. Desnoyers saw them lined up near the road devouring hunks of black bread and mouldy sausages. Some had scattered through the fields to dig up beet roots and other tubers, chewing with loud crunchings the hard pulp to which the grit still adhered. An ensign was shaking the fruit trees using as a catch-all the flag of his regiment. That glorious standard, adorned with souvenirs of 1870, was serving as a receptacle for green plums. Those who were seated on the ground were improving this rest by drawing their perspiring, swollen feet from high boots which were sending out an insufferable smell. The regiments of infantry which Desnoyers had seen in Berlin reflecting the light on metal and leather straps, the magnificent and terrifying Hussars, the Cuirassiers in pure white uniform like the paladins of the Holy Grail, the artillerymen with breasts crossed with white bands, all the military variations that on parade had drawn forth the Hartrotts' sighs of admiration--these were now all unified and mixed together, of uniform color, all in greenish mustard like the dusty lizards that, slipping along, try to be confounded with the earth. The persistency of the iron discipline was easily discernible. A word from the chiefs, the sound of a whistle, and they all grouped themselves together, the human being disappearing in the throngs of automatons; but danger, weariness, and the uncertainty of triumph had for the time being brought officers and men nearer together, obliterating caste distinction. The officers were coming part way out of their overbearing, haughty seclusion, and were condescending to talk with the lower orders so as to revive their courage. One effort more and they would overwhelm both French and English, repeating the triumph of Sedan, whose anniversary they were going to celebrate in a few days! They were going to enter Paris; it was only a matter of a week. Paris! Great shops filled with luxurious things, famous restaurants, women, champagne, money. . . . And the men, flattered that their commanders were stooping to chat with them, forgot fatigue and hunger, reviving like the throngs of the Crusade before the image of Jerusalem. "Nach Paris!" The joyous shout circulated from the head to the tail of the marching columns. "To Paris! To Paris!" The scarcity of their food supply was here supplemented by the products of a country rich in wines. When sacking houses they rarely found eatables, but invariably a wine cellar. The humble German, the perpetual beer drinker, who had always looked upon wine as a privilege of the rich, could now open up casks with blows from his weapons, even bathing his feet in the stream of precious liquid. Every battalion left as a souvenir of its passing a wake of empty bottles; a halt in camp sowed the land with glass cylinders. The regimental trucks, unable to renew their stores of provisions, were accustomed to seize the wine in all the towns. The soldier, lacking bread, would receive alcohol. . . . This donation was always accompanied by the good counsels of the officers--War is war; no pity toward our adversaries who do not deserve it. The French were shooting their prisoners, and their women were putting out the eyes of the wounded. Every dwelling was a den of traps. The simple-hearted and innocent German entering therein was going to certain death. The beds were made over subterranean caves, the wardrobes were make-believe doors, in every corner was lurking an assassin. This traitorous nation, which was arranging its ground like the scenario of a melodrama, would have to be chastised. The municipal officers, the priests, the schoolmasters were directing and protecting the sharpshooters. Desnoyers was shocked at the indifference with which these men were stalking around the burning village. They did not appear to see the fire and destruction; it was just an ordinary spectacle, not worth looking at. Ever since they had crossed the frontier, smoldering and blasted villages, fired by the advance guard, had marked their halting places on Belgian and French soil. When entering Villeblanche the automobile had

guessing

How many times the word 'guessing' appears in the text?

would discover my identity and leave me, yet at the same time, wishing that he would recognize me and pardon me. . . . It is only one week that I have been with him. I disguise my voice when I can, and avoid words that may reveal the truth . . . but this cannot keep up much longer. It is only in novels that such painful situations turn out happily." Doubt suddenly overwhelmed her. "I believe," she continued, "that he has recognized me from the first. . . . He is silent and feigns ignorance because he despises me . . . because he can never bring himself to pardon me. I have been so bad! . . . I have wronged him so!". . . She was recalling the long and reflective silences of the wounded man after she had dropped some imprudent words. After two days of submission to her care, he had been somewhat rebellious, avoiding going out with her for a walk. Because of his blind helplessness, and comprehending the uselessness of his resistance, he had finally yielded in passive silence. "Let him think what he will!" concluded Marguerite courageously. "Let him despise me! I am here where I ought to be. I need his forgiveness, but if he does not pardon me, I shall stay with him just the same. . . . There are moments when I wish that he may never recover his sight, so that he may always need me, so that I may pass my life at his side, sacrificing everything for him." "And I?" said Desnoyers. Marguerite looked at him with clouded eyes as though she were just awaking. It was true--and the other one? . . . Kindled by the proposed sacrifice which was to be her expiation, she had forgotten the man before her. "You!" she said after a long pause. "You must leave me. . . . Life is not what we have thought it. Had it not been for the war, we might, perhaps, have realized our dream, but now! . . . Listen carefully and try to understand. For the remainder of my life, I shall carry the heaviest burden, and yet at the same time it will be sweet, since the more it weighs me down the greater will my atonement be. Never will I leave this man whom I have so grievously wronged, now that he is more alone in the world and will need protection like a child. Why do you come to share my fate? How could it be possible for you to live with a nurse constantly at the side of a blind and worthy man whom we would constantly offend with our passion? . . . No, it is better for us to part. Go your way, alone and untrammelled. Leave me; you will meet other women who will make you more happy than I. Yours is the temperament that finds new pleasures at every step." She stood firmly to her decision. Her voice was calm, but back of it trembled the emotion of a last farewell to a joy which was going from her forever. The man would be loved by others . . . and she was giving him up! . . . But the noble sadness of the sacrifice restored her courage. Only by this renunciation could she expiate her sins. Julio dropped his eyes, vanquished and perplexed. The picture of the future outlined by Marguerite terrified him. To live with her as a nurse taking advantage of her patient's blindness would be to offer him fresh insult every day. . . . Ah, no! That would be villainy, indeed! He was now ashamed to recall the malignity with which, a little while before, he had regarded this innocent unfortunate. He realized that he was powerless to contend with him. Weak and helpless as he was sitting there on the garden bench, he was stronger and more deserving of respect than Julio Desnoyers with all his youth and elegance. The victim had amounted to something in his life; he had done what Julio had not dared to do. This sudden conviction of his inferiority made him cry out like an abandoned child, "What will become of me?" . . . Marguerite, too--contemplating the love which was going from her forever, her vanished hopes, the future illumined by the satisfaction of duty fulfilled but monotonous and painful--cried out: "And I. . . . What will become of me?" . . . As though he had suddenly found a solution which was reviving his courage, Desnoyers said: "Listen, Marguerite: I can read your soul. You love this man, and you do well. He is superior to me, and women are always attracted by superiority. . . . I am a coward. Yes, do not protest, I am a coward with all my youth, with all my strength. Why should you not have been impressed by the conduct of this man! . . . But I will atone for past wrongs. This country is yours, Marguerite; I will fight for it. Do not say no. . . ." And moved by his hasty heroism, he outlined the plan more definitely. He was going to be a soldier. Soon she would hear him well spoken of. His idea was either to be stretched on the battlefield in his first encounter, or to astound the world by his bravery. In this way the impossible situation would settle itself--either the oblivion of death or glory. "No, no!" interrupted Marguerite in an anguished tone. "You, no! One is enough. . . . How horrible! You, too, wounded, mutilated forever, perhaps dead! . . . No, you must live. I want you to live, even though you might belong to another. . . . Let me know that you exist, let me see you sometimes, even though you may have forgotten me, even though you may pass me with indifference, as if you did not know me." In this outburst her deep love for him rang true--her heroic and inflexible love which would accept all penalties for herself, if only the beloved one might continue to live. But then, in order that Julio might not feel any false hopes, she added:--"Live; you must not die; that would be for me another torment. . . . But live without me. No matter how much we may talk about it, my destiny beside the other one is marked out forever." "Ah, how you love him! . . . How you have deceived me!" In a last desperate attempt at explanation she again repeated what she had said at the beginning of their interview. She loved Julio . . . and she loved her husband. They were different kinds of love. She could not say which was the stronger, but misfortune was forcing her to choose between the two, and she was accepting the most difficult, the one demanding the greatest sacrifices. "You are a man, and you will never be able to understand me. . . . A woman would comprehend me." It seemed to Julio, as he looked around him, as though the afternoon were undergoing some celestial phenomenon. The garden was still illuminated by the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the ground, the blue of the sky, all appeared to him as dark and shadowy as though a rain of ashes were falling. "Then . . . all is over between us?" His pleading, trembling voice charged with tears made her turn her head to hide her emotion. Then in the painful silence the two despairs formed one and the same question, as if interrogating the shades of the future: "What will become of me?" murmured the man. And like an echo her lips repeated, "What will become of me?" All had been said. Hopeless words came between the two like an obstacle momentarily increasing in size, impelling them in opposite directions. Why prolong the painful interview? . . . Marguerite showed the ready and energetic decision of a woman who wishes to bring a scene to a close. "Good-bye!" Her face had assumed a yellowish cast, her pupils had become dull and clouded like the glass of a lantern when the light dies out. "Good-bye!" She must go to her patient. She went away without looking at him, and Desnoyers instinctively went in the opposite direction. As he became more self-controlled and turned to look at her again, he saw her moving on and giving her arm to the blind man, without once turning her head. He now felt convinced that he should never see her again, and became oppressed by an almost suffocating agony. And could two beings, who had formerly considered the universe concentrated in their persons, thus easily be separated forever? . . . His desperation at finding himself alone made him accuse himself of stupidity. Now his thoughts came tumbling over each other in a tumultuous throng, and each one of them seemed to him sufficient to have convinced Marguerite. He certainly had not known how to express himself. He would have to talk with her again . . . and he decided to remain in Lourdes. He passed a night of torture in the hotel, listening to the ripple of the river among its stones. Insomnia had him in his fierce jaws, gnawing him with interminable agony. He turned on the light several times, but was not able to read. His eyes looked with stupid fixity at the patterns of the wall paper and the pious pictures around the room which had evidently served as the lodging place of some rich traveller. He remained motionless and as abstracted as an Oriental who thinks himself into an absolute lack of thought. One idea only was dancing in the vacuum in his skull--"I shall never see her again. . . . Can such a thing be possible?" He drowsed for a few seconds, only to be awakened with the sensation that some horrible explosion was sending him through the air. And so, with sweats of anguish, he wakefully passed the hours until in the gloom of his room the dawn showed a milky rectangle of light, and began to be reflected on the window curtains. The velvet-like caress of day finally closed his eyes. Upon awaking he found that the morning was well advanced, and he hurried to the garden of the grotto. . . . Oh, the hours of tremulous and unavailing waiting, believing that he recognized Marguerite in every white-clad lady that came along, guiding a wounded patient! By afternoon, after a lunch whose dishes filed past him untouched, he returned to the garden in search of her. Beholding her in the distance with the blind man leaning on her arm, a feeling of faintness came over him. She looked to him taller, thinner, her face sharper, with two dark hollows in her cheeks and her eyes bright with fever, the lids drawn with weariness. He suspected that she, too, had passed an anguished night of tenacious, self-centred thought, of grievous stupefaction like his own, in the room of her hotel. Suddenly he felt all the weight of insomnia and listlessness, all the depressing emotion of the cruel sensations experienced in the last few hours. Oh, how miserable they both were! . . . She was walking warily, looking from one side to the other, as though foreseeing danger. Upon discovering him she clung to her charge, casting upon her former lover a look of entreaty, of desperation, imploring pity. . . Ay, that look! He felt ashamed of himself; his personality appeared to be unrolling itself before him, and he surveyed himself with the eyes of a judge. What was this seduced and useless man, called Julio Desnoyers, doing there, tormenting with his presence a poor woman, trying to turn her from her righteous repentance, insisting on his selfish and petty desires when all humanity was thinking of other things? . . . His cowardice angered him. Like a thief taking advantage of the sleep of his victim, he was stalking around this brave and true man who could not see him, who could not defend himself, in order to rob him of the only affection that he had in the world which had so miraculously returned to him! Very well, Gentleman Desnoyers! . . . Ah, what a scoundrel he was! Such subconscious insults made him draw himself erect, in haughty, cruel and inexorable defiance against that other I who so richly deserved the judge's scorn. He turned his head away; he could not meet Marguerite's piteous eyes; he feared their mute reproach. Neither did he dare to look at the blind man in his shabby and heroic uniform, with his countenance aged by duty and glory. He feared him like remorse. So the vanquished lover turned his back on the two and went away with a firm step. Good-bye, Love! Goodbye, Happiness! . . . He marched quickly and bravely on; a miracle had just taken place within him! he had found the right road at last! To Paris! . . . A new impetus was going to fill the vacuum of his objectless existence. CHAPTER V THE INVASION Don Marcelo was fleeing to take refuge in his castle when he met the mayor of Villeblanche. The noise of the firing had made him hurry to the barricade. When he learned of the apparition of the group of stragglers he threw up his hands in despair. They were crazy. Their resistance was going to be fatal for the village, and he ran on to beg them to cease. For some time nothing happened to disturb the morning calm. Desnoyers had climbed to the top of his towers and was surveying the country with his field glasses. He couldn't make out the highway through the nearest group of trees, but he suspected that underneath their branches great activity was going on--masses of men on guard, troops preparing for the attack. The unexpected defense of the fugitives had upset the advance of the invasion. Desnoyers thought despairingly of that handful of mad fellows and their stubborn chief. What was their fate going to be? . . . Focussing his glasses on the village, he saw the red spots of kepis waving like poppies over the green of the meadows. They were the retreating men, now convinced of the uselessness of their resistance. Perhaps they had found a ford or forgotten boat by which they might cross the Maine, and so were continuing their retreat toward the river. At any minute now the Germans were going to enter Villeblanche. Half an hour of profound silence passed by. The village lay silhouetted against a background of hills--a mass of roofs beneath the church tower finished with its cross and iron weather cock. Everything seemed as tranquil as in the best days of peace. Suddenly he noticed that the grove was vomiting forth something noisy and penetrating--a bubble of vapor accompanied by a deafening report. Something was hurtling through the air with a strident curve. Then a roof in the village opened like a crater, vomiting forth flying wood, fragments of plaster and broken furniture. All the interior of the house seemed to be escaping in a stream of smoke, dirt and splinters. The invaders were bombarding Villeblanche before attempting attack, as though fearing to encounter persistent resistance in its streets. More projectiles fell. Some passed over the houses, exploding between the hamlet and the castle. The towers of the Desnoyers property were beginning to attract the aim of the artillerymen. The owner was therefore about to abandon his dangerous observatory when he saw something white like a tablecloth or sheet floating from the church tower. His neighbors had hoisted this signal of peace in order to avoid bombardment. A few more missiles fell and then there was silence. When Don Marcelo reached his park he found the Warden burying at the foot of a tree the sporting rifles still remaining in his castle. Then he went toward the great iron gates. The enemies were going to come, and he had to receive them. While uneasily awaiting their arrival his compunctions again tormented him. What was he doing there? Why had he remained? . . . But his obstinate temperament immediately put aside the promptings of fear. He was there because he had to guard his own. Besides, it was too late now to think about such things. Suddenly the morning stillness was broken by a sound like the deafening tearing of strong cloth. "Shots, Master," said the Warden. "Firing! It must be in the square." A few minutes after they saw running toward them a woman from the village, an old soul, dried up and darkened by age, who was panting from her great exertion, and looking wildly around her. She was fleeing blindly, trying to escape from danger and shut out horrible visions. Desnoyers and the Keeper's family listened to her explanations interrupted with hiccoughs of terror. The Germans were in Villeblanche. They had entered first in an automobile driven at full speed from one end of the village to the other. Its mitrailleuse was firing at random against closed houses and open doors, knocking down all the people in sight. The old woman flung up her arms with a gesture of terror. . . . Dead . . . many dead . . . wounded . . . blood! Then other iron-plated vehicles had stopped in the square, and behind them cavalrymen, battalions of infantry, many battalions coming from everywhere. The helmeted men seemed furious; they accused the villagers of having fired at them. In the square they had struck the mayor and villagers who had come forward to meet them. The priest, bending over some of the dying, had also been trodden under foot. . . . All prisoners! The Germans were talking of shooting them. The old dame's words were cut short by the rumble of approaching automobiles. "Open the gates," commanded the owner to the Warden. The massive iron grill work swung open, and was never again closed. All property rights were at an end. An enormous automobile, covered with dust and filled with men, stopped at the entrance. Behind them sounded the horns of other vehicles that were putting on the brakes. Desnoyers saw soldiers leaping out, all wearing the greenish-gray uniform with a sheath of the same tone covering the pointed casque. The one who marched at their head put his revolver to the millionaire's forehead. "Where are the sharpshooters?" he asked. He was pale with the pallor of wrath, vengeance and fear. His face was trembling under the influence of his triple emotion. Don Marcelo explained slowly, contemplating at a short distance from his eyes the black circle of the threatening tube. He had not seen any sharpshooters. The only inhabitants of the castle were the Warden with his family and himself, the owner of the castle. The officer surveyed the edifice and then examined Desnoyers with evident astonishment as though he thought his appearance too unpretentious for a proprietor. He had taken him for a simple employee, and his respect for social rank made him lower his revolver. He did not, however, alter his haughty attitude. He pressed Don Marcelo into the service as a guide, making him search ahead of him while forty soldiers grouped themselves at his back. They advanced in two files to the shelter of the trees which bordered the central avenue, with their guns ready to shoot, and looking uneasily at the castle windows as though expecting to receive from them hidden shots. Desnoyers marched tranquilly through the centre, and the official, who had been imitating the precautions of his men, finally joined him when he was crossing the drawbridge. The armed men scattered through the rooms in search of the enemy. They ran their bayonets through beds and divans. Some, with automatic destructiveness, slit the draperies and the rich bed coverings. The owner protested; what was the sense in such useless destruction? . . . He was suffering unbearable torture at seeing the enormous boots spotting the rugs with mud, on hearing the clash of guns and knapsacks against the most fragile, choicest pieces of furniture. Poor historic mansion! . . . The officer looked amazed that he should protest for such trifling cause, but he gave orders in German and his men ceased their rude explorations. Then, in justification of this extraordinary respect, he added in French: "I believe that you are going to have the honor of entertaining here the general of our division." The certainty that the castle did not hold any hidden enemies made him more amiable. He, nevertheless, persisted in his wrath against the sharpshooters. A group of the villagers had opened fire upon the Uhlans when they were entering unsuspiciously after the retreat of the French. Desnoyers felt it necessary to protest. They were neither inhabitants nor sharpshooters; they were French soldiers. He took good care to be silent about their presence at the barricade, but he insisted that he had distinguished their uniforms from a tower of the castle. The official made a threatening face. "You, too? . . . You, who appear a reasonable man, can repeat such yarns as these?" And in order to close the conversation, he said, arrogantly: "They were wearing uniforms, then, if you persist in saying so, but they were sharpshooters just the same. The French Government has distributed arms and uniforms among the farmers that they may assassinate us. . . . Belgium did the same thing. . . . But we know their tricks, and we know how to punish them, too!" The village was going to be burned. It was necessary to avenge the four German dead lying on the outskirts of Villeblanche, near the barricade. The mayor, the priest, the principal inhabitants would all be shot. By the time they reached the top floor Desnoyers could see floating above the boughs of his park dark clouds whose outlines were reddened by the sun. The top of the bell tower was the only thing that he could distinguish at that distance. Around the iron weathercock were flying long thin fringes like black cobwebs lifted by the breeze. An odor of burning wood came toward the castle. The German greeted this spectacle with a cruel smile. Then on descending to the park, he ordered Desnoyers to follow him. His liberty and his dignity had come to an end. Henceforth he was going to be an underling at the beck and call of these men who would dispose of him as their whims directed. Ay, why had he remained? . . . He obeyed, climbing into an automobile beside the officer, who was still carrying his revolver in his right hand. His men distributed themselves through the castle and outbuildings, in order to prevent the flight of an imaginary enemy. The Warden and his family seemed to be saying good-bye to him with their eyes. Perhaps they were taking him to his death. . . . Beyond the castle woods a new world was coming into existence. The short cut to Villeblanche seemed to Desnoyers a leap of millions of leagues, a fall into a red planet where men and things were covered with the film of smoke and the glare of fire. He saw the village under a dark canopy spotted with sparks and glowing embers. The bell tower was burning like an enormous torch; the roof of the church was breaking into flames with a crashing fury. The glare of the holocaust seemed to shrivel and grow pale in the impassive light of the sun. Running across the fields with the haste of desperation were shrieking women and children. The animals had escaped from the stables, and driven forth by the flames were racing wildly across the country. The cow and the work horse were dragging their halters broken by their flight. Their flanks were smoking and smelt of burnt hair. The pigs, the sheep and the chickens were all tearing along mingled with the cats and the dogs. All the domestic animals were returning to a brute existence, fleeing from civilized man. Shots were heard and hellish ha-ha's. The soldiers outside of the village were making themselves merry in this hunt for fugitives. Their guns were aimed at beasts and were hitting people. Desnoyers saw men, many men, men everywhere. They were like gray ants, marching in endless files towards the South, coming out from the woods, filling the roads, crossing the fields. The green of vegetation was disappearing under their tread; the dust was rising in spirals behind the dull roll of the cannons and the measured trot of thousands of horses. On the roadside several battalions had halted, with their accompaniment of vehicles and draw horses. They were resting before renewing their march. He knew this army. He had seen it in Berlin on parade, and yet it seemed to have changed its former appearance. There now remained very little of the heavy and imposing glitter, of the mute and vainglorious haughtiness which had made his relatives-in-law weep with admiration. War, with its realism, had wiped out all that was theatrical about this formidable organization of death. The soldiers appeared dirty and tired, out. The respiration of fat and sweaty bodies, mixed with the strong smell of leather, floated over the regiments. All the men had hungry faces. For days and nights they had been following the heels of an enemy which was always just eluding their grasp. In this forced advance the provisions of the administration would often arrive so late at the cantonments that they could depend only on what they happened to have in their knapsacks. Desnoyers saw them lined up near the road devouring hunks of black bread and mouldy sausages. Some had scattered through the fields to dig up beet roots and other tubers, chewing with loud crunchings the hard pulp to which the grit still adhered. An ensign was shaking the fruit trees using as a catch-all the flag of his regiment. That glorious standard, adorned with souvenirs of 1870, was serving as a receptacle for green plums. Those who were seated on the ground were improving this rest by drawing their perspiring, swollen feet from high boots which were sending out an insufferable smell. The regiments of infantry which Desnoyers had seen in Berlin reflecting the light on metal and leather straps, the magnificent and terrifying Hussars, the Cuirassiers in pure white uniform like the paladins of the Holy Grail, the artillerymen with breasts crossed with white bands, all the military variations that on parade had drawn forth the Hartrotts' sighs of admiration--these were now all unified and mixed together, of uniform color, all in greenish mustard like the dusty lizards that, slipping along, try to be confounded with the earth. The persistency of the iron discipline was easily discernible. A word from the chiefs, the sound of a whistle, and they all grouped themselves together, the human being disappearing in the throngs of automatons; but danger, weariness, and the uncertainty of triumph had for the time being brought officers and men nearer together, obliterating caste distinction. The officers were coming part way out of their overbearing, haughty seclusion, and were condescending to talk with the lower orders so as to revive their courage. One effort more and they would overwhelm both French and English, repeating the triumph of Sedan, whose anniversary they were going to celebrate in a few days! They were going to enter Paris; it was only a matter of a week. Paris! Great shops filled with luxurious things, famous restaurants, women, champagne, money. . . . And the men, flattered that their commanders were stooping to chat with them, forgot fatigue and hunger, reviving like the throngs of the Crusade before the image of Jerusalem. "Nach Paris!" The joyous shout circulated from the head to the tail of the marching columns. "To Paris! To Paris!" The scarcity of their food supply was here supplemented by the products of a country rich in wines. When sacking houses they rarely found eatables, but invariably a wine cellar. The humble German, the perpetual beer drinker, who had always looked upon wine as a privilege of the rich, could now open up casks with blows from his weapons, even bathing his feet in the stream of precious liquid. Every battalion left as a souvenir of its passing a wake of empty bottles; a halt in camp sowed the land with glass cylinders. The regimental trucks, unable to renew their stores of provisions, were accustomed to seize the wine in all the towns. The soldier, lacking bread, would receive alcohol. . . . This donation was always accompanied by the good counsels of the officers--War is war; no pity toward our adversaries who do not deserve it. The French were shooting their prisoners, and their women were putting out the eyes of the wounded. Every dwelling was a den of traps. The simple-hearted and innocent German entering therein was going to certain death. The beds were made over subterranean caves, the wardrobes were make-believe doors, in every corner was lurking an assassin. This traitorous nation, which was arranging its ground like the scenario of a melodrama, would have to be chastised. The municipal officers, the priests, the schoolmasters were directing and protecting the sharpshooters. Desnoyers was shocked at the indifference with which these men were stalking around the burning village. They did not appear to see the fire and destruction; it was just an ordinary spectacle, not worth looking at. Ever since they had crossed the frontier, smoldering and blasted villages, fired by the advance guard, had marked their halting places on Belgian and French soil. When entering Villeblanche the automobile had

clouded

How many times the word 'clouded' appears in the text?

would discover my identity and leave me, yet at the same time, wishing that he would recognize me and pardon me. . . . It is only one week that I have been with him. I disguise my voice when I can, and avoid words that may reveal the truth . . . but this cannot keep up much longer. It is only in novels that such painful situations turn out happily." Doubt suddenly overwhelmed her. "I believe," she continued, "that he has recognized me from the first. . . . He is silent and feigns ignorance because he despises me . . . because he can never bring himself to pardon me. I have been so bad! . . . I have wronged him so!". . . She was recalling the long and reflective silences of the wounded man after she had dropped some imprudent words. After two days of submission to her care, he had been somewhat rebellious, avoiding going out with her for a walk. Because of his blind helplessness, and comprehending the uselessness of his resistance, he had finally yielded in passive silence. "Let him think what he will!" concluded Marguerite courageously. "Let him despise me! I am here where I ought to be. I need his forgiveness, but if he does not pardon me, I shall stay with him just the same. . . . There are moments when I wish that he may never recover his sight, so that he may always need me, so that I may pass my life at his side, sacrificing everything for him." "And I?" said Desnoyers. Marguerite looked at him with clouded eyes as though she were just awaking. It was true--and the other one? . . . Kindled by the proposed sacrifice which was to be her expiation, she had forgotten the man before her. "You!" she said after a long pause. "You must leave me. . . . Life is not what we have thought it. Had it not been for the war, we might, perhaps, have realized our dream, but now! . . . Listen carefully and try to understand. For the remainder of my life, I shall carry the heaviest burden, and yet at the same time it will be sweet, since the more it weighs me down the greater will my atonement be. Never will I leave this man whom I have so grievously wronged, now that he is more alone in the world and will need protection like a child. Why do you come to share my fate? How could it be possible for you to live with a nurse constantly at the side of a blind and worthy man whom we would constantly offend with our passion? . . . No, it is better for us to part. Go your way, alone and untrammelled. Leave me; you will meet other women who will make you more happy than I. Yours is the temperament that finds new pleasures at every step." She stood firmly to her decision. Her voice was calm, but back of it trembled the emotion of a last farewell to a joy which was going from her forever. The man would be loved by others . . . and she was giving him up! . . . But the noble sadness of the sacrifice restored her courage. Only by this renunciation could she expiate her sins. Julio dropped his eyes, vanquished and perplexed. The picture of the future outlined by Marguerite terrified him. To live with her as a nurse taking advantage of her patient's blindness would be to offer him fresh insult every day. . . . Ah, no! That would be villainy, indeed! He was now ashamed to recall the malignity with which, a little while before, he had regarded this innocent unfortunate. He realized that he was powerless to contend with him. Weak and helpless as he was sitting there on the garden bench, he was stronger and more deserving of respect than Julio Desnoyers with all his youth and elegance. The victim had amounted to something in his life; he had done what Julio had not dared to do. This sudden conviction of his inferiority made him cry out like an abandoned child, "What will become of me?" . . . Marguerite, too--contemplating the love which was going from her forever, her vanished hopes, the future illumined by the satisfaction of duty fulfilled but monotonous and painful--cried out: "And I. . . . What will become of me?" . . . As though he had suddenly found a solution which was reviving his courage, Desnoyers said: "Listen, Marguerite: I can read your soul. You love this man, and you do well. He is superior to me, and women are always attracted by superiority. . . . I am a coward. Yes, do not protest, I am a coward with all my youth, with all my strength. Why should you not have been impressed by the conduct of this man! . . . But I will atone for past wrongs. This country is yours, Marguerite; I will fight for it. Do not say no. . . ." And moved by his hasty heroism, he outlined the plan more definitely. He was going to be a soldier. Soon she would hear him well spoken of. His idea was either to be stretched on the battlefield in his first encounter, or to astound the world by his bravery. In this way the impossible situation would settle itself--either the oblivion of death or glory. "No, no!" interrupted Marguerite in an anguished tone. "You, no! One is enough. . . . How horrible! You, too, wounded, mutilated forever, perhaps dead! . . . No, you must live. I want you to live, even though you might belong to another. . . . Let me know that you exist, let me see you sometimes, even though you may have forgotten me, even though you may pass me with indifference, as if you did not know me." In this outburst her deep love for him rang true--her heroic and inflexible love which would accept all penalties for herself, if only the beloved one might continue to live. But then, in order that Julio might not feel any false hopes, she added:--"Live; you must not die; that would be for me another torment. . . . But live without me. No matter how much we may talk about it, my destiny beside the other one is marked out forever." "Ah, how you love him! . . . How you have deceived me!" In a last desperate attempt at explanation she again repeated what she had said at the beginning of their interview. She loved Julio . . . and she loved her husband. They were different kinds of love. She could not say which was the stronger, but misfortune was forcing her to choose between the two, and she was accepting the most difficult, the one demanding the greatest sacrifices. "You are a man, and you will never be able to understand me. . . . A woman would comprehend me." It seemed to Julio, as he looked around him, as though the afternoon were undergoing some celestial phenomenon. The garden was still illuminated by the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the ground, the blue of the sky, all appeared to him as dark and shadowy as though a rain of ashes were falling. "Then . . . all is over between us?" His pleading, trembling voice charged with tears made her turn her head to hide her emotion. Then in the painful silence the two despairs formed one and the same question, as if interrogating the shades of the future: "What will become of me?" murmured the man. And like an echo her lips repeated, "What will become of me?" All had been said. Hopeless words came between the two like an obstacle momentarily increasing in size, impelling them in opposite directions. Why prolong the painful interview? . . . Marguerite showed the ready and energetic decision of a woman who wishes to bring a scene to a close. "Good-bye!" Her face had assumed a yellowish cast, her pupils had become dull and clouded like the glass of a lantern when the light dies out. "Good-bye!" She must go to her patient. She went away without looking at him, and Desnoyers instinctively went in the opposite direction. As he became more self-controlled and turned to look at her again, he saw her moving on and giving her arm to the blind man, without once turning her head. He now felt convinced that he should never see her again, and became oppressed by an almost suffocating agony. And could two beings, who had formerly considered the universe concentrated in their persons, thus easily be separated forever? . . . His desperation at finding himself alone made him accuse himself of stupidity. Now his thoughts came tumbling over each other in a tumultuous throng, and each one of them seemed to him sufficient to have convinced Marguerite. He certainly had not known how to express himself. He would have to talk with her again . . . and he decided to remain in Lourdes. He passed a night of torture in the hotel, listening to the ripple of the river among its stones. Insomnia had him in his fierce jaws, gnawing him with interminable agony. He turned on the light several times, but was not able to read. His eyes looked with stupid fixity at the patterns of the wall paper and the pious pictures around the room which had evidently served as the lodging place of some rich traveller. He remained motionless and as abstracted as an Oriental who thinks himself into an absolute lack of thought. One idea only was dancing in the vacuum in his skull--"I shall never see her again. . . . Can such a thing be possible?" He drowsed for a few seconds, only to be awakened with the sensation that some horrible explosion was sending him through the air. And so, with sweats of anguish, he wakefully passed the hours until in the gloom of his room the dawn showed a milky rectangle of light, and began to be reflected on the window curtains. The velvet-like caress of day finally closed his eyes. Upon awaking he found that the morning was well advanced, and he hurried to the garden of the grotto. . . . Oh, the hours of tremulous and unavailing waiting, believing that he recognized Marguerite in every white-clad lady that came along, guiding a wounded patient! By afternoon, after a lunch whose dishes filed past him untouched, he returned to the garden in search of her. Beholding her in the distance with the blind man leaning on her arm, a feeling of faintness came over him. She looked to him taller, thinner, her face sharper, with two dark hollows in her cheeks and her eyes bright with fever, the lids drawn with weariness. He suspected that she, too, had passed an anguished night of tenacious, self-centred thought, of grievous stupefaction like his own, in the room of her hotel. Suddenly he felt all the weight of insomnia and listlessness, all the depressing emotion of the cruel sensations experienced in the last few hours. Oh, how miserable they both were! . . . She was walking warily, looking from one side to the other, as though foreseeing danger. Upon discovering him she clung to her charge, casting upon her former lover a look of entreaty, of desperation, imploring pity. . . Ay, that look! He felt ashamed of himself; his personality appeared to be unrolling itself before him, and he surveyed himself with the eyes of a judge. What was this seduced and useless man, called Julio Desnoyers, doing there, tormenting with his presence a poor woman, trying to turn her from her righteous repentance, insisting on his selfish and petty desires when all humanity was thinking of other things? . . . His cowardice angered him. Like a thief taking advantage of the sleep of his victim, he was stalking around this brave and true man who could not see him, who could not defend himself, in order to rob him of the only affection that he had in the world which had so miraculously returned to him! Very well, Gentleman Desnoyers! . . . Ah, what a scoundrel he was! Such subconscious insults made him draw himself erect, in haughty, cruel and inexorable defiance against that other I who so richly deserved the judge's scorn. He turned his head away; he could not meet Marguerite's piteous eyes; he feared their mute reproach. Neither did he dare to look at the blind man in his shabby and heroic uniform, with his countenance aged by duty and glory. He feared him like remorse. So the vanquished lover turned his back on the two and went away with a firm step. Good-bye, Love! Goodbye, Happiness! . . . He marched quickly and bravely on; a miracle had just taken place within him! he had found the right road at last! To Paris! . . . A new impetus was going to fill the vacuum of his objectless existence. CHAPTER V THE INVASION Don Marcelo was fleeing to take refuge in his castle when he met the mayor of Villeblanche. The noise of the firing had made him hurry to the barricade. When he learned of the apparition of the group of stragglers he threw up his hands in despair. They were crazy. Their resistance was going to be fatal for the village, and he ran on to beg them to cease. For some time nothing happened to disturb the morning calm. Desnoyers had climbed to the top of his towers and was surveying the country with his field glasses. He couldn't make out the highway through the nearest group of trees, but he suspected that underneath their branches great activity was going on--masses of men on guard, troops preparing for the attack. The unexpected defense of the fugitives had upset the advance of the invasion. Desnoyers thought despairingly of that handful of mad fellows and their stubborn chief. What was their fate going to be? . . . Focussing his glasses on the village, he saw the red spots of kepis waving like poppies over the green of the meadows. They were the retreating men, now convinced of the uselessness of their resistance. Perhaps they had found a ford or forgotten boat by which they might cross the Maine, and so were continuing their retreat toward the river. At any minute now the Germans were going to enter Villeblanche. Half an hour of profound silence passed by. The village lay silhouetted against a background of hills--a mass of roofs beneath the church tower finished with its cross and iron weather cock. Everything seemed as tranquil as in the best days of peace. Suddenly he noticed that the grove was vomiting forth something noisy and penetrating--a bubble of vapor accompanied by a deafening report. Something was hurtling through the air with a strident curve. Then a roof in the village opened like a crater, vomiting forth flying wood, fragments of plaster and broken furniture. All the interior of the house seemed to be escaping in a stream of smoke, dirt and splinters. The invaders were bombarding Villeblanche before attempting attack, as though fearing to encounter persistent resistance in its streets. More projectiles fell. Some passed over the houses, exploding between the hamlet and the castle. The towers of the Desnoyers property were beginning to attract the aim of the artillerymen. The owner was therefore about to abandon his dangerous observatory when he saw something white like a tablecloth or sheet floating from the church tower. His neighbors had hoisted this signal of peace in order to avoid bombardment. A few more missiles fell and then there was silence. When Don Marcelo reached his park he found the Warden burying at the foot of a tree the sporting rifles still remaining in his castle. Then he went toward the great iron gates. The enemies were going to come, and he had to receive them. While uneasily awaiting their arrival his compunctions again tormented him. What was he doing there? Why had he remained? . . . But his obstinate temperament immediately put aside the promptings of fear. He was there because he had to guard his own. Besides, it was too late now to think about such things. Suddenly the morning stillness was broken by a sound like the deafening tearing of strong cloth. "Shots, Master," said the Warden. "Firing! It must be in the square." A few minutes after they saw running toward them a woman from the village, an old soul, dried up and darkened by age, who was panting from her great exertion, and looking wildly around her. She was fleeing blindly, trying to escape from danger and shut out horrible visions. Desnoyers and the Keeper's family listened to her explanations interrupted with hiccoughs of terror. The Germans were in Villeblanche. They had entered first in an automobile driven at full speed from one end of the village to the other. Its mitrailleuse was firing at random against closed houses and open doors, knocking down all the people in sight. The old woman flung up her arms with a gesture of terror. . . . Dead . . . many dead . . . wounded . . . blood! Then other iron-plated vehicles had stopped in the square, and behind them cavalrymen, battalions of infantry, many battalions coming from everywhere. The helmeted men seemed furious; they accused the villagers of having fired at them. In the square they had struck the mayor and villagers who had come forward to meet them. The priest, bending over some of the dying, had also been trodden under foot. . . . All prisoners! The Germans were talking of shooting them. The old dame's words were cut short by the rumble of approaching automobiles. "Open the gates," commanded the owner to the Warden. The massive iron grill work swung open, and was never again closed. All property rights were at an end. An enormous automobile, covered with dust and filled with men, stopped at the entrance. Behind them sounded the horns of other vehicles that were putting on the brakes. Desnoyers saw soldiers leaping out, all wearing the greenish-gray uniform with a sheath of the same tone covering the pointed casque. The one who marched at their head put his revolver to the millionaire's forehead. "Where are the sharpshooters?" he asked. He was pale with the pallor of wrath, vengeance and fear. His face was trembling under the influence of his triple emotion. Don Marcelo explained slowly, contemplating at a short distance from his eyes the black circle of the threatening tube. He had not seen any sharpshooters. The only inhabitants of the castle were the Warden with his family and himself, the owner of the castle. The officer surveyed the edifice and then examined Desnoyers with evident astonishment as though he thought his appearance too unpretentious for a proprietor. He had taken him for a simple employee, and his respect for social rank made him lower his revolver. He did not, however, alter his haughty attitude. He pressed Don Marcelo into the service as a guide, making him search ahead of him while forty soldiers grouped themselves at his back. They advanced in two files to the shelter of the trees which bordered the central avenue, with their guns ready to shoot, and looking uneasily at the castle windows as though expecting to receive from them hidden shots. Desnoyers marched tranquilly through the centre, and the official, who had been imitating the precautions of his men, finally joined him when he was crossing the drawbridge. The armed men scattered through the rooms in search of the enemy. They ran their bayonets through beds and divans. Some, with automatic destructiveness, slit the draperies and the rich bed coverings. The owner protested; what was the sense in such useless destruction? . . . He was suffering unbearable torture at seeing the enormous boots spotting the rugs with mud, on hearing the clash of guns and knapsacks against the most fragile, choicest pieces of furniture. Poor historic mansion! . . . The officer looked amazed that he should protest for such trifling cause, but he gave orders in German and his men ceased their rude explorations. Then, in justification of this extraordinary respect, he added in French: "I believe that you are going to have the honor of entertaining here the general of our division." The certainty that the castle did not hold any hidden enemies made him more amiable. He, nevertheless, persisted in his wrath against the sharpshooters. A group of the villagers had opened fire upon the Uhlans when they were entering unsuspiciously after the retreat of the French. Desnoyers felt it necessary to protest. They were neither inhabitants nor sharpshooters; they were French soldiers. He took good care to be silent about their presence at the barricade, but he insisted that he had distinguished their uniforms from a tower of the castle. The official made a threatening face. "You, too? . . . You, who appear a reasonable man, can repeat such yarns as these?" And in order to close the conversation, he said, arrogantly: "They were wearing uniforms, then, if you persist in saying so, but they were sharpshooters just the same. The French Government has distributed arms and uniforms among the farmers that they may assassinate us. . . . Belgium did the same thing. . . . But we know their tricks, and we know how to punish them, too!" The village was going to be burned. It was necessary to avenge the four German dead lying on the outskirts of Villeblanche, near the barricade. The mayor, the priest, the principal inhabitants would all be shot. By the time they reached the top floor Desnoyers could see floating above the boughs of his park dark clouds whose outlines were reddened by the sun. The top of the bell tower was the only thing that he could distinguish at that distance. Around the iron weathercock were flying long thin fringes like black cobwebs lifted by the breeze. An odor of burning wood came toward the castle. The German greeted this spectacle with a cruel smile. Then on descending to the park, he ordered Desnoyers to follow him. His liberty and his dignity had come to an end. Henceforth he was going to be an underling at the beck and call of these men who would dispose of him as their whims directed. Ay, why had he remained? . . . He obeyed, climbing into an automobile beside the officer, who was still carrying his revolver in his right hand. His men distributed themselves through the castle and outbuildings, in order to prevent the flight of an imaginary enemy. The Warden and his family seemed to be saying good-bye to him with their eyes. Perhaps they were taking him to his death. . . . Beyond the castle woods a new world was coming into existence. The short cut to Villeblanche seemed to Desnoyers a leap of millions of leagues, a fall into a red planet where men and things were covered with the film of smoke and the glare of fire. He saw the village under a dark canopy spotted with sparks and glowing embers. The bell tower was burning like an enormous torch; the roof of the church was breaking into flames with a crashing fury. The glare of the holocaust seemed to shrivel and grow pale in the impassive light of the sun. Running across the fields with the haste of desperation were shrieking women and children. The animals had escaped from the stables, and driven forth by the flames were racing wildly across the country. The cow and the work horse were dragging their halters broken by their flight. Their flanks were smoking and smelt of burnt hair. The pigs, the sheep and the chickens were all tearing along mingled with the cats and the dogs. All the domestic animals were returning to a brute existence, fleeing from civilized man. Shots were heard and hellish ha-ha's. The soldiers outside of the village were making themselves merry in this hunt for fugitives. Their guns were aimed at beasts and were hitting people. Desnoyers saw men, many men, men everywhere. They were like gray ants, marching in endless files towards the South, coming out from the woods, filling the roads, crossing the fields. The green of vegetation was disappearing under their tread; the dust was rising in spirals behind the dull roll of the cannons and the measured trot of thousands of horses. On the roadside several battalions had halted, with their accompaniment of vehicles and draw horses. They were resting before renewing their march. He knew this army. He had seen it in Berlin on parade, and yet it seemed to have changed its former appearance. There now remained very little of the heavy and imposing glitter, of the mute and vainglorious haughtiness which had made his relatives-in-law weep with admiration. War, with its realism, had wiped out all that was theatrical about this formidable organization of death. The soldiers appeared dirty and tired, out. The respiration of fat and sweaty bodies, mixed with the strong smell of leather, floated over the regiments. All the men had hungry faces. For days and nights they had been following the heels of an enemy which was always just eluding their grasp. In this forced advance the provisions of the administration would often arrive so late at the cantonments that they could depend only on what they happened to have in their knapsacks. Desnoyers saw them lined up near the road devouring hunks of black bread and mouldy sausages. Some had scattered through the fields to dig up beet roots and other tubers, chewing with loud crunchings the hard pulp to which the grit still adhered. An ensign was shaking the fruit trees using as a catch-all the flag of his regiment. That glorious standard, adorned with souvenirs of 1870, was serving as a receptacle for green plums. Those who were seated on the ground were improving this rest by drawing their perspiring, swollen feet from high boots which were sending out an insufferable smell. The regiments of infantry which Desnoyers had seen in Berlin reflecting the light on metal and leather straps, the magnificent and terrifying Hussars, the Cuirassiers in pure white uniform like the paladins of the Holy Grail, the artillerymen with breasts crossed with white bands, all the military variations that on parade had drawn forth the Hartrotts' sighs of admiration--these were now all unified and mixed together, of uniform color, all in greenish mustard like the dusty lizards that, slipping along, try to be confounded with the earth. The persistency of the iron discipline was easily discernible. A word from the chiefs, the sound of a whistle, and they all grouped themselves together, the human being disappearing in the throngs of automatons; but danger, weariness, and the uncertainty of triumph had for the time being brought officers and men nearer together, obliterating caste distinction. The officers were coming part way out of their overbearing, haughty seclusion, and were condescending to talk with the lower orders so as to revive their courage. One effort more and they would overwhelm both French and English, repeating the triumph of Sedan, whose anniversary they were going to celebrate in a few days! They were going to enter Paris; it was only a matter of a week. Paris! Great shops filled with luxurious things, famous restaurants, women, champagne, money. . . . And the men, flattered that their commanders were stooping to chat with them, forgot fatigue and hunger, reviving like the throngs of the Crusade before the image of Jerusalem. "Nach Paris!" The joyous shout circulated from the head to the tail of the marching columns. "To Paris! To Paris!" The scarcity of their food supply was here supplemented by the products of a country rich in wines. When sacking houses they rarely found eatables, but invariably a wine cellar. The humble German, the perpetual beer drinker, who had always looked upon wine as a privilege of the rich, could now open up casks with blows from his weapons, even bathing his feet in the stream of precious liquid. Every battalion left as a souvenir of its passing a wake of empty bottles; a halt in camp sowed the land with glass cylinders. The regimental trucks, unable to renew their stores of provisions, were accustomed to seize the wine in all the towns. The soldier, lacking bread, would receive alcohol. . . . This donation was always accompanied by the good counsels of the officers--War is war; no pity toward our adversaries who do not deserve it. The French were shooting their prisoners, and their women were putting out the eyes of the wounded. Every dwelling was a den of traps. The simple-hearted and innocent German entering therein was going to certain death. The beds were made over subterranean caves, the wardrobes were make-believe doors, in every corner was lurking an assassin. This traitorous nation, which was arranging its ground like the scenario of a melodrama, would have to be chastised. The municipal officers, the priests, the schoolmasters were directing and protecting the sharpshooters. Desnoyers was shocked at the indifference with which these men were stalking around the burning village. They did not appear to see the fire and destruction; it was just an ordinary spectacle, not worth looking at. Ever since they had crossed the frontier, smoldering and blasted villages, fired by the advance guard, had marked their halting places on Belgian and French soil. When entering Villeblanche the automobile had

returned

How many times the word 'returned' appears in the text?

would discover my identity and leave me, yet at the same time, wishing that he would recognize me and pardon me. . . . It is only one week that I have been with him. I disguise my voice when I can, and avoid words that may reveal the truth . . . but this cannot keep up much longer. It is only in novels that such painful situations turn out happily." Doubt suddenly overwhelmed her. "I believe," she continued, "that he has recognized me from the first. . . . He is silent and feigns ignorance because he despises me . . . because he can never bring himself to pardon me. I have been so bad! . . . I have wronged him so!". . . She was recalling the long and reflective silences of the wounded man after she had dropped some imprudent words. After two days of submission to her care, he had been somewhat rebellious, avoiding going out with her for a walk. Because of his blind helplessness, and comprehending the uselessness of his resistance, he had finally yielded in passive silence. "Let him think what he will!" concluded Marguerite courageously. "Let him despise me! I am here where I ought to be. I need his forgiveness, but if he does not pardon me, I shall stay with him just the same. . . . There are moments when I wish that he may never recover his sight, so that he may always need me, so that I may pass my life at his side, sacrificing everything for him." "And I?" said Desnoyers. Marguerite looked at him with clouded eyes as though she were just awaking. It was true--and the other one? . . . Kindled by the proposed sacrifice which was to be her expiation, she had forgotten the man before her. "You!" she said after a long pause. "You must leave me. . . . Life is not what we have thought it. Had it not been for the war, we might, perhaps, have realized our dream, but now! . . . Listen carefully and try to understand. For the remainder of my life, I shall carry the heaviest burden, and yet at the same time it will be sweet, since the more it weighs me down the greater will my atonement be. Never will I leave this man whom I have so grievously wronged, now that he is more alone in the world and will need protection like a child. Why do you come to share my fate? How could it be possible for you to live with a nurse constantly at the side of a blind and worthy man whom we would constantly offend with our passion? . . . No, it is better for us to part. Go your way, alone and untrammelled. Leave me; you will meet other women who will make you more happy than I. Yours is the temperament that finds new pleasures at every step." She stood firmly to her decision. Her voice was calm, but back of it trembled the emotion of a last farewell to a joy which was going from her forever. The man would be loved by others . . . and she was giving him up! . . . But the noble sadness of the sacrifice restored her courage. Only by this renunciation could she expiate her sins. Julio dropped his eyes, vanquished and perplexed. The picture of the future outlined by Marguerite terrified him. To live with her as a nurse taking advantage of her patient's blindness would be to offer him fresh insult every day. . . . Ah, no! That would be villainy, indeed! He was now ashamed to recall the malignity with which, a little while before, he had regarded this innocent unfortunate. He realized that he was powerless to contend with him. Weak and helpless as he was sitting there on the garden bench, he was stronger and more deserving of respect than Julio Desnoyers with all his youth and elegance. The victim had amounted to something in his life; he had done what Julio had not dared to do. This sudden conviction of his inferiority made him cry out like an abandoned child, "What will become of me?" . . . Marguerite, too--contemplating the love which was going from her forever, her vanished hopes, the future illumined by the satisfaction of duty fulfilled but monotonous and painful--cried out: "And I. . . . What will become of me?" . . . As though he had suddenly found a solution which was reviving his courage, Desnoyers said: "Listen, Marguerite: I can read your soul. You love this man, and you do well. He is superior to me, and women are always attracted by superiority. . . . I am a coward. Yes, do not protest, I am a coward with all my youth, with all my strength. Why should you not have been impressed by the conduct of this man! . . . But I will atone for past wrongs. This country is yours, Marguerite; I will fight for it. Do not say no. . . ." And moved by his hasty heroism, he outlined the plan more definitely. He was going to be a soldier. Soon she would hear him well spoken of. His idea was either to be stretched on the battlefield in his first encounter, or to astound the world by his bravery. In this way the impossible situation would settle itself--either the oblivion of death or glory. "No, no!" interrupted Marguerite in an anguished tone. "You, no! One is enough. . . . How horrible! You, too, wounded, mutilated forever, perhaps dead! . . . No, you must live. I want you to live, even though you might belong to another. . . . Let me know that you exist, let me see you sometimes, even though you may have forgotten me, even though you may pass me with indifference, as if you did not know me." In this outburst her deep love for him rang true--her heroic and inflexible love which would accept all penalties for herself, if only the beloved one might continue to live. But then, in order that Julio might not feel any false hopes, she added:--"Live; you must not die; that would be for me another torment. . . . But live without me. No matter how much we may talk about it, my destiny beside the other one is marked out forever." "Ah, how you love him! . . . How you have deceived me!" In a last desperate attempt at explanation she again repeated what she had said at the beginning of their interview. She loved Julio . . . and she loved her husband. They were different kinds of love. She could not say which was the stronger, but misfortune was forcing her to choose between the two, and she was accepting the most difficult, the one demanding the greatest sacrifices. "You are a man, and you will never be able to understand me. . . . A woman would comprehend me." It seemed to Julio, as he looked around him, as though the afternoon were undergoing some celestial phenomenon. The garden was still illuminated by the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the ground, the blue of the sky, all appeared to him as dark and shadowy as though a rain of ashes were falling. "Then . . . all is over between us?" His pleading, trembling voice charged with tears made her turn her head to hide her emotion. Then in the painful silence the two despairs formed one and the same question, as if interrogating the shades of the future: "What will become of me?" murmured the man. And like an echo her lips repeated, "What will become of me?" All had been said. Hopeless words came between the two like an obstacle momentarily increasing in size, impelling them in opposite directions. Why prolong the painful interview? . . . Marguerite showed the ready and energetic decision of a woman who wishes to bring a scene to a close. "Good-bye!" Her face had assumed a yellowish cast, her pupils had become dull and clouded like the glass of a lantern when the light dies out. "Good-bye!" She must go to her patient. She went away without looking at him, and Desnoyers instinctively went in the opposite direction. As he became more self-controlled and turned to look at her again, he saw her moving on and giving her arm to the blind man, without once turning her head. He now felt convinced that he should never see her again, and became oppressed by an almost suffocating agony. And could two beings, who had formerly considered the universe concentrated in their persons, thus easily be separated forever? . . . His desperation at finding himself alone made him accuse himself of stupidity. Now his thoughts came tumbling over each other in a tumultuous throng, and each one of them seemed to him sufficient to have convinced Marguerite. He certainly had not known how to express himself. He would have to talk with her again . . . and he decided to remain in Lourdes. He passed a night of torture in the hotel, listening to the ripple of the river among its stones. Insomnia had him in his fierce jaws, gnawing him with interminable agony. He turned on the light several times, but was not able to read. His eyes looked with stupid fixity at the patterns of the wall paper and the pious pictures around the room which had evidently served as the lodging place of some rich traveller. He remained motionless and as abstracted as an Oriental who thinks himself into an absolute lack of thought. One idea only was dancing in the vacuum in his skull--"I shall never see her again. . . . Can such a thing be possible?" He drowsed for a few seconds, only to be awakened with the sensation that some horrible explosion was sending him through the air. And so, with sweats of anguish, he wakefully passed the hours until in the gloom of his room the dawn showed a milky rectangle of light, and began to be reflected on the window curtains. The velvet-like caress of day finally closed his eyes. Upon awaking he found that the morning was well advanced, and he hurried to the garden of the grotto. . . . Oh, the hours of tremulous and unavailing waiting, believing that he recognized Marguerite in every white-clad lady that came along, guiding a wounded patient! By afternoon, after a lunch whose dishes filed past him untouched, he returned to the garden in search of her. Beholding her in the distance with the blind man leaning on her arm, a feeling of faintness came over him. She looked to him taller, thinner, her face sharper, with two dark hollows in her cheeks and her eyes bright with fever, the lids drawn with weariness. He suspected that she, too, had passed an anguished night of tenacious, self-centred thought, of grievous stupefaction like his own, in the room of her hotel. Suddenly he felt all the weight of insomnia and listlessness, all the depressing emotion of the cruel sensations experienced in the last few hours. Oh, how miserable they both were! . . . She was walking warily, looking from one side to the other, as though foreseeing danger. Upon discovering him she clung to her charge, casting upon her former lover a look of entreaty, of desperation, imploring pity. . . Ay, that look! He felt ashamed of himself; his personality appeared to be unrolling itself before him, and he surveyed himself with the eyes of a judge. What was this seduced and useless man, called Julio Desnoyers, doing there, tormenting with his presence a poor woman, trying to turn her from her righteous repentance, insisting on his selfish and petty desires when all humanity was thinking of other things? . . . His cowardice angered him. Like a thief taking advantage of the sleep of his victim, he was stalking around this brave and true man who could not see him, who could not defend himself, in order to rob him of the only affection that he had in the world which had so miraculously returned to him! Very well, Gentleman Desnoyers! . . . Ah, what a scoundrel he was! Such subconscious insults made him draw himself erect, in haughty, cruel and inexorable defiance against that other I who so richly deserved the judge's scorn. He turned his head away; he could not meet Marguerite's piteous eyes; he feared their mute reproach. Neither did he dare to look at the blind man in his shabby and heroic uniform, with his countenance aged by duty and glory. He feared him like remorse. So the vanquished lover turned his back on the two and went away with a firm step. Good-bye, Love! Goodbye, Happiness! . . . He marched quickly and bravely on; a miracle had just taken place within him! he had found the right road at last! To Paris! . . . A new impetus was going to fill the vacuum of his objectless existence. CHAPTER V THE INVASION Don Marcelo was fleeing to take refuge in his castle when he met the mayor of Villeblanche. The noise of the firing had made him hurry to the barricade. When he learned of the apparition of the group of stragglers he threw up his hands in despair. They were crazy. Their resistance was going to be fatal for the village, and he ran on to beg them to cease. For some time nothing happened to disturb the morning calm. Desnoyers had climbed to the top of his towers and was surveying the country with his field glasses. He couldn't make out the highway through the nearest group of trees, but he suspected that underneath their branches great activity was going on--masses of men on guard, troops preparing for the attack. The unexpected defense of the fugitives had upset the advance of the invasion. Desnoyers thought despairingly of that handful of mad fellows and their stubborn chief. What was their fate going to be? . . . Focussing his glasses on the village, he saw the red spots of kepis waving like poppies over the green of the meadows. They were the retreating men, now convinced of the uselessness of their resistance. Perhaps they had found a ford or forgotten boat by which they might cross the Maine, and so were continuing their retreat toward the river. At any minute now the Germans were going to enter Villeblanche. Half an hour of profound silence passed by. The village lay silhouetted against a background of hills--a mass of roofs beneath the church tower finished with its cross and iron weather cock. Everything seemed as tranquil as in the best days of peace. Suddenly he noticed that the grove was vomiting forth something noisy and penetrating--a bubble of vapor accompanied by a deafening report. Something was hurtling through the air with a strident curve. Then a roof in the village opened like a crater, vomiting forth flying wood, fragments of plaster and broken furniture. All the interior of the house seemed to be escaping in a stream of smoke, dirt and splinters. The invaders were bombarding Villeblanche before attempting attack, as though fearing to encounter persistent resistance in its streets. More projectiles fell. Some passed over the houses, exploding between the hamlet and the castle. The towers of the Desnoyers property were beginning to attract the aim of the artillerymen. The owner was therefore about to abandon his dangerous observatory when he saw something white like a tablecloth or sheet floating from the church tower. His neighbors had hoisted this signal of peace in order to avoid bombardment. A few more missiles fell and then there was silence. When Don Marcelo reached his park he found the Warden burying at the foot of a tree the sporting rifles still remaining in his castle. Then he went toward the great iron gates. The enemies were going to come, and he had to receive them. While uneasily awaiting their arrival his compunctions again tormented him. What was he doing there? Why had he remained? . . . But his obstinate temperament immediately put aside the promptings of fear. He was there because he had to guard his own. Besides, it was too late now to think about such things. Suddenly the morning stillness was broken by a sound like the deafening tearing of strong cloth. "Shots, Master," said the Warden. "Firing! It must be in the square." A few minutes after they saw running toward them a woman from the village, an old soul, dried up and darkened by age, who was panting from her great exertion, and looking wildly around her. She was fleeing blindly, trying to escape from danger and shut out horrible visions. Desnoyers and the Keeper's family listened to her explanations interrupted with hiccoughs of terror. The Germans were in Villeblanche. They had entered first in an automobile driven at full speed from one end of the village to the other. Its mitrailleuse was firing at random against closed houses and open doors, knocking down all the people in sight. The old woman flung up her arms with a gesture of terror. . . . Dead . . . many dead . . . wounded . . . blood! Then other iron-plated vehicles had stopped in the square, and behind them cavalrymen, battalions of infantry, many battalions coming from everywhere. The helmeted men seemed furious; they accused the villagers of having fired at them. In the square they had struck the mayor and villagers who had come forward to meet them. The priest, bending over some of the dying, had also been trodden under foot. . . . All prisoners! The Germans were talking of shooting them. The old dame's words were cut short by the rumble of approaching automobiles. "Open the gates," commanded the owner to the Warden. The massive iron grill work swung open, and was never again closed. All property rights were at an end. An enormous automobile, covered with dust and filled with men, stopped at the entrance. Behind them sounded the horns of other vehicles that were putting on the brakes. Desnoyers saw soldiers leaping out, all wearing the greenish-gray uniform with a sheath of the same tone covering the pointed casque. The one who marched at their head put his revolver to the millionaire's forehead. "Where are the sharpshooters?" he asked. He was pale with the pallor of wrath, vengeance and fear. His face was trembling under the influence of his triple emotion. Don Marcelo explained slowly, contemplating at a short distance from his eyes the black circle of the threatening tube. He had not seen any sharpshooters. The only inhabitants of the castle were the Warden with his family and himself, the owner of the castle. The officer surveyed the edifice and then examined Desnoyers with evident astonishment as though he thought his appearance too unpretentious for a proprietor. He had taken him for a simple employee, and his respect for social rank made him lower his revolver. He did not, however, alter his haughty attitude. He pressed Don Marcelo into the service as a guide, making him search ahead of him while forty soldiers grouped themselves at his back. They advanced in two files to the shelter of the trees which bordered the central avenue, with their guns ready to shoot, and looking uneasily at the castle windows as though expecting to receive from them hidden shots. Desnoyers marched tranquilly through the centre, and the official, who had been imitating the precautions of his men, finally joined him when he was crossing the drawbridge. The armed men scattered through the rooms in search of the enemy. They ran their bayonets through beds and divans. Some, with automatic destructiveness, slit the draperies and the rich bed coverings. The owner protested; what was the sense in such useless destruction? . . . He was suffering unbearable torture at seeing the enormous boots spotting the rugs with mud, on hearing the clash of guns and knapsacks against the most fragile, choicest pieces of furniture. Poor historic mansion! . . . The officer looked amazed that he should protest for such trifling cause, but he gave orders in German and his men ceased their rude explorations. Then, in justification of this extraordinary respect, he added in French: "I believe that you are going to have the honor of entertaining here the general of our division." The certainty that the castle did not hold any hidden enemies made him more amiable. He, nevertheless, persisted in his wrath against the sharpshooters. A group of the villagers had opened fire upon the Uhlans when they were entering unsuspiciously after the retreat of the French. Desnoyers felt it necessary to protest. They were neither inhabitants nor sharpshooters; they were French soldiers. He took good care to be silent about their presence at the barricade, but he insisted that he had distinguished their uniforms from a tower of the castle. The official made a threatening face. "You, too? . . . You, who appear a reasonable man, can repeat such yarns as these?" And in order to close the conversation, he said, arrogantly: "They were wearing uniforms, then, if you persist in saying so, but they were sharpshooters just the same. The French Government has distributed arms and uniforms among the farmers that they may assassinate us. . . . Belgium did the same thing. . . . But we know their tricks, and we know how to punish them, too!" The village was going to be burned. It was necessary to avenge the four German dead lying on the outskirts of Villeblanche, near the barricade. The mayor, the priest, the principal inhabitants would all be shot. By the time they reached the top floor Desnoyers could see floating above the boughs of his park dark clouds whose outlines were reddened by the sun. The top of the bell tower was the only thing that he could distinguish at that distance. Around the iron weathercock were flying long thin fringes like black cobwebs lifted by the breeze. An odor of burning wood came toward the castle. The German greeted this spectacle with a cruel smile. Then on descending to the park, he ordered Desnoyers to follow him. His liberty and his dignity had come to an end. Henceforth he was going to be an underling at the beck and call of these men who would dispose of him as their whims directed. Ay, why had he remained? . . . He obeyed, climbing into an automobile beside the officer, who was still carrying his revolver in his right hand. His men distributed themselves through the castle and outbuildings, in order to prevent the flight of an imaginary enemy. The Warden and his family seemed to be saying good-bye to him with their eyes. Perhaps they were taking him to his death. . . . Beyond the castle woods a new world was coming into existence. The short cut to Villeblanche seemed to Desnoyers a leap of millions of leagues, a fall into a red planet where men and things were covered with the film of smoke and the glare of fire. He saw the village under a dark canopy spotted with sparks and glowing embers. The bell tower was burning like an enormous torch; the roof of the church was breaking into flames with a crashing fury. The glare of the holocaust seemed to shrivel and grow pale in the impassive light of the sun. Running across the fields with the haste of desperation were shrieking women and children. The animals had escaped from the stables, and driven forth by the flames were racing wildly across the country. The cow and the work horse were dragging their halters broken by their flight. Their flanks were smoking and smelt of burnt hair. The pigs, the sheep and the chickens were all tearing along mingled with the cats and the dogs. All the domestic animals were returning to a brute existence, fleeing from civilized man. Shots were heard and hellish ha-ha's. The soldiers outside of the village were making themselves merry in this hunt for fugitives. Their guns were aimed at beasts and were hitting people. Desnoyers saw men, many men, men everywhere. They were like gray ants, marching in endless files towards the South, coming out from the woods, filling the roads, crossing the fields. The green of vegetation was disappearing under their tread; the dust was rising in spirals behind the dull roll of the cannons and the measured trot of thousands of horses. On the roadside several battalions had halted, with their accompaniment of vehicles and draw horses. They were resting before renewing their march. He knew this army. He had seen it in Berlin on parade, and yet it seemed to have changed its former appearance. There now remained very little of the heavy and imposing glitter, of the mute and vainglorious haughtiness which had made his relatives-in-law weep with admiration. War, with its realism, had wiped out all that was theatrical about this formidable organization of death. The soldiers appeared dirty and tired, out. The respiration of fat and sweaty bodies, mixed with the strong smell of leather, floated over the regiments. All the men had hungry faces. For days and nights they had been following the heels of an enemy which was always just eluding their grasp. In this forced advance the provisions of the administration would often arrive so late at the cantonments that they could depend only on what they happened to have in their knapsacks. Desnoyers saw them lined up near the road devouring hunks of black bread and mouldy sausages. Some had scattered through the fields to dig up beet roots and other tubers, chewing with loud crunchings the hard pulp to which the grit still adhered. An ensign was shaking the fruit trees using as a catch-all the flag of his regiment. That glorious standard, adorned with souvenirs of 1870, was serving as a receptacle for green plums. Those who were seated on the ground were improving this rest by drawing their perspiring, swollen feet from high boots which were sending out an insufferable smell. The regiments of infantry which Desnoyers had seen in Berlin reflecting the light on metal and leather straps, the magnificent and terrifying Hussars, the Cuirassiers in pure white uniform like the paladins of the Holy Grail, the artillerymen with breasts crossed with white bands, all the military variations that on parade had drawn forth the Hartrotts' sighs of admiration--these were now all unified and mixed together, of uniform color, all in greenish mustard like the dusty lizards that, slipping along, try to be confounded with the earth. The persistency of the iron discipline was easily discernible. A word from the chiefs, the sound of a whistle, and they all grouped themselves together, the human being disappearing in the throngs of automatons; but danger, weariness, and the uncertainty of triumph had for the time being brought officers and men nearer together, obliterating caste distinction. The officers were coming part way out of their overbearing, haughty seclusion, and were condescending to talk with the lower orders so as to revive their courage. One effort more and they would overwhelm both French and English, repeating the triumph of Sedan, whose anniversary they were going to celebrate in a few days! They were going to enter Paris; it was only a matter of a week. Paris! Great shops filled with luxurious things, famous restaurants, women, champagne, money. . . . And the men, flattered that their commanders were stooping to chat with them, forgot fatigue and hunger, reviving like the throngs of the Crusade before the image of Jerusalem. "Nach Paris!" The joyous shout circulated from the head to the tail of the marching columns. "To Paris! To Paris!" The scarcity of their food supply was here supplemented by the products of a country rich in wines. When sacking houses they rarely found eatables, but invariably a wine cellar. The humble German, the perpetual beer drinker, who had always looked upon wine as a privilege of the rich, could now open up casks with blows from his weapons, even bathing his feet in the stream of precious liquid. Every battalion left as a souvenir of its passing a wake of empty bottles; a halt in camp sowed the land with glass cylinders. The regimental trucks, unable to renew their stores of provisions, were accustomed to seize the wine in all the towns. The soldier, lacking bread, would receive alcohol. . . . This donation was always accompanied by the good counsels of the officers--War is war; no pity toward our adversaries who do not deserve it. The French were shooting their prisoners, and their women were putting out the eyes of the wounded. Every dwelling was a den of traps. The simple-hearted and innocent German entering therein was going to certain death. The beds were made over subterranean caves, the wardrobes were make-believe doors, in every corner was lurking an assassin. This traitorous nation, which was arranging its ground like the scenario of a melodrama, would have to be chastised. The municipal officers, the priests, the schoolmasters were directing and protecting the sharpshooters. Desnoyers was shocked at the indifference with which these men were stalking around the burning village. They did not appear to see the fire and destruction; it was just an ordinary spectacle, not worth looking at. Ever since they had crossed the frontier, smoldering and blasted villages, fired by the advance guard, had marked their halting places on Belgian and French soil. When entering Villeblanche the automobile had

nurse

How many times the word 'nurse' appears in the text?

would discover my identity and leave me, yet at the same time, wishing that he would recognize me and pardon me. . . . It is only one week that I have been with him. I disguise my voice when I can, and avoid words that may reveal the truth . . . but this cannot keep up much longer. It is only in novels that such painful situations turn out happily." Doubt suddenly overwhelmed her. "I believe," she continued, "that he has recognized me from the first. . . . He is silent and feigns ignorance because he despises me . . . because he can never bring himself to pardon me. I have been so bad! . . . I have wronged him so!". . . She was recalling the long and reflective silences of the wounded man after she had dropped some imprudent words. After two days of submission to her care, he had been somewhat rebellious, avoiding going out with her for a walk. Because of his blind helplessness, and comprehending the uselessness of his resistance, he had finally yielded in passive silence. "Let him think what he will!" concluded Marguerite courageously. "Let him despise me! I am here where I ought to be. I need his forgiveness, but if he does not pardon me, I shall stay with him just the same. . . . There are moments when I wish that he may never recover his sight, so that he may always need me, so that I may pass my life at his side, sacrificing everything for him." "And I?" said Desnoyers. Marguerite looked at him with clouded eyes as though she were just awaking. It was true--and the other one? . . . Kindled by the proposed sacrifice which was to be her expiation, she had forgotten the man before her. "You!" she said after a long pause. "You must leave me. . . . Life is not what we have thought it. Had it not been for the war, we might, perhaps, have realized our dream, but now! . . . Listen carefully and try to understand. For the remainder of my life, I shall carry the heaviest burden, and yet at the same time it will be sweet, since the more it weighs me down the greater will my atonement be. Never will I leave this man whom I have so grievously wronged, now that he is more alone in the world and will need protection like a child. Why do you come to share my fate? How could it be possible for you to live with a nurse constantly at the side of a blind and worthy man whom we would constantly offend with our passion? . . . No, it is better for us to part. Go your way, alone and untrammelled. Leave me; you will meet other women who will make you more happy than I. Yours is the temperament that finds new pleasures at every step." She stood firmly to her decision. Her voice was calm, but back of it trembled the emotion of a last farewell to a joy which was going from her forever. The man would be loved by others . . . and she was giving him up! . . . But the noble sadness of the sacrifice restored her courage. Only by this renunciation could she expiate her sins. Julio dropped his eyes, vanquished and perplexed. The picture of the future outlined by Marguerite terrified him. To live with her as a nurse taking advantage of her patient's blindness would be to offer him fresh insult every day. . . . Ah, no! That would be villainy, indeed! He was now ashamed to recall the malignity with which, a little while before, he had regarded this innocent unfortunate. He realized that he was powerless to contend with him. Weak and helpless as he was sitting there on the garden bench, he was stronger and more deserving of respect than Julio Desnoyers with all his youth and elegance. The victim had amounted to something in his life; he had done what Julio had not dared to do. This sudden conviction of his inferiority made him cry out like an abandoned child, "What will become of me?" . . . Marguerite, too--contemplating the love which was going from her forever, her vanished hopes, the future illumined by the satisfaction of duty fulfilled but monotonous and painful--cried out: "And I. . . . What will become of me?" . . . As though he had suddenly found a solution which was reviving his courage, Desnoyers said: "Listen, Marguerite: I can read your soul. You love this man, and you do well. He is superior to me, and women are always attracted by superiority. . . . I am a coward. Yes, do not protest, I am a coward with all my youth, with all my strength. Why should you not have been impressed by the conduct of this man! . . . But I will atone for past wrongs. This country is yours, Marguerite; I will fight for it. Do not say no. . . ." And moved by his hasty heroism, he outlined the plan more definitely. He was going to be a soldier. Soon she would hear him well spoken of. His idea was either to be stretched on the battlefield in his first encounter, or to astound the world by his bravery. In this way the impossible situation would settle itself--either the oblivion of death or glory. "No, no!" interrupted Marguerite in an anguished tone. "You, no! One is enough. . . . How horrible! You, too, wounded, mutilated forever, perhaps dead! . . . No, you must live. I want you to live, even though you might belong to another. . . . Let me know that you exist, let me see you sometimes, even though you may have forgotten me, even though you may pass me with indifference, as if you did not know me." In this outburst her deep love for him rang true--her heroic and inflexible love which would accept all penalties for herself, if only the beloved one might continue to live. But then, in order that Julio might not feel any false hopes, she added:--"Live; you must not die; that would be for me another torment. . . . But live without me. No matter how much we may talk about it, my destiny beside the other one is marked out forever." "Ah, how you love him! . . . How you have deceived me!" In a last desperate attempt at explanation she again repeated what she had said at the beginning of their interview. She loved Julio . . . and she loved her husband. They were different kinds of love. She could not say which was the stronger, but misfortune was forcing her to choose between the two, and she was accepting the most difficult, the one demanding the greatest sacrifices. "You are a man, and you will never be able to understand me. . . . A woman would comprehend me." It seemed to Julio, as he looked around him, as though the afternoon were undergoing some celestial phenomenon. The garden was still illuminated by the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the ground, the blue of the sky, all appeared to him as dark and shadowy as though a rain of ashes were falling. "Then . . . all is over between us?" His pleading, trembling voice charged with tears made her turn her head to hide her emotion. Then in the painful silence the two despairs formed one and the same question, as if interrogating the shades of the future: "What will become of me?" murmured the man. And like an echo her lips repeated, "What will become of me?" All had been said. Hopeless words came between the two like an obstacle momentarily increasing in size, impelling them in opposite directions. Why prolong the painful interview? . . . Marguerite showed the ready and energetic decision of a woman who wishes to bring a scene to a close. "Good-bye!" Her face had assumed a yellowish cast, her pupils had become dull and clouded like the glass of a lantern when the light dies out. "Good-bye!" She must go to her patient. She went away without looking at him, and Desnoyers instinctively went in the opposite direction. As he became more self-controlled and turned to look at her again, he saw her moving on and giving her arm to the blind man, without once turning her head. He now felt convinced that he should never see her again, and became oppressed by an almost suffocating agony. And could two beings, who had formerly considered the universe concentrated in their persons, thus easily be separated forever? . . . His desperation at finding himself alone made him accuse himself of stupidity. Now his thoughts came tumbling over each other in a tumultuous throng, and each one of them seemed to him sufficient to have convinced Marguerite. He certainly had not known how to express himself. He would have to talk with her again . . . and he decided to remain in Lourdes. He passed a night of torture in the hotel, listening to the ripple of the river among its stones. Insomnia had him in his fierce jaws, gnawing him with interminable agony. He turned on the light several times, but was not able to read. His eyes looked with stupid fixity at the patterns of the wall paper and the pious pictures around the room which had evidently served as the lodging place of some rich traveller. He remained motionless and as abstracted as an Oriental who thinks himself into an absolute lack of thought. One idea only was dancing in the vacuum in his skull--"I shall never see her again. . . . Can such a thing be possible?" He drowsed for a few seconds, only to be awakened with the sensation that some horrible explosion was sending him through the air. And so, with sweats of anguish, he wakefully passed the hours until in the gloom of his room the dawn showed a milky rectangle of light, and began to be reflected on the window curtains. The velvet-like caress of day finally closed his eyes. Upon awaking he found that the morning was well advanced, and he hurried to the garden of the grotto. . . . Oh, the hours of tremulous and unavailing waiting, believing that he recognized Marguerite in every white-clad lady that came along, guiding a wounded patient! By afternoon, after a lunch whose dishes filed past him untouched, he returned to the garden in search of her. Beholding her in the distance with the blind man leaning on her arm, a feeling of faintness came over him. She looked to him taller, thinner, her face sharper, with two dark hollows in her cheeks and her eyes bright with fever, the lids drawn with weariness. He suspected that she, too, had passed an anguished night of tenacious, self-centred thought, of grievous stupefaction like his own, in the room of her hotel. Suddenly he felt all the weight of insomnia and listlessness, all the depressing emotion of the cruel sensations experienced in the last few hours. Oh, how miserable they both were! . . . She was walking warily, looking from one side to the other, as though foreseeing danger. Upon discovering him she clung to her charge, casting upon her former lover a look of entreaty, of desperation, imploring pity. . . Ay, that look! He felt ashamed of himself; his personality appeared to be unrolling itself before him, and he surveyed himself with the eyes of a judge. What was this seduced and useless man, called Julio Desnoyers, doing there, tormenting with his presence a poor woman, trying to turn her from her righteous repentance, insisting on his selfish and petty desires when all humanity was thinking of other things? . . . His cowardice angered him. Like a thief taking advantage of the sleep of his victim, he was stalking around this brave and true man who could not see him, who could not defend himself, in order to rob him of the only affection that he had in the world which had so miraculously returned to him! Very well, Gentleman Desnoyers! . . . Ah, what a scoundrel he was! Such subconscious insults made him draw himself erect, in haughty, cruel and inexorable defiance against that other I who so richly deserved the judge's scorn. He turned his head away; he could not meet Marguerite's piteous eyes; he feared their mute reproach. Neither did he dare to look at the blind man in his shabby and heroic uniform, with his countenance aged by duty and glory. He feared him like remorse. So the vanquished lover turned his back on the two and went away with a firm step. Good-bye, Love! Goodbye, Happiness! . . . He marched quickly and bravely on; a miracle had just taken place within him! he had found the right road at last! To Paris! . . . A new impetus was going to fill the vacuum of his objectless existence. CHAPTER V THE INVASION Don Marcelo was fleeing to take refuge in his castle when he met the mayor of Villeblanche. The noise of the firing had made him hurry to the barricade. When he learned of the apparition of the group of stragglers he threw up his hands in despair. They were crazy. Their resistance was going to be fatal for the village, and he ran on to beg them to cease. For some time nothing happened to disturb the morning calm. Desnoyers had climbed to the top of his towers and was surveying the country with his field glasses. He couldn't make out the highway through the nearest group of trees, but he suspected that underneath their branches great activity was going on--masses of men on guard, troops preparing for the attack. The unexpected defense of the fugitives had upset the advance of the invasion. Desnoyers thought despairingly of that handful of mad fellows and their stubborn chief. What was their fate going to be? . . . Focussing his glasses on the village, he saw the red spots of kepis waving like poppies over the green of the meadows. They were the retreating men, now convinced of the uselessness of their resistance. Perhaps they had found a ford or forgotten boat by which they might cross the Maine, and so were continuing their retreat toward the river. At any minute now the Germans were going to enter Villeblanche. Half an hour of profound silence passed by. The village lay silhouetted against a background of hills--a mass of roofs beneath the church tower finished with its cross and iron weather cock. Everything seemed as tranquil as in the best days of peace. Suddenly he noticed that the grove was vomiting forth something noisy and penetrating--a bubble of vapor accompanied by a deafening report. Something was hurtling through the air with a strident curve. Then a roof in the village opened like a crater, vomiting forth flying wood, fragments of plaster and broken furniture. All the interior of the house seemed to be escaping in a stream of smoke, dirt and splinters. The invaders were bombarding Villeblanche before attempting attack, as though fearing to encounter persistent resistance in its streets. More projectiles fell. Some passed over the houses, exploding between the hamlet and the castle. The towers of the Desnoyers property were beginning to attract the aim of the artillerymen. The owner was therefore about to abandon his dangerous observatory when he saw something white like a tablecloth or sheet floating from the church tower. His neighbors had hoisted this signal of peace in order to avoid bombardment. A few more missiles fell and then there was silence. When Don Marcelo reached his park he found the Warden burying at the foot of a tree the sporting rifles still remaining in his castle. Then he went toward the great iron gates. The enemies were going to come, and he had to receive them. While uneasily awaiting their arrival his compunctions again tormented him. What was he doing there? Why had he remained? . . . But his obstinate temperament immediately put aside the promptings of fear. He was there because he had to guard his own. Besides, it was too late now to think about such things. Suddenly the morning stillness was broken by a sound like the deafening tearing of strong cloth. "Shots, Master," said the Warden. "Firing! It must be in the square." A few minutes after they saw running toward them a woman from the village, an old soul, dried up and darkened by age, who was panting from her great exertion, and looking wildly around her. She was fleeing blindly, trying to escape from danger and shut out horrible visions. Desnoyers and the Keeper's family listened to her explanations interrupted with hiccoughs of terror. The Germans were in Villeblanche. They had entered first in an automobile driven at full speed from one end of the village to the other. Its mitrailleuse was firing at random against closed houses and open doors, knocking down all the people in sight. The old woman flung up her arms with a gesture of terror. . . . Dead . . . many dead . . . wounded . . . blood! Then other iron-plated vehicles had stopped in the square, and behind them cavalrymen, battalions of infantry, many battalions coming from everywhere. The helmeted men seemed furious; they accused the villagers of having fired at them. In the square they had struck the mayor and villagers who had come forward to meet them. The priest, bending over some of the dying, had also been trodden under foot. . . . All prisoners! The Germans were talking of shooting them. The old dame's words were cut short by the rumble of approaching automobiles. "Open the gates," commanded the owner to the Warden. The massive iron grill work swung open, and was never again closed. All property rights were at an end. An enormous automobile, covered with dust and filled with men, stopped at the entrance. Behind them sounded the horns of other vehicles that were putting on the brakes. Desnoyers saw soldiers leaping out, all wearing the greenish-gray uniform with a sheath of the same tone covering the pointed casque. The one who marched at their head put his revolver to the millionaire's forehead. "Where are the sharpshooters?" he asked. He was pale with the pallor of wrath, vengeance and fear. His face was trembling under the influence of his triple emotion. Don Marcelo explained slowly, contemplating at a short distance from his eyes the black circle of the threatening tube. He had not seen any sharpshooters. The only inhabitants of the castle were the Warden with his family and himself, the owner of the castle. The officer surveyed the edifice and then examined Desnoyers with evident astonishment as though he thought his appearance too unpretentious for a proprietor. He had taken him for a simple employee, and his respect for social rank made him lower his revolver. He did not, however, alter his haughty attitude. He pressed Don Marcelo into the service as a guide, making him search ahead of him while forty soldiers grouped themselves at his back. They advanced in two files to the shelter of the trees which bordered the central avenue, with their guns ready to shoot, and looking uneasily at the castle windows as though expecting to receive from them hidden shots. Desnoyers marched tranquilly through the centre, and the official, who had been imitating the precautions of his men, finally joined him when he was crossing the drawbridge. The armed men scattered through the rooms in search of the enemy. They ran their bayonets through beds and divans. Some, with automatic destructiveness, slit the draperies and the rich bed coverings. The owner protested; what was the sense in such useless destruction? . . . He was suffering unbearable torture at seeing the enormous boots spotting the rugs with mud, on hearing the clash of guns and knapsacks against the most fragile, choicest pieces of furniture. Poor historic mansion! . . . The officer looked amazed that he should protest for such trifling cause, but he gave orders in German and his men ceased their rude explorations. Then, in justification of this extraordinary respect, he added in French: "I believe that you are going to have the honor of entertaining here the general of our division." The certainty that the castle did not hold any hidden enemies made him more amiable. He, nevertheless, persisted in his wrath against the sharpshooters. A group of the villagers had opened fire upon the Uhlans when they were entering unsuspiciously after the retreat of the French. Desnoyers felt it necessary to protest. They were neither inhabitants nor sharpshooters; they were French soldiers. He took good care to be silent about their presence at the barricade, but he insisted that he had distinguished their uniforms from a tower of the castle. The official made a threatening face. "You, too? . . . You, who appear a reasonable man, can repeat such yarns as these?" And in order to close the conversation, he said, arrogantly: "They were wearing uniforms, then, if you persist in saying so, but they were sharpshooters just the same. The French Government has distributed arms and uniforms among the farmers that they may assassinate us. . . . Belgium did the same thing. . . . But we know their tricks, and we know how to punish them, too!" The village was going to be burned. It was necessary to avenge the four German dead lying on the outskirts of Villeblanche, near the barricade. The mayor, the priest, the principal inhabitants would all be shot. By the time they reached the top floor Desnoyers could see floating above the boughs of his park dark clouds whose outlines were reddened by the sun. The top of the bell tower was the only thing that he could distinguish at that distance. Around the iron weathercock were flying long thin fringes like black cobwebs lifted by the breeze. An odor of burning wood came toward the castle. The German greeted this spectacle with a cruel smile. Then on descending to the park, he ordered Desnoyers to follow him. His liberty and his dignity had come to an end. Henceforth he was going to be an underling at the beck and call of these men who would dispose of him as their whims directed. Ay, why had he remained? . . . He obeyed, climbing into an automobile beside the officer, who was still carrying his revolver in his right hand. His men distributed themselves through the castle and outbuildings, in order to prevent the flight of an imaginary enemy. The Warden and his family seemed to be saying good-bye to him with their eyes. Perhaps they were taking him to his death. . . . Beyond the castle woods a new world was coming into existence. The short cut to Villeblanche seemed to Desnoyers a leap of millions of leagues, a fall into a red planet where men and things were covered with the film of smoke and the glare of fire. He saw the village under a dark canopy spotted with sparks and glowing embers. The bell tower was burning like an enormous torch; the roof of the church was breaking into flames with a crashing fury. The glare of the holocaust seemed to shrivel and grow pale in the impassive light of the sun. Running across the fields with the haste of desperation were shrieking women and children. The animals had escaped from the stables, and driven forth by the flames were racing wildly across the country. The cow and the work horse were dragging their halters broken by their flight. Their flanks were smoking and smelt of burnt hair. The pigs, the sheep and the chickens were all tearing along mingled with the cats and the dogs. All the domestic animals were returning to a brute existence, fleeing from civilized man. Shots were heard and hellish ha-ha's. The soldiers outside of the village were making themselves merry in this hunt for fugitives. Their guns were aimed at beasts and were hitting people. Desnoyers saw men, many men, men everywhere. They were like gray ants, marching in endless files towards the South, coming out from the woods, filling the roads, crossing the fields. The green of vegetation was disappearing under their tread; the dust was rising in spirals behind the dull roll of the cannons and the measured trot of thousands of horses. On the roadside several battalions had halted, with their accompaniment of vehicles and draw horses. They were resting before renewing their march. He knew this army. He had seen it in Berlin on parade, and yet it seemed to have changed its former appearance. There now remained very little of the heavy and imposing glitter, of the mute and vainglorious haughtiness which had made his relatives-in-law weep with admiration. War, with its realism, had wiped out all that was theatrical about this formidable organization of death. The soldiers appeared dirty and tired, out. The respiration of fat and sweaty bodies, mixed with the strong smell of leather, floated over the regiments. All the men had hungry faces. For days and nights they had been following the heels of an enemy which was always just eluding their grasp. In this forced advance the provisions of the administration would often arrive so late at the cantonments that they could depend only on what they happened to have in their knapsacks. Desnoyers saw them lined up near the road devouring hunks of black bread and mouldy sausages. Some had scattered through the fields to dig up beet roots and other tubers, chewing with loud crunchings the hard pulp to which the grit still adhered. An ensign was shaking the fruit trees using as a catch-all the flag of his regiment. That glorious standard, adorned with souvenirs of 1870, was serving as a receptacle for green plums. Those who were seated on the ground were improving this rest by drawing their perspiring, swollen feet from high boots which were sending out an insufferable smell. The regiments of infantry which Desnoyers had seen in Berlin reflecting the light on metal and leather straps, the magnificent and terrifying Hussars, the Cuirassiers in pure white uniform like the paladins of the Holy Grail, the artillerymen with breasts crossed with white bands, all the military variations that on parade had drawn forth the Hartrotts' sighs of admiration--these were now all unified and mixed together, of uniform color, all in greenish mustard like the dusty lizards that, slipping along, try to be confounded with the earth. The persistency of the iron discipline was easily discernible. A word from the chiefs, the sound of a whistle, and they all grouped themselves together, the human being disappearing in the throngs of automatons; but danger, weariness, and the uncertainty of triumph had for the time being brought officers and men nearer together, obliterating caste distinction. The officers were coming part way out of their overbearing, haughty seclusion, and were condescending to talk with the lower orders so as to revive their courage. One effort more and they would overwhelm both French and English, repeating the triumph of Sedan, whose anniversary they were going to celebrate in a few days! They were going to enter Paris; it was only a matter of a week. Paris! Great shops filled with luxurious things, famous restaurants, women, champagne, money. . . . And the men, flattered that their commanders were stooping to chat with them, forgot fatigue and hunger, reviving like the throngs of the Crusade before the image of Jerusalem. "Nach Paris!" The joyous shout circulated from the head to the tail of the marching columns. "To Paris! To Paris!" The scarcity of their food supply was here supplemented by the products of a country rich in wines. When sacking houses they rarely found eatables, but invariably a wine cellar. The humble German, the perpetual beer drinker, who had always looked upon wine as a privilege of the rich, could now open up casks with blows from his weapons, even bathing his feet in the stream of precious liquid. Every battalion left as a souvenir of its passing a wake of empty bottles; a halt in camp sowed the land with glass cylinders. The regimental trucks, unable to renew their stores of provisions, were accustomed to seize the wine in all the towns. The soldier, lacking bread, would receive alcohol. . . . This donation was always accompanied by the good counsels of the officers--War is war; no pity toward our adversaries who do not deserve it. The French were shooting their prisoners, and their women were putting out the eyes of the wounded. Every dwelling was a den of traps. The simple-hearted and innocent German entering therein was going to certain death. The beds were made over subterranean caves, the wardrobes were make-believe doors, in every corner was lurking an assassin. This traitorous nation, which was arranging its ground like the scenario of a melodrama, would have to be chastised. The municipal officers, the priests, the schoolmasters were directing and protecting the sharpshooters. Desnoyers was shocked at the indifference with which these men were stalking around the burning village. They did not appear to see the fire and destruction; it was just an ordinary spectacle, not worth looking at. Ever since they had crossed the frontier, smoldering and blasted villages, fired by the advance guard, had marked their halting places on Belgian and French soil. When entering Villeblanche the automobile had

different

How many times the word 'different' appears in the text?

would discover my identity and leave me, yet at the same time, wishing that he would recognize me and pardon me. . . . It is only one week that I have been with him. I disguise my voice when I can, and avoid words that may reveal the truth . . . but this cannot keep up much longer. It is only in novels that such painful situations turn out happily." Doubt suddenly overwhelmed her. "I believe," she continued, "that he has recognized me from the first. . . . He is silent and feigns ignorance because he despises me . . . because he can never bring himself to pardon me. I have been so bad! . . . I have wronged him so!". . . She was recalling the long and reflective silences of the wounded man after she had dropped some imprudent words. After two days of submission to her care, he had been somewhat rebellious, avoiding going out with her for a walk. Because of his blind helplessness, and comprehending the uselessness of his resistance, he had finally yielded in passive silence. "Let him think what he will!" concluded Marguerite courageously. "Let him despise me! I am here where I ought to be. I need his forgiveness, but if he does not pardon me, I shall stay with him just the same. . . . There are moments when I wish that he may never recover his sight, so that he may always need me, so that I may pass my life at his side, sacrificing everything for him." "And I?" said Desnoyers. Marguerite looked at him with clouded eyes as though she were just awaking. It was true--and the other one? . . . Kindled by the proposed sacrifice which was to be her expiation, she had forgotten the man before her. "You!" she said after a long pause. "You must leave me. . . . Life is not what we have thought it. Had it not been for the war, we might, perhaps, have realized our dream, but now! . . . Listen carefully and try to understand. For the remainder of my life, I shall carry the heaviest burden, and yet at the same time it will be sweet, since the more it weighs me down the greater will my atonement be. Never will I leave this man whom I have so grievously wronged, now that he is more alone in the world and will need protection like a child. Why do you come to share my fate? How could it be possible for you to live with a nurse constantly at the side of a blind and worthy man whom we would constantly offend with our passion? . . . No, it is better for us to part. Go your way, alone and untrammelled. Leave me; you will meet other women who will make you more happy than I. Yours is the temperament that finds new pleasures at every step." She stood firmly to her decision. Her voice was calm, but back of it trembled the emotion of a last farewell to a joy which was going from her forever. The man would be loved by others . . . and she was giving him up! . . . But the noble sadness of the sacrifice restored her courage. Only by this renunciation could she expiate her sins. Julio dropped his eyes, vanquished and perplexed. The picture of the future outlined by Marguerite terrified him. To live with her as a nurse taking advantage of her patient's blindness would be to offer him fresh insult every day. . . . Ah, no! That would be villainy, indeed! He was now ashamed to recall the malignity with which, a little while before, he had regarded this innocent unfortunate. He realized that he was powerless to contend with him. Weak and helpless as he was sitting there on the garden bench, he was stronger and more deserving of respect than Julio Desnoyers with all his youth and elegance. The victim had amounted to something in his life; he had done what Julio had not dared to do. This sudden conviction of his inferiority made him cry out like an abandoned child, "What will become of me?" . . . Marguerite, too--contemplating the love which was going from her forever, her vanished hopes, the future illumined by the satisfaction of duty fulfilled but monotonous and painful--cried out: "And I. . . . What will become of me?" . . . As though he had suddenly found a solution which was reviving his courage, Desnoyers said: "Listen, Marguerite: I can read your soul. You love this man, and you do well. He is superior to me, and women are always attracted by superiority. . . . I am a coward. Yes, do not protest, I am a coward with all my youth, with all my strength. Why should you not have been impressed by the conduct of this man! . . . But I will atone for past wrongs. This country is yours, Marguerite; I will fight for it. Do not say no. . . ." And moved by his hasty heroism, he outlined the plan more definitely. He was going to be a soldier. Soon she would hear him well spoken of. His idea was either to be stretched on the battlefield in his first encounter, or to astound the world by his bravery. In this way the impossible situation would settle itself--either the oblivion of death or glory. "No, no!" interrupted Marguerite in an anguished tone. "You, no! One is enough. . . . How horrible! You, too, wounded, mutilated forever, perhaps dead! . . . No, you must live. I want you to live, even though you might belong to another. . . . Let me know that you exist, let me see you sometimes, even though you may have forgotten me, even though you may pass me with indifference, as if you did not know me." In this outburst her deep love for him rang true--her heroic and inflexible love which would accept all penalties for herself, if only the beloved one might continue to live. But then, in order that Julio might not feel any false hopes, she added:--"Live; you must not die; that would be for me another torment. . . . But live without me. No matter how much we may talk about it, my destiny beside the other one is marked out forever." "Ah, how you love him! . . . How you have deceived me!" In a last desperate attempt at explanation she again repeated what she had said at the beginning of their interview. She loved Julio . . . and she loved her husband. They were different kinds of love. She could not say which was the stronger, but misfortune was forcing her to choose between the two, and she was accepting the most difficult, the one demanding the greatest sacrifices. "You are a man, and you will never be able to understand me. . . . A woman would comprehend me." It seemed to Julio, as he looked around him, as though the afternoon were undergoing some celestial phenomenon. The garden was still illuminated by the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the ground, the blue of the sky, all appeared to him as dark and shadowy as though a rain of ashes were falling. "Then . . . all is over between us?" His pleading, trembling voice charged with tears made her turn her head to hide her emotion. Then in the painful silence the two despairs formed one and the same question, as if interrogating the shades of the future: "What will become of me?" murmured the man. And like an echo her lips repeated, "What will become of me?" All had been said. Hopeless words came between the two like an obstacle momentarily increasing in size, impelling them in opposite directions. Why prolong the painful interview? . . . Marguerite showed the ready and energetic decision of a woman who wishes to bring a scene to a close. "Good-bye!" Her face had assumed a yellowish cast, her pupils had become dull and clouded like the glass of a lantern when the light dies out. "Good-bye!" She must go to her patient. She went away without looking at him, and Desnoyers instinctively went in the opposite direction. As he became more self-controlled and turned to look at her again, he saw her moving on and giving her arm to the blind man, without once turning her head. He now felt convinced that he should never see her again, and became oppressed by an almost suffocating agony. And could two beings, who had formerly considered the universe concentrated in their persons, thus easily be separated forever? . . . His desperation at finding himself alone made him accuse himself of stupidity. Now his thoughts came tumbling over each other in a tumultuous throng, and each one of them seemed to him sufficient to have convinced Marguerite. He certainly had not known how to express himself. He would have to talk with her again . . . and he decided to remain in Lourdes. He passed a night of torture in the hotel, listening to the ripple of the river among its stones. Insomnia had him in his fierce jaws, gnawing him with interminable agony. He turned on the light several times, but was not able to read. His eyes looked with stupid fixity at the patterns of the wall paper and the pious pictures around the room which had evidently served as the lodging place of some rich traveller. He remained motionless and as abstracted as an Oriental who thinks himself into an absolute lack of thought. One idea only was dancing in the vacuum in his skull--"I shall never see her again. . . . Can such a thing be possible?" He drowsed for a few seconds, only to be awakened with the sensation that some horrible explosion was sending him through the air. And so, with sweats of anguish, he wakefully passed the hours until in the gloom of his room the dawn showed a milky rectangle of light, and began to be reflected on the window curtains. The velvet-like caress of day finally closed his eyes. Upon awaking he found that the morning was well advanced, and he hurried to the garden of the grotto. . . . Oh, the hours of tremulous and unavailing waiting, believing that he recognized Marguerite in every white-clad lady that came along, guiding a wounded patient! By afternoon, after a lunch whose dishes filed past him untouched, he returned to the garden in search of her. Beholding her in the distance with the blind man leaning on her arm, a feeling of faintness came over him. She looked to him taller, thinner, her face sharper, with two dark hollows in her cheeks and her eyes bright with fever, the lids drawn with weariness. He suspected that she, too, had passed an anguished night of tenacious, self-centred thought, of grievous stupefaction like his own, in the room of her hotel. Suddenly he felt all the weight of insomnia and listlessness, all the depressing emotion of the cruel sensations experienced in the last few hours. Oh, how miserable they both were! . . . She was walking warily, looking from one side to the other, as though foreseeing danger. Upon discovering him she clung to her charge, casting upon her former lover a look of entreaty, of desperation, imploring pity. . . Ay, that look! He felt ashamed of himself; his personality appeared to be unrolling itself before him, and he surveyed himself with the eyes of a judge. What was this seduced and useless man, called Julio Desnoyers, doing there, tormenting with his presence a poor woman, trying to turn her from her righteous repentance, insisting on his selfish and petty desires when all humanity was thinking of other things? . . . His cowardice angered him. Like a thief taking advantage of the sleep of his victim, he was stalking around this brave and true man who could not see him, who could not defend himself, in order to rob him of the only affection that he had in the world which had so miraculously returned to him! Very well, Gentleman Desnoyers! . . . Ah, what a scoundrel he was! Such subconscious insults made him draw himself erect, in haughty, cruel and inexorable defiance against that other I who so richly deserved the judge's scorn. He turned his head away; he could not meet Marguerite's piteous eyes; he feared their mute reproach. Neither did he dare to look at the blind man in his shabby and heroic uniform, with his countenance aged by duty and glory. He feared him like remorse. So the vanquished lover turned his back on the two and went away with a firm step. Good-bye, Love! Goodbye, Happiness! . . . He marched quickly and bravely on; a miracle had just taken place within him! he had found the right road at last! To Paris! . . . A new impetus was going to fill the vacuum of his objectless existence. CHAPTER V THE INVASION Don Marcelo was fleeing to take refuge in his castle when he met the mayor of Villeblanche. The noise of the firing had made him hurry to the barricade. When he learned of the apparition of the group of stragglers he threw up his hands in despair. They were crazy. Their resistance was going to be fatal for the village, and he ran on to beg them to cease. For some time nothing happened to disturb the morning calm. Desnoyers had climbed to the top of his towers and was surveying the country with his field glasses. He couldn't make out the highway through the nearest group of trees, but he suspected that underneath their branches great activity was going on--masses of men on guard, troops preparing for the attack. The unexpected defense of the fugitives had upset the advance of the invasion. Desnoyers thought despairingly of that handful of mad fellows and their stubborn chief. What was their fate going to be? . . . Focussing his glasses on the village, he saw the red spots of kepis waving like poppies over the green of the meadows. They were the retreating men, now convinced of the uselessness of their resistance. Perhaps they had found a ford or forgotten boat by which they might cross the Maine, and so were continuing their retreat toward the river. At any minute now the Germans were going to enter Villeblanche. Half an hour of profound silence passed by. The village lay silhouetted against a background of hills--a mass of roofs beneath the church tower finished with its cross and iron weather cock. Everything seemed as tranquil as in the best days of peace. Suddenly he noticed that the grove was vomiting forth something noisy and penetrating--a bubble of vapor accompanied by a deafening report. Something was hurtling through the air with a strident curve. Then a roof in the village opened like a crater, vomiting forth flying wood, fragments of plaster and broken furniture. All the interior of the house seemed to be escaping in a stream of smoke, dirt and splinters. The invaders were bombarding Villeblanche before attempting attack, as though fearing to encounter persistent resistance in its streets. More projectiles fell. Some passed over the houses, exploding between the hamlet and the castle. The towers of the Desnoyers property were beginning to attract the aim of the artillerymen. The owner was therefore about to abandon his dangerous observatory when he saw something white like a tablecloth or sheet floating from the church tower. His neighbors had hoisted this signal of peace in order to avoid bombardment. A few more missiles fell and then there was silence. When Don Marcelo reached his park he found the Warden burying at the foot of a tree the sporting rifles still remaining in his castle. Then he went toward the great iron gates. The enemies were going to come, and he had to receive them. While uneasily awaiting their arrival his compunctions again tormented him. What was he doing there? Why had he remained? . . . But his obstinate temperament immediately put aside the promptings of fear. He was there because he had to guard his own. Besides, it was too late now to think about such things. Suddenly the morning stillness was broken by a sound like the deafening tearing of strong cloth. "Shots, Master," said the Warden. "Firing! It must be in the square." A few minutes after they saw running toward them a woman from the village, an old soul, dried up and darkened by age, who was panting from her great exertion, and looking wildly around her. She was fleeing blindly, trying to escape from danger and shut out horrible visions. Desnoyers and the Keeper's family listened to her explanations interrupted with hiccoughs of terror. The Germans were in Villeblanche. They had entered first in an automobile driven at full speed from one end of the village to the other. Its mitrailleuse was firing at random against closed houses and open doors, knocking down all the people in sight. The old woman flung up her arms with a gesture of terror. . . . Dead . . . many dead . . . wounded . . . blood! Then other iron-plated vehicles had stopped in the square, and behind them cavalrymen, battalions of infantry, many battalions coming from everywhere. The helmeted men seemed furious; they accused the villagers of having fired at them. In the square they had struck the mayor and villagers who had come forward to meet them. The priest, bending over some of the dying, had also been trodden under foot. . . . All prisoners! The Germans were talking of shooting them. The old dame's words were cut short by the rumble of approaching automobiles. "Open the gates," commanded the owner to the Warden. The massive iron grill work swung open, and was never again closed. All property rights were at an end. An enormous automobile, covered with dust and filled with men, stopped at the entrance. Behind them sounded the horns of other vehicles that were putting on the brakes. Desnoyers saw soldiers leaping out, all wearing the greenish-gray uniform with a sheath of the same tone covering the pointed casque. The one who marched at their head put his revolver to the millionaire's forehead. "Where are the sharpshooters?" he asked. He was pale with the pallor of wrath, vengeance and fear. His face was trembling under the influence of his triple emotion. Don Marcelo explained slowly, contemplating at a short distance from his eyes the black circle of the threatening tube. He had not seen any sharpshooters. The only inhabitants of the castle were the Warden with his family and himself, the owner of the castle. The officer surveyed the edifice and then examined Desnoyers with evident astonishment as though he thought his appearance too unpretentious for a proprietor. He had taken him for a simple employee, and his respect for social rank made him lower his revolver. He did not, however, alter his haughty attitude. He pressed Don Marcelo into the service as a guide, making him search ahead of him while forty soldiers grouped themselves at his back. They advanced in two files to the shelter of the trees which bordered the central avenue, with their guns ready to shoot, and looking uneasily at the castle windows as though expecting to receive from them hidden shots. Desnoyers marched tranquilly through the centre, and the official, who had been imitating the precautions of his men, finally joined him when he was crossing the drawbridge. The armed men scattered through the rooms in search of the enemy. They ran their bayonets through beds and divans. Some, with automatic destructiveness, slit the draperies and the rich bed coverings. The owner protested; what was the sense in such useless destruction? . . . He was suffering unbearable torture at seeing the enormous boots spotting the rugs with mud, on hearing the clash of guns and knapsacks against the most fragile, choicest pieces of furniture. Poor historic mansion! . . . The officer looked amazed that he should protest for such trifling cause, but he gave orders in German and his men ceased their rude explorations. Then, in justification of this extraordinary respect, he added in French: "I believe that you are going to have the honor of entertaining here the general of our division." The certainty that the castle did not hold any hidden enemies made him more amiable. He, nevertheless, persisted in his wrath against the sharpshooters. A group of the villagers had opened fire upon the Uhlans when they were entering unsuspiciously after the retreat of the French. Desnoyers felt it necessary to protest. They were neither inhabitants nor sharpshooters; they were French soldiers. He took good care to be silent about their presence at the barricade, but he insisted that he had distinguished their uniforms from a tower of the castle. The official made a threatening face. "You, too? . . . You, who appear a reasonable man, can repeat such yarns as these?" And in order to close the conversation, he said, arrogantly: "They were wearing uniforms, then, if you persist in saying so, but they were sharpshooters just the same. The French Government has distributed arms and uniforms among the farmers that they may assassinate us. . . . Belgium did the same thing. . . . But we know their tricks, and we know how to punish them, too!" The village was going to be burned. It was necessary to avenge the four German dead lying on the outskirts of Villeblanche, near the barricade. The mayor, the priest, the principal inhabitants would all be shot. By the time they reached the top floor Desnoyers could see floating above the boughs of his park dark clouds whose outlines were reddened by the sun. The top of the bell tower was the only thing that he could distinguish at that distance. Around the iron weathercock were flying long thin fringes like black cobwebs lifted by the breeze. An odor of burning wood came toward the castle. The German greeted this spectacle with a cruel smile. Then on descending to the park, he ordered Desnoyers to follow him. His liberty and his dignity had come to an end. Henceforth he was going to be an underling at the beck and call of these men who would dispose of him as their whims directed. Ay, why had he remained? . . . He obeyed, climbing into an automobile beside the officer, who was still carrying his revolver in his right hand. His men distributed themselves through the castle and outbuildings, in order to prevent the flight of an imaginary enemy. The Warden and his family seemed to be saying good-bye to him with their eyes. Perhaps they were taking him to his death. . . . Beyond the castle woods a new world was coming into existence. The short cut to Villeblanche seemed to Desnoyers a leap of millions of leagues, a fall into a red planet where men and things were covered with the film of smoke and the glare of fire. He saw the village under a dark canopy spotted with sparks and glowing embers. The bell tower was burning like an enormous torch; the roof of the church was breaking into flames with a crashing fury. The glare of the holocaust seemed to shrivel and grow pale in the impassive light of the sun. Running across the fields with the haste of desperation were shrieking women and children. The animals had escaped from the stables, and driven forth by the flames were racing wildly across the country. The cow and the work horse were dragging their halters broken by their flight. Their flanks were smoking and smelt of burnt hair. The pigs, the sheep and the chickens were all tearing along mingled with the cats and the dogs. All the domestic animals were returning to a brute existence, fleeing from civilized man. Shots were heard and hellish ha-ha's. The soldiers outside of the village were making themselves merry in this hunt for fugitives. Their guns were aimed at beasts and were hitting people. Desnoyers saw men, many men, men everywhere. They were like gray ants, marching in endless files towards the South, coming out from the woods, filling the roads, crossing the fields. The green of vegetation was disappearing under their tread; the dust was rising in spirals behind the dull roll of the cannons and the measured trot of thousands of horses. On the roadside several battalions had halted, with their accompaniment of vehicles and draw horses. They were resting before renewing their march. He knew this army. He had seen it in Berlin on parade, and yet it seemed to have changed its former appearance. There now remained very little of the heavy and imposing glitter, of the mute and vainglorious haughtiness which had made his relatives-in-law weep with admiration. War, with its realism, had wiped out all that was theatrical about this formidable organization of death. The soldiers appeared dirty and tired, out. The respiration of fat and sweaty bodies, mixed with the strong smell of leather, floated over the regiments. All the men had hungry faces. For days and nights they had been following the heels of an enemy which was always just eluding their grasp. In this forced advance the provisions of the administration would often arrive so late at the cantonments that they could depend only on what they happened to have in their knapsacks. Desnoyers saw them lined up near the road devouring hunks of black bread and mouldy sausages. Some had scattered through the fields to dig up beet roots and other tubers, chewing with loud crunchings the hard pulp to which the grit still adhered. An ensign was shaking the fruit trees using as a catch-all the flag of his regiment. That glorious standard, adorned with souvenirs of 1870, was serving as a receptacle for green plums. Those who were seated on the ground were improving this rest by drawing their perspiring, swollen feet from high boots which were sending out an insufferable smell. The regiments of infantry which Desnoyers had seen in Berlin reflecting the light on metal and leather straps, the magnificent and terrifying Hussars, the Cuirassiers in pure white uniform like the paladins of the Holy Grail, the artillerymen with breasts crossed with white bands, all the military variations that on parade had drawn forth the Hartrotts' sighs of admiration--these were now all unified and mixed together, of uniform color, all in greenish mustard like the dusty lizards that, slipping along, try to be confounded with the earth. The persistency of the iron discipline was easily discernible. A word from the chiefs, the sound of a whistle, and they all grouped themselves together, the human being disappearing in the throngs of automatons; but danger, weariness, and the uncertainty of triumph had for the time being brought officers and men nearer together, obliterating caste distinction. The officers were coming part way out of their overbearing, haughty seclusion, and were condescending to talk with the lower orders so as to revive their courage. One effort more and they would overwhelm both French and English, repeating the triumph of Sedan, whose anniversary they were going to celebrate in a few days! They were going to enter Paris; it was only a matter of a week. Paris! Great shops filled with luxurious things, famous restaurants, women, champagne, money. . . . And the men, flattered that their commanders were stooping to chat with them, forgot fatigue and hunger, reviving like the throngs of the Crusade before the image of Jerusalem. "Nach Paris!" The joyous shout circulated from the head to the tail of the marching columns. "To Paris! To Paris!" The scarcity of their food supply was here supplemented by the products of a country rich in wines. When sacking houses they rarely found eatables, but invariably a wine cellar. The humble German, the perpetual beer drinker, who had always looked upon wine as a privilege of the rich, could now open up casks with blows from his weapons, even bathing his feet in the stream of precious liquid. Every battalion left as a souvenir of its passing a wake of empty bottles; a halt in camp sowed the land with glass cylinders. The regimental trucks, unable to renew their stores of provisions, were accustomed to seize the wine in all the towns. The soldier, lacking bread, would receive alcohol. . . . This donation was always accompanied by the good counsels of the officers--War is war; no pity toward our adversaries who do not deserve it. The French were shooting their prisoners, and their women were putting out the eyes of the wounded. Every dwelling was a den of traps. The simple-hearted and innocent German entering therein was going to certain death. The beds were made over subterranean caves, the wardrobes were make-believe doors, in every corner was lurking an assassin. This traitorous nation, which was arranging its ground like the scenario of a melodrama, would have to be chastised. The municipal officers, the priests, the schoolmasters were directing and protecting the sharpshooters. Desnoyers was shocked at the indifference with which these men were stalking around the burning village. They did not appear to see the fire and destruction; it was just an ordinary spectacle, not worth looking at. Ever since they had crossed the frontier, smoldering and blasted villages, fired by the advance guard, had marked their halting places on Belgian and French soil. When entering Villeblanche the automobile had

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would discover my identity and leave me, yet at the same time, wishing that he would recognize me and pardon me. . . . It is only one week that I have been with him. I disguise my voice when I can, and avoid words that may reveal the truth . . . but this cannot keep up much longer. It is only in novels that such painful situations turn out happily." Doubt suddenly overwhelmed her. "I believe," she continued, "that he has recognized me from the first. . . . He is silent and feigns ignorance because he despises me . . . because he can never bring himself to pardon me. I have been so bad! . . . I have wronged him so!". . . She was recalling the long and reflective silences of the wounded man after she had dropped some imprudent words. After two days of submission to her care, he had been somewhat rebellious, avoiding going out with her for a walk. Because of his blind helplessness, and comprehending the uselessness of his resistance, he had finally yielded in passive silence. "Let him think what he will!" concluded Marguerite courageously. "Let him despise me! I am here where I ought to be. I need his forgiveness, but if he does not pardon me, I shall stay with him just the same. . . . There are moments when I wish that he may never recover his sight, so that he may always need me, so that I may pass my life at his side, sacrificing everything for him." "And I?" said Desnoyers. Marguerite looked at him with clouded eyes as though she were just awaking. It was true--and the other one? . . . Kindled by the proposed sacrifice which was to be her expiation, she had forgotten the man before her. "You!" she said after a long pause. "You must leave me. . . . Life is not what we have thought it. Had it not been for the war, we might, perhaps, have realized our dream, but now! . . . Listen carefully and try to understand. For the remainder of my life, I shall carry the heaviest burden, and yet at the same time it will be sweet, since the more it weighs me down the greater will my atonement be. Never will I leave this man whom I have so grievously wronged, now that he is more alone in the world and will need protection like a child. Why do you come to share my fate? How could it be possible for you to live with a nurse constantly at the side of a blind and worthy man whom we would constantly offend with our passion? . . . No, it is better for us to part. Go your way, alone and untrammelled. Leave me; you will meet other women who will make you more happy than I. Yours is the temperament that finds new pleasures at every step." She stood firmly to her decision. Her voice was calm, but back of it trembled the emotion of a last farewell to a joy which was going from her forever. The man would be loved by others . . . and she was giving him up! . . . But the noble sadness of the sacrifice restored her courage. Only by this renunciation could she expiate her sins. Julio dropped his eyes, vanquished and perplexed. The picture of the future outlined by Marguerite terrified him. To live with her as a nurse taking advantage of her patient's blindness would be to offer him fresh insult every day. . . . Ah, no! That would be villainy, indeed! He was now ashamed to recall the malignity with which, a little while before, he had regarded this innocent unfortunate. He realized that he was powerless to contend with him. Weak and helpless as he was sitting there on the garden bench, he was stronger and more deserving of respect than Julio Desnoyers with all his youth and elegance. The victim had amounted to something in his life; he had done what Julio had not dared to do. This sudden conviction of his inferiority made him cry out like an abandoned child, "What will become of me?" . . . Marguerite, too--contemplating the love which was going from her forever, her vanished hopes, the future illumined by the satisfaction of duty fulfilled but monotonous and painful--cried out: "And I. . . . What will become of me?" . . . As though he had suddenly found a solution which was reviving his courage, Desnoyers said: "Listen, Marguerite: I can read your soul. You love this man, and you do well. He is superior to me, and women are always attracted by superiority. . . . I am a coward. Yes, do not protest, I am a coward with all my youth, with all my strength. Why should you not have been impressed by the conduct of this man! . . . But I will atone for past wrongs. This country is yours, Marguerite; I will fight for it. Do not say no. . . ." And moved by his hasty heroism, he outlined the plan more definitely. He was going to be a soldier. Soon she would hear him well spoken of. His idea was either to be stretched on the battlefield in his first encounter, or to astound the world by his bravery. In this way the impossible situation would settle itself--either the oblivion of death or glory. "No, no!" interrupted Marguerite in an anguished tone. "You, no! One is enough. . . . How horrible! You, too, wounded, mutilated forever, perhaps dead! . . . No, you must live. I want you to live, even though you might belong to another. . . . Let me know that you exist, let me see you sometimes, even though you may have forgotten me, even though you may pass me with indifference, as if you did not know me." In this outburst her deep love for him rang true--her heroic and inflexible love which would accept all penalties for herself, if only the beloved one might continue to live. But then, in order that Julio might not feel any false hopes, she added:--"Live; you must not die; that would be for me another torment. . . . But live without me. No matter how much we may talk about it, my destiny beside the other one is marked out forever." "Ah, how you love him! . . . How you have deceived me!" In a last desperate attempt at explanation she again repeated what she had said at the beginning of their interview. She loved Julio . . . and she loved her husband. They were different kinds of love. She could not say which was the stronger, but misfortune was forcing her to choose between the two, and she was accepting the most difficult, the one demanding the greatest sacrifices. "You are a man, and you will never be able to understand me. . . . A woman would comprehend me." It seemed to Julio, as he looked around him, as though the afternoon were undergoing some celestial phenomenon. The garden was still illuminated by the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the ground, the blue of the sky, all appeared to him as dark and shadowy as though a rain of ashes were falling. "Then . . . all is over between us?" His pleading, trembling voice charged with tears made her turn her head to hide her emotion. Then in the painful silence the two despairs formed one and the same question, as if interrogating the shades of the future: "What will become of me?" murmured the man. And like an echo her lips repeated, "What will become of me?" All had been said. Hopeless words came between the two like an obstacle momentarily increasing in size, impelling them in opposite directions. Why prolong the painful interview? . . . Marguerite showed the ready and energetic decision of a woman who wishes to bring a scene to a close. "Good-bye!" Her face had assumed a yellowish cast, her pupils had become dull and clouded like the glass of a lantern when the light dies out. "Good-bye!" She must go to her patient. She went away without looking at him, and Desnoyers instinctively went in the opposite direction. As he became more self-controlled and turned to look at her again, he saw her moving on and giving her arm to the blind man, without once turning her head. He now felt convinced that he should never see her again, and became oppressed by an almost suffocating agony. And could two beings, who had formerly considered the universe concentrated in their persons, thus easily be separated forever? . . . His desperation at finding himself alone made him accuse himself of stupidity. Now his thoughts came tumbling over each other in a tumultuous throng, and each one of them seemed to him sufficient to have convinced Marguerite. He certainly had not known how to express himself. He would have to talk with her again . . . and he decided to remain in Lourdes. He passed a night of torture in the hotel, listening to the ripple of the river among its stones. Insomnia had him in his fierce jaws, gnawing him with interminable agony. He turned on the light several times, but was not able to read. His eyes looked with stupid fixity at the patterns of the wall paper and the pious pictures around the room which had evidently served as the lodging place of some rich traveller. He remained motionless and as abstracted as an Oriental who thinks himself into an absolute lack of thought. One idea only was dancing in the vacuum in his skull--"I shall never see her again. . . . Can such a thing be possible?" He drowsed for a few seconds, only to be awakened with the sensation that some horrible explosion was sending him through the air. And so, with sweats of anguish, he wakefully passed the hours until in the gloom of his room the dawn showed a milky rectangle of light, and began to be reflected on the window curtains. The velvet-like caress of day finally closed his eyes. Upon awaking he found that the morning was well advanced, and he hurried to the garden of the grotto. . . . Oh, the hours of tremulous and unavailing waiting, believing that he recognized Marguerite in every white-clad lady that came along, guiding a wounded patient! By afternoon, after a lunch whose dishes filed past him untouched, he returned to the garden in search of her. Beholding her in the distance with the blind man leaning on her arm, a feeling of faintness came over him. She looked to him taller, thinner, her face sharper, with two dark hollows in her cheeks and her eyes bright with fever, the lids drawn with weariness. He suspected that she, too, had passed an anguished night of tenacious, self-centred thought, of grievous stupefaction like his own, in the room of her hotel. Suddenly he felt all the weight of insomnia and listlessness, all the depressing emotion of the cruel sensations experienced in the last few hours. Oh, how miserable they both were! . . . She was walking warily, looking from one side to the other, as though foreseeing danger. Upon discovering him she clung to her charge, casting upon her former lover a look of entreaty, of desperation, imploring pity. . . Ay, that look! He felt ashamed of himself; his personality appeared to be unrolling itself before him, and he surveyed himself with the eyes of a judge. What was this seduced and useless man, called Julio Desnoyers, doing there, tormenting with his presence a poor woman, trying to turn her from her righteous repentance, insisting on his selfish and petty desires when all humanity was thinking of other things? . . . His cowardice angered him. Like a thief taking advantage of the sleep of his victim, he was stalking around this brave and true man who could not see him, who could not defend himself, in order to rob him of the only affection that he had in the world which had so miraculously returned to him! Very well, Gentleman Desnoyers! . . . Ah, what a scoundrel he was! Such subconscious insults made him draw himself erect, in haughty, cruel and inexorable defiance against that other I who so richly deserved the judge's scorn. He turned his head away; he could not meet Marguerite's piteous eyes; he feared their mute reproach. Neither did he dare to look at the blind man in his shabby and heroic uniform, with his countenance aged by duty and glory. He feared him like remorse. So the vanquished lover turned his back on the two and went away with a firm step. Good-bye, Love! Goodbye, Happiness! . . . He marched quickly and bravely on; a miracle had just taken place within him! he had found the right road at last! To Paris! . . . A new impetus was going to fill the vacuum of his objectless existence. CHAPTER V THE INVASION Don Marcelo was fleeing to take refuge in his castle when he met the mayor of Villeblanche. The noise of the firing had made him hurry to the barricade. When he learned of the apparition of the group of stragglers he threw up his hands in despair. They were crazy. Their resistance was going to be fatal for the village, and he ran on to beg them to cease. For some time nothing happened to disturb the morning calm. Desnoyers had climbed to the top of his towers and was surveying the country with his field glasses. He couldn't make out the highway through the nearest group of trees, but he suspected that underneath their branches great activity was going on--masses of men on guard, troops preparing for the attack. The unexpected defense of the fugitives had upset the advance of the invasion. Desnoyers thought despairingly of that handful of mad fellows and their stubborn chief. What was their fate going to be? . . . Focussing his glasses on the village, he saw the red spots of kepis waving like poppies over the green of the meadows. They were the retreating men, now convinced of the uselessness of their resistance. Perhaps they had found a ford or forgotten boat by which they might cross the Maine, and so were continuing their retreat toward the river. At any minute now the Germans were going to enter Villeblanche. Half an hour of profound silence passed by. The village lay silhouetted against a background of hills--a mass of roofs beneath the church tower finished with its cross and iron weather cock. Everything seemed as tranquil as in the best days of peace. Suddenly he noticed that the grove was vomiting forth something noisy and penetrating--a bubble of vapor accompanied by a deafening report. Something was hurtling through the air with a strident curve. Then a roof in the village opened like a crater, vomiting forth flying wood, fragments of plaster and broken furniture. All the interior of the house seemed to be escaping in a stream of smoke, dirt and splinters. The invaders were bombarding Villeblanche before attempting attack, as though fearing to encounter persistent resistance in its streets. More projectiles fell. Some passed over the houses, exploding between the hamlet and the castle. The towers of the Desnoyers property were beginning to attract the aim of the artillerymen. The owner was therefore about to abandon his dangerous observatory when he saw something white like a tablecloth or sheet floating from the church tower. His neighbors had hoisted this signal of peace in order to avoid bombardment. A few more missiles fell and then there was silence. When Don Marcelo reached his park he found the Warden burying at the foot of a tree the sporting rifles still remaining in his castle. Then he went toward the great iron gates. The enemies were going to come, and he had to receive them. While uneasily awaiting their arrival his compunctions again tormented him. What was he doing there? Why had he remained? . . . But his obstinate temperament immediately put aside the promptings of fear. He was there because he had to guard his own. Besides, it was too late now to think about such things. Suddenly the morning stillness was broken by a sound like the deafening tearing of strong cloth. "Shots, Master," said the Warden. "Firing! It must be in the square." A few minutes after they saw running toward them a woman from the village, an old soul, dried up and darkened by age, who was panting from her great exertion, and looking wildly around her. She was fleeing blindly, trying to escape from danger and shut out horrible visions. Desnoyers and the Keeper's family listened to her explanations interrupted with hiccoughs of terror. The Germans were in Villeblanche. They had entered first in an automobile driven at full speed from one end of the village to the other. Its mitrailleuse was firing at random against closed houses and open doors, knocking down all the people in sight. The old woman flung up her arms with a gesture of terror. . . . Dead . . . many dead . . . wounded . . . blood! Then other iron-plated vehicles had stopped in the square, and behind them cavalrymen, battalions of infantry, many battalions coming from everywhere. The helmeted men seemed furious; they accused the villagers of having fired at them. In the square they had struck the mayor and villagers who had come forward to meet them. The priest, bending over some of the dying, had also been trodden under foot. . . . All prisoners! The Germans were talking of shooting them. The old dame's words were cut short by the rumble of approaching automobiles. "Open the gates," commanded the owner to the Warden. The massive iron grill work swung open, and was never again closed. All property rights were at an end. An enormous automobile, covered with dust and filled with men, stopped at the entrance. Behind them sounded the horns of other vehicles that were putting on the brakes. Desnoyers saw soldiers leaping out, all wearing the greenish-gray uniform with a sheath of the same tone covering the pointed casque. The one who marched at their head put his revolver to the millionaire's forehead. "Where are the sharpshooters?" he asked. He was pale with the pallor of wrath, vengeance and fear. His face was trembling under the influence of his triple emotion. Don Marcelo explained slowly, contemplating at a short distance from his eyes the black circle of the threatening tube. He had not seen any sharpshooters. The only inhabitants of the castle were the Warden with his family and himself, the owner of the castle. The officer surveyed the edifice and then examined Desnoyers with evident astonishment as though he thought his appearance too unpretentious for a proprietor. He had taken him for a simple employee, and his respect for social rank made him lower his revolver. He did not, however, alter his haughty attitude. He pressed Don Marcelo into the service as a guide, making him search ahead of him while forty soldiers grouped themselves at his back. They advanced in two files to the shelter of the trees which bordered the central avenue, with their guns ready to shoot, and looking uneasily at the castle windows as though expecting to receive from them hidden shots. Desnoyers marched tranquilly through the centre, and the official, who had been imitating the precautions of his men, finally joined him when he was crossing the drawbridge. The armed men scattered through the rooms in search of the enemy. They ran their bayonets through beds and divans. Some, with automatic destructiveness, slit the draperies and the rich bed coverings. The owner protested; what was the sense in such useless destruction? . . . He was suffering unbearable torture at seeing the enormous boots spotting the rugs with mud, on hearing the clash of guns and knapsacks against the most fragile, choicest pieces of furniture. Poor historic mansion! . . . The officer looked amazed that he should protest for such trifling cause, but he gave orders in German and his men ceased their rude explorations. Then, in justification of this extraordinary respect, he added in French: "I believe that you are going to have the honor of entertaining here the general of our division." The certainty that the castle did not hold any hidden enemies made him more amiable. He, nevertheless, persisted in his wrath against the sharpshooters. A group of the villagers had opened fire upon the Uhlans when they were entering unsuspiciously after the retreat of the French. Desnoyers felt it necessary to protest. They were neither inhabitants nor sharpshooters; they were French soldiers. He took good care to be silent about their presence at the barricade, but he insisted that he had distinguished their uniforms from a tower of the castle. The official made a threatening face. "You, too? . . . You, who appear a reasonable man, can repeat such yarns as these?" And in order to close the conversation, he said, arrogantly: "They were wearing uniforms, then, if you persist in saying so, but they were sharpshooters just the same. The French Government has distributed arms and uniforms among the farmers that they may assassinate us. . . . Belgium did the same thing. . . . But we know their tricks, and we know how to punish them, too!" The village was going to be burned. It was necessary to avenge the four German dead lying on the outskirts of Villeblanche, near the barricade. The mayor, the priest, the principal inhabitants would all be shot. By the time they reached the top floor Desnoyers could see floating above the boughs of his park dark clouds whose outlines were reddened by the sun. The top of the bell tower was the only thing that he could distinguish at that distance. Around the iron weathercock were flying long thin fringes like black cobwebs lifted by the breeze. An odor of burning wood came toward the castle. The German greeted this spectacle with a cruel smile. Then on descending to the park, he ordered Desnoyers to follow him. His liberty and his dignity had come to an end. Henceforth he was going to be an underling at the beck and call of these men who would dispose of him as their whims directed. Ay, why had he remained? . . . He obeyed, climbing into an automobile beside the officer, who was still carrying his revolver in his right hand. His men distributed themselves through the castle and outbuildings, in order to prevent the flight of an imaginary enemy. The Warden and his family seemed to be saying good-bye to him with their eyes. Perhaps they were taking him to his death. . . . Beyond the castle woods a new world was coming into existence. The short cut to Villeblanche seemed to Desnoyers a leap of millions of leagues, a fall into a red planet where men and things were covered with the film of smoke and the glare of fire. He saw the village under a dark canopy spotted with sparks and glowing embers. The bell tower was burning like an enormous torch; the roof of the church was breaking into flames with a crashing fury. The glare of the holocaust seemed to shrivel and grow pale in the impassive light of the sun. Running across the fields with the haste of desperation were shrieking women and children. The animals had escaped from the stables, and driven forth by the flames were racing wildly across the country. The cow and the work horse were dragging their halters broken by their flight. Their flanks were smoking and smelt of burnt hair. The pigs, the sheep and the chickens were all tearing along mingled with the cats and the dogs. All the domestic animals were returning to a brute existence, fleeing from civilized man. Shots were heard and hellish ha-ha's. The soldiers outside of the village were making themselves merry in this hunt for fugitives. Their guns were aimed at beasts and were hitting people. Desnoyers saw men, many men, men everywhere. They were like gray ants, marching in endless files towards the South, coming out from the woods, filling the roads, crossing the fields. The green of vegetation was disappearing under their tread; the dust was rising in spirals behind the dull roll of the cannons and the measured trot of thousands of horses. On the roadside several battalions had halted, with their accompaniment of vehicles and draw horses. They were resting before renewing their march. He knew this army. He had seen it in Berlin on parade, and yet it seemed to have changed its former appearance. There now remained very little of the heavy and imposing glitter, of the mute and vainglorious haughtiness which had made his relatives-in-law weep with admiration. War, with its realism, had wiped out all that was theatrical about this formidable organization of death. The soldiers appeared dirty and tired, out. The respiration of fat and sweaty bodies, mixed with the strong smell of leather, floated over the regiments. All the men had hungry faces. For days and nights they had been following the heels of an enemy which was always just eluding their grasp. In this forced advance the provisions of the administration would often arrive so late at the cantonments that they could depend only on what they happened to have in their knapsacks. Desnoyers saw them lined up near the road devouring hunks of black bread and mouldy sausages. Some had scattered through the fields to dig up beet roots and other tubers, chewing with loud crunchings the hard pulp to which the grit still adhered. An ensign was shaking the fruit trees using as a catch-all the flag of his regiment. That glorious standard, adorned with souvenirs of 1870, was serving as a receptacle for green plums. Those who were seated on the ground were improving this rest by drawing their perspiring, swollen feet from high boots which were sending out an insufferable smell. The regiments of infantry which Desnoyers had seen in Berlin reflecting the light on metal and leather straps, the magnificent and terrifying Hussars, the Cuirassiers in pure white uniform like the paladins of the Holy Grail, the artillerymen with breasts crossed with white bands, all the military variations that on parade had drawn forth the Hartrotts' sighs of admiration--these were now all unified and mixed together, of uniform color, all in greenish mustard like the dusty lizards that, slipping along, try to be confounded with the earth. The persistency of the iron discipline was easily discernible. A word from the chiefs, the sound of a whistle, and they all grouped themselves together, the human being disappearing in the throngs of automatons; but danger, weariness, and the uncertainty of triumph had for the time being brought officers and men nearer together, obliterating caste distinction. The officers were coming part way out of their overbearing, haughty seclusion, and were condescending to talk with the lower orders so as to revive their courage. One effort more and they would overwhelm both French and English, repeating the triumph of Sedan, whose anniversary they were going to celebrate in a few days! They were going to enter Paris; it was only a matter of a week. Paris! Great shops filled with luxurious things, famous restaurants, women, champagne, money. . . . And the men, flattered that their commanders were stooping to chat with them, forgot fatigue and hunger, reviving like the throngs of the Crusade before the image of Jerusalem. "Nach Paris!" The joyous shout circulated from the head to the tail of the marching columns. "To Paris! To Paris!" The scarcity of their food supply was here supplemented by the products of a country rich in wines. When sacking houses they rarely found eatables, but invariably a wine cellar. The humble German, the perpetual beer drinker, who had always looked upon wine as a privilege of the rich, could now open up casks with blows from his weapons, even bathing his feet in the stream of precious liquid. Every battalion left as a souvenir of its passing a wake of empty bottles; a halt in camp sowed the land with glass cylinders. The regimental trucks, unable to renew their stores of provisions, were accustomed to seize the wine in all the towns. The soldier, lacking bread, would receive alcohol. . . . This donation was always accompanied by the good counsels of the officers--War is war; no pity toward our adversaries who do not deserve it. The French were shooting their prisoners, and their women were putting out the eyes of the wounded. Every dwelling was a den of traps. The simple-hearted and innocent German entering therein was going to certain death. The beds were made over subterranean caves, the wardrobes were make-believe doors, in every corner was lurking an assassin. This traitorous nation, which was arranging its ground like the scenario of a melodrama, would have to be chastised. The municipal officers, the priests, the schoolmasters were directing and protecting the sharpshooters. Desnoyers was shocked at the indifference with which these men were stalking around the burning village. They did not appear to see the fire and destruction; it was just an ordinary spectacle, not worth looking at. Ever since they had crossed the frontier, smoldering and blasted villages, fired by the advance guard, had marked their halting places on Belgian and French soil. When entering Villeblanche the automobile had

stones

How many times the word 'stones' appears in the text?

would discover my identity and leave me, yet at the same time, wishing that he would recognize me and pardon me. . . . It is only one week that I have been with him. I disguise my voice when I can, and avoid words that may reveal the truth . . . but this cannot keep up much longer. It is only in novels that such painful situations turn out happily." Doubt suddenly overwhelmed her. "I believe," she continued, "that he has recognized me from the first. . . . He is silent and feigns ignorance because he despises me . . . because he can never bring himself to pardon me. I have been so bad! . . . I have wronged him so!". . . She was recalling the long and reflective silences of the wounded man after she had dropped some imprudent words. After two days of submission to her care, he had been somewhat rebellious, avoiding going out with her for a walk. Because of his blind helplessness, and comprehending the uselessness of his resistance, he had finally yielded in passive silence. "Let him think what he will!" concluded Marguerite courageously. "Let him despise me! I am here where I ought to be. I need his forgiveness, but if he does not pardon me, I shall stay with him just the same. . . . There are moments when I wish that he may never recover his sight, so that he may always need me, so that I may pass my life at his side, sacrificing everything for him." "And I?" said Desnoyers. Marguerite looked at him with clouded eyes as though she were just awaking. It was true--and the other one? . . . Kindled by the proposed sacrifice which was to be her expiation, she had forgotten the man before her. "You!" she said after a long pause. "You must leave me. . . . Life is not what we have thought it. Had it not been for the war, we might, perhaps, have realized our dream, but now! . . . Listen carefully and try to understand. For the remainder of my life, I shall carry the heaviest burden, and yet at the same time it will be sweet, since the more it weighs me down the greater will my atonement be. Never will I leave this man whom I have so grievously wronged, now that he is more alone in the world and will need protection like a child. Why do you come to share my fate? How could it be possible for you to live with a nurse constantly at the side of a blind and worthy man whom we would constantly offend with our passion? . . . No, it is better for us to part. Go your way, alone and untrammelled. Leave me; you will meet other women who will make you more happy than I. Yours is the temperament that finds new pleasures at every step." She stood firmly to her decision. Her voice was calm, but back of it trembled the emotion of a last farewell to a joy which was going from her forever. The man would be loved by others . . . and she was giving him up! . . . But the noble sadness of the sacrifice restored her courage. Only by this renunciation could she expiate her sins. Julio dropped his eyes, vanquished and perplexed. The picture of the future outlined by Marguerite terrified him. To live with her as a nurse taking advantage of her patient's blindness would be to offer him fresh insult every day. . . . Ah, no! That would be villainy, indeed! He was now ashamed to recall the malignity with which, a little while before, he had regarded this innocent unfortunate. He realized that he was powerless to contend with him. Weak and helpless as he was sitting there on the garden bench, he was stronger and more deserving of respect than Julio Desnoyers with all his youth and elegance. The victim had amounted to something in his life; he had done what Julio had not dared to do. This sudden conviction of his inferiority made him cry out like an abandoned child, "What will become of me?" . . . Marguerite, too--contemplating the love which was going from her forever, her vanished hopes, the future illumined by the satisfaction of duty fulfilled but monotonous and painful--cried out: "And I. . . . What will become of me?" . . . As though he had suddenly found a solution which was reviving his courage, Desnoyers said: "Listen, Marguerite: I can read your soul. You love this man, and you do well. He is superior to me, and women are always attracted by superiority. . . . I am a coward. Yes, do not protest, I am a coward with all my youth, with all my strength. Why should you not have been impressed by the conduct of this man! . . . But I will atone for past wrongs. This country is yours, Marguerite; I will fight for it. Do not say no. . . ." And moved by his hasty heroism, he outlined the plan more definitely. He was going to be a soldier. Soon she would hear him well spoken of. His idea was either to be stretched on the battlefield in his first encounter, or to astound the world by his bravery. In this way the impossible situation would settle itself--either the oblivion of death or glory. "No, no!" interrupted Marguerite in an anguished tone. "You, no! One is enough. . . . How horrible! You, too, wounded, mutilated forever, perhaps dead! . . . No, you must live. I want you to live, even though you might belong to another. . . . Let me know that you exist, let me see you sometimes, even though you may have forgotten me, even though you may pass me with indifference, as if you did not know me." In this outburst her deep love for him rang true--her heroic and inflexible love which would accept all penalties for herself, if only the beloved one might continue to live. But then, in order that Julio might not feel any false hopes, she added:--"Live; you must not die; that would be for me another torment. . . . But live without me. No matter how much we may talk about it, my destiny beside the other one is marked out forever." "Ah, how you love him! . . . How you have deceived me!" In a last desperate attempt at explanation she again repeated what she had said at the beginning of their interview. She loved Julio . . . and she loved her husband. They were different kinds of love. She could not say which was the stronger, but misfortune was forcing her to choose between the two, and she was accepting the most difficult, the one demanding the greatest sacrifices. "You are a man, and you will never be able to understand me. . . . A woman would comprehend me." It seemed to Julio, as he looked around him, as though the afternoon were undergoing some celestial phenomenon. The garden was still illuminated by the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the ground, the blue of the sky, all appeared to him as dark and shadowy as though a rain of ashes were falling. "Then . . . all is over between us?" His pleading, trembling voice charged with tears made her turn her head to hide her emotion. Then in the painful silence the two despairs formed one and the same question, as if interrogating the shades of the future: "What will become of me?" murmured the man. And like an echo her lips repeated, "What will become of me?" All had been said. Hopeless words came between the two like an obstacle momentarily increasing in size, impelling them in opposite directions. Why prolong the painful interview? . . . Marguerite showed the ready and energetic decision of a woman who wishes to bring a scene to a close. "Good-bye!" Her face had assumed a yellowish cast, her pupils had become dull and clouded like the glass of a lantern when the light dies out. "Good-bye!" She must go to her patient. She went away without looking at him, and Desnoyers instinctively went in the opposite direction. As he became more self-controlled and turned to look at her again, he saw her moving on and giving her arm to the blind man, without once turning her head. He now felt convinced that he should never see her again, and became oppressed by an almost suffocating agony. And could two beings, who had formerly considered the universe concentrated in their persons, thus easily be separated forever? . . . His desperation at finding himself alone made him accuse himself of stupidity. Now his thoughts came tumbling over each other in a tumultuous throng, and each one of them seemed to him sufficient to have convinced Marguerite. He certainly had not known how to express himself. He would have to talk with her again . . . and he decided to remain in Lourdes. He passed a night of torture in the hotel, listening to the ripple of the river among its stones. Insomnia had him in his fierce jaws, gnawing him with interminable agony. He turned on the light several times, but was not able to read. His eyes looked with stupid fixity at the patterns of the wall paper and the pious pictures around the room which had evidently served as the lodging place of some rich traveller. He remained motionless and as abstracted as an Oriental who thinks himself into an absolute lack of thought. One idea only was dancing in the vacuum in his skull--"I shall never see her again. . . . Can such a thing be possible?" He drowsed for a few seconds, only to be awakened with the sensation that some horrible explosion was sending him through the air. And so, with sweats of anguish, he wakefully passed the hours until in the gloom of his room the dawn showed a milky rectangle of light, and began to be reflected on the window curtains. The velvet-like caress of day finally closed his eyes. Upon awaking he found that the morning was well advanced, and he hurried to the garden of the grotto. . . . Oh, the hours of tremulous and unavailing waiting, believing that he recognized Marguerite in every white-clad lady that came along, guiding a wounded patient! By afternoon, after a lunch whose dishes filed past him untouched, he returned to the garden in search of her. Beholding her in the distance with the blind man leaning on her arm, a feeling of faintness came over him. She looked to him taller, thinner, her face sharper, with two dark hollows in her cheeks and her eyes bright with fever, the lids drawn with weariness. He suspected that she, too, had passed an anguished night of tenacious, self-centred thought, of grievous stupefaction like his own, in the room of her hotel. Suddenly he felt all the weight of insomnia and listlessness, all the depressing emotion of the cruel sensations experienced in the last few hours. Oh, how miserable they both were! . . . She was walking warily, looking from one side to the other, as though foreseeing danger. Upon discovering him she clung to her charge, casting upon her former lover a look of entreaty, of desperation, imploring pity. . . Ay, that look! He felt ashamed of himself; his personality appeared to be unrolling itself before him, and he surveyed himself with the eyes of a judge. What was this seduced and useless man, called Julio Desnoyers, doing there, tormenting with his presence a poor woman, trying to turn her from her righteous repentance, insisting on his selfish and petty desires when all humanity was thinking of other things? . . . His cowardice angered him. Like a thief taking advantage of the sleep of his victim, he was stalking around this brave and true man who could not see him, who could not defend himself, in order to rob him of the only affection that he had in the world which had so miraculously returned to him! Very well, Gentleman Desnoyers! . . . Ah, what a scoundrel he was! Such subconscious insults made him draw himself erect, in haughty, cruel and inexorable defiance against that other I who so richly deserved the judge's scorn. He turned his head away; he could not meet Marguerite's piteous eyes; he feared their mute reproach. Neither did he dare to look at the blind man in his shabby and heroic uniform, with his countenance aged by duty and glory. He feared him like remorse. So the vanquished lover turned his back on the two and went away with a firm step. Good-bye, Love! Goodbye, Happiness! . . . He marched quickly and bravely on; a miracle had just taken place within him! he had found the right road at last! To Paris! . . . A new impetus was going to fill the vacuum of his objectless existence. CHAPTER V THE INVASION Don Marcelo was fleeing to take refuge in his castle when he met the mayor of Villeblanche. The noise of the firing had made him hurry to the barricade. When he learned of the apparition of the group of stragglers he threw up his hands in despair. They were crazy. Their resistance was going to be fatal for the village, and he ran on to beg them to cease. For some time nothing happened to disturb the morning calm. Desnoyers had climbed to the top of his towers and was surveying the country with his field glasses. He couldn't make out the highway through the nearest group of trees, but he suspected that underneath their branches great activity was going on--masses of men on guard, troops preparing for the attack. The unexpected defense of the fugitives had upset the advance of the invasion. Desnoyers thought despairingly of that handful of mad fellows and their stubborn chief. What was their fate going to be? . . . Focussing his glasses on the village, he saw the red spots of kepis waving like poppies over the green of the meadows. They were the retreating men, now convinced of the uselessness of their resistance. Perhaps they had found a ford or forgotten boat by which they might cross the Maine, and so were continuing their retreat toward the river. At any minute now the Germans were going to enter Villeblanche. Half an hour of profound silence passed by. The village lay silhouetted against a background of hills--a mass of roofs beneath the church tower finished with its cross and iron weather cock. Everything seemed as tranquil as in the best days of peace. Suddenly he noticed that the grove was vomiting forth something noisy and penetrating--a bubble of vapor accompanied by a deafening report. Something was hurtling through the air with a strident curve. Then a roof in the village opened like a crater, vomiting forth flying wood, fragments of plaster and broken furniture. All the interior of the house seemed to be escaping in a stream of smoke, dirt and splinters. The invaders were bombarding Villeblanche before attempting attack, as though fearing to encounter persistent resistance in its streets. More projectiles fell. Some passed over the houses, exploding between the hamlet and the castle. The towers of the Desnoyers property were beginning to attract the aim of the artillerymen. The owner was therefore about to abandon his dangerous observatory when he saw something white like a tablecloth or sheet floating from the church tower. His neighbors had hoisted this signal of peace in order to avoid bombardment. A few more missiles fell and then there was silence. When Don Marcelo reached his park he found the Warden burying at the foot of a tree the sporting rifles still remaining in his castle. Then he went toward the great iron gates. The enemies were going to come, and he had to receive them. While uneasily awaiting their arrival his compunctions again tormented him. What was he doing there? Why had he remained? . . . But his obstinate temperament immediately put aside the promptings of fear. He was there because he had to guard his own. Besides, it was too late now to think about such things. Suddenly the morning stillness was broken by a sound like the deafening tearing of strong cloth. "Shots, Master," said the Warden. "Firing! It must be in the square." A few minutes after they saw running toward them a woman from the village, an old soul, dried up and darkened by age, who was panting from her great exertion, and looking wildly around her. She was fleeing blindly, trying to escape from danger and shut out horrible visions. Desnoyers and the Keeper's family listened to her explanations interrupted with hiccoughs of terror. The Germans were in Villeblanche. They had entered first in an automobile driven at full speed from one end of the village to the other. Its mitrailleuse was firing at random against closed houses and open doors, knocking down all the people in sight. The old woman flung up her arms with a gesture of terror. . . . Dead . . . many dead . . . wounded . . . blood! Then other iron-plated vehicles had stopped in the square, and behind them cavalrymen, battalions of infantry, many battalions coming from everywhere. The helmeted men seemed furious; they accused the villagers of having fired at them. In the square they had struck the mayor and villagers who had come forward to meet them. The priest, bending over some of the dying, had also been trodden under foot. . . . All prisoners! The Germans were talking of shooting them. The old dame's words were cut short by the rumble of approaching automobiles. "Open the gates," commanded the owner to the Warden. The massive iron grill work swung open, and was never again closed. All property rights were at an end. An enormous automobile, covered with dust and filled with men, stopped at the entrance. Behind them sounded the horns of other vehicles that were putting on the brakes. Desnoyers saw soldiers leaping out, all wearing the greenish-gray uniform with a sheath of the same tone covering the pointed casque. The one who marched at their head put his revolver to the millionaire's forehead. "Where are the sharpshooters?" he asked. He was pale with the pallor of wrath, vengeance and fear. His face was trembling under the influence of his triple emotion. Don Marcelo explained slowly, contemplating at a short distance from his eyes the black circle of the threatening tube. He had not seen any sharpshooters. The only inhabitants of the castle were the Warden with his family and himself, the owner of the castle. The officer surveyed the edifice and then examined Desnoyers with evident astonishment as though he thought his appearance too unpretentious for a proprietor. He had taken him for a simple employee, and his respect for social rank made him lower his revolver. He did not, however, alter his haughty attitude. He pressed Don Marcelo into the service as a guide, making him search ahead of him while forty soldiers grouped themselves at his back. They advanced in two files to the shelter of the trees which bordered the central avenue, with their guns ready to shoot, and looking uneasily at the castle windows as though expecting to receive from them hidden shots. Desnoyers marched tranquilly through the centre, and the official, who had been imitating the precautions of his men, finally joined him when he was crossing the drawbridge. The armed men scattered through the rooms in search of the enemy. They ran their bayonets through beds and divans. Some, with automatic destructiveness, slit the draperies and the rich bed coverings. The owner protested; what was the sense in such useless destruction? . . . He was suffering unbearable torture at seeing the enormous boots spotting the rugs with mud, on hearing the clash of guns and knapsacks against the most fragile, choicest pieces of furniture. Poor historic mansion! . . . The officer looked amazed that he should protest for such trifling cause, but he gave orders in German and his men ceased their rude explorations. Then, in justification of this extraordinary respect, he added in French: "I believe that you are going to have the honor of entertaining here the general of our division." The certainty that the castle did not hold any hidden enemies made him more amiable. He, nevertheless, persisted in his wrath against the sharpshooters. A group of the villagers had opened fire upon the Uhlans when they were entering unsuspiciously after the retreat of the French. Desnoyers felt it necessary to protest. They were neither inhabitants nor sharpshooters; they were French soldiers. He took good care to be silent about their presence at the barricade, but he insisted that he had distinguished their uniforms from a tower of the castle. The official made a threatening face. "You, too? . . . You, who appear a reasonable man, can repeat such yarns as these?" And in order to close the conversation, he said, arrogantly: "They were wearing uniforms, then, if you persist in saying so, but they were sharpshooters just the same. The French Government has distributed arms and uniforms among the farmers that they may assassinate us. . . . Belgium did the same thing. . . . But we know their tricks, and we know how to punish them, too!" The village was going to be burned. It was necessary to avenge the four German dead lying on the outskirts of Villeblanche, near the barricade. The mayor, the priest, the principal inhabitants would all be shot. By the time they reached the top floor Desnoyers could see floating above the boughs of his park dark clouds whose outlines were reddened by the sun. The top of the bell tower was the only thing that he could distinguish at that distance. Around the iron weathercock were flying long thin fringes like black cobwebs lifted by the breeze. An odor of burning wood came toward the castle. The German greeted this spectacle with a cruel smile. Then on descending to the park, he ordered Desnoyers to follow him. His liberty and his dignity had come to an end. Henceforth he was going to be an underling at the beck and call of these men who would dispose of him as their whims directed. Ay, why had he remained? . . . He obeyed, climbing into an automobile beside the officer, who was still carrying his revolver in his right hand. His men distributed themselves through the castle and outbuildings, in order to prevent the flight of an imaginary enemy. The Warden and his family seemed to be saying good-bye to him with their eyes. Perhaps they were taking him to his death. . . . Beyond the castle woods a new world was coming into existence. The short cut to Villeblanche seemed to Desnoyers a leap of millions of leagues, a fall into a red planet where men and things were covered with the film of smoke and the glare of fire. He saw the village under a dark canopy spotted with sparks and glowing embers. The bell tower was burning like an enormous torch; the roof of the church was breaking into flames with a crashing fury. The glare of the holocaust seemed to shrivel and grow pale in the impassive light of the sun. Running across the fields with the haste of desperation were shrieking women and children. The animals had escaped from the stables, and driven forth by the flames were racing wildly across the country. The cow and the work horse were dragging their halters broken by their flight. Their flanks were smoking and smelt of burnt hair. The pigs, the sheep and the chickens were all tearing along mingled with the cats and the dogs. All the domestic animals were returning to a brute existence, fleeing from civilized man. Shots were heard and hellish ha-ha's. The soldiers outside of the village were making themselves merry in this hunt for fugitives. Their guns were aimed at beasts and were hitting people. Desnoyers saw men, many men, men everywhere. They were like gray ants, marching in endless files towards the South, coming out from the woods, filling the roads, crossing the fields. The green of vegetation was disappearing under their tread; the dust was rising in spirals behind the dull roll of the cannons and the measured trot of thousands of horses. On the roadside several battalions had halted, with their accompaniment of vehicles and draw horses. They were resting before renewing their march. He knew this army. He had seen it in Berlin on parade, and yet it seemed to have changed its former appearance. There now remained very little of the heavy and imposing glitter, of the mute and vainglorious haughtiness which had made his relatives-in-law weep with admiration. War, with its realism, had wiped out all that was theatrical about this formidable organization of death. The soldiers appeared dirty and tired, out. The respiration of fat and sweaty bodies, mixed with the strong smell of leather, floated over the regiments. All the men had hungry faces. For days and nights they had been following the heels of an enemy which was always just eluding their grasp. In this forced advance the provisions of the administration would often arrive so late at the cantonments that they could depend only on what they happened to have in their knapsacks. Desnoyers saw them lined up near the road devouring hunks of black bread and mouldy sausages. Some had scattered through the fields to dig up beet roots and other tubers, chewing with loud crunchings the hard pulp to which the grit still adhered. An ensign was shaking the fruit trees using as a catch-all the flag of his regiment. That glorious standard, adorned with souvenirs of 1870, was serving as a receptacle for green plums. Those who were seated on the ground were improving this rest by drawing their perspiring, swollen feet from high boots which were sending out an insufferable smell. The regiments of infantry which Desnoyers had seen in Berlin reflecting the light on metal and leather straps, the magnificent and terrifying Hussars, the Cuirassiers in pure white uniform like the paladins of the Holy Grail, the artillerymen with breasts crossed with white bands, all the military variations that on parade had drawn forth the Hartrotts' sighs of admiration--these were now all unified and mixed together, of uniform color, all in greenish mustard like the dusty lizards that, slipping along, try to be confounded with the earth. The persistency of the iron discipline was easily discernible. A word from the chiefs, the sound of a whistle, and they all grouped themselves together, the human being disappearing in the throngs of automatons; but danger, weariness, and the uncertainty of triumph had for the time being brought officers and men nearer together, obliterating caste distinction. The officers were coming part way out of their overbearing, haughty seclusion, and were condescending to talk with the lower orders so as to revive their courage. One effort more and they would overwhelm both French and English, repeating the triumph of Sedan, whose anniversary they were going to celebrate in a few days! They were going to enter Paris; it was only a matter of a week. Paris! Great shops filled with luxurious things, famous restaurants, women, champagne, money. . . . And the men, flattered that their commanders were stooping to chat with them, forgot fatigue and hunger, reviving like the throngs of the Crusade before the image of Jerusalem. "Nach Paris!" The joyous shout circulated from the head to the tail of the marching columns. "To Paris! To Paris!" The scarcity of their food supply was here supplemented by the products of a country rich in wines. When sacking houses they rarely found eatables, but invariably a wine cellar. The humble German, the perpetual beer drinker, who had always looked upon wine as a privilege of the rich, could now open up casks with blows from his weapons, even bathing his feet in the stream of precious liquid. Every battalion left as a souvenir of its passing a wake of empty bottles; a halt in camp sowed the land with glass cylinders. The regimental trucks, unable to renew their stores of provisions, were accustomed to seize the wine in all the towns. The soldier, lacking bread, would receive alcohol. . . . This donation was always accompanied by the good counsels of the officers--War is war; no pity toward our adversaries who do not deserve it. The French were shooting their prisoners, and their women were putting out the eyes of the wounded. Every dwelling was a den of traps. The simple-hearted and innocent German entering therein was going to certain death. The beds were made over subterranean caves, the wardrobes were make-believe doors, in every corner was lurking an assassin. This traitorous nation, which was arranging its ground like the scenario of a melodrama, would have to be chastised. The municipal officers, the priests, the schoolmasters were directing and protecting the sharpshooters. Desnoyers was shocked at the indifference with which these men were stalking around the burning village. They did not appear to see the fire and destruction; it was just an ordinary spectacle, not worth looking at. Ever since they had crossed the frontier, smoldering and blasted villages, fired by the advance guard, had marked their halting places on Belgian and French soil. When entering Villeblanche the automobile had

much

How many times the word 'much' appears in the text?

would discover my identity and leave me, yet at the same time, wishing that he would recognize me and pardon me. . . . It is only one week that I have been with him. I disguise my voice when I can, and avoid words that may reveal the truth . . . but this cannot keep up much longer. It is only in novels that such painful situations turn out happily." Doubt suddenly overwhelmed her. "I believe," she continued, "that he has recognized me from the first. . . . He is silent and feigns ignorance because he despises me . . . because he can never bring himself to pardon me. I have been so bad! . . . I have wronged him so!". . . She was recalling the long and reflective silences of the wounded man after she had dropped some imprudent words. After two days of submission to her care, he had been somewhat rebellious, avoiding going out with her for a walk. Because of his blind helplessness, and comprehending the uselessness of his resistance, he had finally yielded in passive silence. "Let him think what he will!" concluded Marguerite courageously. "Let him despise me! I am here where I ought to be. I need his forgiveness, but if he does not pardon me, I shall stay with him just the same. . . . There are moments when I wish that he may never recover his sight, so that he may always need me, so that I may pass my life at his side, sacrificing everything for him." "And I?" said Desnoyers. Marguerite looked at him with clouded eyes as though she were just awaking. It was true--and the other one? . . . Kindled by the proposed sacrifice which was to be her expiation, she had forgotten the man before her. "You!" she said after a long pause. "You must leave me. . . . Life is not what we have thought it. Had it not been for the war, we might, perhaps, have realized our dream, but now! . . . Listen carefully and try to understand. For the remainder of my life, I shall carry the heaviest burden, and yet at the same time it will be sweet, since the more it weighs me down the greater will my atonement be. Never will I leave this man whom I have so grievously wronged, now that he is more alone in the world and will need protection like a child. Why do you come to share my fate? How could it be possible for you to live with a nurse constantly at the side of a blind and worthy man whom we would constantly offend with our passion? . . . No, it is better for us to part. Go your way, alone and untrammelled. Leave me; you will meet other women who will make you more happy than I. Yours is the temperament that finds new pleasures at every step." She stood firmly to her decision. Her voice was calm, but back of it trembled the emotion of a last farewell to a joy which was going from her forever. The man would be loved by others . . . and she was giving him up! . . . But the noble sadness of the sacrifice restored her courage. Only by this renunciation could she expiate her sins. Julio dropped his eyes, vanquished and perplexed. The picture of the future outlined by Marguerite terrified him. To live with her as a nurse taking advantage of her patient's blindness would be to offer him fresh insult every day. . . . Ah, no! That would be villainy, indeed! He was now ashamed to recall the malignity with which, a little while before, he had regarded this innocent unfortunate. He realized that he was powerless to contend with him. Weak and helpless as he was sitting there on the garden bench, he was stronger and more deserving of respect than Julio Desnoyers with all his youth and elegance. The victim had amounted to something in his life; he had done what Julio had not dared to do. This sudden conviction of his inferiority made him cry out like an abandoned child, "What will become of me?" . . . Marguerite, too--contemplating the love which was going from her forever, her vanished hopes, the future illumined by the satisfaction of duty fulfilled but monotonous and painful--cried out: "And I. . . . What will become of me?" . . . As though he had suddenly found a solution which was reviving his courage, Desnoyers said: "Listen, Marguerite: I can read your soul. You love this man, and you do well. He is superior to me, and women are always attracted by superiority. . . . I am a coward. Yes, do not protest, I am a coward with all my youth, with all my strength. Why should you not have been impressed by the conduct of this man! . . . But I will atone for past wrongs. This country is yours, Marguerite; I will fight for it. Do not say no. . . ." And moved by his hasty heroism, he outlined the plan more definitely. He was going to be a soldier. Soon she would hear him well spoken of. His idea was either to be stretched on the battlefield in his first encounter, or to astound the world by his bravery. In this way the impossible situation would settle itself--either the oblivion of death or glory. "No, no!" interrupted Marguerite in an anguished tone. "You, no! One is enough. . . . How horrible! You, too, wounded, mutilated forever, perhaps dead! . . . No, you must live. I want you to live, even though you might belong to another. . . . Let me know that you exist, let me see you sometimes, even though you may have forgotten me, even though you may pass me with indifference, as if you did not know me." In this outburst her deep love for him rang true--her heroic and inflexible love which would accept all penalties for herself, if only the beloved one might continue to live. But then, in order that Julio might not feel any false hopes, she added:--"Live; you must not die; that would be for me another torment. . . . But live without me. No matter how much we may talk about it, my destiny beside the other one is marked out forever." "Ah, how you love him! . . . How you have deceived me!" In a last desperate attempt at explanation she again repeated what she had said at the beginning of their interview. She loved Julio . . . and she loved her husband. They were different kinds of love. She could not say which was the stronger, but misfortune was forcing her to choose between the two, and she was accepting the most difficult, the one demanding the greatest sacrifices. "You are a man, and you will never be able to understand me. . . . A woman would comprehend me." It seemed to Julio, as he looked around him, as though the afternoon were undergoing some celestial phenomenon. The garden was still illuminated by the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the ground, the blue of the sky, all appeared to him as dark and shadowy as though a rain of ashes were falling. "Then . . . all is over between us?" His pleading, trembling voice charged with tears made her turn her head to hide her emotion. Then in the painful silence the two despairs formed one and the same question, as if interrogating the shades of the future: "What will become of me?" murmured the man. And like an echo her lips repeated, "What will become of me?" All had been said. Hopeless words came between the two like an obstacle momentarily increasing in size, impelling them in opposite directions. Why prolong the painful interview? . . . Marguerite showed the ready and energetic decision of a woman who wishes to bring a scene to a close. "Good-bye!" Her face had assumed a yellowish cast, her pupils had become dull and clouded like the glass of a lantern when the light dies out. "Good-bye!" She must go to her patient. She went away without looking at him, and Desnoyers instinctively went in the opposite direction. As he became more self-controlled and turned to look at her again, he saw her moving on and giving her arm to the blind man, without once turning her head. He now felt convinced that he should never see her again, and became oppressed by an almost suffocating agony. And could two beings, who had formerly considered the universe concentrated in their persons, thus easily be separated forever? . . . His desperation at finding himself alone made him accuse himself of stupidity. Now his thoughts came tumbling over each other in a tumultuous throng, and each one of them seemed to him sufficient to have convinced Marguerite. He certainly had not known how to express himself. He would have to talk with her again . . . and he decided to remain in Lourdes. He passed a night of torture in the hotel, listening to the ripple of the river among its stones. Insomnia had him in his fierce jaws, gnawing him with interminable agony. He turned on the light several times, but was not able to read. His eyes looked with stupid fixity at the patterns of the wall paper and the pious pictures around the room which had evidently served as the lodging place of some rich traveller. He remained motionless and as abstracted as an Oriental who thinks himself into an absolute lack of thought. One idea only was dancing in the vacuum in his skull--"I shall never see her again. . . . Can such a thing be possible?" He drowsed for a few seconds, only to be awakened with the sensation that some horrible explosion was sending him through the air. And so, with sweats of anguish, he wakefully passed the hours until in the gloom of his room the dawn showed a milky rectangle of light, and began to be reflected on the window curtains. The velvet-like caress of day finally closed his eyes. Upon awaking he found that the morning was well advanced, and he hurried to the garden of the grotto. . . . Oh, the hours of tremulous and unavailing waiting, believing that he recognized Marguerite in every white-clad lady that came along, guiding a wounded patient! By afternoon, after a lunch whose dishes filed past him untouched, he returned to the garden in search of her. Beholding her in the distance with the blind man leaning on her arm, a feeling of faintness came over him. She looked to him taller, thinner, her face sharper, with two dark hollows in her cheeks and her eyes bright with fever, the lids drawn with weariness. He suspected that she, too, had passed an anguished night of tenacious, self-centred thought, of grievous stupefaction like his own, in the room of her hotel. Suddenly he felt all the weight of insomnia and listlessness, all the depressing emotion of the cruel sensations experienced in the last few hours. Oh, how miserable they both were! . . . She was walking warily, looking from one side to the other, as though foreseeing danger. Upon discovering him she clung to her charge, casting upon her former lover a look of entreaty, of desperation, imploring pity. . . Ay, that look! He felt ashamed of himself; his personality appeared to be unrolling itself before him, and he surveyed himself with the eyes of a judge. What was this seduced and useless man, called Julio Desnoyers, doing there, tormenting with his presence a poor woman, trying to turn her from her righteous repentance, insisting on his selfish and petty desires when all humanity was thinking of other things? . . . His cowardice angered him. Like a thief taking advantage of the sleep of his victim, he was stalking around this brave and true man who could not see him, who could not defend himself, in order to rob him of the only affection that he had in the world which had so miraculously returned to him! Very well, Gentleman Desnoyers! . . . Ah, what a scoundrel he was! Such subconscious insults made him draw himself erect, in haughty, cruel and inexorable defiance against that other I who so richly deserved the judge's scorn. He turned his head away; he could not meet Marguerite's piteous eyes; he feared their mute reproach. Neither did he dare to look at the blind man in his shabby and heroic uniform, with his countenance aged by duty and glory. He feared him like remorse. So the vanquished lover turned his back on the two and went away with a firm step. Good-bye, Love! Goodbye, Happiness! . . . He marched quickly and bravely on; a miracle had just taken place within him! he had found the right road at last! To Paris! . . . A new impetus was going to fill the vacuum of his objectless existence. CHAPTER V THE INVASION Don Marcelo was fleeing to take refuge in his castle when he met the mayor of Villeblanche. The noise of the firing had made him hurry to the barricade. When he learned of the apparition of the group of stragglers he threw up his hands in despair. They were crazy. Their resistance was going to be fatal for the village, and he ran on to beg them to cease. For some time nothing happened to disturb the morning calm. Desnoyers had climbed to the top of his towers and was surveying the country with his field glasses. He couldn't make out the highway through the nearest group of trees, but he suspected that underneath their branches great activity was going on--masses of men on guard, troops preparing for the attack. The unexpected defense of the fugitives had upset the advance of the invasion. Desnoyers thought despairingly of that handful of mad fellows and their stubborn chief. What was their fate going to be? . . . Focussing his glasses on the village, he saw the red spots of kepis waving like poppies over the green of the meadows. They were the retreating men, now convinced of the uselessness of their resistance. Perhaps they had found a ford or forgotten boat by which they might cross the Maine, and so were continuing their retreat toward the river. At any minute now the Germans were going to enter Villeblanche. Half an hour of profound silence passed by. The village lay silhouetted against a background of hills--a mass of roofs beneath the church tower finished with its cross and iron weather cock. Everything seemed as tranquil as in the best days of peace. Suddenly he noticed that the grove was vomiting forth something noisy and penetrating--a bubble of vapor accompanied by a deafening report. Something was hurtling through the air with a strident curve. Then a roof in the village opened like a crater, vomiting forth flying wood, fragments of plaster and broken furniture. All the interior of the house seemed to be escaping in a stream of smoke, dirt and splinters. The invaders were bombarding Villeblanche before attempting attack, as though fearing to encounter persistent resistance in its streets. More projectiles fell. Some passed over the houses, exploding between the hamlet and the castle. The towers of the Desnoyers property were beginning to attract the aim of the artillerymen. The owner was therefore about to abandon his dangerous observatory when he saw something white like a tablecloth or sheet floating from the church tower. His neighbors had hoisted this signal of peace in order to avoid bombardment. A few more missiles fell and then there was silence. When Don Marcelo reached his park he found the Warden burying at the foot of a tree the sporting rifles still remaining in his castle. Then he went toward the great iron gates. The enemies were going to come, and he had to receive them. While uneasily awaiting their arrival his compunctions again tormented him. What was he doing there? Why had he remained? . . . But his obstinate temperament immediately put aside the promptings of fear. He was there because he had to guard his own. Besides, it was too late now to think about such things. Suddenly the morning stillness was broken by a sound like the deafening tearing of strong cloth. "Shots, Master," said the Warden. "Firing! It must be in the square." A few minutes after they saw running toward them a woman from the village, an old soul, dried up and darkened by age, who was panting from her great exertion, and looking wildly around her. She was fleeing blindly, trying to escape from danger and shut out horrible visions. Desnoyers and the Keeper's family listened to her explanations interrupted with hiccoughs of terror. The Germans were in Villeblanche. They had entered first in an automobile driven at full speed from one end of the village to the other. Its mitrailleuse was firing at random against closed houses and open doors, knocking down all the people in sight. The old woman flung up her arms with a gesture of terror. . . . Dead . . . many dead . . . wounded . . . blood! Then other iron-plated vehicles had stopped in the square, and behind them cavalrymen, battalions of infantry, many battalions coming from everywhere. The helmeted men seemed furious; they accused the villagers of having fired at them. In the square they had struck the mayor and villagers who had come forward to meet them. The priest, bending over some of the dying, had also been trodden under foot. . . . All prisoners! The Germans were talking of shooting them. The old dame's words were cut short by the rumble of approaching automobiles. "Open the gates," commanded the owner to the Warden. The massive iron grill work swung open, and was never again closed. All property rights were at an end. An enormous automobile, covered with dust and filled with men, stopped at the entrance. Behind them sounded the horns of other vehicles that were putting on the brakes. Desnoyers saw soldiers leaping out, all wearing the greenish-gray uniform with a sheath of the same tone covering the pointed casque. The one who marched at their head put his revolver to the millionaire's forehead. "Where are the sharpshooters?" he asked. He was pale with the pallor of wrath, vengeance and fear. His face was trembling under the influence of his triple emotion. Don Marcelo explained slowly, contemplating at a short distance from his eyes the black circle of the threatening tube. He had not seen any sharpshooters. The only inhabitants of the castle were the Warden with his family and himself, the owner of the castle. The officer surveyed the edifice and then examined Desnoyers with evident astonishment as though he thought his appearance too unpretentious for a proprietor. He had taken him for a simple employee, and his respect for social rank made him lower his revolver. He did not, however, alter his haughty attitude. He pressed Don Marcelo into the service as a guide, making him search ahead of him while forty soldiers grouped themselves at his back. They advanced in two files to the shelter of the trees which bordered the central avenue, with their guns ready to shoot, and looking uneasily at the castle windows as though expecting to receive from them hidden shots. Desnoyers marched tranquilly through the centre, and the official, who had been imitating the precautions of his men, finally joined him when he was crossing the drawbridge. The armed men scattered through the rooms in search of the enemy. They ran their bayonets through beds and divans. Some, with automatic destructiveness, slit the draperies and the rich bed coverings. The owner protested; what was the sense in such useless destruction? . . . He was suffering unbearable torture at seeing the enormous boots spotting the rugs with mud, on hearing the clash of guns and knapsacks against the most fragile, choicest pieces of furniture. Poor historic mansion! . . . The officer looked amazed that he should protest for such trifling cause, but he gave orders in German and his men ceased their rude explorations. Then, in justification of this extraordinary respect, he added in French: "I believe that you are going to have the honor of entertaining here the general of our division." The certainty that the castle did not hold any hidden enemies made him more amiable. He, nevertheless, persisted in his wrath against the sharpshooters. A group of the villagers had opened fire upon the Uhlans when they were entering unsuspiciously after the retreat of the French. Desnoyers felt it necessary to protest. They were neither inhabitants nor sharpshooters; they were French soldiers. He took good care to be silent about their presence at the barricade, but he insisted that he had distinguished their uniforms from a tower of the castle. The official made a threatening face. "You, too? . . . You, who appear a reasonable man, can repeat such yarns as these?" And in order to close the conversation, he said, arrogantly: "They were wearing uniforms, then, if you persist in saying so, but they were sharpshooters just the same. The French Government has distributed arms and uniforms among the farmers that they may assassinate us. . . . Belgium did the same thing. . . . But we know their tricks, and we know how to punish them, too!" The village was going to be burned. It was necessary to avenge the four German dead lying on the outskirts of Villeblanche, near the barricade. The mayor, the priest, the principal inhabitants would all be shot. By the time they reached the top floor Desnoyers could see floating above the boughs of his park dark clouds whose outlines were reddened by the sun. The top of the bell tower was the only thing that he could distinguish at that distance. Around the iron weathercock were flying long thin fringes like black cobwebs lifted by the breeze. An odor of burning wood came toward the castle. The German greeted this spectacle with a cruel smile. Then on descending to the park, he ordered Desnoyers to follow him. His liberty and his dignity had come to an end. Henceforth he was going to be an underling at the beck and call of these men who would dispose of him as their whims directed. Ay, why had he remained? . . . He obeyed, climbing into an automobile beside the officer, who was still carrying his revolver in his right hand. His men distributed themselves through the castle and outbuildings, in order to prevent the flight of an imaginary enemy. The Warden and his family seemed to be saying good-bye to him with their eyes. Perhaps they were taking him to his death. . . . Beyond the castle woods a new world was coming into existence. The short cut to Villeblanche seemed to Desnoyers a leap of millions of leagues, a fall into a red planet where men and things were covered with the film of smoke and the glare of fire. He saw the village under a dark canopy spotted with sparks and glowing embers. The bell tower was burning like an enormous torch; the roof of the church was breaking into flames with a crashing fury. The glare of the holocaust seemed to shrivel and grow pale in the impassive light of the sun. Running across the fields with the haste of desperation were shrieking women and children. The animals had escaped from the stables, and driven forth by the flames were racing wildly across the country. The cow and the work horse were dragging their halters broken by their flight. Their flanks were smoking and smelt of burnt hair. The pigs, the sheep and the chickens were all tearing along mingled with the cats and the dogs. All the domestic animals were returning to a brute existence, fleeing from civilized man. Shots were heard and hellish ha-ha's. The soldiers outside of the village were making themselves merry in this hunt for fugitives. Their guns were aimed at beasts and were hitting people. Desnoyers saw men, many men, men everywhere. They were like gray ants, marching in endless files towards the South, coming out from the woods, filling the roads, crossing the fields. The green of vegetation was disappearing under their tread; the dust was rising in spirals behind the dull roll of the cannons and the measured trot of thousands of horses. On the roadside several battalions had halted, with their accompaniment of vehicles and draw horses. They were resting before renewing their march. He knew this army. He had seen it in Berlin on parade, and yet it seemed to have changed its former appearance. There now remained very little of the heavy and imposing glitter, of the mute and vainglorious haughtiness which had made his relatives-in-law weep with admiration. War, with its realism, had wiped out all that was theatrical about this formidable organization of death. The soldiers appeared dirty and tired, out. The respiration of fat and sweaty bodies, mixed with the strong smell of leather, floated over the regiments. All the men had hungry faces. For days and nights they had been following the heels of an enemy which was always just eluding their grasp. In this forced advance the provisions of the administration would often arrive so late at the cantonments that they could depend only on what they happened to have in their knapsacks. Desnoyers saw them lined up near the road devouring hunks of black bread and mouldy sausages. Some had scattered through the fields to dig up beet roots and other tubers, chewing with loud crunchings the hard pulp to which the grit still adhered. An ensign was shaking the fruit trees using as a catch-all the flag of his regiment. That glorious standard, adorned with souvenirs of 1870, was serving as a receptacle for green plums. Those who were seated on the ground were improving this rest by drawing their perspiring, swollen feet from high boots which were sending out an insufferable smell. The regiments of infantry which Desnoyers had seen in Berlin reflecting the light on metal and leather straps, the magnificent and terrifying Hussars, the Cuirassiers in pure white uniform like the paladins of the Holy Grail, the artillerymen with breasts crossed with white bands, all the military variations that on parade had drawn forth the Hartrotts' sighs of admiration--these were now all unified and mixed together, of uniform color, all in greenish mustard like the dusty lizards that, slipping along, try to be confounded with the earth. The persistency of the iron discipline was easily discernible. A word from the chiefs, the sound of a whistle, and they all grouped themselves together, the human being disappearing in the throngs of automatons; but danger, weariness, and the uncertainty of triumph had for the time being brought officers and men nearer together, obliterating caste distinction. The officers were coming part way out of their overbearing, haughty seclusion, and were condescending to talk with the lower orders so as to revive their courage. One effort more and they would overwhelm both French and English, repeating the triumph of Sedan, whose anniversary they were going to celebrate in a few days! They were going to enter Paris; it was only a matter of a week. Paris! Great shops filled with luxurious things, famous restaurants, women, champagne, money. . . . And the men, flattered that their commanders were stooping to chat with them, forgot fatigue and hunger, reviving like the throngs of the Crusade before the image of Jerusalem. "Nach Paris!" The joyous shout circulated from the head to the tail of the marching columns. "To Paris! To Paris!" The scarcity of their food supply was here supplemented by the products of a country rich in wines. When sacking houses they rarely found eatables, but invariably a wine cellar. The humble German, the perpetual beer drinker, who had always looked upon wine as a privilege of the rich, could now open up casks with blows from his weapons, even bathing his feet in the stream of precious liquid. Every battalion left as a souvenir of its passing a wake of empty bottles; a halt in camp sowed the land with glass cylinders. The regimental trucks, unable to renew their stores of provisions, were accustomed to seize the wine in all the towns. The soldier, lacking bread, would receive alcohol. . . . This donation was always accompanied by the good counsels of the officers--War is war; no pity toward our adversaries who do not deserve it. The French were shooting their prisoners, and their women were putting out the eyes of the wounded. Every dwelling was a den of traps. The simple-hearted and innocent German entering therein was going to certain death. The beds were made over subterranean caves, the wardrobes were make-believe doors, in every corner was lurking an assassin. This traitorous nation, which was arranging its ground like the scenario of a melodrama, would have to be chastised. The municipal officers, the priests, the schoolmasters were directing and protecting the sharpshooters. Desnoyers was shocked at the indifference with which these men were stalking around the burning village. They did not appear to see the fire and destruction; it was just an ordinary spectacle, not worth looking at. Ever since they had crossed the frontier, smoldering and blasted villages, fired by the advance guard, had marked their halting places on Belgian and French soil. When entering Villeblanche the automobile had

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would discover my identity and leave me, yet at the same time, wishing that he would recognize me and pardon me. . . . It is only one week that I have been with him. I disguise my voice when I can, and avoid words that may reveal the truth . . . but this cannot keep up much longer. It is only in novels that such painful situations turn out happily." Doubt suddenly overwhelmed her. "I believe," she continued, "that he has recognized me from the first. . . . He is silent and feigns ignorance because he despises me . . . because he can never bring himself to pardon me. I have been so bad! . . . I have wronged him so!". . . She was recalling the long and reflective silences of the wounded man after she had dropped some imprudent words. After two days of submission to her care, he had been somewhat rebellious, avoiding going out with her for a walk. Because of his blind helplessness, and comprehending the uselessness of his resistance, he had finally yielded in passive silence. "Let him think what he will!" concluded Marguerite courageously. "Let him despise me! I am here where I ought to be. I need his forgiveness, but if he does not pardon me, I shall stay with him just the same. . . . There are moments when I wish that he may never recover his sight, so that he may always need me, so that I may pass my life at his side, sacrificing everything for him." "And I?" said Desnoyers. Marguerite looked at him with clouded eyes as though she were just awaking. It was true--and the other one? . . . Kindled by the proposed sacrifice which was to be her expiation, she had forgotten the man before her. "You!" she said after a long pause. "You must leave me. . . . Life is not what we have thought it. Had it not been for the war, we might, perhaps, have realized our dream, but now! . . . Listen carefully and try to understand. For the remainder of my life, I shall carry the heaviest burden, and yet at the same time it will be sweet, since the more it weighs me down the greater will my atonement be. Never will I leave this man whom I have so grievously wronged, now that he is more alone in the world and will need protection like a child. Why do you come to share my fate? How could it be possible for you to live with a nurse constantly at the side of a blind and worthy man whom we would constantly offend with our passion? . . . No, it is better for us to part. Go your way, alone and untrammelled. Leave me; you will meet other women who will make you more happy than I. Yours is the temperament that finds new pleasures at every step." She stood firmly to her decision. Her voice was calm, but back of it trembled the emotion of a last farewell to a joy which was going from her forever. The man would be loved by others . . . and she was giving him up! . . . But the noble sadness of the sacrifice restored her courage. Only by this renunciation could she expiate her sins. Julio dropped his eyes, vanquished and perplexed. The picture of the future outlined by Marguerite terrified him. To live with her as a nurse taking advantage of her patient's blindness would be to offer him fresh insult every day. . . . Ah, no! That would be villainy, indeed! He was now ashamed to recall the malignity with which, a little while before, he had regarded this innocent unfortunate. He realized that he was powerless to contend with him. Weak and helpless as he was sitting there on the garden bench, he was stronger and more deserving of respect than Julio Desnoyers with all his youth and elegance. The victim had amounted to something in his life; he had done what Julio had not dared to do. This sudden conviction of his inferiority made him cry out like an abandoned child, "What will become of me?" . . . Marguerite, too--contemplating the love which was going from her forever, her vanished hopes, the future illumined by the satisfaction of duty fulfilled but monotonous and painful--cried out: "And I. . . . What will become of me?" . . . As though he had suddenly found a solution which was reviving his courage, Desnoyers said: "Listen, Marguerite: I can read your soul. You love this man, and you do well. He is superior to me, and women are always attracted by superiority. . . . I am a coward. Yes, do not protest, I am a coward with all my youth, with all my strength. Why should you not have been impressed by the conduct of this man! . . . But I will atone for past wrongs. This country is yours, Marguerite; I will fight for it. Do not say no. . . ." And moved by his hasty heroism, he outlined the plan more definitely. He was going to be a soldier. Soon she would hear him well spoken of. His idea was either to be stretched on the battlefield in his first encounter, or to astound the world by his bravery. In this way the impossible situation would settle itself--either the oblivion of death or glory. "No, no!" interrupted Marguerite in an anguished tone. "You, no! One is enough. . . . How horrible! You, too, wounded, mutilated forever, perhaps dead! . . . No, you must live. I want you to live, even though you might belong to another. . . . Let me know that you exist, let me see you sometimes, even though you may have forgotten me, even though you may pass me with indifference, as if you did not know me." In this outburst her deep love for him rang true--her heroic and inflexible love which would accept all penalties for herself, if only the beloved one might continue to live. But then, in order that Julio might not feel any false hopes, she added:--"Live; you must not die; that would be for me another torment. . . . But live without me. No matter how much we may talk about it, my destiny beside the other one is marked out forever." "Ah, how you love him! . . . How you have deceived me!" In a last desperate attempt at explanation she again repeated what she had said at the beginning of their interview. She loved Julio . . . and she loved her husband. They were different kinds of love. She could not say which was the stronger, but misfortune was forcing her to choose between the two, and she was accepting the most difficult, the one demanding the greatest sacrifices. "You are a man, and you will never be able to understand me. . . . A woman would comprehend me." It seemed to Julio, as he looked around him, as though the afternoon were undergoing some celestial phenomenon. The garden was still illuminated by the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the ground, the blue of the sky, all appeared to him as dark and shadowy as though a rain of ashes were falling. "Then . . . all is over between us?" His pleading, trembling voice charged with tears made her turn her head to hide her emotion. Then in the painful silence the two despairs formed one and the same question, as if interrogating the shades of the future: "What will become of me?" murmured the man. And like an echo her lips repeated, "What will become of me?" All had been said. Hopeless words came between the two like an obstacle momentarily increasing in size, impelling them in opposite directions. Why prolong the painful interview? . . . Marguerite showed the ready and energetic decision of a woman who wishes to bring a scene to a close. "Good-bye!" Her face had assumed a yellowish cast, her pupils had become dull and clouded like the glass of a lantern when the light dies out. "Good-bye!" She must go to her patient. She went away without looking at him, and Desnoyers instinctively went in the opposite direction. As he became more self-controlled and turned to look at her again, he saw her moving on and giving her arm to the blind man, without once turning her head. He now felt convinced that he should never see her again, and became oppressed by an almost suffocating agony. And could two beings, who had formerly considered the universe concentrated in their persons, thus easily be separated forever? . . . His desperation at finding himself alone made him accuse himself of stupidity. Now his thoughts came tumbling over each other in a tumultuous throng, and each one of them seemed to him sufficient to have convinced Marguerite. He certainly had not known how to express himself. He would have to talk with her again . . . and he decided to remain in Lourdes. He passed a night of torture in the hotel, listening to the ripple of the river among its stones. Insomnia had him in his fierce jaws, gnawing him with interminable agony. He turned on the light several times, but was not able to read. His eyes looked with stupid fixity at the patterns of the wall paper and the pious pictures around the room which had evidently served as the lodging place of some rich traveller. He remained motionless and as abstracted as an Oriental who thinks himself into an absolute lack of thought. One idea only was dancing in the vacuum in his skull--"I shall never see her again. . . . Can such a thing be possible?" He drowsed for a few seconds, only to be awakened with the sensation that some horrible explosion was sending him through the air. And so, with sweats of anguish, he wakefully passed the hours until in the gloom of his room the dawn showed a milky rectangle of light, and began to be reflected on the window curtains. The velvet-like caress of day finally closed his eyes. Upon awaking he found that the morning was well advanced, and he hurried to the garden of the grotto. . . . Oh, the hours of tremulous and unavailing waiting, believing that he recognized Marguerite in every white-clad lady that came along, guiding a wounded patient! By afternoon, after a lunch whose dishes filed past him untouched, he returned to the garden in search of her. Beholding her in the distance with the blind man leaning on her arm, a feeling of faintness came over him. She looked to him taller, thinner, her face sharper, with two dark hollows in her cheeks and her eyes bright with fever, the lids drawn with weariness. He suspected that she, too, had passed an anguished night of tenacious, self-centred thought, of grievous stupefaction like his own, in the room of her hotel. Suddenly he felt all the weight of insomnia and listlessness, all the depressing emotion of the cruel sensations experienced in the last few hours. Oh, how miserable they both were! . . . She was walking warily, looking from one side to the other, as though foreseeing danger. Upon discovering him she clung to her charge, casting upon her former lover a look of entreaty, of desperation, imploring pity. . . Ay, that look! He felt ashamed of himself; his personality appeared to be unrolling itself before him, and he surveyed himself with the eyes of a judge. What was this seduced and useless man, called Julio Desnoyers, doing there, tormenting with his presence a poor woman, trying to turn her from her righteous repentance, insisting on his selfish and petty desires when all humanity was thinking of other things? . . . His cowardice angered him. Like a thief taking advantage of the sleep of his victim, he was stalking around this brave and true man who could not see him, who could not defend himself, in order to rob him of the only affection that he had in the world which had so miraculously returned to him! Very well, Gentleman Desnoyers! . . . Ah, what a scoundrel he was! Such subconscious insults made him draw himself erect, in haughty, cruel and inexorable defiance against that other I who so richly deserved the judge's scorn. He turned his head away; he could not meet Marguerite's piteous eyes; he feared their mute reproach. Neither did he dare to look at the blind man in his shabby and heroic uniform, with his countenance aged by duty and glory. He feared him like remorse. So the vanquished lover turned his back on the two and went away with a firm step. Good-bye, Love! Goodbye, Happiness! . . . He marched quickly and bravely on; a miracle had just taken place within him! he had found the right road at last! To Paris! . . . A new impetus was going to fill the vacuum of his objectless existence. CHAPTER V THE INVASION Don Marcelo was fleeing to take refuge in his castle when he met the mayor of Villeblanche. The noise of the firing had made him hurry to the barricade. When he learned of the apparition of the group of stragglers he threw up his hands in despair. They were crazy. Their resistance was going to be fatal for the village, and he ran on to beg them to cease. For some time nothing happened to disturb the morning calm. Desnoyers had climbed to the top of his towers and was surveying the country with his field glasses. He couldn't make out the highway through the nearest group of trees, but he suspected that underneath their branches great activity was going on--masses of men on guard, troops preparing for the attack. The unexpected defense of the fugitives had upset the advance of the invasion. Desnoyers thought despairingly of that handful of mad fellows and their stubborn chief. What was their fate going to be? . . . Focussing his glasses on the village, he saw the red spots of kepis waving like poppies over the green of the meadows. They were the retreating men, now convinced of the uselessness of their resistance. Perhaps they had found a ford or forgotten boat by which they might cross the Maine, and so were continuing their retreat toward the river. At any minute now the Germans were going to enter Villeblanche. Half an hour of profound silence passed by. The village lay silhouetted against a background of hills--a mass of roofs beneath the church tower finished with its cross and iron weather cock. Everything seemed as tranquil as in the best days of peace. Suddenly he noticed that the grove was vomiting forth something noisy and penetrating--a bubble of vapor accompanied by a deafening report. Something was hurtling through the air with a strident curve. Then a roof in the village opened like a crater, vomiting forth flying wood, fragments of plaster and broken furniture. All the interior of the house seemed to be escaping in a stream of smoke, dirt and splinters. The invaders were bombarding Villeblanche before attempting attack, as though fearing to encounter persistent resistance in its streets. More projectiles fell. Some passed over the houses, exploding between the hamlet and the castle. The towers of the Desnoyers property were beginning to attract the aim of the artillerymen. The owner was therefore about to abandon his dangerous observatory when he saw something white like a tablecloth or sheet floating from the church tower. His neighbors had hoisted this signal of peace in order to avoid bombardment. A few more missiles fell and then there was silence. When Don Marcelo reached his park he found the Warden burying at the foot of a tree the sporting rifles still remaining in his castle. Then he went toward the great iron gates. The enemies were going to come, and he had to receive them. While uneasily awaiting their arrival his compunctions again tormented him. What was he doing there? Why had he remained? . . . But his obstinate temperament immediately put aside the promptings of fear. He was there because he had to guard his own. Besides, it was too late now to think about such things. Suddenly the morning stillness was broken by a sound like the deafening tearing of strong cloth. "Shots, Master," said the Warden. "Firing! It must be in the square." A few minutes after they saw running toward them a woman from the village, an old soul, dried up and darkened by age, who was panting from her great exertion, and looking wildly around her. She was fleeing blindly, trying to escape from danger and shut out horrible visions. Desnoyers and the Keeper's family listened to her explanations interrupted with hiccoughs of terror. The Germans were in Villeblanche. They had entered first in an automobile driven at full speed from one end of the village to the other. Its mitrailleuse was firing at random against closed houses and open doors, knocking down all the people in sight. The old woman flung up her arms with a gesture of terror. . . . Dead . . . many dead . . . wounded . . . blood! Then other iron-plated vehicles had stopped in the square, and behind them cavalrymen, battalions of infantry, many battalions coming from everywhere. The helmeted men seemed furious; they accused the villagers of having fired at them. In the square they had struck the mayor and villagers who had come forward to meet them. The priest, bending over some of the dying, had also been trodden under foot. . . . All prisoners! The Germans were talking of shooting them. The old dame's words were cut short by the rumble of approaching automobiles. "Open the gates," commanded the owner to the Warden. The massive iron grill work swung open, and was never again closed. All property rights were at an end. An enormous automobile, covered with dust and filled with men, stopped at the entrance. Behind them sounded the horns of other vehicles that were putting on the brakes. Desnoyers saw soldiers leaping out, all wearing the greenish-gray uniform with a sheath of the same tone covering the pointed casque. The one who marched at their head put his revolver to the millionaire's forehead. "Where are the sharpshooters?" he asked. He was pale with the pallor of wrath, vengeance and fear. His face was trembling under the influence of his triple emotion. Don Marcelo explained slowly, contemplating at a short distance from his eyes the black circle of the threatening tube. He had not seen any sharpshooters. The only inhabitants of the castle were the Warden with his family and himself, the owner of the castle. The officer surveyed the edifice and then examined Desnoyers with evident astonishment as though he thought his appearance too unpretentious for a proprietor. He had taken him for a simple employee, and his respect for social rank made him lower his revolver. He did not, however, alter his haughty attitude. He pressed Don Marcelo into the service as a guide, making him search ahead of him while forty soldiers grouped themselves at his back. They advanced in two files to the shelter of the trees which bordered the central avenue, with their guns ready to shoot, and looking uneasily at the castle windows as though expecting to receive from them hidden shots. Desnoyers marched tranquilly through the centre, and the official, who had been imitating the precautions of his men, finally joined him when he was crossing the drawbridge. The armed men scattered through the rooms in search of the enemy. They ran their bayonets through beds and divans. Some, with automatic destructiveness, slit the draperies and the rich bed coverings. The owner protested; what was the sense in such useless destruction? . . . He was suffering unbearable torture at seeing the enormous boots spotting the rugs with mud, on hearing the clash of guns and knapsacks against the most fragile, choicest pieces of furniture. Poor historic mansion! . . . The officer looked amazed that he should protest for such trifling cause, but he gave orders in German and his men ceased their rude explorations. Then, in justification of this extraordinary respect, he added in French: "I believe that you are going to have the honor of entertaining here the general of our division." The certainty that the castle did not hold any hidden enemies made him more amiable. He, nevertheless, persisted in his wrath against the sharpshooters. A group of the villagers had opened fire upon the Uhlans when they were entering unsuspiciously after the retreat of the French. Desnoyers felt it necessary to protest. They were neither inhabitants nor sharpshooters; they were French soldiers. He took good care to be silent about their presence at the barricade, but he insisted that he had distinguished their uniforms from a tower of the castle. The official made a threatening face. "You, too? . . . You, who appear a reasonable man, can repeat such yarns as these?" And in order to close the conversation, he said, arrogantly: "They were wearing uniforms, then, if you persist in saying so, but they were sharpshooters just the same. The French Government has distributed arms and uniforms among the farmers that they may assassinate us. . . . Belgium did the same thing. . . . But we know their tricks, and we know how to punish them, too!" The village was going to be burned. It was necessary to avenge the four German dead lying on the outskirts of Villeblanche, near the barricade. The mayor, the priest, the principal inhabitants would all be shot. By the time they reached the top floor Desnoyers could see floating above the boughs of his park dark clouds whose outlines were reddened by the sun. The top of the bell tower was the only thing that he could distinguish at that distance. Around the iron weathercock were flying long thin fringes like black cobwebs lifted by the breeze. An odor of burning wood came toward the castle. The German greeted this spectacle with a cruel smile. Then on descending to the park, he ordered Desnoyers to follow him. His liberty and his dignity had come to an end. Henceforth he was going to be an underling at the beck and call of these men who would dispose of him as their whims directed. Ay, why had he remained? . . . He obeyed, climbing into an automobile beside the officer, who was still carrying his revolver in his right hand. His men distributed themselves through the castle and outbuildings, in order to prevent the flight of an imaginary enemy. The Warden and his family seemed to be saying good-bye to him with their eyes. Perhaps they were taking him to his death. . . . Beyond the castle woods a new world was coming into existence. The short cut to Villeblanche seemed to Desnoyers a leap of millions of leagues, a fall into a red planet where men and things were covered with the film of smoke and the glare of fire. He saw the village under a dark canopy spotted with sparks and glowing embers. The bell tower was burning like an enormous torch; the roof of the church was breaking into flames with a crashing fury. The glare of the holocaust seemed to shrivel and grow pale in the impassive light of the sun. Running across the fields with the haste of desperation were shrieking women and children. The animals had escaped from the stables, and driven forth by the flames were racing wildly across the country. The cow and the work horse were dragging their halters broken by their flight. Their flanks were smoking and smelt of burnt hair. The pigs, the sheep and the chickens were all tearing along mingled with the cats and the dogs. All the domestic animals were returning to a brute existence, fleeing from civilized man. Shots were heard and hellish ha-ha's. The soldiers outside of the village were making themselves merry in this hunt for fugitives. Their guns were aimed at beasts and were hitting people. Desnoyers saw men, many men, men everywhere. They were like gray ants, marching in endless files towards the South, coming out from the woods, filling the roads, crossing the fields. The green of vegetation was disappearing under their tread; the dust was rising in spirals behind the dull roll of the cannons and the measured trot of thousands of horses. On the roadside several battalions had halted, with their accompaniment of vehicles and draw horses. They were resting before renewing their march. He knew this army. He had seen it in Berlin on parade, and yet it seemed to have changed its former appearance. There now remained very little of the heavy and imposing glitter, of the mute and vainglorious haughtiness which had made his relatives-in-law weep with admiration. War, with its realism, had wiped out all that was theatrical about this formidable organization of death. The soldiers appeared dirty and tired, out. The respiration of fat and sweaty bodies, mixed with the strong smell of leather, floated over the regiments. All the men had hungry faces. For days and nights they had been following the heels of an enemy which was always just eluding their grasp. In this forced advance the provisions of the administration would often arrive so late at the cantonments that they could depend only on what they happened to have in their knapsacks. Desnoyers saw them lined up near the road devouring hunks of black bread and mouldy sausages. Some had scattered through the fields to dig up beet roots and other tubers, chewing with loud crunchings the hard pulp to which the grit still adhered. An ensign was shaking the fruit trees using as a catch-all the flag of his regiment. That glorious standard, adorned with souvenirs of 1870, was serving as a receptacle for green plums. Those who were seated on the ground were improving this rest by drawing their perspiring, swollen feet from high boots which were sending out an insufferable smell. The regiments of infantry which Desnoyers had seen in Berlin reflecting the light on metal and leather straps, the magnificent and terrifying Hussars, the Cuirassiers in pure white uniform like the paladins of the Holy Grail, the artillerymen with breasts crossed with white bands, all the military variations that on parade had drawn forth the Hartrotts' sighs of admiration--these were now all unified and mixed together, of uniform color, all in greenish mustard like the dusty lizards that, slipping along, try to be confounded with the earth. The persistency of the iron discipline was easily discernible. A word from the chiefs, the sound of a whistle, and they all grouped themselves together, the human being disappearing in the throngs of automatons; but danger, weariness, and the uncertainty of triumph had for the time being brought officers and men nearer together, obliterating caste distinction. The officers were coming part way out of their overbearing, haughty seclusion, and were condescending to talk with the lower orders so as to revive their courage. One effort more and they would overwhelm both French and English, repeating the triumph of Sedan, whose anniversary they were going to celebrate in a few days! They were going to enter Paris; it was only a matter of a week. Paris! Great shops filled with luxurious things, famous restaurants, women, champagne, money. . . . And the men, flattered that their commanders were stooping to chat with them, forgot fatigue and hunger, reviving like the throngs of the Crusade before the image of Jerusalem. "Nach Paris!" The joyous shout circulated from the head to the tail of the marching columns. "To Paris! To Paris!" The scarcity of their food supply was here supplemented by the products of a country rich in wines. When sacking houses they rarely found eatables, but invariably a wine cellar. The humble German, the perpetual beer drinker, who had always looked upon wine as a privilege of the rich, could now open up casks with blows from his weapons, even bathing his feet in the stream of precious liquid. Every battalion left as a souvenir of its passing a wake of empty bottles; a halt in camp sowed the land with glass cylinders. The regimental trucks, unable to renew their stores of provisions, were accustomed to seize the wine in all the towns. The soldier, lacking bread, would receive alcohol. . . . This donation was always accompanied by the good counsels of the officers--War is war; no pity toward our adversaries who do not deserve it. The French were shooting their prisoners, and their women were putting out the eyes of the wounded. Every dwelling was a den of traps. The simple-hearted and innocent German entering therein was going to certain death. The beds were made over subterranean caves, the wardrobes were make-believe doors, in every corner was lurking an assassin. This traitorous nation, which was arranging its ground like the scenario of a melodrama, would have to be chastised. The municipal officers, the priests, the schoolmasters were directing and protecting the sharpshooters. Desnoyers was shocked at the indifference with which these men were stalking around the burning village. They did not appear to see the fire and destruction; it was just an ordinary spectacle, not worth looking at. Ever since they had crossed the frontier, smoldering and blasted villages, fired by the advance guard, had marked their halting places on Belgian and French soil. When entering Villeblanche the automobile had

glory

How many times the word 'glory' appears in the text?

would discover my identity and leave me, yet at the same time, wishing that he would recognize me and pardon me. . . . It is only one week that I have been with him. I disguise my voice when I can, and avoid words that may reveal the truth . . . but this cannot keep up much longer. It is only in novels that such painful situations turn out happily." Doubt suddenly overwhelmed her. "I believe," she continued, "that he has recognized me from the first. . . . He is silent and feigns ignorance because he despises me . . . because he can never bring himself to pardon me. I have been so bad! . . . I have wronged him so!". . . She was recalling the long and reflective silences of the wounded man after she had dropped some imprudent words. After two days of submission to her care, he had been somewhat rebellious, avoiding going out with her for a walk. Because of his blind helplessness, and comprehending the uselessness of his resistance, he had finally yielded in passive silence. "Let him think what he will!" concluded Marguerite courageously. "Let him despise me! I am here where I ought to be. I need his forgiveness, but if he does not pardon me, I shall stay with him just the same. . . . There are moments when I wish that he may never recover his sight, so that he may always need me, so that I may pass my life at his side, sacrificing everything for him." "And I?" said Desnoyers. Marguerite looked at him with clouded eyes as though she were just awaking. It was true--and the other one? . . . Kindled by the proposed sacrifice which was to be her expiation, she had forgotten the man before her. "You!" she said after a long pause. "You must leave me. . . . Life is not what we have thought it. Had it not been for the war, we might, perhaps, have realized our dream, but now! . . . Listen carefully and try to understand. For the remainder of my life, I shall carry the heaviest burden, and yet at the same time it will be sweet, since the more it weighs me down the greater will my atonement be. Never will I leave this man whom I have so grievously wronged, now that he is more alone in the world and will need protection like a child. Why do you come to share my fate? How could it be possible for you to live with a nurse constantly at the side of a blind and worthy man whom we would constantly offend with our passion? . . . No, it is better for us to part. Go your way, alone and untrammelled. Leave me; you will meet other women who will make you more happy than I. Yours is the temperament that finds new pleasures at every step." She stood firmly to her decision. Her voice was calm, but back of it trembled the emotion of a last farewell to a joy which was going from her forever. The man would be loved by others . . . and she was giving him up! . . . But the noble sadness of the sacrifice restored her courage. Only by this renunciation could she expiate her sins. Julio dropped his eyes, vanquished and perplexed. The picture of the future outlined by Marguerite terrified him. To live with her as a nurse taking advantage of her patient's blindness would be to offer him fresh insult every day. . . . Ah, no! That would be villainy, indeed! He was now ashamed to recall the malignity with which, a little while before, he had regarded this innocent unfortunate. He realized that he was powerless to contend with him. Weak and helpless as he was sitting there on the garden bench, he was stronger and more deserving of respect than Julio Desnoyers with all his youth and elegance. The victim had amounted to something in his life; he had done what Julio had not dared to do. This sudden conviction of his inferiority made him cry out like an abandoned child, "What will become of me?" . . . Marguerite, too--contemplating the love which was going from her forever, her vanished hopes, the future illumined by the satisfaction of duty fulfilled but monotonous and painful--cried out: "And I. . . . What will become of me?" . . . As though he had suddenly found a solution which was reviving his courage, Desnoyers said: "Listen, Marguerite: I can read your soul. You love this man, and you do well. He is superior to me, and women are always attracted by superiority. . . . I am a coward. Yes, do not protest, I am a coward with all my youth, with all my strength. Why should you not have been impressed by the conduct of this man! . . . But I will atone for past wrongs. This country is yours, Marguerite; I will fight for it. Do not say no. . . ." And moved by his hasty heroism, he outlined the plan more definitely. He was going to be a soldier. Soon she would hear him well spoken of. His idea was either to be stretched on the battlefield in his first encounter, or to astound the world by his bravery. In this way the impossible situation would settle itself--either the oblivion of death or glory. "No, no!" interrupted Marguerite in an anguished tone. "You, no! One is enough. . . . How horrible! You, too, wounded, mutilated forever, perhaps dead! . . . No, you must live. I want you to live, even though you might belong to another. . . . Let me know that you exist, let me see you sometimes, even though you may have forgotten me, even though you may pass me with indifference, as if you did not know me." In this outburst her deep love for him rang true--her heroic and inflexible love which would accept all penalties for herself, if only the beloved one might continue to live. But then, in order that Julio might not feel any false hopes, she added:--"Live; you must not die; that would be for me another torment. . . . But live without me. No matter how much we may talk about it, my destiny beside the other one is marked out forever." "Ah, how you love him! . . . How you have deceived me!" In a last desperate attempt at explanation she again repeated what she had said at the beginning of their interview. She loved Julio . . . and she loved her husband. They were different kinds of love. She could not say which was the stronger, but misfortune was forcing her to choose between the two, and she was accepting the most difficult, the one demanding the greatest sacrifices. "You are a man, and you will never be able to understand me. . . . A woman would comprehend me." It seemed to Julio, as he looked around him, as though the afternoon were undergoing some celestial phenomenon. The garden was still illuminated by the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the ground, the blue of the sky, all appeared to him as dark and shadowy as though a rain of ashes were falling. "Then . . . all is over between us?" His pleading, trembling voice charged with tears made her turn her head to hide her emotion. Then in the painful silence the two despairs formed one and the same question, as if interrogating the shades of the future: "What will become of me?" murmured the man. And like an echo her lips repeated, "What will become of me?" All had been said. Hopeless words came between the two like an obstacle momentarily increasing in size, impelling them in opposite directions. Why prolong the painful interview? . . . Marguerite showed the ready and energetic decision of a woman who wishes to bring a scene to a close. "Good-bye!" Her face had assumed a yellowish cast, her pupils had become dull and clouded like the glass of a lantern when the light dies out. "Good-bye!" She must go to her patient. She went away without looking at him, and Desnoyers instinctively went in the opposite direction. As he became more self-controlled and turned to look at her again, he saw her moving on and giving her arm to the blind man, without once turning her head. He now felt convinced that he should never see her again, and became oppressed by an almost suffocating agony. And could two beings, who had formerly considered the universe concentrated in their persons, thus easily be separated forever? . . . His desperation at finding himself alone made him accuse himself of stupidity. Now his thoughts came tumbling over each other in a tumultuous throng, and each one of them seemed to him sufficient to have convinced Marguerite. He certainly had not known how to express himself. He would have to talk with her again . . . and he decided to remain in Lourdes. He passed a night of torture in the hotel, listening to the ripple of the river among its stones. Insomnia had him in his fierce jaws, gnawing him with interminable agony. He turned on the light several times, but was not able to read. His eyes looked with stupid fixity at the patterns of the wall paper and the pious pictures around the room which had evidently served as the lodging place of some rich traveller. He remained motionless and as abstracted as an Oriental who thinks himself into an absolute lack of thought. One idea only was dancing in the vacuum in his skull--"I shall never see her again. . . . Can such a thing be possible?" He drowsed for a few seconds, only to be awakened with the sensation that some horrible explosion was sending him through the air. And so, with sweats of anguish, he wakefully passed the hours until in the gloom of his room the dawn showed a milky rectangle of light, and began to be reflected on the window curtains. The velvet-like caress of day finally closed his eyes. Upon awaking he found that the morning was well advanced, and he hurried to the garden of the grotto. . . . Oh, the hours of tremulous and unavailing waiting, believing that he recognized Marguerite in every white-clad lady that came along, guiding a wounded patient! By afternoon, after a lunch whose dishes filed past him untouched, he returned to the garden in search of her. Beholding her in the distance with the blind man leaning on her arm, a feeling of faintness came over him. She looked to him taller, thinner, her face sharper, with two dark hollows in her cheeks and her eyes bright with fever, the lids drawn with weariness. He suspected that she, too, had passed an anguished night of tenacious, self-centred thought, of grievous stupefaction like his own, in the room of her hotel. Suddenly he felt all the weight of insomnia and listlessness, all the depressing emotion of the cruel sensations experienced in the last few hours. Oh, how miserable they both were! . . . She was walking warily, looking from one side to the other, as though foreseeing danger. Upon discovering him she clung to her charge, casting upon her former lover a look of entreaty, of desperation, imploring pity. . . Ay, that look! He felt ashamed of himself; his personality appeared to be unrolling itself before him, and he surveyed himself with the eyes of a judge. What was this seduced and useless man, called Julio Desnoyers, doing there, tormenting with his presence a poor woman, trying to turn her from her righteous repentance, insisting on his selfish and petty desires when all humanity was thinking of other things? . . . His cowardice angered him. Like a thief taking advantage of the sleep of his victim, he was stalking around this brave and true man who could not see him, who could not defend himself, in order to rob him of the only affection that he had in the world which had so miraculously returned to him! Very well, Gentleman Desnoyers! . . . Ah, what a scoundrel he was! Such subconscious insults made him draw himself erect, in haughty, cruel and inexorable defiance against that other I who so richly deserved the judge's scorn. He turned his head away; he could not meet Marguerite's piteous eyes; he feared their mute reproach. Neither did he dare to look at the blind man in his shabby and heroic uniform, with his countenance aged by duty and glory. He feared him like remorse. So the vanquished lover turned his back on the two and went away with a firm step. Good-bye, Love! Goodbye, Happiness! . . . He marched quickly and bravely on; a miracle had just taken place within him! he had found the right road at last! To Paris! . . . A new impetus was going to fill the vacuum of his objectless existence. CHAPTER V THE INVASION Don Marcelo was fleeing to take refuge in his castle when he met the mayor of Villeblanche. The noise of the firing had made him hurry to the barricade. When he learned of the apparition of the group of stragglers he threw up his hands in despair. They were crazy. Their resistance was going to be fatal for the village, and he ran on to beg them to cease. For some time nothing happened to disturb the morning calm. Desnoyers had climbed to the top of his towers and was surveying the country with his field glasses. He couldn't make out the highway through the nearest group of trees, but he suspected that underneath their branches great activity was going on--masses of men on guard, troops preparing for the attack. The unexpected defense of the fugitives had upset the advance of the invasion. Desnoyers thought despairingly of that handful of mad fellows and their stubborn chief. What was their fate going to be? . . . Focussing his glasses on the village, he saw the red spots of kepis waving like poppies over the green of the meadows. They were the retreating men, now convinced of the uselessness of their resistance. Perhaps they had found a ford or forgotten boat by which they might cross the Maine, and so were continuing their retreat toward the river. At any minute now the Germans were going to enter Villeblanche. Half an hour of profound silence passed by. The village lay silhouetted against a background of hills--a mass of roofs beneath the church tower finished with its cross and iron weather cock. Everything seemed as tranquil as in the best days of peace. Suddenly he noticed that the grove was vomiting forth something noisy and penetrating--a bubble of vapor accompanied by a deafening report. Something was hurtling through the air with a strident curve. Then a roof in the village opened like a crater, vomiting forth flying wood, fragments of plaster and broken furniture. All the interior of the house seemed to be escaping in a stream of smoke, dirt and splinters. The invaders were bombarding Villeblanche before attempting attack, as though fearing to encounter persistent resistance in its streets. More projectiles fell. Some passed over the houses, exploding between the hamlet and the castle. The towers of the Desnoyers property were beginning to attract the aim of the artillerymen. The owner was therefore about to abandon his dangerous observatory when he saw something white like a tablecloth or sheet floating from the church tower. His neighbors had hoisted this signal of peace in order to avoid bombardment. A few more missiles fell and then there was silence. When Don Marcelo reached his park he found the Warden burying at the foot of a tree the sporting rifles still remaining in his castle. Then he went toward the great iron gates. The enemies were going to come, and he had to receive them. While uneasily awaiting their arrival his compunctions again tormented him. What was he doing there? Why had he remained? . . . But his obstinate temperament immediately put aside the promptings of fear. He was there because he had to guard his own. Besides, it was too late now to think about such things. Suddenly the morning stillness was broken by a sound like the deafening tearing of strong cloth. "Shots, Master," said the Warden. "Firing! It must be in the square." A few minutes after they saw running toward them a woman from the village, an old soul, dried up and darkened by age, who was panting from her great exertion, and looking wildly around her. She was fleeing blindly, trying to escape from danger and shut out horrible visions. Desnoyers and the Keeper's family listened to her explanations interrupted with hiccoughs of terror. The Germans were in Villeblanche. They had entered first in an automobile driven at full speed from one end of the village to the other. Its mitrailleuse was firing at random against closed houses and open doors, knocking down all the people in sight. The old woman flung up her arms with a gesture of terror. . . . Dead . . . many dead . . . wounded . . . blood! Then other iron-plated vehicles had stopped in the square, and behind them cavalrymen, battalions of infantry, many battalions coming from everywhere. The helmeted men seemed furious; they accused the villagers of having fired at them. In the square they had struck the mayor and villagers who had come forward to meet them. The priest, bending over some of the dying, had also been trodden under foot. . . . All prisoners! The Germans were talking of shooting them. The old dame's words were cut short by the rumble of approaching automobiles. "Open the gates," commanded the owner to the Warden. The massive iron grill work swung open, and was never again closed. All property rights were at an end. An enormous automobile, covered with dust and filled with men, stopped at the entrance. Behind them sounded the horns of other vehicles that were putting on the brakes. Desnoyers saw soldiers leaping out, all wearing the greenish-gray uniform with a sheath of the same tone covering the pointed casque. The one who marched at their head put his revolver to the millionaire's forehead. "Where are the sharpshooters?" he asked. He was pale with the pallor of wrath, vengeance and fear. His face was trembling under the influence of his triple emotion. Don Marcelo explained slowly, contemplating at a short distance from his eyes the black circle of the threatening tube. He had not seen any sharpshooters. The only inhabitants of the castle were the Warden with his family and himself, the owner of the castle. The officer surveyed the edifice and then examined Desnoyers with evident astonishment as though he thought his appearance too unpretentious for a proprietor. He had taken him for a simple employee, and his respect for social rank made him lower his revolver. He did not, however, alter his haughty attitude. He pressed Don Marcelo into the service as a guide, making him search ahead of him while forty soldiers grouped themselves at his back. They advanced in two files to the shelter of the trees which bordered the central avenue, with their guns ready to shoot, and looking uneasily at the castle windows as though expecting to receive from them hidden shots. Desnoyers marched tranquilly through the centre, and the official, who had been imitating the precautions of his men, finally joined him when he was crossing the drawbridge. The armed men scattered through the rooms in search of the enemy. They ran their bayonets through beds and divans. Some, with automatic destructiveness, slit the draperies and the rich bed coverings. The owner protested; what was the sense in such useless destruction? . . . He was suffering unbearable torture at seeing the enormous boots spotting the rugs with mud, on hearing the clash of guns and knapsacks against the most fragile, choicest pieces of furniture. Poor historic mansion! . . . The officer looked amazed that he should protest for such trifling cause, but he gave orders in German and his men ceased their rude explorations. Then, in justification of this extraordinary respect, he added in French: "I believe that you are going to have the honor of entertaining here the general of our division." The certainty that the castle did not hold any hidden enemies made him more amiable. He, nevertheless, persisted in his wrath against the sharpshooters. A group of the villagers had opened fire upon the Uhlans when they were entering unsuspiciously after the retreat of the French. Desnoyers felt it necessary to protest. They were neither inhabitants nor sharpshooters; they were French soldiers. He took good care to be silent about their presence at the barricade, but he insisted that he had distinguished their uniforms from a tower of the castle. The official made a threatening face. "You, too? . . . You, who appear a reasonable man, can repeat such yarns as these?" And in order to close the conversation, he said, arrogantly: "They were wearing uniforms, then, if you persist in saying so, but they were sharpshooters just the same. The French Government has distributed arms and uniforms among the farmers that they may assassinate us. . . . Belgium did the same thing. . . . But we know their tricks, and we know how to punish them, too!" The village was going to be burned. It was necessary to avenge the four German dead lying on the outskirts of Villeblanche, near the barricade. The mayor, the priest, the principal inhabitants would all be shot. By the time they reached the top floor Desnoyers could see floating above the boughs of his park dark clouds whose outlines were reddened by the sun. The top of the bell tower was the only thing that he could distinguish at that distance. Around the iron weathercock were flying long thin fringes like black cobwebs lifted by the breeze. An odor of burning wood came toward the castle. The German greeted this spectacle with a cruel smile. Then on descending to the park, he ordered Desnoyers to follow him. His liberty and his dignity had come to an end. Henceforth he was going to be an underling at the beck and call of these men who would dispose of him as their whims directed. Ay, why had he remained? . . . He obeyed, climbing into an automobile beside the officer, who was still carrying his revolver in his right hand. His men distributed themselves through the castle and outbuildings, in order to prevent the flight of an imaginary enemy. The Warden and his family seemed to be saying good-bye to him with their eyes. Perhaps they were taking him to his death. . . . Beyond the castle woods a new world was coming into existence. The short cut to Villeblanche seemed to Desnoyers a leap of millions of leagues, a fall into a red planet where men and things were covered with the film of smoke and the glare of fire. He saw the village under a dark canopy spotted with sparks and glowing embers. The bell tower was burning like an enormous torch; the roof of the church was breaking into flames with a crashing fury. The glare of the holocaust seemed to shrivel and grow pale in the impassive light of the sun. Running across the fields with the haste of desperation were shrieking women and children. The animals had escaped from the stables, and driven forth by the flames were racing wildly across the country. The cow and the work horse were dragging their halters broken by their flight. Their flanks were smoking and smelt of burnt hair. The pigs, the sheep and the chickens were all tearing along mingled with the cats and the dogs. All the domestic animals were returning to a brute existence, fleeing from civilized man. Shots were heard and hellish ha-ha's. The soldiers outside of the village were making themselves merry in this hunt for fugitives. Their guns were aimed at beasts and were hitting people. Desnoyers saw men, many men, men everywhere. They were like gray ants, marching in endless files towards the South, coming out from the woods, filling the roads, crossing the fields. The green of vegetation was disappearing under their tread; the dust was rising in spirals behind the dull roll of the cannons and the measured trot of thousands of horses. On the roadside several battalions had halted, with their accompaniment of vehicles and draw horses. They were resting before renewing their march. He knew this army. He had seen it in Berlin on parade, and yet it seemed to have changed its former appearance. There now remained very little of the heavy and imposing glitter, of the mute and vainglorious haughtiness which had made his relatives-in-law weep with admiration. War, with its realism, had wiped out all that was theatrical about this formidable organization of death. The soldiers appeared dirty and tired, out. The respiration of fat and sweaty bodies, mixed with the strong smell of leather, floated over the regiments. All the men had hungry faces. For days and nights they had been following the heels of an enemy which was always just eluding their grasp. In this forced advance the provisions of the administration would often arrive so late at the cantonments that they could depend only on what they happened to have in their knapsacks. Desnoyers saw them lined up near the road devouring hunks of black bread and mouldy sausages. Some had scattered through the fields to dig up beet roots and other tubers, chewing with loud crunchings the hard pulp to which the grit still adhered. An ensign was shaking the fruit trees using as a catch-all the flag of his regiment. That glorious standard, adorned with souvenirs of 1870, was serving as a receptacle for green plums. Those who were seated on the ground were improving this rest by drawing their perspiring, swollen feet from high boots which were sending out an insufferable smell. The regiments of infantry which Desnoyers had seen in Berlin reflecting the light on metal and leather straps, the magnificent and terrifying Hussars, the Cuirassiers in pure white uniform like the paladins of the Holy Grail, the artillerymen with breasts crossed with white bands, all the military variations that on parade had drawn forth the Hartrotts' sighs of admiration--these were now all unified and mixed together, of uniform color, all in greenish mustard like the dusty lizards that, slipping along, try to be confounded with the earth. The persistency of the iron discipline was easily discernible. A word from the chiefs, the sound of a whistle, and they all grouped themselves together, the human being disappearing in the throngs of automatons; but danger, weariness, and the uncertainty of triumph had for the time being brought officers and men nearer together, obliterating caste distinction. The officers were coming part way out of their overbearing, haughty seclusion, and were condescending to talk with the lower orders so as to revive their courage. One effort more and they would overwhelm both French and English, repeating the triumph of Sedan, whose anniversary they were going to celebrate in a few days! They were going to enter Paris; it was only a matter of a week. Paris! Great shops filled with luxurious things, famous restaurants, women, champagne, money. . . . And the men, flattered that their commanders were stooping to chat with them, forgot fatigue and hunger, reviving like the throngs of the Crusade before the image of Jerusalem. "Nach Paris!" The joyous shout circulated from the head to the tail of the marching columns. "To Paris! To Paris!" The scarcity of their food supply was here supplemented by the products of a country rich in wines. When sacking houses they rarely found eatables, but invariably a wine cellar. The humble German, the perpetual beer drinker, who had always looked upon wine as a privilege of the rich, could now open up casks with blows from his weapons, even bathing his feet in the stream of precious liquid. Every battalion left as a souvenir of its passing a wake of empty bottles; a halt in camp sowed the land with glass cylinders. The regimental trucks, unable to renew their stores of provisions, were accustomed to seize the wine in all the towns. The soldier, lacking bread, would receive alcohol. . . . This donation was always accompanied by the good counsels of the officers--War is war; no pity toward our adversaries who do not deserve it. The French were shooting their prisoners, and their women were putting out the eyes of the wounded. Every dwelling was a den of traps. The simple-hearted and innocent German entering therein was going to certain death. The beds were made over subterranean caves, the wardrobes were make-believe doors, in every corner was lurking an assassin. This traitorous nation, which was arranging its ground like the scenario of a melodrama, would have to be chastised. The municipal officers, the priests, the schoolmasters were directing and protecting the sharpshooters. Desnoyers was shocked at the indifference with which these men were stalking around the burning village. They did not appear to see the fire and destruction; it was just an ordinary spectacle, not worth looking at. Ever since they had crossed the frontier, smoldering and blasted villages, fired by the advance guard, had marked their halting places on Belgian and French soil. When entering Villeblanche the automobile had

ashamed

How many times the word 'ashamed' appears in the text?

would discover my identity and leave me, yet at the same time, wishing that he would recognize me and pardon me. . . . It is only one week that I have been with him. I disguise my voice when I can, and avoid words that may reveal the truth . . . but this cannot keep up much longer. It is only in novels that such painful situations turn out happily." Doubt suddenly overwhelmed her. "I believe," she continued, "that he has recognized me from the first. . . . He is silent and feigns ignorance because he despises me . . . because he can never bring himself to pardon me. I have been so bad! . . . I have wronged him so!". . . She was recalling the long and reflective silences of the wounded man after she had dropped some imprudent words. After two days of submission to her care, he had been somewhat rebellious, avoiding going out with her for a walk. Because of his blind helplessness, and comprehending the uselessness of his resistance, he had finally yielded in passive silence. "Let him think what he will!" concluded Marguerite courageously. "Let him despise me! I am here where I ought to be. I need his forgiveness, but if he does not pardon me, I shall stay with him just the same. . . . There are moments when I wish that he may never recover his sight, so that he may always need me, so that I may pass my life at his side, sacrificing everything for him." "And I?" said Desnoyers. Marguerite looked at him with clouded eyes as though she were just awaking. It was true--and the other one? . . . Kindled by the proposed sacrifice which was to be her expiation, she had forgotten the man before her. "You!" she said after a long pause. "You must leave me. . . . Life is not what we have thought it. Had it not been for the war, we might, perhaps, have realized our dream, but now! . . . Listen carefully and try to understand. For the remainder of my life, I shall carry the heaviest burden, and yet at the same time it will be sweet, since the more it weighs me down the greater will my atonement be. Never will I leave this man whom I have so grievously wronged, now that he is more alone in the world and will need protection like a child. Why do you come to share my fate? How could it be possible for you to live with a nurse constantly at the side of a blind and worthy man whom we would constantly offend with our passion? . . . No, it is better for us to part. Go your way, alone and untrammelled. Leave me; you will meet other women who will make you more happy than I. Yours is the temperament that finds new pleasures at every step." She stood firmly to her decision. Her voice was calm, but back of it trembled the emotion of a last farewell to a joy which was going from her forever. The man would be loved by others . . . and she was giving him up! . . . But the noble sadness of the sacrifice restored her courage. Only by this renunciation could she expiate her sins. Julio dropped his eyes, vanquished and perplexed. The picture of the future outlined by Marguerite terrified him. To live with her as a nurse taking advantage of her patient's blindness would be to offer him fresh insult every day. . . . Ah, no! That would be villainy, indeed! He was now ashamed to recall the malignity with which, a little while before, he had regarded this innocent unfortunate. He realized that he was powerless to contend with him. Weak and helpless as he was sitting there on the garden bench, he was stronger and more deserving of respect than Julio Desnoyers with all his youth and elegance. The victim had amounted to something in his life; he had done what Julio had not dared to do. This sudden conviction of his inferiority made him cry out like an abandoned child, "What will become of me?" . . . Marguerite, too--contemplating the love which was going from her forever, her vanished hopes, the future illumined by the satisfaction of duty fulfilled but monotonous and painful--cried out: "And I. . . . What will become of me?" . . . As though he had suddenly found a solution which was reviving his courage, Desnoyers said: "Listen, Marguerite: I can read your soul. You love this man, and you do well. He is superior to me, and women are always attracted by superiority. . . . I am a coward. Yes, do not protest, I am a coward with all my youth, with all my strength. Why should you not have been impressed by the conduct of this man! . . . But I will atone for past wrongs. This country is yours, Marguerite; I will fight for it. Do not say no. . . ." And moved by his hasty heroism, he outlined the plan more definitely. He was going to be a soldier. Soon she would hear him well spoken of. His idea was either to be stretched on the battlefield in his first encounter, or to astound the world by his bravery. In this way the impossible situation would settle itself--either the oblivion of death or glory. "No, no!" interrupted Marguerite in an anguished tone. "You, no! One is enough. . . . How horrible! You, too, wounded, mutilated forever, perhaps dead! . . . No, you must live. I want you to live, even though you might belong to another. . . . Let me know that you exist, let me see you sometimes, even though you may have forgotten me, even though you may pass me with indifference, as if you did not know me." In this outburst her deep love for him rang true--her heroic and inflexible love which would accept all penalties for herself, if only the beloved one might continue to live. But then, in order that Julio might not feel any false hopes, she added:--"Live; you must not die; that would be for me another torment. . . . But live without me. No matter how much we may talk about it, my destiny beside the other one is marked out forever." "Ah, how you love him! . . . How you have deceived me!" In a last desperate attempt at explanation she again repeated what she had said at the beginning of their interview. She loved Julio . . . and she loved her husband. They were different kinds of love. She could not say which was the stronger, but misfortune was forcing her to choose between the two, and she was accepting the most difficult, the one demanding the greatest sacrifices. "You are a man, and you will never be able to understand me. . . . A woman would comprehend me." It seemed to Julio, as he looked around him, as though the afternoon were undergoing some celestial phenomenon. The garden was still illuminated by the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the ground, the blue of the sky, all appeared to him as dark and shadowy as though a rain of ashes were falling. "Then . . . all is over between us?" His pleading, trembling voice charged with tears made her turn her head to hide her emotion. Then in the painful silence the two despairs formed one and the same question, as if interrogating the shades of the future: "What will become of me?" murmured the man. And like an echo her lips repeated, "What will become of me?" All had been said. Hopeless words came between the two like an obstacle momentarily increasing in size, impelling them in opposite directions. Why prolong the painful interview? . . . Marguerite showed the ready and energetic decision of a woman who wishes to bring a scene to a close. "Good-bye!" Her face had assumed a yellowish cast, her pupils had become dull and clouded like the glass of a lantern when the light dies out. "Good-bye!" She must go to her patient. She went away without looking at him, and Desnoyers instinctively went in the opposite direction. As he became more self-controlled and turned to look at her again, he saw her moving on and giving her arm to the blind man, without once turning her head. He now felt convinced that he should never see her again, and became oppressed by an almost suffocating agony. And could two beings, who had formerly considered the universe concentrated in their persons, thus easily be separated forever? . . . His desperation at finding himself alone made him accuse himself of stupidity. Now his thoughts came tumbling over each other in a tumultuous throng, and each one of them seemed to him sufficient to have convinced Marguerite. He certainly had not known how to express himself. He would have to talk with her again . . . and he decided to remain in Lourdes. He passed a night of torture in the hotel, listening to the ripple of the river among its stones. Insomnia had him in his fierce jaws, gnawing him with interminable agony. He turned on the light several times, but was not able to read. His eyes looked with stupid fixity at the patterns of the wall paper and the pious pictures around the room which had evidently served as the lodging place of some rich traveller. He remained motionless and as abstracted as an Oriental who thinks himself into an absolute lack of thought. One idea only was dancing in the vacuum in his skull--"I shall never see her again. . . . Can such a thing be possible?" He drowsed for a few seconds, only to be awakened with the sensation that some horrible explosion was sending him through the air. And so, with sweats of anguish, he wakefully passed the hours until in the gloom of his room the dawn showed a milky rectangle of light, and began to be reflected on the window curtains. The velvet-like caress of day finally closed his eyes. Upon awaking he found that the morning was well advanced, and he hurried to the garden of the grotto. . . . Oh, the hours of tremulous and unavailing waiting, believing that he recognized Marguerite in every white-clad lady that came along, guiding a wounded patient! By afternoon, after a lunch whose dishes filed past him untouched, he returned to the garden in search of her. Beholding her in the distance with the blind man leaning on her arm, a feeling of faintness came over him. She looked to him taller, thinner, her face sharper, with two dark hollows in her cheeks and her eyes bright with fever, the lids drawn with weariness. He suspected that she, too, had passed an anguished night of tenacious, self-centred thought, of grievous stupefaction like his own, in the room of her hotel. Suddenly he felt all the weight of insomnia and listlessness, all the depressing emotion of the cruel sensations experienced in the last few hours. Oh, how miserable they both were! . . . She was walking warily, looking from one side to the other, as though foreseeing danger. Upon discovering him she clung to her charge, casting upon her former lover a look of entreaty, of desperation, imploring pity. . . Ay, that look! He felt ashamed of himself; his personality appeared to be unrolling itself before him, and he surveyed himself with the eyes of a judge. What was this seduced and useless man, called Julio Desnoyers, doing there, tormenting with his presence a poor woman, trying to turn her from her righteous repentance, insisting on his selfish and petty desires when all humanity was thinking of other things? . . . His cowardice angered him. Like a thief taking advantage of the sleep of his victim, he was stalking around this brave and true man who could not see him, who could not defend himself, in order to rob him of the only affection that he had in the world which had so miraculously returned to him! Very well, Gentleman Desnoyers! . . . Ah, what a scoundrel he was! Such subconscious insults made him draw himself erect, in haughty, cruel and inexorable defiance against that other I who so richly deserved the judge's scorn. He turned his head away; he could not meet Marguerite's piteous eyes; he feared their mute reproach. Neither did he dare to look at the blind man in his shabby and heroic uniform, with his countenance aged by duty and glory. He feared him like remorse. So the vanquished lover turned his back on the two and went away with a firm step. Good-bye, Love! Goodbye, Happiness! . . . He marched quickly and bravely on; a miracle had just taken place within him! he had found the right road at last! To Paris! . . . A new impetus was going to fill the vacuum of his objectless existence. CHAPTER V THE INVASION Don Marcelo was fleeing to take refuge in his castle when he met the mayor of Villeblanche. The noise of the firing had made him hurry to the barricade. When he learned of the apparition of the group of stragglers he threw up his hands in despair. They were crazy. Their resistance was going to be fatal for the village, and he ran on to beg them to cease. For some time nothing happened to disturb the morning calm. Desnoyers had climbed to the top of his towers and was surveying the country with his field glasses. He couldn't make out the highway through the nearest group of trees, but he suspected that underneath their branches great activity was going on--masses of men on guard, troops preparing for the attack. The unexpected defense of the fugitives had upset the advance of the invasion. Desnoyers thought despairingly of that handful of mad fellows and their stubborn chief. What was their fate going to be? . . . Focussing his glasses on the village, he saw the red spots of kepis waving like poppies over the green of the meadows. They were the retreating men, now convinced of the uselessness of their resistance. Perhaps they had found a ford or forgotten boat by which they might cross the Maine, and so were continuing their retreat toward the river. At any minute now the Germans were going to enter Villeblanche. Half an hour of profound silence passed by. The village lay silhouetted against a background of hills--a mass of roofs beneath the church tower finished with its cross and iron weather cock. Everything seemed as tranquil as in the best days of peace. Suddenly he noticed that the grove was vomiting forth something noisy and penetrating--a bubble of vapor accompanied by a deafening report. Something was hurtling through the air with a strident curve. Then a roof in the village opened like a crater, vomiting forth flying wood, fragments of plaster and broken furniture. All the interior of the house seemed to be escaping in a stream of smoke, dirt and splinters. The invaders were bombarding Villeblanche before attempting attack, as though fearing to encounter persistent resistance in its streets. More projectiles fell. Some passed over the houses, exploding between the hamlet and the castle. The towers of the Desnoyers property were beginning to attract the aim of the artillerymen. The owner was therefore about to abandon his dangerous observatory when he saw something white like a tablecloth or sheet floating from the church tower. His neighbors had hoisted this signal of peace in order to avoid bombardment. A few more missiles fell and then there was silence. When Don Marcelo reached his park he found the Warden burying at the foot of a tree the sporting rifles still remaining in his castle. Then he went toward the great iron gates. The enemies were going to come, and he had to receive them. While uneasily awaiting their arrival his compunctions again tormented him. What was he doing there? Why had he remained? . . . But his obstinate temperament immediately put aside the promptings of fear. He was there because he had to guard his own. Besides, it was too late now to think about such things. Suddenly the morning stillness was broken by a sound like the deafening tearing of strong cloth. "Shots, Master," said the Warden. "Firing! It must be in the square." A few minutes after they saw running toward them a woman from the village, an old soul, dried up and darkened by age, who was panting from her great exertion, and looking wildly around her. She was fleeing blindly, trying to escape from danger and shut out horrible visions. Desnoyers and the Keeper's family listened to her explanations interrupted with hiccoughs of terror. The Germans were in Villeblanche. They had entered first in an automobile driven at full speed from one end of the village to the other. Its mitrailleuse was firing at random against closed houses and open doors, knocking down all the people in sight. The old woman flung up her arms with a gesture of terror. . . . Dead . . . many dead . . . wounded . . . blood! Then other iron-plated vehicles had stopped in the square, and behind them cavalrymen, battalions of infantry, many battalions coming from everywhere. The helmeted men seemed furious; they accused the villagers of having fired at them. In the square they had struck the mayor and villagers who had come forward to meet them. The priest, bending over some of the dying, had also been trodden under foot. . . . All prisoners! The Germans were talking of shooting them. The old dame's words were cut short by the rumble of approaching automobiles. "Open the gates," commanded the owner to the Warden. The massive iron grill work swung open, and was never again closed. All property rights were at an end. An enormous automobile, covered with dust and filled with men, stopped at the entrance. Behind them sounded the horns of other vehicles that were putting on the brakes. Desnoyers saw soldiers leaping out, all wearing the greenish-gray uniform with a sheath of the same tone covering the pointed casque. The one who marched at their head put his revolver to the millionaire's forehead. "Where are the sharpshooters?" he asked. He was pale with the pallor of wrath, vengeance and fear. His face was trembling under the influence of his triple emotion. Don Marcelo explained slowly, contemplating at a short distance from his eyes the black circle of the threatening tube. He had not seen any sharpshooters. The only inhabitants of the castle were the Warden with his family and himself, the owner of the castle. The officer surveyed the edifice and then examined Desnoyers with evident astonishment as though he thought his appearance too unpretentious for a proprietor. He had taken him for a simple employee, and his respect for social rank made him lower his revolver. He did not, however, alter his haughty attitude. He pressed Don Marcelo into the service as a guide, making him search ahead of him while forty soldiers grouped themselves at his back. They advanced in two files to the shelter of the trees which bordered the central avenue, with their guns ready to shoot, and looking uneasily at the castle windows as though expecting to receive from them hidden shots. Desnoyers marched tranquilly through the centre, and the official, who had been imitating the precautions of his men, finally joined him when he was crossing the drawbridge. The armed men scattered through the rooms in search of the enemy. They ran their bayonets through beds and divans. Some, with automatic destructiveness, slit the draperies and the rich bed coverings. The owner protested; what was the sense in such useless destruction? . . . He was suffering unbearable torture at seeing the enormous boots spotting the rugs with mud, on hearing the clash of guns and knapsacks against the most fragile, choicest pieces of furniture. Poor historic mansion! . . . The officer looked amazed that he should protest for such trifling cause, but he gave orders in German and his men ceased their rude explorations. Then, in justification of this extraordinary respect, he added in French: "I believe that you are going to have the honor of entertaining here the general of our division." The certainty that the castle did not hold any hidden enemies made him more amiable. He, nevertheless, persisted in his wrath against the sharpshooters. A group of the villagers had opened fire upon the Uhlans when they were entering unsuspiciously after the retreat of the French. Desnoyers felt it necessary to protest. They were neither inhabitants nor sharpshooters; they were French soldiers. He took good care to be silent about their presence at the barricade, but he insisted that he had distinguished their uniforms from a tower of the castle. The official made a threatening face. "You, too? . . . You, who appear a reasonable man, can repeat such yarns as these?" And in order to close the conversation, he said, arrogantly: "They were wearing uniforms, then, if you persist in saying so, but they were sharpshooters just the same. The French Government has distributed arms and uniforms among the farmers that they may assassinate us. . . . Belgium did the same thing. . . . But we know their tricks, and we know how to punish them, too!" The village was going to be burned. It was necessary to avenge the four German dead lying on the outskirts of Villeblanche, near the barricade. The mayor, the priest, the principal inhabitants would all be shot. By the time they reached the top floor Desnoyers could see floating above the boughs of his park dark clouds whose outlines were reddened by the sun. The top of the bell tower was the only thing that he could distinguish at that distance. Around the iron weathercock were flying long thin fringes like black cobwebs lifted by the breeze. An odor of burning wood came toward the castle. The German greeted this spectacle with a cruel smile. Then on descending to the park, he ordered Desnoyers to follow him. His liberty and his dignity had come to an end. Henceforth he was going to be an underling at the beck and call of these men who would dispose of him as their whims directed. Ay, why had he remained? . . . He obeyed, climbing into an automobile beside the officer, who was still carrying his revolver in his right hand. His men distributed themselves through the castle and outbuildings, in order to prevent the flight of an imaginary enemy. The Warden and his family seemed to be saying good-bye to him with their eyes. Perhaps they were taking him to his death. . . . Beyond the castle woods a new world was coming into existence. The short cut to Villeblanche seemed to Desnoyers a leap of millions of leagues, a fall into a red planet where men and things were covered with the film of smoke and the glare of fire. He saw the village under a dark canopy spotted with sparks and glowing embers. The bell tower was burning like an enormous torch; the roof of the church was breaking into flames with a crashing fury. The glare of the holocaust seemed to shrivel and grow pale in the impassive light of the sun. Running across the fields with the haste of desperation were shrieking women and children. The animals had escaped from the stables, and driven forth by the flames were racing wildly across the country. The cow and the work horse were dragging their halters broken by their flight. Their flanks were smoking and smelt of burnt hair. The pigs, the sheep and the chickens were all tearing along mingled with the cats and the dogs. All the domestic animals were returning to a brute existence, fleeing from civilized man. Shots were heard and hellish ha-ha's. The soldiers outside of the village were making themselves merry in this hunt for fugitives. Their guns were aimed at beasts and were hitting people. Desnoyers saw men, many men, men everywhere. They were like gray ants, marching in endless files towards the South, coming out from the woods, filling the roads, crossing the fields. The green of vegetation was disappearing under their tread; the dust was rising in spirals behind the dull roll of the cannons and the measured trot of thousands of horses. On the roadside several battalions had halted, with their accompaniment of vehicles and draw horses. They were resting before renewing their march. He knew this army. He had seen it in Berlin on parade, and yet it seemed to have changed its former appearance. There now remained very little of the heavy and imposing glitter, of the mute and vainglorious haughtiness which had made his relatives-in-law weep with admiration. War, with its realism, had wiped out all that was theatrical about this formidable organization of death. The soldiers appeared dirty and tired, out. The respiration of fat and sweaty bodies, mixed with the strong smell of leather, floated over the regiments. All the men had hungry faces. For days and nights they had been following the heels of an enemy which was always just eluding their grasp. In this forced advance the provisions of the administration would often arrive so late at the cantonments that they could depend only on what they happened to have in their knapsacks. Desnoyers saw them lined up near the road devouring hunks of black bread and mouldy sausages. Some had scattered through the fields to dig up beet roots and other tubers, chewing with loud crunchings the hard pulp to which the grit still adhered. An ensign was shaking the fruit trees using as a catch-all the flag of his regiment. That glorious standard, adorned with souvenirs of 1870, was serving as a receptacle for green plums. Those who were seated on the ground were improving this rest by drawing their perspiring, swollen feet from high boots which were sending out an insufferable smell. The regiments of infantry which Desnoyers had seen in Berlin reflecting the light on metal and leather straps, the magnificent and terrifying Hussars, the Cuirassiers in pure white uniform like the paladins of the Holy Grail, the artillerymen with breasts crossed with white bands, all the military variations that on parade had drawn forth the Hartrotts' sighs of admiration--these were now all unified and mixed together, of uniform color, all in greenish mustard like the dusty lizards that, slipping along, try to be confounded with the earth. The persistency of the iron discipline was easily discernible. A word from the chiefs, the sound of a whistle, and they all grouped themselves together, the human being disappearing in the throngs of automatons; but danger, weariness, and the uncertainty of triumph had for the time being brought officers and men nearer together, obliterating caste distinction. The officers were coming part way out of their overbearing, haughty seclusion, and were condescending to talk with the lower orders so as to revive their courage. One effort more and they would overwhelm both French and English, repeating the triumph of Sedan, whose anniversary they were going to celebrate in a few days! They were going to enter Paris; it was only a matter of a week. Paris! Great shops filled with luxurious things, famous restaurants, women, champagne, money. . . . And the men, flattered that their commanders were stooping to chat with them, forgot fatigue and hunger, reviving like the throngs of the Crusade before the image of Jerusalem. "Nach Paris!" The joyous shout circulated from the head to the tail of the marching columns. "To Paris! To Paris!" The scarcity of their food supply was here supplemented by the products of a country rich in wines. When sacking houses they rarely found eatables, but invariably a wine cellar. The humble German, the perpetual beer drinker, who had always looked upon wine as a privilege of the rich, could now open up casks with blows from his weapons, even bathing his feet in the stream of precious liquid. Every battalion left as a souvenir of its passing a wake of empty bottles; a halt in camp sowed the land with glass cylinders. The regimental trucks, unable to renew their stores of provisions, were accustomed to seize the wine in all the towns. The soldier, lacking bread, would receive alcohol. . . . This donation was always accompanied by the good counsels of the officers--War is war; no pity toward our adversaries who do not deserve it. The French were shooting their prisoners, and their women were putting out the eyes of the wounded. Every dwelling was a den of traps. The simple-hearted and innocent German entering therein was going to certain death. The beds were made over subterranean caves, the wardrobes were make-believe doors, in every corner was lurking an assassin. This traitorous nation, which was arranging its ground like the scenario of a melodrama, would have to be chastised. The municipal officers, the priests, the schoolmasters were directing and protecting the sharpshooters. Desnoyers was shocked at the indifference with which these men were stalking around the burning village. They did not appear to see the fire and destruction; it was just an ordinary spectacle, not worth looking at. Ever since they had crossed the frontier, smoldering and blasted villages, fired by the advance guard, had marked their halting places on Belgian and French soil. When entering Villeblanche the automobile had

came

How many times the word 'came' appears in the text?

would discover my identity and leave me, yet at the same time, wishing that he would recognize me and pardon me. . . . It is only one week that I have been with him. I disguise my voice when I can, and avoid words that may reveal the truth . . . but this cannot keep up much longer. It is only in novels that such painful situations turn out happily." Doubt suddenly overwhelmed her. "I believe," she continued, "that he has recognized me from the first. . . . He is silent and feigns ignorance because he despises me . . . because he can never bring himself to pardon me. I have been so bad! . . . I have wronged him so!". . . She was recalling the long and reflective silences of the wounded man after she had dropped some imprudent words. After two days of submission to her care, he had been somewhat rebellious, avoiding going out with her for a walk. Because of his blind helplessness, and comprehending the uselessness of his resistance, he had finally yielded in passive silence. "Let him think what he will!" concluded Marguerite courageously. "Let him despise me! I am here where I ought to be. I need his forgiveness, but if he does not pardon me, I shall stay with him just the same. . . . There are moments when I wish that he may never recover his sight, so that he may always need me, so that I may pass my life at his side, sacrificing everything for him." "And I?" said Desnoyers. Marguerite looked at him with clouded eyes as though she were just awaking. It was true--and the other one? . . . Kindled by the proposed sacrifice which was to be her expiation, she had forgotten the man before her. "You!" she said after a long pause. "You must leave me. . . . Life is not what we have thought it. Had it not been for the war, we might, perhaps, have realized our dream, but now! . . . Listen carefully and try to understand. For the remainder of my life, I shall carry the heaviest burden, and yet at the same time it will be sweet, since the more it weighs me down the greater will my atonement be. Never will I leave this man whom I have so grievously wronged, now that he is more alone in the world and will need protection like a child. Why do you come to share my fate? How could it be possible for you to live with a nurse constantly at the side of a blind and worthy man whom we would constantly offend with our passion? . . . No, it is better for us to part. Go your way, alone and untrammelled. Leave me; you will meet other women who will make you more happy than I. Yours is the temperament that finds new pleasures at every step." She stood firmly to her decision. Her voice was calm, but back of it trembled the emotion of a last farewell to a joy which was going from her forever. The man would be loved by others . . . and she was giving him up! . . . But the noble sadness of the sacrifice restored her courage. Only by this renunciation could she expiate her sins. Julio dropped his eyes, vanquished and perplexed. The picture of the future outlined by Marguerite terrified him. To live with her as a nurse taking advantage of her patient's blindness would be to offer him fresh insult every day. . . . Ah, no! That would be villainy, indeed! He was now ashamed to recall the malignity with which, a little while before, he had regarded this innocent unfortunate. He realized that he was powerless to contend with him. Weak and helpless as he was sitting there on the garden bench, he was stronger and more deserving of respect than Julio Desnoyers with all his youth and elegance. The victim had amounted to something in his life; he had done what Julio had not dared to do. This sudden conviction of his inferiority made him cry out like an abandoned child, "What will become of me?" . . . Marguerite, too--contemplating the love which was going from her forever, her vanished hopes, the future illumined by the satisfaction of duty fulfilled but monotonous and painful--cried out: "And I. . . . What will become of me?" . . . As though he had suddenly found a solution which was reviving his courage, Desnoyers said: "Listen, Marguerite: I can read your soul. You love this man, and you do well. He is superior to me, and women are always attracted by superiority. . . . I am a coward. Yes, do not protest, I am a coward with all my youth, with all my strength. Why should you not have been impressed by the conduct of this man! . . . But I will atone for past wrongs. This country is yours, Marguerite; I will fight for it. Do not say no. . . ." And moved by his hasty heroism, he outlined the plan more definitely. He was going to be a soldier. Soon she would hear him well spoken of. His idea was either to be stretched on the battlefield in his first encounter, or to astound the world by his bravery. In this way the impossible situation would settle itself--either the oblivion of death or glory. "No, no!" interrupted Marguerite in an anguished tone. "You, no! One is enough. . . . How horrible! You, too, wounded, mutilated forever, perhaps dead! . . . No, you must live. I want you to live, even though you might belong to another. . . . Let me know that you exist, let me see you sometimes, even though you may have forgotten me, even though you may pass me with indifference, as if you did not know me." In this outburst her deep love for him rang true--her heroic and inflexible love which would accept all penalties for herself, if only the beloved one might continue to live. But then, in order that Julio might not feel any false hopes, she added:--"Live; you must not die; that would be for me another torment. . . . But live without me. No matter how much we may talk about it, my destiny beside the other one is marked out forever." "Ah, how you love him! . . . How you have deceived me!" In a last desperate attempt at explanation she again repeated what she had said at the beginning of their interview. She loved Julio . . . and she loved her husband. They were different kinds of love. She could not say which was the stronger, but misfortune was forcing her to choose between the two, and she was accepting the most difficult, the one demanding the greatest sacrifices. "You are a man, and you will never be able to understand me. . . . A woman would comprehend me." It seemed to Julio, as he looked around him, as though the afternoon were undergoing some celestial phenomenon. The garden was still illuminated by the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the ground, the blue of the sky, all appeared to him as dark and shadowy as though a rain of ashes were falling. "Then . . . all is over between us?" His pleading, trembling voice charged with tears made her turn her head to hide her emotion. Then in the painful silence the two despairs formed one and the same question, as if interrogating the shades of the future: "What will become of me?" murmured the man. And like an echo her lips repeated, "What will become of me?" All had been said. Hopeless words came between the two like an obstacle momentarily increasing in size, impelling them in opposite directions. Why prolong the painful interview? . . . Marguerite showed the ready and energetic decision of a woman who wishes to bring a scene to a close. "Good-bye!" Her face had assumed a yellowish cast, her pupils had become dull and clouded like the glass of a lantern when the light dies out. "Good-bye!" She must go to her patient. She went away without looking at him, and Desnoyers instinctively went in the opposite direction. As he became more self-controlled and turned to look at her again, he saw her moving on and giving her arm to the blind man, without once turning her head. He now felt convinced that he should never see her again, and became oppressed by an almost suffocating agony. And could two beings, who had formerly considered the universe concentrated in their persons, thus easily be separated forever? . . . His desperation at finding himself alone made him accuse himself of stupidity. Now his thoughts came tumbling over each other in a tumultuous throng, and each one of them seemed to him sufficient to have convinced Marguerite. He certainly had not known how to express himself. He would have to talk with her again . . . and he decided to remain in Lourdes. He passed a night of torture in the hotel, listening to the ripple of the river among its stones. Insomnia had him in his fierce jaws, gnawing him with interminable agony. He turned on the light several times, but was not able to read. His eyes looked with stupid fixity at the patterns of the wall paper and the pious pictures around the room which had evidently served as the lodging place of some rich traveller. He remained motionless and as abstracted as an Oriental who thinks himself into an absolute lack of thought. One idea only was dancing in the vacuum in his skull--"I shall never see her again. . . . Can such a thing be possible?" He drowsed for a few seconds, only to be awakened with the sensation that some horrible explosion was sending him through the air. And so, with sweats of anguish, he wakefully passed the hours until in the gloom of his room the dawn showed a milky rectangle of light, and began to be reflected on the window curtains. The velvet-like caress of day finally closed his eyes. Upon awaking he found that the morning was well advanced, and he hurried to the garden of the grotto. . . . Oh, the hours of tremulous and unavailing waiting, believing that he recognized Marguerite in every white-clad lady that came along, guiding a wounded patient! By afternoon, after a lunch whose dishes filed past him untouched, he returned to the garden in search of her. Beholding her in the distance with the blind man leaning on her arm, a feeling of faintness came over him. She looked to him taller, thinner, her face sharper, with two dark hollows in her cheeks and her eyes bright with fever, the lids drawn with weariness. He suspected that she, too, had passed an anguished night of tenacious, self-centred thought, of grievous stupefaction like his own, in the room of her hotel. Suddenly he felt all the weight of insomnia and listlessness, all the depressing emotion of the cruel sensations experienced in the last few hours. Oh, how miserable they both were! . . . She was walking warily, looking from one side to the other, as though foreseeing danger. Upon discovering him she clung to her charge, casting upon her former lover a look of entreaty, of desperation, imploring pity. . . Ay, that look! He felt ashamed of himself; his personality appeared to be unrolling itself before him, and he surveyed himself with the eyes of a judge. What was this seduced and useless man, called Julio Desnoyers, doing there, tormenting with his presence a poor woman, trying to turn her from her righteous repentance, insisting on his selfish and petty desires when all humanity was thinking of other things? . . . His cowardice angered him. Like a thief taking advantage of the sleep of his victim, he was stalking around this brave and true man who could not see him, who could not defend himself, in order to rob him of the only affection that he had in the world which had so miraculously returned to him! Very well, Gentleman Desnoyers! . . . Ah, what a scoundrel he was! Such subconscious insults made him draw himself erect, in haughty, cruel and inexorable defiance against that other I who so richly deserved the judge's scorn. He turned his head away; he could not meet Marguerite's piteous eyes; he feared their mute reproach. Neither did he dare to look at the blind man in his shabby and heroic uniform, with his countenance aged by duty and glory. He feared him like remorse. So the vanquished lover turned his back on the two and went away with a firm step. Good-bye, Love! Goodbye, Happiness! . . . He marched quickly and bravely on; a miracle had just taken place within him! he had found the right road at last! To Paris! . . . A new impetus was going to fill the vacuum of his objectless existence. CHAPTER V THE INVASION Don Marcelo was fleeing to take refuge in his castle when he met the mayor of Villeblanche. The noise of the firing had made him hurry to the barricade. When he learned of the apparition of the group of stragglers he threw up his hands in despair. They were crazy. Their resistance was going to be fatal for the village, and he ran on to beg them to cease. For some time nothing happened to disturb the morning calm. Desnoyers had climbed to the top of his towers and was surveying the country with his field glasses. He couldn't make out the highway through the nearest group of trees, but he suspected that underneath their branches great activity was going on--masses of men on guard, troops preparing for the attack. The unexpected defense of the fugitives had upset the advance of the invasion. Desnoyers thought despairingly of that handful of mad fellows and their stubborn chief. What was their fate going to be? . . . Focussing his glasses on the village, he saw the red spots of kepis waving like poppies over the green of the meadows. They were the retreating men, now convinced of the uselessness of their resistance. Perhaps they had found a ford or forgotten boat by which they might cross the Maine, and so were continuing their retreat toward the river. At any minute now the Germans were going to enter Villeblanche. Half an hour of profound silence passed by. The village lay silhouetted against a background of hills--a mass of roofs beneath the church tower finished with its cross and iron weather cock. Everything seemed as tranquil as in the best days of peace. Suddenly he noticed that the grove was vomiting forth something noisy and penetrating--a bubble of vapor accompanied by a deafening report. Something was hurtling through the air with a strident curve. Then a roof in the village opened like a crater, vomiting forth flying wood, fragments of plaster and broken furniture. All the interior of the house seemed to be escaping in a stream of smoke, dirt and splinters. The invaders were bombarding Villeblanche before attempting attack, as though fearing to encounter persistent resistance in its streets. More projectiles fell. Some passed over the houses, exploding between the hamlet and the castle. The towers of the Desnoyers property were beginning to attract the aim of the artillerymen. The owner was therefore about to abandon his dangerous observatory when he saw something white like a tablecloth or sheet floating from the church tower. His neighbors had hoisted this signal of peace in order to avoid bombardment. A few more missiles fell and then there was silence. When Don Marcelo reached his park he found the Warden burying at the foot of a tree the sporting rifles still remaining in his castle. Then he went toward the great iron gates. The enemies were going to come, and he had to receive them. While uneasily awaiting their arrival his compunctions again tormented him. What was he doing there? Why had he remained? . . . But his obstinate temperament immediately put aside the promptings of fear. He was there because he had to guard his own. Besides, it was too late now to think about such things. Suddenly the morning stillness was broken by a sound like the deafening tearing of strong cloth. "Shots, Master," said the Warden. "Firing! It must be in the square." A few minutes after they saw running toward them a woman from the village, an old soul, dried up and darkened by age, who was panting from her great exertion, and looking wildly around her. She was fleeing blindly, trying to escape from danger and shut out horrible visions. Desnoyers and the Keeper's family listened to her explanations interrupted with hiccoughs of terror. The Germans were in Villeblanche. They had entered first in an automobile driven at full speed from one end of the village to the other. Its mitrailleuse was firing at random against closed houses and open doors, knocking down all the people in sight. The old woman flung up her arms with a gesture of terror. . . . Dead . . . many dead . . . wounded . . . blood! Then other iron-plated vehicles had stopped in the square, and behind them cavalrymen, battalions of infantry, many battalions coming from everywhere. The helmeted men seemed furious; they accused the villagers of having fired at them. In the square they had struck the mayor and villagers who had come forward to meet them. The priest, bending over some of the dying, had also been trodden under foot. . . . All prisoners! The Germans were talking of shooting them. The old dame's words were cut short by the rumble of approaching automobiles. "Open the gates," commanded the owner to the Warden. The massive iron grill work swung open, and was never again closed. All property rights were at an end. An enormous automobile, covered with dust and filled with men, stopped at the entrance. Behind them sounded the horns of other vehicles that were putting on the brakes. Desnoyers saw soldiers leaping out, all wearing the greenish-gray uniform with a sheath of the same tone covering the pointed casque. The one who marched at their head put his revolver to the millionaire's forehead. "Where are the sharpshooters?" he asked. He was pale with the pallor of wrath, vengeance and fear. His face was trembling under the influence of his triple emotion. Don Marcelo explained slowly, contemplating at a short distance from his eyes the black circle of the threatening tube. He had not seen any sharpshooters. The only inhabitants of the castle were the Warden with his family and himself, the owner of the castle. The officer surveyed the edifice and then examined Desnoyers with evident astonishment as though he thought his appearance too unpretentious for a proprietor. He had taken him for a simple employee, and his respect for social rank made him lower his revolver. He did not, however, alter his haughty attitude. He pressed Don Marcelo into the service as a guide, making him search ahead of him while forty soldiers grouped themselves at his back. They advanced in two files to the shelter of the trees which bordered the central avenue, with their guns ready to shoot, and looking uneasily at the castle windows as though expecting to receive from them hidden shots. Desnoyers marched tranquilly through the centre, and the official, who had been imitating the precautions of his men, finally joined him when he was crossing the drawbridge. The armed men scattered through the rooms in search of the enemy. They ran their bayonets through beds and divans. Some, with automatic destructiveness, slit the draperies and the rich bed coverings. The owner protested; what was the sense in such useless destruction? . . . He was suffering unbearable torture at seeing the enormous boots spotting the rugs with mud, on hearing the clash of guns and knapsacks against the most fragile, choicest pieces of furniture. Poor historic mansion! . . . The officer looked amazed that he should protest for such trifling cause, but he gave orders in German and his men ceased their rude explorations. Then, in justification of this extraordinary respect, he added in French: "I believe that you are going to have the honor of entertaining here the general of our division." The certainty that the castle did not hold any hidden enemies made him more amiable. He, nevertheless, persisted in his wrath against the sharpshooters. A group of the villagers had opened fire upon the Uhlans when they were entering unsuspiciously after the retreat of the French. Desnoyers felt it necessary to protest. They were neither inhabitants nor sharpshooters; they were French soldiers. He took good care to be silent about their presence at the barricade, but he insisted that he had distinguished their uniforms from a tower of the castle. The official made a threatening face. "You, too? . . . You, who appear a reasonable man, can repeat such yarns as these?" And in order to close the conversation, he said, arrogantly: "They were wearing uniforms, then, if you persist in saying so, but they were sharpshooters just the same. The French Government has distributed arms and uniforms among the farmers that they may assassinate us. . . . Belgium did the same thing. . . . But we know their tricks, and we know how to punish them, too!" The village was going to be burned. It was necessary to avenge the four German dead lying on the outskirts of Villeblanche, near the barricade. The mayor, the priest, the principal inhabitants would all be shot. By the time they reached the top floor Desnoyers could see floating above the boughs of his park dark clouds whose outlines were reddened by the sun. The top of the bell tower was the only thing that he could distinguish at that distance. Around the iron weathercock were flying long thin fringes like black cobwebs lifted by the breeze. An odor of burning wood came toward the castle. The German greeted this spectacle with a cruel smile. Then on descending to the park, he ordered Desnoyers to follow him. His liberty and his dignity had come to an end. Henceforth he was going to be an underling at the beck and call of these men who would dispose of him as their whims directed. Ay, why had he remained? . . . He obeyed, climbing into an automobile beside the officer, who was still carrying his revolver in his right hand. His men distributed themselves through the castle and outbuildings, in order to prevent the flight of an imaginary enemy. The Warden and his family seemed to be saying good-bye to him with their eyes. Perhaps they were taking him to his death. . . . Beyond the castle woods a new world was coming into existence. The short cut to Villeblanche seemed to Desnoyers a leap of millions of leagues, a fall into a red planet where men and things were covered with the film of smoke and the glare of fire. He saw the village under a dark canopy spotted with sparks and glowing embers. The bell tower was burning like an enormous torch; the roof of the church was breaking into flames with a crashing fury. The glare of the holocaust seemed to shrivel and grow pale in the impassive light of the sun. Running across the fields with the haste of desperation were shrieking women and children. The animals had escaped from the stables, and driven forth by the flames were racing wildly across the country. The cow and the work horse were dragging their halters broken by their flight. Their flanks were smoking and smelt of burnt hair. The pigs, the sheep and the chickens were all tearing along mingled with the cats and the dogs. All the domestic animals were returning to a brute existence, fleeing from civilized man. Shots were heard and hellish ha-ha's. The soldiers outside of the village were making themselves merry in this hunt for fugitives. Their guns were aimed at beasts and were hitting people. Desnoyers saw men, many men, men everywhere. They were like gray ants, marching in endless files towards the South, coming out from the woods, filling the roads, crossing the fields. The green of vegetation was disappearing under their tread; the dust was rising in spirals behind the dull roll of the cannons and the measured trot of thousands of horses. On the roadside several battalions had halted, with their accompaniment of vehicles and draw horses. They were resting before renewing their march. He knew this army. He had seen it in Berlin on parade, and yet it seemed to have changed its former appearance. There now remained very little of the heavy and imposing glitter, of the mute and vainglorious haughtiness which had made his relatives-in-law weep with admiration. War, with its realism, had wiped out all that was theatrical about this formidable organization of death. The soldiers appeared dirty and tired, out. The respiration of fat and sweaty bodies, mixed with the strong smell of leather, floated over the regiments. All the men had hungry faces. For days and nights they had been following the heels of an enemy which was always just eluding their grasp. In this forced advance the provisions of the administration would often arrive so late at the cantonments that they could depend only on what they happened to have in their knapsacks. Desnoyers saw them lined up near the road devouring hunks of black bread and mouldy sausages. Some had scattered through the fields to dig up beet roots and other tubers, chewing with loud crunchings the hard pulp to which the grit still adhered. An ensign was shaking the fruit trees using as a catch-all the flag of his regiment. That glorious standard, adorned with souvenirs of 1870, was serving as a receptacle for green plums. Those who were seated on the ground were improving this rest by drawing their perspiring, swollen feet from high boots which were sending out an insufferable smell. The regiments of infantry which Desnoyers had seen in Berlin reflecting the light on metal and leather straps, the magnificent and terrifying Hussars, the Cuirassiers in pure white uniform like the paladins of the Holy Grail, the artillerymen with breasts crossed with white bands, all the military variations that on parade had drawn forth the Hartrotts' sighs of admiration--these were now all unified and mixed together, of uniform color, all in greenish mustard like the dusty lizards that, slipping along, try to be confounded with the earth. The persistency of the iron discipline was easily discernible. A word from the chiefs, the sound of a whistle, and they all grouped themselves together, the human being disappearing in the throngs of automatons; but danger, weariness, and the uncertainty of triumph had for the time being brought officers and men nearer together, obliterating caste distinction. The officers were coming part way out of their overbearing, haughty seclusion, and were condescending to talk with the lower orders so as to revive their courage. One effort more and they would overwhelm both French and English, repeating the triumph of Sedan, whose anniversary they were going to celebrate in a few days! They were going to enter Paris; it was only a matter of a week. Paris! Great shops filled with luxurious things, famous restaurants, women, champagne, money. . . . And the men, flattered that their commanders were stooping to chat with them, forgot fatigue and hunger, reviving like the throngs of the Crusade before the image of Jerusalem. "Nach Paris!" The joyous shout circulated from the head to the tail of the marching columns. "To Paris! To Paris!" The scarcity of their food supply was here supplemented by the products of a country rich in wines. When sacking houses they rarely found eatables, but invariably a wine cellar. The humble German, the perpetual beer drinker, who had always looked upon wine as a privilege of the rich, could now open up casks with blows from his weapons, even bathing his feet in the stream of precious liquid. Every battalion left as a souvenir of its passing a wake of empty bottles; a halt in camp sowed the land with glass cylinders. The regimental trucks, unable to renew their stores of provisions, were accustomed to seize the wine in all the towns. The soldier, lacking bread, would receive alcohol. . . . This donation was always accompanied by the good counsels of the officers--War is war; no pity toward our adversaries who do not deserve it. The French were shooting their prisoners, and their women were putting out the eyes of the wounded. Every dwelling was a den of traps. The simple-hearted and innocent German entering therein was going to certain death. The beds were made over subterranean caves, the wardrobes were make-believe doors, in every corner was lurking an assassin. This traitorous nation, which was arranging its ground like the scenario of a melodrama, would have to be chastised. The municipal officers, the priests, the schoolmasters were directing and protecting the sharpshooters. Desnoyers was shocked at the indifference with which these men were stalking around the burning village. They did not appear to see the fire and destruction; it was just an ordinary spectacle, not worth looking at. Ever since they had crossed the frontier, smoldering and blasted villages, fired by the advance guard, had marked their halting places on Belgian and French soil. When entering Villeblanche the automobile had

damp

How many times the word 'damp' appears in the text?

would discover my identity and leave me, yet at the same time, wishing that he would recognize me and pardon me. . . . It is only one week that I have been with him. I disguise my voice when I can, and avoid words that may reveal the truth . . . but this cannot keep up much longer. It is only in novels that such painful situations turn out happily." Doubt suddenly overwhelmed her. "I believe," she continued, "that he has recognized me from the first. . . . He is silent and feigns ignorance because he despises me . . . because he can never bring himself to pardon me. I have been so bad! . . . I have wronged him so!". . . She was recalling the long and reflective silences of the wounded man after she had dropped some imprudent words. After two days of submission to her care, he had been somewhat rebellious, avoiding going out with her for a walk. Because of his blind helplessness, and comprehending the uselessness of his resistance, he had finally yielded in passive silence. "Let him think what he will!" concluded Marguerite courageously. "Let him despise me! I am here where I ought to be. I need his forgiveness, but if he does not pardon me, I shall stay with him just the same. . . . There are moments when I wish that he may never recover his sight, so that he may always need me, so that I may pass my life at his side, sacrificing everything for him." "And I?" said Desnoyers. Marguerite looked at him with clouded eyes as though she were just awaking. It was true--and the other one? . . . Kindled by the proposed sacrifice which was to be her expiation, she had forgotten the man before her. "You!" she said after a long pause. "You must leave me. . . . Life is not what we have thought it. Had it not been for the war, we might, perhaps, have realized our dream, but now! . . . Listen carefully and try to understand. For the remainder of my life, I shall carry the heaviest burden, and yet at the same time it will be sweet, since the more it weighs me down the greater will my atonement be. Never will I leave this man whom I have so grievously wronged, now that he is more alone in the world and will need protection like a child. Why do you come to share my fate? How could it be possible for you to live with a nurse constantly at the side of a blind and worthy man whom we would constantly offend with our passion? . . . No, it is better for us to part. Go your way, alone and untrammelled. Leave me; you will meet other women who will make you more happy than I. Yours is the temperament that finds new pleasures at every step." She stood firmly to her decision. Her voice was calm, but back of it trembled the emotion of a last farewell to a joy which was going from her forever. The man would be loved by others . . . and she was giving him up! . . . But the noble sadness of the sacrifice restored her courage. Only by this renunciation could she expiate her sins. Julio dropped his eyes, vanquished and perplexed. The picture of the future outlined by Marguerite terrified him. To live with her as a nurse taking advantage of her patient's blindness would be to offer him fresh insult every day. . . . Ah, no! That would be villainy, indeed! He was now ashamed to recall the malignity with which, a little while before, he had regarded this innocent unfortunate. He realized that he was powerless to contend with him. Weak and helpless as he was sitting there on the garden bench, he was stronger and more deserving of respect than Julio Desnoyers with all his youth and elegance. The victim had amounted to something in his life; he had done what Julio had not dared to do. This sudden conviction of his inferiority made him cry out like an abandoned child, "What will become of me?" . . . Marguerite, too--contemplating the love which was going from her forever, her vanished hopes, the future illumined by the satisfaction of duty fulfilled but monotonous and painful--cried out: "And I. . . . What will become of me?" . . . As though he had suddenly found a solution which was reviving his courage, Desnoyers said: "Listen, Marguerite: I can read your soul. You love this man, and you do well. He is superior to me, and women are always attracted by superiority. . . . I am a coward. Yes, do not protest, I am a coward with all my youth, with all my strength. Why should you not have been impressed by the conduct of this man! . . . But I will atone for past wrongs. This country is yours, Marguerite; I will fight for it. Do not say no. . . ." And moved by his hasty heroism, he outlined the plan more definitely. He was going to be a soldier. Soon she would hear him well spoken of. His idea was either to be stretched on the battlefield in his first encounter, or to astound the world by his bravery. In this way the impossible situation would settle itself--either the oblivion of death or glory. "No, no!" interrupted Marguerite in an anguished tone. "You, no! One is enough. . . . How horrible! You, too, wounded, mutilated forever, perhaps dead! . . . No, you must live. I want you to live, even though you might belong to another. . . . Let me know that you exist, let me see you sometimes, even though you may have forgotten me, even though you may pass me with indifference, as if you did not know me." In this outburst her deep love for him rang true--her heroic and inflexible love which would accept all penalties for herself, if only the beloved one might continue to live. But then, in order that Julio might not feel any false hopes, she added:--"Live; you must not die; that would be for me another torment. . . . But live without me. No matter how much we may talk about it, my destiny beside the other one is marked out forever." "Ah, how you love him! . . . How you have deceived me!" In a last desperate attempt at explanation she again repeated what she had said at the beginning of their interview. She loved Julio . . . and she loved her husband. They were different kinds of love. She could not say which was the stronger, but misfortune was forcing her to choose between the two, and she was accepting the most difficult, the one demanding the greatest sacrifices. "You are a man, and you will never be able to understand me. . . . A woman would comprehend me." It seemed to Julio, as he looked around him, as though the afternoon were undergoing some celestial phenomenon. The garden was still illuminated by the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the ground, the blue of the sky, all appeared to him as dark and shadowy as though a rain of ashes were falling. "Then . . . all is over between us?" His pleading, trembling voice charged with tears made her turn her head to hide her emotion. Then in the painful silence the two despairs formed one and the same question, as if interrogating the shades of the future: "What will become of me?" murmured the man. And like an echo her lips repeated, "What will become of me?" All had been said. Hopeless words came between the two like an obstacle momentarily increasing in size, impelling them in opposite directions. Why prolong the painful interview? . . . Marguerite showed the ready and energetic decision of a woman who wishes to bring a scene to a close. "Good-bye!" Her face had assumed a yellowish cast, her pupils had become dull and clouded like the glass of a lantern when the light dies out. "Good-bye!" She must go to her patient. She went away without looking at him, and Desnoyers instinctively went in the opposite direction. As he became more self-controlled and turned to look at her again, he saw her moving on and giving her arm to the blind man, without once turning her head. He now felt convinced that he should never see her again, and became oppressed by an almost suffocating agony. And could two beings, who had formerly considered the universe concentrated in their persons, thus easily be separated forever? . . . His desperation at finding himself alone made him accuse himself of stupidity. Now his thoughts came tumbling over each other in a tumultuous throng, and each one of them seemed to him sufficient to have convinced Marguerite. He certainly had not known how to express himself. He would have to talk with her again . . . and he decided to remain in Lourdes. He passed a night of torture in the hotel, listening to the ripple of the river among its stones. Insomnia had him in his fierce jaws, gnawing him with interminable agony. He turned on the light several times, but was not able to read. His eyes looked with stupid fixity at the patterns of the wall paper and the pious pictures around the room which had evidently served as the lodging place of some rich traveller. He remained motionless and as abstracted as an Oriental who thinks himself into an absolute lack of thought. One idea only was dancing in the vacuum in his skull--"I shall never see her again. . . . Can such a thing be possible?" He drowsed for a few seconds, only to be awakened with the sensation that some horrible explosion was sending him through the air. And so, with sweats of anguish, he wakefully passed the hours until in the gloom of his room the dawn showed a milky rectangle of light, and began to be reflected on the window curtains. The velvet-like caress of day finally closed his eyes. Upon awaking he found that the morning was well advanced, and he hurried to the garden of the grotto. . . . Oh, the hours of tremulous and unavailing waiting, believing that he recognized Marguerite in every white-clad lady that came along, guiding a wounded patient! By afternoon, after a lunch whose dishes filed past him untouched, he returned to the garden in search of her. Beholding her in the distance with the blind man leaning on her arm, a feeling of faintness came over him. She looked to him taller, thinner, her face sharper, with two dark hollows in her cheeks and her eyes bright with fever, the lids drawn with weariness. He suspected that she, too, had passed an anguished night of tenacious, self-centred thought, of grievous stupefaction like his own, in the room of her hotel. Suddenly he felt all the weight of insomnia and listlessness, all the depressing emotion of the cruel sensations experienced in the last few hours. Oh, how miserable they both were! . . . She was walking warily, looking from one side to the other, as though foreseeing danger. Upon discovering him she clung to her charge, casting upon her former lover a look of entreaty, of desperation, imploring pity. . . Ay, that look! He felt ashamed of himself; his personality appeared to be unrolling itself before him, and he surveyed himself with the eyes of a judge. What was this seduced and useless man, called Julio Desnoyers, doing there, tormenting with his presence a poor woman, trying to turn her from her righteous repentance, insisting on his selfish and petty desires when all humanity was thinking of other things? . . . His cowardice angered him. Like a thief taking advantage of the sleep of his victim, he was stalking around this brave and true man who could not see him, who could not defend himself, in order to rob him of the only affection that he had in the world which had so miraculously returned to him! Very well, Gentleman Desnoyers! . . . Ah, what a scoundrel he was! Such subconscious insults made him draw himself erect, in haughty, cruel and inexorable defiance against that other I who so richly deserved the judge's scorn. He turned his head away; he could not meet Marguerite's piteous eyes; he feared their mute reproach. Neither did he dare to look at the blind man in his shabby and heroic uniform, with his countenance aged by duty and glory. He feared him like remorse. So the vanquished lover turned his back on the two and went away with a firm step. Good-bye, Love! Goodbye, Happiness! . . . He marched quickly and bravely on; a miracle had just taken place within him! he had found the right road at last! To Paris! . . . A new impetus was going to fill the vacuum of his objectless existence. CHAPTER V THE INVASION Don Marcelo was fleeing to take refuge in his castle when he met the mayor of Villeblanche. The noise of the firing had made him hurry to the barricade. When he learned of the apparition of the group of stragglers he threw up his hands in despair. They were crazy. Their resistance was going to be fatal for the village, and he ran on to beg them to cease. For some time nothing happened to disturb the morning calm. Desnoyers had climbed to the top of his towers and was surveying the country with his field glasses. He couldn't make out the highway through the nearest group of trees, but he suspected that underneath their branches great activity was going on--masses of men on guard, troops preparing for the attack. The unexpected defense of the fugitives had upset the advance of the invasion. Desnoyers thought despairingly of that handful of mad fellows and their stubborn chief. What was their fate going to be? . . . Focussing his glasses on the village, he saw the red spots of kepis waving like poppies over the green of the meadows. They were the retreating men, now convinced of the uselessness of their resistance. Perhaps they had found a ford or forgotten boat by which they might cross the Maine, and so were continuing their retreat toward the river. At any minute now the Germans were going to enter Villeblanche. Half an hour of profound silence passed by. The village lay silhouetted against a background of hills--a mass of roofs beneath the church tower finished with its cross and iron weather cock. Everything seemed as tranquil as in the best days of peace. Suddenly he noticed that the grove was vomiting forth something noisy and penetrating--a bubble of vapor accompanied by a deafening report. Something was hurtling through the air with a strident curve. Then a roof in the village opened like a crater, vomiting forth flying wood, fragments of plaster and broken furniture. All the interior of the house seemed to be escaping in a stream of smoke, dirt and splinters. The invaders were bombarding Villeblanche before attempting attack, as though fearing to encounter persistent resistance in its streets. More projectiles fell. Some passed over the houses, exploding between the hamlet and the castle. The towers of the Desnoyers property were beginning to attract the aim of the artillerymen. The owner was therefore about to abandon his dangerous observatory when he saw something white like a tablecloth or sheet floating from the church tower. His neighbors had hoisted this signal of peace in order to avoid bombardment. A few more missiles fell and then there was silence. When Don Marcelo reached his park he found the Warden burying at the foot of a tree the sporting rifles still remaining in his castle. Then he went toward the great iron gates. The enemies were going to come, and he had to receive them. While uneasily awaiting their arrival his compunctions again tormented him. What was he doing there? Why had he remained? . . . But his obstinate temperament immediately put aside the promptings of fear. He was there because he had to guard his own. Besides, it was too late now to think about such things. Suddenly the morning stillness was broken by a sound like the deafening tearing of strong cloth. "Shots, Master," said the Warden. "Firing! It must be in the square." A few minutes after they saw running toward them a woman from the village, an old soul, dried up and darkened by age, who was panting from her great exertion, and looking wildly around her. She was fleeing blindly, trying to escape from danger and shut out horrible visions. Desnoyers and the Keeper's family listened to her explanations interrupted with hiccoughs of terror. The Germans were in Villeblanche. They had entered first in an automobile driven at full speed from one end of the village to the other. Its mitrailleuse was firing at random against closed houses and open doors, knocking down all the people in sight. The old woman flung up her arms with a gesture of terror. . . . Dead . . . many dead . . . wounded . . . blood! Then other iron-plated vehicles had stopped in the square, and behind them cavalrymen, battalions of infantry, many battalions coming from everywhere. The helmeted men seemed furious; they accused the villagers of having fired at them. In the square they had struck the mayor and villagers who had come forward to meet them. The priest, bending over some of the dying, had also been trodden under foot. . . . All prisoners! The Germans were talking of shooting them. The old dame's words were cut short by the rumble of approaching automobiles. "Open the gates," commanded the owner to the Warden. The massive iron grill work swung open, and was never again closed. All property rights were at an end. An enormous automobile, covered with dust and filled with men, stopped at the entrance. Behind them sounded the horns of other vehicles that were putting on the brakes. Desnoyers saw soldiers leaping out, all wearing the greenish-gray uniform with a sheath of the same tone covering the pointed casque. The one who marched at their head put his revolver to the millionaire's forehead. "Where are the sharpshooters?" he asked. He was pale with the pallor of wrath, vengeance and fear. His face was trembling under the influence of his triple emotion. Don Marcelo explained slowly, contemplating at a short distance from his eyes the black circle of the threatening tube. He had not seen any sharpshooters. The only inhabitants of the castle were the Warden with his family and himself, the owner of the castle. The officer surveyed the edifice and then examined Desnoyers with evident astonishment as though he thought his appearance too unpretentious for a proprietor. He had taken him for a simple employee, and his respect for social rank made him lower his revolver. He did not, however, alter his haughty attitude. He pressed Don Marcelo into the service as a guide, making him search ahead of him while forty soldiers grouped themselves at his back. They advanced in two files to the shelter of the trees which bordered the central avenue, with their guns ready to shoot, and looking uneasily at the castle windows as though expecting to receive from them hidden shots. Desnoyers marched tranquilly through the centre, and the official, who had been imitating the precautions of his men, finally joined him when he was crossing the drawbridge. The armed men scattered through the rooms in search of the enemy. They ran their bayonets through beds and divans. Some, with automatic destructiveness, slit the draperies and the rich bed coverings. The owner protested; what was the sense in such useless destruction? . . . He was suffering unbearable torture at seeing the enormous boots spotting the rugs with mud, on hearing the clash of guns and knapsacks against the most fragile, choicest pieces of furniture. Poor historic mansion! . . . The officer looked amazed that he should protest for such trifling cause, but he gave orders in German and his men ceased their rude explorations. Then, in justification of this extraordinary respect, he added in French: "I believe that you are going to have the honor of entertaining here the general of our division." The certainty that the castle did not hold any hidden enemies made him more amiable. He, nevertheless, persisted in his wrath against the sharpshooters. A group of the villagers had opened fire upon the Uhlans when they were entering unsuspiciously after the retreat of the French. Desnoyers felt it necessary to protest. They were neither inhabitants nor sharpshooters; they were French soldiers. He took good care to be silent about their presence at the barricade, but he insisted that he had distinguished their uniforms from a tower of the castle. The official made a threatening face. "You, too? . . . You, who appear a reasonable man, can repeat such yarns as these?" And in order to close the conversation, he said, arrogantly: "They were wearing uniforms, then, if you persist in saying so, but they were sharpshooters just the same. The French Government has distributed arms and uniforms among the farmers that they may assassinate us. . . . Belgium did the same thing. . . . But we know their tricks, and we know how to punish them, too!" The village was going to be burned. It was necessary to avenge the four German dead lying on the outskirts of Villeblanche, near the barricade. The mayor, the priest, the principal inhabitants would all be shot. By the time they reached the top floor Desnoyers could see floating above the boughs of his park dark clouds whose outlines were reddened by the sun. The top of the bell tower was the only thing that he could distinguish at that distance. Around the iron weathercock were flying long thin fringes like black cobwebs lifted by the breeze. An odor of burning wood came toward the castle. The German greeted this spectacle with a cruel smile. Then on descending to the park, he ordered Desnoyers to follow him. His liberty and his dignity had come to an end. Henceforth he was going to be an underling at the beck and call of these men who would dispose of him as their whims directed. Ay, why had he remained? . . . He obeyed, climbing into an automobile beside the officer, who was still carrying his revolver in his right hand. His men distributed themselves through the castle and outbuildings, in order to prevent the flight of an imaginary enemy. The Warden and his family seemed to be saying good-bye to him with their eyes. Perhaps they were taking him to his death. . . . Beyond the castle woods a new world was coming into existence. The short cut to Villeblanche seemed to Desnoyers a leap of millions of leagues, a fall into a red planet where men and things were covered with the film of smoke and the glare of fire. He saw the village under a dark canopy spotted with sparks and glowing embers. The bell tower was burning like an enormous torch; the roof of the church was breaking into flames with a crashing fury. The glare of the holocaust seemed to shrivel and grow pale in the impassive light of the sun. Running across the fields with the haste of desperation were shrieking women and children. The animals had escaped from the stables, and driven forth by the flames were racing wildly across the country. The cow and the work horse were dragging their halters broken by their flight. Their flanks were smoking and smelt of burnt hair. The pigs, the sheep and the chickens were all tearing along mingled with the cats and the dogs. All the domestic animals were returning to a brute existence, fleeing from civilized man. Shots were heard and hellish ha-ha's. The soldiers outside of the village were making themselves merry in this hunt for fugitives. Their guns were aimed at beasts and were hitting people. Desnoyers saw men, many men, men everywhere. They were like gray ants, marching in endless files towards the South, coming out from the woods, filling the roads, crossing the fields. The green of vegetation was disappearing under their tread; the dust was rising in spirals behind the dull roll of the cannons and the measured trot of thousands of horses. On the roadside several battalions had halted, with their accompaniment of vehicles and draw horses. They were resting before renewing their march. He knew this army. He had seen it in Berlin on parade, and yet it seemed to have changed its former appearance. There now remained very little of the heavy and imposing glitter, of the mute and vainglorious haughtiness which had made his relatives-in-law weep with admiration. War, with its realism, had wiped out all that was theatrical about this formidable organization of death. The soldiers appeared dirty and tired, out. The respiration of fat and sweaty bodies, mixed with the strong smell of leather, floated over the regiments. All the men had hungry faces. For days and nights they had been following the heels of an enemy which was always just eluding their grasp. In this forced advance the provisions of the administration would often arrive so late at the cantonments that they could depend only on what they happened to have in their knapsacks. Desnoyers saw them lined up near the road devouring hunks of black bread and mouldy sausages. Some had scattered through the fields to dig up beet roots and other tubers, chewing with loud crunchings the hard pulp to which the grit still adhered. An ensign was shaking the fruit trees using as a catch-all the flag of his regiment. That glorious standard, adorned with souvenirs of 1870, was serving as a receptacle for green plums. Those who were seated on the ground were improving this rest by drawing their perspiring, swollen feet from high boots which were sending out an insufferable smell. The regiments of infantry which Desnoyers had seen in Berlin reflecting the light on metal and leather straps, the magnificent and terrifying Hussars, the Cuirassiers in pure white uniform like the paladins of the Holy Grail, the artillerymen with breasts crossed with white bands, all the military variations that on parade had drawn forth the Hartrotts' sighs of admiration--these were now all unified and mixed together, of uniform color, all in greenish mustard like the dusty lizards that, slipping along, try to be confounded with the earth. The persistency of the iron discipline was easily discernible. A word from the chiefs, the sound of a whistle, and they all grouped themselves together, the human being disappearing in the throngs of automatons; but danger, weariness, and the uncertainty of triumph had for the time being brought officers and men nearer together, obliterating caste distinction. The officers were coming part way out of their overbearing, haughty seclusion, and were condescending to talk with the lower orders so as to revive their courage. One effort more and they would overwhelm both French and English, repeating the triumph of Sedan, whose anniversary they were going to celebrate in a few days! They were going to enter Paris; it was only a matter of a week. Paris! Great shops filled with luxurious things, famous restaurants, women, champagne, money. . . . And the men, flattered that their commanders were stooping to chat with them, forgot fatigue and hunger, reviving like the throngs of the Crusade before the image of Jerusalem. "Nach Paris!" The joyous shout circulated from the head to the tail of the marching columns. "To Paris! To Paris!" The scarcity of their food supply was here supplemented by the products of a country rich in wines. When sacking houses they rarely found eatables, but invariably a wine cellar. The humble German, the perpetual beer drinker, who had always looked upon wine as a privilege of the rich, could now open up casks with blows from his weapons, even bathing his feet in the stream of precious liquid. Every battalion left as a souvenir of its passing a wake of empty bottles; a halt in camp sowed the land with glass cylinders. The regimental trucks, unable to renew their stores of provisions, were accustomed to seize the wine in all the towns. The soldier, lacking bread, would receive alcohol. . . . This donation was always accompanied by the good counsels of the officers--War is war; no pity toward our adversaries who do not deserve it. The French were shooting their prisoners, and their women were putting out the eyes of the wounded. Every dwelling was a den of traps. The simple-hearted and innocent German entering therein was going to certain death. The beds were made over subterranean caves, the wardrobes were make-believe doors, in every corner was lurking an assassin. This traitorous nation, which was arranging its ground like the scenario of a melodrama, would have to be chastised. The municipal officers, the priests, the schoolmasters were directing and protecting the sharpshooters. Desnoyers was shocked at the indifference with which these men were stalking around the burning village. They did not appear to see the fire and destruction; it was just an ordinary spectacle, not worth looking at. Ever since they had crossed the frontier, smoldering and blasted villages, fired by the advance guard, had marked their halting places on Belgian and French soil. When entering Villeblanche the automobile had

sex

How many times the word 'sex' appears in the text?

would discover my identity and leave me, yet at the same time, wishing that he would recognize me and pardon me. . . . It is only one week that I have been with him. I disguise my voice when I can, and avoid words that may reveal the truth . . . but this cannot keep up much longer. It is only in novels that such painful situations turn out happily." Doubt suddenly overwhelmed her. "I believe," she continued, "that he has recognized me from the first. . . . He is silent and feigns ignorance because he despises me . . . because he can never bring himself to pardon me. I have been so bad! . . . I have wronged him so!". . . She was recalling the long and reflective silences of the wounded man after she had dropped some imprudent words. After two days of submission to her care, he had been somewhat rebellious, avoiding going out with her for a walk. Because of his blind helplessness, and comprehending the uselessness of his resistance, he had finally yielded in passive silence. "Let him think what he will!" concluded Marguerite courageously. "Let him despise me! I am here where I ought to be. I need his forgiveness, but if he does not pardon me, I shall stay with him just the same. . . . There are moments when I wish that he may never recover his sight, so that he may always need me, so that I may pass my life at his side, sacrificing everything for him." "And I?" said Desnoyers. Marguerite looked at him with clouded eyes as though she were just awaking. It was true--and the other one? . . . Kindled by the proposed sacrifice which was to be her expiation, she had forgotten the man before her. "You!" she said after a long pause. "You must leave me. . . . Life is not what we have thought it. Had it not been for the war, we might, perhaps, have realized our dream, but now! . . . Listen carefully and try to understand. For the remainder of my life, I shall carry the heaviest burden, and yet at the same time it will be sweet, since the more it weighs me down the greater will my atonement be. Never will I leave this man whom I have so grievously wronged, now that he is more alone in the world and will need protection like a child. Why do you come to share my fate? How could it be possible for you to live with a nurse constantly at the side of a blind and worthy man whom we would constantly offend with our passion? . . . No, it is better for us to part. Go your way, alone and untrammelled. Leave me; you will meet other women who will make you more happy than I. Yours is the temperament that finds new pleasures at every step." She stood firmly to her decision. Her voice was calm, but back of it trembled the emotion of a last farewell to a joy which was going from her forever. The man would be loved by others . . . and she was giving him up! . . . But the noble sadness of the sacrifice restored her courage. Only by this renunciation could she expiate her sins. Julio dropped his eyes, vanquished and perplexed. The picture of the future outlined by Marguerite terrified him. To live with her as a nurse taking advantage of her patient's blindness would be to offer him fresh insult every day. . . . Ah, no! That would be villainy, indeed! He was now ashamed to recall the malignity with which, a little while before, he had regarded this innocent unfortunate. He realized that he was powerless to contend with him. Weak and helpless as he was sitting there on the garden bench, he was stronger and more deserving of respect than Julio Desnoyers with all his youth and elegance. The victim had amounted to something in his life; he had done what Julio had not dared to do. This sudden conviction of his inferiority made him cry out like an abandoned child, "What will become of me?" . . . Marguerite, too--contemplating the love which was going from her forever, her vanished hopes, the future illumined by the satisfaction of duty fulfilled but monotonous and painful--cried out: "And I. . . . What will become of me?" . . . As though he had suddenly found a solution which was reviving his courage, Desnoyers said: "Listen, Marguerite: I can read your soul. You love this man, and you do well. He is superior to me, and women are always attracted by superiority. . . . I am a coward. Yes, do not protest, I am a coward with all my youth, with all my strength. Why should you not have been impressed by the conduct of this man! . . . But I will atone for past wrongs. This country is yours, Marguerite; I will fight for it. Do not say no. . . ." And moved by his hasty heroism, he outlined the plan more definitely. He was going to be a soldier. Soon she would hear him well spoken of. His idea was either to be stretched on the battlefield in his first encounter, or to astound the world by his bravery. In this way the impossible situation would settle itself--either the oblivion of death or glory. "No, no!" interrupted Marguerite in an anguished tone. "You, no! One is enough. . . . How horrible! You, too, wounded, mutilated forever, perhaps dead! . . . No, you must live. I want you to live, even though you might belong to another. . . . Let me know that you exist, let me see you sometimes, even though you may have forgotten me, even though you may pass me with indifference, as if you did not know me." In this outburst her deep love for him rang true--her heroic and inflexible love which would accept all penalties for herself, if only the beloved one might continue to live. But then, in order that Julio might not feel any false hopes, she added:--"Live; you must not die; that would be for me another torment. . . . But live without me. No matter how much we may talk about it, my destiny beside the other one is marked out forever." "Ah, how you love him! . . . How you have deceived me!" In a last desperate attempt at explanation she again repeated what she had said at the beginning of their interview. She loved Julio . . . and she loved her husband. They were different kinds of love. She could not say which was the stronger, but misfortune was forcing her to choose between the two, and she was accepting the most difficult, the one demanding the greatest sacrifices. "You are a man, and you will never be able to understand me. . . . A woman would comprehend me." It seemed to Julio, as he looked around him, as though the afternoon were undergoing some celestial phenomenon. The garden was still illuminated by the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the ground, the blue of the sky, all appeared to him as dark and shadowy as though a rain of ashes were falling. "Then . . . all is over between us?" His pleading, trembling voice charged with tears made her turn her head to hide her emotion. Then in the painful silence the two despairs formed one and the same question, as if interrogating the shades of the future: "What will become of me?" murmured the man. And like an echo her lips repeated, "What will become of me?" All had been said. Hopeless words came between the two like an obstacle momentarily increasing in size, impelling them in opposite directions. Why prolong the painful interview? . . . Marguerite showed the ready and energetic decision of a woman who wishes to bring a scene to a close. "Good-bye!" Her face had assumed a yellowish cast, her pupils had become dull and clouded like the glass of a lantern when the light dies out. "Good-bye!" She must go to her patient. She went away without looking at him, and Desnoyers instinctively went in the opposite direction. As he became more self-controlled and turned to look at her again, he saw her moving on and giving her arm to the blind man, without once turning her head. He now felt convinced that he should never see her again, and became oppressed by an almost suffocating agony. And could two beings, who had formerly considered the universe concentrated in their persons, thus easily be separated forever? . . . His desperation at finding himself alone made him accuse himself of stupidity. Now his thoughts came tumbling over each other in a tumultuous throng, and each one of them seemed to him sufficient to have convinced Marguerite. He certainly had not known how to express himself. He would have to talk with her again . . . and he decided to remain in Lourdes. He passed a night of torture in the hotel, listening to the ripple of the river among its stones. Insomnia had him in his fierce jaws, gnawing him with interminable agony. He turned on the light several times, but was not able to read. His eyes looked with stupid fixity at the patterns of the wall paper and the pious pictures around the room which had evidently served as the lodging place of some rich traveller. He remained motionless and as abstracted as an Oriental who thinks himself into an absolute lack of thought. One idea only was dancing in the vacuum in his skull--"I shall never see her again. . . . Can such a thing be possible?" He drowsed for a few seconds, only to be awakened with the sensation that some horrible explosion was sending him through the air. And so, with sweats of anguish, he wakefully passed the hours until in the gloom of his room the dawn showed a milky rectangle of light, and began to be reflected on the window curtains. The velvet-like caress of day finally closed his eyes. Upon awaking he found that the morning was well advanced, and he hurried to the garden of the grotto. . . . Oh, the hours of tremulous and unavailing waiting, believing that he recognized Marguerite in every white-clad lady that came along, guiding a wounded patient! By afternoon, after a lunch whose dishes filed past him untouched, he returned to the garden in search of her. Beholding her in the distance with the blind man leaning on her arm, a feeling of faintness came over him. She looked to him taller, thinner, her face sharper, with two dark hollows in her cheeks and her eyes bright with fever, the lids drawn with weariness. He suspected that she, too, had passed an anguished night of tenacious, self-centred thought, of grievous stupefaction like his own, in the room of her hotel. Suddenly he felt all the weight of insomnia and listlessness, all the depressing emotion of the cruel sensations experienced in the last few hours. Oh, how miserable they both were! . . . She was walking warily, looking from one side to the other, as though foreseeing danger. Upon discovering him she clung to her charge, casting upon her former lover a look of entreaty, of desperation, imploring pity. . . Ay, that look! He felt ashamed of himself; his personality appeared to be unrolling itself before him, and he surveyed himself with the eyes of a judge. What was this seduced and useless man, called Julio Desnoyers, doing there, tormenting with his presence a poor woman, trying to turn her from her righteous repentance, insisting on his selfish and petty desires when all humanity was thinking of other things? . . . His cowardice angered him. Like a thief taking advantage of the sleep of his victim, he was stalking around this brave and true man who could not see him, who could not defend himself, in order to rob him of the only affection that he had in the world which had so miraculously returned to him! Very well, Gentleman Desnoyers! . . . Ah, what a scoundrel he was! Such subconscious insults made him draw himself erect, in haughty, cruel and inexorable defiance against that other I who so richly deserved the judge's scorn. He turned his head away; he could not meet Marguerite's piteous eyes; he feared their mute reproach. Neither did he dare to look at the blind man in his shabby and heroic uniform, with his countenance aged by duty and glory. He feared him like remorse. So the vanquished lover turned his back on the two and went away with a firm step. Good-bye, Love! Goodbye, Happiness! . . . He marched quickly and bravely on; a miracle had just taken place within him! he had found the right road at last! To Paris! . . . A new impetus was going to fill the vacuum of his objectless existence. CHAPTER V THE INVASION Don Marcelo was fleeing to take refuge in his castle when he met the mayor of Villeblanche. The noise of the firing had made him hurry to the barricade. When he learned of the apparition of the group of stragglers he threw up his hands in despair. They were crazy. Their resistance was going to be fatal for the village, and he ran on to beg them to cease. For some time nothing happened to disturb the morning calm. Desnoyers had climbed to the top of his towers and was surveying the country with his field glasses. He couldn't make out the highway through the nearest group of trees, but he suspected that underneath their branches great activity was going on--masses of men on guard, troops preparing for the attack. The unexpected defense of the fugitives had upset the advance of the invasion. Desnoyers thought despairingly of that handful of mad fellows and their stubborn chief. What was their fate going to be? . . . Focussing his glasses on the village, he saw the red spots of kepis waving like poppies over the green of the meadows. They were the retreating men, now convinced of the uselessness of their resistance. Perhaps they had found a ford or forgotten boat by which they might cross the Maine, and so were continuing their retreat toward the river. At any minute now the Germans were going to enter Villeblanche. Half an hour of profound silence passed by. The village lay silhouetted against a background of hills--a mass of roofs beneath the church tower finished with its cross and iron weather cock. Everything seemed as tranquil as in the best days of peace. Suddenly he noticed that the grove was vomiting forth something noisy and penetrating--a bubble of vapor accompanied by a deafening report. Something was hurtling through the air with a strident curve. Then a roof in the village opened like a crater, vomiting forth flying wood, fragments of plaster and broken furniture. All the interior of the house seemed to be escaping in a stream of smoke, dirt and splinters. The invaders were bombarding Villeblanche before attempting attack, as though fearing to encounter persistent resistance in its streets. More projectiles fell. Some passed over the houses, exploding between the hamlet and the castle. The towers of the Desnoyers property were beginning to attract the aim of the artillerymen. The owner was therefore about to abandon his dangerous observatory when he saw something white like a tablecloth or sheet floating from the church tower. His neighbors had hoisted this signal of peace in order to avoid bombardment. A few more missiles fell and then there was silence. When Don Marcelo reached his park he found the Warden burying at the foot of a tree the sporting rifles still remaining in his castle. Then he went toward the great iron gates. The enemies were going to come, and he had to receive them. While uneasily awaiting their arrival his compunctions again tormented him. What was he doing there? Why had he remained? . . . But his obstinate temperament immediately put aside the promptings of fear. He was there because he had to guard his own. Besides, it was too late now to think about such things. Suddenly the morning stillness was broken by a sound like the deafening tearing of strong cloth. "Shots, Master," said the Warden. "Firing! It must be in the square." A few minutes after they saw running toward them a woman from the village, an old soul, dried up and darkened by age, who was panting from her great exertion, and looking wildly around her. She was fleeing blindly, trying to escape from danger and shut out horrible visions. Desnoyers and the Keeper's family listened to her explanations interrupted with hiccoughs of terror. The Germans were in Villeblanche. They had entered first in an automobile driven at full speed from one end of the village to the other. Its mitrailleuse was firing at random against closed houses and open doors, knocking down all the people in sight. The old woman flung up her arms with a gesture of terror. . . . Dead . . . many dead . . . wounded . . . blood! Then other iron-plated vehicles had stopped in the square, and behind them cavalrymen, battalions of infantry, many battalions coming from everywhere. The helmeted men seemed furious; they accused the villagers of having fired at them. In the square they had struck the mayor and villagers who had come forward to meet them. The priest, bending over some of the dying, had also been trodden under foot. . . . All prisoners! The Germans were talking of shooting them. The old dame's words were cut short by the rumble of approaching automobiles. "Open the gates," commanded the owner to the Warden. The massive iron grill work swung open, and was never again closed. All property rights were at an end. An enormous automobile, covered with dust and filled with men, stopped at the entrance. Behind them sounded the horns of other vehicles that were putting on the brakes. Desnoyers saw soldiers leaping out, all wearing the greenish-gray uniform with a sheath of the same tone covering the pointed casque. The one who marched at their head put his revolver to the millionaire's forehead. "Where are the sharpshooters?" he asked. He was pale with the pallor of wrath, vengeance and fear. His face was trembling under the influence of his triple emotion. Don Marcelo explained slowly, contemplating at a short distance from his eyes the black circle of the threatening tube. He had not seen any sharpshooters. The only inhabitants of the castle were the Warden with his family and himself, the owner of the castle. The officer surveyed the edifice and then examined Desnoyers with evident astonishment as though he thought his appearance too unpretentious for a proprietor. He had taken him for a simple employee, and his respect for social rank made him lower his revolver. He did not, however, alter his haughty attitude. He pressed Don Marcelo into the service as a guide, making him search ahead of him while forty soldiers grouped themselves at his back. They advanced in two files to the shelter of the trees which bordered the central avenue, with their guns ready to shoot, and looking uneasily at the castle windows as though expecting to receive from them hidden shots. Desnoyers marched tranquilly through the centre, and the official, who had been imitating the precautions of his men, finally joined him when he was crossing the drawbridge. The armed men scattered through the rooms in search of the enemy. They ran their bayonets through beds and divans. Some, with automatic destructiveness, slit the draperies and the rich bed coverings. The owner protested; what was the sense in such useless destruction? . . . He was suffering unbearable torture at seeing the enormous boots spotting the rugs with mud, on hearing the clash of guns and knapsacks against the most fragile, choicest pieces of furniture. Poor historic mansion! . . . The officer looked amazed that he should protest for such trifling cause, but he gave orders in German and his men ceased their rude explorations. Then, in justification of this extraordinary respect, he added in French: "I believe that you are going to have the honor of entertaining here the general of our division." The certainty that the castle did not hold any hidden enemies made him more amiable. He, nevertheless, persisted in his wrath against the sharpshooters. A group of the villagers had opened fire upon the Uhlans when they were entering unsuspiciously after the retreat of the French. Desnoyers felt it necessary to protest. They were neither inhabitants nor sharpshooters; they were French soldiers. He took good care to be silent about their presence at the barricade, but he insisted that he had distinguished their uniforms from a tower of the castle. The official made a threatening face. "You, too? . . . You, who appear a reasonable man, can repeat such yarns as these?" And in order to close the conversation, he said, arrogantly: "They were wearing uniforms, then, if you persist in saying so, but they were sharpshooters just the same. The French Government has distributed arms and uniforms among the farmers that they may assassinate us. . . . Belgium did the same thing. . . . But we know their tricks, and we know how to punish them, too!" The village was going to be burned. It was necessary to avenge the four German dead lying on the outskirts of Villeblanche, near the barricade. The mayor, the priest, the principal inhabitants would all be shot. By the time they reached the top floor Desnoyers could see floating above the boughs of his park dark clouds whose outlines were reddened by the sun. The top of the bell tower was the only thing that he could distinguish at that distance. Around the iron weathercock were flying long thin fringes like black cobwebs lifted by the breeze. An odor of burning wood came toward the castle. The German greeted this spectacle with a cruel smile. Then on descending to the park, he ordered Desnoyers to follow him. His liberty and his dignity had come to an end. Henceforth he was going to be an underling at the beck and call of these men who would dispose of him as their whims directed. Ay, why had he remained? . . . He obeyed, climbing into an automobile beside the officer, who was still carrying his revolver in his right hand. His men distributed themselves through the castle and outbuildings, in order to prevent the flight of an imaginary enemy. The Warden and his family seemed to be saying good-bye to him with their eyes. Perhaps they were taking him to his death. . . . Beyond the castle woods a new world was coming into existence. The short cut to Villeblanche seemed to Desnoyers a leap of millions of leagues, a fall into a red planet where men and things were covered with the film of smoke and the glare of fire. He saw the village under a dark canopy spotted with sparks and glowing embers. The bell tower was burning like an enormous torch; the roof of the church was breaking into flames with a crashing fury. The glare of the holocaust seemed to shrivel and grow pale in the impassive light of the sun. Running across the fields with the haste of desperation were shrieking women and children. The animals had escaped from the stables, and driven forth by the flames were racing wildly across the country. The cow and the work horse were dragging their halters broken by their flight. Their flanks were smoking and smelt of burnt hair. The pigs, the sheep and the chickens were all tearing along mingled with the cats and the dogs. All the domestic animals were returning to a brute existence, fleeing from civilized man. Shots were heard and hellish ha-ha's. The soldiers outside of the village were making themselves merry in this hunt for fugitives. Their guns were aimed at beasts and were hitting people. Desnoyers saw men, many men, men everywhere. They were like gray ants, marching in endless files towards the South, coming out from the woods, filling the roads, crossing the fields. The green of vegetation was disappearing under their tread; the dust was rising in spirals behind the dull roll of the cannons and the measured trot of thousands of horses. On the roadside several battalions had halted, with their accompaniment of vehicles and draw horses. They were resting before renewing their march. He knew this army. He had seen it in Berlin on parade, and yet it seemed to have changed its former appearance. There now remained very little of the heavy and imposing glitter, of the mute and vainglorious haughtiness which had made his relatives-in-law weep with admiration. War, with its realism, had wiped out all that was theatrical about this formidable organization of death. The soldiers appeared dirty and tired, out. The respiration of fat and sweaty bodies, mixed with the strong smell of leather, floated over the regiments. All the men had hungry faces. For days and nights they had been following the heels of an enemy which was always just eluding their grasp. In this forced advance the provisions of the administration would often arrive so late at the cantonments that they could depend only on what they happened to have in their knapsacks. Desnoyers saw them lined up near the road devouring hunks of black bread and mouldy sausages. Some had scattered through the fields to dig up beet roots and other tubers, chewing with loud crunchings the hard pulp to which the grit still adhered. An ensign was shaking the fruit trees using as a catch-all the flag of his regiment. That glorious standard, adorned with souvenirs of 1870, was serving as a receptacle for green plums. Those who were seated on the ground were improving this rest by drawing their perspiring, swollen feet from high boots which were sending out an insufferable smell. The regiments of infantry which Desnoyers had seen in Berlin reflecting the light on metal and leather straps, the magnificent and terrifying Hussars, the Cuirassiers in pure white uniform like the paladins of the Holy Grail, the artillerymen with breasts crossed with white bands, all the military variations that on parade had drawn forth the Hartrotts' sighs of admiration--these were now all unified and mixed together, of uniform color, all in greenish mustard like the dusty lizards that, slipping along, try to be confounded with the earth. The persistency of the iron discipline was easily discernible. A word from the chiefs, the sound of a whistle, and they all grouped themselves together, the human being disappearing in the throngs of automatons; but danger, weariness, and the uncertainty of triumph had for the time being brought officers and men nearer together, obliterating caste distinction. The officers were coming part way out of their overbearing, haughty seclusion, and were condescending to talk with the lower orders so as to revive their courage. One effort more and they would overwhelm both French and English, repeating the triumph of Sedan, whose anniversary they were going to celebrate in a few days! They were going to enter Paris; it was only a matter of a week. Paris! Great shops filled with luxurious things, famous restaurants, women, champagne, money. . . . And the men, flattered that their commanders were stooping to chat with them, forgot fatigue and hunger, reviving like the throngs of the Crusade before the image of Jerusalem. "Nach Paris!" The joyous shout circulated from the head to the tail of the marching columns. "To Paris! To Paris!" The scarcity of their food supply was here supplemented by the products of a country rich in wines. When sacking houses they rarely found eatables, but invariably a wine cellar. The humble German, the perpetual beer drinker, who had always looked upon wine as a privilege of the rich, could now open up casks with blows from his weapons, even bathing his feet in the stream of precious liquid. Every battalion left as a souvenir of its passing a wake of empty bottles; a halt in camp sowed the land with glass cylinders. The regimental trucks, unable to renew their stores of provisions, were accustomed to seize the wine in all the towns. The soldier, lacking bread, would receive alcohol. . . . This donation was always accompanied by the good counsels of the officers--War is war; no pity toward our adversaries who do not deserve it. The French were shooting their prisoners, and their women were putting out the eyes of the wounded. Every dwelling was a den of traps. The simple-hearted and innocent German entering therein was going to certain death. The beds were made over subterranean caves, the wardrobes were make-believe doors, in every corner was lurking an assassin. This traitorous nation, which was arranging its ground like the scenario of a melodrama, would have to be chastised. The municipal officers, the priests, the schoolmasters were directing and protecting the sharpshooters. Desnoyers was shocked at the indifference with which these men were stalking around the burning village. They did not appear to see the fire and destruction; it was just an ordinary spectacle, not worth looking at. Ever since they had crossed the frontier, smoldering and blasted villages, fired by the advance guard, had marked their halting places on Belgian and French soil. When entering Villeblanche the automobile had

voice

How many times the word 'voice' appears in the text?

would discover my identity and leave me, yet at the same time, wishing that he would recognize me and pardon me. . . . It is only one week that I have been with him. I disguise my voice when I can, and avoid words that may reveal the truth . . . but this cannot keep up much longer. It is only in novels that such painful situations turn out happily." Doubt suddenly overwhelmed her. "I believe," she continued, "that he has recognized me from the first. . . . He is silent and feigns ignorance because he despises me . . . because he can never bring himself to pardon me. I have been so bad! . . . I have wronged him so!". . . She was recalling the long and reflective silences of the wounded man after she had dropped some imprudent words. After two days of submission to her care, he had been somewhat rebellious, avoiding going out with her for a walk. Because of his blind helplessness, and comprehending the uselessness of his resistance, he had finally yielded in passive silence. "Let him think what he will!" concluded Marguerite courageously. "Let him despise me! I am here where I ought to be. I need his forgiveness, but if he does not pardon me, I shall stay with him just the same. . . . There are moments when I wish that he may never recover his sight, so that he may always need me, so that I may pass my life at his side, sacrificing everything for him." "And I?" said Desnoyers. Marguerite looked at him with clouded eyes as though she were just awaking. It was true--and the other one? . . . Kindled by the proposed sacrifice which was to be her expiation, she had forgotten the man before her. "You!" she said after a long pause. "You must leave me. . . . Life is not what we have thought it. Had it not been for the war, we might, perhaps, have realized our dream, but now! . . . Listen carefully and try to understand. For the remainder of my life, I shall carry the heaviest burden, and yet at the same time it will be sweet, since the more it weighs me down the greater will my atonement be. Never will I leave this man whom I have so grievously wronged, now that he is more alone in the world and will need protection like a child. Why do you come to share my fate? How could it be possible for you to live with a nurse constantly at the side of a blind and worthy man whom we would constantly offend with our passion? . . . No, it is better for us to part. Go your way, alone and untrammelled. Leave me; you will meet other women who will make you more happy than I. Yours is the temperament that finds new pleasures at every step." She stood firmly to her decision. Her voice was calm, but back of it trembled the emotion of a last farewell to a joy which was going from her forever. The man would be loved by others . . . and she was giving him up! . . . But the noble sadness of the sacrifice restored her courage. Only by this renunciation could she expiate her sins. Julio dropped his eyes, vanquished and perplexed. The picture of the future outlined by Marguerite terrified him. To live with her as a nurse taking advantage of her patient's blindness would be to offer him fresh insult every day. . . . Ah, no! That would be villainy, indeed! He was now ashamed to recall the malignity with which, a little while before, he had regarded this innocent unfortunate. He realized that he was powerless to contend with him. Weak and helpless as he was sitting there on the garden bench, he was stronger and more deserving of respect than Julio Desnoyers with all his youth and elegance. The victim had amounted to something in his life; he had done what Julio had not dared to do. This sudden conviction of his inferiority made him cry out like an abandoned child, "What will become of me?" . . . Marguerite, too--contemplating the love which was going from her forever, her vanished hopes, the future illumined by the satisfaction of duty fulfilled but monotonous and painful--cried out: "And I. . . . What will become of me?" . . . As though he had suddenly found a solution which was reviving his courage, Desnoyers said: "Listen, Marguerite: I can read your soul. You love this man, and you do well. He is superior to me, and women are always attracted by superiority. . . . I am a coward. Yes, do not protest, I am a coward with all my youth, with all my strength. Why should you not have been impressed by the conduct of this man! . . . But I will atone for past wrongs. This country is yours, Marguerite; I will fight for it. Do not say no. . . ." And moved by his hasty heroism, he outlined the plan more definitely. He was going to be a soldier. Soon she would hear him well spoken of. His idea was either to be stretched on the battlefield in his first encounter, or to astound the world by his bravery. In this way the impossible situation would settle itself--either the oblivion of death or glory. "No, no!" interrupted Marguerite in an anguished tone. "You, no! One is enough. . . . How horrible! You, too, wounded, mutilated forever, perhaps dead! . . . No, you must live. I want you to live, even though you might belong to another. . . . Let me know that you exist, let me see you sometimes, even though you may have forgotten me, even though you may pass me with indifference, as if you did not know me." In this outburst her deep love for him rang true--her heroic and inflexible love which would accept all penalties for herself, if only the beloved one might continue to live. But then, in order that Julio might not feel any false hopes, she added:--"Live; you must not die; that would be for me another torment. . . . But live without me. No matter how much we may talk about it, my destiny beside the other one is marked out forever." "Ah, how you love him! . . . How you have deceived me!" In a last desperate attempt at explanation she again repeated what she had said at the beginning of their interview. She loved Julio . . . and she loved her husband. They were different kinds of love. She could not say which was the stronger, but misfortune was forcing her to choose between the two, and she was accepting the most difficult, the one demanding the greatest sacrifices. "You are a man, and you will never be able to understand me. . . . A woman would comprehend me." It seemed to Julio, as he looked around him, as though the afternoon were undergoing some celestial phenomenon. The garden was still illuminated by the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the ground, the blue of the sky, all appeared to him as dark and shadowy as though a rain of ashes were falling. "Then . . . all is over between us?" His pleading, trembling voice charged with tears made her turn her head to hide her emotion. Then in the painful silence the two despairs formed one and the same question, as if interrogating the shades of the future: "What will become of me?" murmured the man. And like an echo her lips repeated, "What will become of me?" All had been said. Hopeless words came between the two like an obstacle momentarily increasing in size, impelling them in opposite directions. Why prolong the painful interview? . . . Marguerite showed the ready and energetic decision of a woman who wishes to bring a scene to a close. "Good-bye!" Her face had assumed a yellowish cast, her pupils had become dull and clouded like the glass of a lantern when the light dies out. "Good-bye!" She must go to her patient. She went away without looking at him, and Desnoyers instinctively went in the opposite direction. As he became more self-controlled and turned to look at her again, he saw her moving on and giving her arm to the blind man, without once turning her head. He now felt convinced that he should never see her again, and became oppressed by an almost suffocating agony. And could two beings, who had formerly considered the universe concentrated in their persons, thus easily be separated forever? . . . His desperation at finding himself alone made him accuse himself of stupidity. Now his thoughts came tumbling over each other in a tumultuous throng, and each one of them seemed to him sufficient to have convinced Marguerite. He certainly had not known how to express himself. He would have to talk with her again . . . and he decided to remain in Lourdes. He passed a night of torture in the hotel, listening to the ripple of the river among its stones. Insomnia had him in his fierce jaws, gnawing him with interminable agony. He turned on the light several times, but was not able to read. His eyes looked with stupid fixity at the patterns of the wall paper and the pious pictures around the room which had evidently served as the lodging place of some rich traveller. He remained motionless and as abstracted as an Oriental who thinks himself into an absolute lack of thought. One idea only was dancing in the vacuum in his skull--"I shall never see her again. . . . Can such a thing be possible?" He drowsed for a few seconds, only to be awakened with the sensation that some horrible explosion was sending him through the air. And so, with sweats of anguish, he wakefully passed the hours until in the gloom of his room the dawn showed a milky rectangle of light, and began to be reflected on the window curtains. The velvet-like caress of day finally closed his eyes. Upon awaking he found that the morning was well advanced, and he hurried to the garden of the grotto. . . . Oh, the hours of tremulous and unavailing waiting, believing that he recognized Marguerite in every white-clad lady that came along, guiding a wounded patient! By afternoon, after a lunch whose dishes filed past him untouched, he returned to the garden in search of her. Beholding her in the distance with the blind man leaning on her arm, a feeling of faintness came over him. She looked to him taller, thinner, her face sharper, with two dark hollows in her cheeks and her eyes bright with fever, the lids drawn with weariness. He suspected that she, too, had passed an anguished night of tenacious, self-centred thought, of grievous stupefaction like his own, in the room of her hotel. Suddenly he felt all the weight of insomnia and listlessness, all the depressing emotion of the cruel sensations experienced in the last few hours. Oh, how miserable they both were! . . . She was walking warily, looking from one side to the other, as though foreseeing danger. Upon discovering him she clung to her charge, casting upon her former lover a look of entreaty, of desperation, imploring pity. . . Ay, that look! He felt ashamed of himself; his personality appeared to be unrolling itself before him, and he surveyed himself with the eyes of a judge. What was this seduced and useless man, called Julio Desnoyers, doing there, tormenting with his presence a poor woman, trying to turn her from her righteous repentance, insisting on his selfish and petty desires when all humanity was thinking of other things? . . . His cowardice angered him. Like a thief taking advantage of the sleep of his victim, he was stalking around this brave and true man who could not see him, who could not defend himself, in order to rob him of the only affection that he had in the world which had so miraculously returned to him! Very well, Gentleman Desnoyers! . . . Ah, what a scoundrel he was! Such subconscious insults made him draw himself erect, in haughty, cruel and inexorable defiance against that other I who so richly deserved the judge's scorn. He turned his head away; he could not meet Marguerite's piteous eyes; he feared their mute reproach. Neither did he dare to look at the blind man in his shabby and heroic uniform, with his countenance aged by duty and glory. He feared him like remorse. So the vanquished lover turned his back on the two and went away with a firm step. Good-bye, Love! Goodbye, Happiness! . . . He marched quickly and bravely on; a miracle had just taken place within him! he had found the right road at last! To Paris! . . . A new impetus was going to fill the vacuum of his objectless existence. CHAPTER V THE INVASION Don Marcelo was fleeing to take refuge in his castle when he met the mayor of Villeblanche. The noise of the firing had made him hurry to the barricade. When he learned of the apparition of the group of stragglers he threw up his hands in despair. They were crazy. Their resistance was going to be fatal for the village, and he ran on to beg them to cease. For some time nothing happened to disturb the morning calm. Desnoyers had climbed to the top of his towers and was surveying the country with his field glasses. He couldn't make out the highway through the nearest group of trees, but he suspected that underneath their branches great activity was going on--masses of men on guard, troops preparing for the attack. The unexpected defense of the fugitives had upset the advance of the invasion. Desnoyers thought despairingly of that handful of mad fellows and their stubborn chief. What was their fate going to be? . . . Focussing his glasses on the village, he saw the red spots of kepis waving like poppies over the green of the meadows. They were the retreating men, now convinced of the uselessness of their resistance. Perhaps they had found a ford or forgotten boat by which they might cross the Maine, and so were continuing their retreat toward the river. At any minute now the Germans were going to enter Villeblanche. Half an hour of profound silence passed by. The village lay silhouetted against a background of hills--a mass of roofs beneath the church tower finished with its cross and iron weather cock. Everything seemed as tranquil as in the best days of peace. Suddenly he noticed that the grove was vomiting forth something noisy and penetrating--a bubble of vapor accompanied by a deafening report. Something was hurtling through the air with a strident curve. Then a roof in the village opened like a crater, vomiting forth flying wood, fragments of plaster and broken furniture. All the interior of the house seemed to be escaping in a stream of smoke, dirt and splinters. The invaders were bombarding Villeblanche before attempting attack, as though fearing to encounter persistent resistance in its streets. More projectiles fell. Some passed over the houses, exploding between the hamlet and the castle. The towers of the Desnoyers property were beginning to attract the aim of the artillerymen. The owner was therefore about to abandon his dangerous observatory when he saw something white like a tablecloth or sheet floating from the church tower. His neighbors had hoisted this signal of peace in order to avoid bombardment. A few more missiles fell and then there was silence. When Don Marcelo reached his park he found the Warden burying at the foot of a tree the sporting rifles still remaining in his castle. Then he went toward the great iron gates. The enemies were going to come, and he had to receive them. While uneasily awaiting their arrival his compunctions again tormented him. What was he doing there? Why had he remained? . . . But his obstinate temperament immediately put aside the promptings of fear. He was there because he had to guard his own. Besides, it was too late now to think about such things. Suddenly the morning stillness was broken by a sound like the deafening tearing of strong cloth. "Shots, Master," said the Warden. "Firing! It must be in the square." A few minutes after they saw running toward them a woman from the village, an old soul, dried up and darkened by age, who was panting from her great exertion, and looking wildly around her. She was fleeing blindly, trying to escape from danger and shut out horrible visions. Desnoyers and the Keeper's family listened to her explanations interrupted with hiccoughs of terror. The Germans were in Villeblanche. They had entered first in an automobile driven at full speed from one end of the village to the other. Its mitrailleuse was firing at random against closed houses and open doors, knocking down all the people in sight. The old woman flung up her arms with a gesture of terror. . . . Dead . . . many dead . . . wounded . . . blood! Then other iron-plated vehicles had stopped in the square, and behind them cavalrymen, battalions of infantry, many battalions coming from everywhere. The helmeted men seemed furious; they accused the villagers of having fired at them. In the square they had struck the mayor and villagers who had come forward to meet them. The priest, bending over some of the dying, had also been trodden under foot. . . . All prisoners! The Germans were talking of shooting them. The old dame's words were cut short by the rumble of approaching automobiles. "Open the gates," commanded the owner to the Warden. The massive iron grill work swung open, and was never again closed. All property rights were at an end. An enormous automobile, covered with dust and filled with men, stopped at the entrance. Behind them sounded the horns of other vehicles that were putting on the brakes. Desnoyers saw soldiers leaping out, all wearing the greenish-gray uniform with a sheath of the same tone covering the pointed casque. The one who marched at their head put his revolver to the millionaire's forehead. "Where are the sharpshooters?" he asked. He was pale with the pallor of wrath, vengeance and fear. His face was trembling under the influence of his triple emotion. Don Marcelo explained slowly, contemplating at a short distance from his eyes the black circle of the threatening tube. He had not seen any sharpshooters. The only inhabitants of the castle were the Warden with his family and himself, the owner of the castle. The officer surveyed the edifice and then examined Desnoyers with evident astonishment as though he thought his appearance too unpretentious for a proprietor. He had taken him for a simple employee, and his respect for social rank made him lower his revolver. He did not, however, alter his haughty attitude. He pressed Don Marcelo into the service as a guide, making him search ahead of him while forty soldiers grouped themselves at his back. They advanced in two files to the shelter of the trees which bordered the central avenue, with their guns ready to shoot, and looking uneasily at the castle windows as though expecting to receive from them hidden shots. Desnoyers marched tranquilly through the centre, and the official, who had been imitating the precautions of his men, finally joined him when he was crossing the drawbridge. The armed men scattered through the rooms in search of the enemy. They ran their bayonets through beds and divans. Some, with automatic destructiveness, slit the draperies and the rich bed coverings. The owner protested; what was the sense in such useless destruction? . . . He was suffering unbearable torture at seeing the enormous boots spotting the rugs with mud, on hearing the clash of guns and knapsacks against the most fragile, choicest pieces of furniture. Poor historic mansion! . . . The officer looked amazed that he should protest for such trifling cause, but he gave orders in German and his men ceased their rude explorations. Then, in justification of this extraordinary respect, he added in French: "I believe that you are going to have the honor of entertaining here the general of our division." The certainty that the castle did not hold any hidden enemies made him more amiable. He, nevertheless, persisted in his wrath against the sharpshooters. A group of the villagers had opened fire upon the Uhlans when they were entering unsuspiciously after the retreat of the French. Desnoyers felt it necessary to protest. They were neither inhabitants nor sharpshooters; they were French soldiers. He took good care to be silent about their presence at the barricade, but he insisted that he had distinguished their uniforms from a tower of the castle. The official made a threatening face. "You, too? . . . You, who appear a reasonable man, can repeat such yarns as these?" And in order to close the conversation, he said, arrogantly: "They were wearing uniforms, then, if you persist in saying so, but they were sharpshooters just the same. The French Government has distributed arms and uniforms among the farmers that they may assassinate us. . . . Belgium did the same thing. . . . But we know their tricks, and we know how to punish them, too!" The village was going to be burned. It was necessary to avenge the four German dead lying on the outskirts of Villeblanche, near the barricade. The mayor, the priest, the principal inhabitants would all be shot. By the time they reached the top floor Desnoyers could see floating above the boughs of his park dark clouds whose outlines were reddened by the sun. The top of the bell tower was the only thing that he could distinguish at that distance. Around the iron weathercock were flying long thin fringes like black cobwebs lifted by the breeze. An odor of burning wood came toward the castle. The German greeted this spectacle with a cruel smile. Then on descending to the park, he ordered Desnoyers to follow him. His liberty and his dignity had come to an end. Henceforth he was going to be an underling at the beck and call of these men who would dispose of him as their whims directed. Ay, why had he remained? . . . He obeyed, climbing into an automobile beside the officer, who was still carrying his revolver in his right hand. His men distributed themselves through the castle and outbuildings, in order to prevent the flight of an imaginary enemy. The Warden and his family seemed to be saying good-bye to him with their eyes. Perhaps they were taking him to his death. . . . Beyond the castle woods a new world was coming into existence. The short cut to Villeblanche seemed to Desnoyers a leap of millions of leagues, a fall into a red planet where men and things were covered with the film of smoke and the glare of fire. He saw the village under a dark canopy spotted with sparks and glowing embers. The bell tower was burning like an enormous torch; the roof of the church was breaking into flames with a crashing fury. The glare of the holocaust seemed to shrivel and grow pale in the impassive light of the sun. Running across the fields with the haste of desperation were shrieking women and children. The animals had escaped from the stables, and driven forth by the flames were racing wildly across the country. The cow and the work horse were dragging their halters broken by their flight. Their flanks were smoking and smelt of burnt hair. The pigs, the sheep and the chickens were all tearing along mingled with the cats and the dogs. All the domestic animals were returning to a brute existence, fleeing from civilized man. Shots were heard and hellish ha-ha's. The soldiers outside of the village were making themselves merry in this hunt for fugitives. Their guns were aimed at beasts and were hitting people. Desnoyers saw men, many men, men everywhere. They were like gray ants, marching in endless files towards the South, coming out from the woods, filling the roads, crossing the fields. The green of vegetation was disappearing under their tread; the dust was rising in spirals behind the dull roll of the cannons and the measured trot of thousands of horses. On the roadside several battalions had halted, with their accompaniment of vehicles and draw horses. They were resting before renewing their march. He knew this army. He had seen it in Berlin on parade, and yet it seemed to have changed its former appearance. There now remained very little of the heavy and imposing glitter, of the mute and vainglorious haughtiness which had made his relatives-in-law weep with admiration. War, with its realism, had wiped out all that was theatrical about this formidable organization of death. The soldiers appeared dirty and tired, out. The respiration of fat and sweaty bodies, mixed with the strong smell of leather, floated over the regiments. All the men had hungry faces. For days and nights they had been following the heels of an enemy which was always just eluding their grasp. In this forced advance the provisions of the administration would often arrive so late at the cantonments that they could depend only on what they happened to have in their knapsacks. Desnoyers saw them lined up near the road devouring hunks of black bread and mouldy sausages. Some had scattered through the fields to dig up beet roots and other tubers, chewing with loud crunchings the hard pulp to which the grit still adhered. An ensign was shaking the fruit trees using as a catch-all the flag of his regiment. That glorious standard, adorned with souvenirs of 1870, was serving as a receptacle for green plums. Those who were seated on the ground were improving this rest by drawing their perspiring, swollen feet from high boots which were sending out an insufferable smell. The regiments of infantry which Desnoyers had seen in Berlin reflecting the light on metal and leather straps, the magnificent and terrifying Hussars, the Cuirassiers in pure white uniform like the paladins of the Holy Grail, the artillerymen with breasts crossed with white bands, all the military variations that on parade had drawn forth the Hartrotts' sighs of admiration--these were now all unified and mixed together, of uniform color, all in greenish mustard like the dusty lizards that, slipping along, try to be confounded with the earth. The persistency of the iron discipline was easily discernible. A word from the chiefs, the sound of a whistle, and they all grouped themselves together, the human being disappearing in the throngs of automatons; but danger, weariness, and the uncertainty of triumph had for the time being brought officers and men nearer together, obliterating caste distinction. The officers were coming part way out of their overbearing, haughty seclusion, and were condescending to talk with the lower orders so as to revive their courage. One effort more and they would overwhelm both French and English, repeating the triumph of Sedan, whose anniversary they were going to celebrate in a few days! They were going to enter Paris; it was only a matter of a week. Paris! Great shops filled with luxurious things, famous restaurants, women, champagne, money. . . . And the men, flattered that their commanders were stooping to chat with them, forgot fatigue and hunger, reviving like the throngs of the Crusade before the image of Jerusalem. "Nach Paris!" The joyous shout circulated from the head to the tail of the marching columns. "To Paris! To Paris!" The scarcity of their food supply was here supplemented by the products of a country rich in wines. When sacking houses they rarely found eatables, but invariably a wine cellar. The humble German, the perpetual beer drinker, who had always looked upon wine as a privilege of the rich, could now open up casks with blows from his weapons, even bathing his feet in the stream of precious liquid. Every battalion left as a souvenir of its passing a wake of empty bottles; a halt in camp sowed the land with glass cylinders. The regimental trucks, unable to renew their stores of provisions, were accustomed to seize the wine in all the towns. The soldier, lacking bread, would receive alcohol. . . . This donation was always accompanied by the good counsels of the officers--War is war; no pity toward our adversaries who do not deserve it. The French were shooting their prisoners, and their women were putting out the eyes of the wounded. Every dwelling was a den of traps. The simple-hearted and innocent German entering therein was going to certain death. The beds were made over subterranean caves, the wardrobes were make-believe doors, in every corner was lurking an assassin. This traitorous nation, which was arranging its ground like the scenario of a melodrama, would have to be chastised. The municipal officers, the priests, the schoolmasters were directing and protecting the sharpshooters. Desnoyers was shocked at the indifference with which these men were stalking around the burning village. They did not appear to see the fire and destruction; it was just an ordinary spectacle, not worth looking at. Ever since they had crossed the frontier, smoldering and blasted villages, fired by the advance guard, had marked their halting places on Belgian and French soil. When entering Villeblanche the automobile had

forgotten

How many times the word 'forgotten' appears in the text?

would discover my identity and leave me, yet at the same time, wishing that he would recognize me and pardon me. . . . It is only one week that I have been with him. I disguise my voice when I can, and avoid words that may reveal the truth . . . but this cannot keep up much longer. It is only in novels that such painful situations turn out happily." Doubt suddenly overwhelmed her. "I believe," she continued, "that he has recognized me from the first. . . . He is silent and feigns ignorance because he despises me . . . because he can never bring himself to pardon me. I have been so bad! . . . I have wronged him so!". . . She was recalling the long and reflective silences of the wounded man after she had dropped some imprudent words. After two days of submission to her care, he had been somewhat rebellious, avoiding going out with her for a walk. Because of his blind helplessness, and comprehending the uselessness of his resistance, he had finally yielded in passive silence. "Let him think what he will!" concluded Marguerite courageously. "Let him despise me! I am here where I ought to be. I need his forgiveness, but if he does not pardon me, I shall stay with him just the same. . . . There are moments when I wish that he may never recover his sight, so that he may always need me, so that I may pass my life at his side, sacrificing everything for him." "And I?" said Desnoyers. Marguerite looked at him with clouded eyes as though she were just awaking. It was true--and the other one? . . . Kindled by the proposed sacrifice which was to be her expiation, she had forgotten the man before her. "You!" she said after a long pause. "You must leave me. . . . Life is not what we have thought it. Had it not been for the war, we might, perhaps, have realized our dream, but now! . . . Listen carefully and try to understand. For the remainder of my life, I shall carry the heaviest burden, and yet at the same time it will be sweet, since the more it weighs me down the greater will my atonement be. Never will I leave this man whom I have so grievously wronged, now that he is more alone in the world and will need protection like a child. Why do you come to share my fate? How could it be possible for you to live with a nurse constantly at the side of a blind and worthy man whom we would constantly offend with our passion? . . . No, it is better for us to part. Go your way, alone and untrammelled. Leave me; you will meet other women who will make you more happy than I. Yours is the temperament that finds new pleasures at every step." She stood firmly to her decision. Her voice was calm, but back of it trembled the emotion of a last farewell to a joy which was going from her forever. The man would be loved by others . . . and she was giving him up! . . . But the noble sadness of the sacrifice restored her courage. Only by this renunciation could she expiate her sins. Julio dropped his eyes, vanquished and perplexed. The picture of the future outlined by Marguerite terrified him. To live with her as a nurse taking advantage of her patient's blindness would be to offer him fresh insult every day. . . . Ah, no! That would be villainy, indeed! He was now ashamed to recall the malignity with which, a little while before, he had regarded this innocent unfortunate. He realized that he was powerless to contend with him. Weak and helpless as he was sitting there on the garden bench, he was stronger and more deserving of respect than Julio Desnoyers with all his youth and elegance. The victim had amounted to something in his life; he had done what Julio had not dared to do. This sudden conviction of his inferiority made him cry out like an abandoned child, "What will become of me?" . . . Marguerite, too--contemplating the love which was going from her forever, her vanished hopes, the future illumined by the satisfaction of duty fulfilled but monotonous and painful--cried out: "And I. . . . What will become of me?" . . . As though he had suddenly found a solution which was reviving his courage, Desnoyers said: "Listen, Marguerite: I can read your soul. You love this man, and you do well. He is superior to me, and women are always attracted by superiority. . . . I am a coward. Yes, do not protest, I am a coward with all my youth, with all my strength. Why should you not have been impressed by the conduct of this man! . . . But I will atone for past wrongs. This country is yours, Marguerite; I will fight for it. Do not say no. . . ." And moved by his hasty heroism, he outlined the plan more definitely. He was going to be a soldier. Soon she would hear him well spoken of. His idea was either to be stretched on the battlefield in his first encounter, or to astound the world by his bravery. In this way the impossible situation would settle itself--either the oblivion of death or glory. "No, no!" interrupted Marguerite in an anguished tone. "You, no! One is enough. . . . How horrible! You, too, wounded, mutilated forever, perhaps dead! . . . No, you must live. I want you to live, even though you might belong to another. . . . Let me know that you exist, let me see you sometimes, even though you may have forgotten me, even though you may pass me with indifference, as if you did not know me." In this outburst her deep love for him rang true--her heroic and inflexible love which would accept all penalties for herself, if only the beloved one might continue to live. But then, in order that Julio might not feel any false hopes, she added:--"Live; you must not die; that would be for me another torment. . . . But live without me. No matter how much we may talk about it, my destiny beside the other one is marked out forever." "Ah, how you love him! . . . How you have deceived me!" In a last desperate attempt at explanation she again repeated what she had said at the beginning of their interview. She loved Julio . . . and she loved her husband. They were different kinds of love. She could not say which was the stronger, but misfortune was forcing her to choose between the two, and she was accepting the most difficult, the one demanding the greatest sacrifices. "You are a man, and you will never be able to understand me. . . . A woman would comprehend me." It seemed to Julio, as he looked around him, as though the afternoon were undergoing some celestial phenomenon. The garden was still illuminated by the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the ground, the blue of the sky, all appeared to him as dark and shadowy as though a rain of ashes were falling. "Then . . . all is over between us?" His pleading, trembling voice charged with tears made her turn her head to hide her emotion. Then in the painful silence the two despairs formed one and the same question, as if interrogating the shades of the future: "What will become of me?" murmured the man. And like an echo her lips repeated, "What will become of me?" All had been said. Hopeless words came between the two like an obstacle momentarily increasing in size, impelling them in opposite directions. Why prolong the painful interview? . . . Marguerite showed the ready and energetic decision of a woman who wishes to bring a scene to a close. "Good-bye!" Her face had assumed a yellowish cast, her pupils had become dull and clouded like the glass of a lantern when the light dies out. "Good-bye!" She must go to her patient. She went away without looking at him, and Desnoyers instinctively went in the opposite direction. As he became more self-controlled and turned to look at her again, he saw her moving on and giving her arm to the blind man, without once turning her head. He now felt convinced that he should never see her again, and became oppressed by an almost suffocating agony. And could two beings, who had formerly considered the universe concentrated in their persons, thus easily be separated forever? . . . His desperation at finding himself alone made him accuse himself of stupidity. Now his thoughts came tumbling over each other in a tumultuous throng, and each one of them seemed to him sufficient to have convinced Marguerite. He certainly had not known how to express himself. He would have to talk with her again . . . and he decided to remain in Lourdes. He passed a night of torture in the hotel, listening to the ripple of the river among its stones. Insomnia had him in his fierce jaws, gnawing him with interminable agony. He turned on the light several times, but was not able to read. His eyes looked with stupid fixity at the patterns of the wall paper and the pious pictures around the room which had evidently served as the lodging place of some rich traveller. He remained motionless and as abstracted as an Oriental who thinks himself into an absolute lack of thought. One idea only was dancing in the vacuum in his skull--"I shall never see her again. . . . Can such a thing be possible?" He drowsed for a few seconds, only to be awakened with the sensation that some horrible explosion was sending him through the air. And so, with sweats of anguish, he wakefully passed the hours until in the gloom of his room the dawn showed a milky rectangle of light, and began to be reflected on the window curtains. The velvet-like caress of day finally closed his eyes. Upon awaking he found that the morning was well advanced, and he hurried to the garden of the grotto. . . . Oh, the hours of tremulous and unavailing waiting, believing that he recognized Marguerite in every white-clad lady that came along, guiding a wounded patient! By afternoon, after a lunch whose dishes filed past him untouched, he returned to the garden in search of her. Beholding her in the distance with the blind man leaning on her arm, a feeling of faintness came over him. She looked to him taller, thinner, her face sharper, with two dark hollows in her cheeks and her eyes bright with fever, the lids drawn with weariness. He suspected that she, too, had passed an anguished night of tenacious, self-centred thought, of grievous stupefaction like his own, in the room of her hotel. Suddenly he felt all the weight of insomnia and listlessness, all the depressing emotion of the cruel sensations experienced in the last few hours. Oh, how miserable they both were! . . . She was walking warily, looking from one side to the other, as though foreseeing danger. Upon discovering him she clung to her charge, casting upon her former lover a look of entreaty, of desperation, imploring pity. . . Ay, that look! He felt ashamed of himself; his personality appeared to be unrolling itself before him, and he surveyed himself with the eyes of a judge. What was this seduced and useless man, called Julio Desnoyers, doing there, tormenting with his presence a poor woman, trying to turn her from her righteous repentance, insisting on his selfish and petty desires when all humanity was thinking of other things? . . . His cowardice angered him. Like a thief taking advantage of the sleep of his victim, he was stalking around this brave and true man who could not see him, who could not defend himself, in order to rob him of the only affection that he had in the world which had so miraculously returned to him! Very well, Gentleman Desnoyers! . . . Ah, what a scoundrel he was! Such subconscious insults made him draw himself erect, in haughty, cruel and inexorable defiance against that other I who so richly deserved the judge's scorn. He turned his head away; he could not meet Marguerite's piteous eyes; he feared their mute reproach. Neither did he dare to look at the blind man in his shabby and heroic uniform, with his countenance aged by duty and glory. He feared him like remorse. So the vanquished lover turned his back on the two and went away with a firm step. Good-bye, Love! Goodbye, Happiness! . . . He marched quickly and bravely on; a miracle had just taken place within him! he had found the right road at last! To Paris! . . . A new impetus was going to fill the vacuum of his objectless existence. CHAPTER V THE INVASION Don Marcelo was fleeing to take refuge in his castle when he met the mayor of Villeblanche. The noise of the firing had made him hurry to the barricade. When he learned of the apparition of the group of stragglers he threw up his hands in despair. They were crazy. Their resistance was going to be fatal for the village, and he ran on to beg them to cease. For some time nothing happened to disturb the morning calm. Desnoyers had climbed to the top of his towers and was surveying the country with his field glasses. He couldn't make out the highway through the nearest group of trees, but he suspected that underneath their branches great activity was going on--masses of men on guard, troops preparing for the attack. The unexpected defense of the fugitives had upset the advance of the invasion. Desnoyers thought despairingly of that handful of mad fellows and their stubborn chief. What was their fate going to be? . . . Focussing his glasses on the village, he saw the red spots of kepis waving like poppies over the green of the meadows. They were the retreating men, now convinced of the uselessness of their resistance. Perhaps they had found a ford or forgotten boat by which they might cross the Maine, and so were continuing their retreat toward the river. At any minute now the Germans were going to enter Villeblanche. Half an hour of profound silence passed by. The village lay silhouetted against a background of hills--a mass of roofs beneath the church tower finished with its cross and iron weather cock. Everything seemed as tranquil as in the best days of peace. Suddenly he noticed that the grove was vomiting forth something noisy and penetrating--a bubble of vapor accompanied by a deafening report. Something was hurtling through the air with a strident curve. Then a roof in the village opened like a crater, vomiting forth flying wood, fragments of plaster and broken furniture. All the interior of the house seemed to be escaping in a stream of smoke, dirt and splinters. The invaders were bombarding Villeblanche before attempting attack, as though fearing to encounter persistent resistance in its streets. More projectiles fell. Some passed over the houses, exploding between the hamlet and the castle. The towers of the Desnoyers property were beginning to attract the aim of the artillerymen. The owner was therefore about to abandon his dangerous observatory when he saw something white like a tablecloth or sheet floating from the church tower. His neighbors had hoisted this signal of peace in order to avoid bombardment. A few more missiles fell and then there was silence. When Don Marcelo reached his park he found the Warden burying at the foot of a tree the sporting rifles still remaining in his castle. Then he went toward the great iron gates. The enemies were going to come, and he had to receive them. While uneasily awaiting their arrival his compunctions again tormented him. What was he doing there? Why had he remained? . . . But his obstinate temperament immediately put aside the promptings of fear. He was there because he had to guard his own. Besides, it was too late now to think about such things. Suddenly the morning stillness was broken by a sound like the deafening tearing of strong cloth. "Shots, Master," said the Warden. "Firing! It must be in the square." A few minutes after they saw running toward them a woman from the village, an old soul, dried up and darkened by age, who was panting from her great exertion, and looking wildly around her. She was fleeing blindly, trying to escape from danger and shut out horrible visions. Desnoyers and the Keeper's family listened to her explanations interrupted with hiccoughs of terror. The Germans were in Villeblanche. They had entered first in an automobile driven at full speed from one end of the village to the other. Its mitrailleuse was firing at random against closed houses and open doors, knocking down all the people in sight. The old woman flung up her arms with a gesture of terror. . . . Dead . . . many dead . . . wounded . . . blood! Then other iron-plated vehicles had stopped in the square, and behind them cavalrymen, battalions of infantry, many battalions coming from everywhere. The helmeted men seemed furious; they accused the villagers of having fired at them. In the square they had struck the mayor and villagers who had come forward to meet them. The priest, bending over some of the dying, had also been trodden under foot. . . . All prisoners! The Germans were talking of shooting them. The old dame's words were cut short by the rumble of approaching automobiles. "Open the gates," commanded the owner to the Warden. The massive iron grill work swung open, and was never again closed. All property rights were at an end. An enormous automobile, covered with dust and filled with men, stopped at the entrance. Behind them sounded the horns of other vehicles that were putting on the brakes. Desnoyers saw soldiers leaping out, all wearing the greenish-gray uniform with a sheath of the same tone covering the pointed casque. The one who marched at their head put his revolver to the millionaire's forehead. "Where are the sharpshooters?" he asked. He was pale with the pallor of wrath, vengeance and fear. His face was trembling under the influence of his triple emotion. Don Marcelo explained slowly, contemplating at a short distance from his eyes the black circle of the threatening tube. He had not seen any sharpshooters. The only inhabitants of the castle were the Warden with his family and himself, the owner of the castle. The officer surveyed the edifice and then examined Desnoyers with evident astonishment as though he thought his appearance too unpretentious for a proprietor. He had taken him for a simple employee, and his respect for social rank made him lower his revolver. He did not, however, alter his haughty attitude. He pressed Don Marcelo into the service as a guide, making him search ahead of him while forty soldiers grouped themselves at his back. They advanced in two files to the shelter of the trees which bordered the central avenue, with their guns ready to shoot, and looking uneasily at the castle windows as though expecting to receive from them hidden shots. Desnoyers marched tranquilly through the centre, and the official, who had been imitating the precautions of his men, finally joined him when he was crossing the drawbridge. The armed men scattered through the rooms in search of the enemy. They ran their bayonets through beds and divans. Some, with automatic destructiveness, slit the draperies and the rich bed coverings. The owner protested; what was the sense in such useless destruction? . . . He was suffering unbearable torture at seeing the enormous boots spotting the rugs with mud, on hearing the clash of guns and knapsacks against the most fragile, choicest pieces of furniture. Poor historic mansion! . . . The officer looked amazed that he should protest for such trifling cause, but he gave orders in German and his men ceased their rude explorations. Then, in justification of this extraordinary respect, he added in French: "I believe that you are going to have the honor of entertaining here the general of our division." The certainty that the castle did not hold any hidden enemies made him more amiable. He, nevertheless, persisted in his wrath against the sharpshooters. A group of the villagers had opened fire upon the Uhlans when they were entering unsuspiciously after the retreat of the French. Desnoyers felt it necessary to protest. They were neither inhabitants nor sharpshooters; they were French soldiers. He took good care to be silent about their presence at the barricade, but he insisted that he had distinguished their uniforms from a tower of the castle. The official made a threatening face. "You, too? . . . You, who appear a reasonable man, can repeat such yarns as these?" And in order to close the conversation, he said, arrogantly: "They were wearing uniforms, then, if you persist in saying so, but they were sharpshooters just the same. The French Government has distributed arms and uniforms among the farmers that they may assassinate us. . . . Belgium did the same thing. . . . But we know their tricks, and we know how to punish them, too!" The village was going to be burned. It was necessary to avenge the four German dead lying on the outskirts of Villeblanche, near the barricade. The mayor, the priest, the principal inhabitants would all be shot. By the time they reached the top floor Desnoyers could see floating above the boughs of his park dark clouds whose outlines were reddened by the sun. The top of the bell tower was the only thing that he could distinguish at that distance. Around the iron weathercock were flying long thin fringes like black cobwebs lifted by the breeze. An odor of burning wood came toward the castle. The German greeted this spectacle with a cruel smile. Then on descending to the park, he ordered Desnoyers to follow him. His liberty and his dignity had come to an end. Henceforth he was going to be an underling at the beck and call of these men who would dispose of him as their whims directed. Ay, why had he remained? . . . He obeyed, climbing into an automobile beside the officer, who was still carrying his revolver in his right hand. His men distributed themselves through the castle and outbuildings, in order to prevent the flight of an imaginary enemy. The Warden and his family seemed to be saying good-bye to him with their eyes. Perhaps they were taking him to his death. . . . Beyond the castle woods a new world was coming into existence. The short cut to Villeblanche seemed to Desnoyers a leap of millions of leagues, a fall into a red planet where men and things were covered with the film of smoke and the glare of fire. He saw the village under a dark canopy spotted with sparks and glowing embers. The bell tower was burning like an enormous torch; the roof of the church was breaking into flames with a crashing fury. The glare of the holocaust seemed to shrivel and grow pale in the impassive light of the sun. Running across the fields with the haste of desperation were shrieking women and children. The animals had escaped from the stables, and driven forth by the flames were racing wildly across the country. The cow and the work horse were dragging their halters broken by their flight. Their flanks were smoking and smelt of burnt hair. The pigs, the sheep and the chickens were all tearing along mingled with the cats and the dogs. All the domestic animals were returning to a brute existence, fleeing from civilized man. Shots were heard and hellish ha-ha's. The soldiers outside of the village were making themselves merry in this hunt for fugitives. Their guns were aimed at beasts and were hitting people. Desnoyers saw men, many men, men everywhere. They were like gray ants, marching in endless files towards the South, coming out from the woods, filling the roads, crossing the fields. The green of vegetation was disappearing under their tread; the dust was rising in spirals behind the dull roll of the cannons and the measured trot of thousands of horses. On the roadside several battalions had halted, with their accompaniment of vehicles and draw horses. They were resting before renewing their march. He knew this army. He had seen it in Berlin on parade, and yet it seemed to have changed its former appearance. There now remained very little of the heavy and imposing glitter, of the mute and vainglorious haughtiness which had made his relatives-in-law weep with admiration. War, with its realism, had wiped out all that was theatrical about this formidable organization of death. The soldiers appeared dirty and tired, out. The respiration of fat and sweaty bodies, mixed with the strong smell of leather, floated over the regiments. All the men had hungry faces. For days and nights they had been following the heels of an enemy which was always just eluding their grasp. In this forced advance the provisions of the administration would often arrive so late at the cantonments that they could depend only on what they happened to have in their knapsacks. Desnoyers saw them lined up near the road devouring hunks of black bread and mouldy sausages. Some had scattered through the fields to dig up beet roots and other tubers, chewing with loud crunchings the hard pulp to which the grit still adhered. An ensign was shaking the fruit trees using as a catch-all the flag of his regiment. That glorious standard, adorned with souvenirs of 1870, was serving as a receptacle for green plums. Those who were seated on the ground were improving this rest by drawing their perspiring, swollen feet from high boots which were sending out an insufferable smell. The regiments of infantry which Desnoyers had seen in Berlin reflecting the light on metal and leather straps, the magnificent and terrifying Hussars, the Cuirassiers in pure white uniform like the paladins of the Holy Grail, the artillerymen with breasts crossed with white bands, all the military variations that on parade had drawn forth the Hartrotts' sighs of admiration--these were now all unified and mixed together, of uniform color, all in greenish mustard like the dusty lizards that, slipping along, try to be confounded with the earth. The persistency of the iron discipline was easily discernible. A word from the chiefs, the sound of a whistle, and they all grouped themselves together, the human being disappearing in the throngs of automatons; but danger, weariness, and the uncertainty of triumph had for the time being brought officers and men nearer together, obliterating caste distinction. The officers were coming part way out of their overbearing, haughty seclusion, and were condescending to talk with the lower orders so as to revive their courage. One effort more and they would overwhelm both French and English, repeating the triumph of Sedan, whose anniversary they were going to celebrate in a few days! They were going to enter Paris; it was only a matter of a week. Paris! Great shops filled with luxurious things, famous restaurants, women, champagne, money. . . . And the men, flattered that their commanders were stooping to chat with them, forgot fatigue and hunger, reviving like the throngs of the Crusade before the image of Jerusalem. "Nach Paris!" The joyous shout circulated from the head to the tail of the marching columns. "To Paris! To Paris!" The scarcity of their food supply was here supplemented by the products of a country rich in wines. When sacking houses they rarely found eatables, but invariably a wine cellar. The humble German, the perpetual beer drinker, who had always looked upon wine as a privilege of the rich, could now open up casks with blows from his weapons, even bathing his feet in the stream of precious liquid. Every battalion left as a souvenir of its passing a wake of empty bottles; a halt in camp sowed the land with glass cylinders. The regimental trucks, unable to renew their stores of provisions, were accustomed to seize the wine in all the towns. The soldier, lacking bread, would receive alcohol. . . . This donation was always accompanied by the good counsels of the officers--War is war; no pity toward our adversaries who do not deserve it. The French were shooting their prisoners, and their women were putting out the eyes of the wounded. Every dwelling was a den of traps. The simple-hearted and innocent German entering therein was going to certain death. The beds were made over subterranean caves, the wardrobes were make-believe doors, in every corner was lurking an assassin. This traitorous nation, which was arranging its ground like the scenario of a melodrama, would have to be chastised. The municipal officers, the priests, the schoolmasters were directing and protecting the sharpshooters. Desnoyers was shocked at the indifference with which these men were stalking around the burning village. They did not appear to see the fire and destruction; it was just an ordinary spectacle, not worth looking at. Ever since they had crossed the frontier, smoldering and blasted villages, fired by the advance guard, had marked their halting places on Belgian and French soil. When entering Villeblanche the automobile had

remorse

How many times the word 'remorse' appears in the text?

would discover my identity and leave me, yet at the same time, wishing that he would recognize me and pardon me. . . . It is only one week that I have been with him. I disguise my voice when I can, and avoid words that may reveal the truth . . . but this cannot keep up much longer. It is only in novels that such painful situations turn out happily." Doubt suddenly overwhelmed her. "I believe," she continued, "that he has recognized me from the first. . . . He is silent and feigns ignorance because he despises me . . . because he can never bring himself to pardon me. I have been so bad! . . . I have wronged him so!". . . She was recalling the long and reflective silences of the wounded man after she had dropped some imprudent words. After two days of submission to her care, he had been somewhat rebellious, avoiding going out with her for a walk. Because of his blind helplessness, and comprehending the uselessness of his resistance, he had finally yielded in passive silence. "Let him think what he will!" concluded Marguerite courageously. "Let him despise me! I am here where I ought to be. I need his forgiveness, but if he does not pardon me, I shall stay with him just the same. . . . There are moments when I wish that he may never recover his sight, so that he may always need me, so that I may pass my life at his side, sacrificing everything for him." "And I?" said Desnoyers. Marguerite looked at him with clouded eyes as though she were just awaking. It was true--and the other one? . . . Kindled by the proposed sacrifice which was to be her expiation, she had forgotten the man before her. "You!" she said after a long pause. "You must leave me. . . . Life is not what we have thought it. Had it not been for the war, we might, perhaps, have realized our dream, but now! . . . Listen carefully and try to understand. For the remainder of my life, I shall carry the heaviest burden, and yet at the same time it will be sweet, since the more it weighs me down the greater will my atonement be. Never will I leave this man whom I have so grievously wronged, now that he is more alone in the world and will need protection like a child. Why do you come to share my fate? How could it be possible for you to live with a nurse constantly at the side of a blind and worthy man whom we would constantly offend with our passion? . . . No, it is better for us to part. Go your way, alone and untrammelled. Leave me; you will meet other women who will make you more happy than I. Yours is the temperament that finds new pleasures at every step." She stood firmly to her decision. Her voice was calm, but back of it trembled the emotion of a last farewell to a joy which was going from her forever. The man would be loved by others . . . and she was giving him up! . . . But the noble sadness of the sacrifice restored her courage. Only by this renunciation could she expiate her sins. Julio dropped his eyes, vanquished and perplexed. The picture of the future outlined by Marguerite terrified him. To live with her as a nurse taking advantage of her patient's blindness would be to offer him fresh insult every day. . . . Ah, no! That would be villainy, indeed! He was now ashamed to recall the malignity with which, a little while before, he had regarded this innocent unfortunate. He realized that he was powerless to contend with him. Weak and helpless as he was sitting there on the garden bench, he was stronger and more deserving of respect than Julio Desnoyers with all his youth and elegance. The victim had amounted to something in his life; he had done what Julio had not dared to do. This sudden conviction of his inferiority made him cry out like an abandoned child, "What will become of me?" . . . Marguerite, too--contemplating the love which was going from her forever, her vanished hopes, the future illumined by the satisfaction of duty fulfilled but monotonous and painful--cried out: "And I. . . . What will become of me?" . . . As though he had suddenly found a solution which was reviving his courage, Desnoyers said: "Listen, Marguerite: I can read your soul. You love this man, and you do well. He is superior to me, and women are always attracted by superiority. . . . I am a coward. Yes, do not protest, I am a coward with all my youth, with all my strength. Why should you not have been impressed by the conduct of this man! . . . But I will atone for past wrongs. This country is yours, Marguerite; I will fight for it. Do not say no. . . ." And moved by his hasty heroism, he outlined the plan more definitely. He was going to be a soldier. Soon she would hear him well spoken of. His idea was either to be stretched on the battlefield in his first encounter, or to astound the world by his bravery. In this way the impossible situation would settle itself--either the oblivion of death or glory. "No, no!" interrupted Marguerite in an anguished tone. "You, no! One is enough. . . . How horrible! You, too, wounded, mutilated forever, perhaps dead! . . . No, you must live. I want you to live, even though you might belong to another. . . . Let me know that you exist, let me see you sometimes, even though you may have forgotten me, even though you may pass me with indifference, as if you did not know me." In this outburst her deep love for him rang true--her heroic and inflexible love which would accept all penalties for herself, if only the beloved one might continue to live. But then, in order that Julio might not feel any false hopes, she added:--"Live; you must not die; that would be for me another torment. . . . But live without me. No matter how much we may talk about it, my destiny beside the other one is marked out forever." "Ah, how you love him! . . . How you have deceived me!" In a last desperate attempt at explanation she again repeated what she had said at the beginning of their interview. She loved Julio . . . and she loved her husband. They were different kinds of love. She could not say which was the stronger, but misfortune was forcing her to choose between the two, and she was accepting the most difficult, the one demanding the greatest sacrifices. "You are a man, and you will never be able to understand me. . . . A woman would comprehend me." It seemed to Julio, as he looked around him, as though the afternoon were undergoing some celestial phenomenon. The garden was still illuminated by the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the ground, the blue of the sky, all appeared to him as dark and shadowy as though a rain of ashes were falling. "Then . . . all is over between us?" His pleading, trembling voice charged with tears made her turn her head to hide her emotion. Then in the painful silence the two despairs formed one and the same question, as if interrogating the shades of the future: "What will become of me?" murmured the man. And like an echo her lips repeated, "What will become of me?" All had been said. Hopeless words came between the two like an obstacle momentarily increasing in size, impelling them in opposite directions. Why prolong the painful interview? . . . Marguerite showed the ready and energetic decision of a woman who wishes to bring a scene to a close. "Good-bye!" Her face had assumed a yellowish cast, her pupils had become dull and clouded like the glass of a lantern when the light dies out. "Good-bye!" She must go to her patient. She went away without looking at him, and Desnoyers instinctively went in the opposite direction. As he became more self-controlled and turned to look at her again, he saw her moving on and giving her arm to the blind man, without once turning her head. He now felt convinced that he should never see her again, and became oppressed by an almost suffocating agony. And could two beings, who had formerly considered the universe concentrated in their persons, thus easily be separated forever? . . . His desperation at finding himself alone made him accuse himself of stupidity. Now his thoughts came tumbling over each other in a tumultuous throng, and each one of them seemed to him sufficient to have convinced Marguerite. He certainly had not known how to express himself. He would have to talk with her again . . . and he decided to remain in Lourdes. He passed a night of torture in the hotel, listening to the ripple of the river among its stones. Insomnia had him in his fierce jaws, gnawing him with interminable agony. He turned on the light several times, but was not able to read. His eyes looked with stupid fixity at the patterns of the wall paper and the pious pictures around the room which had evidently served as the lodging place of some rich traveller. He remained motionless and as abstracted as an Oriental who thinks himself into an absolute lack of thought. One idea only was dancing in the vacuum in his skull--"I shall never see her again. . . . Can such a thing be possible?" He drowsed for a few seconds, only to be awakened with the sensation that some horrible explosion was sending him through the air. And so, with sweats of anguish, he wakefully passed the hours until in the gloom of his room the dawn showed a milky rectangle of light, and began to be reflected on the window curtains. The velvet-like caress of day finally closed his eyes. Upon awaking he found that the morning was well advanced, and he hurried to the garden of the grotto. . . . Oh, the hours of tremulous and unavailing waiting, believing that he recognized Marguerite in every white-clad lady that came along, guiding a wounded patient! By afternoon, after a lunch whose dishes filed past him untouched, he returned to the garden in search of her. Beholding her in the distance with the blind man leaning on her arm, a feeling of faintness came over him. She looked to him taller, thinner, her face sharper, with two dark hollows in her cheeks and her eyes bright with fever, the lids drawn with weariness. He suspected that she, too, had passed an anguished night of tenacious, self-centred thought, of grievous stupefaction like his own, in the room of her hotel. Suddenly he felt all the weight of insomnia and listlessness, all the depressing emotion of the cruel sensations experienced in the last few hours. Oh, how miserable they both were! . . . She was walking warily, looking from one side to the other, as though foreseeing danger. Upon discovering him she clung to her charge, casting upon her former lover a look of entreaty, of desperation, imploring pity. . . Ay, that look! He felt ashamed of himself; his personality appeared to be unrolling itself before him, and he surveyed himself with the eyes of a judge. What was this seduced and useless man, called Julio Desnoyers, doing there, tormenting with his presence a poor woman, trying to turn her from her righteous repentance, insisting on his selfish and petty desires when all humanity was thinking of other things? . . . His cowardice angered him. Like a thief taking advantage of the sleep of his victim, he was stalking around this brave and true man who could not see him, who could not defend himself, in order to rob him of the only affection that he had in the world which had so miraculously returned to him! Very well, Gentleman Desnoyers! . . . Ah, what a scoundrel he was! Such subconscious insults made him draw himself erect, in haughty, cruel and inexorable defiance against that other I who so richly deserved the judge's scorn. He turned his head away; he could not meet Marguerite's piteous eyes; he feared their mute reproach. Neither did he dare to look at the blind man in his shabby and heroic uniform, with his countenance aged by duty and glory. He feared him like remorse. So the vanquished lover turned his back on the two and went away with a firm step. Good-bye, Love! Goodbye, Happiness! . . . He marched quickly and bravely on; a miracle had just taken place within him! he had found the right road at last! To Paris! . . . A new impetus was going to fill the vacuum of his objectless existence. CHAPTER V THE INVASION Don Marcelo was fleeing to take refuge in his castle when he met the mayor of Villeblanche. The noise of the firing had made him hurry to the barricade. When he learned of the apparition of the group of stragglers he threw up his hands in despair. They were crazy. Their resistance was going to be fatal for the village, and he ran on to beg them to cease. For some time nothing happened to disturb the morning calm. Desnoyers had climbed to the top of his towers and was surveying the country with his field glasses. He couldn't make out the highway through the nearest group of trees, but he suspected that underneath their branches great activity was going on--masses of men on guard, troops preparing for the attack. The unexpected defense of the fugitives had upset the advance of the invasion. Desnoyers thought despairingly of that handful of mad fellows and their stubborn chief. What was their fate going to be? . . . Focussing his glasses on the village, he saw the red spots of kepis waving like poppies over the green of the meadows. They were the retreating men, now convinced of the uselessness of their resistance. Perhaps they had found a ford or forgotten boat by which they might cross the Maine, and so were continuing their retreat toward the river. At any minute now the Germans were going to enter Villeblanche. Half an hour of profound silence passed by. The village lay silhouetted against a background of hills--a mass of roofs beneath the church tower finished with its cross and iron weather cock. Everything seemed as tranquil as in the best days of peace. Suddenly he noticed that the grove was vomiting forth something noisy and penetrating--a bubble of vapor accompanied by a deafening report. Something was hurtling through the air with a strident curve. Then a roof in the village opened like a crater, vomiting forth flying wood, fragments of plaster and broken furniture. All the interior of the house seemed to be escaping in a stream of smoke, dirt and splinters. The invaders were bombarding Villeblanche before attempting attack, as though fearing to encounter persistent resistance in its streets. More projectiles fell. Some passed over the houses, exploding between the hamlet and the castle. The towers of the Desnoyers property were beginning to attract the aim of the artillerymen. The owner was therefore about to abandon his dangerous observatory when he saw something white like a tablecloth or sheet floating from the church tower. His neighbors had hoisted this signal of peace in order to avoid bombardment. A few more missiles fell and then there was silence. When Don Marcelo reached his park he found the Warden burying at the foot of a tree the sporting rifles still remaining in his castle. Then he went toward the great iron gates. The enemies were going to come, and he had to receive them. While uneasily awaiting their arrival his compunctions again tormented him. What was he doing there? Why had he remained? . . . But his obstinate temperament immediately put aside the promptings of fear. He was there because he had to guard his own. Besides, it was too late now to think about such things. Suddenly the morning stillness was broken by a sound like the deafening tearing of strong cloth. "Shots, Master," said the Warden. "Firing! It must be in the square." A few minutes after they saw running toward them a woman from the village, an old soul, dried up and darkened by age, who was panting from her great exertion, and looking wildly around her. She was fleeing blindly, trying to escape from danger and shut out horrible visions. Desnoyers and the Keeper's family listened to her explanations interrupted with hiccoughs of terror. The Germans were in Villeblanche. They had entered first in an automobile driven at full speed from one end of the village to the other. Its mitrailleuse was firing at random against closed houses and open doors, knocking down all the people in sight. The old woman flung up her arms with a gesture of terror. . . . Dead . . . many dead . . . wounded . . . blood! Then other iron-plated vehicles had stopped in the square, and behind them cavalrymen, battalions of infantry, many battalions coming from everywhere. The helmeted men seemed furious; they accused the villagers of having fired at them. In the square they had struck the mayor and villagers who had come forward to meet them. The priest, bending over some of the dying, had also been trodden under foot. . . . All prisoners! The Germans were talking of shooting them. The old dame's words were cut short by the rumble of approaching automobiles. "Open the gates," commanded the owner to the Warden. The massive iron grill work swung open, and was never again closed. All property rights were at an end. An enormous automobile, covered with dust and filled with men, stopped at the entrance. Behind them sounded the horns of other vehicles that were putting on the brakes. Desnoyers saw soldiers leaping out, all wearing the greenish-gray uniform with a sheath of the same tone covering the pointed casque. The one who marched at their head put his revolver to the millionaire's forehead. "Where are the sharpshooters?" he asked. He was pale with the pallor of wrath, vengeance and fear. His face was trembling under the influence of his triple emotion. Don Marcelo explained slowly, contemplating at a short distance from his eyes the black circle of the threatening tube. He had not seen any sharpshooters. The only inhabitants of the castle were the Warden with his family and himself, the owner of the castle. The officer surveyed the edifice and then examined Desnoyers with evident astonishment as though he thought his appearance too unpretentious for a proprietor. He had taken him for a simple employee, and his respect for social rank made him lower his revolver. He did not, however, alter his haughty attitude. He pressed Don Marcelo into the service as a guide, making him search ahead of him while forty soldiers grouped themselves at his back. They advanced in two files to the shelter of the trees which bordered the central avenue, with their guns ready to shoot, and looking uneasily at the castle windows as though expecting to receive from them hidden shots. Desnoyers marched tranquilly through the centre, and the official, who had been imitating the precautions of his men, finally joined him when he was crossing the drawbridge. The armed men scattered through the rooms in search of the enemy. They ran their bayonets through beds and divans. Some, with automatic destructiveness, slit the draperies and the rich bed coverings. The owner protested; what was the sense in such useless destruction? . . . He was suffering unbearable torture at seeing the enormous boots spotting the rugs with mud, on hearing the clash of guns and knapsacks against the most fragile, choicest pieces of furniture. Poor historic mansion! . . . The officer looked amazed that he should protest for such trifling cause, but he gave orders in German and his men ceased their rude explorations. Then, in justification of this extraordinary respect, he added in French: "I believe that you are going to have the honor of entertaining here the general of our division." The certainty that the castle did not hold any hidden enemies made him more amiable. He, nevertheless, persisted in his wrath against the sharpshooters. A group of the villagers had opened fire upon the Uhlans when they were entering unsuspiciously after the retreat of the French. Desnoyers felt it necessary to protest. They were neither inhabitants nor sharpshooters; they were French soldiers. He took good care to be silent about their presence at the barricade, but he insisted that he had distinguished their uniforms from a tower of the castle. The official made a threatening face. "You, too? . . . You, who appear a reasonable man, can repeat such yarns as these?" And in order to close the conversation, he said, arrogantly: "They were wearing uniforms, then, if you persist in saying so, but they were sharpshooters just the same. The French Government has distributed arms and uniforms among the farmers that they may assassinate us. . . . Belgium did the same thing. . . . But we know their tricks, and we know how to punish them, too!" The village was going to be burned. It was necessary to avenge the four German dead lying on the outskirts of Villeblanche, near the barricade. The mayor, the priest, the principal inhabitants would all be shot. By the time they reached the top floor Desnoyers could see floating above the boughs of his park dark clouds whose outlines were reddened by the sun. The top of the bell tower was the only thing that he could distinguish at that distance. Around the iron weathercock were flying long thin fringes like black cobwebs lifted by the breeze. An odor of burning wood came toward the castle. The German greeted this spectacle with a cruel smile. Then on descending to the park, he ordered Desnoyers to follow him. His liberty and his dignity had come to an end. Henceforth he was going to be an underling at the beck and call of these men who would dispose of him as their whims directed. Ay, why had he remained? . . . He obeyed, climbing into an automobile beside the officer, who was still carrying his revolver in his right hand. His men distributed themselves through the castle and outbuildings, in order to prevent the flight of an imaginary enemy. The Warden and his family seemed to be saying good-bye to him with their eyes. Perhaps they were taking him to his death. . . . Beyond the castle woods a new world was coming into existence. The short cut to Villeblanche seemed to Desnoyers a leap of millions of leagues, a fall into a red planet where men and things were covered with the film of smoke and the glare of fire. He saw the village under a dark canopy spotted with sparks and glowing embers. The bell tower was burning like an enormous torch; the roof of the church was breaking into flames with a crashing fury. The glare of the holocaust seemed to shrivel and grow pale in the impassive light of the sun. Running across the fields with the haste of desperation were shrieking women and children. The animals had escaped from the stables, and driven forth by the flames were racing wildly across the country. The cow and the work horse were dragging their halters broken by their flight. Their flanks were smoking and smelt of burnt hair. The pigs, the sheep and the chickens were all tearing along mingled with the cats and the dogs. All the domestic animals were returning to a brute existence, fleeing from civilized man. Shots were heard and hellish ha-ha's. The soldiers outside of the village were making themselves merry in this hunt for fugitives. Their guns were aimed at beasts and were hitting people. Desnoyers saw men, many men, men everywhere. They were like gray ants, marching in endless files towards the South, coming out from the woods, filling the roads, crossing the fields. The green of vegetation was disappearing under their tread; the dust was rising in spirals behind the dull roll of the cannons and the measured trot of thousands of horses. On the roadside several battalions had halted, with their accompaniment of vehicles and draw horses. They were resting before renewing their march. He knew this army. He had seen it in Berlin on parade, and yet it seemed to have changed its former appearance. There now remained very little of the heavy and imposing glitter, of the mute and vainglorious haughtiness which had made his relatives-in-law weep with admiration. War, with its realism, had wiped out all that was theatrical about this formidable organization of death. The soldiers appeared dirty and tired, out. The respiration of fat and sweaty bodies, mixed with the strong smell of leather, floated over the regiments. All the men had hungry faces. For days and nights they had been following the heels of an enemy which was always just eluding their grasp. In this forced advance the provisions of the administration would often arrive so late at the cantonments that they could depend only on what they happened to have in their knapsacks. Desnoyers saw them lined up near the road devouring hunks of black bread and mouldy sausages. Some had scattered through the fields to dig up beet roots and other tubers, chewing with loud crunchings the hard pulp to which the grit still adhered. An ensign was shaking the fruit trees using as a catch-all the flag of his regiment. That glorious standard, adorned with souvenirs of 1870, was serving as a receptacle for green plums. Those who were seated on the ground were improving this rest by drawing their perspiring, swollen feet from high boots which were sending out an insufferable smell. The regiments of infantry which Desnoyers had seen in Berlin reflecting the light on metal and leather straps, the magnificent and terrifying Hussars, the Cuirassiers in pure white uniform like the paladins of the Holy Grail, the artillerymen with breasts crossed with white bands, all the military variations that on parade had drawn forth the Hartrotts' sighs of admiration--these were now all unified and mixed together, of uniform color, all in greenish mustard like the dusty lizards that, slipping along, try to be confounded with the earth. The persistency of the iron discipline was easily discernible. A word from the chiefs, the sound of a whistle, and they all grouped themselves together, the human being disappearing in the throngs of automatons; but danger, weariness, and the uncertainty of triumph had for the time being brought officers and men nearer together, obliterating caste distinction. The officers were coming part way out of their overbearing, haughty seclusion, and were condescending to talk with the lower orders so as to revive their courage. One effort more and they would overwhelm both French and English, repeating the triumph of Sedan, whose anniversary they were going to celebrate in a few days! They were going to enter Paris; it was only a matter of a week. Paris! Great shops filled with luxurious things, famous restaurants, women, champagne, money. . . . And the men, flattered that their commanders were stooping to chat with them, forgot fatigue and hunger, reviving like the throngs of the Crusade before the image of Jerusalem. "Nach Paris!" The joyous shout circulated from the head to the tail of the marching columns. "To Paris! To Paris!" The scarcity of their food supply was here supplemented by the products of a country rich in wines. When sacking houses they rarely found eatables, but invariably a wine cellar. The humble German, the perpetual beer drinker, who had always looked upon wine as a privilege of the rich, could now open up casks with blows from his weapons, even bathing his feet in the stream of precious liquid. Every battalion left as a souvenir of its passing a wake of empty bottles; a halt in camp sowed the land with glass cylinders. The regimental trucks, unable to renew their stores of provisions, were accustomed to seize the wine in all the towns. The soldier, lacking bread, would receive alcohol. . . . This donation was always accompanied by the good counsels of the officers--War is war; no pity toward our adversaries who do not deserve it. The French were shooting their prisoners, and their women were putting out the eyes of the wounded. Every dwelling was a den of traps. The simple-hearted and innocent German entering therein was going to certain death. The beds were made over subterranean caves, the wardrobes were make-believe doors, in every corner was lurking an assassin. This traitorous nation, which was arranging its ground like the scenario of a melodrama, would have to be chastised. The municipal officers, the priests, the schoolmasters were directing and protecting the sharpshooters. Desnoyers was shocked at the indifference with which these men were stalking around the burning village. They did not appear to see the fire and destruction; it was just an ordinary spectacle, not worth looking at. Ever since they had crossed the frontier, smoldering and blasted villages, fired by the advance guard, had marked their halting places on Belgian and French soil. When entering Villeblanche the automobile had

child

How many times the word 'child' appears in the text?

would discover my identity and leave me, yet at the same time, wishing that he would recognize me and pardon me. . . . It is only one week that I have been with him. I disguise my voice when I can, and avoid words that may reveal the truth . . . but this cannot keep up much longer. It is only in novels that such painful situations turn out happily." Doubt suddenly overwhelmed her. "I believe," she continued, "that he has recognized me from the first. . . . He is silent and feigns ignorance because he despises me . . . because he can never bring himself to pardon me. I have been so bad! . . . I have wronged him so!". . . She was recalling the long and reflective silences of the wounded man after she had dropped some imprudent words. After two days of submission to her care, he had been somewhat rebellious, avoiding going out with her for a walk. Because of his blind helplessness, and comprehending the uselessness of his resistance, he had finally yielded in passive silence. "Let him think what he will!" concluded Marguerite courageously. "Let him despise me! I am here where I ought to be. I need his forgiveness, but if he does not pardon me, I shall stay with him just the same. . . . There are moments when I wish that he may never recover his sight, so that he may always need me, so that I may pass my life at his side, sacrificing everything for him." "And I?" said Desnoyers. Marguerite looked at him with clouded eyes as though she were just awaking. It was true--and the other one? . . . Kindled by the proposed sacrifice which was to be her expiation, she had forgotten the man before her. "You!" she said after a long pause. "You must leave me. . . . Life is not what we have thought it. Had it not been for the war, we might, perhaps, have realized our dream, but now! . . . Listen carefully and try to understand. For the remainder of my life, I shall carry the heaviest burden, and yet at the same time it will be sweet, since the more it weighs me down the greater will my atonement be. Never will I leave this man whom I have so grievously wronged, now that he is more alone in the world and will need protection like a child. Why do you come to share my fate? How could it be possible for you to live with a nurse constantly at the side of a blind and worthy man whom we would constantly offend with our passion? . . . No, it is better for us to part. Go your way, alone and untrammelled. Leave me; you will meet other women who will make you more happy than I. Yours is the temperament that finds new pleasures at every step." She stood firmly to her decision. Her voice was calm, but back of it trembled the emotion of a last farewell to a joy which was going from her forever. The man would be loved by others . . . and she was giving him up! . . . But the noble sadness of the sacrifice restored her courage. Only by this renunciation could she expiate her sins. Julio dropped his eyes, vanquished and perplexed. The picture of the future outlined by Marguerite terrified him. To live with her as a nurse taking advantage of her patient's blindness would be to offer him fresh insult every day. . . . Ah, no! That would be villainy, indeed! He was now ashamed to recall the malignity with which, a little while before, he had regarded this innocent unfortunate. He realized that he was powerless to contend with him. Weak and helpless as he was sitting there on the garden bench, he was stronger and more deserving of respect than Julio Desnoyers with all his youth and elegance. The victim had amounted to something in his life; he had done what Julio had not dared to do. This sudden conviction of his inferiority made him cry out like an abandoned child, "What will become of me?" . . . Marguerite, too--contemplating the love which was going from her forever, her vanished hopes, the future illumined by the satisfaction of duty fulfilled but monotonous and painful--cried out: "And I. . . . What will become of me?" . . . As though he had suddenly found a solution which was reviving his courage, Desnoyers said: "Listen, Marguerite: I can read your soul. You love this man, and you do well. He is superior to me, and women are always attracted by superiority. . . . I am a coward. Yes, do not protest, I am a coward with all my youth, with all my strength. Why should you not have been impressed by the conduct of this man! . . . But I will atone for past wrongs. This country is yours, Marguerite; I will fight for it. Do not say no. . . ." And moved by his hasty heroism, he outlined the plan more definitely. He was going to be a soldier. Soon she would hear him well spoken of. His idea was either to be stretched on the battlefield in his first encounter, or to astound the world by his bravery. In this way the impossible situation would settle itself--either the oblivion of death or glory. "No, no!" interrupted Marguerite in an anguished tone. "You, no! One is enough. . . . How horrible! You, too, wounded, mutilated forever, perhaps dead! . . . No, you must live. I want you to live, even though you might belong to another. . . . Let me know that you exist, let me see you sometimes, even though you may have forgotten me, even though you may pass me with indifference, as if you did not know me." In this outburst her deep love for him rang true--her heroic and inflexible love which would accept all penalties for herself, if only the beloved one might continue to live. But then, in order that Julio might not feel any false hopes, she added:--"Live; you must not die; that would be for me another torment. . . . But live without me. No matter how much we may talk about it, my destiny beside the other one is marked out forever." "Ah, how you love him! . . . How you have deceived me!" In a last desperate attempt at explanation she again repeated what she had said at the beginning of their interview. She loved Julio . . . and she loved her husband. They were different kinds of love. She could not say which was the stronger, but misfortune was forcing her to choose between the two, and she was accepting the most difficult, the one demanding the greatest sacrifices. "You are a man, and you will never be able to understand me. . . . A woman would comprehend me." It seemed to Julio, as he looked around him, as though the afternoon were undergoing some celestial phenomenon. The garden was still illuminated by the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the ground, the blue of the sky, all appeared to him as dark and shadowy as though a rain of ashes were falling. "Then . . . all is over between us?" His pleading, trembling voice charged with tears made her turn her head to hide her emotion. Then in the painful silence the two despairs formed one and the same question, as if interrogating the shades of the future: "What will become of me?" murmured the man. And like an echo her lips repeated, "What will become of me?" All had been said. Hopeless words came between the two like an obstacle momentarily increasing in size, impelling them in opposite directions. Why prolong the painful interview? . . . Marguerite showed the ready and energetic decision of a woman who wishes to bring a scene to a close. "Good-bye!" Her face had assumed a yellowish cast, her pupils had become dull and clouded like the glass of a lantern when the light dies out. "Good-bye!" She must go to her patient. She went away without looking at him, and Desnoyers instinctively went in the opposite direction. As he became more self-controlled and turned to look at her again, he saw her moving on and giving her arm to the blind man, without once turning her head. He now felt convinced that he should never see her again, and became oppressed by an almost suffocating agony. And could two beings, who had formerly considered the universe concentrated in their persons, thus easily be separated forever? . . . His desperation at finding himself alone made him accuse himself of stupidity. Now his thoughts came tumbling over each other in a tumultuous throng, and each one of them seemed to him sufficient to have convinced Marguerite. He certainly had not known how to express himself. He would have to talk with her again . . . and he decided to remain in Lourdes. He passed a night of torture in the hotel, listening to the ripple of the river among its stones. Insomnia had him in his fierce jaws, gnawing him with interminable agony. He turned on the light several times, but was not able to read. His eyes looked with stupid fixity at the patterns of the wall paper and the pious pictures around the room which had evidently served as the lodging place of some rich traveller. He remained motionless and as abstracted as an Oriental who thinks himself into an absolute lack of thought. One idea only was dancing in the vacuum in his skull--"I shall never see her again. . . . Can such a thing be possible?" He drowsed for a few seconds, only to be awakened with the sensation that some horrible explosion was sending him through the air. And so, with sweats of anguish, he wakefully passed the hours until in the gloom of his room the dawn showed a milky rectangle of light, and began to be reflected on the window curtains. The velvet-like caress of day finally closed his eyes. Upon awaking he found that the morning was well advanced, and he hurried to the garden of the grotto. . . . Oh, the hours of tremulous and unavailing waiting, believing that he recognized Marguerite in every white-clad lady that came along, guiding a wounded patient! By afternoon, after a lunch whose dishes filed past him untouched, he returned to the garden in search of her. Beholding her in the distance with the blind man leaning on her arm, a feeling of faintness came over him. She looked to him taller, thinner, her face sharper, with two dark hollows in her cheeks and her eyes bright with fever, the lids drawn with weariness. He suspected that she, too, had passed an anguished night of tenacious, self-centred thought, of grievous stupefaction like his own, in the room of her hotel. Suddenly he felt all the weight of insomnia and listlessness, all the depressing emotion of the cruel sensations experienced in the last few hours. Oh, how miserable they both were! . . . She was walking warily, looking from one side to the other, as though foreseeing danger. Upon discovering him she clung to her charge, casting upon her former lover a look of entreaty, of desperation, imploring pity. . . Ay, that look! He felt ashamed of himself; his personality appeared to be unrolling itself before him, and he surveyed himself with the eyes of a judge. What was this seduced and useless man, called Julio Desnoyers, doing there, tormenting with his presence a poor woman, trying to turn her from her righteous repentance, insisting on his selfish and petty desires when all humanity was thinking of other things? . . . His cowardice angered him. Like a thief taking advantage of the sleep of his victim, he was stalking around this brave and true man who could not see him, who could not defend himself, in order to rob him of the only affection that he had in the world which had so miraculously returned to him! Very well, Gentleman Desnoyers! . . . Ah, what a scoundrel he was! Such subconscious insults made him draw himself erect, in haughty, cruel and inexorable defiance against that other I who so richly deserved the judge's scorn. He turned his head away; he could not meet Marguerite's piteous eyes; he feared their mute reproach. Neither did he dare to look at the blind man in his shabby and heroic uniform, with his countenance aged by duty and glory. He feared him like remorse. So the vanquished lover turned his back on the two and went away with a firm step. Good-bye, Love! Goodbye, Happiness! . . . He marched quickly and bravely on; a miracle had just taken place within him! he had found the right road at last! To Paris! . . . A new impetus was going to fill the vacuum of his objectless existence. CHAPTER V THE INVASION Don Marcelo was fleeing to take refuge in his castle when he met the mayor of Villeblanche. The noise of the firing had made him hurry to the barricade. When he learned of the apparition of the group of stragglers he threw up his hands in despair. They were crazy. Their resistance was going to be fatal for the village, and he ran on to beg them to cease. For some time nothing happened to disturb the morning calm. Desnoyers had climbed to the top of his towers and was surveying the country with his field glasses. He couldn't make out the highway through the nearest group of trees, but he suspected that underneath their branches great activity was going on--masses of men on guard, troops preparing for the attack. The unexpected defense of the fugitives had upset the advance of the invasion. Desnoyers thought despairingly of that handful of mad fellows and their stubborn chief. What was their fate going to be? . . . Focussing his glasses on the village, he saw the red spots of kepis waving like poppies over the green of the meadows. They were the retreating men, now convinced of the uselessness of their resistance. Perhaps they had found a ford or forgotten boat by which they might cross the Maine, and so were continuing their retreat toward the river. At any minute now the Germans were going to enter Villeblanche. Half an hour of profound silence passed by. The village lay silhouetted against a background of hills--a mass of roofs beneath the church tower finished with its cross and iron weather cock. Everything seemed as tranquil as in the best days of peace. Suddenly he noticed that the grove was vomiting forth something noisy and penetrating--a bubble of vapor accompanied by a deafening report. Something was hurtling through the air with a strident curve. Then a roof in the village opened like a crater, vomiting forth flying wood, fragments of plaster and broken furniture. All the interior of the house seemed to be escaping in a stream of smoke, dirt and splinters. The invaders were bombarding Villeblanche before attempting attack, as though fearing to encounter persistent resistance in its streets. More projectiles fell. Some passed over the houses, exploding between the hamlet and the castle. The towers of the Desnoyers property were beginning to attract the aim of the artillerymen. The owner was therefore about to abandon his dangerous observatory when he saw something white like a tablecloth or sheet floating from the church tower. His neighbors had hoisted this signal of peace in order to avoid bombardment. A few more missiles fell and then there was silence. When Don Marcelo reached his park he found the Warden burying at the foot of a tree the sporting rifles still remaining in his castle. Then he went toward the great iron gates. The enemies were going to come, and he had to receive them. While uneasily awaiting their arrival his compunctions again tormented him. What was he doing there? Why had he remained? . . . But his obstinate temperament immediately put aside the promptings of fear. He was there because he had to guard his own. Besides, it was too late now to think about such things. Suddenly the morning stillness was broken by a sound like the deafening tearing of strong cloth. "Shots, Master," said the Warden. "Firing! It must be in the square." A few minutes after they saw running toward them a woman from the village, an old soul, dried up and darkened by age, who was panting from her great exertion, and looking wildly around her. She was fleeing blindly, trying to escape from danger and shut out horrible visions. Desnoyers and the Keeper's family listened to her explanations interrupted with hiccoughs of terror. The Germans were in Villeblanche. They had entered first in an automobile driven at full speed from one end of the village to the other. Its mitrailleuse was firing at random against closed houses and open doors, knocking down all the people in sight. The old woman flung up her arms with a gesture of terror. . . . Dead . . . many dead . . . wounded . . . blood! Then other iron-plated vehicles had stopped in the square, and behind them cavalrymen, battalions of infantry, many battalions coming from everywhere. The helmeted men seemed furious; they accused the villagers of having fired at them. In the square they had struck the mayor and villagers who had come forward to meet them. The priest, bending over some of the dying, had also been trodden under foot. . . . All prisoners! The Germans were talking of shooting them. The old dame's words were cut short by the rumble of approaching automobiles. "Open the gates," commanded the owner to the Warden. The massive iron grill work swung open, and was never again closed. All property rights were at an end. An enormous automobile, covered with dust and filled with men, stopped at the entrance. Behind them sounded the horns of other vehicles that were putting on the brakes. Desnoyers saw soldiers leaping out, all wearing the greenish-gray uniform with a sheath of the same tone covering the pointed casque. The one who marched at their head put his revolver to the millionaire's forehead. "Where are the sharpshooters?" he asked. He was pale with the pallor of wrath, vengeance and fear. His face was trembling under the influence of his triple emotion. Don Marcelo explained slowly, contemplating at a short distance from his eyes the black circle of the threatening tube. He had not seen any sharpshooters. The only inhabitants of the castle were the Warden with his family and himself, the owner of the castle. The officer surveyed the edifice and then examined Desnoyers with evident astonishment as though he thought his appearance too unpretentious for a proprietor. He had taken him for a simple employee, and his respect for social rank made him lower his revolver. He did not, however, alter his haughty attitude. He pressed Don Marcelo into the service as a guide, making him search ahead of him while forty soldiers grouped themselves at his back. They advanced in two files to the shelter of the trees which bordered the central avenue, with their guns ready to shoot, and looking uneasily at the castle windows as though expecting to receive from them hidden shots. Desnoyers marched tranquilly through the centre, and the official, who had been imitating the precautions of his men, finally joined him when he was crossing the drawbridge. The armed men scattered through the rooms in search of the enemy. They ran their bayonets through beds and divans. Some, with automatic destructiveness, slit the draperies and the rich bed coverings. The owner protested; what was the sense in such useless destruction? . . . He was suffering unbearable torture at seeing the enormous boots spotting the rugs with mud, on hearing the clash of guns and knapsacks against the most fragile, choicest pieces of furniture. Poor historic mansion! . . . The officer looked amazed that he should protest for such trifling cause, but he gave orders in German and his men ceased their rude explorations. Then, in justification of this extraordinary respect, he added in French: "I believe that you are going to have the honor of entertaining here the general of our division." The certainty that the castle did not hold any hidden enemies made him more amiable. He, nevertheless, persisted in his wrath against the sharpshooters. A group of the villagers had opened fire upon the Uhlans when they were entering unsuspiciously after the retreat of the French. Desnoyers felt it necessary to protest. They were neither inhabitants nor sharpshooters; they were French soldiers. He took good care to be silent about their presence at the barricade, but he insisted that he had distinguished their uniforms from a tower of the castle. The official made a threatening face. "You, too? . . . You, who appear a reasonable man, can repeat such yarns as these?" And in order to close the conversation, he said, arrogantly: "They were wearing uniforms, then, if you persist in saying so, but they were sharpshooters just the same. The French Government has distributed arms and uniforms among the farmers that they may assassinate us. . . . Belgium did the same thing. . . . But we know their tricks, and we know how to punish them, too!" The village was going to be burned. It was necessary to avenge the four German dead lying on the outskirts of Villeblanche, near the barricade. The mayor, the priest, the principal inhabitants would all be shot. By the time they reached the top floor Desnoyers could see floating above the boughs of his park dark clouds whose outlines were reddened by the sun. The top of the bell tower was the only thing that he could distinguish at that distance. Around the iron weathercock were flying long thin fringes like black cobwebs lifted by the breeze. An odor of burning wood came toward the castle. The German greeted this spectacle with a cruel smile. Then on descending to the park, he ordered Desnoyers to follow him. His liberty and his dignity had come to an end. Henceforth he was going to be an underling at the beck and call of these men who would dispose of him as their whims directed. Ay, why had he remained? . . . He obeyed, climbing into an automobile beside the officer, who was still carrying his revolver in his right hand. His men distributed themselves through the castle and outbuildings, in order to prevent the flight of an imaginary enemy. The Warden and his family seemed to be saying good-bye to him with their eyes. Perhaps they were taking him to his death. . . . Beyond the castle woods a new world was coming into existence. The short cut to Villeblanche seemed to Desnoyers a leap of millions of leagues, a fall into a red planet where men and things were covered with the film of smoke and the glare of fire. He saw the village under a dark canopy spotted with sparks and glowing embers. The bell tower was burning like an enormous torch; the roof of the church was breaking into flames with a crashing fury. The glare of the holocaust seemed to shrivel and grow pale in the impassive light of the sun. Running across the fields with the haste of desperation were shrieking women and children. The animals had escaped from the stables, and driven forth by the flames were racing wildly across the country. The cow and the work horse were dragging their halters broken by their flight. Their flanks were smoking and smelt of burnt hair. The pigs, the sheep and the chickens were all tearing along mingled with the cats and the dogs. All the domestic animals were returning to a brute existence, fleeing from civilized man. Shots were heard and hellish ha-ha's. The soldiers outside of the village were making themselves merry in this hunt for fugitives. Their guns were aimed at beasts and were hitting people. Desnoyers saw men, many men, men everywhere. They were like gray ants, marching in endless files towards the South, coming out from the woods, filling the roads, crossing the fields. The green of vegetation was disappearing under their tread; the dust was rising in spirals behind the dull roll of the cannons and the measured trot of thousands of horses. On the roadside several battalions had halted, with their accompaniment of vehicles and draw horses. They were resting before renewing their march. He knew this army. He had seen it in Berlin on parade, and yet it seemed to have changed its former appearance. There now remained very little of the heavy and imposing glitter, of the mute and vainglorious haughtiness which had made his relatives-in-law weep with admiration. War, with its realism, had wiped out all that was theatrical about this formidable organization of death. The soldiers appeared dirty and tired, out. The respiration of fat and sweaty bodies, mixed with the strong smell of leather, floated over the regiments. All the men had hungry faces. For days and nights they had been following the heels of an enemy which was always just eluding their grasp. In this forced advance the provisions of the administration would often arrive so late at the cantonments that they could depend only on what they happened to have in their knapsacks. Desnoyers saw them lined up near the road devouring hunks of black bread and mouldy sausages. Some had scattered through the fields to dig up beet roots and other tubers, chewing with loud crunchings the hard pulp to which the grit still adhered. An ensign was shaking the fruit trees using as a catch-all the flag of his regiment. That glorious standard, adorned with souvenirs of 1870, was serving as a receptacle for green plums. Those who were seated on the ground were improving this rest by drawing their perspiring, swollen feet from high boots which were sending out an insufferable smell. The regiments of infantry which Desnoyers had seen in Berlin reflecting the light on metal and leather straps, the magnificent and terrifying Hussars, the Cuirassiers in pure white uniform like the paladins of the Holy Grail, the artillerymen with breasts crossed with white bands, all the military variations that on parade had drawn forth the Hartrotts' sighs of admiration--these were now all unified and mixed together, of uniform color, all in greenish mustard like the dusty lizards that, slipping along, try to be confounded with the earth. The persistency of the iron discipline was easily discernible. A word from the chiefs, the sound of a whistle, and they all grouped themselves together, the human being disappearing in the throngs of automatons; but danger, weariness, and the uncertainty of triumph had for the time being brought officers and men nearer together, obliterating caste distinction. The officers were coming part way out of their overbearing, haughty seclusion, and were condescending to talk with the lower orders so as to revive their courage. One effort more and they would overwhelm both French and English, repeating the triumph of Sedan, whose anniversary they were going to celebrate in a few days! They were going to enter Paris; it was only a matter of a week. Paris! Great shops filled with luxurious things, famous restaurants, women, champagne, money. . . . And the men, flattered that their commanders were stooping to chat with them, forgot fatigue and hunger, reviving like the throngs of the Crusade before the image of Jerusalem. "Nach Paris!" The joyous shout circulated from the head to the tail of the marching columns. "To Paris! To Paris!" The scarcity of their food supply was here supplemented by the products of a country rich in wines. When sacking houses they rarely found eatables, but invariably a wine cellar. The humble German, the perpetual beer drinker, who had always looked upon wine as a privilege of the rich, could now open up casks with blows from his weapons, even bathing his feet in the stream of precious liquid. Every battalion left as a souvenir of its passing a wake of empty bottles; a halt in camp sowed the land with glass cylinders. The regimental trucks, unable to renew their stores of provisions, were accustomed to seize the wine in all the towns. The soldier, lacking bread, would receive alcohol. . . . This donation was always accompanied by the good counsels of the officers--War is war; no pity toward our adversaries who do not deserve it. The French were shooting their prisoners, and their women were putting out the eyes of the wounded. Every dwelling was a den of traps. The simple-hearted and innocent German entering therein was going to certain death. The beds were made over subterranean caves, the wardrobes were make-believe doors, in every corner was lurking an assassin. This traitorous nation, which was arranging its ground like the scenario of a melodrama, would have to be chastised. The municipal officers, the priests, the schoolmasters were directing and protecting the sharpshooters. Desnoyers was shocked at the indifference with which these men were stalking around the burning village. They did not appear to see the fire and destruction; it was just an ordinary spectacle, not worth looking at. Ever since they had crossed the frontier, smoldering and blasted villages, fired by the advance guard, had marked their halting places on Belgian and French soil. When entering Villeblanche the automobile had

true

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would have done a manifest injury to Miss Dunstable in forcing her to declare her thoughts and feelings. She had already spoken to her uncle in London, and though he had said nothing to show that he approved of her plan, neither had he said anything to show that he disapproved it. Therefore she had hoped through the whole of those three days that he would make some sign,--at any rate to her; that he would in some way declare what were his own thoughts on this matter. But the morning of his departure came, and he had declared nothing. "Uncle," she said, in the last five minutes of his sojourn there, after he had already taken leave of Miss Dunstable and shaken hands with Mrs. Gresham, "have you ever thought of what I said to you up in London?" "Yes, Mary; of course I have thought about it. Such an idea as that, when put into a man's head, will make itself thought about." "Well; and what next? Do talk to me about it. Do not be so hard and unlike yourself." "I have very little to say about it." "I can tell you this for certain, you may if you like." "Mary! Mary!" "I would not say so if I were not sure that I should not lead you into trouble." "You are foolish in wishing this, my dear; foolish in trying to tempt an old man into a folly." "Not foolish if I know that it will make you both happier." He made her no further reply, but stooping down that she might kiss him, as was his wont, went his way, leaving her almost miserable in the thought that she had troubled all these waters to no purpose. What would Miss Dunstable think of her? But on that afternoon Miss Dunstable seemed to be as happy and even-tempered as ever. CHAPTER XXXIX. HOW TO WRITE A LOVE LETTER. Dr. Thorne, in the few words which he spoke to his niece before he left Boxall Hill, had called himself an old man; but he was as yet on the right side of sixty by five good years, and bore about with him less of the marks of age than most men of fifty-five do bear. One would have said in looking at him that there was no reason why he should not marry if he found that such a step seemed good to him; and looking at the age of the proposed bride, there was nothing unsuitable in that respect. But nevertheless he felt almost ashamed of himself, in that he allowed himself even to think of the proposition which his niece had made. He mounted his horse that day at Boxall Hill--for he made all his journeys about the county on horseback--and rode slowly home to Greshamsbury, thinking not so much of the suggested marriage as of his own folly in thinking of it. How could he be such an ass at his time of life as to allow the even course of his way to be disturbed by any such idea? Of course he could not propose to himself such a wife as Miss Dunstable without having some thoughts as to her wealth; and it had been the pride of his life so to live that the world might know that he was indifferent about money. His profession was all in all to him,--the air which he breathed as well as the bread which he ate; and how could he follow his profession if he made such a marriage as this? She would expect him to go to London with her; and what would he become, dangling at her heels there, known only to the world as the husband of the richest woman in the town? The kind of life was one which would be unsuitable to him;--and yet, as he rode home, he could not resolve to rid himself of the idea. He went on thinking of it, though he still continued to condemn himself for keeping it in his thoughts. That night at home he would make up his mind, so he declared to himself; and would then write to his niece begging her to drop the subject. Having so far come to a resolution he went on meditating what course of life it might be well for him to pursue if he and Miss Dunstable should, after all, become man and wife. There were two ladies whom it behoved him to see on the day of his arrival--whom, indeed, he generally saw every day except when absent from Greshamsbury. The first of these--first in the general consideration of the people of the place--was the wife of the squire, Lady Arabella Gresham, a very old patient of the doctor's. Her it was his custom to visit early in the afternoon; and then, if he were able to escape the squire's daily invitation to dinner, he customarily went to the other, Lady Scatcherd, when the rapid meal in his own house was over. Such, at least, was his summer practice. "Well, doctor, how are they at Boxall Hill?" said the squire, waylaying him on the gravel sweep before the door. The squire was very hard set for occupation in these summer months. "Quite well, I believe." "I don't know what's come to Frank. I think he hates this place now. He's full of the election, I suppose." "Oh, yes; he told me to say he should be over here soon. Of course there'll be no contest, so he need not trouble himself." "Happy dog, isn't he, doctor? to have it all before him instead of behind him. Well, well; he's as good a lad as ever lived,--as ever lived. And let me see; Mary's time--" And then there were a few very important words spoken on that subject. "I'll just step up to Lady Arabella now," said the doctor. "She's as fretful as possible," said the squire. "I've just left her." "Nothing special the matter, I hope?" "No, I think not; nothing in your way, that is; only specially cross, which always comes in my way. You'll stop and dine to-day, of course?" "Not to-day, squire." "Nonsense; you will. I have been quite counting on you. I have a particular reason for wanting to have you to-day,--a most particular reason." But the squire always had his particular reasons. "I'm very sorry, but it is impossible to-day. I shall have a letter to write that I must sit down to seriously. Shall I see you when I come down from her ladyship?" The squire turned away sulkily, almost without answering him, for he now had no prospect of any alleviation to the tedium of the evening; and the doctor went up-stairs to his patient. For Lady Arabella, though it cannot be said that she was ill, was always a patient. It must not be supposed that she kept her bed and swallowed daily doses, or was prevented from taking her share in such prosy gaieties as came from time to time in the way of her prosy life; but it suited her turn of mind to be an invalid and to have a doctor; and as the doctor whom her good fates had placed at her elbow thoroughly understood her case, no great harm was done. "It frets me dreadfully that I cannot get to see Mary," Lady Arabella said, as soon as the first ordinary question as to her ailments had been asked and answered. "She's quite well and will be over to see you before long." "Now I beg that she won't. She never thinks of coming when there can be no possible objection, and travelling, at the present moment, would be--" Whereupon the Lady Arabella shook her head very gravely. "Only think of the importance of it, doctor," she said. "Remember the enormous stake there is to be considered." "It would not do her a ha'porth of harm if the stake were twice as large." "Nonsense, doctor, don't tell me; as if I didn't know myself. I was very much against her going to London this spring, but of course what I said was overruled. It always is. I do believe Mr. Gresham went over to Boxall Hill, on purpose to induce her to go. But what does he care? He's fond of Frank; but he never thinks of looking beyond the present day. He never did, as you know well enough, doctor." "The trip did her all the good in the world," said Dr. Thorne, preferring anything to a conversation respecting the squire's sins. "I very well remember that when I was in that way it wasn't thought that such trips would do me any good. But, perhaps, things are altered since then." "Yes, they are," said the doctor. "We don't interfere so much now-a-days." "I know I never asked for such amusements when so much depended on quietness. I remember before Frank was born--and, indeed, when all of them were born-- But as you say, things were different then; and I can easily believe that Mary is a person quite determined to have her own way." "Why, Lady Arabella, she would have stayed at home without wishing to stir if Frank had done so much as hold up his little finger." "So did I always. If Mr. Gresham made the slightest hint I gave way. But I really don't see what one gets in return for such implicit obedience. Now this year, doctor, of course I should have liked to have been up in London for a week or two. You seemed to think yourself that I might as well see Sir Omicron." "There could be no possible objection, I said." "Well; no; exactly; and as Mr. Gresham knew I wished it, I think he might as well have offered it. I suppose there can be no reason now about money." "But I understood that Mary specially asked you and Augusta?" "Yes; Mary was very good. She did ask me. But I know very well that Mary wants all the room she has got in London. The house is not at all too large for herself. And, for the matter of that, my sister, the countess, was very anxious that I should be with her. But one does like to be independent if one can, and for one fortnight I do think that Mr. Gresham might have managed it. When I knew that he was so dreadfully out at elbows I never troubled him about it,--though, goodness knows, all that was never my fault." "The squire hates London. A fortnight there in warm weather would nearly be the death of him." "He might at any rate have paid me the compliment of asking me. The chances are ten to one I should not have gone. It is that indifference that cuts me so. He was here just now, and, would you believe it?--" But the doctor was determined to avoid further complaint for the present day. "I wonder what you would feel, Lady Arabella, if the squire were to take it into his head to go away and amuse himself, leaving you at home. There are worse men than Mr. Gresham, if you will believe me." All this was an allusion to Earl de Courcy, her ladyship's brother, as Lady Arabella very well understood; and the argument was one which was very often used to silence her. "Upon my word, then, I should like it better than his hanging about here doing nothing but attend to those nasty dogs. I really sometimes think that he has no spirit left." "You are mistaken there, Lady Arabella," said the doctor, rising with his hat in his hand and making his escape without further parley. As he went home he could not but think that that phase of married life was not a very pleasant one. Mr. Gresham and his wife were supposed by the world to live on the best of terms. They always inhabited the same house, went out together when they did go out, always sat in their respective corners in the family pew, and in their wildest dreams after the happiness of novelty never thought of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. In some respects--with regard, for instance, to the continued duration of their joint domesticity at the family mansion of Greshamsbury--they might have been taken for a pattern couple. But yet, as far as the doctor could see, they did not seem to add much to the happiness of each other. They loved each other, doubtless, and had either of them been in real danger, that danger would have made the other miserable; but yet it might well be a question whether either would not be more comfortable without the other. The doctor, as was his custom, dined at five, and at seven he went up to the cottage of his old friend Lady Scatcherd. Lady Scatcherd was not a refined woman, having in her early days been a labourer's daughter and having then married a labourer. But her husband had risen in the world--as has been told in those chronicles before mentioned,--and his widow was now Lady Scatcherd with a pretty cottage and a good jointure. She was in all things the very opposite to Lady Arabella Gresham; nevertheless, under the doctor's auspices, the two ladies were in some measure acquainted with each other. Of her married life, also, Dr. Thorne had seen something, and it may be questioned whether the memory of that was more alluring than the reality now existing at Greshamsbury. Of the two women Dr. Thorne much preferred his humbler friend, and to her he made his visits not in the guise of a doctor, but as a neighbour. "Well, my lady," he said, as he sat down by her on a broad garden seat--all the world called Lady Scatcherd "my lady,"--"and how do these long summer days agree with you? Your roses are twice better out than any I see up at the big house." "You may well call them long, doctor. They're long enough surely." "But not too long. Come, now, I won't have you complaining. You don't mean to tell me that you have anything to make you wretched? You had better not, for I won't believe you." "Eh; well; wretched! I don't know as I'm wretched. It'd be wicked to say that, and I with such comforts about me." "I think it would, almost." The doctor did not say this harshly, but in a soft, friendly tone, and pressing her hand gently as he spoke. "And I didn't mean to be wicked. I'm very thankful for everything--leastways, I always try to be. But, doctor, it is so lonely like." "Lonely! not more lonely than I am." "Oh, yes; you're different. You can go everywheres. But what can a lone woman do? I'll tell you what, doctor; I'd give it all up to have Roger back with his apron on and his pick in his hand. How well I mind his look when he'd come home o' nights." "And yet it was a hard life you had then, eh, old woman? It would be better for you to be thankful for what you've got." "I am thankful. Didn't I tell you so before?" said she, somewhat crossly. "But it's a sad life, this living alone. I declares I envy Hannah, 'cause she's got Jemima to sit in the kitchen with her. I want her to sit with me sometimes, but she won't." "Ah! but you shouldn't ask her. It's letting yourself down." "What do I care about down or up? It makes no difference, as he's gone. If he had lived one might have cared about being up, as you call it. Eh, deary; I'll be going after him before long, and it will be no matter then." "We shall all be going after him, sooner or later; that's sure enough." "Eh, dear, that's true, surely. It's only a span long, as Parson Oriel tells us when he gets romantic in his sermons. But it's a hard thing, doctor, when two is married, as they can't have their span, as he calls it, out together. Well, I must only put up with it, I suppose, as others does. Now, you're not going, doctor? You'll stop and have a dish of tea with me. You never see such cream as Hannah has from the Alderney cow. Do'ey now, doctor." But the doctor had his letter to write, and would not allow himself to be tempted even by the promise of Hannah's cream. So he went his way, angering Lady Scatcherd by his departure as he had before angered the squire, and thinking as he went which was most unreasonable in her wretchedness, his friend Lady Arabella, or his friend Lady Scatcherd. The former was always complaining of an existing husband who never refused her any moderate request; and the other passed her days in murmuring at the loss of a dead husband, who in his life had ever been to her imperious and harsh, and had sometimes been cruel and unjust. The doctor had his letter to write, but even yet he had not quite made up his mind what he would put into it; indeed, he had not hitherto resolved to whom it should be written. Looking at the matter as he had endeavoured to look at it, his niece, Mrs. Gresham, would be his correspondent; but if he brought himself to take this jump in the dark, in that case he would address himself direct to Miss Dunstable. He walked home, not by the straightest road, but taking a considerable curve, round by narrow lanes, and through thick flower-laden hedges,--very thoughtful. He was told that she wished to marry him; and was he to think only of himself? And as to that pride of his about money, was it in truth a hearty, manly feeling; or was it a false pride, of which it behoved him to be ashamed as it did of many cognate feelings? If he acted rightly in this matter, why should he be afraid of the thoughts of any one? A life of solitude was bitter enough, as poor Lady Scatcherd had complained. But then, looking at Lady Scatcherd, and looking also at his other near neighbour, his friend the squire, there was little thereabouts to lead him on to matrimony. So he walked home slowly through the lanes, very meditative, with his hands behind his back. Nor when he got home was he much more inclined to any resolute line of action. He might have drunk his tea with Lady Scatcherd, as well as have sat there in his own drawing-room, drinking it alone; for he got no pen and paper, and he dawdled over his teacup with the utmost dilatoriness, putting off, as it were, the evil day. To only one thing was he fixed--to this, namely, that that letter should be written before he went to bed. Having finished his tea, which did not take place till near eleven, he went downstairs to an untidy little room which lay behind his dep t of medicines, and in which he was wont to do his writing; and herein he did at last set himself down to his work. Even at that moment he was in doubt. But he would write his letter to Miss Dunstable and see how it looked. He was almost determined not to send it; so, at least, he said to himself: but he could do no harm by writing it. So he did write it, as follows:-- Greshamsbury, -- June, 185--. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,-- When he had got so far, he leaned back in his chair and looked at the paper. How on earth was he to find words to say that which he now wished to have said? He had never written such a letter in his life, or anything approaching to it, and now found himself overwhelmed with a difficulty of which he had not previously thought. He spent another half-hour in looking at the paper, and was at last nearly deterred by this new difficulty. He would use the simplest, plainest language, he said to himself over and over again; but it is not always easy to use simple, plain language,--by no means so easy as to mount on stilts, and to march along with sesquipedalian words, with pathos, spasms, and notes of interjection. But the letter did at last get itself written, and there was not a note of interjection in it. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,--I think it right to confess that I should not be now writing this letter to you, had I not been led to believe by other judgment than my own that the proposition which I am going to make would be regarded by you with favour. Without such other judgment I should, I own, have feared that the great disparity between you and me in regard to money would have given to such a proposition an appearance of being false and mercenary. All I ask of you now, with confidence, is to acquit me of such fault as that. When you have read so far you will understand what I mean. We have known each other now somewhat intimately, though indeed not very long, and I have sometimes fancied that you were almost as well pleased to be with me as I have been to be with you. If I have been wrong in this, tell me so simply, and I will endeavour to let our friendship run on as though this letter had not been written. But if I have been right, and if it be possible that you can think that a union between us will make us both happier than we are single, I will plight you my word and troth with good faith, and will do what an old man may do to make the burden of the world lie light upon your shoulders. Looking at my age I can hardly keep myself from thinking that I am an old fool: but I try to reconcile myself to that by remembering that you yourself are no longer a girl. You see that I pay you no compliments, and that you need expect none from me. I do not know that I could add anything to the truth of this, if I were to write three times as much. All that is necessary is, that you should know what I mean. If you do not believe me to be true and honest already, nothing that I can write will make you believe it. God bless you. I know you will not keep me long in suspense for an answer. Affectionately your friend, THOMAS THORNE. When he had finished he meditated again for another half-hour whether it would not be right that he should add something about her money. Would it not be well for him to tell her--it might be said in a postscript--that with regard to all her wealth she would be free to do what she chose? At any rate he owed no debts for her to pay, and would still have his own income, sufficient for his own purposes. But about one o'clock he came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave the matter alone. If she cared for him, and could trust him, and was worthy also that he should trust her, no omission of such a statement would deter her from coming to him: and if there were no such trust, it would not be created by any such assurance on his part. So he read the letter over twice, sealed it, and took it up, together with his bed candle, into his bed-room. Now that the letter was written it seemed to be a thing fixed by fate that it must go. He had written it that he might see how it looked when written; but now that it was written, there remained no doubt but that it must be sent. So he went to bed, with the letter on the toilette-table beside him; and early in the morning--so early as to make it seem that the importance of the letter had disturbed his rest--he sent it off by a special messenger to Boxall Hill. "I'se wait for an answer?" said the boy. "No," said the doctor: "leave the letter, and come away." The breakfast hour was not very early at Boxall Hill in these summer months. Frank Gresham, no doubt, went round his farm before he came in for prayers, and his wife was probably looking to the butter in the dairy. At any rate, they did not meet till near ten, and therefore, though the ride from Greshamsbury to Boxall Hill was nearly two hours' work, Miss Dunstable had her letter in her own room before she came down. She read it in silence as she was dressing, while the maid was with her in the room; but she made no sign which could induce her Abigail to think that the epistle was more than ordinarily important. She read it, and then quietly refolding it and placing it in the envelope, she put it down on the table at which she was sitting. It was full fifteen minutes afterwards that she begged her servant to see if Mrs. Gresham were still in her own room. "Because I want to see her for five minutes, alone, before breakfast," said Miss Dunstable. "You traitor; you false, black traitor!" were the first words which Miss Dunstable spoke when she found herself alone with her friend. "Why, what's the matter?" "I did not think there was so much mischief in you, nor so keen and commonplace a desire for match-making. Look here. Read the first four lines; not more, if you please; the rest is private. Whose is the other judgment of whom your uncle speaks in his letter?" "Oh, Miss Dunstable! I must read it all." "Indeed you'll do no such thing. You think it's a love-letter, I dare say; but indeed there's not a word about love in it." "I know he has offered. I shall be so glad, for I know you like him." "He tells me that I am an old woman, and insinuates that I may probably be an old fool." "I am sure he does not say that." "Ah! but I'm sure that he does. The former is true enough, and I never complain of the truth. But as to the latter, I am by no means so certain that it is true--not in the sense that he means it." "Dear, dearest woman, don't go on in that way now. Do speak out to me, and speak without jesting." "Whose was the other judgment to whom he trusts so implicitly? Tell me that." "Mine, mine, of course. No one else can have spoken to him about it. Of course I talked to him." "And what did you tell him?" "I told him--" "Well, out with it. Let me have the real facts. Mind, I tell you fairly that you had no right to tell him anything. What passed between us, passed in confidence. But let us hear what you did say." "I told him that you would have him if he offered." And Mrs. Gresham, as she spoke, looked into her friend's face doubtingly, not knowing whether in very truth Miss Dunstable were pleased with her or displeased. If she were displeased, then how had her uncle been deceived! "You told him that as a fact?" "I told him that I thought so." "Then I suppose I am bound to have him," said Miss Dunstable, dropping the letter on to the floor in mock despair. "My dear, dear, dearest woman!" said Mrs. Gresham, bursting into tears, and throwing herself on to her friend's neck. "Mind you are a dutiful niece," said Miss Dunstable. "And now let me go and finish dressing." In the course of the afternoon, an answer was sent back to Greshamsbury, in these words:-- DEAR DR. THORNE,--I do and will trust you in everything; and it shall be as you would have it. Mary writes to you; but do not believe a word she says. I never will again, for she has behaved so bad in this matter. Yours affectionately and very truly, MARTHA DUNSTABLE. "And so I am going to marry the richest woman in England," said Dr. Thorne to himself, as he sat down that day to his mutton-chop. CHAPTER XL. INTERNECINE. It must be conceived that there was some feeling of triumph at Plumstead Episcopi, when the wife of the rector returned home with her daughter, the bride elect of the Lord Dumbello. The heir of the Marquis of Hartletop was, in wealth, the most considerable unmarried young nobleman of the day; he was noted, too, as a man difficult to be pleased, as one who was very fine and who gave himself airs,--and to have been selected as the wife of such a man as this was a great thing for the daughter of a parish clergyman. We have seen in what manner the happy girl's mother communicated the fact to Lady Lufton, hiding, as it were, her pride under a veil; and we have seen also how meekly the happy girl bore her own great fortune, applying herself humbly to the packing of her clothes, as though she ignored her own glory. But nevertheless there was triumph at Plumstead Episcopi. The mother, when she returned home, began to feel that she had been thoroughly successful in the great object of her life. While she was yet in London she had hardly realized her satisfaction, and there were doubts then whether the cup might not be dashed from her lips before it was tasted. It might be that even the son of the Marquis of Hartletop was subject to

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would have done a manifest injury to Miss Dunstable in forcing her to declare her thoughts and feelings. She had already spoken to her uncle in London, and though he had said nothing to show that he approved of her plan, neither had he said anything to show that he disapproved it. Therefore she had hoped through the whole of those three days that he would make some sign,--at any rate to her; that he would in some way declare what were his own thoughts on this matter. But the morning of his departure came, and he had declared nothing. "Uncle," she said, in the last five minutes of his sojourn there, after he had already taken leave of Miss Dunstable and shaken hands with Mrs. Gresham, "have you ever thought of what I said to you up in London?" "Yes, Mary; of course I have thought about it. Such an idea as that, when put into a man's head, will make itself thought about." "Well; and what next? Do talk to me about it. Do not be so hard and unlike yourself." "I have very little to say about it." "I can tell you this for certain, you may if you like." "Mary! Mary!" "I would not say so if I were not sure that I should not lead you into trouble." "You are foolish in wishing this, my dear; foolish in trying to tempt an old man into a folly." "Not foolish if I know that it will make you both happier." He made her no further reply, but stooping down that she might kiss him, as was his wont, went his way, leaving her almost miserable in the thought that she had troubled all these waters to no purpose. What would Miss Dunstable think of her? But on that afternoon Miss Dunstable seemed to be as happy and even-tempered as ever. CHAPTER XXXIX. HOW TO WRITE A LOVE LETTER. Dr. Thorne, in the few words which he spoke to his niece before he left Boxall Hill, had called himself an old man; but he was as yet on the right side of sixty by five good years, and bore about with him less of the marks of age than most men of fifty-five do bear. One would have said in looking at him that there was no reason why he should not marry if he found that such a step seemed good to him; and looking at the age of the proposed bride, there was nothing unsuitable in that respect. But nevertheless he felt almost ashamed of himself, in that he allowed himself even to think of the proposition which his niece had made. He mounted his horse that day at Boxall Hill--for he made all his journeys about the county on horseback--and rode slowly home to Greshamsbury, thinking not so much of the suggested marriage as of his own folly in thinking of it. How could he be such an ass at his time of life as to allow the even course of his way to be disturbed by any such idea? Of course he could not propose to himself such a wife as Miss Dunstable without having some thoughts as to her wealth; and it had been the pride of his life so to live that the world might know that he was indifferent about money. His profession was all in all to him,--the air which he breathed as well as the bread which he ate; and how could he follow his profession if he made such a marriage as this? She would expect him to go to London with her; and what would he become, dangling at her heels there, known only to the world as the husband of the richest woman in the town? The kind of life was one which would be unsuitable to him;--and yet, as he rode home, he could not resolve to rid himself of the idea. He went on thinking of it, though he still continued to condemn himself for keeping it in his thoughts. That night at home he would make up his mind, so he declared to himself; and would then write to his niece begging her to drop the subject. Having so far come to a resolution he went on meditating what course of life it might be well for him to pursue if he and Miss Dunstable should, after all, become man and wife. There were two ladies whom it behoved him to see on the day of his arrival--whom, indeed, he generally saw every day except when absent from Greshamsbury. The first of these--first in the general consideration of the people of the place--was the wife of the squire, Lady Arabella Gresham, a very old patient of the doctor's. Her it was his custom to visit early in the afternoon; and then, if he were able to escape the squire's daily invitation to dinner, he customarily went to the other, Lady Scatcherd, when the rapid meal in his own house was over. Such, at least, was his summer practice. "Well, doctor, how are they at Boxall Hill?" said the squire, waylaying him on the gravel sweep before the door. The squire was very hard set for occupation in these summer months. "Quite well, I believe." "I don't know what's come to Frank. I think he hates this place now. He's full of the election, I suppose." "Oh, yes; he told me to say he should be over here soon. Of course there'll be no contest, so he need not trouble himself." "Happy dog, isn't he, doctor? to have it all before him instead of behind him. Well, well; he's as good a lad as ever lived,--as ever lived. And let me see; Mary's time--" And then there were a few very important words spoken on that subject. "I'll just step up to Lady Arabella now," said the doctor. "She's as fretful as possible," said the squire. "I've just left her." "Nothing special the matter, I hope?" "No, I think not; nothing in your way, that is; only specially cross, which always comes in my way. You'll stop and dine to-day, of course?" "Not to-day, squire." "Nonsense; you will. I have been quite counting on you. I have a particular reason for wanting to have you to-day,--a most particular reason." But the squire always had his particular reasons. "I'm very sorry, but it is impossible to-day. I shall have a letter to write that I must sit down to seriously. Shall I see you when I come down from her ladyship?" The squire turned away sulkily, almost without answering him, for he now had no prospect of any alleviation to the tedium of the evening; and the doctor went up-stairs to his patient. For Lady Arabella, though it cannot be said that she was ill, was always a patient. It must not be supposed that she kept her bed and swallowed daily doses, or was prevented from taking her share in such prosy gaieties as came from time to time in the way of her prosy life; but it suited her turn of mind to be an invalid and to have a doctor; and as the doctor whom her good fates had placed at her elbow thoroughly understood her case, no great harm was done. "It frets me dreadfully that I cannot get to see Mary," Lady Arabella said, as soon as the first ordinary question as to her ailments had been asked and answered. "She's quite well and will be over to see you before long." "Now I beg that she won't. She never thinks of coming when there can be no possible objection, and travelling, at the present moment, would be--" Whereupon the Lady Arabella shook her head very gravely. "Only think of the importance of it, doctor," she said. "Remember the enormous stake there is to be considered." "It would not do her a ha'porth of harm if the stake were twice as large." "Nonsense, doctor, don't tell me; as if I didn't know myself. I was very much against her going to London this spring, but of course what I said was overruled. It always is. I do believe Mr. Gresham went over to Boxall Hill, on purpose to induce her to go. But what does he care? He's fond of Frank; but he never thinks of looking beyond the present day. He never did, as you know well enough, doctor." "The trip did her all the good in the world," said Dr. Thorne, preferring anything to a conversation respecting the squire's sins. "I very well remember that when I was in that way it wasn't thought that such trips would do me any good. But, perhaps, things are altered since then." "Yes, they are," said the doctor. "We don't interfere so much now-a-days." "I know I never asked for such amusements when so much depended on quietness. I remember before Frank was born--and, indeed, when all of them were born-- But as you say, things were different then; and I can easily believe that Mary is a person quite determined to have her own way." "Why, Lady Arabella, she would have stayed at home without wishing to stir if Frank had done so much as hold up his little finger." "So did I always. If Mr. Gresham made the slightest hint I gave way. But I really don't see what one gets in return for such implicit obedience. Now this year, doctor, of course I should have liked to have been up in London for a week or two. You seemed to think yourself that I might as well see Sir Omicron." "There could be no possible objection, I said." "Well; no; exactly; and as Mr. Gresham knew I wished it, I think he might as well have offered it. I suppose there can be no reason now about money." "But I understood that Mary specially asked you and Augusta?" "Yes; Mary was very good. She did ask me. But I know very well that Mary wants all the room she has got in London. The house is not at all too large for herself. And, for the matter of that, my sister, the countess, was very anxious that I should be with her. But one does like to be independent if one can, and for one fortnight I do think that Mr. Gresham might have managed it. When I knew that he was so dreadfully out at elbows I never troubled him about it,--though, goodness knows, all that was never my fault." "The squire hates London. A fortnight there in warm weather would nearly be the death of him." "He might at any rate have paid me the compliment of asking me. The chances are ten to one I should not have gone. It is that indifference that cuts me so. He was here just now, and, would you believe it?--" But the doctor was determined to avoid further complaint for the present day. "I wonder what you would feel, Lady Arabella, if the squire were to take it into his head to go away and amuse himself, leaving you at home. There are worse men than Mr. Gresham, if you will believe me." All this was an allusion to Earl de Courcy, her ladyship's brother, as Lady Arabella very well understood; and the argument was one which was very often used to silence her. "Upon my word, then, I should like it better than his hanging about here doing nothing but attend to those nasty dogs. I really sometimes think that he has no spirit left." "You are mistaken there, Lady Arabella," said the doctor, rising with his hat in his hand and making his escape without further parley. As he went home he could not but think that that phase of married life was not a very pleasant one. Mr. Gresham and his wife were supposed by the world to live on the best of terms. They always inhabited the same house, went out together when they did go out, always sat in their respective corners in the family pew, and in their wildest dreams after the happiness of novelty never thought of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. In some respects--with regard, for instance, to the continued duration of their joint domesticity at the family mansion of Greshamsbury--they might have been taken for a pattern couple. But yet, as far as the doctor could see, they did not seem to add much to the happiness of each other. They loved each other, doubtless, and had either of them been in real danger, that danger would have made the other miserable; but yet it might well be a question whether either would not be more comfortable without the other. The doctor, as was his custom, dined at five, and at seven he went up to the cottage of his old friend Lady Scatcherd. Lady Scatcherd was not a refined woman, having in her early days been a labourer's daughter and having then married a labourer. But her husband had risen in the world--as has been told in those chronicles before mentioned,--and his widow was now Lady Scatcherd with a pretty cottage and a good jointure. She was in all things the very opposite to Lady Arabella Gresham; nevertheless, under the doctor's auspices, the two ladies were in some measure acquainted with each other. Of her married life, also, Dr. Thorne had seen something, and it may be questioned whether the memory of that was more alluring than the reality now existing at Greshamsbury. Of the two women Dr. Thorne much preferred his humbler friend, and to her he made his visits not in the guise of a doctor, but as a neighbour. "Well, my lady," he said, as he sat down by her on a broad garden seat--all the world called Lady Scatcherd "my lady,"--"and how do these long summer days agree with you? Your roses are twice better out than any I see up at the big house." "You may well call them long, doctor. They're long enough surely." "But not too long. Come, now, I won't have you complaining. You don't mean to tell me that you have anything to make you wretched? You had better not, for I won't believe you." "Eh; well; wretched! I don't know as I'm wretched. It'd be wicked to say that, and I with such comforts about me." "I think it would, almost." The doctor did not say this harshly, but in a soft, friendly tone, and pressing her hand gently as he spoke. "And I didn't mean to be wicked. I'm very thankful for everything--leastways, I always try to be. But, doctor, it is so lonely like." "Lonely! not more lonely than I am." "Oh, yes; you're different. You can go everywheres. But what can a lone woman do? I'll tell you what, doctor; I'd give it all up to have Roger back with his apron on and his pick in his hand. How well I mind his look when he'd come home o' nights." "And yet it was a hard life you had then, eh, old woman? It would be better for you to be thankful for what you've got." "I am thankful. Didn't I tell you so before?" said she, somewhat crossly. "But it's a sad life, this living alone. I declares I envy Hannah, 'cause she's got Jemima to sit in the kitchen with her. I want her to sit with me sometimes, but she won't." "Ah! but you shouldn't ask her. It's letting yourself down." "What do I care about down or up? It makes no difference, as he's gone. If he had lived one might have cared about being up, as you call it. Eh, deary; I'll be going after him before long, and it will be no matter then." "We shall all be going after him, sooner or later; that's sure enough." "Eh, dear, that's true, surely. It's only a span long, as Parson Oriel tells us when he gets romantic in his sermons. But it's a hard thing, doctor, when two is married, as they can't have their span, as he calls it, out together. Well, I must only put up with it, I suppose, as others does. Now, you're not going, doctor? You'll stop and have a dish of tea with me. You never see such cream as Hannah has from the Alderney cow. Do'ey now, doctor." But the doctor had his letter to write, and would not allow himself to be tempted even by the promise of Hannah's cream. So he went his way, angering Lady Scatcherd by his departure as he had before angered the squire, and thinking as he went which was most unreasonable in her wretchedness, his friend Lady Arabella, or his friend Lady Scatcherd. The former was always complaining of an existing husband who never refused her any moderate request; and the other passed her days in murmuring at the loss of a dead husband, who in his life had ever been to her imperious and harsh, and had sometimes been cruel and unjust. The doctor had his letter to write, but even yet he had not quite made up his mind what he would put into it; indeed, he had not hitherto resolved to whom it should be written. Looking at the matter as he had endeavoured to look at it, his niece, Mrs. Gresham, would be his correspondent; but if he brought himself to take this jump in the dark, in that case he would address himself direct to Miss Dunstable. He walked home, not by the straightest road, but taking a considerable curve, round by narrow lanes, and through thick flower-laden hedges,--very thoughtful. He was told that she wished to marry him; and was he to think only of himself? And as to that pride of his about money, was it in truth a hearty, manly feeling; or was it a false pride, of which it behoved him to be ashamed as it did of many cognate feelings? If he acted rightly in this matter, why should he be afraid of the thoughts of any one? A life of solitude was bitter enough, as poor Lady Scatcherd had complained. But then, looking at Lady Scatcherd, and looking also at his other near neighbour, his friend the squire, there was little thereabouts to lead him on to matrimony. So he walked home slowly through the lanes, very meditative, with his hands behind his back. Nor when he got home was he much more inclined to any resolute line of action. He might have drunk his tea with Lady Scatcherd, as well as have sat there in his own drawing-room, drinking it alone; for he got no pen and paper, and he dawdled over his teacup with the utmost dilatoriness, putting off, as it were, the evil day. To only one thing was he fixed--to this, namely, that that letter should be written before he went to bed. Having finished his tea, which did not take place till near eleven, he went downstairs to an untidy little room which lay behind his dep t of medicines, and in which he was wont to do his writing; and herein he did at last set himself down to his work. Even at that moment he was in doubt. But he would write his letter to Miss Dunstable and see how it looked. He was almost determined not to send it; so, at least, he said to himself: but he could do no harm by writing it. So he did write it, as follows:-- Greshamsbury, -- June, 185--. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,-- When he had got so far, he leaned back in his chair and looked at the paper. How on earth was he to find words to say that which he now wished to have said? He had never written such a letter in his life, or anything approaching to it, and now found himself overwhelmed with a difficulty of which he had not previously thought. He spent another half-hour in looking at the paper, and was at last nearly deterred by this new difficulty. He would use the simplest, plainest language, he said to himself over and over again; but it is not always easy to use simple, plain language,--by no means so easy as to mount on stilts, and to march along with sesquipedalian words, with pathos, spasms, and notes of interjection. But the letter did at last get itself written, and there was not a note of interjection in it. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,--I think it right to confess that I should not be now writing this letter to you, had I not been led to believe by other judgment than my own that the proposition which I am going to make would be regarded by you with favour. Without such other judgment I should, I own, have feared that the great disparity between you and me in regard to money would have given to such a proposition an appearance of being false and mercenary. All I ask of you now, with confidence, is to acquit me of such fault as that. When you have read so far you will understand what I mean. We have known each other now somewhat intimately, though indeed not very long, and I have sometimes fancied that you were almost as well pleased to be with me as I have been to be with you. If I have been wrong in this, tell me so simply, and I will endeavour to let our friendship run on as though this letter had not been written. But if I have been right, and if it be possible that you can think that a union between us will make us both happier than we are single, I will plight you my word and troth with good faith, and will do what an old man may do to make the burden of the world lie light upon your shoulders. Looking at my age I can hardly keep myself from thinking that I am an old fool: but I try to reconcile myself to that by remembering that you yourself are no longer a girl. You see that I pay you no compliments, and that you need expect none from me. I do not know that I could add anything to the truth of this, if I were to write three times as much. All that is necessary is, that you should know what I mean. If you do not believe me to be true and honest already, nothing that I can write will make you believe it. God bless you. I know you will not keep me long in suspense for an answer. Affectionately your friend, THOMAS THORNE. When he had finished he meditated again for another half-hour whether it would not be right that he should add something about her money. Would it not be well for him to tell her--it might be said in a postscript--that with regard to all her wealth she would be free to do what she chose? At any rate he owed no debts for her to pay, and would still have his own income, sufficient for his own purposes. But about one o'clock he came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave the matter alone. If she cared for him, and could trust him, and was worthy also that he should trust her, no omission of such a statement would deter her from coming to him: and if there were no such trust, it would not be created by any such assurance on his part. So he read the letter over twice, sealed it, and took it up, together with his bed candle, into his bed-room. Now that the letter was written it seemed to be a thing fixed by fate that it must go. He had written it that he might see how it looked when written; but now that it was written, there remained no doubt but that it must be sent. So he went to bed, with the letter on the toilette-table beside him; and early in the morning--so early as to make it seem that the importance of the letter had disturbed his rest--he sent it off by a special messenger to Boxall Hill. "I'se wait for an answer?" said the boy. "No," said the doctor: "leave the letter, and come away." The breakfast hour was not very early at Boxall Hill in these summer months. Frank Gresham, no doubt, went round his farm before he came in for prayers, and his wife was probably looking to the butter in the dairy. At any rate, they did not meet till near ten, and therefore, though the ride from Greshamsbury to Boxall Hill was nearly two hours' work, Miss Dunstable had her letter in her own room before she came down. She read it in silence as she was dressing, while the maid was with her in the room; but she made no sign which could induce her Abigail to think that the epistle was more than ordinarily important. She read it, and then quietly refolding it and placing it in the envelope, she put it down on the table at which she was sitting. It was full fifteen minutes afterwards that she begged her servant to see if Mrs. Gresham were still in her own room. "Because I want to see her for five minutes, alone, before breakfast," said Miss Dunstable. "You traitor; you false, black traitor!" were the first words which Miss Dunstable spoke when she found herself alone with her friend. "Why, what's the matter?" "I did not think there was so much mischief in you, nor so keen and commonplace a desire for match-making. Look here. Read the first four lines; not more, if you please; the rest is private. Whose is the other judgment of whom your uncle speaks in his letter?" "Oh, Miss Dunstable! I must read it all." "Indeed you'll do no such thing. You think it's a love-letter, I dare say; but indeed there's not a word about love in it." "I know he has offered. I shall be so glad, for I know you like him." "He tells me that I am an old woman, and insinuates that I may probably be an old fool." "I am sure he does not say that." "Ah! but I'm sure that he does. The former is true enough, and I never complain of the truth. But as to the latter, I am by no means so certain that it is true--not in the sense that he means it." "Dear, dearest woman, don't go on in that way now. Do speak out to me, and speak without jesting." "Whose was the other judgment to whom he trusts so implicitly? Tell me that." "Mine, mine, of course. No one else can have spoken to him about it. Of course I talked to him." "And what did you tell him?" "I told him--" "Well, out with it. Let me have the real facts. Mind, I tell you fairly that you had no right to tell him anything. What passed between us, passed in confidence. But let us hear what you did say." "I told him that you would have him if he offered." And Mrs. Gresham, as she spoke, looked into her friend's face doubtingly, not knowing whether in very truth Miss Dunstable were pleased with her or displeased. If she were displeased, then how had her uncle been deceived! "You told him that as a fact?" "I told him that I thought so." "Then I suppose I am bound to have him," said Miss Dunstable, dropping the letter on to the floor in mock despair. "My dear, dear, dearest woman!" said Mrs. Gresham, bursting into tears, and throwing herself on to her friend's neck. "Mind you are a dutiful niece," said Miss Dunstable. "And now let me go and finish dressing." In the course of the afternoon, an answer was sent back to Greshamsbury, in these words:-- DEAR DR. THORNE,--I do and will trust you in everything; and it shall be as you would have it. Mary writes to you; but do not believe a word she says. I never will again, for she has behaved so bad in this matter. Yours affectionately and very truly, MARTHA DUNSTABLE. "And so I am going to marry the richest woman in England," said Dr. Thorne to himself, as he sat down that day to his mutton-chop. CHAPTER XL. INTERNECINE. It must be conceived that there was some feeling of triumph at Plumstead Episcopi, when the wife of the rector returned home with her daughter, the bride elect of the Lord Dumbello. The heir of the Marquis of Hartletop was, in wealth, the most considerable unmarried young nobleman of the day; he was noted, too, as a man difficult to be pleased, as one who was very fine and who gave himself airs,--and to have been selected as the wife of such a man as this was a great thing for the daughter of a parish clergyman. We have seen in what manner the happy girl's mother communicated the fact to Lady Lufton, hiding, as it were, her pride under a veil; and we have seen also how meekly the happy girl bore her own great fortune, applying herself humbly to the packing of her clothes, as though she ignored her own glory. But nevertheless there was triumph at Plumstead Episcopi. The mother, when she returned home, began to feel that she had been thoroughly successful in the great object of her life. While she was yet in London she had hardly realized her satisfaction, and there were doubts then whether the cup might not be dashed from her lips before it was tasted. It might be that even the son of the Marquis of Hartletop was subject to

overruled

How many times the word 'overruled' appears in the text?

would have done a manifest injury to Miss Dunstable in forcing her to declare her thoughts and feelings. She had already spoken to her uncle in London, and though he had said nothing to show that he approved of her plan, neither had he said anything to show that he disapproved it. Therefore she had hoped through the whole of those three days that he would make some sign,--at any rate to her; that he would in some way declare what were his own thoughts on this matter. But the morning of his departure came, and he had declared nothing. "Uncle," she said, in the last five minutes of his sojourn there, after he had already taken leave of Miss Dunstable and shaken hands with Mrs. Gresham, "have you ever thought of what I said to you up in London?" "Yes, Mary; of course I have thought about it. Such an idea as that, when put into a man's head, will make itself thought about." "Well; and what next? Do talk to me about it. Do not be so hard and unlike yourself." "I have very little to say about it." "I can tell you this for certain, you may if you like." "Mary! Mary!" "I would not say so if I were not sure that I should not lead you into trouble." "You are foolish in wishing this, my dear; foolish in trying to tempt an old man into a folly." "Not foolish if I know that it will make you both happier." He made her no further reply, but stooping down that she might kiss him, as was his wont, went his way, leaving her almost miserable in the thought that she had troubled all these waters to no purpose. What would Miss Dunstable think of her? But on that afternoon Miss Dunstable seemed to be as happy and even-tempered as ever. CHAPTER XXXIX. HOW TO WRITE A LOVE LETTER. Dr. Thorne, in the few words which he spoke to his niece before he left Boxall Hill, had called himself an old man; but he was as yet on the right side of sixty by five good years, and bore about with him less of the marks of age than most men of fifty-five do bear. One would have said in looking at him that there was no reason why he should not marry if he found that such a step seemed good to him; and looking at the age of the proposed bride, there was nothing unsuitable in that respect. But nevertheless he felt almost ashamed of himself, in that he allowed himself even to think of the proposition which his niece had made. He mounted his horse that day at Boxall Hill--for he made all his journeys about the county on horseback--and rode slowly home to Greshamsbury, thinking not so much of the suggested marriage as of his own folly in thinking of it. How could he be such an ass at his time of life as to allow the even course of his way to be disturbed by any such idea? Of course he could not propose to himself such a wife as Miss Dunstable without having some thoughts as to her wealth; and it had been the pride of his life so to live that the world might know that he was indifferent about money. His profession was all in all to him,--the air which he breathed as well as the bread which he ate; and how could he follow his profession if he made such a marriage as this? She would expect him to go to London with her; and what would he become, dangling at her heels there, known only to the world as the husband of the richest woman in the town? The kind of life was one which would be unsuitable to him;--and yet, as he rode home, he could not resolve to rid himself of the idea. He went on thinking of it, though he still continued to condemn himself for keeping it in his thoughts. That night at home he would make up his mind, so he declared to himself; and would then write to his niece begging her to drop the subject. Having so far come to a resolution he went on meditating what course of life it might be well for him to pursue if he and Miss Dunstable should, after all, become man and wife. There were two ladies whom it behoved him to see on the day of his arrival--whom, indeed, he generally saw every day except when absent from Greshamsbury. The first of these--first in the general consideration of the people of the place--was the wife of the squire, Lady Arabella Gresham, a very old patient of the doctor's. Her it was his custom to visit early in the afternoon; and then, if he were able to escape the squire's daily invitation to dinner, he customarily went to the other, Lady Scatcherd, when the rapid meal in his own house was over. Such, at least, was his summer practice. "Well, doctor, how are they at Boxall Hill?" said the squire, waylaying him on the gravel sweep before the door. The squire was very hard set for occupation in these summer months. "Quite well, I believe." "I don't know what's come to Frank. I think he hates this place now. He's full of the election, I suppose." "Oh, yes; he told me to say he should be over here soon. Of course there'll be no contest, so he need not trouble himself." "Happy dog, isn't he, doctor? to have it all before him instead of behind him. Well, well; he's as good a lad as ever lived,--as ever lived. And let me see; Mary's time--" And then there were a few very important words spoken on that subject. "I'll just step up to Lady Arabella now," said the doctor. "She's as fretful as possible," said the squire. "I've just left her." "Nothing special the matter, I hope?" "No, I think not; nothing in your way, that is; only specially cross, which always comes in my way. You'll stop and dine to-day, of course?" "Not to-day, squire." "Nonsense; you will. I have been quite counting on you. I have a particular reason for wanting to have you to-day,--a most particular reason." But the squire always had his particular reasons. "I'm very sorry, but it is impossible to-day. I shall have a letter to write that I must sit down to seriously. Shall I see you when I come down from her ladyship?" The squire turned away sulkily, almost without answering him, for he now had no prospect of any alleviation to the tedium of the evening; and the doctor went up-stairs to his patient. For Lady Arabella, though it cannot be said that she was ill, was always a patient. It must not be supposed that she kept her bed and swallowed daily doses, or was prevented from taking her share in such prosy gaieties as came from time to time in the way of her prosy life; but it suited her turn of mind to be an invalid and to have a doctor; and as the doctor whom her good fates had placed at her elbow thoroughly understood her case, no great harm was done. "It frets me dreadfully that I cannot get to see Mary," Lady Arabella said, as soon as the first ordinary question as to her ailments had been asked and answered. "She's quite well and will be over to see you before long." "Now I beg that she won't. She never thinks of coming when there can be no possible objection, and travelling, at the present moment, would be--" Whereupon the Lady Arabella shook her head very gravely. "Only think of the importance of it, doctor," she said. "Remember the enormous stake there is to be considered." "It would not do her a ha'porth of harm if the stake were twice as large." "Nonsense, doctor, don't tell me; as if I didn't know myself. I was very much against her going to London this spring, but of course what I said was overruled. It always is. I do believe Mr. Gresham went over to Boxall Hill, on purpose to induce her to go. But what does he care? He's fond of Frank; but he never thinks of looking beyond the present day. He never did, as you know well enough, doctor." "The trip did her all the good in the world," said Dr. Thorne, preferring anything to a conversation respecting the squire's sins. "I very well remember that when I was in that way it wasn't thought that such trips would do me any good. But, perhaps, things are altered since then." "Yes, they are," said the doctor. "We don't interfere so much now-a-days." "I know I never asked for such amusements when so much depended on quietness. I remember before Frank was born--and, indeed, when all of them were born-- But as you say, things were different then; and I can easily believe that Mary is a person quite determined to have her own way." "Why, Lady Arabella, she would have stayed at home without wishing to stir if Frank had done so much as hold up his little finger." "So did I always. If Mr. Gresham made the slightest hint I gave way. But I really don't see what one gets in return for such implicit obedience. Now this year, doctor, of course I should have liked to have been up in London for a week or two. You seemed to think yourself that I might as well see Sir Omicron." "There could be no possible objection, I said." "Well; no; exactly; and as Mr. Gresham knew I wished it, I think he might as well have offered it. I suppose there can be no reason now about money." "But I understood that Mary specially asked you and Augusta?" "Yes; Mary was very good. She did ask me. But I know very well that Mary wants all the room she has got in London. The house is not at all too large for herself. And, for the matter of that, my sister, the countess, was very anxious that I should be with her. But one does like to be independent if one can, and for one fortnight I do think that Mr. Gresham might have managed it. When I knew that he was so dreadfully out at elbows I never troubled him about it,--though, goodness knows, all that was never my fault." "The squire hates London. A fortnight there in warm weather would nearly be the death of him." "He might at any rate have paid me the compliment of asking me. The chances are ten to one I should not have gone. It is that indifference that cuts me so. He was here just now, and, would you believe it?--" But the doctor was determined to avoid further complaint for the present day. "I wonder what you would feel, Lady Arabella, if the squire were to take it into his head to go away and amuse himself, leaving you at home. There are worse men than Mr. Gresham, if you will believe me." All this was an allusion to Earl de Courcy, her ladyship's brother, as Lady Arabella very well understood; and the argument was one which was very often used to silence her. "Upon my word, then, I should like it better than his hanging about here doing nothing but attend to those nasty dogs. I really sometimes think that he has no spirit left." "You are mistaken there, Lady Arabella," said the doctor, rising with his hat in his hand and making his escape without further parley. As he went home he could not but think that that phase of married life was not a very pleasant one. Mr. Gresham and his wife were supposed by the world to live on the best of terms. They always inhabited the same house, went out together when they did go out, always sat in their respective corners in the family pew, and in their wildest dreams after the happiness of novelty never thought of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. In some respects--with regard, for instance, to the continued duration of their joint domesticity at the family mansion of Greshamsbury--they might have been taken for a pattern couple. But yet, as far as the doctor could see, they did not seem to add much to the happiness of each other. They loved each other, doubtless, and had either of them been in real danger, that danger would have made the other miserable; but yet it might well be a question whether either would not be more comfortable without the other. The doctor, as was his custom, dined at five, and at seven he went up to the cottage of his old friend Lady Scatcherd. Lady Scatcherd was not a refined woman, having in her early days been a labourer's daughter and having then married a labourer. But her husband had risen in the world--as has been told in those chronicles before mentioned,--and his widow was now Lady Scatcherd with a pretty cottage and a good jointure. She was in all things the very opposite to Lady Arabella Gresham; nevertheless, under the doctor's auspices, the two ladies were in some measure acquainted with each other. Of her married life, also, Dr. Thorne had seen something, and it may be questioned whether the memory of that was more alluring than the reality now existing at Greshamsbury. Of the two women Dr. Thorne much preferred his humbler friend, and to her he made his visits not in the guise of a doctor, but as a neighbour. "Well, my lady," he said, as he sat down by her on a broad garden seat--all the world called Lady Scatcherd "my lady,"--"and how do these long summer days agree with you? Your roses are twice better out than any I see up at the big house." "You may well call them long, doctor. They're long enough surely." "But not too long. Come, now, I won't have you complaining. You don't mean to tell me that you have anything to make you wretched? You had better not, for I won't believe you." "Eh; well; wretched! I don't know as I'm wretched. It'd be wicked to say that, and I with such comforts about me." "I think it would, almost." The doctor did not say this harshly, but in a soft, friendly tone, and pressing her hand gently as he spoke. "And I didn't mean to be wicked. I'm very thankful for everything--leastways, I always try to be. But, doctor, it is so lonely like." "Lonely! not more lonely than I am." "Oh, yes; you're different. You can go everywheres. But what can a lone woman do? I'll tell you what, doctor; I'd give it all up to have Roger back with his apron on and his pick in his hand. How well I mind his look when he'd come home o' nights." "And yet it was a hard life you had then, eh, old woman? It would be better for you to be thankful for what you've got." "I am thankful. Didn't I tell you so before?" said she, somewhat crossly. "But it's a sad life, this living alone. I declares I envy Hannah, 'cause she's got Jemima to sit in the kitchen with her. I want her to sit with me sometimes, but she won't." "Ah! but you shouldn't ask her. It's letting yourself down." "What do I care about down or up? It makes no difference, as he's gone. If he had lived one might have cared about being up, as you call it. Eh, deary; I'll be going after him before long, and it will be no matter then." "We shall all be going after him, sooner or later; that's sure enough." "Eh, dear, that's true, surely. It's only a span long, as Parson Oriel tells us when he gets romantic in his sermons. But it's a hard thing, doctor, when two is married, as they can't have their span, as he calls it, out together. Well, I must only put up with it, I suppose, as others does. Now, you're not going, doctor? You'll stop and have a dish of tea with me. You never see such cream as Hannah has from the Alderney cow. Do'ey now, doctor." But the doctor had his letter to write, and would not allow himself to be tempted even by the promise of Hannah's cream. So he went his way, angering Lady Scatcherd by his departure as he had before angered the squire, and thinking as he went which was most unreasonable in her wretchedness, his friend Lady Arabella, or his friend Lady Scatcherd. The former was always complaining of an existing husband who never refused her any moderate request; and the other passed her days in murmuring at the loss of a dead husband, who in his life had ever been to her imperious and harsh, and had sometimes been cruel and unjust. The doctor had his letter to write, but even yet he had not quite made up his mind what he would put into it; indeed, he had not hitherto resolved to whom it should be written. Looking at the matter as he had endeavoured to look at it, his niece, Mrs. Gresham, would be his correspondent; but if he brought himself to take this jump in the dark, in that case he would address himself direct to Miss Dunstable. He walked home, not by the straightest road, but taking a considerable curve, round by narrow lanes, and through thick flower-laden hedges,--very thoughtful. He was told that she wished to marry him; and was he to think only of himself? And as to that pride of his about money, was it in truth a hearty, manly feeling; or was it a false pride, of which it behoved him to be ashamed as it did of many cognate feelings? If he acted rightly in this matter, why should he be afraid of the thoughts of any one? A life of solitude was bitter enough, as poor Lady Scatcherd had complained. But then, looking at Lady Scatcherd, and looking also at his other near neighbour, his friend the squire, there was little thereabouts to lead him on to matrimony. So he walked home slowly through the lanes, very meditative, with his hands behind his back. Nor when he got home was he much more inclined to any resolute line of action. He might have drunk his tea with Lady Scatcherd, as well as have sat there in his own drawing-room, drinking it alone; for he got no pen and paper, and he dawdled over his teacup with the utmost dilatoriness, putting off, as it were, the evil day. To only one thing was he fixed--to this, namely, that that letter should be written before he went to bed. Having finished his tea, which did not take place till near eleven, he went downstairs to an untidy little room which lay behind his dep t of medicines, and in which he was wont to do his writing; and herein he did at last set himself down to his work. Even at that moment he was in doubt. But he would write his letter to Miss Dunstable and see how it looked. He was almost determined not to send it; so, at least, he said to himself: but he could do no harm by writing it. So he did write it, as follows:-- Greshamsbury, -- June, 185--. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,-- When he had got so far, he leaned back in his chair and looked at the paper. How on earth was he to find words to say that which he now wished to have said? He had never written such a letter in his life, or anything approaching to it, and now found himself overwhelmed with a difficulty of which he had not previously thought. He spent another half-hour in looking at the paper, and was at last nearly deterred by this new difficulty. He would use the simplest, plainest language, he said to himself over and over again; but it is not always easy to use simple, plain language,--by no means so easy as to mount on stilts, and to march along with sesquipedalian words, with pathos, spasms, and notes of interjection. But the letter did at last get itself written, and there was not a note of interjection in it. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,--I think it right to confess that I should not be now writing this letter to you, had I not been led to believe by other judgment than my own that the proposition which I am going to make would be regarded by you with favour. Without such other judgment I should, I own, have feared that the great disparity between you and me in regard to money would have given to such a proposition an appearance of being false and mercenary. All I ask of you now, with confidence, is to acquit me of such fault as that. When you have read so far you will understand what I mean. We have known each other now somewhat intimately, though indeed not very long, and I have sometimes fancied that you were almost as well pleased to be with me as I have been to be with you. If I have been wrong in this, tell me so simply, and I will endeavour to let our friendship run on as though this letter had not been written. But if I have been right, and if it be possible that you can think that a union between us will make us both happier than we are single, I will plight you my word and troth with good faith, and will do what an old man may do to make the burden of the world lie light upon your shoulders. Looking at my age I can hardly keep myself from thinking that I am an old fool: but I try to reconcile myself to that by remembering that you yourself are no longer a girl. You see that I pay you no compliments, and that you need expect none from me. I do not know that I could add anything to the truth of this, if I were to write three times as much. All that is necessary is, that you should know what I mean. If you do not believe me to be true and honest already, nothing that I can write will make you believe it. God bless you. I know you will not keep me long in suspense for an answer. Affectionately your friend, THOMAS THORNE. When he had finished he meditated again for another half-hour whether it would not be right that he should add something about her money. Would it not be well for him to tell her--it might be said in a postscript--that with regard to all her wealth she would be free to do what she chose? At any rate he owed no debts for her to pay, and would still have his own income, sufficient for his own purposes. But about one o'clock he came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave the matter alone. If she cared for him, and could trust him, and was worthy also that he should trust her, no omission of such a statement would deter her from coming to him: and if there were no such trust, it would not be created by any such assurance on his part. So he read the letter over twice, sealed it, and took it up, together with his bed candle, into his bed-room. Now that the letter was written it seemed to be a thing fixed by fate that it must go. He had written it that he might see how it looked when written; but now that it was written, there remained no doubt but that it must be sent. So he went to bed, with the letter on the toilette-table beside him; and early in the morning--so early as to make it seem that the importance of the letter had disturbed his rest--he sent it off by a special messenger to Boxall Hill. "I'se wait for an answer?" said the boy. "No," said the doctor: "leave the letter, and come away." The breakfast hour was not very early at Boxall Hill in these summer months. Frank Gresham, no doubt, went round his farm before he came in for prayers, and his wife was probably looking to the butter in the dairy. At any rate, they did not meet till near ten, and therefore, though the ride from Greshamsbury to Boxall Hill was nearly two hours' work, Miss Dunstable had her letter in her own room before she came down. She read it in silence as she was dressing, while the maid was with her in the room; but she made no sign which could induce her Abigail to think that the epistle was more than ordinarily important. She read it, and then quietly refolding it and placing it in the envelope, she put it down on the table at which she was sitting. It was full fifteen minutes afterwards that she begged her servant to see if Mrs. Gresham were still in her own room. "Because I want to see her for five minutes, alone, before breakfast," said Miss Dunstable. "You traitor; you false, black traitor!" were the first words which Miss Dunstable spoke when she found herself alone with her friend. "Why, what's the matter?" "I did not think there was so much mischief in you, nor so keen and commonplace a desire for match-making. Look here. Read the first four lines; not more, if you please; the rest is private. Whose is the other judgment of whom your uncle speaks in his letter?" "Oh, Miss Dunstable! I must read it all." "Indeed you'll do no such thing. You think it's a love-letter, I dare say; but indeed there's not a word about love in it." "I know he has offered. I shall be so glad, for I know you like him." "He tells me that I am an old woman, and insinuates that I may probably be an old fool." "I am sure he does not say that." "Ah! but I'm sure that he does. The former is true enough, and I never complain of the truth. But as to the latter, I am by no means so certain that it is true--not in the sense that he means it." "Dear, dearest woman, don't go on in that way now. Do speak out to me, and speak without jesting." "Whose was the other judgment to whom he trusts so implicitly? Tell me that." "Mine, mine, of course. No one else can have spoken to him about it. Of course I talked to him." "And what did you tell him?" "I told him--" "Well, out with it. Let me have the real facts. Mind, I tell you fairly that you had no right to tell him anything. What passed between us, passed in confidence. But let us hear what you did say." "I told him that you would have him if he offered." And Mrs. Gresham, as she spoke, looked into her friend's face doubtingly, not knowing whether in very truth Miss Dunstable were pleased with her or displeased. If she were displeased, then how had her uncle been deceived! "You told him that as a fact?" "I told him that I thought so." "Then I suppose I am bound to have him," said Miss Dunstable, dropping the letter on to the floor in mock despair. "My dear, dear, dearest woman!" said Mrs. Gresham, bursting into tears, and throwing herself on to her friend's neck. "Mind you are a dutiful niece," said Miss Dunstable. "And now let me go and finish dressing." In the course of the afternoon, an answer was sent back to Greshamsbury, in these words:-- DEAR DR. THORNE,--I do and will trust you in everything; and it shall be as you would have it. Mary writes to you; but do not believe a word she says. I never will again, for she has behaved so bad in this matter. Yours affectionately and very truly, MARTHA DUNSTABLE. "And so I am going to marry the richest woman in England," said Dr. Thorne to himself, as he sat down that day to his mutton-chop. CHAPTER XL. INTERNECINE. It must be conceived that there was some feeling of triumph at Plumstead Episcopi, when the wife of the rector returned home with her daughter, the bride elect of the Lord Dumbello. The heir of the Marquis of Hartletop was, in wealth, the most considerable unmarried young nobleman of the day; he was noted, too, as a man difficult to be pleased, as one who was very fine and who gave himself airs,--and to have been selected as the wife of such a man as this was a great thing for the daughter of a parish clergyman. We have seen in what manner the happy girl's mother communicated the fact to Lady Lufton, hiding, as it were, her pride under a veil; and we have seen also how meekly the happy girl bore her own great fortune, applying herself humbly to the packing of her clothes, as though she ignored her own glory. But nevertheless there was triumph at Plumstead Episcopi. The mother, when she returned home, began to feel that she had been thoroughly successful in the great object of her life. While she was yet in London she had hardly realized her satisfaction, and there were doubts then whether the cup might not be dashed from her lips before it was tasted. It might be that even the son of the Marquis of Hartletop was subject to

recollections

How many times the word 'recollections' appears in the text?

would have done a manifest injury to Miss Dunstable in forcing her to declare her thoughts and feelings. She had already spoken to her uncle in London, and though he had said nothing to show that he approved of her plan, neither had he said anything to show that he disapproved it. Therefore she had hoped through the whole of those three days that he would make some sign,--at any rate to her; that he would in some way declare what were his own thoughts on this matter. But the morning of his departure came, and he had declared nothing. "Uncle," she said, in the last five minutes of his sojourn there, after he had already taken leave of Miss Dunstable and shaken hands with Mrs. Gresham, "have you ever thought of what I said to you up in London?" "Yes, Mary; of course I have thought about it. Such an idea as that, when put into a man's head, will make itself thought about." "Well; and what next? Do talk to me about it. Do not be so hard and unlike yourself." "I have very little to say about it." "I can tell you this for certain, you may if you like." "Mary! Mary!" "I would not say so if I were not sure that I should not lead you into trouble." "You are foolish in wishing this, my dear; foolish in trying to tempt an old man into a folly." "Not foolish if I know that it will make you both happier." He made her no further reply, but stooping down that she might kiss him, as was his wont, went his way, leaving her almost miserable in the thought that she had troubled all these waters to no purpose. What would Miss Dunstable think of her? But on that afternoon Miss Dunstable seemed to be as happy and even-tempered as ever. CHAPTER XXXIX. HOW TO WRITE A LOVE LETTER. Dr. Thorne, in the few words which he spoke to his niece before he left Boxall Hill, had called himself an old man; but he was as yet on the right side of sixty by five good years, and bore about with him less of the marks of age than most men of fifty-five do bear. One would have said in looking at him that there was no reason why he should not marry if he found that such a step seemed good to him; and looking at the age of the proposed bride, there was nothing unsuitable in that respect. But nevertheless he felt almost ashamed of himself, in that he allowed himself even to think of the proposition which his niece had made. He mounted his horse that day at Boxall Hill--for he made all his journeys about the county on horseback--and rode slowly home to Greshamsbury, thinking not so much of the suggested marriage as of his own folly in thinking of it. How could he be such an ass at his time of life as to allow the even course of his way to be disturbed by any such idea? Of course he could not propose to himself such a wife as Miss Dunstable without having some thoughts as to her wealth; and it had been the pride of his life so to live that the world might know that he was indifferent about money. His profession was all in all to him,--the air which he breathed as well as the bread which he ate; and how could he follow his profession if he made such a marriage as this? She would expect him to go to London with her; and what would he become, dangling at her heels there, known only to the world as the husband of the richest woman in the town? The kind of life was one which would be unsuitable to him;--and yet, as he rode home, he could not resolve to rid himself of the idea. He went on thinking of it, though he still continued to condemn himself for keeping it in his thoughts. That night at home he would make up his mind, so he declared to himself; and would then write to his niece begging her to drop the subject. Having so far come to a resolution he went on meditating what course of life it might be well for him to pursue if he and Miss Dunstable should, after all, become man and wife. There were two ladies whom it behoved him to see on the day of his arrival--whom, indeed, he generally saw every day except when absent from Greshamsbury. The first of these--first in the general consideration of the people of the place--was the wife of the squire, Lady Arabella Gresham, a very old patient of the doctor's. Her it was his custom to visit early in the afternoon; and then, if he were able to escape the squire's daily invitation to dinner, he customarily went to the other, Lady Scatcherd, when the rapid meal in his own house was over. Such, at least, was his summer practice. "Well, doctor, how are they at Boxall Hill?" said the squire, waylaying him on the gravel sweep before the door. The squire was very hard set for occupation in these summer months. "Quite well, I believe." "I don't know what's come to Frank. I think he hates this place now. He's full of the election, I suppose." "Oh, yes; he told me to say he should be over here soon. Of course there'll be no contest, so he need not trouble himself." "Happy dog, isn't he, doctor? to have it all before him instead of behind him. Well, well; he's as good a lad as ever lived,--as ever lived. And let me see; Mary's time--" And then there were a few very important words spoken on that subject. "I'll just step up to Lady Arabella now," said the doctor. "She's as fretful as possible," said the squire. "I've just left her." "Nothing special the matter, I hope?" "No, I think not; nothing in your way, that is; only specially cross, which always comes in my way. You'll stop and dine to-day, of course?" "Not to-day, squire." "Nonsense; you will. I have been quite counting on you. I have a particular reason for wanting to have you to-day,--a most particular reason." But the squire always had his particular reasons. "I'm very sorry, but it is impossible to-day. I shall have a letter to write that I must sit down to seriously. Shall I see you when I come down from her ladyship?" The squire turned away sulkily, almost without answering him, for he now had no prospect of any alleviation to the tedium of the evening; and the doctor went up-stairs to his patient. For Lady Arabella, though it cannot be said that she was ill, was always a patient. It must not be supposed that she kept her bed and swallowed daily doses, or was prevented from taking her share in such prosy gaieties as came from time to time in the way of her prosy life; but it suited her turn of mind to be an invalid and to have a doctor; and as the doctor whom her good fates had placed at her elbow thoroughly understood her case, no great harm was done. "It frets me dreadfully that I cannot get to see Mary," Lady Arabella said, as soon as the first ordinary question as to her ailments had been asked and answered. "She's quite well and will be over to see you before long." "Now I beg that she won't. She never thinks of coming when there can be no possible objection, and travelling, at the present moment, would be--" Whereupon the Lady Arabella shook her head very gravely. "Only think of the importance of it, doctor," she said. "Remember the enormous stake there is to be considered." "It would not do her a ha'porth of harm if the stake were twice as large." "Nonsense, doctor, don't tell me; as if I didn't know myself. I was very much against her going to London this spring, but of course what I said was overruled. It always is. I do believe Mr. Gresham went over to Boxall Hill, on purpose to induce her to go. But what does he care? He's fond of Frank; but he never thinks of looking beyond the present day. He never did, as you know well enough, doctor." "The trip did her all the good in the world," said Dr. Thorne, preferring anything to a conversation respecting the squire's sins. "I very well remember that when I was in that way it wasn't thought that such trips would do me any good. But, perhaps, things are altered since then." "Yes, they are," said the doctor. "We don't interfere so much now-a-days." "I know I never asked for such amusements when so much depended on quietness. I remember before Frank was born--and, indeed, when all of them were born-- But as you say, things were different then; and I can easily believe that Mary is a person quite determined to have her own way." "Why, Lady Arabella, she would have stayed at home without wishing to stir if Frank had done so much as hold up his little finger." "So did I always. If Mr. Gresham made the slightest hint I gave way. But I really don't see what one gets in return for such implicit obedience. Now this year, doctor, of course I should have liked to have been up in London for a week or two. You seemed to think yourself that I might as well see Sir Omicron." "There could be no possible objection, I said." "Well; no; exactly; and as Mr. Gresham knew I wished it, I think he might as well have offered it. I suppose there can be no reason now about money." "But I understood that Mary specially asked you and Augusta?" "Yes; Mary was very good. She did ask me. But I know very well that Mary wants all the room she has got in London. The house is not at all too large for herself. And, for the matter of that, my sister, the countess, was very anxious that I should be with her. But one does like to be independent if one can, and for one fortnight I do think that Mr. Gresham might have managed it. When I knew that he was so dreadfully out at elbows I never troubled him about it,--though, goodness knows, all that was never my fault." "The squire hates London. A fortnight there in warm weather would nearly be the death of him." "He might at any rate have paid me the compliment of asking me. The chances are ten to one I should not have gone. It is that indifference that cuts me so. He was here just now, and, would you believe it?--" But the doctor was determined to avoid further complaint for the present day. "I wonder what you would feel, Lady Arabella, if the squire were to take it into his head to go away and amuse himself, leaving you at home. There are worse men than Mr. Gresham, if you will believe me." All this was an allusion to Earl de Courcy, her ladyship's brother, as Lady Arabella very well understood; and the argument was one which was very often used to silence her. "Upon my word, then, I should like it better than his hanging about here doing nothing but attend to those nasty dogs. I really sometimes think that he has no spirit left." "You are mistaken there, Lady Arabella," said the doctor, rising with his hat in his hand and making his escape without further parley. As he went home he could not but think that that phase of married life was not a very pleasant one. Mr. Gresham and his wife were supposed by the world to live on the best of terms. They always inhabited the same house, went out together when they did go out, always sat in their respective corners in the family pew, and in their wildest dreams after the happiness of novelty never thought of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. In some respects--with regard, for instance, to the continued duration of their joint domesticity at the family mansion of Greshamsbury--they might have been taken for a pattern couple. But yet, as far as the doctor could see, they did not seem to add much to the happiness of each other. They loved each other, doubtless, and had either of them been in real danger, that danger would have made the other miserable; but yet it might well be a question whether either would not be more comfortable without the other. The doctor, as was his custom, dined at five, and at seven he went up to the cottage of his old friend Lady Scatcherd. Lady Scatcherd was not a refined woman, having in her early days been a labourer's daughter and having then married a labourer. But her husband had risen in the world--as has been told in those chronicles before mentioned,--and his widow was now Lady Scatcherd with a pretty cottage and a good jointure. She was in all things the very opposite to Lady Arabella Gresham; nevertheless, under the doctor's auspices, the two ladies were in some measure acquainted with each other. Of her married life, also, Dr. Thorne had seen something, and it may be questioned whether the memory of that was more alluring than the reality now existing at Greshamsbury. Of the two women Dr. Thorne much preferred his humbler friend, and to her he made his visits not in the guise of a doctor, but as a neighbour. "Well, my lady," he said, as he sat down by her on a broad garden seat--all the world called Lady Scatcherd "my lady,"--"and how do these long summer days agree with you? Your roses are twice better out than any I see up at the big house." "You may well call them long, doctor. They're long enough surely." "But not too long. Come, now, I won't have you complaining. You don't mean to tell me that you have anything to make you wretched? You had better not, for I won't believe you." "Eh; well; wretched! I don't know as I'm wretched. It'd be wicked to say that, and I with such comforts about me." "I think it would, almost." The doctor did not say this harshly, but in a soft, friendly tone, and pressing her hand gently as he spoke. "And I didn't mean to be wicked. I'm very thankful for everything--leastways, I always try to be. But, doctor, it is so lonely like." "Lonely! not more lonely than I am." "Oh, yes; you're different. You can go everywheres. But what can a lone woman do? I'll tell you what, doctor; I'd give it all up to have Roger back with his apron on and his pick in his hand. How well I mind his look when he'd come home o' nights." "And yet it was a hard life you had then, eh, old woman? It would be better for you to be thankful for what you've got." "I am thankful. Didn't I tell you so before?" said she, somewhat crossly. "But it's a sad life, this living alone. I declares I envy Hannah, 'cause she's got Jemima to sit in the kitchen with her. I want her to sit with me sometimes, but she won't." "Ah! but you shouldn't ask her. It's letting yourself down." "What do I care about down or up? It makes no difference, as he's gone. If he had lived one might have cared about being up, as you call it. Eh, deary; I'll be going after him before long, and it will be no matter then." "We shall all be going after him, sooner or later; that's sure enough." "Eh, dear, that's true, surely. It's only a span long, as Parson Oriel tells us when he gets romantic in his sermons. But it's a hard thing, doctor, when two is married, as they can't have their span, as he calls it, out together. Well, I must only put up with it, I suppose, as others does. Now, you're not going, doctor? You'll stop and have a dish of tea with me. You never see such cream as Hannah has from the Alderney cow. Do'ey now, doctor." But the doctor had his letter to write, and would not allow himself to be tempted even by the promise of Hannah's cream. So he went his way, angering Lady Scatcherd by his departure as he had before angered the squire, and thinking as he went which was most unreasonable in her wretchedness, his friend Lady Arabella, or his friend Lady Scatcherd. The former was always complaining of an existing husband who never refused her any moderate request; and the other passed her days in murmuring at the loss of a dead husband, who in his life had ever been to her imperious and harsh, and had sometimes been cruel and unjust. The doctor had his letter to write, but even yet he had not quite made up his mind what he would put into it; indeed, he had not hitherto resolved to whom it should be written. Looking at the matter as he had endeavoured to look at it, his niece, Mrs. Gresham, would be his correspondent; but if he brought himself to take this jump in the dark, in that case he would address himself direct to Miss Dunstable. He walked home, not by the straightest road, but taking a considerable curve, round by narrow lanes, and through thick flower-laden hedges,--very thoughtful. He was told that she wished to marry him; and was he to think only of himself? And as to that pride of his about money, was it in truth a hearty, manly feeling; or was it a false pride, of which it behoved him to be ashamed as it did of many cognate feelings? If he acted rightly in this matter, why should he be afraid of the thoughts of any one? A life of solitude was bitter enough, as poor Lady Scatcherd had complained. But then, looking at Lady Scatcherd, and looking also at his other near neighbour, his friend the squire, there was little thereabouts to lead him on to matrimony. So he walked home slowly through the lanes, very meditative, with his hands behind his back. Nor when he got home was he much more inclined to any resolute line of action. He might have drunk his tea with Lady Scatcherd, as well as have sat there in his own drawing-room, drinking it alone; for he got no pen and paper, and he dawdled over his teacup with the utmost dilatoriness, putting off, as it were, the evil day. To only one thing was he fixed--to this, namely, that that letter should be written before he went to bed. Having finished his tea, which did not take place till near eleven, he went downstairs to an untidy little room which lay behind his dep t of medicines, and in which he was wont to do his writing; and herein he did at last set himself down to his work. Even at that moment he was in doubt. But he would write his letter to Miss Dunstable and see how it looked. He was almost determined not to send it; so, at least, he said to himself: but he could do no harm by writing it. So he did write it, as follows:-- Greshamsbury, -- June, 185--. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,-- When he had got so far, he leaned back in his chair and looked at the paper. How on earth was he to find words to say that which he now wished to have said? He had never written such a letter in his life, or anything approaching to it, and now found himself overwhelmed with a difficulty of which he had not previously thought. He spent another half-hour in looking at the paper, and was at last nearly deterred by this new difficulty. He would use the simplest, plainest language, he said to himself over and over again; but it is not always easy to use simple, plain language,--by no means so easy as to mount on stilts, and to march along with sesquipedalian words, with pathos, spasms, and notes of interjection. But the letter did at last get itself written, and there was not a note of interjection in it. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,--I think it right to confess that I should not be now writing this letter to you, had I not been led to believe by other judgment than my own that the proposition which I am going to make would be regarded by you with favour. Without such other judgment I should, I own, have feared that the great disparity between you and me in regard to money would have given to such a proposition an appearance of being false and mercenary. All I ask of you now, with confidence, is to acquit me of such fault as that. When you have read so far you will understand what I mean. We have known each other now somewhat intimately, though indeed not very long, and I have sometimes fancied that you were almost as well pleased to be with me as I have been to be with you. If I have been wrong in this, tell me so simply, and I will endeavour to let our friendship run on as though this letter had not been written. But if I have been right, and if it be possible that you can think that a union between us will make us both happier than we are single, I will plight you my word and troth with good faith, and will do what an old man may do to make the burden of the world lie light upon your shoulders. Looking at my age I can hardly keep myself from thinking that I am an old fool: but I try to reconcile myself to that by remembering that you yourself are no longer a girl. You see that I pay you no compliments, and that you need expect none from me. I do not know that I could add anything to the truth of this, if I were to write three times as much. All that is necessary is, that you should know what I mean. If you do not believe me to be true and honest already, nothing that I can write will make you believe it. God bless you. I know you will not keep me long in suspense for an answer. Affectionately your friend, THOMAS THORNE. When he had finished he meditated again for another half-hour whether it would not be right that he should add something about her money. Would it not be well for him to tell her--it might be said in a postscript--that with regard to all her wealth she would be free to do what she chose? At any rate he owed no debts for her to pay, and would still have his own income, sufficient for his own purposes. But about one o'clock he came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave the matter alone. If she cared for him, and could trust him, and was worthy also that he should trust her, no omission of such a statement would deter her from coming to him: and if there were no such trust, it would not be created by any such assurance on his part. So he read the letter over twice, sealed it, and took it up, together with his bed candle, into his bed-room. Now that the letter was written it seemed to be a thing fixed by fate that it must go. He had written it that he might see how it looked when written; but now that it was written, there remained no doubt but that it must be sent. So he went to bed, with the letter on the toilette-table beside him; and early in the morning--so early as to make it seem that the importance of the letter had disturbed his rest--he sent it off by a special messenger to Boxall Hill. "I'se wait for an answer?" said the boy. "No," said the doctor: "leave the letter, and come away." The breakfast hour was not very early at Boxall Hill in these summer months. Frank Gresham, no doubt, went round his farm before he came in for prayers, and his wife was probably looking to the butter in the dairy. At any rate, they did not meet till near ten, and therefore, though the ride from Greshamsbury to Boxall Hill was nearly two hours' work, Miss Dunstable had her letter in her own room before she came down. She read it in silence as she was dressing, while the maid was with her in the room; but she made no sign which could induce her Abigail to think that the epistle was more than ordinarily important. She read it, and then quietly refolding it and placing it in the envelope, she put it down on the table at which she was sitting. It was full fifteen minutes afterwards that she begged her servant to see if Mrs. Gresham were still in her own room. "Because I want to see her for five minutes, alone, before breakfast," said Miss Dunstable. "You traitor; you false, black traitor!" were the first words which Miss Dunstable spoke when she found herself alone with her friend. "Why, what's the matter?" "I did not think there was so much mischief in you, nor so keen and commonplace a desire for match-making. Look here. Read the first four lines; not more, if you please; the rest is private. Whose is the other judgment of whom your uncle speaks in his letter?" "Oh, Miss Dunstable! I must read it all." "Indeed you'll do no such thing. You think it's a love-letter, I dare say; but indeed there's not a word about love in it." "I know he has offered. I shall be so glad, for I know you like him." "He tells me that I am an old woman, and insinuates that I may probably be an old fool." "I am sure he does not say that." "Ah! but I'm sure that he does. The former is true enough, and I never complain of the truth. But as to the latter, I am by no means so certain that it is true--not in the sense that he means it." "Dear, dearest woman, don't go on in that way now. Do speak out to me, and speak without jesting." "Whose was the other judgment to whom he trusts so implicitly? Tell me that." "Mine, mine, of course. No one else can have spoken to him about it. Of course I talked to him." "And what did you tell him?" "I told him--" "Well, out with it. Let me have the real facts. Mind, I tell you fairly that you had no right to tell him anything. What passed between us, passed in confidence. But let us hear what you did say." "I told him that you would have him if he offered." And Mrs. Gresham, as she spoke, looked into her friend's face doubtingly, not knowing whether in very truth Miss Dunstable were pleased with her or displeased. If she were displeased, then how had her uncle been deceived! "You told him that as a fact?" "I told him that I thought so." "Then I suppose I am bound to have him," said Miss Dunstable, dropping the letter on to the floor in mock despair. "My dear, dear, dearest woman!" said Mrs. Gresham, bursting into tears, and throwing herself on to her friend's neck. "Mind you are a dutiful niece," said Miss Dunstable. "And now let me go and finish dressing." In the course of the afternoon, an answer was sent back to Greshamsbury, in these words:-- DEAR DR. THORNE,--I do and will trust you in everything; and it shall be as you would have it. Mary writes to you; but do not believe a word she says. I never will again, for she has behaved so bad in this matter. Yours affectionately and very truly, MARTHA DUNSTABLE. "And so I am going to marry the richest woman in England," said Dr. Thorne to himself, as he sat down that day to his mutton-chop. CHAPTER XL. INTERNECINE. It must be conceived that there was some feeling of triumph at Plumstead Episcopi, when the wife of the rector returned home with her daughter, the bride elect of the Lord Dumbello. The heir of the Marquis of Hartletop was, in wealth, the most considerable unmarried young nobleman of the day; he was noted, too, as a man difficult to be pleased, as one who was very fine and who gave himself airs,--and to have been selected as the wife of such a man as this was a great thing for the daughter of a parish clergyman. We have seen in what manner the happy girl's mother communicated the fact to Lady Lufton, hiding, as it were, her pride under a veil; and we have seen also how meekly the happy girl bore her own great fortune, applying herself humbly to the packing of her clothes, as though she ignored her own glory. But nevertheless there was triumph at Plumstead Episcopi. The mother, when she returned home, began to feel that she had been thoroughly successful in the great object of her life. While she was yet in London she had hardly realized her satisfaction, and there were doubts then whether the cup might not be dashed from her lips before it was tasted. It might be that even the son of the Marquis of Hartletop was subject to

stake

How many times the word 'stake' appears in the text?

would have done a manifest injury to Miss Dunstable in forcing her to declare her thoughts and feelings. She had already spoken to her uncle in London, and though he had said nothing to show that he approved of her plan, neither had he said anything to show that he disapproved it. Therefore she had hoped through the whole of those three days that he would make some sign,--at any rate to her; that he would in some way declare what were his own thoughts on this matter. But the morning of his departure came, and he had declared nothing. "Uncle," she said, in the last five minutes of his sojourn there, after he had already taken leave of Miss Dunstable and shaken hands with Mrs. Gresham, "have you ever thought of what I said to you up in London?" "Yes, Mary; of course I have thought about it. Such an idea as that, when put into a man's head, will make itself thought about." "Well; and what next? Do talk to me about it. Do not be so hard and unlike yourself." "I have very little to say about it." "I can tell you this for certain, you may if you like." "Mary! Mary!" "I would not say so if I were not sure that I should not lead you into trouble." "You are foolish in wishing this, my dear; foolish in trying to tempt an old man into a folly." "Not foolish if I know that it will make you both happier." He made her no further reply, but stooping down that she might kiss him, as was his wont, went his way, leaving her almost miserable in the thought that she had troubled all these waters to no purpose. What would Miss Dunstable think of her? But on that afternoon Miss Dunstable seemed to be as happy and even-tempered as ever. CHAPTER XXXIX. HOW TO WRITE A LOVE LETTER. Dr. Thorne, in the few words which he spoke to his niece before he left Boxall Hill, had called himself an old man; but he was as yet on the right side of sixty by five good years, and bore about with him less of the marks of age than most men of fifty-five do bear. One would have said in looking at him that there was no reason why he should not marry if he found that such a step seemed good to him; and looking at the age of the proposed bride, there was nothing unsuitable in that respect. But nevertheless he felt almost ashamed of himself, in that he allowed himself even to think of the proposition which his niece had made. He mounted his horse that day at Boxall Hill--for he made all his journeys about the county on horseback--and rode slowly home to Greshamsbury, thinking not so much of the suggested marriage as of his own folly in thinking of it. How could he be such an ass at his time of life as to allow the even course of his way to be disturbed by any such idea? Of course he could not propose to himself such a wife as Miss Dunstable without having some thoughts as to her wealth; and it had been the pride of his life so to live that the world might know that he was indifferent about money. His profession was all in all to him,--the air which he breathed as well as the bread which he ate; and how could he follow his profession if he made such a marriage as this? She would expect him to go to London with her; and what would he become, dangling at her heels there, known only to the world as the husband of the richest woman in the town? The kind of life was one which would be unsuitable to him;--and yet, as he rode home, he could not resolve to rid himself of the idea. He went on thinking of it, though he still continued to condemn himself for keeping it in his thoughts. That night at home he would make up his mind, so he declared to himself; and would then write to his niece begging her to drop the subject. Having so far come to a resolution he went on meditating what course of life it might be well for him to pursue if he and Miss Dunstable should, after all, become man and wife. There were two ladies whom it behoved him to see on the day of his arrival--whom, indeed, he generally saw every day except when absent from Greshamsbury. The first of these--first in the general consideration of the people of the place--was the wife of the squire, Lady Arabella Gresham, a very old patient of the doctor's. Her it was his custom to visit early in the afternoon; and then, if he were able to escape the squire's daily invitation to dinner, he customarily went to the other, Lady Scatcherd, when the rapid meal in his own house was over. Such, at least, was his summer practice. "Well, doctor, how are they at Boxall Hill?" said the squire, waylaying him on the gravel sweep before the door. The squire was very hard set for occupation in these summer months. "Quite well, I believe." "I don't know what's come to Frank. I think he hates this place now. He's full of the election, I suppose." "Oh, yes; he told me to say he should be over here soon. Of course there'll be no contest, so he need not trouble himself." "Happy dog, isn't he, doctor? to have it all before him instead of behind him. Well, well; he's as good a lad as ever lived,--as ever lived. And let me see; Mary's time--" And then there were a few very important words spoken on that subject. "I'll just step up to Lady Arabella now," said the doctor. "She's as fretful as possible," said the squire. "I've just left her." "Nothing special the matter, I hope?" "No, I think not; nothing in your way, that is; only specially cross, which always comes in my way. You'll stop and dine to-day, of course?" "Not to-day, squire." "Nonsense; you will. I have been quite counting on you. I have a particular reason for wanting to have you to-day,--a most particular reason." But the squire always had his particular reasons. "I'm very sorry, but it is impossible to-day. I shall have a letter to write that I must sit down to seriously. Shall I see you when I come down from her ladyship?" The squire turned away sulkily, almost without answering him, for he now had no prospect of any alleviation to the tedium of the evening; and the doctor went up-stairs to his patient. For Lady Arabella, though it cannot be said that she was ill, was always a patient. It must not be supposed that she kept her bed and swallowed daily doses, or was prevented from taking her share in such prosy gaieties as came from time to time in the way of her prosy life; but it suited her turn of mind to be an invalid and to have a doctor; and as the doctor whom her good fates had placed at her elbow thoroughly understood her case, no great harm was done. "It frets me dreadfully that I cannot get to see Mary," Lady Arabella said, as soon as the first ordinary question as to her ailments had been asked and answered. "She's quite well and will be over to see you before long." "Now I beg that she won't. She never thinks of coming when there can be no possible objection, and travelling, at the present moment, would be--" Whereupon the Lady Arabella shook her head very gravely. "Only think of the importance of it, doctor," she said. "Remember the enormous stake there is to be considered." "It would not do her a ha'porth of harm if the stake were twice as large." "Nonsense, doctor, don't tell me; as if I didn't know myself. I was very much against her going to London this spring, but of course what I said was overruled. It always is. I do believe Mr. Gresham went over to Boxall Hill, on purpose to induce her to go. But what does he care? He's fond of Frank; but he never thinks of looking beyond the present day. He never did, as you know well enough, doctor." "The trip did her all the good in the world," said Dr. Thorne, preferring anything to a conversation respecting the squire's sins. "I very well remember that when I was in that way it wasn't thought that such trips would do me any good. But, perhaps, things are altered since then." "Yes, they are," said the doctor. "We don't interfere so much now-a-days." "I know I never asked for such amusements when so much depended on quietness. I remember before Frank was born--and, indeed, when all of them were born-- But as you say, things were different then; and I can easily believe that Mary is a person quite determined to have her own way." "Why, Lady Arabella, she would have stayed at home without wishing to stir if Frank had done so much as hold up his little finger." "So did I always. If Mr. Gresham made the slightest hint I gave way. But I really don't see what one gets in return for such implicit obedience. Now this year, doctor, of course I should have liked to have been up in London for a week or two. You seemed to think yourself that I might as well see Sir Omicron." "There could be no possible objection, I said." "Well; no; exactly; and as Mr. Gresham knew I wished it, I think he might as well have offered it. I suppose there can be no reason now about money." "But I understood that Mary specially asked you and Augusta?" "Yes; Mary was very good. She did ask me. But I know very well that Mary wants all the room she has got in London. The house is not at all too large for herself. And, for the matter of that, my sister, the countess, was very anxious that I should be with her. But one does like to be independent if one can, and for one fortnight I do think that Mr. Gresham might have managed it. When I knew that he was so dreadfully out at elbows I never troubled him about it,--though, goodness knows, all that was never my fault." "The squire hates London. A fortnight there in warm weather would nearly be the death of him." "He might at any rate have paid me the compliment of asking me. The chances are ten to one I should not have gone. It is that indifference that cuts me so. He was here just now, and, would you believe it?--" But the doctor was determined to avoid further complaint for the present day. "I wonder what you would feel, Lady Arabella, if the squire were to take it into his head to go away and amuse himself, leaving you at home. There are worse men than Mr. Gresham, if you will believe me." All this was an allusion to Earl de Courcy, her ladyship's brother, as Lady Arabella very well understood; and the argument was one which was very often used to silence her. "Upon my word, then, I should like it better than his hanging about here doing nothing but attend to those nasty dogs. I really sometimes think that he has no spirit left." "You are mistaken there, Lady Arabella," said the doctor, rising with his hat in his hand and making his escape without further parley. As he went home he could not but think that that phase of married life was not a very pleasant one. Mr. Gresham and his wife were supposed by the world to live on the best of terms. They always inhabited the same house, went out together when they did go out, always sat in their respective corners in the family pew, and in their wildest dreams after the happiness of novelty never thought of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. In some respects--with regard, for instance, to the continued duration of their joint domesticity at the family mansion of Greshamsbury--they might have been taken for a pattern couple. But yet, as far as the doctor could see, they did not seem to add much to the happiness of each other. They loved each other, doubtless, and had either of them been in real danger, that danger would have made the other miserable; but yet it might well be a question whether either would not be more comfortable without the other. The doctor, as was his custom, dined at five, and at seven he went up to the cottage of his old friend Lady Scatcherd. Lady Scatcherd was not a refined woman, having in her early days been a labourer's daughter and having then married a labourer. But her husband had risen in the world--as has been told in those chronicles before mentioned,--and his widow was now Lady Scatcherd with a pretty cottage and a good jointure. She was in all things the very opposite to Lady Arabella Gresham; nevertheless, under the doctor's auspices, the two ladies were in some measure acquainted with each other. Of her married life, also, Dr. Thorne had seen something, and it may be questioned whether the memory of that was more alluring than the reality now existing at Greshamsbury. Of the two women Dr. Thorne much preferred his humbler friend, and to her he made his visits not in the guise of a doctor, but as a neighbour. "Well, my lady," he said, as he sat down by her on a broad garden seat--all the world called Lady Scatcherd "my lady,"--"and how do these long summer days agree with you? Your roses are twice better out than any I see up at the big house." "You may well call them long, doctor. They're long enough surely." "But not too long. Come, now, I won't have you complaining. You don't mean to tell me that you have anything to make you wretched? You had better not, for I won't believe you." "Eh; well; wretched! I don't know as I'm wretched. It'd be wicked to say that, and I with such comforts about me." "I think it would, almost." The doctor did not say this harshly, but in a soft, friendly tone, and pressing her hand gently as he spoke. "And I didn't mean to be wicked. I'm very thankful for everything--leastways, I always try to be. But, doctor, it is so lonely like." "Lonely! not more lonely than I am." "Oh, yes; you're different. You can go everywheres. But what can a lone woman do? I'll tell you what, doctor; I'd give it all up to have Roger back with his apron on and his pick in his hand. How well I mind his look when he'd come home o' nights." "And yet it was a hard life you had then, eh, old woman? It would be better for you to be thankful for what you've got." "I am thankful. Didn't I tell you so before?" said she, somewhat crossly. "But it's a sad life, this living alone. I declares I envy Hannah, 'cause she's got Jemima to sit in the kitchen with her. I want her to sit with me sometimes, but she won't." "Ah! but you shouldn't ask her. It's letting yourself down." "What do I care about down or up? It makes no difference, as he's gone. If he had lived one might have cared about being up, as you call it. Eh, deary; I'll be going after him before long, and it will be no matter then." "We shall all be going after him, sooner or later; that's sure enough." "Eh, dear, that's true, surely. It's only a span long, as Parson Oriel tells us when he gets romantic in his sermons. But it's a hard thing, doctor, when two is married, as they can't have their span, as he calls it, out together. Well, I must only put up with it, I suppose, as others does. Now, you're not going, doctor? You'll stop and have a dish of tea with me. You never see such cream as Hannah has from the Alderney cow. Do'ey now, doctor." But the doctor had his letter to write, and would not allow himself to be tempted even by the promise of Hannah's cream. So he went his way, angering Lady Scatcherd by his departure as he had before angered the squire, and thinking as he went which was most unreasonable in her wretchedness, his friend Lady Arabella, or his friend Lady Scatcherd. The former was always complaining of an existing husband who never refused her any moderate request; and the other passed her days in murmuring at the loss of a dead husband, who in his life had ever been to her imperious and harsh, and had sometimes been cruel and unjust. The doctor had his letter to write, but even yet he had not quite made up his mind what he would put into it; indeed, he had not hitherto resolved to whom it should be written. Looking at the matter as he had endeavoured to look at it, his niece, Mrs. Gresham, would be his correspondent; but if he brought himself to take this jump in the dark, in that case he would address himself direct to Miss Dunstable. He walked home, not by the straightest road, but taking a considerable curve, round by narrow lanes, and through thick flower-laden hedges,--very thoughtful. He was told that she wished to marry him; and was he to think only of himself? And as to that pride of his about money, was it in truth a hearty, manly feeling; or was it a false pride, of which it behoved him to be ashamed as it did of many cognate feelings? If he acted rightly in this matter, why should he be afraid of the thoughts of any one? A life of solitude was bitter enough, as poor Lady Scatcherd had complained. But then, looking at Lady Scatcherd, and looking also at his other near neighbour, his friend the squire, there was little thereabouts to lead him on to matrimony. So he walked home slowly through the lanes, very meditative, with his hands behind his back. Nor when he got home was he much more inclined to any resolute line of action. He might have drunk his tea with Lady Scatcherd, as well as have sat there in his own drawing-room, drinking it alone; for he got no pen and paper, and he dawdled over his teacup with the utmost dilatoriness, putting off, as it were, the evil day. To only one thing was he fixed--to this, namely, that that letter should be written before he went to bed. Having finished his tea, which did not take place till near eleven, he went downstairs to an untidy little room which lay behind his dep t of medicines, and in which he was wont to do his writing; and herein he did at last set himself down to his work. Even at that moment he was in doubt. But he would write his letter to Miss Dunstable and see how it looked. He was almost determined not to send it; so, at least, he said to himself: but he could do no harm by writing it. So he did write it, as follows:-- Greshamsbury, -- June, 185--. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,-- When he had got so far, he leaned back in his chair and looked at the paper. How on earth was he to find words to say that which he now wished to have said? He had never written such a letter in his life, or anything approaching to it, and now found himself overwhelmed with a difficulty of which he had not previously thought. He spent another half-hour in looking at the paper, and was at last nearly deterred by this new difficulty. He would use the simplest, plainest language, he said to himself over and over again; but it is not always easy to use simple, plain language,--by no means so easy as to mount on stilts, and to march along with sesquipedalian words, with pathos, spasms, and notes of interjection. But the letter did at last get itself written, and there was not a note of interjection in it. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,--I think it right to confess that I should not be now writing this letter to you, had I not been led to believe by other judgment than my own that the proposition which I am going to make would be regarded by you with favour. Without such other judgment I should, I own, have feared that the great disparity between you and me in regard to money would have given to such a proposition an appearance of being false and mercenary. All I ask of you now, with confidence, is to acquit me of such fault as that. When you have read so far you will understand what I mean. We have known each other now somewhat intimately, though indeed not very long, and I have sometimes fancied that you were almost as well pleased to be with me as I have been to be with you. If I have been wrong in this, tell me so simply, and I will endeavour to let our friendship run on as though this letter had not been written. But if I have been right, and if it be possible that you can think that a union between us will make us both happier than we are single, I will plight you my word and troth with good faith, and will do what an old man may do to make the burden of the world lie light upon your shoulders. Looking at my age I can hardly keep myself from thinking that I am an old fool: but I try to reconcile myself to that by remembering that you yourself are no longer a girl. You see that I pay you no compliments, and that you need expect none from me. I do not know that I could add anything to the truth of this, if I were to write three times as much. All that is necessary is, that you should know what I mean. If you do not believe me to be true and honest already, nothing that I can write will make you believe it. God bless you. I know you will not keep me long in suspense for an answer. Affectionately your friend, THOMAS THORNE. When he had finished he meditated again for another half-hour whether it would not be right that he should add something about her money. Would it not be well for him to tell her--it might be said in a postscript--that with regard to all her wealth she would be free to do what she chose? At any rate he owed no debts for her to pay, and would still have his own income, sufficient for his own purposes. But about one o'clock he came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave the matter alone. If she cared for him, and could trust him, and was worthy also that he should trust her, no omission of such a statement would deter her from coming to him: and if there were no such trust, it would not be created by any such assurance on his part. So he read the letter over twice, sealed it, and took it up, together with his bed candle, into his bed-room. Now that the letter was written it seemed to be a thing fixed by fate that it must go. He had written it that he might see how it looked when written; but now that it was written, there remained no doubt but that it must be sent. So he went to bed, with the letter on the toilette-table beside him; and early in the morning--so early as to make it seem that the importance of the letter had disturbed his rest--he sent it off by a special messenger to Boxall Hill. "I'se wait for an answer?" said the boy. "No," said the doctor: "leave the letter, and come away." The breakfast hour was not very early at Boxall Hill in these summer months. Frank Gresham, no doubt, went round his farm before he came in for prayers, and his wife was probably looking to the butter in the dairy. At any rate, they did not meet till near ten, and therefore, though the ride from Greshamsbury to Boxall Hill was nearly two hours' work, Miss Dunstable had her letter in her own room before she came down. She read it in silence as she was dressing, while the maid was with her in the room; but she made no sign which could induce her Abigail to think that the epistle was more than ordinarily important. She read it, and then quietly refolding it and placing it in the envelope, she put it down on the table at which she was sitting. It was full fifteen minutes afterwards that she begged her servant to see if Mrs. Gresham were still in her own room. "Because I want to see her for five minutes, alone, before breakfast," said Miss Dunstable. "You traitor; you false, black traitor!" were the first words which Miss Dunstable spoke when she found herself alone with her friend. "Why, what's the matter?" "I did not think there was so much mischief in you, nor so keen and commonplace a desire for match-making. Look here. Read the first four lines; not more, if you please; the rest is private. Whose is the other judgment of whom your uncle speaks in his letter?" "Oh, Miss Dunstable! I must read it all." "Indeed you'll do no such thing. You think it's a love-letter, I dare say; but indeed there's not a word about love in it." "I know he has offered. I shall be so glad, for I know you like him." "He tells me that I am an old woman, and insinuates that I may probably be an old fool." "I am sure he does not say that." "Ah! but I'm sure that he does. The former is true enough, and I never complain of the truth. But as to the latter, I am by no means so certain that it is true--not in the sense that he means it." "Dear, dearest woman, don't go on in that way now. Do speak out to me, and speak without jesting." "Whose was the other judgment to whom he trusts so implicitly? Tell me that." "Mine, mine, of course. No one else can have spoken to him about it. Of course I talked to him." "And what did you tell him?" "I told him--" "Well, out with it. Let me have the real facts. Mind, I tell you fairly that you had no right to tell him anything. What passed between us, passed in confidence. But let us hear what you did say." "I told him that you would have him if he offered." And Mrs. Gresham, as she spoke, looked into her friend's face doubtingly, not knowing whether in very truth Miss Dunstable were pleased with her or displeased. If she were displeased, then how had her uncle been deceived! "You told him that as a fact?" "I told him that I thought so." "Then I suppose I am bound to have him," said Miss Dunstable, dropping the letter on to the floor in mock despair. "My dear, dear, dearest woman!" said Mrs. Gresham, bursting into tears, and throwing herself on to her friend's neck. "Mind you are a dutiful niece," said Miss Dunstable. "And now let me go and finish dressing." In the course of the afternoon, an answer was sent back to Greshamsbury, in these words:-- DEAR DR. THORNE,--I do and will trust you in everything; and it shall be as you would have it. Mary writes to you; but do not believe a word she says. I never will again, for she has behaved so bad in this matter. Yours affectionately and very truly, MARTHA DUNSTABLE. "And so I am going to marry the richest woman in England," said Dr. Thorne to himself, as he sat down that day to his mutton-chop. CHAPTER XL. INTERNECINE. It must be conceived that there was some feeling of triumph at Plumstead Episcopi, when the wife of the rector returned home with her daughter, the bride elect of the Lord Dumbello. The heir of the Marquis of Hartletop was, in wealth, the most considerable unmarried young nobleman of the day; he was noted, too, as a man difficult to be pleased, as one who was very fine and who gave himself airs,--and to have been selected as the wife of such a man as this was a great thing for the daughter of a parish clergyman. We have seen in what manner the happy girl's mother communicated the fact to Lady Lufton, hiding, as it were, her pride under a veil; and we have seen also how meekly the happy girl bore her own great fortune, applying herself humbly to the packing of her clothes, as though she ignored her own glory. But nevertheless there was triumph at Plumstead Episcopi. The mother, when she returned home, began to feel that she had been thoroughly successful in the great object of her life. While she was yet in London she had hardly realized her satisfaction, and there were doubts then whether the cup might not be dashed from her lips before it was tasted. It might be that even the son of the Marquis of Hartletop was subject to

sulkily

How many times the word 'sulkily' appears in the text?

would have done a manifest injury to Miss Dunstable in forcing her to declare her thoughts and feelings. She had already spoken to her uncle in London, and though he had said nothing to show that he approved of her plan, neither had he said anything to show that he disapproved it. Therefore she had hoped through the whole of those three days that he would make some sign,--at any rate to her; that he would in some way declare what were his own thoughts on this matter. But the morning of his departure came, and he had declared nothing. "Uncle," she said, in the last five minutes of his sojourn there, after he had already taken leave of Miss Dunstable and shaken hands with Mrs. Gresham, "have you ever thought of what I said to you up in London?" "Yes, Mary; of course I have thought about it. Such an idea as that, when put into a man's head, will make itself thought about." "Well; and what next? Do talk to me about it. Do not be so hard and unlike yourself." "I have very little to say about it." "I can tell you this for certain, you may if you like." "Mary! Mary!" "I would not say so if I were not sure that I should not lead you into trouble." "You are foolish in wishing this, my dear; foolish in trying to tempt an old man into a folly." "Not foolish if I know that it will make you both happier." He made her no further reply, but stooping down that she might kiss him, as was his wont, went his way, leaving her almost miserable in the thought that she had troubled all these waters to no purpose. What would Miss Dunstable think of her? But on that afternoon Miss Dunstable seemed to be as happy and even-tempered as ever. CHAPTER XXXIX. HOW TO WRITE A LOVE LETTER. Dr. Thorne, in the few words which he spoke to his niece before he left Boxall Hill, had called himself an old man; but he was as yet on the right side of sixty by five good years, and bore about with him less of the marks of age than most men of fifty-five do bear. One would have said in looking at him that there was no reason why he should not marry if he found that such a step seemed good to him; and looking at the age of the proposed bride, there was nothing unsuitable in that respect. But nevertheless he felt almost ashamed of himself, in that he allowed himself even to think of the proposition which his niece had made. He mounted his horse that day at Boxall Hill--for he made all his journeys about the county on horseback--and rode slowly home to Greshamsbury, thinking not so much of the suggested marriage as of his own folly in thinking of it. How could he be such an ass at his time of life as to allow the even course of his way to be disturbed by any such idea? Of course he could not propose to himself such a wife as Miss Dunstable without having some thoughts as to her wealth; and it had been the pride of his life so to live that the world might know that he was indifferent about money. His profession was all in all to him,--the air which he breathed as well as the bread which he ate; and how could he follow his profession if he made such a marriage as this? She would expect him to go to London with her; and what would he become, dangling at her heels there, known only to the world as the husband of the richest woman in the town? The kind of life was one which would be unsuitable to him;--and yet, as he rode home, he could not resolve to rid himself of the idea. He went on thinking of it, though he still continued to condemn himself for keeping it in his thoughts. That night at home he would make up his mind, so he declared to himself; and would then write to his niece begging her to drop the subject. Having so far come to a resolution he went on meditating what course of life it might be well for him to pursue if he and Miss Dunstable should, after all, become man and wife. There were two ladies whom it behoved him to see on the day of his arrival--whom, indeed, he generally saw every day except when absent from Greshamsbury. The first of these--first in the general consideration of the people of the place--was the wife of the squire, Lady Arabella Gresham, a very old patient of the doctor's. Her it was his custom to visit early in the afternoon; and then, if he were able to escape the squire's daily invitation to dinner, he customarily went to the other, Lady Scatcherd, when the rapid meal in his own house was over. Such, at least, was his summer practice. "Well, doctor, how are they at Boxall Hill?" said the squire, waylaying him on the gravel sweep before the door. The squire was very hard set for occupation in these summer months. "Quite well, I believe." "I don't know what's come to Frank. I think he hates this place now. He's full of the election, I suppose." "Oh, yes; he told me to say he should be over here soon. Of course there'll be no contest, so he need not trouble himself." "Happy dog, isn't he, doctor? to have it all before him instead of behind him. Well, well; he's as good a lad as ever lived,--as ever lived. And let me see; Mary's time--" And then there were a few very important words spoken on that subject. "I'll just step up to Lady Arabella now," said the doctor. "She's as fretful as possible," said the squire. "I've just left her." "Nothing special the matter, I hope?" "No, I think not; nothing in your way, that is; only specially cross, which always comes in my way. You'll stop and dine to-day, of course?" "Not to-day, squire." "Nonsense; you will. I have been quite counting on you. I have a particular reason for wanting to have you to-day,--a most particular reason." But the squire always had his particular reasons. "I'm very sorry, but it is impossible to-day. I shall have a letter to write that I must sit down to seriously. Shall I see you when I come down from her ladyship?" The squire turned away sulkily, almost without answering him, for he now had no prospect of any alleviation to the tedium of the evening; and the doctor went up-stairs to his patient. For Lady Arabella, though it cannot be said that she was ill, was always a patient. It must not be supposed that she kept her bed and swallowed daily doses, or was prevented from taking her share in such prosy gaieties as came from time to time in the way of her prosy life; but it suited her turn of mind to be an invalid and to have a doctor; and as the doctor whom her good fates had placed at her elbow thoroughly understood her case, no great harm was done. "It frets me dreadfully that I cannot get to see Mary," Lady Arabella said, as soon as the first ordinary question as to her ailments had been asked and answered. "She's quite well and will be over to see you before long." "Now I beg that she won't. She never thinks of coming when there can be no possible objection, and travelling, at the present moment, would be--" Whereupon the Lady Arabella shook her head very gravely. "Only think of the importance of it, doctor," she said. "Remember the enormous stake there is to be considered." "It would not do her a ha'porth of harm if the stake were twice as large." "Nonsense, doctor, don't tell me; as if I didn't know myself. I was very much against her going to London this spring, but of course what I said was overruled. It always is. I do believe Mr. Gresham went over to Boxall Hill, on purpose to induce her to go. But what does he care? He's fond of Frank; but he never thinks of looking beyond the present day. He never did, as you know well enough, doctor." "The trip did her all the good in the world," said Dr. Thorne, preferring anything to a conversation respecting the squire's sins. "I very well remember that when I was in that way it wasn't thought that such trips would do me any good. But, perhaps, things are altered since then." "Yes, they are," said the doctor. "We don't interfere so much now-a-days." "I know I never asked for such amusements when so much depended on quietness. I remember before Frank was born--and, indeed, when all of them were born-- But as you say, things were different then; and I can easily believe that Mary is a person quite determined to have her own way." "Why, Lady Arabella, she would have stayed at home without wishing to stir if Frank had done so much as hold up his little finger." "So did I always. If Mr. Gresham made the slightest hint I gave way. But I really don't see what one gets in return for such implicit obedience. Now this year, doctor, of course I should have liked to have been up in London for a week or two. You seemed to think yourself that I might as well see Sir Omicron." "There could be no possible objection, I said." "Well; no; exactly; and as Mr. Gresham knew I wished it, I think he might as well have offered it. I suppose there can be no reason now about money." "But I understood that Mary specially asked you and Augusta?" "Yes; Mary was very good. She did ask me. But I know very well that Mary wants all the room she has got in London. The house is not at all too large for herself. And, for the matter of that, my sister, the countess, was very anxious that I should be with her. But one does like to be independent if one can, and for one fortnight I do think that Mr. Gresham might have managed it. When I knew that he was so dreadfully out at elbows I never troubled him about it,--though, goodness knows, all that was never my fault." "The squire hates London. A fortnight there in warm weather would nearly be the death of him." "He might at any rate have paid me the compliment of asking me. The chances are ten to one I should not have gone. It is that indifference that cuts me so. He was here just now, and, would you believe it?--" But the doctor was determined to avoid further complaint for the present day. "I wonder what you would feel, Lady Arabella, if the squire were to take it into his head to go away and amuse himself, leaving you at home. There are worse men than Mr. Gresham, if you will believe me." All this was an allusion to Earl de Courcy, her ladyship's brother, as Lady Arabella very well understood; and the argument was one which was very often used to silence her. "Upon my word, then, I should like it better than his hanging about here doing nothing but attend to those nasty dogs. I really sometimes think that he has no spirit left." "You are mistaken there, Lady Arabella," said the doctor, rising with his hat in his hand and making his escape without further parley. As he went home he could not but think that that phase of married life was not a very pleasant one. Mr. Gresham and his wife were supposed by the world to live on the best of terms. They always inhabited the same house, went out together when they did go out, always sat in their respective corners in the family pew, and in their wildest dreams after the happiness of novelty never thought of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. In some respects--with regard, for instance, to the continued duration of their joint domesticity at the family mansion of Greshamsbury--they might have been taken for a pattern couple. But yet, as far as the doctor could see, they did not seem to add much to the happiness of each other. They loved each other, doubtless, and had either of them been in real danger, that danger would have made the other miserable; but yet it might well be a question whether either would not be more comfortable without the other. The doctor, as was his custom, dined at five, and at seven he went up to the cottage of his old friend Lady Scatcherd. Lady Scatcherd was not a refined woman, having in her early days been a labourer's daughter and having then married a labourer. But her husband had risen in the world--as has been told in those chronicles before mentioned,--and his widow was now Lady Scatcherd with a pretty cottage and a good jointure. She was in all things the very opposite to Lady Arabella Gresham; nevertheless, under the doctor's auspices, the two ladies were in some measure acquainted with each other. Of her married life, also, Dr. Thorne had seen something, and it may be questioned whether the memory of that was more alluring than the reality now existing at Greshamsbury. Of the two women Dr. Thorne much preferred his humbler friend, and to her he made his visits not in the guise of a doctor, but as a neighbour. "Well, my lady," he said, as he sat down by her on a broad garden seat--all the world called Lady Scatcherd "my lady,"--"and how do these long summer days agree with you? Your roses are twice better out than any I see up at the big house." "You may well call them long, doctor. They're long enough surely." "But not too long. Come, now, I won't have you complaining. You don't mean to tell me that you have anything to make you wretched? You had better not, for I won't believe you." "Eh; well; wretched! I don't know as I'm wretched. It'd be wicked to say that, and I with such comforts about me." "I think it would, almost." The doctor did not say this harshly, but in a soft, friendly tone, and pressing her hand gently as he spoke. "And I didn't mean to be wicked. I'm very thankful for everything--leastways, I always try to be. But, doctor, it is so lonely like." "Lonely! not more lonely than I am." "Oh, yes; you're different. You can go everywheres. But what can a lone woman do? I'll tell you what, doctor; I'd give it all up to have Roger back with his apron on and his pick in his hand. How well I mind his look when he'd come home o' nights." "And yet it was a hard life you had then, eh, old woman? It would be better for you to be thankful for what you've got." "I am thankful. Didn't I tell you so before?" said she, somewhat crossly. "But it's a sad life, this living alone. I declares I envy Hannah, 'cause she's got Jemima to sit in the kitchen with her. I want her to sit with me sometimes, but she won't." "Ah! but you shouldn't ask her. It's letting yourself down." "What do I care about down or up? It makes no difference, as he's gone. If he had lived one might have cared about being up, as you call it. Eh, deary; I'll be going after him before long, and it will be no matter then." "We shall all be going after him, sooner or later; that's sure enough." "Eh, dear, that's true, surely. It's only a span long, as Parson Oriel tells us when he gets romantic in his sermons. But it's a hard thing, doctor, when two is married, as they can't have their span, as he calls it, out together. Well, I must only put up with it, I suppose, as others does. Now, you're not going, doctor? You'll stop and have a dish of tea with me. You never see such cream as Hannah has from the Alderney cow. Do'ey now, doctor." But the doctor had his letter to write, and would not allow himself to be tempted even by the promise of Hannah's cream. So he went his way, angering Lady Scatcherd by his departure as he had before angered the squire, and thinking as he went which was most unreasonable in her wretchedness, his friend Lady Arabella, or his friend Lady Scatcherd. The former was always complaining of an existing husband who never refused her any moderate request; and the other passed her days in murmuring at the loss of a dead husband, who in his life had ever been to her imperious and harsh, and had sometimes been cruel and unjust. The doctor had his letter to write, but even yet he had not quite made up his mind what he would put into it; indeed, he had not hitherto resolved to whom it should be written. Looking at the matter as he had endeavoured to look at it, his niece, Mrs. Gresham, would be his correspondent; but if he brought himself to take this jump in the dark, in that case he would address himself direct to Miss Dunstable. He walked home, not by the straightest road, but taking a considerable curve, round by narrow lanes, and through thick flower-laden hedges,--very thoughtful. He was told that she wished to marry him; and was he to think only of himself? And as to that pride of his about money, was it in truth a hearty, manly feeling; or was it a false pride, of which it behoved him to be ashamed as it did of many cognate feelings? If he acted rightly in this matter, why should he be afraid of the thoughts of any one? A life of solitude was bitter enough, as poor Lady Scatcherd had complained. But then, looking at Lady Scatcherd, and looking also at his other near neighbour, his friend the squire, there was little thereabouts to lead him on to matrimony. So he walked home slowly through the lanes, very meditative, with his hands behind his back. Nor when he got home was he much more inclined to any resolute line of action. He might have drunk his tea with Lady Scatcherd, as well as have sat there in his own drawing-room, drinking it alone; for he got no pen and paper, and he dawdled over his teacup with the utmost dilatoriness, putting off, as it were, the evil day. To only one thing was he fixed--to this, namely, that that letter should be written before he went to bed. Having finished his tea, which did not take place till near eleven, he went downstairs to an untidy little room which lay behind his dep t of medicines, and in which he was wont to do his writing; and herein he did at last set himself down to his work. Even at that moment he was in doubt. But he would write his letter to Miss Dunstable and see how it looked. He was almost determined not to send it; so, at least, he said to himself: but he could do no harm by writing it. So he did write it, as follows:-- Greshamsbury, -- June, 185--. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,-- When he had got so far, he leaned back in his chair and looked at the paper. How on earth was he to find words to say that which he now wished to have said? He had never written such a letter in his life, or anything approaching to it, and now found himself overwhelmed with a difficulty of which he had not previously thought. He spent another half-hour in looking at the paper, and was at last nearly deterred by this new difficulty. He would use the simplest, plainest language, he said to himself over and over again; but it is not always easy to use simple, plain language,--by no means so easy as to mount on stilts, and to march along with sesquipedalian words, with pathos, spasms, and notes of interjection. But the letter did at last get itself written, and there was not a note of interjection in it. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,--I think it right to confess that I should not be now writing this letter to you, had I not been led to believe by other judgment than my own that the proposition which I am going to make would be regarded by you with favour. Without such other judgment I should, I own, have feared that the great disparity between you and me in regard to money would have given to such a proposition an appearance of being false and mercenary. All I ask of you now, with confidence, is to acquit me of such fault as that. When you have read so far you will understand what I mean. We have known each other now somewhat intimately, though indeed not very long, and I have sometimes fancied that you were almost as well pleased to be with me as I have been to be with you. If I have been wrong in this, tell me so simply, and I will endeavour to let our friendship run on as though this letter had not been written. But if I have been right, and if it be possible that you can think that a union between us will make us both happier than we are single, I will plight you my word and troth with good faith, and will do what an old man may do to make the burden of the world lie light upon your shoulders. Looking at my age I can hardly keep myself from thinking that I am an old fool: but I try to reconcile myself to that by remembering that you yourself are no longer a girl. You see that I pay you no compliments, and that you need expect none from me. I do not know that I could add anything to the truth of this, if I were to write three times as much. All that is necessary is, that you should know what I mean. If you do not believe me to be true and honest already, nothing that I can write will make you believe it. God bless you. I know you will not keep me long in suspense for an answer. Affectionately your friend, THOMAS THORNE. When he had finished he meditated again for another half-hour whether it would not be right that he should add something about her money. Would it not be well for him to tell her--it might be said in a postscript--that with regard to all her wealth she would be free to do what she chose? At any rate he owed no debts for her to pay, and would still have his own income, sufficient for his own purposes. But about one o'clock he came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave the matter alone. If she cared for him, and could trust him, and was worthy also that he should trust her, no omission of such a statement would deter her from coming to him: and if there were no such trust, it would not be created by any such assurance on his part. So he read the letter over twice, sealed it, and took it up, together with his bed candle, into his bed-room. Now that the letter was written it seemed to be a thing fixed by fate that it must go. He had written it that he might see how it looked when written; but now that it was written, there remained no doubt but that it must be sent. So he went to bed, with the letter on the toilette-table beside him; and early in the morning--so early as to make it seem that the importance of the letter had disturbed his rest--he sent it off by a special messenger to Boxall Hill. "I'se wait for an answer?" said the boy. "No," said the doctor: "leave the letter, and come away." The breakfast hour was not very early at Boxall Hill in these summer months. Frank Gresham, no doubt, went round his farm before he came in for prayers, and his wife was probably looking to the butter in the dairy. At any rate, they did not meet till near ten, and therefore, though the ride from Greshamsbury to Boxall Hill was nearly two hours' work, Miss Dunstable had her letter in her own room before she came down. She read it in silence as she was dressing, while the maid was with her in the room; but she made no sign which could induce her Abigail to think that the epistle was more than ordinarily important. She read it, and then quietly refolding it and placing it in the envelope, she put it down on the table at which she was sitting. It was full fifteen minutes afterwards that she begged her servant to see if Mrs. Gresham were still in her own room. "Because I want to see her for five minutes, alone, before breakfast," said Miss Dunstable. "You traitor; you false, black traitor!" were the first words which Miss Dunstable spoke when she found herself alone with her friend. "Why, what's the matter?" "I did not think there was so much mischief in you, nor so keen and commonplace a desire for match-making. Look here. Read the first four lines; not more, if you please; the rest is private. Whose is the other judgment of whom your uncle speaks in his letter?" "Oh, Miss Dunstable! I must read it all." "Indeed you'll do no such thing. You think it's a love-letter, I dare say; but indeed there's not a word about love in it." "I know he has offered. I shall be so glad, for I know you like him." "He tells me that I am an old woman, and insinuates that I may probably be an old fool." "I am sure he does not say that." "Ah! but I'm sure that he does. The former is true enough, and I never complain of the truth. But as to the latter, I am by no means so certain that it is true--not in the sense that he means it." "Dear, dearest woman, don't go on in that way now. Do speak out to me, and speak without jesting." "Whose was the other judgment to whom he trusts so implicitly? Tell me that." "Mine, mine, of course. No one else can have spoken to him about it. Of course I talked to him." "And what did you tell him?" "I told him--" "Well, out with it. Let me have the real facts. Mind, I tell you fairly that you had no right to tell him anything. What passed between us, passed in confidence. But let us hear what you did say." "I told him that you would have him if he offered." And Mrs. Gresham, as she spoke, looked into her friend's face doubtingly, not knowing whether in very truth Miss Dunstable were pleased with her or displeased. If she were displeased, then how had her uncle been deceived! "You told him that as a fact?" "I told him that I thought so." "Then I suppose I am bound to have him," said Miss Dunstable, dropping the letter on to the floor in mock despair. "My dear, dear, dearest woman!" said Mrs. Gresham, bursting into tears, and throwing herself on to her friend's neck. "Mind you are a dutiful niece," said Miss Dunstable. "And now let me go and finish dressing." In the course of the afternoon, an answer was sent back to Greshamsbury, in these words:-- DEAR DR. THORNE,--I do and will trust you in everything; and it shall be as you would have it. Mary writes to you; but do not believe a word she says. I never will again, for she has behaved so bad in this matter. Yours affectionately and very truly, MARTHA DUNSTABLE. "And so I am going to marry the richest woman in England," said Dr. Thorne to himself, as he sat down that day to his mutton-chop. CHAPTER XL. INTERNECINE. It must be conceived that there was some feeling of triumph at Plumstead Episcopi, when the wife of the rector returned home with her daughter, the bride elect of the Lord Dumbello. The heir of the Marquis of Hartletop was, in wealth, the most considerable unmarried young nobleman of the day; he was noted, too, as a man difficult to be pleased, as one who was very fine and who gave himself airs,--and to have been selected as the wife of such a man as this was a great thing for the daughter of a parish clergyman. We have seen in what manner the happy girl's mother communicated the fact to Lady Lufton, hiding, as it were, her pride under a veil; and we have seen also how meekly the happy girl bore her own great fortune, applying herself humbly to the packing of her clothes, as though she ignored her own glory. But nevertheless there was triumph at Plumstead Episcopi. The mother, when she returned home, began to feel that she had been thoroughly successful in the great object of her life. While she was yet in London she had hardly realized her satisfaction, and there were doubts then whether the cup might not be dashed from her lips before it was tasted. It might be that even the son of the Marquis of Hartletop was subject to

see

How many times the word 'see' appears in the text?

would have done a manifest injury to Miss Dunstable in forcing her to declare her thoughts and feelings. She had already spoken to her uncle in London, and though he had said nothing to show that he approved of her plan, neither had he said anything to show that he disapproved it. Therefore she had hoped through the whole of those three days that he would make some sign,--at any rate to her; that he would in some way declare what were his own thoughts on this matter. But the morning of his departure came, and he had declared nothing. "Uncle," she said, in the last five minutes of his sojourn there, after he had already taken leave of Miss Dunstable and shaken hands with Mrs. Gresham, "have you ever thought of what I said to you up in London?" "Yes, Mary; of course I have thought about it. Such an idea as that, when put into a man's head, will make itself thought about." "Well; and what next? Do talk to me about it. Do not be so hard and unlike yourself." "I have very little to say about it." "I can tell you this for certain, you may if you like." "Mary! Mary!" "I would not say so if I were not sure that I should not lead you into trouble." "You are foolish in wishing this, my dear; foolish in trying to tempt an old man into a folly." "Not foolish if I know that it will make you both happier." He made her no further reply, but stooping down that she might kiss him, as was his wont, went his way, leaving her almost miserable in the thought that she had troubled all these waters to no purpose. What would Miss Dunstable think of her? But on that afternoon Miss Dunstable seemed to be as happy and even-tempered as ever. CHAPTER XXXIX. HOW TO WRITE A LOVE LETTER. Dr. Thorne, in the few words which he spoke to his niece before he left Boxall Hill, had called himself an old man; but he was as yet on the right side of sixty by five good years, and bore about with him less of the marks of age than most men of fifty-five do bear. One would have said in looking at him that there was no reason why he should not marry if he found that such a step seemed good to him; and looking at the age of the proposed bride, there was nothing unsuitable in that respect. But nevertheless he felt almost ashamed of himself, in that he allowed himself even to think of the proposition which his niece had made. He mounted his horse that day at Boxall Hill--for he made all his journeys about the county on horseback--and rode slowly home to Greshamsbury, thinking not so much of the suggested marriage as of his own folly in thinking of it. How could he be such an ass at his time of life as to allow the even course of his way to be disturbed by any such idea? Of course he could not propose to himself such a wife as Miss Dunstable without having some thoughts as to her wealth; and it had been the pride of his life so to live that the world might know that he was indifferent about money. His profession was all in all to him,--the air which he breathed as well as the bread which he ate; and how could he follow his profession if he made such a marriage as this? She would expect him to go to London with her; and what would he become, dangling at her heels there, known only to the world as the husband of the richest woman in the town? The kind of life was one which would be unsuitable to him;--and yet, as he rode home, he could not resolve to rid himself of the idea. He went on thinking of it, though he still continued to condemn himself for keeping it in his thoughts. That night at home he would make up his mind, so he declared to himself; and would then write to his niece begging her to drop the subject. Having so far come to a resolution he went on meditating what course of life it might be well for him to pursue if he and Miss Dunstable should, after all, become man and wife. There were two ladies whom it behoved him to see on the day of his arrival--whom, indeed, he generally saw every day except when absent from Greshamsbury. The first of these--first in the general consideration of the people of the place--was the wife of the squire, Lady Arabella Gresham, a very old patient of the doctor's. Her it was his custom to visit early in the afternoon; and then, if he were able to escape the squire's daily invitation to dinner, he customarily went to the other, Lady Scatcherd, when the rapid meal in his own house was over. Such, at least, was his summer practice. "Well, doctor, how are they at Boxall Hill?" said the squire, waylaying him on the gravel sweep before the door. The squire was very hard set for occupation in these summer months. "Quite well, I believe." "I don't know what's come to Frank. I think he hates this place now. He's full of the election, I suppose." "Oh, yes; he told me to say he should be over here soon. Of course there'll be no contest, so he need not trouble himself." "Happy dog, isn't he, doctor? to have it all before him instead of behind him. Well, well; he's as good a lad as ever lived,--as ever lived. And let me see; Mary's time--" And then there were a few very important words spoken on that subject. "I'll just step up to Lady Arabella now," said the doctor. "She's as fretful as possible," said the squire. "I've just left her." "Nothing special the matter, I hope?" "No, I think not; nothing in your way, that is; only specially cross, which always comes in my way. You'll stop and dine to-day, of course?" "Not to-day, squire." "Nonsense; you will. I have been quite counting on you. I have a particular reason for wanting to have you to-day,--a most particular reason." But the squire always had his particular reasons. "I'm very sorry, but it is impossible to-day. I shall have a letter to write that I must sit down to seriously. Shall I see you when I come down from her ladyship?" The squire turned away sulkily, almost without answering him, for he now had no prospect of any alleviation to the tedium of the evening; and the doctor went up-stairs to his patient. For Lady Arabella, though it cannot be said that she was ill, was always a patient. It must not be supposed that she kept her bed and swallowed daily doses, or was prevented from taking her share in such prosy gaieties as came from time to time in the way of her prosy life; but it suited her turn of mind to be an invalid and to have a doctor; and as the doctor whom her good fates had placed at her elbow thoroughly understood her case, no great harm was done. "It frets me dreadfully that I cannot get to see Mary," Lady Arabella said, as soon as the first ordinary question as to her ailments had been asked and answered. "She's quite well and will be over to see you before long." "Now I beg that she won't. She never thinks of coming when there can be no possible objection, and travelling, at the present moment, would be--" Whereupon the Lady Arabella shook her head very gravely. "Only think of the importance of it, doctor," she said. "Remember the enormous stake there is to be considered." "It would not do her a ha'porth of harm if the stake were twice as large." "Nonsense, doctor, don't tell me; as if I didn't know myself. I was very much against her going to London this spring, but of course what I said was overruled. It always is. I do believe Mr. Gresham went over to Boxall Hill, on purpose to induce her to go. But what does he care? He's fond of Frank; but he never thinks of looking beyond the present day. He never did, as you know well enough, doctor." "The trip did her all the good in the world," said Dr. Thorne, preferring anything to a conversation respecting the squire's sins. "I very well remember that when I was in that way it wasn't thought that such trips would do me any good. But, perhaps, things are altered since then." "Yes, they are," said the doctor. "We don't interfere so much now-a-days." "I know I never asked for such amusements when so much depended on quietness. I remember before Frank was born--and, indeed, when all of them were born-- But as you say, things were different then; and I can easily believe that Mary is a person quite determined to have her own way." "Why, Lady Arabella, she would have stayed at home without wishing to stir if Frank had done so much as hold up his little finger." "So did I always. If Mr. Gresham made the slightest hint I gave way. But I really don't see what one gets in return for such implicit obedience. Now this year, doctor, of course I should have liked to have been up in London for a week or two. You seemed to think yourself that I might as well see Sir Omicron." "There could be no possible objection, I said." "Well; no; exactly; and as Mr. Gresham knew I wished it, I think he might as well have offered it. I suppose there can be no reason now about money." "But I understood that Mary specially asked you and Augusta?" "Yes; Mary was very good. She did ask me. But I know very well that Mary wants all the room she has got in London. The house is not at all too large for herself. And, for the matter of that, my sister, the countess, was very anxious that I should be with her. But one does like to be independent if one can, and for one fortnight I do think that Mr. Gresham might have managed it. When I knew that he was so dreadfully out at elbows I never troubled him about it,--though, goodness knows, all that was never my fault." "The squire hates London. A fortnight there in warm weather would nearly be the death of him." "He might at any rate have paid me the compliment of asking me. The chances are ten to one I should not have gone. It is that indifference that cuts me so. He was here just now, and, would you believe it?--" But the doctor was determined to avoid further complaint for the present day. "I wonder what you would feel, Lady Arabella, if the squire were to take it into his head to go away and amuse himself, leaving you at home. There are worse men than Mr. Gresham, if you will believe me." All this was an allusion to Earl de Courcy, her ladyship's brother, as Lady Arabella very well understood; and the argument was one which was very often used to silence her. "Upon my word, then, I should like it better than his hanging about here doing nothing but attend to those nasty dogs. I really sometimes think that he has no spirit left." "You are mistaken there, Lady Arabella," said the doctor, rising with his hat in his hand and making his escape without further parley. As he went home he could not but think that that phase of married life was not a very pleasant one. Mr. Gresham and his wife were supposed by the world to live on the best of terms. They always inhabited the same house, went out together when they did go out, always sat in their respective corners in the family pew, and in their wildest dreams after the happiness of novelty never thought of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. In some respects--with regard, for instance, to the continued duration of their joint domesticity at the family mansion of Greshamsbury--they might have been taken for a pattern couple. But yet, as far as the doctor could see, they did not seem to add much to the happiness of each other. They loved each other, doubtless, and had either of them been in real danger, that danger would have made the other miserable; but yet it might well be a question whether either would not be more comfortable without the other. The doctor, as was his custom, dined at five, and at seven he went up to the cottage of his old friend Lady Scatcherd. Lady Scatcherd was not a refined woman, having in her early days been a labourer's daughter and having then married a labourer. But her husband had risen in the world--as has been told in those chronicles before mentioned,--and his widow was now Lady Scatcherd with a pretty cottage and a good jointure. She was in all things the very opposite to Lady Arabella Gresham; nevertheless, under the doctor's auspices, the two ladies were in some measure acquainted with each other. Of her married life, also, Dr. Thorne had seen something, and it may be questioned whether the memory of that was more alluring than the reality now existing at Greshamsbury. Of the two women Dr. Thorne much preferred his humbler friend, and to her he made his visits not in the guise of a doctor, but as a neighbour. "Well, my lady," he said, as he sat down by her on a broad garden seat--all the world called Lady Scatcherd "my lady,"--"and how do these long summer days agree with you? Your roses are twice better out than any I see up at the big house." "You may well call them long, doctor. They're long enough surely." "But not too long. Come, now, I won't have you complaining. You don't mean to tell me that you have anything to make you wretched? You had better not, for I won't believe you." "Eh; well; wretched! I don't know as I'm wretched. It'd be wicked to say that, and I with such comforts about me." "I think it would, almost." The doctor did not say this harshly, but in a soft, friendly tone, and pressing her hand gently as he spoke. "And I didn't mean to be wicked. I'm very thankful for everything--leastways, I always try to be. But, doctor, it is so lonely like." "Lonely! not more lonely than I am." "Oh, yes; you're different. You can go everywheres. But what can a lone woman do? I'll tell you what, doctor; I'd give it all up to have Roger back with his apron on and his pick in his hand. How well I mind his look when he'd come home o' nights." "And yet it was a hard life you had then, eh, old woman? It would be better for you to be thankful for what you've got." "I am thankful. Didn't I tell you so before?" said she, somewhat crossly. "But it's a sad life, this living alone. I declares I envy Hannah, 'cause she's got Jemima to sit in the kitchen with her. I want her to sit with me sometimes, but she won't." "Ah! but you shouldn't ask her. It's letting yourself down." "What do I care about down or up? It makes no difference, as he's gone. If he had lived one might have cared about being up, as you call it. Eh, deary; I'll be going after him before long, and it will be no matter then." "We shall all be going after him, sooner or later; that's sure enough." "Eh, dear, that's true, surely. It's only a span long, as Parson Oriel tells us when he gets romantic in his sermons. But it's a hard thing, doctor, when two is married, as they can't have their span, as he calls it, out together. Well, I must only put up with it, I suppose, as others does. Now, you're not going, doctor? You'll stop and have a dish of tea with me. You never see such cream as Hannah has from the Alderney cow. Do'ey now, doctor." But the doctor had his letter to write, and would not allow himself to be tempted even by the promise of Hannah's cream. So he went his way, angering Lady Scatcherd by his departure as he had before angered the squire, and thinking as he went which was most unreasonable in her wretchedness, his friend Lady Arabella, or his friend Lady Scatcherd. The former was always complaining of an existing husband who never refused her any moderate request; and the other passed her days in murmuring at the loss of a dead husband, who in his life had ever been to her imperious and harsh, and had sometimes been cruel and unjust. The doctor had his letter to write, but even yet he had not quite made up his mind what he would put into it; indeed, he had not hitherto resolved to whom it should be written. Looking at the matter as he had endeavoured to look at it, his niece, Mrs. Gresham, would be his correspondent; but if he brought himself to take this jump in the dark, in that case he would address himself direct to Miss Dunstable. He walked home, not by the straightest road, but taking a considerable curve, round by narrow lanes, and through thick flower-laden hedges,--very thoughtful. He was told that she wished to marry him; and was he to think only of himself? And as to that pride of his about money, was it in truth a hearty, manly feeling; or was it a false pride, of which it behoved him to be ashamed as it did of many cognate feelings? If he acted rightly in this matter, why should he be afraid of the thoughts of any one? A life of solitude was bitter enough, as poor Lady Scatcherd had complained. But then, looking at Lady Scatcherd, and looking also at his other near neighbour, his friend the squire, there was little thereabouts to lead him on to matrimony. So he walked home slowly through the lanes, very meditative, with his hands behind his back. Nor when he got home was he much more inclined to any resolute line of action. He might have drunk his tea with Lady Scatcherd, as well as have sat there in his own drawing-room, drinking it alone; for he got no pen and paper, and he dawdled over his teacup with the utmost dilatoriness, putting off, as it were, the evil day. To only one thing was he fixed--to this, namely, that that letter should be written before he went to bed. Having finished his tea, which did not take place till near eleven, he went downstairs to an untidy little room which lay behind his dep t of medicines, and in which he was wont to do his writing; and herein he did at last set himself down to his work. Even at that moment he was in doubt. But he would write his letter to Miss Dunstable and see how it looked. He was almost determined not to send it; so, at least, he said to himself: but he could do no harm by writing it. So he did write it, as follows:-- Greshamsbury, -- June, 185--. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,-- When he had got so far, he leaned back in his chair and looked at the paper. How on earth was he to find words to say that which he now wished to have said? He had never written such a letter in his life, or anything approaching to it, and now found himself overwhelmed with a difficulty of which he had not previously thought. He spent another half-hour in looking at the paper, and was at last nearly deterred by this new difficulty. He would use the simplest, plainest language, he said to himself over and over again; but it is not always easy to use simple, plain language,--by no means so easy as to mount on stilts, and to march along with sesquipedalian words, with pathos, spasms, and notes of interjection. But the letter did at last get itself written, and there was not a note of interjection in it. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,--I think it right to confess that I should not be now writing this letter to you, had I not been led to believe by other judgment than my own that the proposition which I am going to make would be regarded by you with favour. Without such other judgment I should, I own, have feared that the great disparity between you and me in regard to money would have given to such a proposition an appearance of being false and mercenary. All I ask of you now, with confidence, is to acquit me of such fault as that. When you have read so far you will understand what I mean. We have known each other now somewhat intimately, though indeed not very long, and I have sometimes fancied that you were almost as well pleased to be with me as I have been to be with you. If I have been wrong in this, tell me so simply, and I will endeavour to let our friendship run on as though this letter had not been written. But if I have been right, and if it be possible that you can think that a union between us will make us both happier than we are single, I will plight you my word and troth with good faith, and will do what an old man may do to make the burden of the world lie light upon your shoulders. Looking at my age I can hardly keep myself from thinking that I am an old fool: but I try to reconcile myself to that by remembering that you yourself are no longer a girl. You see that I pay you no compliments, and that you need expect none from me. I do not know that I could add anything to the truth of this, if I were to write three times as much. All that is necessary is, that you should know what I mean. If you do not believe me to be true and honest already, nothing that I can write will make you believe it. God bless you. I know you will not keep me long in suspense for an answer. Affectionately your friend, THOMAS THORNE. When he had finished he meditated again for another half-hour whether it would not be right that he should add something about her money. Would it not be well for him to tell her--it might be said in a postscript--that with regard to all her wealth she would be free to do what she chose? At any rate he owed no debts for her to pay, and would still have his own income, sufficient for his own purposes. But about one o'clock he came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave the matter alone. If she cared for him, and could trust him, and was worthy also that he should trust her, no omission of such a statement would deter her from coming to him: and if there were no such trust, it would not be created by any such assurance on his part. So he read the letter over twice, sealed it, and took it up, together with his bed candle, into his bed-room. Now that the letter was written it seemed to be a thing fixed by fate that it must go. He had written it that he might see how it looked when written; but now that it was written, there remained no doubt but that it must be sent. So he went to bed, with the letter on the toilette-table beside him; and early in the morning--so early as to make it seem that the importance of the letter had disturbed his rest--he sent it off by a special messenger to Boxall Hill. "I'se wait for an answer?" said the boy. "No," said the doctor: "leave the letter, and come away." The breakfast hour was not very early at Boxall Hill in these summer months. Frank Gresham, no doubt, went round his farm before he came in for prayers, and his wife was probably looking to the butter in the dairy. At any rate, they did not meet till near ten, and therefore, though the ride from Greshamsbury to Boxall Hill was nearly two hours' work, Miss Dunstable had her letter in her own room before she came down. She read it in silence as she was dressing, while the maid was with her in the room; but she made no sign which could induce her Abigail to think that the epistle was more than ordinarily important. She read it, and then quietly refolding it and placing it in the envelope, she put it down on the table at which she was sitting. It was full fifteen minutes afterwards that she begged her servant to see if Mrs. Gresham were still in her own room. "Because I want to see her for five minutes, alone, before breakfast," said Miss Dunstable. "You traitor; you false, black traitor!" were the first words which Miss Dunstable spoke when she found herself alone with her friend. "Why, what's the matter?" "I did not think there was so much mischief in you, nor so keen and commonplace a desire for match-making. Look here. Read the first four lines; not more, if you please; the rest is private. Whose is the other judgment of whom your uncle speaks in his letter?" "Oh, Miss Dunstable! I must read it all." "Indeed you'll do no such thing. You think it's a love-letter, I dare say; but indeed there's not a word about love in it." "I know he has offered. I shall be so glad, for I know you like him." "He tells me that I am an old woman, and insinuates that I may probably be an old fool." "I am sure he does not say that." "Ah! but I'm sure that he does. The former is true enough, and I never complain of the truth. But as to the latter, I am by no means so certain that it is true--not in the sense that he means it." "Dear, dearest woman, don't go on in that way now. Do speak out to me, and speak without jesting." "Whose was the other judgment to whom he trusts so implicitly? Tell me that." "Mine, mine, of course. No one else can have spoken to him about it. Of course I talked to him." "And what did you tell him?" "I told him--" "Well, out with it. Let me have the real facts. Mind, I tell you fairly that you had no right to tell him anything. What passed between us, passed in confidence. But let us hear what you did say." "I told him that you would have him if he offered." And Mrs. Gresham, as she spoke, looked into her friend's face doubtingly, not knowing whether in very truth Miss Dunstable were pleased with her or displeased. If she were displeased, then how had her uncle been deceived! "You told him that as a fact?" "I told him that I thought so." "Then I suppose I am bound to have him," said Miss Dunstable, dropping the letter on to the floor in mock despair. "My dear, dear, dearest woman!" said Mrs. Gresham, bursting into tears, and throwing herself on to her friend's neck. "Mind you are a dutiful niece," said Miss Dunstable. "And now let me go and finish dressing." In the course of the afternoon, an answer was sent back to Greshamsbury, in these words:-- DEAR DR. THORNE,--I do and will trust you in everything; and it shall be as you would have it. Mary writes to you; but do not believe a word she says. I never will again, for she has behaved so bad in this matter. Yours affectionately and very truly, MARTHA DUNSTABLE. "And so I am going to marry the richest woman in England," said Dr. Thorne to himself, as he sat down that day to his mutton-chop. CHAPTER XL. INTERNECINE. It must be conceived that there was some feeling of triumph at Plumstead Episcopi, when the wife of the rector returned home with her daughter, the bride elect of the Lord Dumbello. The heir of the Marquis of Hartletop was, in wealth, the most considerable unmarried young nobleman of the day; he was noted, too, as a man difficult to be pleased, as one who was very fine and who gave himself airs,--and to have been selected as the wife of such a man as this was a great thing for the daughter of a parish clergyman. We have seen in what manner the happy girl's mother communicated the fact to Lady Lufton, hiding, as it were, her pride under a veil; and we have seen also how meekly the happy girl bore her own great fortune, applying herself humbly to the packing of her clothes, as though she ignored her own glory. But nevertheless there was triumph at Plumstead Episcopi. The mother, when she returned home, began to feel that she had been thoroughly successful in the great object of her life. While she was yet in London she had hardly realized her satisfaction, and there were doubts then whether the cup might not be dashed from her lips before it was tasted. It might be that even the son of the Marquis of Hartletop was subject to

philosophers

How many times the word 'philosophers' appears in the text?

would have done a manifest injury to Miss Dunstable in forcing her to declare her thoughts and feelings. She had already spoken to her uncle in London, and though he had said nothing to show that he approved of her plan, neither had he said anything to show that he disapproved it. Therefore she had hoped through the whole of those three days that he would make some sign,--at any rate to her; that he would in some way declare what were his own thoughts on this matter. But the morning of his departure came, and he had declared nothing. "Uncle," she said, in the last five minutes of his sojourn there, after he had already taken leave of Miss Dunstable and shaken hands with Mrs. Gresham, "have you ever thought of what I said to you up in London?" "Yes, Mary; of course I have thought about it. Such an idea as that, when put into a man's head, will make itself thought about." "Well; and what next? Do talk to me about it. Do not be so hard and unlike yourself." "I have very little to say about it." "I can tell you this for certain, you may if you like." "Mary! Mary!" "I would not say so if I were not sure that I should not lead you into trouble." "You are foolish in wishing this, my dear; foolish in trying to tempt an old man into a folly." "Not foolish if I know that it will make you both happier." He made her no further reply, but stooping down that she might kiss him, as was his wont, went his way, leaving her almost miserable in the thought that she had troubled all these waters to no purpose. What would Miss Dunstable think of her? But on that afternoon Miss Dunstable seemed to be as happy and even-tempered as ever. CHAPTER XXXIX. HOW TO WRITE A LOVE LETTER. Dr. Thorne, in the few words which he spoke to his niece before he left Boxall Hill, had called himself an old man; but he was as yet on the right side of sixty by five good years, and bore about with him less of the marks of age than most men of fifty-five do bear. One would have said in looking at him that there was no reason why he should not marry if he found that such a step seemed good to him; and looking at the age of the proposed bride, there was nothing unsuitable in that respect. But nevertheless he felt almost ashamed of himself, in that he allowed himself even to think of the proposition which his niece had made. He mounted his horse that day at Boxall Hill--for he made all his journeys about the county on horseback--and rode slowly home to Greshamsbury, thinking not so much of the suggested marriage as of his own folly in thinking of it. How could he be such an ass at his time of life as to allow the even course of his way to be disturbed by any such idea? Of course he could not propose to himself such a wife as Miss Dunstable without having some thoughts as to her wealth; and it had been the pride of his life so to live that the world might know that he was indifferent about money. His profession was all in all to him,--the air which he breathed as well as the bread which he ate; and how could he follow his profession if he made such a marriage as this? She would expect him to go to London with her; and what would he become, dangling at her heels there, known only to the world as the husband of the richest woman in the town? The kind of life was one which would be unsuitable to him;--and yet, as he rode home, he could not resolve to rid himself of the idea. He went on thinking of it, though he still continued to condemn himself for keeping it in his thoughts. That night at home he would make up his mind, so he declared to himself; and would then write to his niece begging her to drop the subject. Having so far come to a resolution he went on meditating what course of life it might be well for him to pursue if he and Miss Dunstable should, after all, become man and wife. There were two ladies whom it behoved him to see on the day of his arrival--whom, indeed, he generally saw every day except when absent from Greshamsbury. The first of these--first in the general consideration of the people of the place--was the wife of the squire, Lady Arabella Gresham, a very old patient of the doctor's. Her it was his custom to visit early in the afternoon; and then, if he were able to escape the squire's daily invitation to dinner, he customarily went to the other, Lady Scatcherd, when the rapid meal in his own house was over. Such, at least, was his summer practice. "Well, doctor, how are they at Boxall Hill?" said the squire, waylaying him on the gravel sweep before the door. The squire was very hard set for occupation in these summer months. "Quite well, I believe." "I don't know what's come to Frank. I think he hates this place now. He's full of the election, I suppose." "Oh, yes; he told me to say he should be over here soon. Of course there'll be no contest, so he need not trouble himself." "Happy dog, isn't he, doctor? to have it all before him instead of behind him. Well, well; he's as good a lad as ever lived,--as ever lived. And let me see; Mary's time--" And then there were a few very important words spoken on that subject. "I'll just step up to Lady Arabella now," said the doctor. "She's as fretful as possible," said the squire. "I've just left her." "Nothing special the matter, I hope?" "No, I think not; nothing in your way, that is; only specially cross, which always comes in my way. You'll stop and dine to-day, of course?" "Not to-day, squire." "Nonsense; you will. I have been quite counting on you. I have a particular reason for wanting to have you to-day,--a most particular reason." But the squire always had his particular reasons. "I'm very sorry, but it is impossible to-day. I shall have a letter to write that I must sit down to seriously. Shall I see you when I come down from her ladyship?" The squire turned away sulkily, almost without answering him, for he now had no prospect of any alleviation to the tedium of the evening; and the doctor went up-stairs to his patient. For Lady Arabella, though it cannot be said that she was ill, was always a patient. It must not be supposed that she kept her bed and swallowed daily doses, or was prevented from taking her share in such prosy gaieties as came from time to time in the way of her prosy life; but it suited her turn of mind to be an invalid and to have a doctor; and as the doctor whom her good fates had placed at her elbow thoroughly understood her case, no great harm was done. "It frets me dreadfully that I cannot get to see Mary," Lady Arabella said, as soon as the first ordinary question as to her ailments had been asked and answered. "She's quite well and will be over to see you before long." "Now I beg that she won't. She never thinks of coming when there can be no possible objection, and travelling, at the present moment, would be--" Whereupon the Lady Arabella shook her head very gravely. "Only think of the importance of it, doctor," she said. "Remember the enormous stake there is to be considered." "It would not do her a ha'porth of harm if the stake were twice as large." "Nonsense, doctor, don't tell me; as if I didn't know myself. I was very much against her going to London this spring, but of course what I said was overruled. It always is. I do believe Mr. Gresham went over to Boxall Hill, on purpose to induce her to go. But what does he care? He's fond of Frank; but he never thinks of looking beyond the present day. He never did, as you know well enough, doctor." "The trip did her all the good in the world," said Dr. Thorne, preferring anything to a conversation respecting the squire's sins. "I very well remember that when I was in that way it wasn't thought that such trips would do me any good. But, perhaps, things are altered since then." "Yes, they are," said the doctor. "We don't interfere so much now-a-days." "I know I never asked for such amusements when so much depended on quietness. I remember before Frank was born--and, indeed, when all of them were born-- But as you say, things were different then; and I can easily believe that Mary is a person quite determined to have her own way." "Why, Lady Arabella, she would have stayed at home without wishing to stir if Frank had done so much as hold up his little finger." "So did I always. If Mr. Gresham made the slightest hint I gave way. But I really don't see what one gets in return for such implicit obedience. Now this year, doctor, of course I should have liked to have been up in London for a week or two. You seemed to think yourself that I might as well see Sir Omicron." "There could be no possible objection, I said." "Well; no; exactly; and as Mr. Gresham knew I wished it, I think he might as well have offered it. I suppose there can be no reason now about money." "But I understood that Mary specially asked you and Augusta?" "Yes; Mary was very good. She did ask me. But I know very well that Mary wants all the room she has got in London. The house is not at all too large for herself. And, for the matter of that, my sister, the countess, was very anxious that I should be with her. But one does like to be independent if one can, and for one fortnight I do think that Mr. Gresham might have managed it. When I knew that he was so dreadfully out at elbows I never troubled him about it,--though, goodness knows, all that was never my fault." "The squire hates London. A fortnight there in warm weather would nearly be the death of him." "He might at any rate have paid me the compliment of asking me. The chances are ten to one I should not have gone. It is that indifference that cuts me so. He was here just now, and, would you believe it?--" But the doctor was determined to avoid further complaint for the present day. "I wonder what you would feel, Lady Arabella, if the squire were to take it into his head to go away and amuse himself, leaving you at home. There are worse men than Mr. Gresham, if you will believe me." All this was an allusion to Earl de Courcy, her ladyship's brother, as Lady Arabella very well understood; and the argument was one which was very often used to silence her. "Upon my word, then, I should like it better than his hanging about here doing nothing but attend to those nasty dogs. I really sometimes think that he has no spirit left." "You are mistaken there, Lady Arabella," said the doctor, rising with his hat in his hand and making his escape without further parley. As he went home he could not but think that that phase of married life was not a very pleasant one. Mr. Gresham and his wife were supposed by the world to live on the best of terms. They always inhabited the same house, went out together when they did go out, always sat in their respective corners in the family pew, and in their wildest dreams after the happiness of novelty never thought of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. In some respects--with regard, for instance, to the continued duration of their joint domesticity at the family mansion of Greshamsbury--they might have been taken for a pattern couple. But yet, as far as the doctor could see, they did not seem to add much to the happiness of each other. They loved each other, doubtless, and had either of them been in real danger, that danger would have made the other miserable; but yet it might well be a question whether either would not be more comfortable without the other. The doctor, as was his custom, dined at five, and at seven he went up to the cottage of his old friend Lady Scatcherd. Lady Scatcherd was not a refined woman, having in her early days been a labourer's daughter and having then married a labourer. But her husband had risen in the world--as has been told in those chronicles before mentioned,--and his widow was now Lady Scatcherd with a pretty cottage and a good jointure. She was in all things the very opposite to Lady Arabella Gresham; nevertheless, under the doctor's auspices, the two ladies were in some measure acquainted with each other. Of her married life, also, Dr. Thorne had seen something, and it may be questioned whether the memory of that was more alluring than the reality now existing at Greshamsbury. Of the two women Dr. Thorne much preferred his humbler friend, and to her he made his visits not in the guise of a doctor, but as a neighbour. "Well, my lady," he said, as he sat down by her on a broad garden seat--all the world called Lady Scatcherd "my lady,"--"and how do these long summer days agree with you? Your roses are twice better out than any I see up at the big house." "You may well call them long, doctor. They're long enough surely." "But not too long. Come, now, I won't have you complaining. You don't mean to tell me that you have anything to make you wretched? You had better not, for I won't believe you." "Eh; well; wretched! I don't know as I'm wretched. It'd be wicked to say that, and I with such comforts about me." "I think it would, almost." The doctor did not say this harshly, but in a soft, friendly tone, and pressing her hand gently as he spoke. "And I didn't mean to be wicked. I'm very thankful for everything--leastways, I always try to be. But, doctor, it is so lonely like." "Lonely! not more lonely than I am." "Oh, yes; you're different. You can go everywheres. But what can a lone woman do? I'll tell you what, doctor; I'd give it all up to have Roger back with his apron on and his pick in his hand. How well I mind his look when he'd come home o' nights." "And yet it was a hard life you had then, eh, old woman? It would be better for you to be thankful for what you've got." "I am thankful. Didn't I tell you so before?" said she, somewhat crossly. "But it's a sad life, this living alone. I declares I envy Hannah, 'cause she's got Jemima to sit in the kitchen with her. I want her to sit with me sometimes, but she won't." "Ah! but you shouldn't ask her. It's letting yourself down." "What do I care about down or up? It makes no difference, as he's gone. If he had lived one might have cared about being up, as you call it. Eh, deary; I'll be going after him before long, and it will be no matter then." "We shall all be going after him, sooner or later; that's sure enough." "Eh, dear, that's true, surely. It's only a span long, as Parson Oriel tells us when he gets romantic in his sermons. But it's a hard thing, doctor, when two is married, as they can't have their span, as he calls it, out together. Well, I must only put up with it, I suppose, as others does. Now, you're not going, doctor? You'll stop and have a dish of tea with me. You never see such cream as Hannah has from the Alderney cow. Do'ey now, doctor." But the doctor had his letter to write, and would not allow himself to be tempted even by the promise of Hannah's cream. So he went his way, angering Lady Scatcherd by his departure as he had before angered the squire, and thinking as he went which was most unreasonable in her wretchedness, his friend Lady Arabella, or his friend Lady Scatcherd. The former was always complaining of an existing husband who never refused her any moderate request; and the other passed her days in murmuring at the loss of a dead husband, who in his life had ever been to her imperious and harsh, and had sometimes been cruel and unjust. The doctor had his letter to write, but even yet he had not quite made up his mind what he would put into it; indeed, he had not hitherto resolved to whom it should be written. Looking at the matter as he had endeavoured to look at it, his niece, Mrs. Gresham, would be his correspondent; but if he brought himself to take this jump in the dark, in that case he would address himself direct to Miss Dunstable. He walked home, not by the straightest road, but taking a considerable curve, round by narrow lanes, and through thick flower-laden hedges,--very thoughtful. He was told that she wished to marry him; and was he to think only of himself? And as to that pride of his about money, was it in truth a hearty, manly feeling; or was it a false pride, of which it behoved him to be ashamed as it did of many cognate feelings? If he acted rightly in this matter, why should he be afraid of the thoughts of any one? A life of solitude was bitter enough, as poor Lady Scatcherd had complained. But then, looking at Lady Scatcherd, and looking also at his other near neighbour, his friend the squire, there was little thereabouts to lead him on to matrimony. So he walked home slowly through the lanes, very meditative, with his hands behind his back. Nor when he got home was he much more inclined to any resolute line of action. He might have drunk his tea with Lady Scatcherd, as well as have sat there in his own drawing-room, drinking it alone; for he got no pen and paper, and he dawdled over his teacup with the utmost dilatoriness, putting off, as it were, the evil day. To only one thing was he fixed--to this, namely, that that letter should be written before he went to bed. Having finished his tea, which did not take place till near eleven, he went downstairs to an untidy little room which lay behind his dep t of medicines, and in which he was wont to do his writing; and herein he did at last set himself down to his work. Even at that moment he was in doubt. But he would write his letter to Miss Dunstable and see how it looked. He was almost determined not to send it; so, at least, he said to himself: but he could do no harm by writing it. So he did write it, as follows:-- Greshamsbury, -- June, 185--. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,-- When he had got so far, he leaned back in his chair and looked at the paper. How on earth was he to find words to say that which he now wished to have said? He had never written such a letter in his life, or anything approaching to it, and now found himself overwhelmed with a difficulty of which he had not previously thought. He spent another half-hour in looking at the paper, and was at last nearly deterred by this new difficulty. He would use the simplest, plainest language, he said to himself over and over again; but it is not always easy to use simple, plain language,--by no means so easy as to mount on stilts, and to march along with sesquipedalian words, with pathos, spasms, and notes of interjection. But the letter did at last get itself written, and there was not a note of interjection in it. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,--I think it right to confess that I should not be now writing this letter to you, had I not been led to believe by other judgment than my own that the proposition which I am going to make would be regarded by you with favour. Without such other judgment I should, I own, have feared that the great disparity between you and me in regard to money would have given to such a proposition an appearance of being false and mercenary. All I ask of you now, with confidence, is to acquit me of such fault as that. When you have read so far you will understand what I mean. We have known each other now somewhat intimately, though indeed not very long, and I have sometimes fancied that you were almost as well pleased to be with me as I have been to be with you. If I have been wrong in this, tell me so simply, and I will endeavour to let our friendship run on as though this letter had not been written. But if I have been right, and if it be possible that you can think that a union between us will make us both happier than we are single, I will plight you my word and troth with good faith, and will do what an old man may do to make the burden of the world lie light upon your shoulders. Looking at my age I can hardly keep myself from thinking that I am an old fool: but I try to reconcile myself to that by remembering that you yourself are no longer a girl. You see that I pay you no compliments, and that you need expect none from me. I do not know that I could add anything to the truth of this, if I were to write three times as much. All that is necessary is, that you should know what I mean. If you do not believe me to be true and honest already, nothing that I can write will make you believe it. God bless you. I know you will not keep me long in suspense for an answer. Affectionately your friend, THOMAS THORNE. When he had finished he meditated again for another half-hour whether it would not be right that he should add something about her money. Would it not be well for him to tell her--it might be said in a postscript--that with regard to all her wealth she would be free to do what she chose? At any rate he owed no debts for her to pay, and would still have his own income, sufficient for his own purposes. But about one o'clock he came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave the matter alone. If she cared for him, and could trust him, and was worthy also that he should trust her, no omission of such a statement would deter her from coming to him: and if there were no such trust, it would not be created by any such assurance on his part. So he read the letter over twice, sealed it, and took it up, together with his bed candle, into his bed-room. Now that the letter was written it seemed to be a thing fixed by fate that it must go. He had written it that he might see how it looked when written; but now that it was written, there remained no doubt but that it must be sent. So he went to bed, with the letter on the toilette-table beside him; and early in the morning--so early as to make it seem that the importance of the letter had disturbed his rest--he sent it off by a special messenger to Boxall Hill. "I'se wait for an answer?" said the boy. "No," said the doctor: "leave the letter, and come away." The breakfast hour was not very early at Boxall Hill in these summer months. Frank Gresham, no doubt, went round his farm before he came in for prayers, and his wife was probably looking to the butter in the dairy. At any rate, they did not meet till near ten, and therefore, though the ride from Greshamsbury to Boxall Hill was nearly two hours' work, Miss Dunstable had her letter in her own room before she came down. She read it in silence as she was dressing, while the maid was with her in the room; but she made no sign which could induce her Abigail to think that the epistle was more than ordinarily important. She read it, and then quietly refolding it and placing it in the envelope, she put it down on the table at which she was sitting. It was full fifteen minutes afterwards that she begged her servant to see if Mrs. Gresham were still in her own room. "Because I want to see her for five minutes, alone, before breakfast," said Miss Dunstable. "You traitor; you false, black traitor!" were the first words which Miss Dunstable spoke when she found herself alone with her friend. "Why, what's the matter?" "I did not think there was so much mischief in you, nor so keen and commonplace a desire for match-making. Look here. Read the first four lines; not more, if you please; the rest is private. Whose is the other judgment of whom your uncle speaks in his letter?" "Oh, Miss Dunstable! I must read it all." "Indeed you'll do no such thing. You think it's a love-letter, I dare say; but indeed there's not a word about love in it." "I know he has offered. I shall be so glad, for I know you like him." "He tells me that I am an old woman, and insinuates that I may probably be an old fool." "I am sure he does not say that." "Ah! but I'm sure that he does. The former is true enough, and I never complain of the truth. But as to the latter, I am by no means so certain that it is true--not in the sense that he means it." "Dear, dearest woman, don't go on in that way now. Do speak out to me, and speak without jesting." "Whose was the other judgment to whom he trusts so implicitly? Tell me that." "Mine, mine, of course. No one else can have spoken to him about it. Of course I talked to him." "And what did you tell him?" "I told him--" "Well, out with it. Let me have the real facts. Mind, I tell you fairly that you had no right to tell him anything. What passed between us, passed in confidence. But let us hear what you did say." "I told him that you would have him if he offered." And Mrs. Gresham, as she spoke, looked into her friend's face doubtingly, not knowing whether in very truth Miss Dunstable were pleased with her or displeased. If she were displeased, then how had her uncle been deceived! "You told him that as a fact?" "I told him that I thought so." "Then I suppose I am bound to have him," said Miss Dunstable, dropping the letter on to the floor in mock despair. "My dear, dear, dearest woman!" said Mrs. Gresham, bursting into tears, and throwing herself on to her friend's neck. "Mind you are a dutiful niece," said Miss Dunstable. "And now let me go and finish dressing." In the course of the afternoon, an answer was sent back to Greshamsbury, in these words:-- DEAR DR. THORNE,--I do and will trust you in everything; and it shall be as you would have it. Mary writes to you; but do not believe a word she says. I never will again, for she has behaved so bad in this matter. Yours affectionately and very truly, MARTHA DUNSTABLE. "And so I am going to marry the richest woman in England," said Dr. Thorne to himself, as he sat down that day to his mutton-chop. CHAPTER XL. INTERNECINE. It must be conceived that there was some feeling of triumph at Plumstead Episcopi, when the wife of the rector returned home with her daughter, the bride elect of the Lord Dumbello. The heir of the Marquis of Hartletop was, in wealth, the most considerable unmarried young nobleman of the day; he was noted, too, as a man difficult to be pleased, as one who was very fine and who gave himself airs,--and to have been selected as the wife of such a man as this was a great thing for the daughter of a parish clergyman. We have seen in what manner the happy girl's mother communicated the fact to Lady Lufton, hiding, as it were, her pride under a veil; and we have seen also how meekly the happy girl bore her own great fortune, applying herself humbly to the packing of her clothes, as though she ignored her own glory. But nevertheless there was triumph at Plumstead Episcopi. The mother, when she returned home, began to feel that she had been thoroughly successful in the great object of her life. While she was yet in London she had hardly realized her satisfaction, and there were doubts then whether the cup might not be dashed from her lips before it was tasted. It might be that even the son of the Marquis of Hartletop was subject to

man

How many times the word 'man' appears in the text?

would have done a manifest injury to Miss Dunstable in forcing her to declare her thoughts and feelings. She had already spoken to her uncle in London, and though he had said nothing to show that he approved of her plan, neither had he said anything to show that he disapproved it. Therefore she had hoped through the whole of those three days that he would make some sign,--at any rate to her; that he would in some way declare what were his own thoughts on this matter. But the morning of his departure came, and he had declared nothing. "Uncle," she said, in the last five minutes of his sojourn there, after he had already taken leave of Miss Dunstable and shaken hands with Mrs. Gresham, "have you ever thought of what I said to you up in London?" "Yes, Mary; of course I have thought about it. Such an idea as that, when put into a man's head, will make itself thought about." "Well; and what next? Do talk to me about it. Do not be so hard and unlike yourself." "I have very little to say about it." "I can tell you this for certain, you may if you like." "Mary! Mary!" "I would not say so if I were not sure that I should not lead you into trouble." "You are foolish in wishing this, my dear; foolish in trying to tempt an old man into a folly." "Not foolish if I know that it will make you both happier." He made her no further reply, but stooping down that she might kiss him, as was his wont, went his way, leaving her almost miserable in the thought that she had troubled all these waters to no purpose. What would Miss Dunstable think of her? But on that afternoon Miss Dunstable seemed to be as happy and even-tempered as ever. CHAPTER XXXIX. HOW TO WRITE A LOVE LETTER. Dr. Thorne, in the few words which he spoke to his niece before he left Boxall Hill, had called himself an old man; but he was as yet on the right side of sixty by five good years, and bore about with him less of the marks of age than most men of fifty-five do bear. One would have said in looking at him that there was no reason why he should not marry if he found that such a step seemed good to him; and looking at the age of the proposed bride, there was nothing unsuitable in that respect. But nevertheless he felt almost ashamed of himself, in that he allowed himself even to think of the proposition which his niece had made. He mounted his horse that day at Boxall Hill--for he made all his journeys about the county on horseback--and rode slowly home to Greshamsbury, thinking not so much of the suggested marriage as of his own folly in thinking of it. How could he be such an ass at his time of life as to allow the even course of his way to be disturbed by any such idea? Of course he could not propose to himself such a wife as Miss Dunstable without having some thoughts as to her wealth; and it had been the pride of his life so to live that the world might know that he was indifferent about money. His profession was all in all to him,--the air which he breathed as well as the bread which he ate; and how could he follow his profession if he made such a marriage as this? She would expect him to go to London with her; and what would he become, dangling at her heels there, known only to the world as the husband of the richest woman in the town? The kind of life was one which would be unsuitable to him;--and yet, as he rode home, he could not resolve to rid himself of the idea. He went on thinking of it, though he still continued to condemn himself for keeping it in his thoughts. That night at home he would make up his mind, so he declared to himself; and would then write to his niece begging her to drop the subject. Having so far come to a resolution he went on meditating what course of life it might be well for him to pursue if he and Miss Dunstable should, after all, become man and wife. There were two ladies whom it behoved him to see on the day of his arrival--whom, indeed, he generally saw every day except when absent from Greshamsbury. The first of these--first in the general consideration of the people of the place--was the wife of the squire, Lady Arabella Gresham, a very old patient of the doctor's. Her it was his custom to visit early in the afternoon; and then, if he were able to escape the squire's daily invitation to dinner, he customarily went to the other, Lady Scatcherd, when the rapid meal in his own house was over. Such, at least, was his summer practice. "Well, doctor, how are they at Boxall Hill?" said the squire, waylaying him on the gravel sweep before the door. The squire was very hard set for occupation in these summer months. "Quite well, I believe." "I don't know what's come to Frank. I think he hates this place now. He's full of the election, I suppose." "Oh, yes; he told me to say he should be over here soon. Of course there'll be no contest, so he need not trouble himself." "Happy dog, isn't he, doctor? to have it all before him instead of behind him. Well, well; he's as good a lad as ever lived,--as ever lived. And let me see; Mary's time--" And then there were a few very important words spoken on that subject. "I'll just step up to Lady Arabella now," said the doctor. "She's as fretful as possible," said the squire. "I've just left her." "Nothing special the matter, I hope?" "No, I think not; nothing in your way, that is; only specially cross, which always comes in my way. You'll stop and dine to-day, of course?" "Not to-day, squire." "Nonsense; you will. I have been quite counting on you. I have a particular reason for wanting to have you to-day,--a most particular reason." But the squire always had his particular reasons. "I'm very sorry, but it is impossible to-day. I shall have a letter to write that I must sit down to seriously. Shall I see you when I come down from her ladyship?" The squire turned away sulkily, almost without answering him, for he now had no prospect of any alleviation to the tedium of the evening; and the doctor went up-stairs to his patient. For Lady Arabella, though it cannot be said that she was ill, was always a patient. It must not be supposed that she kept her bed and swallowed daily doses, or was prevented from taking her share in such prosy gaieties as came from time to time in the way of her prosy life; but it suited her turn of mind to be an invalid and to have a doctor; and as the doctor whom her good fates had placed at her elbow thoroughly understood her case, no great harm was done. "It frets me dreadfully that I cannot get to see Mary," Lady Arabella said, as soon as the first ordinary question as to her ailments had been asked and answered. "She's quite well and will be over to see you before long." "Now I beg that she won't. She never thinks of coming when there can be no possible objection, and travelling, at the present moment, would be--" Whereupon the Lady Arabella shook her head very gravely. "Only think of the importance of it, doctor," she said. "Remember the enormous stake there is to be considered." "It would not do her a ha'porth of harm if the stake were twice as large." "Nonsense, doctor, don't tell me; as if I didn't know myself. I was very much against her going to London this spring, but of course what I said was overruled. It always is. I do believe Mr. Gresham went over to Boxall Hill, on purpose to induce her to go. But what does he care? He's fond of Frank; but he never thinks of looking beyond the present day. He never did, as you know well enough, doctor." "The trip did her all the good in the world," said Dr. Thorne, preferring anything to a conversation respecting the squire's sins. "I very well remember that when I was in that way it wasn't thought that such trips would do me any good. But, perhaps, things are altered since then." "Yes, they are," said the doctor. "We don't interfere so much now-a-days." "I know I never asked for such amusements when so much depended on quietness. I remember before Frank was born--and, indeed, when all of them were born-- But as you say, things were different then; and I can easily believe that Mary is a person quite determined to have her own way." "Why, Lady Arabella, she would have stayed at home without wishing to stir if Frank had done so much as hold up his little finger." "So did I always. If Mr. Gresham made the slightest hint I gave way. But I really don't see what one gets in return for such implicit obedience. Now this year, doctor, of course I should have liked to have been up in London for a week or two. You seemed to think yourself that I might as well see Sir Omicron." "There could be no possible objection, I said." "Well; no; exactly; and as Mr. Gresham knew I wished it, I think he might as well have offered it. I suppose there can be no reason now about money." "But I understood that Mary specially asked you and Augusta?" "Yes; Mary was very good. She did ask me. But I know very well that Mary wants all the room she has got in London. The house is not at all too large for herself. And, for the matter of that, my sister, the countess, was very anxious that I should be with her. But one does like to be independent if one can, and for one fortnight I do think that Mr. Gresham might have managed it. When I knew that he was so dreadfully out at elbows I never troubled him about it,--though, goodness knows, all that was never my fault." "The squire hates London. A fortnight there in warm weather would nearly be the death of him." "He might at any rate have paid me the compliment of asking me. The chances are ten to one I should not have gone. It is that indifference that cuts me so. He was here just now, and, would you believe it?--" But the doctor was determined to avoid further complaint for the present day. "I wonder what you would feel, Lady Arabella, if the squire were to take it into his head to go away and amuse himself, leaving you at home. There are worse men than Mr. Gresham, if you will believe me." All this was an allusion to Earl de Courcy, her ladyship's brother, as Lady Arabella very well understood; and the argument was one which was very often used to silence her. "Upon my word, then, I should like it better than his hanging about here doing nothing but attend to those nasty dogs. I really sometimes think that he has no spirit left." "You are mistaken there, Lady Arabella," said the doctor, rising with his hat in his hand and making his escape without further parley. As he went home he could not but think that that phase of married life was not a very pleasant one. Mr. Gresham and his wife were supposed by the world to live on the best of terms. They always inhabited the same house, went out together when they did go out, always sat in their respective corners in the family pew, and in their wildest dreams after the happiness of novelty never thought of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. In some respects--with regard, for instance, to the continued duration of their joint domesticity at the family mansion of Greshamsbury--they might have been taken for a pattern couple. But yet, as far as the doctor could see, they did not seem to add much to the happiness of each other. They loved each other, doubtless, and had either of them been in real danger, that danger would have made the other miserable; but yet it might well be a question whether either would not be more comfortable without the other. The doctor, as was his custom, dined at five, and at seven he went up to the cottage of his old friend Lady Scatcherd. Lady Scatcherd was not a refined woman, having in her early days been a labourer's daughter and having then married a labourer. But her husband had risen in the world--as has been told in those chronicles before mentioned,--and his widow was now Lady Scatcherd with a pretty cottage and a good jointure. She was in all things the very opposite to Lady Arabella Gresham; nevertheless, under the doctor's auspices, the two ladies were in some measure acquainted with each other. Of her married life, also, Dr. Thorne had seen something, and it may be questioned whether the memory of that was more alluring than the reality now existing at Greshamsbury. Of the two women Dr. Thorne much preferred his humbler friend, and to her he made his visits not in the guise of a doctor, but as a neighbour. "Well, my lady," he said, as he sat down by her on a broad garden seat--all the world called Lady Scatcherd "my lady,"--"and how do these long summer days agree with you? Your roses are twice better out than any I see up at the big house." "You may well call them long, doctor. They're long enough surely." "But not too long. Come, now, I won't have you complaining. You don't mean to tell me that you have anything to make you wretched? You had better not, for I won't believe you." "Eh; well; wretched! I don't know as I'm wretched. It'd be wicked to say that, and I with such comforts about me." "I think it would, almost." The doctor did not say this harshly, but in a soft, friendly tone, and pressing her hand gently as he spoke. "And I didn't mean to be wicked. I'm very thankful for everything--leastways, I always try to be. But, doctor, it is so lonely like." "Lonely! not more lonely than I am." "Oh, yes; you're different. You can go everywheres. But what can a lone woman do? I'll tell you what, doctor; I'd give it all up to have Roger back with his apron on and his pick in his hand. How well I mind his look when he'd come home o' nights." "And yet it was a hard life you had then, eh, old woman? It would be better for you to be thankful for what you've got." "I am thankful. Didn't I tell you so before?" said she, somewhat crossly. "But it's a sad life, this living alone. I declares I envy Hannah, 'cause she's got Jemima to sit in the kitchen with her. I want her to sit with me sometimes, but she won't." "Ah! but you shouldn't ask her. It's letting yourself down." "What do I care about down or up? It makes no difference, as he's gone. If he had lived one might have cared about being up, as you call it. Eh, deary; I'll be going after him before long, and it will be no matter then." "We shall all be going after him, sooner or later; that's sure enough." "Eh, dear, that's true, surely. It's only a span long, as Parson Oriel tells us when he gets romantic in his sermons. But it's a hard thing, doctor, when two is married, as they can't have their span, as he calls it, out together. Well, I must only put up with it, I suppose, as others does. Now, you're not going, doctor? You'll stop and have a dish of tea with me. You never see such cream as Hannah has from the Alderney cow. Do'ey now, doctor." But the doctor had his letter to write, and would not allow himself to be tempted even by the promise of Hannah's cream. So he went his way, angering Lady Scatcherd by his departure as he had before angered the squire, and thinking as he went which was most unreasonable in her wretchedness, his friend Lady Arabella, or his friend Lady Scatcherd. The former was always complaining of an existing husband who never refused her any moderate request; and the other passed her days in murmuring at the loss of a dead husband, who in his life had ever been to her imperious and harsh, and had sometimes been cruel and unjust. The doctor had his letter to write, but even yet he had not quite made up his mind what he would put into it; indeed, he had not hitherto resolved to whom it should be written. Looking at the matter as he had endeavoured to look at it, his niece, Mrs. Gresham, would be his correspondent; but if he brought himself to take this jump in the dark, in that case he would address himself direct to Miss Dunstable. He walked home, not by the straightest road, but taking a considerable curve, round by narrow lanes, and through thick flower-laden hedges,--very thoughtful. He was told that she wished to marry him; and was he to think only of himself? And as to that pride of his about money, was it in truth a hearty, manly feeling; or was it a false pride, of which it behoved him to be ashamed as it did of many cognate feelings? If he acted rightly in this matter, why should he be afraid of the thoughts of any one? A life of solitude was bitter enough, as poor Lady Scatcherd had complained. But then, looking at Lady Scatcherd, and looking also at his other near neighbour, his friend the squire, there was little thereabouts to lead him on to matrimony. So he walked home slowly through the lanes, very meditative, with his hands behind his back. Nor when he got home was he much more inclined to any resolute line of action. He might have drunk his tea with Lady Scatcherd, as well as have sat there in his own drawing-room, drinking it alone; for he got no pen and paper, and he dawdled over his teacup with the utmost dilatoriness, putting off, as it were, the evil day. To only one thing was he fixed--to this, namely, that that letter should be written before he went to bed. Having finished his tea, which did not take place till near eleven, he went downstairs to an untidy little room which lay behind his dep t of medicines, and in which he was wont to do his writing; and herein he did at last set himself down to his work. Even at that moment he was in doubt. But he would write his letter to Miss Dunstable and see how it looked. He was almost determined not to send it; so, at least, he said to himself: but he could do no harm by writing it. So he did write it, as follows:-- Greshamsbury, -- June, 185--. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,-- When he had got so far, he leaned back in his chair and looked at the paper. How on earth was he to find words to say that which he now wished to have said? He had never written such a letter in his life, or anything approaching to it, and now found himself overwhelmed with a difficulty of which he had not previously thought. He spent another half-hour in looking at the paper, and was at last nearly deterred by this new difficulty. He would use the simplest, plainest language, he said to himself over and over again; but it is not always easy to use simple, plain language,--by no means so easy as to mount on stilts, and to march along with sesquipedalian words, with pathos, spasms, and notes of interjection. But the letter did at last get itself written, and there was not a note of interjection in it. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,--I think it right to confess that I should not be now writing this letter to you, had I not been led to believe by other judgment than my own that the proposition which I am going to make would be regarded by you with favour. Without such other judgment I should, I own, have feared that the great disparity between you and me in regard to money would have given to such a proposition an appearance of being false and mercenary. All I ask of you now, with confidence, is to acquit me of such fault as that. When you have read so far you will understand what I mean. We have known each other now somewhat intimately, though indeed not very long, and I have sometimes fancied that you were almost as well pleased to be with me as I have been to be with you. If I have been wrong in this, tell me so simply, and I will endeavour to let our friendship run on as though this letter had not been written. But if I have been right, and if it be possible that you can think that a union between us will make us both happier than we are single, I will plight you my word and troth with good faith, and will do what an old man may do to make the burden of the world lie light upon your shoulders. Looking at my age I can hardly keep myself from thinking that I am an old fool: but I try to reconcile myself to that by remembering that you yourself are no longer a girl. You see that I pay you no compliments, and that you need expect none from me. I do not know that I could add anything to the truth of this, if I were to write three times as much. All that is necessary is, that you should know what I mean. If you do not believe me to be true and honest already, nothing that I can write will make you believe it. God bless you. I know you will not keep me long in suspense for an answer. Affectionately your friend, THOMAS THORNE. When he had finished he meditated again for another half-hour whether it would not be right that he should add something about her money. Would it not be well for him to tell her--it might be said in a postscript--that with regard to all her wealth she would be free to do what she chose? At any rate he owed no debts for her to pay, and would still have his own income, sufficient for his own purposes. But about one o'clock he came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave the matter alone. If she cared for him, and could trust him, and was worthy also that he should trust her, no omission of such a statement would deter her from coming to him: and if there were no such trust, it would not be created by any such assurance on his part. So he read the letter over twice, sealed it, and took it up, together with his bed candle, into his bed-room. Now that the letter was written it seemed to be a thing fixed by fate that it must go. He had written it that he might see how it looked when written; but now that it was written, there remained no doubt but that it must be sent. So he went to bed, with the letter on the toilette-table beside him; and early in the morning--so early as to make it seem that the importance of the letter had disturbed his rest--he sent it off by a special messenger to Boxall Hill. "I'se wait for an answer?" said the boy. "No," said the doctor: "leave the letter, and come away." The breakfast hour was not very early at Boxall Hill in these summer months. Frank Gresham, no doubt, went round his farm before he came in for prayers, and his wife was probably looking to the butter in the dairy. At any rate, they did not meet till near ten, and therefore, though the ride from Greshamsbury to Boxall Hill was nearly two hours' work, Miss Dunstable had her letter in her own room before she came down. She read it in silence as she was dressing, while the maid was with her in the room; but she made no sign which could induce her Abigail to think that the epistle was more than ordinarily important. She read it, and then quietly refolding it and placing it in the envelope, she put it down on the table at which she was sitting. It was full fifteen minutes afterwards that she begged her servant to see if Mrs. Gresham were still in her own room. "Because I want to see her for five minutes, alone, before breakfast," said Miss Dunstable. "You traitor; you false, black traitor!" were the first words which Miss Dunstable spoke when she found herself alone with her friend. "Why, what's the matter?" "I did not think there was so much mischief in you, nor so keen and commonplace a desire for match-making. Look here. Read the first four lines; not more, if you please; the rest is private. Whose is the other judgment of whom your uncle speaks in his letter?" "Oh, Miss Dunstable! I must read it all." "Indeed you'll do no such thing. You think it's a love-letter, I dare say; but indeed there's not a word about love in it." "I know he has offered. I shall be so glad, for I know you like him." "He tells me that I am an old woman, and insinuates that I may probably be an old fool." "I am sure he does not say that." "Ah! but I'm sure that he does. The former is true enough, and I never complain of the truth. But as to the latter, I am by no means so certain that it is true--not in the sense that he means it." "Dear, dearest woman, don't go on in that way now. Do speak out to me, and speak without jesting." "Whose was the other judgment to whom he trusts so implicitly? Tell me that." "Mine, mine, of course. No one else can have spoken to him about it. Of course I talked to him." "And what did you tell him?" "I told him--" "Well, out with it. Let me have the real facts. Mind, I tell you fairly that you had no right to tell him anything. What passed between us, passed in confidence. But let us hear what you did say." "I told him that you would have him if he offered." And Mrs. Gresham, as she spoke, looked into her friend's face doubtingly, not knowing whether in very truth Miss Dunstable were pleased with her or displeased. If she were displeased, then how had her uncle been deceived! "You told him that as a fact?" "I told him that I thought so." "Then I suppose I am bound to have him," said Miss Dunstable, dropping the letter on to the floor in mock despair. "My dear, dear, dearest woman!" said Mrs. Gresham, bursting into tears, and throwing herself on to her friend's neck. "Mind you are a dutiful niece," said Miss Dunstable. "And now let me go and finish dressing." In the course of the afternoon, an answer was sent back to Greshamsbury, in these words:-- DEAR DR. THORNE,--I do and will trust you in everything; and it shall be as you would have it. Mary writes to you; but do not believe a word she says. I never will again, for she has behaved so bad in this matter. Yours affectionately and very truly, MARTHA DUNSTABLE. "And so I am going to marry the richest woman in England," said Dr. Thorne to himself, as he sat down that day to his mutton-chop. CHAPTER XL. INTERNECINE. It must be conceived that there was some feeling of triumph at Plumstead Episcopi, when the wife of the rector returned home with her daughter, the bride elect of the Lord Dumbello. The heir of the Marquis of Hartletop was, in wealth, the most considerable unmarried young nobleman of the day; he was noted, too, as a man difficult to be pleased, as one who was very fine and who gave himself airs,--and to have been selected as the wife of such a man as this was a great thing for the daughter of a parish clergyman. We have seen in what manner the happy girl's mother communicated the fact to Lady Lufton, hiding, as it were, her pride under a veil; and we have seen also how meekly the happy girl bore her own great fortune, applying herself humbly to the packing of her clothes, as though she ignored her own glory. But nevertheless there was triumph at Plumstead Episcopi. The mother, when she returned home, began to feel that she had been thoroughly successful in the great object of her life. While she was yet in London she had hardly realized her satisfaction, and there were doubts then whether the cup might not be dashed from her lips before it was tasted. It might be that even the son of the Marquis of Hartletop was subject to

purpose

How many times the word 'purpose' appears in the text?

would have done a manifest injury to Miss Dunstable in forcing her to declare her thoughts and feelings. She had already spoken to her uncle in London, and though he had said nothing to show that he approved of her plan, neither had he said anything to show that he disapproved it. Therefore she had hoped through the whole of those three days that he would make some sign,--at any rate to her; that he would in some way declare what were his own thoughts on this matter. But the morning of his departure came, and he had declared nothing. "Uncle," she said, in the last five minutes of his sojourn there, after he had already taken leave of Miss Dunstable and shaken hands with Mrs. Gresham, "have you ever thought of what I said to you up in London?" "Yes, Mary; of course I have thought about it. Such an idea as that, when put into a man's head, will make itself thought about." "Well; and what next? Do talk to me about it. Do not be so hard and unlike yourself." "I have very little to say about it." "I can tell you this for certain, you may if you like." "Mary! Mary!" "I would not say so if I were not sure that I should not lead you into trouble." "You are foolish in wishing this, my dear; foolish in trying to tempt an old man into a folly." "Not foolish if I know that it will make you both happier." He made her no further reply, but stooping down that she might kiss him, as was his wont, went his way, leaving her almost miserable in the thought that she had troubled all these waters to no purpose. What would Miss Dunstable think of her? But on that afternoon Miss Dunstable seemed to be as happy and even-tempered as ever. CHAPTER XXXIX. HOW TO WRITE A LOVE LETTER. Dr. Thorne, in the few words which he spoke to his niece before he left Boxall Hill, had called himself an old man; but he was as yet on the right side of sixty by five good years, and bore about with him less of the marks of age than most men of fifty-five do bear. One would have said in looking at him that there was no reason why he should not marry if he found that such a step seemed good to him; and looking at the age of the proposed bride, there was nothing unsuitable in that respect. But nevertheless he felt almost ashamed of himself, in that he allowed himself even to think of the proposition which his niece had made. He mounted his horse that day at Boxall Hill--for he made all his journeys about the county on horseback--and rode slowly home to Greshamsbury, thinking not so much of the suggested marriage as of his own folly in thinking of it. How could he be such an ass at his time of life as to allow the even course of his way to be disturbed by any such idea? Of course he could not propose to himself such a wife as Miss Dunstable without having some thoughts as to her wealth; and it had been the pride of his life so to live that the world might know that he was indifferent about money. His profession was all in all to him,--the air which he breathed as well as the bread which he ate; and how could he follow his profession if he made such a marriage as this? She would expect him to go to London with her; and what would he become, dangling at her heels there, known only to the world as the husband of the richest woman in the town? The kind of life was one which would be unsuitable to him;--and yet, as he rode home, he could not resolve to rid himself of the idea. He went on thinking of it, though he still continued to condemn himself for keeping it in his thoughts. That night at home he would make up his mind, so he declared to himself; and would then write to his niece begging her to drop the subject. Having so far come to a resolution he went on meditating what course of life it might be well for him to pursue if he and Miss Dunstable should, after all, become man and wife. There were two ladies whom it behoved him to see on the day of his arrival--whom, indeed, he generally saw every day except when absent from Greshamsbury. The first of these--first in the general consideration of the people of the place--was the wife of the squire, Lady Arabella Gresham, a very old patient of the doctor's. Her it was his custom to visit early in the afternoon; and then, if he were able to escape the squire's daily invitation to dinner, he customarily went to the other, Lady Scatcherd, when the rapid meal in his own house was over. Such, at least, was his summer practice. "Well, doctor, how are they at Boxall Hill?" said the squire, waylaying him on the gravel sweep before the door. The squire was very hard set for occupation in these summer months. "Quite well, I believe." "I don't know what's come to Frank. I think he hates this place now. He's full of the election, I suppose." "Oh, yes; he told me to say he should be over here soon. Of course there'll be no contest, so he need not trouble himself." "Happy dog, isn't he, doctor? to have it all before him instead of behind him. Well, well; he's as good a lad as ever lived,--as ever lived. And let me see; Mary's time--" And then there were a few very important words spoken on that subject. "I'll just step up to Lady Arabella now," said the doctor. "She's as fretful as possible," said the squire. "I've just left her." "Nothing special the matter, I hope?" "No, I think not; nothing in your way, that is; only specially cross, which always comes in my way. You'll stop and dine to-day, of course?" "Not to-day, squire." "Nonsense; you will. I have been quite counting on you. I have a particular reason for wanting to have you to-day,--a most particular reason." But the squire always had his particular reasons. "I'm very sorry, but it is impossible to-day. I shall have a letter to write that I must sit down to seriously. Shall I see you when I come down from her ladyship?" The squire turned away sulkily, almost without answering him, for he now had no prospect of any alleviation to the tedium of the evening; and the doctor went up-stairs to his patient. For Lady Arabella, though it cannot be said that she was ill, was always a patient. It must not be supposed that she kept her bed and swallowed daily doses, or was prevented from taking her share in such prosy gaieties as came from time to time in the way of her prosy life; but it suited her turn of mind to be an invalid and to have a doctor; and as the doctor whom her good fates had placed at her elbow thoroughly understood her case, no great harm was done. "It frets me dreadfully that I cannot get to see Mary," Lady Arabella said, as soon as the first ordinary question as to her ailments had been asked and answered. "She's quite well and will be over to see you before long." "Now I beg that she won't. She never thinks of coming when there can be no possible objection, and travelling, at the present moment, would be--" Whereupon the Lady Arabella shook her head very gravely. "Only think of the importance of it, doctor," she said. "Remember the enormous stake there is to be considered." "It would not do her a ha'porth of harm if the stake were twice as large." "Nonsense, doctor, don't tell me; as if I didn't know myself. I was very much against her going to London this spring, but of course what I said was overruled. It always is. I do believe Mr. Gresham went over to Boxall Hill, on purpose to induce her to go. But what does he care? He's fond of Frank; but he never thinks of looking beyond the present day. He never did, as you know well enough, doctor." "The trip did her all the good in the world," said Dr. Thorne, preferring anything to a conversation respecting the squire's sins. "I very well remember that when I was in that way it wasn't thought that such trips would do me any good. But, perhaps, things are altered since then." "Yes, they are," said the doctor. "We don't interfere so much now-a-days." "I know I never asked for such amusements when so much depended on quietness. I remember before Frank was born--and, indeed, when all of them were born-- But as you say, things were different then; and I can easily believe that Mary is a person quite determined to have her own way." "Why, Lady Arabella, she would have stayed at home without wishing to stir if Frank had done so much as hold up his little finger." "So did I always. If Mr. Gresham made the slightest hint I gave way. But I really don't see what one gets in return for such implicit obedience. Now this year, doctor, of course I should have liked to have been up in London for a week or two. You seemed to think yourself that I might as well see Sir Omicron." "There could be no possible objection, I said." "Well; no; exactly; and as Mr. Gresham knew I wished it, I think he might as well have offered it. I suppose there can be no reason now about money." "But I understood that Mary specially asked you and Augusta?" "Yes; Mary was very good. She did ask me. But I know very well that Mary wants all the room she has got in London. The house is not at all too large for herself. And, for the matter of that, my sister, the countess, was very anxious that I should be with her. But one does like to be independent if one can, and for one fortnight I do think that Mr. Gresham might have managed it. When I knew that he was so dreadfully out at elbows I never troubled him about it,--though, goodness knows, all that was never my fault." "The squire hates London. A fortnight there in warm weather would nearly be the death of him." "He might at any rate have paid me the compliment of asking me. The chances are ten to one I should not have gone. It is that indifference that cuts me so. He was here just now, and, would you believe it?--" But the doctor was determined to avoid further complaint for the present day. "I wonder what you would feel, Lady Arabella, if the squire were to take it into his head to go away and amuse himself, leaving you at home. There are worse men than Mr. Gresham, if you will believe me." All this was an allusion to Earl de Courcy, her ladyship's brother, as Lady Arabella very well understood; and the argument was one which was very often used to silence her. "Upon my word, then, I should like it better than his hanging about here doing nothing but attend to those nasty dogs. I really sometimes think that he has no spirit left." "You are mistaken there, Lady Arabella," said the doctor, rising with his hat in his hand and making his escape without further parley. As he went home he could not but think that that phase of married life was not a very pleasant one. Mr. Gresham and his wife were supposed by the world to live on the best of terms. They always inhabited the same house, went out together when they did go out, always sat in their respective corners in the family pew, and in their wildest dreams after the happiness of novelty never thought of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. In some respects--with regard, for instance, to the continued duration of their joint domesticity at the family mansion of Greshamsbury--they might have been taken for a pattern couple. But yet, as far as the doctor could see, they did not seem to add much to the happiness of each other. They loved each other, doubtless, and had either of them been in real danger, that danger would have made the other miserable; but yet it might well be a question whether either would not be more comfortable without the other. The doctor, as was his custom, dined at five, and at seven he went up to the cottage of his old friend Lady Scatcherd. Lady Scatcherd was not a refined woman, having in her early days been a labourer's daughter and having then married a labourer. But her husband had risen in the world--as has been told in those chronicles before mentioned,--and his widow was now Lady Scatcherd with a pretty cottage and a good jointure. She was in all things the very opposite to Lady Arabella Gresham; nevertheless, under the doctor's auspices, the two ladies were in some measure acquainted with each other. Of her married life, also, Dr. Thorne had seen something, and it may be questioned whether the memory of that was more alluring than the reality now existing at Greshamsbury. Of the two women Dr. Thorne much preferred his humbler friend, and to her he made his visits not in the guise of a doctor, but as a neighbour. "Well, my lady," he said, as he sat down by her on a broad garden seat--all the world called Lady Scatcherd "my lady,"--"and how do these long summer days agree with you? Your roses are twice better out than any I see up at the big house." "You may well call them long, doctor. They're long enough surely." "But not too long. Come, now, I won't have you complaining. You don't mean to tell me that you have anything to make you wretched? You had better not, for I won't believe you." "Eh; well; wretched! I don't know as I'm wretched. It'd be wicked to say that, and I with such comforts about me." "I think it would, almost." The doctor did not say this harshly, but in a soft, friendly tone, and pressing her hand gently as he spoke. "And I didn't mean to be wicked. I'm very thankful for everything--leastways, I always try to be. But, doctor, it is so lonely like." "Lonely! not more lonely than I am." "Oh, yes; you're different. You can go everywheres. But what can a lone woman do? I'll tell you what, doctor; I'd give it all up to have Roger back with his apron on and his pick in his hand. How well I mind his look when he'd come home o' nights." "And yet it was a hard life you had then, eh, old woman? It would be better for you to be thankful for what you've got." "I am thankful. Didn't I tell you so before?" said she, somewhat crossly. "But it's a sad life, this living alone. I declares I envy Hannah, 'cause she's got Jemima to sit in the kitchen with her. I want her to sit with me sometimes, but she won't." "Ah! but you shouldn't ask her. It's letting yourself down." "What do I care about down or up? It makes no difference, as he's gone. If he had lived one might have cared about being up, as you call it. Eh, deary; I'll be going after him before long, and it will be no matter then." "We shall all be going after him, sooner or later; that's sure enough." "Eh, dear, that's true, surely. It's only a span long, as Parson Oriel tells us when he gets romantic in his sermons. But it's a hard thing, doctor, when two is married, as they can't have their span, as he calls it, out together. Well, I must only put up with it, I suppose, as others does. Now, you're not going, doctor? You'll stop and have a dish of tea with me. You never see such cream as Hannah has from the Alderney cow. Do'ey now, doctor." But the doctor had his letter to write, and would not allow himself to be tempted even by the promise of Hannah's cream. So he went his way, angering Lady Scatcherd by his departure as he had before angered the squire, and thinking as he went which was most unreasonable in her wretchedness, his friend Lady Arabella, or his friend Lady Scatcherd. The former was always complaining of an existing husband who never refused her any moderate request; and the other passed her days in murmuring at the loss of a dead husband, who in his life had ever been to her imperious and harsh, and had sometimes been cruel and unjust. The doctor had his letter to write, but even yet he had not quite made up his mind what he would put into it; indeed, he had not hitherto resolved to whom it should be written. Looking at the matter as he had endeavoured to look at it, his niece, Mrs. Gresham, would be his correspondent; but if he brought himself to take this jump in the dark, in that case he would address himself direct to Miss Dunstable. He walked home, not by the straightest road, but taking a considerable curve, round by narrow lanes, and through thick flower-laden hedges,--very thoughtful. He was told that she wished to marry him; and was he to think only of himself? And as to that pride of his about money, was it in truth a hearty, manly feeling; or was it a false pride, of which it behoved him to be ashamed as it did of many cognate feelings? If he acted rightly in this matter, why should he be afraid of the thoughts of any one? A life of solitude was bitter enough, as poor Lady Scatcherd had complained. But then, looking at Lady Scatcherd, and looking also at his other near neighbour, his friend the squire, there was little thereabouts to lead him on to matrimony. So he walked home slowly through the lanes, very meditative, with his hands behind his back. Nor when he got home was he much more inclined to any resolute line of action. He might have drunk his tea with Lady Scatcherd, as well as have sat there in his own drawing-room, drinking it alone; for he got no pen and paper, and he dawdled over his teacup with the utmost dilatoriness, putting off, as it were, the evil day. To only one thing was he fixed--to this, namely, that that letter should be written before he went to bed. Having finished his tea, which did not take place till near eleven, he went downstairs to an untidy little room which lay behind his dep t of medicines, and in which he was wont to do his writing; and herein he did at last set himself down to his work. Even at that moment he was in doubt. But he would write his letter to Miss Dunstable and see how it looked. He was almost determined not to send it; so, at least, he said to himself: but he could do no harm by writing it. So he did write it, as follows:-- Greshamsbury, -- June, 185--. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,-- When he had got so far, he leaned back in his chair and looked at the paper. How on earth was he to find words to say that which he now wished to have said? He had never written such a letter in his life, or anything approaching to it, and now found himself overwhelmed with a difficulty of which he had not previously thought. He spent another half-hour in looking at the paper, and was at last nearly deterred by this new difficulty. He would use the simplest, plainest language, he said to himself over and over again; but it is not always easy to use simple, plain language,--by no means so easy as to mount on stilts, and to march along with sesquipedalian words, with pathos, spasms, and notes of interjection. But the letter did at last get itself written, and there was not a note of interjection in it. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,--I think it right to confess that I should not be now writing this letter to you, had I not been led to believe by other judgment than my own that the proposition which I am going to make would be regarded by you with favour. Without such other judgment I should, I own, have feared that the great disparity between you and me in regard to money would have given to such a proposition an appearance of being false and mercenary. All I ask of you now, with confidence, is to acquit me of such fault as that. When you have read so far you will understand what I mean. We have known each other now somewhat intimately, though indeed not very long, and I have sometimes fancied that you were almost as well pleased to be with me as I have been to be with you. If I have been wrong in this, tell me so simply, and I will endeavour to let our friendship run on as though this letter had not been written. But if I have been right, and if it be possible that you can think that a union between us will make us both happier than we are single, I will plight you my word and troth with good faith, and will do what an old man may do to make the burden of the world lie light upon your shoulders. Looking at my age I can hardly keep myself from thinking that I am an old fool: but I try to reconcile myself to that by remembering that you yourself are no longer a girl. You see that I pay you no compliments, and that you need expect none from me. I do not know that I could add anything to the truth of this, if I were to write three times as much. All that is necessary is, that you should know what I mean. If you do not believe me to be true and honest already, nothing that I can write will make you believe it. God bless you. I know you will not keep me long in suspense for an answer. Affectionately your friend, THOMAS THORNE. When he had finished he meditated again for another half-hour whether it would not be right that he should add something about her money. Would it not be well for him to tell her--it might be said in a postscript--that with regard to all her wealth she would be free to do what she chose? At any rate he owed no debts for her to pay, and would still have his own income, sufficient for his own purposes. But about one o'clock he came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave the matter alone. If she cared for him, and could trust him, and was worthy also that he should trust her, no omission of such a statement would deter her from coming to him: and if there were no such trust, it would not be created by any such assurance on his part. So he read the letter over twice, sealed it, and took it up, together with his bed candle, into his bed-room. Now that the letter was written it seemed to be a thing fixed by fate that it must go. He had written it that he might see how it looked when written; but now that it was written, there remained no doubt but that it must be sent. So he went to bed, with the letter on the toilette-table beside him; and early in the morning--so early as to make it seem that the importance of the letter had disturbed his rest--he sent it off by a special messenger to Boxall Hill. "I'se wait for an answer?" said the boy. "No," said the doctor: "leave the letter, and come away." The breakfast hour was not very early at Boxall Hill in these summer months. Frank Gresham, no doubt, went round his farm before he came in for prayers, and his wife was probably looking to the butter in the dairy. At any rate, they did not meet till near ten, and therefore, though the ride from Greshamsbury to Boxall Hill was nearly two hours' work, Miss Dunstable had her letter in her own room before she came down. She read it in silence as she was dressing, while the maid was with her in the room; but she made no sign which could induce her Abigail to think that the epistle was more than ordinarily important. She read it, and then quietly refolding it and placing it in the envelope, she put it down on the table at which she was sitting. It was full fifteen minutes afterwards that she begged her servant to see if Mrs. Gresham were still in her own room. "Because I want to see her for five minutes, alone, before breakfast," said Miss Dunstable. "You traitor; you false, black traitor!" were the first words which Miss Dunstable spoke when she found herself alone with her friend. "Why, what's the matter?" "I did not think there was so much mischief in you, nor so keen and commonplace a desire for match-making. Look here. Read the first four lines; not more, if you please; the rest is private. Whose is the other judgment of whom your uncle speaks in his letter?" "Oh, Miss Dunstable! I must read it all." "Indeed you'll do no such thing. You think it's a love-letter, I dare say; but indeed there's not a word about love in it." "I know he has offered. I shall be so glad, for I know you like him." "He tells me that I am an old woman, and insinuates that I may probably be an old fool." "I am sure he does not say that." "Ah! but I'm sure that he does. The former is true enough, and I never complain of the truth. But as to the latter, I am by no means so certain that it is true--not in the sense that he means it." "Dear, dearest woman, don't go on in that way now. Do speak out to me, and speak without jesting." "Whose was the other judgment to whom he trusts so implicitly? Tell me that." "Mine, mine, of course. No one else can have spoken to him about it. Of course I talked to him." "And what did you tell him?" "I told him--" "Well, out with it. Let me have the real facts. Mind, I tell you fairly that you had no right to tell him anything. What passed between us, passed in confidence. But let us hear what you did say." "I told him that you would have him if he offered." And Mrs. Gresham, as she spoke, looked into her friend's face doubtingly, not knowing whether in very truth Miss Dunstable were pleased with her or displeased. If she were displeased, then how had her uncle been deceived! "You told him that as a fact?" "I told him that I thought so." "Then I suppose I am bound to have him," said Miss Dunstable, dropping the letter on to the floor in mock despair. "My dear, dear, dearest woman!" said Mrs. Gresham, bursting into tears, and throwing herself on to her friend's neck. "Mind you are a dutiful niece," said Miss Dunstable. "And now let me go and finish dressing." In the course of the afternoon, an answer was sent back to Greshamsbury, in these words:-- DEAR DR. THORNE,--I do and will trust you in everything; and it shall be as you would have it. Mary writes to you; but do not believe a word she says. I never will again, for she has behaved so bad in this matter. Yours affectionately and very truly, MARTHA DUNSTABLE. "And so I am going to marry the richest woman in England," said Dr. Thorne to himself, as he sat down that day to his mutton-chop. CHAPTER XL. INTERNECINE. It must be conceived that there was some feeling of triumph at Plumstead Episcopi, when the wife of the rector returned home with her daughter, the bride elect of the Lord Dumbello. The heir of the Marquis of Hartletop was, in wealth, the most considerable unmarried young nobleman of the day; he was noted, too, as a man difficult to be pleased, as one who was very fine and who gave himself airs,--and to have been selected as the wife of such a man as this was a great thing for the daughter of a parish clergyman. We have seen in what manner the happy girl's mother communicated the fact to Lady Lufton, hiding, as it were, her pride under a veil; and we have seen also how meekly the happy girl bore her own great fortune, applying herself humbly to the packing of her clothes, as though she ignored her own glory. But nevertheless there was triumph at Plumstead Episcopi. The mother, when she returned home, began to feel that she had been thoroughly successful in the great object of her life. While she was yet in London she had hardly realized her satisfaction, and there were doubts then whether the cup might not be dashed from her lips before it was tasted. It might be that even the son of the Marquis of Hartletop was subject to

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How many times the word 'town' appears in the text?

would have done a manifest injury to Miss Dunstable in forcing her to declare her thoughts and feelings. She had already spoken to her uncle in London, and though he had said nothing to show that he approved of her plan, neither had he said anything to show that he disapproved it. Therefore she had hoped through the whole of those three days that he would make some sign,--at any rate to her; that he would in some way declare what were his own thoughts on this matter. But the morning of his departure came, and he had declared nothing. "Uncle," she said, in the last five minutes of his sojourn there, after he had already taken leave of Miss Dunstable and shaken hands with Mrs. Gresham, "have you ever thought of what I said to you up in London?" "Yes, Mary; of course I have thought about it. Such an idea as that, when put into a man's head, will make itself thought about." "Well; and what next? Do talk to me about it. Do not be so hard and unlike yourself." "I have very little to say about it." "I can tell you this for certain, you may if you like." "Mary! Mary!" "I would not say so if I were not sure that I should not lead you into trouble." "You are foolish in wishing this, my dear; foolish in trying to tempt an old man into a folly." "Not foolish if I know that it will make you both happier." He made her no further reply, but stooping down that she might kiss him, as was his wont, went his way, leaving her almost miserable in the thought that she had troubled all these waters to no purpose. What would Miss Dunstable think of her? But on that afternoon Miss Dunstable seemed to be as happy and even-tempered as ever. CHAPTER XXXIX. HOW TO WRITE A LOVE LETTER. Dr. Thorne, in the few words which he spoke to his niece before he left Boxall Hill, had called himself an old man; but he was as yet on the right side of sixty by five good years, and bore about with him less of the marks of age than most men of fifty-five do bear. One would have said in looking at him that there was no reason why he should not marry if he found that such a step seemed good to him; and looking at the age of the proposed bride, there was nothing unsuitable in that respect. But nevertheless he felt almost ashamed of himself, in that he allowed himself even to think of the proposition which his niece had made. He mounted his horse that day at Boxall Hill--for he made all his journeys about the county on horseback--and rode slowly home to Greshamsbury, thinking not so much of the suggested marriage as of his own folly in thinking of it. How could he be such an ass at his time of life as to allow the even course of his way to be disturbed by any such idea? Of course he could not propose to himself such a wife as Miss Dunstable without having some thoughts as to her wealth; and it had been the pride of his life so to live that the world might know that he was indifferent about money. His profession was all in all to him,--the air which he breathed as well as the bread which he ate; and how could he follow his profession if he made such a marriage as this? She would expect him to go to London with her; and what would he become, dangling at her heels there, known only to the world as the husband of the richest woman in the town? The kind of life was one which would be unsuitable to him;--and yet, as he rode home, he could not resolve to rid himself of the idea. He went on thinking of it, though he still continued to condemn himself for keeping it in his thoughts. That night at home he would make up his mind, so he declared to himself; and would then write to his niece begging her to drop the subject. Having so far come to a resolution he went on meditating what course of life it might be well for him to pursue if he and Miss Dunstable should, after all, become man and wife. There were two ladies whom it behoved him to see on the day of his arrival--whom, indeed, he generally saw every day except when absent from Greshamsbury. The first of these--first in the general consideration of the people of the place--was the wife of the squire, Lady Arabella Gresham, a very old patient of the doctor's. Her it was his custom to visit early in the afternoon; and then, if he were able to escape the squire's daily invitation to dinner, he customarily went to the other, Lady Scatcherd, when the rapid meal in his own house was over. Such, at least, was his summer practice. "Well, doctor, how are they at Boxall Hill?" said the squire, waylaying him on the gravel sweep before the door. The squire was very hard set for occupation in these summer months. "Quite well, I believe." "I don't know what's come to Frank. I think he hates this place now. He's full of the election, I suppose." "Oh, yes; he told me to say he should be over here soon. Of course there'll be no contest, so he need not trouble himself." "Happy dog, isn't he, doctor? to have it all before him instead of behind him. Well, well; he's as good a lad as ever lived,--as ever lived. And let me see; Mary's time--" And then there were a few very important words spoken on that subject. "I'll just step up to Lady Arabella now," said the doctor. "She's as fretful as possible," said the squire. "I've just left her." "Nothing special the matter, I hope?" "No, I think not; nothing in your way, that is; only specially cross, which always comes in my way. You'll stop and dine to-day, of course?" "Not to-day, squire." "Nonsense; you will. I have been quite counting on you. I have a particular reason for wanting to have you to-day,--a most particular reason." But the squire always had his particular reasons. "I'm very sorry, but it is impossible to-day. I shall have a letter to write that I must sit down to seriously. Shall I see you when I come down from her ladyship?" The squire turned away sulkily, almost without answering him, for he now had no prospect of any alleviation to the tedium of the evening; and the doctor went up-stairs to his patient. For Lady Arabella, though it cannot be said that she was ill, was always a patient. It must not be supposed that she kept her bed and swallowed daily doses, or was prevented from taking her share in such prosy gaieties as came from time to time in the way of her prosy life; but it suited her turn of mind to be an invalid and to have a doctor; and as the doctor whom her good fates had placed at her elbow thoroughly understood her case, no great harm was done. "It frets me dreadfully that I cannot get to see Mary," Lady Arabella said, as soon as the first ordinary question as to her ailments had been asked and answered. "She's quite well and will be over to see you before long." "Now I beg that she won't. She never thinks of coming when there can be no possible objection, and travelling, at the present moment, would be--" Whereupon the Lady Arabella shook her head very gravely. "Only think of the importance of it, doctor," she said. "Remember the enormous stake there is to be considered." "It would not do her a ha'porth of harm if the stake were twice as large." "Nonsense, doctor, don't tell me; as if I didn't know myself. I was very much against her going to London this spring, but of course what I said was overruled. It always is. I do believe Mr. Gresham went over to Boxall Hill, on purpose to induce her to go. But what does he care? He's fond of Frank; but he never thinks of looking beyond the present day. He never did, as you know well enough, doctor." "The trip did her all the good in the world," said Dr. Thorne, preferring anything to a conversation respecting the squire's sins. "I very well remember that when I was in that way it wasn't thought that such trips would do me any good. But, perhaps, things are altered since then." "Yes, they are," said the doctor. "We don't interfere so much now-a-days." "I know I never asked for such amusements when so much depended on quietness. I remember before Frank was born--and, indeed, when all of them were born-- But as you say, things were different then; and I can easily believe that Mary is a person quite determined to have her own way." "Why, Lady Arabella, she would have stayed at home without wishing to stir if Frank had done so much as hold up his little finger." "So did I always. If Mr. Gresham made the slightest hint I gave way. But I really don't see what one gets in return for such implicit obedience. Now this year, doctor, of course I should have liked to have been up in London for a week or two. You seemed to think yourself that I might as well see Sir Omicron." "There could be no possible objection, I said." "Well; no; exactly; and as Mr. Gresham knew I wished it, I think he might as well have offered it. I suppose there can be no reason now about money." "But I understood that Mary specially asked you and Augusta?" "Yes; Mary was very good. She did ask me. But I know very well that Mary wants all the room she has got in London. The house is not at all too large for herself. And, for the matter of that, my sister, the countess, was very anxious that I should be with her. But one does like to be independent if one can, and for one fortnight I do think that Mr. Gresham might have managed it. When I knew that he was so dreadfully out at elbows I never troubled him about it,--though, goodness knows, all that was never my fault." "The squire hates London. A fortnight there in warm weather would nearly be the death of him." "He might at any rate have paid me the compliment of asking me. The chances are ten to one I should not have gone. It is that indifference that cuts me so. He was here just now, and, would you believe it?--" But the doctor was determined to avoid further complaint for the present day. "I wonder what you would feel, Lady Arabella, if the squire were to take it into his head to go away and amuse himself, leaving you at home. There are worse men than Mr. Gresham, if you will believe me." All this was an allusion to Earl de Courcy, her ladyship's brother, as Lady Arabella very well understood; and the argument was one which was very often used to silence her. "Upon my word, then, I should like it better than his hanging about here doing nothing but attend to those nasty dogs. I really sometimes think that he has no spirit left." "You are mistaken there, Lady Arabella," said the doctor, rising with his hat in his hand and making his escape without further parley. As he went home he could not but think that that phase of married life was not a very pleasant one. Mr. Gresham and his wife were supposed by the world to live on the best of terms. They always inhabited the same house, went out together when they did go out, always sat in their respective corners in the family pew, and in their wildest dreams after the happiness of novelty never thought of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. In some respects--with regard, for instance, to the continued duration of their joint domesticity at the family mansion of Greshamsbury--they might have been taken for a pattern couple. But yet, as far as the doctor could see, they did not seem to add much to the happiness of each other. They loved each other, doubtless, and had either of them been in real danger, that danger would have made the other miserable; but yet it might well be a question whether either would not be more comfortable without the other. The doctor, as was his custom, dined at five, and at seven he went up to the cottage of his old friend Lady Scatcherd. Lady Scatcherd was not a refined woman, having in her early days been a labourer's daughter and having then married a labourer. But her husband had risen in the world--as has been told in those chronicles before mentioned,--and his widow was now Lady Scatcherd with a pretty cottage and a good jointure. She was in all things the very opposite to Lady Arabella Gresham; nevertheless, under the doctor's auspices, the two ladies were in some measure acquainted with each other. Of her married life, also, Dr. Thorne had seen something, and it may be questioned whether the memory of that was more alluring than the reality now existing at Greshamsbury. Of the two women Dr. Thorne much preferred his humbler friend, and to her he made his visits not in the guise of a doctor, but as a neighbour. "Well, my lady," he said, as he sat down by her on a broad garden seat--all the world called Lady Scatcherd "my lady,"--"and how do these long summer days agree with you? Your roses are twice better out than any I see up at the big house." "You may well call them long, doctor. They're long enough surely." "But not too long. Come, now, I won't have you complaining. You don't mean to tell me that you have anything to make you wretched? You had better not, for I won't believe you." "Eh; well; wretched! I don't know as I'm wretched. It'd be wicked to say that, and I with such comforts about me." "I think it would, almost." The doctor did not say this harshly, but in a soft, friendly tone, and pressing her hand gently as he spoke. "And I didn't mean to be wicked. I'm very thankful for everything--leastways, I always try to be. But, doctor, it is so lonely like." "Lonely! not more lonely than I am." "Oh, yes; you're different. You can go everywheres. But what can a lone woman do? I'll tell you what, doctor; I'd give it all up to have Roger back with his apron on and his pick in his hand. How well I mind his look when he'd come home o' nights." "And yet it was a hard life you had then, eh, old woman? It would be better for you to be thankful for what you've got." "I am thankful. Didn't I tell you so before?" said she, somewhat crossly. "But it's a sad life, this living alone. I declares I envy Hannah, 'cause she's got Jemima to sit in the kitchen with her. I want her to sit with me sometimes, but she won't." "Ah! but you shouldn't ask her. It's letting yourself down." "What do I care about down or up? It makes no difference, as he's gone. If he had lived one might have cared about being up, as you call it. Eh, deary; I'll be going after him before long, and it will be no matter then." "We shall all be going after him, sooner or later; that's sure enough." "Eh, dear, that's true, surely. It's only a span long, as Parson Oriel tells us when he gets romantic in his sermons. But it's a hard thing, doctor, when two is married, as they can't have their span, as he calls it, out together. Well, I must only put up with it, I suppose, as others does. Now, you're not going, doctor? You'll stop and have a dish of tea with me. You never see such cream as Hannah has from the Alderney cow. Do'ey now, doctor." But the doctor had his letter to write, and would not allow himself to be tempted even by the promise of Hannah's cream. So he went his way, angering Lady Scatcherd by his departure as he had before angered the squire, and thinking as he went which was most unreasonable in her wretchedness, his friend Lady Arabella, or his friend Lady Scatcherd. The former was always complaining of an existing husband who never refused her any moderate request; and the other passed her days in murmuring at the loss of a dead husband, who in his life had ever been to her imperious and harsh, and had sometimes been cruel and unjust. The doctor had his letter to write, but even yet he had not quite made up his mind what he would put into it; indeed, he had not hitherto resolved to whom it should be written. Looking at the matter as he had endeavoured to look at it, his niece, Mrs. Gresham, would be his correspondent; but if he brought himself to take this jump in the dark, in that case he would address himself direct to Miss Dunstable. He walked home, not by the straightest road, but taking a considerable curve, round by narrow lanes, and through thick flower-laden hedges,--very thoughtful. He was told that she wished to marry him; and was he to think only of himself? And as to that pride of his about money, was it in truth a hearty, manly feeling; or was it a false pride, of which it behoved him to be ashamed as it did of many cognate feelings? If he acted rightly in this matter, why should he be afraid of the thoughts of any one? A life of solitude was bitter enough, as poor Lady Scatcherd had complained. But then, looking at Lady Scatcherd, and looking also at his other near neighbour, his friend the squire, there was little thereabouts to lead him on to matrimony. So he walked home slowly through the lanes, very meditative, with his hands behind his back. Nor when he got home was he much more inclined to any resolute line of action. He might have drunk his tea with Lady Scatcherd, as well as have sat there in his own drawing-room, drinking it alone; for he got no pen and paper, and he dawdled over his teacup with the utmost dilatoriness, putting off, as it were, the evil day. To only one thing was he fixed--to this, namely, that that letter should be written before he went to bed. Having finished his tea, which did not take place till near eleven, he went downstairs to an untidy little room which lay behind his dep t of medicines, and in which he was wont to do his writing; and herein he did at last set himself down to his work. Even at that moment he was in doubt. But he would write his letter to Miss Dunstable and see how it looked. He was almost determined not to send it; so, at least, he said to himself: but he could do no harm by writing it. So he did write it, as follows:-- Greshamsbury, -- June, 185--. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,-- When he had got so far, he leaned back in his chair and looked at the paper. How on earth was he to find words to say that which he now wished to have said? He had never written such a letter in his life, or anything approaching to it, and now found himself overwhelmed with a difficulty of which he had not previously thought. He spent another half-hour in looking at the paper, and was at last nearly deterred by this new difficulty. He would use the simplest, plainest language, he said to himself over and over again; but it is not always easy to use simple, plain language,--by no means so easy as to mount on stilts, and to march along with sesquipedalian words, with pathos, spasms, and notes of interjection. But the letter did at last get itself written, and there was not a note of interjection in it. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,--I think it right to confess that I should not be now writing this letter to you, had I not been led to believe by other judgment than my own that the proposition which I am going to make would be regarded by you with favour. Without such other judgment I should, I own, have feared that the great disparity between you and me in regard to money would have given to such a proposition an appearance of being false and mercenary. All I ask of you now, with confidence, is to acquit me of such fault as that. When you have read so far you will understand what I mean. We have known each other now somewhat intimately, though indeed not very long, and I have sometimes fancied that you were almost as well pleased to be with me as I have been to be with you. If I have been wrong in this, tell me so simply, and I will endeavour to let our friendship run on as though this letter had not been written. But if I have been right, and if it be possible that you can think that a union between us will make us both happier than we are single, I will plight you my word and troth with good faith, and will do what an old man may do to make the burden of the world lie light upon your shoulders. Looking at my age I can hardly keep myself from thinking that I am an old fool: but I try to reconcile myself to that by remembering that you yourself are no longer a girl. You see that I pay you no compliments, and that you need expect none from me. I do not know that I could add anything to the truth of this, if I were to write three times as much. All that is necessary is, that you should know what I mean. If you do not believe me to be true and honest already, nothing that I can write will make you believe it. God bless you. I know you will not keep me long in suspense for an answer. Affectionately your friend, THOMAS THORNE. When he had finished he meditated again for another half-hour whether it would not be right that he should add something about her money. Would it not be well for him to tell her--it might be said in a postscript--that with regard to all her wealth she would be free to do what she chose? At any rate he owed no debts for her to pay, and would still have his own income, sufficient for his own purposes. But about one o'clock he came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave the matter alone. If she cared for him, and could trust him, and was worthy also that he should trust her, no omission of such a statement would deter her from coming to him: and if there were no such trust, it would not be created by any such assurance on his part. So he read the letter over twice, sealed it, and took it up, together with his bed candle, into his bed-room. Now that the letter was written it seemed to be a thing fixed by fate that it must go. He had written it that he might see how it looked when written; but now that it was written, there remained no doubt but that it must be sent. So he went to bed, with the letter on the toilette-table beside him; and early in the morning--so early as to make it seem that the importance of the letter had disturbed his rest--he sent it off by a special messenger to Boxall Hill. "I'se wait for an answer?" said the boy. "No," said the doctor: "leave the letter, and come away." The breakfast hour was not very early at Boxall Hill in these summer months. Frank Gresham, no doubt, went round his farm before he came in for prayers, and his wife was probably looking to the butter in the dairy. At any rate, they did not meet till near ten, and therefore, though the ride from Greshamsbury to Boxall Hill was nearly two hours' work, Miss Dunstable had her letter in her own room before she came down. She read it in silence as she was dressing, while the maid was with her in the room; but she made no sign which could induce her Abigail to think that the epistle was more than ordinarily important. She read it, and then quietly refolding it and placing it in the envelope, she put it down on the table at which she was sitting. It was full fifteen minutes afterwards that she begged her servant to see if Mrs. Gresham were still in her own room. "Because I want to see her for five minutes, alone, before breakfast," said Miss Dunstable. "You traitor; you false, black traitor!" were the first words which Miss Dunstable spoke when she found herself alone with her friend. "Why, what's the matter?" "I did not think there was so much mischief in you, nor so keen and commonplace a desire for match-making. Look here. Read the first four lines; not more, if you please; the rest is private. Whose is the other judgment of whom your uncle speaks in his letter?" "Oh, Miss Dunstable! I must read it all." "Indeed you'll do no such thing. You think it's a love-letter, I dare say; but indeed there's not a word about love in it." "I know he has offered. I shall be so glad, for I know you like him." "He tells me that I am an old woman, and insinuates that I may probably be an old fool." "I am sure he does not say that." "Ah! but I'm sure that he does. The former is true enough, and I never complain of the truth. But as to the latter, I am by no means so certain that it is true--not in the sense that he means it." "Dear, dearest woman, don't go on in that way now. Do speak out to me, and speak without jesting." "Whose was the other judgment to whom he trusts so implicitly? Tell me that." "Mine, mine, of course. No one else can have spoken to him about it. Of course I talked to him." "And what did you tell him?" "I told him--" "Well, out with it. Let me have the real facts. Mind, I tell you fairly that you had no right to tell him anything. What passed between us, passed in confidence. But let us hear what you did say." "I told him that you would have him if he offered." And Mrs. Gresham, as she spoke, looked into her friend's face doubtingly, not knowing whether in very truth Miss Dunstable were pleased with her or displeased. If she were displeased, then how had her uncle been deceived! "You told him that as a fact?" "I told him that I thought so." "Then I suppose I am bound to have him," said Miss Dunstable, dropping the letter on to the floor in mock despair. "My dear, dear, dearest woman!" said Mrs. Gresham, bursting into tears, and throwing herself on to her friend's neck. "Mind you are a dutiful niece," said Miss Dunstable. "And now let me go and finish dressing." In the course of the afternoon, an answer was sent back to Greshamsbury, in these words:-- DEAR DR. THORNE,--I do and will trust you in everything; and it shall be as you would have it. Mary writes to you; but do not believe a word she says. I never will again, for she has behaved so bad in this matter. Yours affectionately and very truly, MARTHA DUNSTABLE. "And so I am going to marry the richest woman in England," said Dr. Thorne to himself, as he sat down that day to his mutton-chop. CHAPTER XL. INTERNECINE. It must be conceived that there was some feeling of triumph at Plumstead Episcopi, when the wife of the rector returned home with her daughter, the bride elect of the Lord Dumbello. The heir of the Marquis of Hartletop was, in wealth, the most considerable unmarried young nobleman of the day; he was noted, too, as a man difficult to be pleased, as one who was very fine and who gave himself airs,--and to have been selected as the wife of such a man as this was a great thing for the daughter of a parish clergyman. We have seen in what manner the happy girl's mother communicated the fact to Lady Lufton, hiding, as it were, her pride under a veil; and we have seen also how meekly the happy girl bore her own great fortune, applying herself humbly to the packing of her clothes, as though she ignored her own glory. But nevertheless there was triumph at Plumstead Episcopi. The mother, when she returned home, began to feel that she had been thoroughly successful in the great object of her life. While she was yet in London she had hardly realized her satisfaction, and there were doubts then whether the cup might not be dashed from her lips before it was tasted. It might be that even the son of the Marquis of Hartletop was subject to

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would have done a manifest injury to Miss Dunstable in forcing her to declare her thoughts and feelings. She had already spoken to her uncle in London, and though he had said nothing to show that he approved of her plan, neither had he said anything to show that he disapproved it. Therefore she had hoped through the whole of those three days that he would make some sign,--at any rate to her; that he would in some way declare what were his own thoughts on this matter. But the morning of his departure came, and he had declared nothing. "Uncle," she said, in the last five minutes of his sojourn there, after he had already taken leave of Miss Dunstable and shaken hands with Mrs. Gresham, "have you ever thought of what I said to you up in London?" "Yes, Mary; of course I have thought about it. Such an idea as that, when put into a man's head, will make itself thought about." "Well; and what next? Do talk to me about it. Do not be so hard and unlike yourself." "I have very little to say about it." "I can tell you this for certain, you may if you like." "Mary! Mary!" "I would not say so if I were not sure that I should not lead you into trouble." "You are foolish in wishing this, my dear; foolish in trying to tempt an old man into a folly." "Not foolish if I know that it will make you both happier." He made her no further reply, but stooping down that she might kiss him, as was his wont, went his way, leaving her almost miserable in the thought that she had troubled all these waters to no purpose. What would Miss Dunstable think of her? But on that afternoon Miss Dunstable seemed to be as happy and even-tempered as ever. CHAPTER XXXIX. HOW TO WRITE A LOVE LETTER. Dr. Thorne, in the few words which he spoke to his niece before he left Boxall Hill, had called himself an old man; but he was as yet on the right side of sixty by five good years, and bore about with him less of the marks of age than most men of fifty-five do bear. One would have said in looking at him that there was no reason why he should not marry if he found that such a step seemed good to him; and looking at the age of the proposed bride, there was nothing unsuitable in that respect. But nevertheless he felt almost ashamed of himself, in that he allowed himself even to think of the proposition which his niece had made. He mounted his horse that day at Boxall Hill--for he made all his journeys about the county on horseback--and rode slowly home to Greshamsbury, thinking not so much of the suggested marriage as of his own folly in thinking of it. How could he be such an ass at his time of life as to allow the even course of his way to be disturbed by any such idea? Of course he could not propose to himself such a wife as Miss Dunstable without having some thoughts as to her wealth; and it had been the pride of his life so to live that the world might know that he was indifferent about money. His profession was all in all to him,--the air which he breathed as well as the bread which he ate; and how could he follow his profession if he made such a marriage as this? She would expect him to go to London with her; and what would he become, dangling at her heels there, known only to the world as the husband of the richest woman in the town? The kind of life was one which would be unsuitable to him;--and yet, as he rode home, he could not resolve to rid himself of the idea. He went on thinking of it, though he still continued to condemn himself for keeping it in his thoughts. That night at home he would make up his mind, so he declared to himself; and would then write to his niece begging her to drop the subject. Having so far come to a resolution he went on meditating what course of life it might be well for him to pursue if he and Miss Dunstable should, after all, become man and wife. There were two ladies whom it behoved him to see on the day of his arrival--whom, indeed, he generally saw every day except when absent from Greshamsbury. The first of these--first in the general consideration of the people of the place--was the wife of the squire, Lady Arabella Gresham, a very old patient of the doctor's. Her it was his custom to visit early in the afternoon; and then, if he were able to escape the squire's daily invitation to dinner, he customarily went to the other, Lady Scatcherd, when the rapid meal in his own house was over. Such, at least, was his summer practice. "Well, doctor, how are they at Boxall Hill?" said the squire, waylaying him on the gravel sweep before the door. The squire was very hard set for occupation in these summer months. "Quite well, I believe." "I don't know what's come to Frank. I think he hates this place now. He's full of the election, I suppose." "Oh, yes; he told me to say he should be over here soon. Of course there'll be no contest, so he need not trouble himself." "Happy dog, isn't he, doctor? to have it all before him instead of behind him. Well, well; he's as good a lad as ever lived,--as ever lived. And let me see; Mary's time--" And then there were a few very important words spoken on that subject. "I'll just step up to Lady Arabella now," said the doctor. "She's as fretful as possible," said the squire. "I've just left her." "Nothing special the matter, I hope?" "No, I think not; nothing in your way, that is; only specially cross, which always comes in my way. You'll stop and dine to-day, of course?" "Not to-day, squire." "Nonsense; you will. I have been quite counting on you. I have a particular reason for wanting to have you to-day,--a most particular reason." But the squire always had his particular reasons. "I'm very sorry, but it is impossible to-day. I shall have a letter to write that I must sit down to seriously. Shall I see you when I come down from her ladyship?" The squire turned away sulkily, almost without answering him, for he now had no prospect of any alleviation to the tedium of the evening; and the doctor went up-stairs to his patient. For Lady Arabella, though it cannot be said that she was ill, was always a patient. It must not be supposed that she kept her bed and swallowed daily doses, or was prevented from taking her share in such prosy gaieties as came from time to time in the way of her prosy life; but it suited her turn of mind to be an invalid and to have a doctor; and as the doctor whom her good fates had placed at her elbow thoroughly understood her case, no great harm was done. "It frets me dreadfully that I cannot get to see Mary," Lady Arabella said, as soon as the first ordinary question as to her ailments had been asked and answered. "She's quite well and will be over to see you before long." "Now I beg that she won't. She never thinks of coming when there can be no possible objection, and travelling, at the present moment, would be--" Whereupon the Lady Arabella shook her head very gravely. "Only think of the importance of it, doctor," she said. "Remember the enormous stake there is to be considered." "It would not do her a ha'porth of harm if the stake were twice as large." "Nonsense, doctor, don't tell me; as if I didn't know myself. I was very much against her going to London this spring, but of course what I said was overruled. It always is. I do believe Mr. Gresham went over to Boxall Hill, on purpose to induce her to go. But what does he care? He's fond of Frank; but he never thinks of looking beyond the present day. He never did, as you know well enough, doctor." "The trip did her all the good in the world," said Dr. Thorne, preferring anything to a conversation respecting the squire's sins. "I very well remember that when I was in that way it wasn't thought that such trips would do me any good. But, perhaps, things are altered since then." "Yes, they are," said the doctor. "We don't interfere so much now-a-days." "I know I never asked for such amusements when so much depended on quietness. I remember before Frank was born--and, indeed, when all of them were born-- But as you say, things were different then; and I can easily believe that Mary is a person quite determined to have her own way." "Why, Lady Arabella, she would have stayed at home without wishing to stir if Frank had done so much as hold up his little finger." "So did I always. If Mr. Gresham made the slightest hint I gave way. But I really don't see what one gets in return for such implicit obedience. Now this year, doctor, of course I should have liked to have been up in London for a week or two. You seemed to think yourself that I might as well see Sir Omicron." "There could be no possible objection, I said." "Well; no; exactly; and as Mr. Gresham knew I wished it, I think he might as well have offered it. I suppose there can be no reason now about money." "But I understood that Mary specially asked you and Augusta?" "Yes; Mary was very good. She did ask me. But I know very well that Mary wants all the room she has got in London. The house is not at all too large for herself. And, for the matter of that, my sister, the countess, was very anxious that I should be with her. But one does like to be independent if one can, and for one fortnight I do think that Mr. Gresham might have managed it. When I knew that he was so dreadfully out at elbows I never troubled him about it,--though, goodness knows, all that was never my fault." "The squire hates London. A fortnight there in warm weather would nearly be the death of him." "He might at any rate have paid me the compliment of asking me. The chances are ten to one I should not have gone. It is that indifference that cuts me so. He was here just now, and, would you believe it?--" But the doctor was determined to avoid further complaint for the present day. "I wonder what you would feel, Lady Arabella, if the squire were to take it into his head to go away and amuse himself, leaving you at home. There are worse men than Mr. Gresham, if you will believe me." All this was an allusion to Earl de Courcy, her ladyship's brother, as Lady Arabella very well understood; and the argument was one which was very often used to silence her. "Upon my word, then, I should like it better than his hanging about here doing nothing but attend to those nasty dogs. I really sometimes think that he has no spirit left." "You are mistaken there, Lady Arabella," said the doctor, rising with his hat in his hand and making his escape without further parley. As he went home he could not but think that that phase of married life was not a very pleasant one. Mr. Gresham and his wife were supposed by the world to live on the best of terms. They always inhabited the same house, went out together when they did go out, always sat in their respective corners in the family pew, and in their wildest dreams after the happiness of novelty never thought of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. In some respects--with regard, for instance, to the continued duration of their joint domesticity at the family mansion of Greshamsbury--they might have been taken for a pattern couple. But yet, as far as the doctor could see, they did not seem to add much to the happiness of each other. They loved each other, doubtless, and had either of them been in real danger, that danger would have made the other miserable; but yet it might well be a question whether either would not be more comfortable without the other. The doctor, as was his custom, dined at five, and at seven he went up to the cottage of his old friend Lady Scatcherd. Lady Scatcherd was not a refined woman, having in her early days been a labourer's daughter and having then married a labourer. But her husband had risen in the world--as has been told in those chronicles before mentioned,--and his widow was now Lady Scatcherd with a pretty cottage and a good jointure. She was in all things the very opposite to Lady Arabella Gresham; nevertheless, under the doctor's auspices, the two ladies were in some measure acquainted with each other. Of her married life, also, Dr. Thorne had seen something, and it may be questioned whether the memory of that was more alluring than the reality now existing at Greshamsbury. Of the two women Dr. Thorne much preferred his humbler friend, and to her he made his visits not in the guise of a doctor, but as a neighbour. "Well, my lady," he said, as he sat down by her on a broad garden seat--all the world called Lady Scatcherd "my lady,"--"and how do these long summer days agree with you? Your roses are twice better out than any I see up at the big house." "You may well call them long, doctor. They're long enough surely." "But not too long. Come, now, I won't have you complaining. You don't mean to tell me that you have anything to make you wretched? You had better not, for I won't believe you." "Eh; well; wretched! I don't know as I'm wretched. It'd be wicked to say that, and I with such comforts about me." "I think it would, almost." The doctor did not say this harshly, but in a soft, friendly tone, and pressing her hand gently as he spoke. "And I didn't mean to be wicked. I'm very thankful for everything--leastways, I always try to be. But, doctor, it is so lonely like." "Lonely! not more lonely than I am." "Oh, yes; you're different. You can go everywheres. But what can a lone woman do? I'll tell you what, doctor; I'd give it all up to have Roger back with his apron on and his pick in his hand. How well I mind his look when he'd come home o' nights." "And yet it was a hard life you had then, eh, old woman? It would be better for you to be thankful for what you've got." "I am thankful. Didn't I tell you so before?" said she, somewhat crossly. "But it's a sad life, this living alone. I declares I envy Hannah, 'cause she's got Jemima to sit in the kitchen with her. I want her to sit with me sometimes, but she won't." "Ah! but you shouldn't ask her. It's letting yourself down." "What do I care about down or up? It makes no difference, as he's gone. If he had lived one might have cared about being up, as you call it. Eh, deary; I'll be going after him before long, and it will be no matter then." "We shall all be going after him, sooner or later; that's sure enough." "Eh, dear, that's true, surely. It's only a span long, as Parson Oriel tells us when he gets romantic in his sermons. But it's a hard thing, doctor, when two is married, as they can't have their span, as he calls it, out together. Well, I must only put up with it, I suppose, as others does. Now, you're not going, doctor? You'll stop and have a dish of tea with me. You never see such cream as Hannah has from the Alderney cow. Do'ey now, doctor." But the doctor had his letter to write, and would not allow himself to be tempted even by the promise of Hannah's cream. So he went his way, angering Lady Scatcherd by his departure as he had before angered the squire, and thinking as he went which was most unreasonable in her wretchedness, his friend Lady Arabella, or his friend Lady Scatcherd. The former was always complaining of an existing husband who never refused her any moderate request; and the other passed her days in murmuring at the loss of a dead husband, who in his life had ever been to her imperious and harsh, and had sometimes been cruel and unjust. The doctor had his letter to write, but even yet he had not quite made up his mind what he would put into it; indeed, he had not hitherto resolved to whom it should be written. Looking at the matter as he had endeavoured to look at it, his niece, Mrs. Gresham, would be his correspondent; but if he brought himself to take this jump in the dark, in that case he would address himself direct to Miss Dunstable. He walked home, not by the straightest road, but taking a considerable curve, round by narrow lanes, and through thick flower-laden hedges,--very thoughtful. He was told that she wished to marry him; and was he to think only of himself? And as to that pride of his about money, was it in truth a hearty, manly feeling; or was it a false pride, of which it behoved him to be ashamed as it did of many cognate feelings? If he acted rightly in this matter, why should he be afraid of the thoughts of any one? A life of solitude was bitter enough, as poor Lady Scatcherd had complained. But then, looking at Lady Scatcherd, and looking also at his other near neighbour, his friend the squire, there was little thereabouts to lead him on to matrimony. So he walked home slowly through the lanes, very meditative, with his hands behind his back. Nor when he got home was he much more inclined to any resolute line of action. He might have drunk his tea with Lady Scatcherd, as well as have sat there in his own drawing-room, drinking it alone; for he got no pen and paper, and he dawdled over his teacup with the utmost dilatoriness, putting off, as it were, the evil day. To only one thing was he fixed--to this, namely, that that letter should be written before he went to bed. Having finished his tea, which did not take place till near eleven, he went downstairs to an untidy little room which lay behind his dep t of medicines, and in which he was wont to do his writing; and herein he did at last set himself down to his work. Even at that moment he was in doubt. But he would write his letter to Miss Dunstable and see how it looked. He was almost determined not to send it; so, at least, he said to himself: but he could do no harm by writing it. So he did write it, as follows:-- Greshamsbury, -- June, 185--. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,-- When he had got so far, he leaned back in his chair and looked at the paper. How on earth was he to find words to say that which he now wished to have said? He had never written such a letter in his life, or anything approaching to it, and now found himself overwhelmed with a difficulty of which he had not previously thought. He spent another half-hour in looking at the paper, and was at last nearly deterred by this new difficulty. He would use the simplest, plainest language, he said to himself over and over again; but it is not always easy to use simple, plain language,--by no means so easy as to mount on stilts, and to march along with sesquipedalian words, with pathos, spasms, and notes of interjection. But the letter did at last get itself written, and there was not a note of interjection in it. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,--I think it right to confess that I should not be now writing this letter to you, had I not been led to believe by other judgment than my own that the proposition which I am going to make would be regarded by you with favour. Without such other judgment I should, I own, have feared that the great disparity between you and me in regard to money would have given to such a proposition an appearance of being false and mercenary. All I ask of you now, with confidence, is to acquit me of such fault as that. When you have read so far you will understand what I mean. We have known each other now somewhat intimately, though indeed not very long, and I have sometimes fancied that you were almost as well pleased to be with me as I have been to be with you. If I have been wrong in this, tell me so simply, and I will endeavour to let our friendship run on as though this letter had not been written. But if I have been right, and if it be possible that you can think that a union between us will make us both happier than we are single, I will plight you my word and troth with good faith, and will do what an old man may do to make the burden of the world lie light upon your shoulders. Looking at my age I can hardly keep myself from thinking that I am an old fool: but I try to reconcile myself to that by remembering that you yourself are no longer a girl. You see that I pay you no compliments, and that you need expect none from me. I do not know that I could add anything to the truth of this, if I were to write three times as much. All that is necessary is, that you should know what I mean. If you do not believe me to be true and honest already, nothing that I can write will make you believe it. God bless you. I know you will not keep me long in suspense for an answer. Affectionately your friend, THOMAS THORNE. When he had finished he meditated again for another half-hour whether it would not be right that he should add something about her money. Would it not be well for him to tell her--it might be said in a postscript--that with regard to all her wealth she would be free to do what she chose? At any rate he owed no debts for her to pay, and would still have his own income, sufficient for his own purposes. But about one o'clock he came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave the matter alone. If she cared for him, and could trust him, and was worthy also that he should trust her, no omission of such a statement would deter her from coming to him: and if there were no such trust, it would not be created by any such assurance on his part. So he read the letter over twice, sealed it, and took it up, together with his bed candle, into his bed-room. Now that the letter was written it seemed to be a thing fixed by fate that it must go. He had written it that he might see how it looked when written; but now that it was written, there remained no doubt but that it must be sent. So he went to bed, with the letter on the toilette-table beside him; and early in the morning--so early as to make it seem that the importance of the letter had disturbed his rest--he sent it off by a special messenger to Boxall Hill. "I'se wait for an answer?" said the boy. "No," said the doctor: "leave the letter, and come away." The breakfast hour was not very early at Boxall Hill in these summer months. Frank Gresham, no doubt, went round his farm before he came in for prayers, and his wife was probably looking to the butter in the dairy. At any rate, they did not meet till near ten, and therefore, though the ride from Greshamsbury to Boxall Hill was nearly two hours' work, Miss Dunstable had her letter in her own room before she came down. She read it in silence as she was dressing, while the maid was with her in the room; but she made no sign which could induce her Abigail to think that the epistle was more than ordinarily important. She read it, and then quietly refolding it and placing it in the envelope, she put it down on the table at which she was sitting. It was full fifteen minutes afterwards that she begged her servant to see if Mrs. Gresham were still in her own room. "Because I want to see her for five minutes, alone, before breakfast," said Miss Dunstable. "You traitor; you false, black traitor!" were the first words which Miss Dunstable spoke when she found herself alone with her friend. "Why, what's the matter?" "I did not think there was so much mischief in you, nor so keen and commonplace a desire for match-making. Look here. Read the first four lines; not more, if you please; the rest is private. Whose is the other judgment of whom your uncle speaks in his letter?" "Oh, Miss Dunstable! I must read it all." "Indeed you'll do no such thing. You think it's a love-letter, I dare say; but indeed there's not a word about love in it." "I know he has offered. I shall be so glad, for I know you like him." "He tells me that I am an old woman, and insinuates that I may probably be an old fool." "I am sure he does not say that." "Ah! but I'm sure that he does. The former is true enough, and I never complain of the truth. But as to the latter, I am by no means so certain that it is true--not in the sense that he means it." "Dear, dearest woman, don't go on in that way now. Do speak out to me, and speak without jesting." "Whose was the other judgment to whom he trusts so implicitly? Tell me that." "Mine, mine, of course. No one else can have spoken to him about it. Of course I talked to him." "And what did you tell him?" "I told him--" "Well, out with it. Let me have the real facts. Mind, I tell you fairly that you had no right to tell him anything. What passed between us, passed in confidence. But let us hear what you did say." "I told him that you would have him if he offered." And Mrs. Gresham, as she spoke, looked into her friend's face doubtingly, not knowing whether in very truth Miss Dunstable were pleased with her or displeased. If she were displeased, then how had her uncle been deceived! "You told him that as a fact?" "I told him that I thought so." "Then I suppose I am bound to have him," said Miss Dunstable, dropping the letter on to the floor in mock despair. "My dear, dear, dearest woman!" said Mrs. Gresham, bursting into tears, and throwing herself on to her friend's neck. "Mind you are a dutiful niece," said Miss Dunstable. "And now let me go and finish dressing." In the course of the afternoon, an answer was sent back to Greshamsbury, in these words:-- DEAR DR. THORNE,--I do and will trust you in everything; and it shall be as you would have it. Mary writes to you; but do not believe a word she says. I never will again, for she has behaved so bad in this matter. Yours affectionately and very truly, MARTHA DUNSTABLE. "And so I am going to marry the richest woman in England," said Dr. Thorne to himself, as he sat down that day to his mutton-chop. CHAPTER XL. INTERNECINE. It must be conceived that there was some feeling of triumph at Plumstead Episcopi, when the wife of the rector returned home with her daughter, the bride elect of the Lord Dumbello. The heir of the Marquis of Hartletop was, in wealth, the most considerable unmarried young nobleman of the day; he was noted, too, as a man difficult to be pleased, as one who was very fine and who gave himself airs,--and to have been selected as the wife of such a man as this was a great thing for the daughter of a parish clergyman. We have seen in what manner the happy girl's mother communicated the fact to Lady Lufton, hiding, as it were, her pride under a veil; and we have seen also how meekly the happy girl bore her own great fortune, applying herself humbly to the packing of her clothes, as though she ignored her own glory. But nevertheless there was triumph at Plumstead Episcopi. The mother, when she returned home, began to feel that she had been thoroughly successful in the great object of her life. While she was yet in London she had hardly realized her satisfaction, and there were doubts then whether the cup might not be dashed from her lips before it was tasted. It might be that even the son of the Marquis of Hartletop was subject to

time

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would have done a manifest injury to Miss Dunstable in forcing her to declare her thoughts and feelings. She had already spoken to her uncle in London, and though he had said nothing to show that he approved of her plan, neither had he said anything to show that he disapproved it. Therefore she had hoped through the whole of those three days that he would make some sign,--at any rate to her; that he would in some way declare what were his own thoughts on this matter. But the morning of his departure came, and he had declared nothing. "Uncle," she said, in the last five minutes of his sojourn there, after he had already taken leave of Miss Dunstable and shaken hands with Mrs. Gresham, "have you ever thought of what I said to you up in London?" "Yes, Mary; of course I have thought about it. Such an idea as that, when put into a man's head, will make itself thought about." "Well; and what next? Do talk to me about it. Do not be so hard and unlike yourself." "I have very little to say about it." "I can tell you this for certain, you may if you like." "Mary! Mary!" "I would not say so if I were not sure that I should not lead you into trouble." "You are foolish in wishing this, my dear; foolish in trying to tempt an old man into a folly." "Not foolish if I know that it will make you both happier." He made her no further reply, but stooping down that she might kiss him, as was his wont, went his way, leaving her almost miserable in the thought that she had troubled all these waters to no purpose. What would Miss Dunstable think of her? But on that afternoon Miss Dunstable seemed to be as happy and even-tempered as ever. CHAPTER XXXIX. HOW TO WRITE A LOVE LETTER. Dr. Thorne, in the few words which he spoke to his niece before he left Boxall Hill, had called himself an old man; but he was as yet on the right side of sixty by five good years, and bore about with him less of the marks of age than most men of fifty-five do bear. One would have said in looking at him that there was no reason why he should not marry if he found that such a step seemed good to him; and looking at the age of the proposed bride, there was nothing unsuitable in that respect. But nevertheless he felt almost ashamed of himself, in that he allowed himself even to think of the proposition which his niece had made. He mounted his horse that day at Boxall Hill--for he made all his journeys about the county on horseback--and rode slowly home to Greshamsbury, thinking not so much of the suggested marriage as of his own folly in thinking of it. How could he be such an ass at his time of life as to allow the even course of his way to be disturbed by any such idea? Of course he could not propose to himself such a wife as Miss Dunstable without having some thoughts as to her wealth; and it had been the pride of his life so to live that the world might know that he was indifferent about money. His profession was all in all to him,--the air which he breathed as well as the bread which he ate; and how could he follow his profession if he made such a marriage as this? She would expect him to go to London with her; and what would he become, dangling at her heels there, known only to the world as the husband of the richest woman in the town? The kind of life was one which would be unsuitable to him;--and yet, as he rode home, he could not resolve to rid himself of the idea. He went on thinking of it, though he still continued to condemn himself for keeping it in his thoughts. That night at home he would make up his mind, so he declared to himself; and would then write to his niece begging her to drop the subject. Having so far come to a resolution he went on meditating what course of life it might be well for him to pursue if he and Miss Dunstable should, after all, become man and wife. There were two ladies whom it behoved him to see on the day of his arrival--whom, indeed, he generally saw every day except when absent from Greshamsbury. The first of these--first in the general consideration of the people of the place--was the wife of the squire, Lady Arabella Gresham, a very old patient of the doctor's. Her it was his custom to visit early in the afternoon; and then, if he were able to escape the squire's daily invitation to dinner, he customarily went to the other, Lady Scatcherd, when the rapid meal in his own house was over. Such, at least, was his summer practice. "Well, doctor, how are they at Boxall Hill?" said the squire, waylaying him on the gravel sweep before the door. The squire was very hard set for occupation in these summer months. "Quite well, I believe." "I don't know what's come to Frank. I think he hates this place now. He's full of the election, I suppose." "Oh, yes; he told me to say he should be over here soon. Of course there'll be no contest, so he need not trouble himself." "Happy dog, isn't he, doctor? to have it all before him instead of behind him. Well, well; he's as good a lad as ever lived,--as ever lived. And let me see; Mary's time--" And then there were a few very important words spoken on that subject. "I'll just step up to Lady Arabella now," said the doctor. "She's as fretful as possible," said the squire. "I've just left her." "Nothing special the matter, I hope?" "No, I think not; nothing in your way, that is; only specially cross, which always comes in my way. You'll stop and dine to-day, of course?" "Not to-day, squire." "Nonsense; you will. I have been quite counting on you. I have a particular reason for wanting to have you to-day,--a most particular reason." But the squire always had his particular reasons. "I'm very sorry, but it is impossible to-day. I shall have a letter to write that I must sit down to seriously. Shall I see you when I come down from her ladyship?" The squire turned away sulkily, almost without answering him, for he now had no prospect of any alleviation to the tedium of the evening; and the doctor went up-stairs to his patient. For Lady Arabella, though it cannot be said that she was ill, was always a patient. It must not be supposed that she kept her bed and swallowed daily doses, or was prevented from taking her share in such prosy gaieties as came from time to time in the way of her prosy life; but it suited her turn of mind to be an invalid and to have a doctor; and as the doctor whom her good fates had placed at her elbow thoroughly understood her case, no great harm was done. "It frets me dreadfully that I cannot get to see Mary," Lady Arabella said, as soon as the first ordinary question as to her ailments had been asked and answered. "She's quite well and will be over to see you before long." "Now I beg that she won't. She never thinks of coming when there can be no possible objection, and travelling, at the present moment, would be--" Whereupon the Lady Arabella shook her head very gravely. "Only think of the importance of it, doctor," she said. "Remember the enormous stake there is to be considered." "It would not do her a ha'porth of harm if the stake were twice as large." "Nonsense, doctor, don't tell me; as if I didn't know myself. I was very much against her going to London this spring, but of course what I said was overruled. It always is. I do believe Mr. Gresham went over to Boxall Hill, on purpose to induce her to go. But what does he care? He's fond of Frank; but he never thinks of looking beyond the present day. He never did, as you know well enough, doctor." "The trip did her all the good in the world," said Dr. Thorne, preferring anything to a conversation respecting the squire's sins. "I very well remember that when I was in that way it wasn't thought that such trips would do me any good. But, perhaps, things are altered since then." "Yes, they are," said the doctor. "We don't interfere so much now-a-days." "I know I never asked for such amusements when so much depended on quietness. I remember before Frank was born--and, indeed, when all of them were born-- But as you say, things were different then; and I can easily believe that Mary is a person quite determined to have her own way." "Why, Lady Arabella, she would have stayed at home without wishing to stir if Frank had done so much as hold up his little finger." "So did I always. If Mr. Gresham made the slightest hint I gave way. But I really don't see what one gets in return for such implicit obedience. Now this year, doctor, of course I should have liked to have been up in London for a week or two. You seemed to think yourself that I might as well see Sir Omicron." "There could be no possible objection, I said." "Well; no; exactly; and as Mr. Gresham knew I wished it, I think he might as well have offered it. I suppose there can be no reason now about money." "But I understood that Mary specially asked you and Augusta?" "Yes; Mary was very good. She did ask me. But I know very well that Mary wants all the room she has got in London. The house is not at all too large for herself. And, for the matter of that, my sister, the countess, was very anxious that I should be with her. But one does like to be independent if one can, and for one fortnight I do think that Mr. Gresham might have managed it. When I knew that he was so dreadfully out at elbows I never troubled him about it,--though, goodness knows, all that was never my fault." "The squire hates London. A fortnight there in warm weather would nearly be the death of him." "He might at any rate have paid me the compliment of asking me. The chances are ten to one I should not have gone. It is that indifference that cuts me so. He was here just now, and, would you believe it?--" But the doctor was determined to avoid further complaint for the present day. "I wonder what you would feel, Lady Arabella, if the squire were to take it into his head to go away and amuse himself, leaving you at home. There are worse men than Mr. Gresham, if you will believe me." All this was an allusion to Earl de Courcy, her ladyship's brother, as Lady Arabella very well understood; and the argument was one which was very often used to silence her. "Upon my word, then, I should like it better than his hanging about here doing nothing but attend to those nasty dogs. I really sometimes think that he has no spirit left." "You are mistaken there, Lady Arabella," said the doctor, rising with his hat in his hand and making his escape without further parley. As he went home he could not but think that that phase of married life was not a very pleasant one. Mr. Gresham and his wife were supposed by the world to live on the best of terms. They always inhabited the same house, went out together when they did go out, always sat in their respective corners in the family pew, and in their wildest dreams after the happiness of novelty never thought of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. In some respects--with regard, for instance, to the continued duration of their joint domesticity at the family mansion of Greshamsbury--they might have been taken for a pattern couple. But yet, as far as the doctor could see, they did not seem to add much to the happiness of each other. They loved each other, doubtless, and had either of them been in real danger, that danger would have made the other miserable; but yet it might well be a question whether either would not be more comfortable without the other. The doctor, as was his custom, dined at five, and at seven he went up to the cottage of his old friend Lady Scatcherd. Lady Scatcherd was not a refined woman, having in her early days been a labourer's daughter and having then married a labourer. But her husband had risen in the world--as has been told in those chronicles before mentioned,--and his widow was now Lady Scatcherd with a pretty cottage and a good jointure. She was in all things the very opposite to Lady Arabella Gresham; nevertheless, under the doctor's auspices, the two ladies were in some measure acquainted with each other. Of her married life, also, Dr. Thorne had seen something, and it may be questioned whether the memory of that was more alluring than the reality now existing at Greshamsbury. Of the two women Dr. Thorne much preferred his humbler friend, and to her he made his visits not in the guise of a doctor, but as a neighbour. "Well, my lady," he said, as he sat down by her on a broad garden seat--all the world called Lady Scatcherd "my lady,"--"and how do these long summer days agree with you? Your roses are twice better out than any I see up at the big house." "You may well call them long, doctor. They're long enough surely." "But not too long. Come, now, I won't have you complaining. You don't mean to tell me that you have anything to make you wretched? You had better not, for I won't believe you." "Eh; well; wretched! I don't know as I'm wretched. It'd be wicked to say that, and I with such comforts about me." "I think it would, almost." The doctor did not say this harshly, but in a soft, friendly tone, and pressing her hand gently as he spoke. "And I didn't mean to be wicked. I'm very thankful for everything--leastways, I always try to be. But, doctor, it is so lonely like." "Lonely! not more lonely than I am." "Oh, yes; you're different. You can go everywheres. But what can a lone woman do? I'll tell you what, doctor; I'd give it all up to have Roger back with his apron on and his pick in his hand. How well I mind his look when he'd come home o' nights." "And yet it was a hard life you had then, eh, old woman? It would be better for you to be thankful for what you've got." "I am thankful. Didn't I tell you so before?" said she, somewhat crossly. "But it's a sad life, this living alone. I declares I envy Hannah, 'cause she's got Jemima to sit in the kitchen with her. I want her to sit with me sometimes, but she won't." "Ah! but you shouldn't ask her. It's letting yourself down." "What do I care about down or up? It makes no difference, as he's gone. If he had lived one might have cared about being up, as you call it. Eh, deary; I'll be going after him before long, and it will be no matter then." "We shall all be going after him, sooner or later; that's sure enough." "Eh, dear, that's true, surely. It's only a span long, as Parson Oriel tells us when he gets romantic in his sermons. But it's a hard thing, doctor, when two is married, as they can't have their span, as he calls it, out together. Well, I must only put up with it, I suppose, as others does. Now, you're not going, doctor? You'll stop and have a dish of tea with me. You never see such cream as Hannah has from the Alderney cow. Do'ey now, doctor." But the doctor had his letter to write, and would not allow himself to be tempted even by the promise of Hannah's cream. So he went his way, angering Lady Scatcherd by his departure as he had before angered the squire, and thinking as he went which was most unreasonable in her wretchedness, his friend Lady Arabella, or his friend Lady Scatcherd. The former was always complaining of an existing husband who never refused her any moderate request; and the other passed her days in murmuring at the loss of a dead husband, who in his life had ever been to her imperious and harsh, and had sometimes been cruel and unjust. The doctor had his letter to write, but even yet he had not quite made up his mind what he would put into it; indeed, he had not hitherto resolved to whom it should be written. Looking at the matter as he had endeavoured to look at it, his niece, Mrs. Gresham, would be his correspondent; but if he brought himself to take this jump in the dark, in that case he would address himself direct to Miss Dunstable. He walked home, not by the straightest road, but taking a considerable curve, round by narrow lanes, and through thick flower-laden hedges,--very thoughtful. He was told that she wished to marry him; and was he to think only of himself? And as to that pride of his about money, was it in truth a hearty, manly feeling; or was it a false pride, of which it behoved him to be ashamed as it did of many cognate feelings? If he acted rightly in this matter, why should he be afraid of the thoughts of any one? A life of solitude was bitter enough, as poor Lady Scatcherd had complained. But then, looking at Lady Scatcherd, and looking also at his other near neighbour, his friend the squire, there was little thereabouts to lead him on to matrimony. So he walked home slowly through the lanes, very meditative, with his hands behind his back. Nor when he got home was he much more inclined to any resolute line of action. He might have drunk his tea with Lady Scatcherd, as well as have sat there in his own drawing-room, drinking it alone; for he got no pen and paper, and he dawdled over his teacup with the utmost dilatoriness, putting off, as it were, the evil day. To only one thing was he fixed--to this, namely, that that letter should be written before he went to bed. Having finished his tea, which did not take place till near eleven, he went downstairs to an untidy little room which lay behind his dep t of medicines, and in which he was wont to do his writing; and herein he did at last set himself down to his work. Even at that moment he was in doubt. But he would write his letter to Miss Dunstable and see how it looked. He was almost determined not to send it; so, at least, he said to himself: but he could do no harm by writing it. So he did write it, as follows:-- Greshamsbury, -- June, 185--. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,-- When he had got so far, he leaned back in his chair and looked at the paper. How on earth was he to find words to say that which he now wished to have said? He had never written such a letter in his life, or anything approaching to it, and now found himself overwhelmed with a difficulty of which he had not previously thought. He spent another half-hour in looking at the paper, and was at last nearly deterred by this new difficulty. He would use the simplest, plainest language, he said to himself over and over again; but it is not always easy to use simple, plain language,--by no means so easy as to mount on stilts, and to march along with sesquipedalian words, with pathos, spasms, and notes of interjection. But the letter did at last get itself written, and there was not a note of interjection in it. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,--I think it right to confess that I should not be now writing this letter to you, had I not been led to believe by other judgment than my own that the proposition which I am going to make would be regarded by you with favour. Without such other judgment I should, I own, have feared that the great disparity between you and me in regard to money would have given to such a proposition an appearance of being false and mercenary. All I ask of you now, with confidence, is to acquit me of such fault as that. When you have read so far you will understand what I mean. We have known each other now somewhat intimately, though indeed not very long, and I have sometimes fancied that you were almost as well pleased to be with me as I have been to be with you. If I have been wrong in this, tell me so simply, and I will endeavour to let our friendship run on as though this letter had not been written. But if I have been right, and if it be possible that you can think that a union between us will make us both happier than we are single, I will plight you my word and troth with good faith, and will do what an old man may do to make the burden of the world lie light upon your shoulders. Looking at my age I can hardly keep myself from thinking that I am an old fool: but I try to reconcile myself to that by remembering that you yourself are no longer a girl. You see that I pay you no compliments, and that you need expect none from me. I do not know that I could add anything to the truth of this, if I were to write three times as much. All that is necessary is, that you should know what I mean. If you do not believe me to be true and honest already, nothing that I can write will make you believe it. God bless you. I know you will not keep me long in suspense for an answer. Affectionately your friend, THOMAS THORNE. When he had finished he meditated again for another half-hour whether it would not be right that he should add something about her money. Would it not be well for him to tell her--it might be said in a postscript--that with regard to all her wealth she would be free to do what she chose? At any rate he owed no debts for her to pay, and would still have his own income, sufficient for his own purposes. But about one o'clock he came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave the matter alone. If she cared for him, and could trust him, and was worthy also that he should trust her, no omission of such a statement would deter her from coming to him: and if there were no such trust, it would not be created by any such assurance on his part. So he read the letter over twice, sealed it, and took it up, together with his bed candle, into his bed-room. Now that the letter was written it seemed to be a thing fixed by fate that it must go. He had written it that he might see how it looked when written; but now that it was written, there remained no doubt but that it must be sent. So he went to bed, with the letter on the toilette-table beside him; and early in the morning--so early as to make it seem that the importance of the letter had disturbed his rest--he sent it off by a special messenger to Boxall Hill. "I'se wait for an answer?" said the boy. "No," said the doctor: "leave the letter, and come away." The breakfast hour was not very early at Boxall Hill in these summer months. Frank Gresham, no doubt, went round his farm before he came in for prayers, and his wife was probably looking to the butter in the dairy. At any rate, they did not meet till near ten, and therefore, though the ride from Greshamsbury to Boxall Hill was nearly two hours' work, Miss Dunstable had her letter in her own room before she came down. She read it in silence as she was dressing, while the maid was with her in the room; but she made no sign which could induce her Abigail to think that the epistle was more than ordinarily important. She read it, and then quietly refolding it and placing it in the envelope, she put it down on the table at which she was sitting. It was full fifteen minutes afterwards that she begged her servant to see if Mrs. Gresham were still in her own room. "Because I want to see her for five minutes, alone, before breakfast," said Miss Dunstable. "You traitor; you false, black traitor!" were the first words which Miss Dunstable spoke when she found herself alone with her friend. "Why, what's the matter?" "I did not think there was so much mischief in you, nor so keen and commonplace a desire for match-making. Look here. Read the first four lines; not more, if you please; the rest is private. Whose is the other judgment of whom your uncle speaks in his letter?" "Oh, Miss Dunstable! I must read it all." "Indeed you'll do no such thing. You think it's a love-letter, I dare say; but indeed there's not a word about love in it." "I know he has offered. I shall be so glad, for I know you like him." "He tells me that I am an old woman, and insinuates that I may probably be an old fool." "I am sure he does not say that." "Ah! but I'm sure that he does. The former is true enough, and I never complain of the truth. But as to the latter, I am by no means so certain that it is true--not in the sense that he means it." "Dear, dearest woman, don't go on in that way now. Do speak out to me, and speak without jesting." "Whose was the other judgment to whom he trusts so implicitly? Tell me that." "Mine, mine, of course. No one else can have spoken to him about it. Of course I talked to him." "And what did you tell him?" "I told him--" "Well, out with it. Let me have the real facts. Mind, I tell you fairly that you had no right to tell him anything. What passed between us, passed in confidence. But let us hear what you did say." "I told him that you would have him if he offered." And Mrs. Gresham, as she spoke, looked into her friend's face doubtingly, not knowing whether in very truth Miss Dunstable were pleased with her or displeased. If she were displeased, then how had her uncle been deceived! "You told him that as a fact?" "I told him that I thought so." "Then I suppose I am bound to have him," said Miss Dunstable, dropping the letter on to the floor in mock despair. "My dear, dear, dearest woman!" said Mrs. Gresham, bursting into tears, and throwing herself on to her friend's neck. "Mind you are a dutiful niece," said Miss Dunstable. "And now let me go and finish dressing." In the course of the afternoon, an answer was sent back to Greshamsbury, in these words:-- DEAR DR. THORNE,--I do and will trust you in everything; and it shall be as you would have it. Mary writes to you; but do not believe a word she says. I never will again, for she has behaved so bad in this matter. Yours affectionately and very truly, MARTHA DUNSTABLE. "And so I am going to marry the richest woman in England," said Dr. Thorne to himself, as he sat down that day to his mutton-chop. CHAPTER XL. INTERNECINE. It must be conceived that there was some feeling of triumph at Plumstead Episcopi, when the wife of the rector returned home with her daughter, the bride elect of the Lord Dumbello. The heir of the Marquis of Hartletop was, in wealth, the most considerable unmarried young nobleman of the day; he was noted, too, as a man difficult to be pleased, as one who was very fine and who gave himself airs,--and to have been selected as the wife of such a man as this was a great thing for the daughter of a parish clergyman. We have seen in what manner the happy girl's mother communicated the fact to Lady Lufton, hiding, as it were, her pride under a veil; and we have seen also how meekly the happy girl bore her own great fortune, applying herself humbly to the packing of her clothes, as though she ignored her own glory. But nevertheless there was triumph at Plumstead Episcopi. The mother, when she returned home, began to feel that she had been thoroughly successful in the great object of her life. While she was yet in London she had hardly realized her satisfaction, and there were doubts then whether the cup might not be dashed from her lips before it was tasted. It might be that even the son of the Marquis of Hartletop was subject to

pleasant

How many times the word 'pleasant' appears in the text?

would have done a manifest injury to Miss Dunstable in forcing her to declare her thoughts and feelings. She had already spoken to her uncle in London, and though he had said nothing to show that he approved of her plan, neither had he said anything to show that he disapproved it. Therefore she had hoped through the whole of those three days that he would make some sign,--at any rate to her; that he would in some way declare what were his own thoughts on this matter. But the morning of his departure came, and he had declared nothing. "Uncle," she said, in the last five minutes of his sojourn there, after he had already taken leave of Miss Dunstable and shaken hands with Mrs. Gresham, "have you ever thought of what I said to you up in London?" "Yes, Mary; of course I have thought about it. Such an idea as that, when put into a man's head, will make itself thought about." "Well; and what next? Do talk to me about it. Do not be so hard and unlike yourself." "I have very little to say about it." "I can tell you this for certain, you may if you like." "Mary! Mary!" "I would not say so if I were not sure that I should not lead you into trouble." "You are foolish in wishing this, my dear; foolish in trying to tempt an old man into a folly." "Not foolish if I know that it will make you both happier." He made her no further reply, but stooping down that she might kiss him, as was his wont, went his way, leaving her almost miserable in the thought that she had troubled all these waters to no purpose. What would Miss Dunstable think of her? But on that afternoon Miss Dunstable seemed to be as happy and even-tempered as ever. CHAPTER XXXIX. HOW TO WRITE A LOVE LETTER. Dr. Thorne, in the few words which he spoke to his niece before he left Boxall Hill, had called himself an old man; but he was as yet on the right side of sixty by five good years, and bore about with him less of the marks of age than most men of fifty-five do bear. One would have said in looking at him that there was no reason why he should not marry if he found that such a step seemed good to him; and looking at the age of the proposed bride, there was nothing unsuitable in that respect. But nevertheless he felt almost ashamed of himself, in that he allowed himself even to think of the proposition which his niece had made. He mounted his horse that day at Boxall Hill--for he made all his journeys about the county on horseback--and rode slowly home to Greshamsbury, thinking not so much of the suggested marriage as of his own folly in thinking of it. How could he be such an ass at his time of life as to allow the even course of his way to be disturbed by any such idea? Of course he could not propose to himself such a wife as Miss Dunstable without having some thoughts as to her wealth; and it had been the pride of his life so to live that the world might know that he was indifferent about money. His profession was all in all to him,--the air which he breathed as well as the bread which he ate; and how could he follow his profession if he made such a marriage as this? She would expect him to go to London with her; and what would he become, dangling at her heels there, known only to the world as the husband of the richest woman in the town? The kind of life was one which would be unsuitable to him;--and yet, as he rode home, he could not resolve to rid himself of the idea. He went on thinking of it, though he still continued to condemn himself for keeping it in his thoughts. That night at home he would make up his mind, so he declared to himself; and would then write to his niece begging her to drop the subject. Having so far come to a resolution he went on meditating what course of life it might be well for him to pursue if he and Miss Dunstable should, after all, become man and wife. There were two ladies whom it behoved him to see on the day of his arrival--whom, indeed, he generally saw every day except when absent from Greshamsbury. The first of these--first in the general consideration of the people of the place--was the wife of the squire, Lady Arabella Gresham, a very old patient of the doctor's. Her it was his custom to visit early in the afternoon; and then, if he were able to escape the squire's daily invitation to dinner, he customarily went to the other, Lady Scatcherd, when the rapid meal in his own house was over. Such, at least, was his summer practice. "Well, doctor, how are they at Boxall Hill?" said the squire, waylaying him on the gravel sweep before the door. The squire was very hard set for occupation in these summer months. "Quite well, I believe." "I don't know what's come to Frank. I think he hates this place now. He's full of the election, I suppose." "Oh, yes; he told me to say he should be over here soon. Of course there'll be no contest, so he need not trouble himself." "Happy dog, isn't he, doctor? to have it all before him instead of behind him. Well, well; he's as good a lad as ever lived,--as ever lived. And let me see; Mary's time--" And then there were a few very important words spoken on that subject. "I'll just step up to Lady Arabella now," said the doctor. "She's as fretful as possible," said the squire. "I've just left her." "Nothing special the matter, I hope?" "No, I think not; nothing in your way, that is; only specially cross, which always comes in my way. You'll stop and dine to-day, of course?" "Not to-day, squire." "Nonsense; you will. I have been quite counting on you. I have a particular reason for wanting to have you to-day,--a most particular reason." But the squire always had his particular reasons. "I'm very sorry, but it is impossible to-day. I shall have a letter to write that I must sit down to seriously. Shall I see you when I come down from her ladyship?" The squire turned away sulkily, almost without answering him, for he now had no prospect of any alleviation to the tedium of the evening; and the doctor went up-stairs to his patient. For Lady Arabella, though it cannot be said that she was ill, was always a patient. It must not be supposed that she kept her bed and swallowed daily doses, or was prevented from taking her share in such prosy gaieties as came from time to time in the way of her prosy life; but it suited her turn of mind to be an invalid and to have a doctor; and as the doctor whom her good fates had placed at her elbow thoroughly understood her case, no great harm was done. "It frets me dreadfully that I cannot get to see Mary," Lady Arabella said, as soon as the first ordinary question as to her ailments had been asked and answered. "She's quite well and will be over to see you before long." "Now I beg that she won't. She never thinks of coming when there can be no possible objection, and travelling, at the present moment, would be--" Whereupon the Lady Arabella shook her head very gravely. "Only think of the importance of it, doctor," she said. "Remember the enormous stake there is to be considered." "It would not do her a ha'porth of harm if the stake were twice as large." "Nonsense, doctor, don't tell me; as if I didn't know myself. I was very much against her going to London this spring, but of course what I said was overruled. It always is. I do believe Mr. Gresham went over to Boxall Hill, on purpose to induce her to go. But what does he care? He's fond of Frank; but he never thinks of looking beyond the present day. He never did, as you know well enough, doctor." "The trip did her all the good in the world," said Dr. Thorne, preferring anything to a conversation respecting the squire's sins. "I very well remember that when I was in that way it wasn't thought that such trips would do me any good. But, perhaps, things are altered since then." "Yes, they are," said the doctor. "We don't interfere so much now-a-days." "I know I never asked for such amusements when so much depended on quietness. I remember before Frank was born--and, indeed, when all of them were born-- But as you say, things were different then; and I can easily believe that Mary is a person quite determined to have her own way." "Why, Lady Arabella, she would have stayed at home without wishing to stir if Frank had done so much as hold up his little finger." "So did I always. If Mr. Gresham made the slightest hint I gave way. But I really don't see what one gets in return for such implicit obedience. Now this year, doctor, of course I should have liked to have been up in London for a week or two. You seemed to think yourself that I might as well see Sir Omicron." "There could be no possible objection, I said." "Well; no; exactly; and as Mr. Gresham knew I wished it, I think he might as well have offered it. I suppose there can be no reason now about money." "But I understood that Mary specially asked you and Augusta?" "Yes; Mary was very good. She did ask me. But I know very well that Mary wants all the room she has got in London. The house is not at all too large for herself. And, for the matter of that, my sister, the countess, was very anxious that I should be with her. But one does like to be independent if one can, and for one fortnight I do think that Mr. Gresham might have managed it. When I knew that he was so dreadfully out at elbows I never troubled him about it,--though, goodness knows, all that was never my fault." "The squire hates London. A fortnight there in warm weather would nearly be the death of him." "He might at any rate have paid me the compliment of asking me. The chances are ten to one I should not have gone. It is that indifference that cuts me so. He was here just now, and, would you believe it?--" But the doctor was determined to avoid further complaint for the present day. "I wonder what you would feel, Lady Arabella, if the squire were to take it into his head to go away and amuse himself, leaving you at home. There are worse men than Mr. Gresham, if you will believe me." All this was an allusion to Earl de Courcy, her ladyship's brother, as Lady Arabella very well understood; and the argument was one which was very often used to silence her. "Upon my word, then, I should like it better than his hanging about here doing nothing but attend to those nasty dogs. I really sometimes think that he has no spirit left." "You are mistaken there, Lady Arabella," said the doctor, rising with his hat in his hand and making his escape without further parley. As he went home he could not but think that that phase of married life was not a very pleasant one. Mr. Gresham and his wife were supposed by the world to live on the best of terms. They always inhabited the same house, went out together when they did go out, always sat in their respective corners in the family pew, and in their wildest dreams after the happiness of novelty never thought of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. In some respects--with regard, for instance, to the continued duration of their joint domesticity at the family mansion of Greshamsbury--they might have been taken for a pattern couple. But yet, as far as the doctor could see, they did not seem to add much to the happiness of each other. They loved each other, doubtless, and had either of them been in real danger, that danger would have made the other miserable; but yet it might well be a question whether either would not be more comfortable without the other. The doctor, as was his custom, dined at five, and at seven he went up to the cottage of his old friend Lady Scatcherd. Lady Scatcherd was not a refined woman, having in her early days been a labourer's daughter and having then married a labourer. But her husband had risen in the world--as has been told in those chronicles before mentioned,--and his widow was now Lady Scatcherd with a pretty cottage and a good jointure. She was in all things the very opposite to Lady Arabella Gresham; nevertheless, under the doctor's auspices, the two ladies were in some measure acquainted with each other. Of her married life, also, Dr. Thorne had seen something, and it may be questioned whether the memory of that was more alluring than the reality now existing at Greshamsbury. Of the two women Dr. Thorne much preferred his humbler friend, and to her he made his visits not in the guise of a doctor, but as a neighbour. "Well, my lady," he said, as he sat down by her on a broad garden seat--all the world called Lady Scatcherd "my lady,"--"and how do these long summer days agree with you? Your roses are twice better out than any I see up at the big house." "You may well call them long, doctor. They're long enough surely." "But not too long. Come, now, I won't have you complaining. You don't mean to tell me that you have anything to make you wretched? You had better not, for I won't believe you." "Eh; well; wretched! I don't know as I'm wretched. It'd be wicked to say that, and I with such comforts about me." "I think it would, almost." The doctor did not say this harshly, but in a soft, friendly tone, and pressing her hand gently as he spoke. "And I didn't mean to be wicked. I'm very thankful for everything--leastways, I always try to be. But, doctor, it is so lonely like." "Lonely! not more lonely than I am." "Oh, yes; you're different. You can go everywheres. But what can a lone woman do? I'll tell you what, doctor; I'd give it all up to have Roger back with his apron on and his pick in his hand. How well I mind his look when he'd come home o' nights." "And yet it was a hard life you had then, eh, old woman? It would be better for you to be thankful for what you've got." "I am thankful. Didn't I tell you so before?" said she, somewhat crossly. "But it's a sad life, this living alone. I declares I envy Hannah, 'cause she's got Jemima to sit in the kitchen with her. I want her to sit with me sometimes, but she won't." "Ah! but you shouldn't ask her. It's letting yourself down." "What do I care about down or up? It makes no difference, as he's gone. If he had lived one might have cared about being up, as you call it. Eh, deary; I'll be going after him before long, and it will be no matter then." "We shall all be going after him, sooner or later; that's sure enough." "Eh, dear, that's true, surely. It's only a span long, as Parson Oriel tells us when he gets romantic in his sermons. But it's a hard thing, doctor, when two is married, as they can't have their span, as he calls it, out together. Well, I must only put up with it, I suppose, as others does. Now, you're not going, doctor? You'll stop and have a dish of tea with me. You never see such cream as Hannah has from the Alderney cow. Do'ey now, doctor." But the doctor had his letter to write, and would not allow himself to be tempted even by the promise of Hannah's cream. So he went his way, angering Lady Scatcherd by his departure as he had before angered the squire, and thinking as he went which was most unreasonable in her wretchedness, his friend Lady Arabella, or his friend Lady Scatcherd. The former was always complaining of an existing husband who never refused her any moderate request; and the other passed her days in murmuring at the loss of a dead husband, who in his life had ever been to her imperious and harsh, and had sometimes been cruel and unjust. The doctor had his letter to write, but even yet he had not quite made up his mind what he would put into it; indeed, he had not hitherto resolved to whom it should be written. Looking at the matter as he had endeavoured to look at it, his niece, Mrs. Gresham, would be his correspondent; but if he brought himself to take this jump in the dark, in that case he would address himself direct to Miss Dunstable. He walked home, not by the straightest road, but taking a considerable curve, round by narrow lanes, and through thick flower-laden hedges,--very thoughtful. He was told that she wished to marry him; and was he to think only of himself? And as to that pride of his about money, was it in truth a hearty, manly feeling; or was it a false pride, of which it behoved him to be ashamed as it did of many cognate feelings? If he acted rightly in this matter, why should he be afraid of the thoughts of any one? A life of solitude was bitter enough, as poor Lady Scatcherd had complained. But then, looking at Lady Scatcherd, and looking also at his other near neighbour, his friend the squire, there was little thereabouts to lead him on to matrimony. So he walked home slowly through the lanes, very meditative, with his hands behind his back. Nor when he got home was he much more inclined to any resolute line of action. He might have drunk his tea with Lady Scatcherd, as well as have sat there in his own drawing-room, drinking it alone; for he got no pen and paper, and he dawdled over his teacup with the utmost dilatoriness, putting off, as it were, the evil day. To only one thing was he fixed--to this, namely, that that letter should be written before he went to bed. Having finished his tea, which did not take place till near eleven, he went downstairs to an untidy little room which lay behind his dep t of medicines, and in which he was wont to do his writing; and herein he did at last set himself down to his work. Even at that moment he was in doubt. But he would write his letter to Miss Dunstable and see how it looked. He was almost determined not to send it; so, at least, he said to himself: but he could do no harm by writing it. So he did write it, as follows:-- Greshamsbury, -- June, 185--. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,-- When he had got so far, he leaned back in his chair and looked at the paper. How on earth was he to find words to say that which he now wished to have said? He had never written such a letter in his life, or anything approaching to it, and now found himself overwhelmed with a difficulty of which he had not previously thought. He spent another half-hour in looking at the paper, and was at last nearly deterred by this new difficulty. He would use the simplest, plainest language, he said to himself over and over again; but it is not always easy to use simple, plain language,--by no means so easy as to mount on stilts, and to march along with sesquipedalian words, with pathos, spasms, and notes of interjection. But the letter did at last get itself written, and there was not a note of interjection in it. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,--I think it right to confess that I should not be now writing this letter to you, had I not been led to believe by other judgment than my own that the proposition which I am going to make would be regarded by you with favour. Without such other judgment I should, I own, have feared that the great disparity between you and me in regard to money would have given to such a proposition an appearance of being false and mercenary. All I ask of you now, with confidence, is to acquit me of such fault as that. When you have read so far you will understand what I mean. We have known each other now somewhat intimately, though indeed not very long, and I have sometimes fancied that you were almost as well pleased to be with me as I have been to be with you. If I have been wrong in this, tell me so simply, and I will endeavour to let our friendship run on as though this letter had not been written. But if I have been right, and if it be possible that you can think that a union between us will make us both happier than we are single, I will plight you my word and troth with good faith, and will do what an old man may do to make the burden of the world lie light upon your shoulders. Looking at my age I can hardly keep myself from thinking that I am an old fool: but I try to reconcile myself to that by remembering that you yourself are no longer a girl. You see that I pay you no compliments, and that you need expect none from me. I do not know that I could add anything to the truth of this, if I were to write three times as much. All that is necessary is, that you should know what I mean. If you do not believe me to be true and honest already, nothing that I can write will make you believe it. God bless you. I know you will not keep me long in suspense for an answer. Affectionately your friend, THOMAS THORNE. When he had finished he meditated again for another half-hour whether it would not be right that he should add something about her money. Would it not be well for him to tell her--it might be said in a postscript--that with regard to all her wealth she would be free to do what she chose? At any rate he owed no debts for her to pay, and would still have his own income, sufficient for his own purposes. But about one o'clock he came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave the matter alone. If she cared for him, and could trust him, and was worthy also that he should trust her, no omission of such a statement would deter her from coming to him: and if there were no such trust, it would not be created by any such assurance on his part. So he read the letter over twice, sealed it, and took it up, together with his bed candle, into his bed-room. Now that the letter was written it seemed to be a thing fixed by fate that it must go. He had written it that he might see how it looked when written; but now that it was written, there remained no doubt but that it must be sent. So he went to bed, with the letter on the toilette-table beside him; and early in the morning--so early as to make it seem that the importance of the letter had disturbed his rest--he sent it off by a special messenger to Boxall Hill. "I'se wait for an answer?" said the boy. "No," said the doctor: "leave the letter, and come away." The breakfast hour was not very early at Boxall Hill in these summer months. Frank Gresham, no doubt, went round his farm before he came in for prayers, and his wife was probably looking to the butter in the dairy. At any rate, they did not meet till near ten, and therefore, though the ride from Greshamsbury to Boxall Hill was nearly two hours' work, Miss Dunstable had her letter in her own room before she came down. She read it in silence as she was dressing, while the maid was with her in the room; but she made no sign which could induce her Abigail to think that the epistle was more than ordinarily important. She read it, and then quietly refolding it and placing it in the envelope, she put it down on the table at which she was sitting. It was full fifteen minutes afterwards that she begged her servant to see if Mrs. Gresham were still in her own room. "Because I want to see her for five minutes, alone, before breakfast," said Miss Dunstable. "You traitor; you false, black traitor!" were the first words which Miss Dunstable spoke when she found herself alone with her friend. "Why, what's the matter?" "I did not think there was so much mischief in you, nor so keen and commonplace a desire for match-making. Look here. Read the first four lines; not more, if you please; the rest is private. Whose is the other judgment of whom your uncle speaks in his letter?" "Oh, Miss Dunstable! I must read it all." "Indeed you'll do no such thing. You think it's a love-letter, I dare say; but indeed there's not a word about love in it." "I know he has offered. I shall be so glad, for I know you like him." "He tells me that I am an old woman, and insinuates that I may probably be an old fool." "I am sure he does not say that." "Ah! but I'm sure that he does. The former is true enough, and I never complain of the truth. But as to the latter, I am by no means so certain that it is true--not in the sense that he means it." "Dear, dearest woman, don't go on in that way now. Do speak out to me, and speak without jesting." "Whose was the other judgment to whom he trusts so implicitly? Tell me that." "Mine, mine, of course. No one else can have spoken to him about it. Of course I talked to him." "And what did you tell him?" "I told him--" "Well, out with it. Let me have the real facts. Mind, I tell you fairly that you had no right to tell him anything. What passed between us, passed in confidence. But let us hear what you did say." "I told him that you would have him if he offered." And Mrs. Gresham, as she spoke, looked into her friend's face doubtingly, not knowing whether in very truth Miss Dunstable were pleased with her or displeased. If she were displeased, then how had her uncle been deceived! "You told him that as a fact?" "I told him that I thought so." "Then I suppose I am bound to have him," said Miss Dunstable, dropping the letter on to the floor in mock despair. "My dear, dear, dearest woman!" said Mrs. Gresham, bursting into tears, and throwing herself on to her friend's neck. "Mind you are a dutiful niece," said Miss Dunstable. "And now let me go and finish dressing." In the course of the afternoon, an answer was sent back to Greshamsbury, in these words:-- DEAR DR. THORNE,--I do and will trust you in everything; and it shall be as you would have it. Mary writes to you; but do not believe a word she says. I never will again, for she has behaved so bad in this matter. Yours affectionately and very truly, MARTHA DUNSTABLE. "And so I am going to marry the richest woman in England," said Dr. Thorne to himself, as he sat down that day to his mutton-chop. CHAPTER XL. INTERNECINE. It must be conceived that there was some feeling of triumph at Plumstead Episcopi, when the wife of the rector returned home with her daughter, the bride elect of the Lord Dumbello. The heir of the Marquis of Hartletop was, in wealth, the most considerable unmarried young nobleman of the day; he was noted, too, as a man difficult to be pleased, as one who was very fine and who gave himself airs,--and to have been selected as the wife of such a man as this was a great thing for the daughter of a parish clergyman. We have seen in what manner the happy girl's mother communicated the fact to Lady Lufton, hiding, as it were, her pride under a veil; and we have seen also how meekly the happy girl bore her own great fortune, applying herself humbly to the packing of her clothes, as though she ignored her own glory. But nevertheless there was triumph at Plumstead Episcopi. The mother, when she returned home, began to feel that she had been thoroughly successful in the great object of her life. While she was yet in London she had hardly realized her satisfaction, and there were doubts then whether the cup might not be dashed from her lips before it was tasted. It might be that even the son of the Marquis of Hartletop was subject to

stayed

How many times the word 'stayed' appears in the text?

would have done a manifest injury to Miss Dunstable in forcing her to declare her thoughts and feelings. She had already spoken to her uncle in London, and though he had said nothing to show that he approved of her plan, neither had he said anything to show that he disapproved it. Therefore she had hoped through the whole of those three days that he would make some sign,--at any rate to her; that he would in some way declare what were his own thoughts on this matter. But the morning of his departure came, and he had declared nothing. "Uncle," she said, in the last five minutes of his sojourn there, after he had already taken leave of Miss Dunstable and shaken hands with Mrs. Gresham, "have you ever thought of what I said to you up in London?" "Yes, Mary; of course I have thought about it. Such an idea as that, when put into a man's head, will make itself thought about." "Well; and what next? Do talk to me about it. Do not be so hard and unlike yourself." "I have very little to say about it." "I can tell you this for certain, you may if you like." "Mary! Mary!" "I would not say so if I were not sure that I should not lead you into trouble." "You are foolish in wishing this, my dear; foolish in trying to tempt an old man into a folly." "Not foolish if I know that it will make you both happier." He made her no further reply, but stooping down that she might kiss him, as was his wont, went his way, leaving her almost miserable in the thought that she had troubled all these waters to no purpose. What would Miss Dunstable think of her? But on that afternoon Miss Dunstable seemed to be as happy and even-tempered as ever. CHAPTER XXXIX. HOW TO WRITE A LOVE LETTER. Dr. Thorne, in the few words which he spoke to his niece before he left Boxall Hill, had called himself an old man; but he was as yet on the right side of sixty by five good years, and bore about with him less of the marks of age than most men of fifty-five do bear. One would have said in looking at him that there was no reason why he should not marry if he found that such a step seemed good to him; and looking at the age of the proposed bride, there was nothing unsuitable in that respect. But nevertheless he felt almost ashamed of himself, in that he allowed himself even to think of the proposition which his niece had made. He mounted his horse that day at Boxall Hill--for he made all his journeys about the county on horseback--and rode slowly home to Greshamsbury, thinking not so much of the suggested marriage as of his own folly in thinking of it. How could he be such an ass at his time of life as to allow the even course of his way to be disturbed by any such idea? Of course he could not propose to himself such a wife as Miss Dunstable without having some thoughts as to her wealth; and it had been the pride of his life so to live that the world might know that he was indifferent about money. His profession was all in all to him,--the air which he breathed as well as the bread which he ate; and how could he follow his profession if he made such a marriage as this? She would expect him to go to London with her; and what would he become, dangling at her heels there, known only to the world as the husband of the richest woman in the town? The kind of life was one which would be unsuitable to him;--and yet, as he rode home, he could not resolve to rid himself of the idea. He went on thinking of it, though he still continued to condemn himself for keeping it in his thoughts. That night at home he would make up his mind, so he declared to himself; and would then write to his niece begging her to drop the subject. Having so far come to a resolution he went on meditating what course of life it might be well for him to pursue if he and Miss Dunstable should, after all, become man and wife. There were two ladies whom it behoved him to see on the day of his arrival--whom, indeed, he generally saw every day except when absent from Greshamsbury. The first of these--first in the general consideration of the people of the place--was the wife of the squire, Lady Arabella Gresham, a very old patient of the doctor's. Her it was his custom to visit early in the afternoon; and then, if he were able to escape the squire's daily invitation to dinner, he customarily went to the other, Lady Scatcherd, when the rapid meal in his own house was over. Such, at least, was his summer practice. "Well, doctor, how are they at Boxall Hill?" said the squire, waylaying him on the gravel sweep before the door. The squire was very hard set for occupation in these summer months. "Quite well, I believe." "I don't know what's come to Frank. I think he hates this place now. He's full of the election, I suppose." "Oh, yes; he told me to say he should be over here soon. Of course there'll be no contest, so he need not trouble himself." "Happy dog, isn't he, doctor? to have it all before him instead of behind him. Well, well; he's as good a lad as ever lived,--as ever lived. And let me see; Mary's time--" And then there were a few very important words spoken on that subject. "I'll just step up to Lady Arabella now," said the doctor. "She's as fretful as possible," said the squire. "I've just left her." "Nothing special the matter, I hope?" "No, I think not; nothing in your way, that is; only specially cross, which always comes in my way. You'll stop and dine to-day, of course?" "Not to-day, squire." "Nonsense; you will. I have been quite counting on you. I have a particular reason for wanting to have you to-day,--a most particular reason." But the squire always had his particular reasons. "I'm very sorry, but it is impossible to-day. I shall have a letter to write that I must sit down to seriously. Shall I see you when I come down from her ladyship?" The squire turned away sulkily, almost without answering him, for he now had no prospect of any alleviation to the tedium of the evening; and the doctor went up-stairs to his patient. For Lady Arabella, though it cannot be said that she was ill, was always a patient. It must not be supposed that she kept her bed and swallowed daily doses, or was prevented from taking her share in such prosy gaieties as came from time to time in the way of her prosy life; but it suited her turn of mind to be an invalid and to have a doctor; and as the doctor whom her good fates had placed at her elbow thoroughly understood her case, no great harm was done. "It frets me dreadfully that I cannot get to see Mary," Lady Arabella said, as soon as the first ordinary question as to her ailments had been asked and answered. "She's quite well and will be over to see you before long." "Now I beg that she won't. She never thinks of coming when there can be no possible objection, and travelling, at the present moment, would be--" Whereupon the Lady Arabella shook her head very gravely. "Only think of the importance of it, doctor," she said. "Remember the enormous stake there is to be considered." "It would not do her a ha'porth of harm if the stake were twice as large." "Nonsense, doctor, don't tell me; as if I didn't know myself. I was very much against her going to London this spring, but of course what I said was overruled. It always is. I do believe Mr. Gresham went over to Boxall Hill, on purpose to induce her to go. But what does he care? He's fond of Frank; but he never thinks of looking beyond the present day. He never did, as you know well enough, doctor." "The trip did her all the good in the world," said Dr. Thorne, preferring anything to a conversation respecting the squire's sins. "I very well remember that when I was in that way it wasn't thought that such trips would do me any good. But, perhaps, things are altered since then." "Yes, they are," said the doctor. "We don't interfere so much now-a-days." "I know I never asked for such amusements when so much depended on quietness. I remember before Frank was born--and, indeed, when all of them were born-- But as you say, things were different then; and I can easily believe that Mary is a person quite determined to have her own way." "Why, Lady Arabella, she would have stayed at home without wishing to stir if Frank had done so much as hold up his little finger." "So did I always. If Mr. Gresham made the slightest hint I gave way. But I really don't see what one gets in return for such implicit obedience. Now this year, doctor, of course I should have liked to have been up in London for a week or two. You seemed to think yourself that I might as well see Sir Omicron." "There could be no possible objection, I said." "Well; no; exactly; and as Mr. Gresham knew I wished it, I think he might as well have offered it. I suppose there can be no reason now about money." "But I understood that Mary specially asked you and Augusta?" "Yes; Mary was very good. She did ask me. But I know very well that Mary wants all the room she has got in London. The house is not at all too large for herself. And, for the matter of that, my sister, the countess, was very anxious that I should be with her. But one does like to be independent if one can, and for one fortnight I do think that Mr. Gresham might have managed it. When I knew that he was so dreadfully out at elbows I never troubled him about it,--though, goodness knows, all that was never my fault." "The squire hates London. A fortnight there in warm weather would nearly be the death of him." "He might at any rate have paid me the compliment of asking me. The chances are ten to one I should not have gone. It is that indifference that cuts me so. He was here just now, and, would you believe it?--" But the doctor was determined to avoid further complaint for the present day. "I wonder what you would feel, Lady Arabella, if the squire were to take it into his head to go away and amuse himself, leaving you at home. There are worse men than Mr. Gresham, if you will believe me." All this was an allusion to Earl de Courcy, her ladyship's brother, as Lady Arabella very well understood; and the argument was one which was very often used to silence her. "Upon my word, then, I should like it better than his hanging about here doing nothing but attend to those nasty dogs. I really sometimes think that he has no spirit left." "You are mistaken there, Lady Arabella," said the doctor, rising with his hat in his hand and making his escape without further parley. As he went home he could not but think that that phase of married life was not a very pleasant one. Mr. Gresham and his wife were supposed by the world to live on the best of terms. They always inhabited the same house, went out together when they did go out, always sat in their respective corners in the family pew, and in their wildest dreams after the happiness of novelty never thought of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. In some respects--with regard, for instance, to the continued duration of their joint domesticity at the family mansion of Greshamsbury--they might have been taken for a pattern couple. But yet, as far as the doctor could see, they did not seem to add much to the happiness of each other. They loved each other, doubtless, and had either of them been in real danger, that danger would have made the other miserable; but yet it might well be a question whether either would not be more comfortable without the other. The doctor, as was his custom, dined at five, and at seven he went up to the cottage of his old friend Lady Scatcherd. Lady Scatcherd was not a refined woman, having in her early days been a labourer's daughter and having then married a labourer. But her husband had risen in the world--as has been told in those chronicles before mentioned,--and his widow was now Lady Scatcherd with a pretty cottage and a good jointure. She was in all things the very opposite to Lady Arabella Gresham; nevertheless, under the doctor's auspices, the two ladies were in some measure acquainted with each other. Of her married life, also, Dr. Thorne had seen something, and it may be questioned whether the memory of that was more alluring than the reality now existing at Greshamsbury. Of the two women Dr. Thorne much preferred his humbler friend, and to her he made his visits not in the guise of a doctor, but as a neighbour. "Well, my lady," he said, as he sat down by her on a broad garden seat--all the world called Lady Scatcherd "my lady,"--"and how do these long summer days agree with you? Your roses are twice better out than any I see up at the big house." "You may well call them long, doctor. They're long enough surely." "But not too long. Come, now, I won't have you complaining. You don't mean to tell me that you have anything to make you wretched? You had better not, for I won't believe you." "Eh; well; wretched! I don't know as I'm wretched. It'd be wicked to say that, and I with such comforts about me." "I think it would, almost." The doctor did not say this harshly, but in a soft, friendly tone, and pressing her hand gently as he spoke. "And I didn't mean to be wicked. I'm very thankful for everything--leastways, I always try to be. But, doctor, it is so lonely like." "Lonely! not more lonely than I am." "Oh, yes; you're different. You can go everywheres. But what can a lone woman do? I'll tell you what, doctor; I'd give it all up to have Roger back with his apron on and his pick in his hand. How well I mind his look when he'd come home o' nights." "And yet it was a hard life you had then, eh, old woman? It would be better for you to be thankful for what you've got." "I am thankful. Didn't I tell you so before?" said she, somewhat crossly. "But it's a sad life, this living alone. I declares I envy Hannah, 'cause she's got Jemima to sit in the kitchen with her. I want her to sit with me sometimes, but she won't." "Ah! but you shouldn't ask her. It's letting yourself down." "What do I care about down or up? It makes no difference, as he's gone. If he had lived one might have cared about being up, as you call it. Eh, deary; I'll be going after him before long, and it will be no matter then." "We shall all be going after him, sooner or later; that's sure enough." "Eh, dear, that's true, surely. It's only a span long, as Parson Oriel tells us when he gets romantic in his sermons. But it's a hard thing, doctor, when two is married, as they can't have their span, as he calls it, out together. Well, I must only put up with it, I suppose, as others does. Now, you're not going, doctor? You'll stop and have a dish of tea with me. You never see such cream as Hannah has from the Alderney cow. Do'ey now, doctor." But the doctor had his letter to write, and would not allow himself to be tempted even by the promise of Hannah's cream. So he went his way, angering Lady Scatcherd by his departure as he had before angered the squire, and thinking as he went which was most unreasonable in her wretchedness, his friend Lady Arabella, or his friend Lady Scatcherd. The former was always complaining of an existing husband who never refused her any moderate request; and the other passed her days in murmuring at the loss of a dead husband, who in his life had ever been to her imperious and harsh, and had sometimes been cruel and unjust. The doctor had his letter to write, but even yet he had not quite made up his mind what he would put into it; indeed, he had not hitherto resolved to whom it should be written. Looking at the matter as he had endeavoured to look at it, his niece, Mrs. Gresham, would be his correspondent; but if he brought himself to take this jump in the dark, in that case he would address himself direct to Miss Dunstable. He walked home, not by the straightest road, but taking a considerable curve, round by narrow lanes, and through thick flower-laden hedges,--very thoughtful. He was told that she wished to marry him; and was he to think only of himself? And as to that pride of his about money, was it in truth a hearty, manly feeling; or was it a false pride, of which it behoved him to be ashamed as it did of many cognate feelings? If he acted rightly in this matter, why should he be afraid of the thoughts of any one? A life of solitude was bitter enough, as poor Lady Scatcherd had complained. But then, looking at Lady Scatcherd, and looking also at his other near neighbour, his friend the squire, there was little thereabouts to lead him on to matrimony. So he walked home slowly through the lanes, very meditative, with his hands behind his back. Nor when he got home was he much more inclined to any resolute line of action. He might have drunk his tea with Lady Scatcherd, as well as have sat there in his own drawing-room, drinking it alone; for he got no pen and paper, and he dawdled over his teacup with the utmost dilatoriness, putting off, as it were, the evil day. To only one thing was he fixed--to this, namely, that that letter should be written before he went to bed. Having finished his tea, which did not take place till near eleven, he went downstairs to an untidy little room which lay behind his dep t of medicines, and in which he was wont to do his writing; and herein he did at last set himself down to his work. Even at that moment he was in doubt. But he would write his letter to Miss Dunstable and see how it looked. He was almost determined not to send it; so, at least, he said to himself: but he could do no harm by writing it. So he did write it, as follows:-- Greshamsbury, -- June, 185--. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,-- When he had got so far, he leaned back in his chair and looked at the paper. How on earth was he to find words to say that which he now wished to have said? He had never written such a letter in his life, or anything approaching to it, and now found himself overwhelmed with a difficulty of which he had not previously thought. He spent another half-hour in looking at the paper, and was at last nearly deterred by this new difficulty. He would use the simplest, plainest language, he said to himself over and over again; but it is not always easy to use simple, plain language,--by no means so easy as to mount on stilts, and to march along with sesquipedalian words, with pathos, spasms, and notes of interjection. But the letter did at last get itself written, and there was not a note of interjection in it. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,--I think it right to confess that I should not be now writing this letter to you, had I not been led to believe by other judgment than my own that the proposition which I am going to make would be regarded by you with favour. Without such other judgment I should, I own, have feared that the great disparity between you and me in regard to money would have given to such a proposition an appearance of being false and mercenary. All I ask of you now, with confidence, is to acquit me of such fault as that. When you have read so far you will understand what I mean. We have known each other now somewhat intimately, though indeed not very long, and I have sometimes fancied that you were almost as well pleased to be with me as I have been to be with you. If I have been wrong in this, tell me so simply, and I will endeavour to let our friendship run on as though this letter had not been written. But if I have been right, and if it be possible that you can think that a union between us will make us both happier than we are single, I will plight you my word and troth with good faith, and will do what an old man may do to make the burden of the world lie light upon your shoulders. Looking at my age I can hardly keep myself from thinking that I am an old fool: but I try to reconcile myself to that by remembering that you yourself are no longer a girl. You see that I pay you no compliments, and that you need expect none from me. I do not know that I could add anything to the truth of this, if I were to write three times as much. All that is necessary is, that you should know what I mean. If you do not believe me to be true and honest already, nothing that I can write will make you believe it. God bless you. I know you will not keep me long in suspense for an answer. Affectionately your friend, THOMAS THORNE. When he had finished he meditated again for another half-hour whether it would not be right that he should add something about her money. Would it not be well for him to tell her--it might be said in a postscript--that with regard to all her wealth she would be free to do what she chose? At any rate he owed no debts for her to pay, and would still have his own income, sufficient for his own purposes. But about one o'clock he came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave the matter alone. If she cared for him, and could trust him, and was worthy also that he should trust her, no omission of such a statement would deter her from coming to him: and if there were no such trust, it would not be created by any such assurance on his part. So he read the letter over twice, sealed it, and took it up, together with his bed candle, into his bed-room. Now that the letter was written it seemed to be a thing fixed by fate that it must go. He had written it that he might see how it looked when written; but now that it was written, there remained no doubt but that it must be sent. So he went to bed, with the letter on the toilette-table beside him; and early in the morning--so early as to make it seem that the importance of the letter had disturbed his rest--he sent it off by a special messenger to Boxall Hill. "I'se wait for an answer?" said the boy. "No," said the doctor: "leave the letter, and come away." The breakfast hour was not very early at Boxall Hill in these summer months. Frank Gresham, no doubt, went round his farm before he came in for prayers, and his wife was probably looking to the butter in the dairy. At any rate, they did not meet till near ten, and therefore, though the ride from Greshamsbury to Boxall Hill was nearly two hours' work, Miss Dunstable had her letter in her own room before she came down. She read it in silence as she was dressing, while the maid was with her in the room; but she made no sign which could induce her Abigail to think that the epistle was more than ordinarily important. She read it, and then quietly refolding it and placing it in the envelope, she put it down on the table at which she was sitting. It was full fifteen minutes afterwards that she begged her servant to see if Mrs. Gresham were still in her own room. "Because I want to see her for five minutes, alone, before breakfast," said Miss Dunstable. "You traitor; you false, black traitor!" were the first words which Miss Dunstable spoke when she found herself alone with her friend. "Why, what's the matter?" "I did not think there was so much mischief in you, nor so keen and commonplace a desire for match-making. Look here. Read the first four lines; not more, if you please; the rest is private. Whose is the other judgment of whom your uncle speaks in his letter?" "Oh, Miss Dunstable! I must read it all." "Indeed you'll do no such thing. You think it's a love-letter, I dare say; but indeed there's not a word about love in it." "I know he has offered. I shall be so glad, for I know you like him." "He tells me that I am an old woman, and insinuates that I may probably be an old fool." "I am sure he does not say that." "Ah! but I'm sure that he does. The former is true enough, and I never complain of the truth. But as to the latter, I am by no means so certain that it is true--not in the sense that he means it." "Dear, dearest woman, don't go on in that way now. Do speak out to me, and speak without jesting." "Whose was the other judgment to whom he trusts so implicitly? Tell me that." "Mine, mine, of course. No one else can have spoken to him about it. Of course I talked to him." "And what did you tell him?" "I told him--" "Well, out with it. Let me have the real facts. Mind, I tell you fairly that you had no right to tell him anything. What passed between us, passed in confidence. But let us hear what you did say." "I told him that you would have him if he offered." And Mrs. Gresham, as she spoke, looked into her friend's face doubtingly, not knowing whether in very truth Miss Dunstable were pleased with her or displeased. If she were displeased, then how had her uncle been deceived! "You told him that as a fact?" "I told him that I thought so." "Then I suppose I am bound to have him," said Miss Dunstable, dropping the letter on to the floor in mock despair. "My dear, dear, dearest woman!" said Mrs. Gresham, bursting into tears, and throwing herself on to her friend's neck. "Mind you are a dutiful niece," said Miss Dunstable. "And now let me go and finish dressing." In the course of the afternoon, an answer was sent back to Greshamsbury, in these words:-- DEAR DR. THORNE,--I do and will trust you in everything; and it shall be as you would have it. Mary writes to you; but do not believe a word she says. I never will again, for she has behaved so bad in this matter. Yours affectionately and very truly, MARTHA DUNSTABLE. "And so I am going to marry the richest woman in England," said Dr. Thorne to himself, as he sat down that day to his mutton-chop. CHAPTER XL. INTERNECINE. It must be conceived that there was some feeling of triumph at Plumstead Episcopi, when the wife of the rector returned home with her daughter, the bride elect of the Lord Dumbello. The heir of the Marquis of Hartletop was, in wealth, the most considerable unmarried young nobleman of the day; he was noted, too, as a man difficult to be pleased, as one who was very fine and who gave himself airs,--and to have been selected as the wife of such a man as this was a great thing for the daughter of a parish clergyman. We have seen in what manner the happy girl's mother communicated the fact to Lady Lufton, hiding, as it were, her pride under a veil; and we have seen also how meekly the happy girl bore her own great fortune, applying herself humbly to the packing of her clothes, as though she ignored her own glory. But nevertheless there was triumph at Plumstead Episcopi. The mother, when she returned home, began to feel that she had been thoroughly successful in the great object of her life. While she was yet in London she had hardly realized her satisfaction, and there were doubts then whether the cup might not be dashed from her lips before it was tasted. It might be that even the son of the Marquis of Hartletop was subject to

chronicles

How many times the word 'chronicles' appears in the text?

would have done a manifest injury to Miss Dunstable in forcing her to declare her thoughts and feelings. She had already spoken to her uncle in London, and though he had said nothing to show that he approved of her plan, neither had he said anything to show that he disapproved it. Therefore she had hoped through the whole of those three days that he would make some sign,--at any rate to her; that he would in some way declare what were his own thoughts on this matter. But the morning of his departure came, and he had declared nothing. "Uncle," she said, in the last five minutes of his sojourn there, after he had already taken leave of Miss Dunstable and shaken hands with Mrs. Gresham, "have you ever thought of what I said to you up in London?" "Yes, Mary; of course I have thought about it. Such an idea as that, when put into a man's head, will make itself thought about." "Well; and what next? Do talk to me about it. Do not be so hard and unlike yourself." "I have very little to say about it." "I can tell you this for certain, you may if you like." "Mary! Mary!" "I would not say so if I were not sure that I should not lead you into trouble." "You are foolish in wishing this, my dear; foolish in trying to tempt an old man into a folly." "Not foolish if I know that it will make you both happier." He made her no further reply, but stooping down that she might kiss him, as was his wont, went his way, leaving her almost miserable in the thought that she had troubled all these waters to no purpose. What would Miss Dunstable think of her? But on that afternoon Miss Dunstable seemed to be as happy and even-tempered as ever. CHAPTER XXXIX. HOW TO WRITE A LOVE LETTER. Dr. Thorne, in the few words which he spoke to his niece before he left Boxall Hill, had called himself an old man; but he was as yet on the right side of sixty by five good years, and bore about with him less of the marks of age than most men of fifty-five do bear. One would have said in looking at him that there was no reason why he should not marry if he found that such a step seemed good to him; and looking at the age of the proposed bride, there was nothing unsuitable in that respect. But nevertheless he felt almost ashamed of himself, in that he allowed himself even to think of the proposition which his niece had made. He mounted his horse that day at Boxall Hill--for he made all his journeys about the county on horseback--and rode slowly home to Greshamsbury, thinking not so much of the suggested marriage as of his own folly in thinking of it. How could he be such an ass at his time of life as to allow the even course of his way to be disturbed by any such idea? Of course he could not propose to himself such a wife as Miss Dunstable without having some thoughts as to her wealth; and it had been the pride of his life so to live that the world might know that he was indifferent about money. His profession was all in all to him,--the air which he breathed as well as the bread which he ate; and how could he follow his profession if he made such a marriage as this? She would expect him to go to London with her; and what would he become, dangling at her heels there, known only to the world as the husband of the richest woman in the town? The kind of life was one which would be unsuitable to him;--and yet, as he rode home, he could not resolve to rid himself of the idea. He went on thinking of it, though he still continued to condemn himself for keeping it in his thoughts. That night at home he would make up his mind, so he declared to himself; and would then write to his niece begging her to drop the subject. Having so far come to a resolution he went on meditating what course of life it might be well for him to pursue if he and Miss Dunstable should, after all, become man and wife. There were two ladies whom it behoved him to see on the day of his arrival--whom, indeed, he generally saw every day except when absent from Greshamsbury. The first of these--first in the general consideration of the people of the place--was the wife of the squire, Lady Arabella Gresham, a very old patient of the doctor's. Her it was his custom to visit early in the afternoon; and then, if he were able to escape the squire's daily invitation to dinner, he customarily went to the other, Lady Scatcherd, when the rapid meal in his own house was over. Such, at least, was his summer practice. "Well, doctor, how are they at Boxall Hill?" said the squire, waylaying him on the gravel sweep before the door. The squire was very hard set for occupation in these summer months. "Quite well, I believe." "I don't know what's come to Frank. I think he hates this place now. He's full of the election, I suppose." "Oh, yes; he told me to say he should be over here soon. Of course there'll be no contest, so he need not trouble himself." "Happy dog, isn't he, doctor? to have it all before him instead of behind him. Well, well; he's as good a lad as ever lived,--as ever lived. And let me see; Mary's time--" And then there were a few very important words spoken on that subject. "I'll just step up to Lady Arabella now," said the doctor. "She's as fretful as possible," said the squire. "I've just left her." "Nothing special the matter, I hope?" "No, I think not; nothing in your way, that is; only specially cross, which always comes in my way. You'll stop and dine to-day, of course?" "Not to-day, squire." "Nonsense; you will. I have been quite counting on you. I have a particular reason for wanting to have you to-day,--a most particular reason." But the squire always had his particular reasons. "I'm very sorry, but it is impossible to-day. I shall have a letter to write that I must sit down to seriously. Shall I see you when I come down from her ladyship?" The squire turned away sulkily, almost without answering him, for he now had no prospect of any alleviation to the tedium of the evening; and the doctor went up-stairs to his patient. For Lady Arabella, though it cannot be said that she was ill, was always a patient. It must not be supposed that she kept her bed and swallowed daily doses, or was prevented from taking her share in such prosy gaieties as came from time to time in the way of her prosy life; but it suited her turn of mind to be an invalid and to have a doctor; and as the doctor whom her good fates had placed at her elbow thoroughly understood her case, no great harm was done. "It frets me dreadfully that I cannot get to see Mary," Lady Arabella said, as soon as the first ordinary question as to her ailments had been asked and answered. "She's quite well and will be over to see you before long." "Now I beg that she won't. She never thinks of coming when there can be no possible objection, and travelling, at the present moment, would be--" Whereupon the Lady Arabella shook her head very gravely. "Only think of the importance of it, doctor," she said. "Remember the enormous stake there is to be considered." "It would not do her a ha'porth of harm if the stake were twice as large." "Nonsense, doctor, don't tell me; as if I didn't know myself. I was very much against her going to London this spring, but of course what I said was overruled. It always is. I do believe Mr. Gresham went over to Boxall Hill, on purpose to induce her to go. But what does he care? He's fond of Frank; but he never thinks of looking beyond the present day. He never did, as you know well enough, doctor." "The trip did her all the good in the world," said Dr. Thorne, preferring anything to a conversation respecting the squire's sins. "I very well remember that when I was in that way it wasn't thought that such trips would do me any good. But, perhaps, things are altered since then." "Yes, they are," said the doctor. "We don't interfere so much now-a-days." "I know I never asked for such amusements when so much depended on quietness. I remember before Frank was born--and, indeed, when all of them were born-- But as you say, things were different then; and I can easily believe that Mary is a person quite determined to have her own way." "Why, Lady Arabella, she would have stayed at home without wishing to stir if Frank had done so much as hold up his little finger." "So did I always. If Mr. Gresham made the slightest hint I gave way. But I really don't see what one gets in return for such implicit obedience. Now this year, doctor, of course I should have liked to have been up in London for a week or two. You seemed to think yourself that I might as well see Sir Omicron." "There could be no possible objection, I said." "Well; no; exactly; and as Mr. Gresham knew I wished it, I think he might as well have offered it. I suppose there can be no reason now about money." "But I understood that Mary specially asked you and Augusta?" "Yes; Mary was very good. She did ask me. But I know very well that Mary wants all the room she has got in London. The house is not at all too large for herself. And, for the matter of that, my sister, the countess, was very anxious that I should be with her. But one does like to be independent if one can, and for one fortnight I do think that Mr. Gresham might have managed it. When I knew that he was so dreadfully out at elbows I never troubled him about it,--though, goodness knows, all that was never my fault." "The squire hates London. A fortnight there in warm weather would nearly be the death of him." "He might at any rate have paid me the compliment of asking me. The chances are ten to one I should not have gone. It is that indifference that cuts me so. He was here just now, and, would you believe it?--" But the doctor was determined to avoid further complaint for the present day. "I wonder what you would feel, Lady Arabella, if the squire were to take it into his head to go away and amuse himself, leaving you at home. There are worse men than Mr. Gresham, if you will believe me." All this was an allusion to Earl de Courcy, her ladyship's brother, as Lady Arabella very well understood; and the argument was one which was very often used to silence her. "Upon my word, then, I should like it better than his hanging about here doing nothing but attend to those nasty dogs. I really sometimes think that he has no spirit left." "You are mistaken there, Lady Arabella," said the doctor, rising with his hat in his hand and making his escape without further parley. As he went home he could not but think that that phase of married life was not a very pleasant one. Mr. Gresham and his wife were supposed by the world to live on the best of terms. They always inhabited the same house, went out together when they did go out, always sat in their respective corners in the family pew, and in their wildest dreams after the happiness of novelty never thought of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. In some respects--with regard, for instance, to the continued duration of their joint domesticity at the family mansion of Greshamsbury--they might have been taken for a pattern couple. But yet, as far as the doctor could see, they did not seem to add much to the happiness of each other. They loved each other, doubtless, and had either of them been in real danger, that danger would have made the other miserable; but yet it might well be a question whether either would not be more comfortable without the other. The doctor, as was his custom, dined at five, and at seven he went up to the cottage of his old friend Lady Scatcherd. Lady Scatcherd was not a refined woman, having in her early days been a labourer's daughter and having then married a labourer. But her husband had risen in the world--as has been told in those chronicles before mentioned,--and his widow was now Lady Scatcherd with a pretty cottage and a good jointure. She was in all things the very opposite to Lady Arabella Gresham; nevertheless, under the doctor's auspices, the two ladies were in some measure acquainted with each other. Of her married life, also, Dr. Thorne had seen something, and it may be questioned whether the memory of that was more alluring than the reality now existing at Greshamsbury. Of the two women Dr. Thorne much preferred his humbler friend, and to her he made his visits not in the guise of a doctor, but as a neighbour. "Well, my lady," he said, as he sat down by her on a broad garden seat--all the world called Lady Scatcherd "my lady,"--"and how do these long summer days agree with you? Your roses are twice better out than any I see up at the big house." "You may well call them long, doctor. They're long enough surely." "But not too long. Come, now, I won't have you complaining. You don't mean to tell me that you have anything to make you wretched? You had better not, for I won't believe you." "Eh; well; wretched! I don't know as I'm wretched. It'd be wicked to say that, and I with such comforts about me." "I think it would, almost." The doctor did not say this harshly, but in a soft, friendly tone, and pressing her hand gently as he spoke. "And I didn't mean to be wicked. I'm very thankful for everything--leastways, I always try to be. But, doctor, it is so lonely like." "Lonely! not more lonely than I am." "Oh, yes; you're different. You can go everywheres. But what can a lone woman do? I'll tell you what, doctor; I'd give it all up to have Roger back with his apron on and his pick in his hand. How well I mind his look when he'd come home o' nights." "And yet it was a hard life you had then, eh, old woman? It would be better for you to be thankful for what you've got." "I am thankful. Didn't I tell you so before?" said she, somewhat crossly. "But it's a sad life, this living alone. I declares I envy Hannah, 'cause she's got Jemima to sit in the kitchen with her. I want her to sit with me sometimes, but she won't." "Ah! but you shouldn't ask her. It's letting yourself down." "What do I care about down or up? It makes no difference, as he's gone. If he had lived one might have cared about being up, as you call it. Eh, deary; I'll be going after him before long, and it will be no matter then." "We shall all be going after him, sooner or later; that's sure enough." "Eh, dear, that's true, surely. It's only a span long, as Parson Oriel tells us when he gets romantic in his sermons. But it's a hard thing, doctor, when two is married, as they can't have their span, as he calls it, out together. Well, I must only put up with it, I suppose, as others does. Now, you're not going, doctor? You'll stop and have a dish of tea with me. You never see such cream as Hannah has from the Alderney cow. Do'ey now, doctor." But the doctor had his letter to write, and would not allow himself to be tempted even by the promise of Hannah's cream. So he went his way, angering Lady Scatcherd by his departure as he had before angered the squire, and thinking as he went which was most unreasonable in her wretchedness, his friend Lady Arabella, or his friend Lady Scatcherd. The former was always complaining of an existing husband who never refused her any moderate request; and the other passed her days in murmuring at the loss of a dead husband, who in his life had ever been to her imperious and harsh, and had sometimes been cruel and unjust. The doctor had his letter to write, but even yet he had not quite made up his mind what he would put into it; indeed, he had not hitherto resolved to whom it should be written. Looking at the matter as he had endeavoured to look at it, his niece, Mrs. Gresham, would be his correspondent; but if he brought himself to take this jump in the dark, in that case he would address himself direct to Miss Dunstable. He walked home, not by the straightest road, but taking a considerable curve, round by narrow lanes, and through thick flower-laden hedges,--very thoughtful. He was told that she wished to marry him; and was he to think only of himself? And as to that pride of his about money, was it in truth a hearty, manly feeling; or was it a false pride, of which it behoved him to be ashamed as it did of many cognate feelings? If he acted rightly in this matter, why should he be afraid of the thoughts of any one? A life of solitude was bitter enough, as poor Lady Scatcherd had complained. But then, looking at Lady Scatcherd, and looking also at his other near neighbour, his friend the squire, there was little thereabouts to lead him on to matrimony. So he walked home slowly through the lanes, very meditative, with his hands behind his back. Nor when he got home was he much more inclined to any resolute line of action. He might have drunk his tea with Lady Scatcherd, as well as have sat there in his own drawing-room, drinking it alone; for he got no pen and paper, and he dawdled over his teacup with the utmost dilatoriness, putting off, as it were, the evil day. To only one thing was he fixed--to this, namely, that that letter should be written before he went to bed. Having finished his tea, which did not take place till near eleven, he went downstairs to an untidy little room which lay behind his dep t of medicines, and in which he was wont to do his writing; and herein he did at last set himself down to his work. Even at that moment he was in doubt. But he would write his letter to Miss Dunstable and see how it looked. He was almost determined not to send it; so, at least, he said to himself: but he could do no harm by writing it. So he did write it, as follows:-- Greshamsbury, -- June, 185--. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,-- When he had got so far, he leaned back in his chair and looked at the paper. How on earth was he to find words to say that which he now wished to have said? He had never written such a letter in his life, or anything approaching to it, and now found himself overwhelmed with a difficulty of which he had not previously thought. He spent another half-hour in looking at the paper, and was at last nearly deterred by this new difficulty. He would use the simplest, plainest language, he said to himself over and over again; but it is not always easy to use simple, plain language,--by no means so easy as to mount on stilts, and to march along with sesquipedalian words, with pathos, spasms, and notes of interjection. But the letter did at last get itself written, and there was not a note of interjection in it. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,--I think it right to confess that I should not be now writing this letter to you, had I not been led to believe by other judgment than my own that the proposition which I am going to make would be regarded by you with favour. Without such other judgment I should, I own, have feared that the great disparity between you and me in regard to money would have given to such a proposition an appearance of being false and mercenary. All I ask of you now, with confidence, is to acquit me of such fault as that. When you have read so far you will understand what I mean. We have known each other now somewhat intimately, though indeed not very long, and I have sometimes fancied that you were almost as well pleased to be with me as I have been to be with you. If I have been wrong in this, tell me so simply, and I will endeavour to let our friendship run on as though this letter had not been written. But if I have been right, and if it be possible that you can think that a union between us will make us both happier than we are single, I will plight you my word and troth with good faith, and will do what an old man may do to make the burden of the world lie light upon your shoulders. Looking at my age I can hardly keep myself from thinking that I am an old fool: but I try to reconcile myself to that by remembering that you yourself are no longer a girl. You see that I pay you no compliments, and that you need expect none from me. I do not know that I could add anything to the truth of this, if I were to write three times as much. All that is necessary is, that you should know what I mean. If you do not believe me to be true and honest already, nothing that I can write will make you believe it. God bless you. I know you will not keep me long in suspense for an answer. Affectionately your friend, THOMAS THORNE. When he had finished he meditated again for another half-hour whether it would not be right that he should add something about her money. Would it not be well for him to tell her--it might be said in a postscript--that with regard to all her wealth she would be free to do what she chose? At any rate he owed no debts for her to pay, and would still have his own income, sufficient for his own purposes. But about one o'clock he came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave the matter alone. If she cared for him, and could trust him, and was worthy also that he should trust her, no omission of such a statement would deter her from coming to him: and if there were no such trust, it would not be created by any such assurance on his part. So he read the letter over twice, sealed it, and took it up, together with his bed candle, into his bed-room. Now that the letter was written it seemed to be a thing fixed by fate that it must go. He had written it that he might see how it looked when written; but now that it was written, there remained no doubt but that it must be sent. So he went to bed, with the letter on the toilette-table beside him; and early in the morning--so early as to make it seem that the importance of the letter had disturbed his rest--he sent it off by a special messenger to Boxall Hill. "I'se wait for an answer?" said the boy. "No," said the doctor: "leave the letter, and come away." The breakfast hour was not very early at Boxall Hill in these summer months. Frank Gresham, no doubt, went round his farm before he came in for prayers, and his wife was probably looking to the butter in the dairy. At any rate, they did not meet till near ten, and therefore, though the ride from Greshamsbury to Boxall Hill was nearly two hours' work, Miss Dunstable had her letter in her own room before she came down. She read it in silence as she was dressing, while the maid was with her in the room; but she made no sign which could induce her Abigail to think that the epistle was more than ordinarily important. She read it, and then quietly refolding it and placing it in the envelope, she put it down on the table at which she was sitting. It was full fifteen minutes afterwards that she begged her servant to see if Mrs. Gresham were still in her own room. "Because I want to see her for five minutes, alone, before breakfast," said Miss Dunstable. "You traitor; you false, black traitor!" were the first words which Miss Dunstable spoke when she found herself alone with her friend. "Why, what's the matter?" "I did not think there was so much mischief in you, nor so keen and commonplace a desire for match-making. Look here. Read the first four lines; not more, if you please; the rest is private. Whose is the other judgment of whom your uncle speaks in his letter?" "Oh, Miss Dunstable! I must read it all." "Indeed you'll do no such thing. You think it's a love-letter, I dare say; but indeed there's not a word about love in it." "I know he has offered. I shall be so glad, for I know you like him." "He tells me that I am an old woman, and insinuates that I may probably be an old fool." "I am sure he does not say that." "Ah! but I'm sure that he does. The former is true enough, and I never complain of the truth. But as to the latter, I am by no means so certain that it is true--not in the sense that he means it." "Dear, dearest woman, don't go on in that way now. Do speak out to me, and speak without jesting." "Whose was the other judgment to whom he trusts so implicitly? Tell me that." "Mine, mine, of course. No one else can have spoken to him about it. Of course I talked to him." "And what did you tell him?" "I told him--" "Well, out with it. Let me have the real facts. Mind, I tell you fairly that you had no right to tell him anything. What passed between us, passed in confidence. But let us hear what you did say." "I told him that you would have him if he offered." And Mrs. Gresham, as she spoke, looked into her friend's face doubtingly, not knowing whether in very truth Miss Dunstable were pleased with her or displeased. If she were displeased, then how had her uncle been deceived! "You told him that as a fact?" "I told him that I thought so." "Then I suppose I am bound to have him," said Miss Dunstable, dropping the letter on to the floor in mock despair. "My dear, dear, dearest woman!" said Mrs. Gresham, bursting into tears, and throwing herself on to her friend's neck. "Mind you are a dutiful niece," said Miss Dunstable. "And now let me go and finish dressing." In the course of the afternoon, an answer was sent back to Greshamsbury, in these words:-- DEAR DR. THORNE,--I do and will trust you in everything; and it shall be as you would have it. Mary writes to you; but do not believe a word she says. I never will again, for she has behaved so bad in this matter. Yours affectionately and very truly, MARTHA DUNSTABLE. "And so I am going to marry the richest woman in England," said Dr. Thorne to himself, as he sat down that day to his mutton-chop. CHAPTER XL. INTERNECINE. It must be conceived that there was some feeling of triumph at Plumstead Episcopi, when the wife of the rector returned home with her daughter, the bride elect of the Lord Dumbello. The heir of the Marquis of Hartletop was, in wealth, the most considerable unmarried young nobleman of the day; he was noted, too, as a man difficult to be pleased, as one who was very fine and who gave himself airs,--and to have been selected as the wife of such a man as this was a great thing for the daughter of a parish clergyman. We have seen in what manner the happy girl's mother communicated the fact to Lady Lufton, hiding, as it were, her pride under a veil; and we have seen also how meekly the happy girl bore her own great fortune, applying herself humbly to the packing of her clothes, as though she ignored her own glory. But nevertheless there was triumph at Plumstead Episcopi. The mother, when she returned home, began to feel that she had been thoroughly successful in the great object of her life. While she was yet in London she had hardly realized her satisfaction, and there were doubts then whether the cup might not be dashed from her lips before it was tasted. It might be that even the son of the Marquis of Hartletop was subject to

family

How many times the word 'family' appears in the text?

would have done a manifest injury to Miss Dunstable in forcing her to declare her thoughts and feelings. She had already spoken to her uncle in London, and though he had said nothing to show that he approved of her plan, neither had he said anything to show that he disapproved it. Therefore she had hoped through the whole of those three days that he would make some sign,--at any rate to her; that he would in some way declare what were his own thoughts on this matter. But the morning of his departure came, and he had declared nothing. "Uncle," she said, in the last five minutes of his sojourn there, after he had already taken leave of Miss Dunstable and shaken hands with Mrs. Gresham, "have you ever thought of what I said to you up in London?" "Yes, Mary; of course I have thought about it. Such an idea as that, when put into a man's head, will make itself thought about." "Well; and what next? Do talk to me about it. Do not be so hard and unlike yourself." "I have very little to say about it." "I can tell you this for certain, you may if you like." "Mary! Mary!" "I would not say so if I were not sure that I should not lead you into trouble." "You are foolish in wishing this, my dear; foolish in trying to tempt an old man into a folly." "Not foolish if I know that it will make you both happier." He made her no further reply, but stooping down that she might kiss him, as was his wont, went his way, leaving her almost miserable in the thought that she had troubled all these waters to no purpose. What would Miss Dunstable think of her? But on that afternoon Miss Dunstable seemed to be as happy and even-tempered as ever. CHAPTER XXXIX. HOW TO WRITE A LOVE LETTER. Dr. Thorne, in the few words which he spoke to his niece before he left Boxall Hill, had called himself an old man; but he was as yet on the right side of sixty by five good years, and bore about with him less of the marks of age than most men of fifty-five do bear. One would have said in looking at him that there was no reason why he should not marry if he found that such a step seemed good to him; and looking at the age of the proposed bride, there was nothing unsuitable in that respect. But nevertheless he felt almost ashamed of himself, in that he allowed himself even to think of the proposition which his niece had made. He mounted his horse that day at Boxall Hill--for he made all his journeys about the county on horseback--and rode slowly home to Greshamsbury, thinking not so much of the suggested marriage as of his own folly in thinking of it. How could he be such an ass at his time of life as to allow the even course of his way to be disturbed by any such idea? Of course he could not propose to himself such a wife as Miss Dunstable without having some thoughts as to her wealth; and it had been the pride of his life so to live that the world might know that he was indifferent about money. His profession was all in all to him,--the air which he breathed as well as the bread which he ate; and how could he follow his profession if he made such a marriage as this? She would expect him to go to London with her; and what would he become, dangling at her heels there, known only to the world as the husband of the richest woman in the town? The kind of life was one which would be unsuitable to him;--and yet, as he rode home, he could not resolve to rid himself of the idea. He went on thinking of it, though he still continued to condemn himself for keeping it in his thoughts. That night at home he would make up his mind, so he declared to himself; and would then write to his niece begging her to drop the subject. Having so far come to a resolution he went on meditating what course of life it might be well for him to pursue if he and Miss Dunstable should, after all, become man and wife. There were two ladies whom it behoved him to see on the day of his arrival--whom, indeed, he generally saw every day except when absent from Greshamsbury. The first of these--first in the general consideration of the people of the place--was the wife of the squire, Lady Arabella Gresham, a very old patient of the doctor's. Her it was his custom to visit early in the afternoon; and then, if he were able to escape the squire's daily invitation to dinner, he customarily went to the other, Lady Scatcherd, when the rapid meal in his own house was over. Such, at least, was his summer practice. "Well, doctor, how are they at Boxall Hill?" said the squire, waylaying him on the gravel sweep before the door. The squire was very hard set for occupation in these summer months. "Quite well, I believe." "I don't know what's come to Frank. I think he hates this place now. He's full of the election, I suppose." "Oh, yes; he told me to say he should be over here soon. Of course there'll be no contest, so he need not trouble himself." "Happy dog, isn't he, doctor? to have it all before him instead of behind him. Well, well; he's as good a lad as ever lived,--as ever lived. And let me see; Mary's time--" And then there were a few very important words spoken on that subject. "I'll just step up to Lady Arabella now," said the doctor. "She's as fretful as possible," said the squire. "I've just left her." "Nothing special the matter, I hope?" "No, I think not; nothing in your way, that is; only specially cross, which always comes in my way. You'll stop and dine to-day, of course?" "Not to-day, squire." "Nonsense; you will. I have been quite counting on you. I have a particular reason for wanting to have you to-day,--a most particular reason." But the squire always had his particular reasons. "I'm very sorry, but it is impossible to-day. I shall have a letter to write that I must sit down to seriously. Shall I see you when I come down from her ladyship?" The squire turned away sulkily, almost without answering him, for he now had no prospect of any alleviation to the tedium of the evening; and the doctor went up-stairs to his patient. For Lady Arabella, though it cannot be said that she was ill, was always a patient. It must not be supposed that she kept her bed and swallowed daily doses, or was prevented from taking her share in such prosy gaieties as came from time to time in the way of her prosy life; but it suited her turn of mind to be an invalid and to have a doctor; and as the doctor whom her good fates had placed at her elbow thoroughly understood her case, no great harm was done. "It frets me dreadfully that I cannot get to see Mary," Lady Arabella said, as soon as the first ordinary question as to her ailments had been asked and answered. "She's quite well and will be over to see you before long." "Now I beg that she won't. She never thinks of coming when there can be no possible objection, and travelling, at the present moment, would be--" Whereupon the Lady Arabella shook her head very gravely. "Only think of the importance of it, doctor," she said. "Remember the enormous stake there is to be considered." "It would not do her a ha'porth of harm if the stake were twice as large." "Nonsense, doctor, don't tell me; as if I didn't know myself. I was very much against her going to London this spring, but of course what I said was overruled. It always is. I do believe Mr. Gresham went over to Boxall Hill, on purpose to induce her to go. But what does he care? He's fond of Frank; but he never thinks of looking beyond the present day. He never did, as you know well enough, doctor." "The trip did her all the good in the world," said Dr. Thorne, preferring anything to a conversation respecting the squire's sins. "I very well remember that when I was in that way it wasn't thought that such trips would do me any good. But, perhaps, things are altered since then." "Yes, they are," said the doctor. "We don't interfere so much now-a-days." "I know I never asked for such amusements when so much depended on quietness. I remember before Frank was born--and, indeed, when all of them were born-- But as you say, things were different then; and I can easily believe that Mary is a person quite determined to have her own way." "Why, Lady Arabella, she would have stayed at home without wishing to stir if Frank had done so much as hold up his little finger." "So did I always. If Mr. Gresham made the slightest hint I gave way. But I really don't see what one gets in return for such implicit obedience. Now this year, doctor, of course I should have liked to have been up in London for a week or two. You seemed to think yourself that I might as well see Sir Omicron." "There could be no possible objection, I said." "Well; no; exactly; and as Mr. Gresham knew I wished it, I think he might as well have offered it. I suppose there can be no reason now about money." "But I understood that Mary specially asked you and Augusta?" "Yes; Mary was very good. She did ask me. But I know very well that Mary wants all the room she has got in London. The house is not at all too large for herself. And, for the matter of that, my sister, the countess, was very anxious that I should be with her. But one does like to be independent if one can, and for one fortnight I do think that Mr. Gresham might have managed it. When I knew that he was so dreadfully out at elbows I never troubled him about it,--though, goodness knows, all that was never my fault." "The squire hates London. A fortnight there in warm weather would nearly be the death of him." "He might at any rate have paid me the compliment of asking me. The chances are ten to one I should not have gone. It is that indifference that cuts me so. He was here just now, and, would you believe it?--" But the doctor was determined to avoid further complaint for the present day. "I wonder what you would feel, Lady Arabella, if the squire were to take it into his head to go away and amuse himself, leaving you at home. There are worse men than Mr. Gresham, if you will believe me." All this was an allusion to Earl de Courcy, her ladyship's brother, as Lady Arabella very well understood; and the argument was one which was very often used to silence her. "Upon my word, then, I should like it better than his hanging about here doing nothing but attend to those nasty dogs. I really sometimes think that he has no spirit left." "You are mistaken there, Lady Arabella," said the doctor, rising with his hat in his hand and making his escape without further parley. As he went home he could not but think that that phase of married life was not a very pleasant one. Mr. Gresham and his wife were supposed by the world to live on the best of terms. They always inhabited the same house, went out together when they did go out, always sat in their respective corners in the family pew, and in their wildest dreams after the happiness of novelty never thought of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. In some respects--with regard, for instance, to the continued duration of their joint domesticity at the family mansion of Greshamsbury--they might have been taken for a pattern couple. But yet, as far as the doctor could see, they did not seem to add much to the happiness of each other. They loved each other, doubtless, and had either of them been in real danger, that danger would have made the other miserable; but yet it might well be a question whether either would not be more comfortable without the other. The doctor, as was his custom, dined at five, and at seven he went up to the cottage of his old friend Lady Scatcherd. Lady Scatcherd was not a refined woman, having in her early days been a labourer's daughter and having then married a labourer. But her husband had risen in the world--as has been told in those chronicles before mentioned,--and his widow was now Lady Scatcherd with a pretty cottage and a good jointure. She was in all things the very opposite to Lady Arabella Gresham; nevertheless, under the doctor's auspices, the two ladies were in some measure acquainted with each other. Of her married life, also, Dr. Thorne had seen something, and it may be questioned whether the memory of that was more alluring than the reality now existing at Greshamsbury. Of the two women Dr. Thorne much preferred his humbler friend, and to her he made his visits not in the guise of a doctor, but as a neighbour. "Well, my lady," he said, as he sat down by her on a broad garden seat--all the world called Lady Scatcherd "my lady,"--"and how do these long summer days agree with you? Your roses are twice better out than any I see up at the big house." "You may well call them long, doctor. They're long enough surely." "But not too long. Come, now, I won't have you complaining. You don't mean to tell me that you have anything to make you wretched? You had better not, for I won't believe you." "Eh; well; wretched! I don't know as I'm wretched. It'd be wicked to say that, and I with such comforts about me." "I think it would, almost." The doctor did not say this harshly, but in a soft, friendly tone, and pressing her hand gently as he spoke. "And I didn't mean to be wicked. I'm very thankful for everything--leastways, I always try to be. But, doctor, it is so lonely like." "Lonely! not more lonely than I am." "Oh, yes; you're different. You can go everywheres. But what can a lone woman do? I'll tell you what, doctor; I'd give it all up to have Roger back with his apron on and his pick in his hand. How well I mind his look when he'd come home o' nights." "And yet it was a hard life you had then, eh, old woman? It would be better for you to be thankful for what you've got." "I am thankful. Didn't I tell you so before?" said she, somewhat crossly. "But it's a sad life, this living alone. I declares I envy Hannah, 'cause she's got Jemima to sit in the kitchen with her. I want her to sit with me sometimes, but she won't." "Ah! but you shouldn't ask her. It's letting yourself down." "What do I care about down or up? It makes no difference, as he's gone. If he had lived one might have cared about being up, as you call it. Eh, deary; I'll be going after him before long, and it will be no matter then." "We shall all be going after him, sooner or later; that's sure enough." "Eh, dear, that's true, surely. It's only a span long, as Parson Oriel tells us when he gets romantic in his sermons. But it's a hard thing, doctor, when two is married, as they can't have their span, as he calls it, out together. Well, I must only put up with it, I suppose, as others does. Now, you're not going, doctor? You'll stop and have a dish of tea with me. You never see such cream as Hannah has from the Alderney cow. Do'ey now, doctor." But the doctor had his letter to write, and would not allow himself to be tempted even by the promise of Hannah's cream. So he went his way, angering Lady Scatcherd by his departure as he had before angered the squire, and thinking as he went which was most unreasonable in her wretchedness, his friend Lady Arabella, or his friend Lady Scatcherd. The former was always complaining of an existing husband who never refused her any moderate request; and the other passed her days in murmuring at the loss of a dead husband, who in his life had ever been to her imperious and harsh, and had sometimes been cruel and unjust. The doctor had his letter to write, but even yet he had not quite made up his mind what he would put into it; indeed, he had not hitherto resolved to whom it should be written. Looking at the matter as he had endeavoured to look at it, his niece, Mrs. Gresham, would be his correspondent; but if he brought himself to take this jump in the dark, in that case he would address himself direct to Miss Dunstable. He walked home, not by the straightest road, but taking a considerable curve, round by narrow lanes, and through thick flower-laden hedges,--very thoughtful. He was told that she wished to marry him; and was he to think only of himself? And as to that pride of his about money, was it in truth a hearty, manly feeling; or was it a false pride, of which it behoved him to be ashamed as it did of many cognate feelings? If he acted rightly in this matter, why should he be afraid of the thoughts of any one? A life of solitude was bitter enough, as poor Lady Scatcherd had complained. But then, looking at Lady Scatcherd, and looking also at his other near neighbour, his friend the squire, there was little thereabouts to lead him on to matrimony. So he walked home slowly through the lanes, very meditative, with his hands behind his back. Nor when he got home was he much more inclined to any resolute line of action. He might have drunk his tea with Lady Scatcherd, as well as have sat there in his own drawing-room, drinking it alone; for he got no pen and paper, and he dawdled over his teacup with the utmost dilatoriness, putting off, as it were, the evil day. To only one thing was he fixed--to this, namely, that that letter should be written before he went to bed. Having finished his tea, which did not take place till near eleven, he went downstairs to an untidy little room which lay behind his dep t of medicines, and in which he was wont to do his writing; and herein he did at last set himself down to his work. Even at that moment he was in doubt. But he would write his letter to Miss Dunstable and see how it looked. He was almost determined not to send it; so, at least, he said to himself: but he could do no harm by writing it. So he did write it, as follows:-- Greshamsbury, -- June, 185--. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,-- When he had got so far, he leaned back in his chair and looked at the paper. How on earth was he to find words to say that which he now wished to have said? He had never written such a letter in his life, or anything approaching to it, and now found himself overwhelmed with a difficulty of which he had not previously thought. He spent another half-hour in looking at the paper, and was at last nearly deterred by this new difficulty. He would use the simplest, plainest language, he said to himself over and over again; but it is not always easy to use simple, plain language,--by no means so easy as to mount on stilts, and to march along with sesquipedalian words, with pathos, spasms, and notes of interjection. But the letter did at last get itself written, and there was not a note of interjection in it. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,--I think it right to confess that I should not be now writing this letter to you, had I not been led to believe by other judgment than my own that the proposition which I am going to make would be regarded by you with favour. Without such other judgment I should, I own, have feared that the great disparity between you and me in regard to money would have given to such a proposition an appearance of being false and mercenary. All I ask of you now, with confidence, is to acquit me of such fault as that. When you have read so far you will understand what I mean. We have known each other now somewhat intimately, though indeed not very long, and I have sometimes fancied that you were almost as well pleased to be with me as I have been to be with you. If I have been wrong in this, tell me so simply, and I will endeavour to let our friendship run on as though this letter had not been written. But if I have been right, and if it be possible that you can think that a union between us will make us both happier than we are single, I will plight you my word and troth with good faith, and will do what an old man may do to make the burden of the world lie light upon your shoulders. Looking at my age I can hardly keep myself from thinking that I am an old fool: but I try to reconcile myself to that by remembering that you yourself are no longer a girl. You see that I pay you no compliments, and that you need expect none from me. I do not know that I could add anything to the truth of this, if I were to write three times as much. All that is necessary is, that you should know what I mean. If you do not believe me to be true and honest already, nothing that I can write will make you believe it. God bless you. I know you will not keep me long in suspense for an answer. Affectionately your friend, THOMAS THORNE. When he had finished he meditated again for another half-hour whether it would not be right that he should add something about her money. Would it not be well for him to tell her--it might be said in a postscript--that with regard to all her wealth she would be free to do what she chose? At any rate he owed no debts for her to pay, and would still have his own income, sufficient for his own purposes. But about one o'clock he came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave the matter alone. If she cared for him, and could trust him, and was worthy also that he should trust her, no omission of such a statement would deter her from coming to him: and if there were no such trust, it would not be created by any such assurance on his part. So he read the letter over twice, sealed it, and took it up, together with his bed candle, into his bed-room. Now that the letter was written it seemed to be a thing fixed by fate that it must go. He had written it that he might see how it looked when written; but now that it was written, there remained no doubt but that it must be sent. So he went to bed, with the letter on the toilette-table beside him; and early in the morning--so early as to make it seem that the importance of the letter had disturbed his rest--he sent it off by a special messenger to Boxall Hill. "I'se wait for an answer?" said the boy. "No," said the doctor: "leave the letter, and come away." The breakfast hour was not very early at Boxall Hill in these summer months. Frank Gresham, no doubt, went round his farm before he came in for prayers, and his wife was probably looking to the butter in the dairy. At any rate, they did not meet till near ten, and therefore, though the ride from Greshamsbury to Boxall Hill was nearly two hours' work, Miss Dunstable had her letter in her own room before she came down. She read it in silence as she was dressing, while the maid was with her in the room; but she made no sign which could induce her Abigail to think that the epistle was more than ordinarily important. She read it, and then quietly refolding it and placing it in the envelope, she put it down on the table at which she was sitting. It was full fifteen minutes afterwards that she begged her servant to see if Mrs. Gresham were still in her own room. "Because I want to see her for five minutes, alone, before breakfast," said Miss Dunstable. "You traitor; you false, black traitor!" were the first words which Miss Dunstable spoke when she found herself alone with her friend. "Why, what's the matter?" "I did not think there was so much mischief in you, nor so keen and commonplace a desire for match-making. Look here. Read the first four lines; not more, if you please; the rest is private. Whose is the other judgment of whom your uncle speaks in his letter?" "Oh, Miss Dunstable! I must read it all." "Indeed you'll do no such thing. You think it's a love-letter, I dare say; but indeed there's not a word about love in it." "I know he has offered. I shall be so glad, for I know you like him." "He tells me that I am an old woman, and insinuates that I may probably be an old fool." "I am sure he does not say that." "Ah! but I'm sure that he does. The former is true enough, and I never complain of the truth. But as to the latter, I am by no means so certain that it is true--not in the sense that he means it." "Dear, dearest woman, don't go on in that way now. Do speak out to me, and speak without jesting." "Whose was the other judgment to whom he trusts so implicitly? Tell me that." "Mine, mine, of course. No one else can have spoken to him about it. Of course I talked to him." "And what did you tell him?" "I told him--" "Well, out with it. Let me have the real facts. Mind, I tell you fairly that you had no right to tell him anything. What passed between us, passed in confidence. But let us hear what you did say." "I told him that you would have him if he offered." And Mrs. Gresham, as she spoke, looked into her friend's face doubtingly, not knowing whether in very truth Miss Dunstable were pleased with her or displeased. If she were displeased, then how had her uncle been deceived! "You told him that as a fact?" "I told him that I thought so." "Then I suppose I am bound to have him," said Miss Dunstable, dropping the letter on to the floor in mock despair. "My dear, dear, dearest woman!" said Mrs. Gresham, bursting into tears, and throwing herself on to her friend's neck. "Mind you are a dutiful niece," said Miss Dunstable. "And now let me go and finish dressing." In the course of the afternoon, an answer was sent back to Greshamsbury, in these words:-- DEAR DR. THORNE,--I do and will trust you in everything; and it shall be as you would have it. Mary writes to you; but do not believe a word she says. I never will again, for she has behaved so bad in this matter. Yours affectionately and very truly, MARTHA DUNSTABLE. "And so I am going to marry the richest woman in England," said Dr. Thorne to himself, as he sat down that day to his mutton-chop. CHAPTER XL. INTERNECINE. It must be conceived that there was some feeling of triumph at Plumstead Episcopi, when the wife of the rector returned home with her daughter, the bride elect of the Lord Dumbello. The heir of the Marquis of Hartletop was, in wealth, the most considerable unmarried young nobleman of the day; he was noted, too, as a man difficult to be pleased, as one who was very fine and who gave himself airs,--and to have been selected as the wife of such a man as this was a great thing for the daughter of a parish clergyman. We have seen in what manner the happy girl's mother communicated the fact to Lady Lufton, hiding, as it were, her pride under a veil; and we have seen also how meekly the happy girl bore her own great fortune, applying herself humbly to the packing of her clothes, as though she ignored her own glory. But nevertheless there was triumph at Plumstead Episcopi. The mother, when she returned home, began to feel that she had been thoroughly successful in the great object of her life. While she was yet in London she had hardly realized her satisfaction, and there were doubts then whether the cup might not be dashed from her lips before it was tasted. It might be that even the son of the Marquis of Hartletop was subject to

either

How many times the word 'either' appears in the text?

would have done a manifest injury to Miss Dunstable in forcing her to declare her thoughts and feelings. She had already spoken to her uncle in London, and though he had said nothing to show that he approved of her plan, neither had he said anything to show that he disapproved it. Therefore she had hoped through the whole of those three days that he would make some sign,--at any rate to her; that he would in some way declare what were his own thoughts on this matter. But the morning of his departure came, and he had declared nothing. "Uncle," she said, in the last five minutes of his sojourn there, after he had already taken leave of Miss Dunstable and shaken hands with Mrs. Gresham, "have you ever thought of what I said to you up in London?" "Yes, Mary; of course I have thought about it. Such an idea as that, when put into a man's head, will make itself thought about." "Well; and what next? Do talk to me about it. Do not be so hard and unlike yourself." "I have very little to say about it." "I can tell you this for certain, you may if you like." "Mary! Mary!" "I would not say so if I were not sure that I should not lead you into trouble." "You are foolish in wishing this, my dear; foolish in trying to tempt an old man into a folly." "Not foolish if I know that it will make you both happier." He made her no further reply, but stooping down that she might kiss him, as was his wont, went his way, leaving her almost miserable in the thought that she had troubled all these waters to no purpose. What would Miss Dunstable think of her? But on that afternoon Miss Dunstable seemed to be as happy and even-tempered as ever. CHAPTER XXXIX. HOW TO WRITE A LOVE LETTER. Dr. Thorne, in the few words which he spoke to his niece before he left Boxall Hill, had called himself an old man; but he was as yet on the right side of sixty by five good years, and bore about with him less of the marks of age than most men of fifty-five do bear. One would have said in looking at him that there was no reason why he should not marry if he found that such a step seemed good to him; and looking at the age of the proposed bride, there was nothing unsuitable in that respect. But nevertheless he felt almost ashamed of himself, in that he allowed himself even to think of the proposition which his niece had made. He mounted his horse that day at Boxall Hill--for he made all his journeys about the county on horseback--and rode slowly home to Greshamsbury, thinking not so much of the suggested marriage as of his own folly in thinking of it. How could he be such an ass at his time of life as to allow the even course of his way to be disturbed by any such idea? Of course he could not propose to himself such a wife as Miss Dunstable without having some thoughts as to her wealth; and it had been the pride of his life so to live that the world might know that he was indifferent about money. His profession was all in all to him,--the air which he breathed as well as the bread which he ate; and how could he follow his profession if he made such a marriage as this? She would expect him to go to London with her; and what would he become, dangling at her heels there, known only to the world as the husband of the richest woman in the town? The kind of life was one which would be unsuitable to him;--and yet, as he rode home, he could not resolve to rid himself of the idea. He went on thinking of it, though he still continued to condemn himself for keeping it in his thoughts. That night at home he would make up his mind, so he declared to himself; and would then write to his niece begging her to drop the subject. Having so far come to a resolution he went on meditating what course of life it might be well for him to pursue if he and Miss Dunstable should, after all, become man and wife. There were two ladies whom it behoved him to see on the day of his arrival--whom, indeed, he generally saw every day except when absent from Greshamsbury. The first of these--first in the general consideration of the people of the place--was the wife of the squire, Lady Arabella Gresham, a very old patient of the doctor's. Her it was his custom to visit early in the afternoon; and then, if he were able to escape the squire's daily invitation to dinner, he customarily went to the other, Lady Scatcherd, when the rapid meal in his own house was over. Such, at least, was his summer practice. "Well, doctor, how are they at Boxall Hill?" said the squire, waylaying him on the gravel sweep before the door. The squire was very hard set for occupation in these summer months. "Quite well, I believe." "I don't know what's come to Frank. I think he hates this place now. He's full of the election, I suppose." "Oh, yes; he told me to say he should be over here soon. Of course there'll be no contest, so he need not trouble himself." "Happy dog, isn't he, doctor? to have it all before him instead of behind him. Well, well; he's as good a lad as ever lived,--as ever lived. And let me see; Mary's time--" And then there were a few very important words spoken on that subject. "I'll just step up to Lady Arabella now," said the doctor. "She's as fretful as possible," said the squire. "I've just left her." "Nothing special the matter, I hope?" "No, I think not; nothing in your way, that is; only specially cross, which always comes in my way. You'll stop and dine to-day, of course?" "Not to-day, squire." "Nonsense; you will. I have been quite counting on you. I have a particular reason for wanting to have you to-day,--a most particular reason." But the squire always had his particular reasons. "I'm very sorry, but it is impossible to-day. I shall have a letter to write that I must sit down to seriously. Shall I see you when I come down from her ladyship?" The squire turned away sulkily, almost without answering him, for he now had no prospect of any alleviation to the tedium of the evening; and the doctor went up-stairs to his patient. For Lady Arabella, though it cannot be said that she was ill, was always a patient. It must not be supposed that she kept her bed and swallowed daily doses, or was prevented from taking her share in such prosy gaieties as came from time to time in the way of her prosy life; but it suited her turn of mind to be an invalid and to have a doctor; and as the doctor whom her good fates had placed at her elbow thoroughly understood her case, no great harm was done. "It frets me dreadfully that I cannot get to see Mary," Lady Arabella said, as soon as the first ordinary question as to her ailments had been asked and answered. "She's quite well and will be over to see you before long." "Now I beg that she won't. She never thinks of coming when there can be no possible objection, and travelling, at the present moment, would be--" Whereupon the Lady Arabella shook her head very gravely. "Only think of the importance of it, doctor," she said. "Remember the enormous stake there is to be considered." "It would not do her a ha'porth of harm if the stake were twice as large." "Nonsense, doctor, don't tell me; as if I didn't know myself. I was very much against her going to London this spring, but of course what I said was overruled. It always is. I do believe Mr. Gresham went over to Boxall Hill, on purpose to induce her to go. But what does he care? He's fond of Frank; but he never thinks of looking beyond the present day. He never did, as you know well enough, doctor." "The trip did her all the good in the world," said Dr. Thorne, preferring anything to a conversation respecting the squire's sins. "I very well remember that when I was in that way it wasn't thought that such trips would do me any good. But, perhaps, things are altered since then." "Yes, they are," said the doctor. "We don't interfere so much now-a-days." "I know I never asked for such amusements when so much depended on quietness. I remember before Frank was born--and, indeed, when all of them were born-- But as you say, things were different then; and I can easily believe that Mary is a person quite determined to have her own way." "Why, Lady Arabella, she would have stayed at home without wishing to stir if Frank had done so much as hold up his little finger." "So did I always. If Mr. Gresham made the slightest hint I gave way. But I really don't see what one gets in return for such implicit obedience. Now this year, doctor, of course I should have liked to have been up in London for a week or two. You seemed to think yourself that I might as well see Sir Omicron." "There could be no possible objection, I said." "Well; no; exactly; and as Mr. Gresham knew I wished it, I think he might as well have offered it. I suppose there can be no reason now about money." "But I understood that Mary specially asked you and Augusta?" "Yes; Mary was very good. She did ask me. But I know very well that Mary wants all the room she has got in London. The house is not at all too large for herself. And, for the matter of that, my sister, the countess, was very anxious that I should be with her. But one does like to be independent if one can, and for one fortnight I do think that Mr. Gresham might have managed it. When I knew that he was so dreadfully out at elbows I never troubled him about it,--though, goodness knows, all that was never my fault." "The squire hates London. A fortnight there in warm weather would nearly be the death of him." "He might at any rate have paid me the compliment of asking me. The chances are ten to one I should not have gone. It is that indifference that cuts me so. He was here just now, and, would you believe it?--" But the doctor was determined to avoid further complaint for the present day. "I wonder what you would feel, Lady Arabella, if the squire were to take it into his head to go away and amuse himself, leaving you at home. There are worse men than Mr. Gresham, if you will believe me." All this was an allusion to Earl de Courcy, her ladyship's brother, as Lady Arabella very well understood; and the argument was one which was very often used to silence her. "Upon my word, then, I should like it better than his hanging about here doing nothing but attend to those nasty dogs. I really sometimes think that he has no spirit left." "You are mistaken there, Lady Arabella," said the doctor, rising with his hat in his hand and making his escape without further parley. As he went home he could not but think that that phase of married life was not a very pleasant one. Mr. Gresham and his wife were supposed by the world to live on the best of terms. They always inhabited the same house, went out together when they did go out, always sat in their respective corners in the family pew, and in their wildest dreams after the happiness of novelty never thought of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. In some respects--with regard, for instance, to the continued duration of their joint domesticity at the family mansion of Greshamsbury--they might have been taken for a pattern couple. But yet, as far as the doctor could see, they did not seem to add much to the happiness of each other. They loved each other, doubtless, and had either of them been in real danger, that danger would have made the other miserable; but yet it might well be a question whether either would not be more comfortable without the other. The doctor, as was his custom, dined at five, and at seven he went up to the cottage of his old friend Lady Scatcherd. Lady Scatcherd was not a refined woman, having in her early days been a labourer's daughter and having then married a labourer. But her husband had risen in the world--as has been told in those chronicles before mentioned,--and his widow was now Lady Scatcherd with a pretty cottage and a good jointure. She was in all things the very opposite to Lady Arabella Gresham; nevertheless, under the doctor's auspices, the two ladies were in some measure acquainted with each other. Of her married life, also, Dr. Thorne had seen something, and it may be questioned whether the memory of that was more alluring than the reality now existing at Greshamsbury. Of the two women Dr. Thorne much preferred his humbler friend, and to her he made his visits not in the guise of a doctor, but as a neighbour. "Well, my lady," he said, as he sat down by her on a broad garden seat--all the world called Lady Scatcherd "my lady,"--"and how do these long summer days agree with you? Your roses are twice better out than any I see up at the big house." "You may well call them long, doctor. They're long enough surely." "But not too long. Come, now, I won't have you complaining. You don't mean to tell me that you have anything to make you wretched? You had better not, for I won't believe you." "Eh; well; wretched! I don't know as I'm wretched. It'd be wicked to say that, and I with such comforts about me." "I think it would, almost." The doctor did not say this harshly, but in a soft, friendly tone, and pressing her hand gently as he spoke. "And I didn't mean to be wicked. I'm very thankful for everything--leastways, I always try to be. But, doctor, it is so lonely like." "Lonely! not more lonely than I am." "Oh, yes; you're different. You can go everywheres. But what can a lone woman do? I'll tell you what, doctor; I'd give it all up to have Roger back with his apron on and his pick in his hand. How well I mind his look when he'd come home o' nights." "And yet it was a hard life you had then, eh, old woman? It would be better for you to be thankful for what you've got." "I am thankful. Didn't I tell you so before?" said she, somewhat crossly. "But it's a sad life, this living alone. I declares I envy Hannah, 'cause she's got Jemima to sit in the kitchen with her. I want her to sit with me sometimes, but she won't." "Ah! but you shouldn't ask her. It's letting yourself down." "What do I care about down or up? It makes no difference, as he's gone. If he had lived one might have cared about being up, as you call it. Eh, deary; I'll be going after him before long, and it will be no matter then." "We shall all be going after him, sooner or later; that's sure enough." "Eh, dear, that's true, surely. It's only a span long, as Parson Oriel tells us when he gets romantic in his sermons. But it's a hard thing, doctor, when two is married, as they can't have their span, as he calls it, out together. Well, I must only put up with it, I suppose, as others does. Now, you're not going, doctor? You'll stop and have a dish of tea with me. You never see such cream as Hannah has from the Alderney cow. Do'ey now, doctor." But the doctor had his letter to write, and would not allow himself to be tempted even by the promise of Hannah's cream. So he went his way, angering Lady Scatcherd by his departure as he had before angered the squire, and thinking as he went which was most unreasonable in her wretchedness, his friend Lady Arabella, or his friend Lady Scatcherd. The former was always complaining of an existing husband who never refused her any moderate request; and the other passed her days in murmuring at the loss of a dead husband, who in his life had ever been to her imperious and harsh, and had sometimes been cruel and unjust. The doctor had his letter to write, but even yet he had not quite made up his mind what he would put into it; indeed, he had not hitherto resolved to whom it should be written. Looking at the matter as he had endeavoured to look at it, his niece, Mrs. Gresham, would be his correspondent; but if he brought himself to take this jump in the dark, in that case he would address himself direct to Miss Dunstable. He walked home, not by the straightest road, but taking a considerable curve, round by narrow lanes, and through thick flower-laden hedges,--very thoughtful. He was told that she wished to marry him; and was he to think only of himself? And as to that pride of his about money, was it in truth a hearty, manly feeling; or was it a false pride, of which it behoved him to be ashamed as it did of many cognate feelings? If he acted rightly in this matter, why should he be afraid of the thoughts of any one? A life of solitude was bitter enough, as poor Lady Scatcherd had complained. But then, looking at Lady Scatcherd, and looking also at his other near neighbour, his friend the squire, there was little thereabouts to lead him on to matrimony. So he walked home slowly through the lanes, very meditative, with his hands behind his back. Nor when he got home was he much more inclined to any resolute line of action. He might have drunk his tea with Lady Scatcherd, as well as have sat there in his own drawing-room, drinking it alone; for he got no pen and paper, and he dawdled over his teacup with the utmost dilatoriness, putting off, as it were, the evil day. To only one thing was he fixed--to this, namely, that that letter should be written before he went to bed. Having finished his tea, which did not take place till near eleven, he went downstairs to an untidy little room which lay behind his dep t of medicines, and in which he was wont to do his writing; and herein he did at last set himself down to his work. Even at that moment he was in doubt. But he would write his letter to Miss Dunstable and see how it looked. He was almost determined not to send it; so, at least, he said to himself: but he could do no harm by writing it. So he did write it, as follows:-- Greshamsbury, -- June, 185--. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,-- When he had got so far, he leaned back in his chair and looked at the paper. How on earth was he to find words to say that which he now wished to have said? He had never written such a letter in his life, or anything approaching to it, and now found himself overwhelmed with a difficulty of which he had not previously thought. He spent another half-hour in looking at the paper, and was at last nearly deterred by this new difficulty. He would use the simplest, plainest language, he said to himself over and over again; but it is not always easy to use simple, plain language,--by no means so easy as to mount on stilts, and to march along with sesquipedalian words, with pathos, spasms, and notes of interjection. But the letter did at last get itself written, and there was not a note of interjection in it. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,--I think it right to confess that I should not be now writing this letter to you, had I not been led to believe by other judgment than my own that the proposition which I am going to make would be regarded by you with favour. Without such other judgment I should, I own, have feared that the great disparity between you and me in regard to money would have given to such a proposition an appearance of being false and mercenary. All I ask of you now, with confidence, is to acquit me of such fault as that. When you have read so far you will understand what I mean. We have known each other now somewhat intimately, though indeed not very long, and I have sometimes fancied that you were almost as well pleased to be with me as I have been to be with you. If I have been wrong in this, tell me so simply, and I will endeavour to let our friendship run on as though this letter had not been written. But if I have been right, and if it be possible that you can think that a union between us will make us both happier than we are single, I will plight you my word and troth with good faith, and will do what an old man may do to make the burden of the world lie light upon your shoulders. Looking at my age I can hardly keep myself from thinking that I am an old fool: but I try to reconcile myself to that by remembering that you yourself are no longer a girl. You see that I pay you no compliments, and that you need expect none from me. I do not know that I could add anything to the truth of this, if I were to write three times as much. All that is necessary is, that you should know what I mean. If you do not believe me to be true and honest already, nothing that I can write will make you believe it. God bless you. I know you will not keep me long in suspense for an answer. Affectionately your friend, THOMAS THORNE. When he had finished he meditated again for another half-hour whether it would not be right that he should add something about her money. Would it not be well for him to tell her--it might be said in a postscript--that with regard to all her wealth she would be free to do what she chose? At any rate he owed no debts for her to pay, and would still have his own income, sufficient for his own purposes. But about one o'clock he came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave the matter alone. If she cared for him, and could trust him, and was worthy also that he should trust her, no omission of such a statement would deter her from coming to him: and if there were no such trust, it would not be created by any such assurance on his part. So he read the letter over twice, sealed it, and took it up, together with his bed candle, into his bed-room. Now that the letter was written it seemed to be a thing fixed by fate that it must go. He had written it that he might see how it looked when written; but now that it was written, there remained no doubt but that it must be sent. So he went to bed, with the letter on the toilette-table beside him; and early in the morning--so early as to make it seem that the importance of the letter had disturbed his rest--he sent it off by a special messenger to Boxall Hill. "I'se wait for an answer?" said the boy. "No," said the doctor: "leave the letter, and come away." The breakfast hour was not very early at Boxall Hill in these summer months. Frank Gresham, no doubt, went round his farm before he came in for prayers, and his wife was probably looking to the butter in the dairy. At any rate, they did not meet till near ten, and therefore, though the ride from Greshamsbury to Boxall Hill was nearly two hours' work, Miss Dunstable had her letter in her own room before she came down. She read it in silence as she was dressing, while the maid was with her in the room; but she made no sign which could induce her Abigail to think that the epistle was more than ordinarily important. She read it, and then quietly refolding it and placing it in the envelope, she put it down on the table at which she was sitting. It was full fifteen minutes afterwards that she begged her servant to see if Mrs. Gresham were still in her own room. "Because I want to see her for five minutes, alone, before breakfast," said Miss Dunstable. "You traitor; you false, black traitor!" were the first words which Miss Dunstable spoke when she found herself alone with her friend. "Why, what's the matter?" "I did not think there was so much mischief in you, nor so keen and commonplace a desire for match-making. Look here. Read the first four lines; not more, if you please; the rest is private. Whose is the other judgment of whom your uncle speaks in his letter?" "Oh, Miss Dunstable! I must read it all." "Indeed you'll do no such thing. You think it's a love-letter, I dare say; but indeed there's not a word about love in it." "I know he has offered. I shall be so glad, for I know you like him." "He tells me that I am an old woman, and insinuates that I may probably be an old fool." "I am sure he does not say that." "Ah! but I'm sure that he does. The former is true enough, and I never complain of the truth. But as to the latter, I am by no means so certain that it is true--not in the sense that he means it." "Dear, dearest woman, don't go on in that way now. Do speak out to me, and speak without jesting." "Whose was the other judgment to whom he trusts so implicitly? Tell me that." "Mine, mine, of course. No one else can have spoken to him about it. Of course I talked to him." "And what did you tell him?" "I told him--" "Well, out with it. Let me have the real facts. Mind, I tell you fairly that you had no right to tell him anything. What passed between us, passed in confidence. But let us hear what you did say." "I told him that you would have him if he offered." And Mrs. Gresham, as she spoke, looked into her friend's face doubtingly, not knowing whether in very truth Miss Dunstable were pleased with her or displeased. If she were displeased, then how had her uncle been deceived! "You told him that as a fact?" "I told him that I thought so." "Then I suppose I am bound to have him," said Miss Dunstable, dropping the letter on to the floor in mock despair. "My dear, dear, dearest woman!" said Mrs. Gresham, bursting into tears, and throwing herself on to her friend's neck. "Mind you are a dutiful niece," said Miss Dunstable. "And now let me go and finish dressing." In the course of the afternoon, an answer was sent back to Greshamsbury, in these words:-- DEAR DR. THORNE,--I do and will trust you in everything; and it shall be as you would have it. Mary writes to you; but do not believe a word she says. I never will again, for she has behaved so bad in this matter. Yours affectionately and very truly, MARTHA DUNSTABLE. "And so I am going to marry the richest woman in England," said Dr. Thorne to himself, as he sat down that day to his mutton-chop. CHAPTER XL. INTERNECINE. It must be conceived that there was some feeling of triumph at Plumstead Episcopi, when the wife of the rector returned home with her daughter, the bride elect of the Lord Dumbello. The heir of the Marquis of Hartletop was, in wealth, the most considerable unmarried young nobleman of the day; he was noted, too, as a man difficult to be pleased, as one who was very fine and who gave himself airs,--and to have been selected as the wife of such a man as this was a great thing for the daughter of a parish clergyman. We have seen in what manner the happy girl's mother communicated the fact to Lady Lufton, hiding, as it were, her pride under a veil; and we have seen also how meekly the happy girl bore her own great fortune, applying herself humbly to the packing of her clothes, as though she ignored her own glory. But nevertheless there was triumph at Plumstead Episcopi. The mother, when she returned home, began to feel that she had been thoroughly successful in the great object of her life. While she was yet in London she had hardly realized her satisfaction, and there were doubts then whether the cup might not be dashed from her lips before it was tasted. It might be that even the son of the Marquis of Hartletop was subject to

dreadfully

How many times the word 'dreadfully' appears in the text?

would have done a manifest injury to Miss Dunstable in forcing her to declare her thoughts and feelings. She had already spoken to her uncle in London, and though he had said nothing to show that he approved of her plan, neither had he said anything to show that he disapproved it. Therefore she had hoped through the whole of those three days that he would make some sign,--at any rate to her; that he would in some way declare what were his own thoughts on this matter. But the morning of his departure came, and he had declared nothing. "Uncle," she said, in the last five minutes of his sojourn there, after he had already taken leave of Miss Dunstable and shaken hands with Mrs. Gresham, "have you ever thought of what I said to you up in London?" "Yes, Mary; of course I have thought about it. Such an idea as that, when put into a man's head, will make itself thought about." "Well; and what next? Do talk to me about it. Do not be so hard and unlike yourself." "I have very little to say about it." "I can tell you this for certain, you may if you like." "Mary! Mary!" "I would not say so if I were not sure that I should not lead you into trouble." "You are foolish in wishing this, my dear; foolish in trying to tempt an old man into a folly." "Not foolish if I know that it will make you both happier." He made her no further reply, but stooping down that she might kiss him, as was his wont, went his way, leaving her almost miserable in the thought that she had troubled all these waters to no purpose. What would Miss Dunstable think of her? But on that afternoon Miss Dunstable seemed to be as happy and even-tempered as ever. CHAPTER XXXIX. HOW TO WRITE A LOVE LETTER. Dr. Thorne, in the few words which he spoke to his niece before he left Boxall Hill, had called himself an old man; but he was as yet on the right side of sixty by five good years, and bore about with him less of the marks of age than most men of fifty-five do bear. One would have said in looking at him that there was no reason why he should not marry if he found that such a step seemed good to him; and looking at the age of the proposed bride, there was nothing unsuitable in that respect. But nevertheless he felt almost ashamed of himself, in that he allowed himself even to think of the proposition which his niece had made. He mounted his horse that day at Boxall Hill--for he made all his journeys about the county on horseback--and rode slowly home to Greshamsbury, thinking not so much of the suggested marriage as of his own folly in thinking of it. How could he be such an ass at his time of life as to allow the even course of his way to be disturbed by any such idea? Of course he could not propose to himself such a wife as Miss Dunstable without having some thoughts as to her wealth; and it had been the pride of his life so to live that the world might know that he was indifferent about money. His profession was all in all to him,--the air which he breathed as well as the bread which he ate; and how could he follow his profession if he made such a marriage as this? She would expect him to go to London with her; and what would he become, dangling at her heels there, known only to the world as the husband of the richest woman in the town? The kind of life was one which would be unsuitable to him;--and yet, as he rode home, he could not resolve to rid himself of the idea. He went on thinking of it, though he still continued to condemn himself for keeping it in his thoughts. That night at home he would make up his mind, so he declared to himself; and would then write to his niece begging her to drop the subject. Having so far come to a resolution he went on meditating what course of life it might be well for him to pursue if he and Miss Dunstable should, after all, become man and wife. There were two ladies whom it behoved him to see on the day of his arrival--whom, indeed, he generally saw every day except when absent from Greshamsbury. The first of these--first in the general consideration of the people of the place--was the wife of the squire, Lady Arabella Gresham, a very old patient of the doctor's. Her it was his custom to visit early in the afternoon; and then, if he were able to escape the squire's daily invitation to dinner, he customarily went to the other, Lady Scatcherd, when the rapid meal in his own house was over. Such, at least, was his summer practice. "Well, doctor, how are they at Boxall Hill?" said the squire, waylaying him on the gravel sweep before the door. The squire was very hard set for occupation in these summer months. "Quite well, I believe." "I don't know what's come to Frank. I think he hates this place now. He's full of the election, I suppose." "Oh, yes; he told me to say he should be over here soon. Of course there'll be no contest, so he need not trouble himself." "Happy dog, isn't he, doctor? to have it all before him instead of behind him. Well, well; he's as good a lad as ever lived,--as ever lived. And let me see; Mary's time--" And then there were a few very important words spoken on that subject. "I'll just step up to Lady Arabella now," said the doctor. "She's as fretful as possible," said the squire. "I've just left her." "Nothing special the matter, I hope?" "No, I think not; nothing in your way, that is; only specially cross, which always comes in my way. You'll stop and dine to-day, of course?" "Not to-day, squire." "Nonsense; you will. I have been quite counting on you. I have a particular reason for wanting to have you to-day,--a most particular reason." But the squire always had his particular reasons. "I'm very sorry, but it is impossible to-day. I shall have a letter to write that I must sit down to seriously. Shall I see you when I come down from her ladyship?" The squire turned away sulkily, almost without answering him, for he now had no prospect of any alleviation to the tedium of the evening; and the doctor went up-stairs to his patient. For Lady Arabella, though it cannot be said that she was ill, was always a patient. It must not be supposed that she kept her bed and swallowed daily doses, or was prevented from taking her share in such prosy gaieties as came from time to time in the way of her prosy life; but it suited her turn of mind to be an invalid and to have a doctor; and as the doctor whom her good fates had placed at her elbow thoroughly understood her case, no great harm was done. "It frets me dreadfully that I cannot get to see Mary," Lady Arabella said, as soon as the first ordinary question as to her ailments had been asked and answered. "She's quite well and will be over to see you before long." "Now I beg that she won't. She never thinks of coming when there can be no possible objection, and travelling, at the present moment, would be--" Whereupon the Lady Arabella shook her head very gravely. "Only think of the importance of it, doctor," she said. "Remember the enormous stake there is to be considered." "It would not do her a ha'porth of harm if the stake were twice as large." "Nonsense, doctor, don't tell me; as if I didn't know myself. I was very much against her going to London this spring, but of course what I said was overruled. It always is. I do believe Mr. Gresham went over to Boxall Hill, on purpose to induce her to go. But what does he care? He's fond of Frank; but he never thinks of looking beyond the present day. He never did, as you know well enough, doctor." "The trip did her all the good in the world," said Dr. Thorne, preferring anything to a conversation respecting the squire's sins. "I very well remember that when I was in that way it wasn't thought that such trips would do me any good. But, perhaps, things are altered since then." "Yes, they are," said the doctor. "We don't interfere so much now-a-days." "I know I never asked for such amusements when so much depended on quietness. I remember before Frank was born--and, indeed, when all of them were born-- But as you say, things were different then; and I can easily believe that Mary is a person quite determined to have her own way." "Why, Lady Arabella, she would have stayed at home without wishing to stir if Frank had done so much as hold up his little finger." "So did I always. If Mr. Gresham made the slightest hint I gave way. But I really don't see what one gets in return for such implicit obedience. Now this year, doctor, of course I should have liked to have been up in London for a week or two. You seemed to think yourself that I might as well see Sir Omicron." "There could be no possible objection, I said." "Well; no; exactly; and as Mr. Gresham knew I wished it, I think he might as well have offered it. I suppose there can be no reason now about money." "But I understood that Mary specially asked you and Augusta?" "Yes; Mary was very good. She did ask me. But I know very well that Mary wants all the room she has got in London. The house is not at all too large for herself. And, for the matter of that, my sister, the countess, was very anxious that I should be with her. But one does like to be independent if one can, and for one fortnight I do think that Mr. Gresham might have managed it. When I knew that he was so dreadfully out at elbows I never troubled him about it,--though, goodness knows, all that was never my fault." "The squire hates London. A fortnight there in warm weather would nearly be the death of him." "He might at any rate have paid me the compliment of asking me. The chances are ten to one I should not have gone. It is that indifference that cuts me so. He was here just now, and, would you believe it?--" But the doctor was determined to avoid further complaint for the present day. "I wonder what you would feel, Lady Arabella, if the squire were to take it into his head to go away and amuse himself, leaving you at home. There are worse men than Mr. Gresham, if you will believe me." All this was an allusion to Earl de Courcy, her ladyship's brother, as Lady Arabella very well understood; and the argument was one which was very often used to silence her. "Upon my word, then, I should like it better than his hanging about here doing nothing but attend to those nasty dogs. I really sometimes think that he has no spirit left." "You are mistaken there, Lady Arabella," said the doctor, rising with his hat in his hand and making his escape without further parley. As he went home he could not but think that that phase of married life was not a very pleasant one. Mr. Gresham and his wife were supposed by the world to live on the best of terms. They always inhabited the same house, went out together when they did go out, always sat in their respective corners in the family pew, and in their wildest dreams after the happiness of novelty never thought of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. In some respects--with regard, for instance, to the continued duration of their joint domesticity at the family mansion of Greshamsbury--they might have been taken for a pattern couple. But yet, as far as the doctor could see, they did not seem to add much to the happiness of each other. They loved each other, doubtless, and had either of them been in real danger, that danger would have made the other miserable; but yet it might well be a question whether either would not be more comfortable without the other. The doctor, as was his custom, dined at five, and at seven he went up to the cottage of his old friend Lady Scatcherd. Lady Scatcherd was not a refined woman, having in her early days been a labourer's daughter and having then married a labourer. But her husband had risen in the world--as has been told in those chronicles before mentioned,--and his widow was now Lady Scatcherd with a pretty cottage and a good jointure. She was in all things the very opposite to Lady Arabella Gresham; nevertheless, under the doctor's auspices, the two ladies were in some measure acquainted with each other. Of her married life, also, Dr. Thorne had seen something, and it may be questioned whether the memory of that was more alluring than the reality now existing at Greshamsbury. Of the two women Dr. Thorne much preferred his humbler friend, and to her he made his visits not in the guise of a doctor, but as a neighbour. "Well, my lady," he said, as he sat down by her on a broad garden seat--all the world called Lady Scatcherd "my lady,"--"and how do these long summer days agree with you? Your roses are twice better out than any I see up at the big house." "You may well call them long, doctor. They're long enough surely." "But not too long. Come, now, I won't have you complaining. You don't mean to tell me that you have anything to make you wretched? You had better not, for I won't believe you." "Eh; well; wretched! I don't know as I'm wretched. It'd be wicked to say that, and I with such comforts about me." "I think it would, almost." The doctor did not say this harshly, but in a soft, friendly tone, and pressing her hand gently as he spoke. "And I didn't mean to be wicked. I'm very thankful for everything--leastways, I always try to be. But, doctor, it is so lonely like." "Lonely! not more lonely than I am." "Oh, yes; you're different. You can go everywheres. But what can a lone woman do? I'll tell you what, doctor; I'd give it all up to have Roger back with his apron on and his pick in his hand. How well I mind his look when he'd come home o' nights." "And yet it was a hard life you had then, eh, old woman? It would be better for you to be thankful for what you've got." "I am thankful. Didn't I tell you so before?" said she, somewhat crossly. "But it's a sad life, this living alone. I declares I envy Hannah, 'cause she's got Jemima to sit in the kitchen with her. I want her to sit with me sometimes, but she won't." "Ah! but you shouldn't ask her. It's letting yourself down." "What do I care about down or up? It makes no difference, as he's gone. If he had lived one might have cared about being up, as you call it. Eh, deary; I'll be going after him before long, and it will be no matter then." "We shall all be going after him, sooner or later; that's sure enough." "Eh, dear, that's true, surely. It's only a span long, as Parson Oriel tells us when he gets romantic in his sermons. But it's a hard thing, doctor, when two is married, as they can't have their span, as he calls it, out together. Well, I must only put up with it, I suppose, as others does. Now, you're not going, doctor? You'll stop and have a dish of tea with me. You never see such cream as Hannah has from the Alderney cow. Do'ey now, doctor." But the doctor had his letter to write, and would not allow himself to be tempted even by the promise of Hannah's cream. So he went his way, angering Lady Scatcherd by his departure as he had before angered the squire, and thinking as he went which was most unreasonable in her wretchedness, his friend Lady Arabella, or his friend Lady Scatcherd. The former was always complaining of an existing husband who never refused her any moderate request; and the other passed her days in murmuring at the loss of a dead husband, who in his life had ever been to her imperious and harsh, and had sometimes been cruel and unjust. The doctor had his letter to write, but even yet he had not quite made up his mind what he would put into it; indeed, he had not hitherto resolved to whom it should be written. Looking at the matter as he had endeavoured to look at it, his niece, Mrs. Gresham, would be his correspondent; but if he brought himself to take this jump in the dark, in that case he would address himself direct to Miss Dunstable. He walked home, not by the straightest road, but taking a considerable curve, round by narrow lanes, and through thick flower-laden hedges,--very thoughtful. He was told that she wished to marry him; and was he to think only of himself? And as to that pride of his about money, was it in truth a hearty, manly feeling; or was it a false pride, of which it behoved him to be ashamed as it did of many cognate feelings? If he acted rightly in this matter, why should he be afraid of the thoughts of any one? A life of solitude was bitter enough, as poor Lady Scatcherd had complained. But then, looking at Lady Scatcherd, and looking also at his other near neighbour, his friend the squire, there was little thereabouts to lead him on to matrimony. So he walked home slowly through the lanes, very meditative, with his hands behind his back. Nor when he got home was he much more inclined to any resolute line of action. He might have drunk his tea with Lady Scatcherd, as well as have sat there in his own drawing-room, drinking it alone; for he got no pen and paper, and he dawdled over his teacup with the utmost dilatoriness, putting off, as it were, the evil day. To only one thing was he fixed--to this, namely, that that letter should be written before he went to bed. Having finished his tea, which did not take place till near eleven, he went downstairs to an untidy little room which lay behind his dep t of medicines, and in which he was wont to do his writing; and herein he did at last set himself down to his work. Even at that moment he was in doubt. But he would write his letter to Miss Dunstable and see how it looked. He was almost determined not to send it; so, at least, he said to himself: but he could do no harm by writing it. So he did write it, as follows:-- Greshamsbury, -- June, 185--. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,-- When he had got so far, he leaned back in his chair and looked at the paper. How on earth was he to find words to say that which he now wished to have said? He had never written such a letter in his life, or anything approaching to it, and now found himself overwhelmed with a difficulty of which he had not previously thought. He spent another half-hour in looking at the paper, and was at last nearly deterred by this new difficulty. He would use the simplest, plainest language, he said to himself over and over again; but it is not always easy to use simple, plain language,--by no means so easy as to mount on stilts, and to march along with sesquipedalian words, with pathos, spasms, and notes of interjection. But the letter did at last get itself written, and there was not a note of interjection in it. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,--I think it right to confess that I should not be now writing this letter to you, had I not been led to believe by other judgment than my own that the proposition which I am going to make would be regarded by you with favour. Without such other judgment I should, I own, have feared that the great disparity between you and me in regard to money would have given to such a proposition an appearance of being false and mercenary. All I ask of you now, with confidence, is to acquit me of such fault as that. When you have read so far you will understand what I mean. We have known each other now somewhat intimately, though indeed not very long, and I have sometimes fancied that you were almost as well pleased to be with me as I have been to be with you. If I have been wrong in this, tell me so simply, and I will endeavour to let our friendship run on as though this letter had not been written. But if I have been right, and if it be possible that you can think that a union between us will make us both happier than we are single, I will plight you my word and troth with good faith, and will do what an old man may do to make the burden of the world lie light upon your shoulders. Looking at my age I can hardly keep myself from thinking that I am an old fool: but I try to reconcile myself to that by remembering that you yourself are no longer a girl. You see that I pay you no compliments, and that you need expect none from me. I do not know that I could add anything to the truth of this, if I were to write three times as much. All that is necessary is, that you should know what I mean. If you do not believe me to be true and honest already, nothing that I can write will make you believe it. God bless you. I know you will not keep me long in suspense for an answer. Affectionately your friend, THOMAS THORNE. When he had finished he meditated again for another half-hour whether it would not be right that he should add something about her money. Would it not be well for him to tell her--it might be said in a postscript--that with regard to all her wealth she would be free to do what she chose? At any rate he owed no debts for her to pay, and would still have his own income, sufficient for his own purposes. But about one o'clock he came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave the matter alone. If she cared for him, and could trust him, and was worthy also that he should trust her, no omission of such a statement would deter her from coming to him: and if there were no such trust, it would not be created by any such assurance on his part. So he read the letter over twice, sealed it, and took it up, together with his bed candle, into his bed-room. Now that the letter was written it seemed to be a thing fixed by fate that it must go. He had written it that he might see how it looked when written; but now that it was written, there remained no doubt but that it must be sent. So he went to bed, with the letter on the toilette-table beside him; and early in the morning--so early as to make it seem that the importance of the letter had disturbed his rest--he sent it off by a special messenger to Boxall Hill. "I'se wait for an answer?" said the boy. "No," said the doctor: "leave the letter, and come away." The breakfast hour was not very early at Boxall Hill in these summer months. Frank Gresham, no doubt, went round his farm before he came in for prayers, and his wife was probably looking to the butter in the dairy. At any rate, they did not meet till near ten, and therefore, though the ride from Greshamsbury to Boxall Hill was nearly two hours' work, Miss Dunstable had her letter in her own room before she came down. She read it in silence as she was dressing, while the maid was with her in the room; but she made no sign which could induce her Abigail to think that the epistle was more than ordinarily important. She read it, and then quietly refolding it and placing it in the envelope, she put it down on the table at which she was sitting. It was full fifteen minutes afterwards that she begged her servant to see if Mrs. Gresham were still in her own room. "Because I want to see her for five minutes, alone, before breakfast," said Miss Dunstable. "You traitor; you false, black traitor!" were the first words which Miss Dunstable spoke when she found herself alone with her friend. "Why, what's the matter?" "I did not think there was so much mischief in you, nor so keen and commonplace a desire for match-making. Look here. Read the first four lines; not more, if you please; the rest is private. Whose is the other judgment of whom your uncle speaks in his letter?" "Oh, Miss Dunstable! I must read it all." "Indeed you'll do no such thing. You think it's a love-letter, I dare say; but indeed there's not a word about love in it." "I know he has offered. I shall be so glad, for I know you like him." "He tells me that I am an old woman, and insinuates that I may probably be an old fool." "I am sure he does not say that." "Ah! but I'm sure that he does. The former is true enough, and I never complain of the truth. But as to the latter, I am by no means so certain that it is true--not in the sense that he means it." "Dear, dearest woman, don't go on in that way now. Do speak out to me, and speak without jesting." "Whose was the other judgment to whom he trusts so implicitly? Tell me that." "Mine, mine, of course. No one else can have spoken to him about it. Of course I talked to him." "And what did you tell him?" "I told him--" "Well, out with it. Let me have the real facts. Mind, I tell you fairly that you had no right to tell him anything. What passed between us, passed in confidence. But let us hear what you did say." "I told him that you would have him if he offered." And Mrs. Gresham, as she spoke, looked into her friend's face doubtingly, not knowing whether in very truth Miss Dunstable were pleased with her or displeased. If she were displeased, then how had her uncle been deceived! "You told him that as a fact?" "I told him that I thought so." "Then I suppose I am bound to have him," said Miss Dunstable, dropping the letter on to the floor in mock despair. "My dear, dear, dearest woman!" said Mrs. Gresham, bursting into tears, and throwing herself on to her friend's neck. "Mind you are a dutiful niece," said Miss Dunstable. "And now let me go and finish dressing." In the course of the afternoon, an answer was sent back to Greshamsbury, in these words:-- DEAR DR. THORNE,--I do and will trust you in everything; and it shall be as you would have it. Mary writes to you; but do not believe a word she says. I never will again, for she has behaved so bad in this matter. Yours affectionately and very truly, MARTHA DUNSTABLE. "And so I am going to marry the richest woman in England," said Dr. Thorne to himself, as he sat down that day to his mutton-chop. CHAPTER XL. INTERNECINE. It must be conceived that there was some feeling of triumph at Plumstead Episcopi, when the wife of the rector returned home with her daughter, the bride elect of the Lord Dumbello. The heir of the Marquis of Hartletop was, in wealth, the most considerable unmarried young nobleman of the day; he was noted, too, as a man difficult to be pleased, as one who was very fine and who gave himself airs,--and to have been selected as the wife of such a man as this was a great thing for the daughter of a parish clergyman. We have seen in what manner the happy girl's mother communicated the fact to Lady Lufton, hiding, as it were, her pride under a veil; and we have seen also how meekly the happy girl bore her own great fortune, applying herself humbly to the packing of her clothes, as though she ignored her own glory. But nevertheless there was triumph at Plumstead Episcopi. The mother, when she returned home, began to feel that she had been thoroughly successful in the great object of her life. While she was yet in London she had hardly realized her satisfaction, and there were doubts then whether the cup might not be dashed from her lips before it was tasted. It might be that even the son of the Marquis of Hartletop was subject to

soon

How many times the word 'soon' appears in the text?

would have done a manifest injury to Miss Dunstable in forcing her to declare her thoughts and feelings. She had already spoken to her uncle in London, and though he had said nothing to show that he approved of her plan, neither had he said anything to show that he disapproved it. Therefore she had hoped through the whole of those three days that he would make some sign,--at any rate to her; that he would in some way declare what were his own thoughts on this matter. But the morning of his departure came, and he had declared nothing. "Uncle," she said, in the last five minutes of his sojourn there, after he had already taken leave of Miss Dunstable and shaken hands with Mrs. Gresham, "have you ever thought of what I said to you up in London?" "Yes, Mary; of course I have thought about it. Such an idea as that, when put into a man's head, will make itself thought about." "Well; and what next? Do talk to me about it. Do not be so hard and unlike yourself." "I have very little to say about it." "I can tell you this for certain, you may if you like." "Mary! Mary!" "I would not say so if I were not sure that I should not lead you into trouble." "You are foolish in wishing this, my dear; foolish in trying to tempt an old man into a folly." "Not foolish if I know that it will make you both happier." He made her no further reply, but stooping down that she might kiss him, as was his wont, went his way, leaving her almost miserable in the thought that she had troubled all these waters to no purpose. What would Miss Dunstable think of her? But on that afternoon Miss Dunstable seemed to be as happy and even-tempered as ever. CHAPTER XXXIX. HOW TO WRITE A LOVE LETTER. Dr. Thorne, in the few words which he spoke to his niece before he left Boxall Hill, had called himself an old man; but he was as yet on the right side of sixty by five good years, and bore about with him less of the marks of age than most men of fifty-five do bear. One would have said in looking at him that there was no reason why he should not marry if he found that such a step seemed good to him; and looking at the age of the proposed bride, there was nothing unsuitable in that respect. But nevertheless he felt almost ashamed of himself, in that he allowed himself even to think of the proposition which his niece had made. He mounted his horse that day at Boxall Hill--for he made all his journeys about the county on horseback--and rode slowly home to Greshamsbury, thinking not so much of the suggested marriage as of his own folly in thinking of it. How could he be such an ass at his time of life as to allow the even course of his way to be disturbed by any such idea? Of course he could not propose to himself such a wife as Miss Dunstable without having some thoughts as to her wealth; and it had been the pride of his life so to live that the world might know that he was indifferent about money. His profession was all in all to him,--the air which he breathed as well as the bread which he ate; and how could he follow his profession if he made such a marriage as this? She would expect him to go to London with her; and what would he become, dangling at her heels there, known only to the world as the husband of the richest woman in the town? The kind of life was one which would be unsuitable to him;--and yet, as he rode home, he could not resolve to rid himself of the idea. He went on thinking of it, though he still continued to condemn himself for keeping it in his thoughts. That night at home he would make up his mind, so he declared to himself; and would then write to his niece begging her to drop the subject. Having so far come to a resolution he went on meditating what course of life it might be well for him to pursue if he and Miss Dunstable should, after all, become man and wife. There were two ladies whom it behoved him to see on the day of his arrival--whom, indeed, he generally saw every day except when absent from Greshamsbury. The first of these--first in the general consideration of the people of the place--was the wife of the squire, Lady Arabella Gresham, a very old patient of the doctor's. Her it was his custom to visit early in the afternoon; and then, if he were able to escape the squire's daily invitation to dinner, he customarily went to the other, Lady Scatcherd, when the rapid meal in his own house was over. Such, at least, was his summer practice. "Well, doctor, how are they at Boxall Hill?" said the squire, waylaying him on the gravel sweep before the door. The squire was very hard set for occupation in these summer months. "Quite well, I believe." "I don't know what's come to Frank. I think he hates this place now. He's full of the election, I suppose." "Oh, yes; he told me to say he should be over here soon. Of course there'll be no contest, so he need not trouble himself." "Happy dog, isn't he, doctor? to have it all before him instead of behind him. Well, well; he's as good a lad as ever lived,--as ever lived. And let me see; Mary's time--" And then there were a few very important words spoken on that subject. "I'll just step up to Lady Arabella now," said the doctor. "She's as fretful as possible," said the squire. "I've just left her." "Nothing special the matter, I hope?" "No, I think not; nothing in your way, that is; only specially cross, which always comes in my way. You'll stop and dine to-day, of course?" "Not to-day, squire." "Nonsense; you will. I have been quite counting on you. I have a particular reason for wanting to have you to-day,--a most particular reason." But the squire always had his particular reasons. "I'm very sorry, but it is impossible to-day. I shall have a letter to write that I must sit down to seriously. Shall I see you when I come down from her ladyship?" The squire turned away sulkily, almost without answering him, for he now had no prospect of any alleviation to the tedium of the evening; and the doctor went up-stairs to his patient. For Lady Arabella, though it cannot be said that she was ill, was always a patient. It must not be supposed that she kept her bed and swallowed daily doses, or was prevented from taking her share in such prosy gaieties as came from time to time in the way of her prosy life; but it suited her turn of mind to be an invalid and to have a doctor; and as the doctor whom her good fates had placed at her elbow thoroughly understood her case, no great harm was done. "It frets me dreadfully that I cannot get to see Mary," Lady Arabella said, as soon as the first ordinary question as to her ailments had been asked and answered. "She's quite well and will be over to see you before long." "Now I beg that she won't. She never thinks of coming when there can be no possible objection, and travelling, at the present moment, would be--" Whereupon the Lady Arabella shook her head very gravely. "Only think of the importance of it, doctor," she said. "Remember the enormous stake there is to be considered." "It would not do her a ha'porth of harm if the stake were twice as large." "Nonsense, doctor, don't tell me; as if I didn't know myself. I was very much against her going to London this spring, but of course what I said was overruled. It always is. I do believe Mr. Gresham went over to Boxall Hill, on purpose to induce her to go. But what does he care? He's fond of Frank; but he never thinks of looking beyond the present day. He never did, as you know well enough, doctor." "The trip did her all the good in the world," said Dr. Thorne, preferring anything to a conversation respecting the squire's sins. "I very well remember that when I was in that way it wasn't thought that such trips would do me any good. But, perhaps, things are altered since then." "Yes, they are," said the doctor. "We don't interfere so much now-a-days." "I know I never asked for such amusements when so much depended on quietness. I remember before Frank was born--and, indeed, when all of them were born-- But as you say, things were different then; and I can easily believe that Mary is a person quite determined to have her own way." "Why, Lady Arabella, she would have stayed at home without wishing to stir if Frank had done so much as hold up his little finger." "So did I always. If Mr. Gresham made the slightest hint I gave way. But I really don't see what one gets in return for such implicit obedience. Now this year, doctor, of course I should have liked to have been up in London for a week or two. You seemed to think yourself that I might as well see Sir Omicron." "There could be no possible objection, I said." "Well; no; exactly; and as Mr. Gresham knew I wished it, I think he might as well have offered it. I suppose there can be no reason now about money." "But I understood that Mary specially asked you and Augusta?" "Yes; Mary was very good. She did ask me. But I know very well that Mary wants all the room she has got in London. The house is not at all too large for herself. And, for the matter of that, my sister, the countess, was very anxious that I should be with her. But one does like to be independent if one can, and for one fortnight I do think that Mr. Gresham might have managed it. When I knew that he was so dreadfully out at elbows I never troubled him about it,--though, goodness knows, all that was never my fault." "The squire hates London. A fortnight there in warm weather would nearly be the death of him." "He might at any rate have paid me the compliment of asking me. The chances are ten to one I should not have gone. It is that indifference that cuts me so. He was here just now, and, would you believe it?--" But the doctor was determined to avoid further complaint for the present day. "I wonder what you would feel, Lady Arabella, if the squire were to take it into his head to go away and amuse himself, leaving you at home. There are worse men than Mr. Gresham, if you will believe me." All this was an allusion to Earl de Courcy, her ladyship's brother, as Lady Arabella very well understood; and the argument was one which was very often used to silence her. "Upon my word, then, I should like it better than his hanging about here doing nothing but attend to those nasty dogs. I really sometimes think that he has no spirit left." "You are mistaken there, Lady Arabella," said the doctor, rising with his hat in his hand and making his escape without further parley. As he went home he could not but think that that phase of married life was not a very pleasant one. Mr. Gresham and his wife were supposed by the world to live on the best of terms. They always inhabited the same house, went out together when they did go out, always sat in their respective corners in the family pew, and in their wildest dreams after the happiness of novelty never thought of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. In some respects--with regard, for instance, to the continued duration of their joint domesticity at the family mansion of Greshamsbury--they might have been taken for a pattern couple. But yet, as far as the doctor could see, they did not seem to add much to the happiness of each other. They loved each other, doubtless, and had either of them been in real danger, that danger would have made the other miserable; but yet it might well be a question whether either would not be more comfortable without the other. The doctor, as was his custom, dined at five, and at seven he went up to the cottage of his old friend Lady Scatcherd. Lady Scatcherd was not a refined woman, having in her early days been a labourer's daughter and having then married a labourer. But her husband had risen in the world--as has been told in those chronicles before mentioned,--and his widow was now Lady Scatcherd with a pretty cottage and a good jointure. She was in all things the very opposite to Lady Arabella Gresham; nevertheless, under the doctor's auspices, the two ladies were in some measure acquainted with each other. Of her married life, also, Dr. Thorne had seen something, and it may be questioned whether the memory of that was more alluring than the reality now existing at Greshamsbury. Of the two women Dr. Thorne much preferred his humbler friend, and to her he made his visits not in the guise of a doctor, but as a neighbour. "Well, my lady," he said, as he sat down by her on a broad garden seat--all the world called Lady Scatcherd "my lady,"--"and how do these long summer days agree with you? Your roses are twice better out than any I see up at the big house." "You may well call them long, doctor. They're long enough surely." "But not too long. Come, now, I won't have you complaining. You don't mean to tell me that you have anything to make you wretched? You had better not, for I won't believe you." "Eh; well; wretched! I don't know as I'm wretched. It'd be wicked to say that, and I with such comforts about me." "I think it would, almost." The doctor did not say this harshly, but in a soft, friendly tone, and pressing her hand gently as he spoke. "And I didn't mean to be wicked. I'm very thankful for everything--leastways, I always try to be. But, doctor, it is so lonely like." "Lonely! not more lonely than I am." "Oh, yes; you're different. You can go everywheres. But what can a lone woman do? I'll tell you what, doctor; I'd give it all up to have Roger back with his apron on and his pick in his hand. How well I mind his look when he'd come home o' nights." "And yet it was a hard life you had then, eh, old woman? It would be better for you to be thankful for what you've got." "I am thankful. Didn't I tell you so before?" said she, somewhat crossly. "But it's a sad life, this living alone. I declares I envy Hannah, 'cause she's got Jemima to sit in the kitchen with her. I want her to sit with me sometimes, but she won't." "Ah! but you shouldn't ask her. It's letting yourself down." "What do I care about down or up? It makes no difference, as he's gone. If he had lived one might have cared about being up, as you call it. Eh, deary; I'll be going after him before long, and it will be no matter then." "We shall all be going after him, sooner or later; that's sure enough." "Eh, dear, that's true, surely. It's only a span long, as Parson Oriel tells us when he gets romantic in his sermons. But it's a hard thing, doctor, when two is married, as they can't have their span, as he calls it, out together. Well, I must only put up with it, I suppose, as others does. Now, you're not going, doctor? You'll stop and have a dish of tea with me. You never see such cream as Hannah has from the Alderney cow. Do'ey now, doctor." But the doctor had his letter to write, and would not allow himself to be tempted even by the promise of Hannah's cream. So he went his way, angering Lady Scatcherd by his departure as he had before angered the squire, and thinking as he went which was most unreasonable in her wretchedness, his friend Lady Arabella, or his friend Lady Scatcherd. The former was always complaining of an existing husband who never refused her any moderate request; and the other passed her days in murmuring at the loss of a dead husband, who in his life had ever been to her imperious and harsh, and had sometimes been cruel and unjust. The doctor had his letter to write, but even yet he had not quite made up his mind what he would put into it; indeed, he had not hitherto resolved to whom it should be written. Looking at the matter as he had endeavoured to look at it, his niece, Mrs. Gresham, would be his correspondent; but if he brought himself to take this jump in the dark, in that case he would address himself direct to Miss Dunstable. He walked home, not by the straightest road, but taking a considerable curve, round by narrow lanes, and through thick flower-laden hedges,--very thoughtful. He was told that she wished to marry him; and was he to think only of himself? And as to that pride of his about money, was it in truth a hearty, manly feeling; or was it a false pride, of which it behoved him to be ashamed as it did of many cognate feelings? If he acted rightly in this matter, why should he be afraid of the thoughts of any one? A life of solitude was bitter enough, as poor Lady Scatcherd had complained. But then, looking at Lady Scatcherd, and looking also at his other near neighbour, his friend the squire, there was little thereabouts to lead him on to matrimony. So he walked home slowly through the lanes, very meditative, with his hands behind his back. Nor when he got home was he much more inclined to any resolute line of action. He might have drunk his tea with Lady Scatcherd, as well as have sat there in his own drawing-room, drinking it alone; for he got no pen and paper, and he dawdled over his teacup with the utmost dilatoriness, putting off, as it were, the evil day. To only one thing was he fixed--to this, namely, that that letter should be written before he went to bed. Having finished his tea, which did not take place till near eleven, he went downstairs to an untidy little room which lay behind his dep t of medicines, and in which he was wont to do his writing; and herein he did at last set himself down to his work. Even at that moment he was in doubt. But he would write his letter to Miss Dunstable and see how it looked. He was almost determined not to send it; so, at least, he said to himself: but he could do no harm by writing it. So he did write it, as follows:-- Greshamsbury, -- June, 185--. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,-- When he had got so far, he leaned back in his chair and looked at the paper. How on earth was he to find words to say that which he now wished to have said? He had never written such a letter in his life, or anything approaching to it, and now found himself overwhelmed with a difficulty of which he had not previously thought. He spent another half-hour in looking at the paper, and was at last nearly deterred by this new difficulty. He would use the simplest, plainest language, he said to himself over and over again; but it is not always easy to use simple, plain language,--by no means so easy as to mount on stilts, and to march along with sesquipedalian words, with pathos, spasms, and notes of interjection. But the letter did at last get itself written, and there was not a note of interjection in it. MY DEAR MISS DUNSTABLE,--I think it right to confess that I should not be now writing this letter to you, had I not been led to believe by other judgment than my own that the proposition which I am going to make would be regarded by you with favour. Without such other judgment I should, I own, have feared that the great disparity between you and me in regard to money would have given to such a proposition an appearance of being false and mercenary. All I ask of you now, with confidence, is to acquit me of such fault as that. When you have read so far you will understand what I mean. We have known each other now somewhat intimately, though indeed not very long, and I have sometimes fancied that you were almost as well pleased to be with me as I have been to be with you. If I have been wrong in this, tell me so simply, and I will endeavour to let our friendship run on as though this letter had not been written. But if I have been right, and if it be possible that you can think that a union between us will make us both happier than we are single, I will plight you my word and troth with good faith, and will do what an old man may do to make the burden of the world lie light upon your shoulders. Looking at my age I can hardly keep myself from thinking that I am an old fool: but I try to reconcile myself to that by remembering that you yourself are no longer a girl. You see that I pay you no compliments, and that you need expect none from me. I do not know that I could add anything to the truth of this, if I were to write three times as much. All that is necessary is, that you should know what I mean. If you do not believe me to be true and honest already, nothing that I can write will make you believe it. God bless you. I know you will not keep me long in suspense for an answer. Affectionately your friend, THOMAS THORNE. When he had finished he meditated again for another half-hour whether it would not be right that he should add something about her money. Would it not be well for him to tell her--it might be said in a postscript--that with regard to all her wealth she would be free to do what she chose? At any rate he owed no debts for her to pay, and would still have his own income, sufficient for his own purposes. But about one o'clock he came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave the matter alone. If she cared for him, and could trust him, and was worthy also that he should trust her, no omission of such a statement would deter her from coming to him: and if there were no such trust, it would not be created by any such assurance on his part. So he read the letter over twice, sealed it, and took it up, together with his bed candle, into his bed-room. Now that the letter was written it seemed to be a thing fixed by fate that it must go. He had written it that he might see how it looked when written; but now that it was written, there remained no doubt but that it must be sent. So he went to bed, with the letter on the toilette-table beside him; and early in the morning--so early as to make it seem that the importance of the letter had disturbed his rest--he sent it off by a special messenger to Boxall Hill. "I'se wait for an answer?" said the boy. "No," said the doctor: "leave the letter, and come away." The breakfast hour was not very early at Boxall Hill in these summer months. Frank Gresham, no doubt, went round his farm before he came in for prayers, and his wife was probably looking to the butter in the dairy. At any rate, they did not meet till near ten, and therefore, though the ride from Greshamsbury to Boxall Hill was nearly two hours' work, Miss Dunstable had her letter in her own room before she came down. She read it in silence as she was dressing, while the maid was with her in the room; but she made no sign which could induce her Abigail to think that the epistle was more than ordinarily important. She read it, and then quietly refolding it and placing it in the envelope, she put it down on the table at which she was sitting. It was full fifteen minutes afterwards that she begged her servant to see if Mrs. Gresham were still in her own room. "Because I want to see her for five minutes, alone, before breakfast," said Miss Dunstable. "You traitor; you false, black traitor!" were the first words which Miss Dunstable spoke when she found herself alone with her friend. "Why, what's the matter?" "I did not think there was so much mischief in you, nor so keen and commonplace a desire for match-making. Look here. Read the first four lines; not more, if you please; the rest is private. Whose is the other judgment of whom your uncle speaks in his letter?" "Oh, Miss Dunstable! I must read it all." "Indeed you'll do no such thing. You think it's a love-letter, I dare say; but indeed there's not a word about love in it." "I know he has offered. I shall be so glad, for I know you like him." "He tells me that I am an old woman, and insinuates that I may probably be an old fool." "I am sure he does not say that." "Ah! but I'm sure that he does. The former is true enough, and I never complain of the truth. But as to the latter, I am by no means so certain that it is true--not in the sense that he means it." "Dear, dearest woman, don't go on in that way now. Do speak out to me, and speak without jesting." "Whose was the other judgment to whom he trusts so implicitly? Tell me that." "Mine, mine, of course. No one else can have spoken to him about it. Of course I talked to him." "And what did you tell him?" "I told him--" "Well, out with it. Let me have the real facts. Mind, I tell you fairly that you had no right to tell him anything. What passed between us, passed in confidence. But let us hear what you did say." "I told him that you would have him if he offered." And Mrs. Gresham, as she spoke, looked into her friend's face doubtingly, not knowing whether in very truth Miss Dunstable were pleased with her or displeased. If she were displeased, then how had her uncle been deceived! "You told him that as a fact?" "I told him that I thought so." "Then I suppose I am bound to have him," said Miss Dunstable, dropping the letter on to the floor in mock despair. "My dear, dear, dearest woman!" said Mrs. Gresham, bursting into tears, and throwing herself on to her friend's neck. "Mind you are a dutiful niece," said Miss Dunstable. "And now let me go and finish dressing." In the course of the afternoon, an answer was sent back to Greshamsbury, in these words:-- DEAR DR. THORNE,--I do and will trust you in everything; and it shall be as you would have it. Mary writes to you; but do not believe a word she says. I never will again, for she has behaved so bad in this matter. Yours affectionately and very truly, MARTHA DUNSTABLE. "And so I am going to marry the richest woman in England," said Dr. Thorne to himself, as he sat down that day to his mutton-chop. CHAPTER XL. INTERNECINE. It must be conceived that there was some feeling of triumph at Plumstead Episcopi, when the wife of the rector returned home with her daughter, the bride elect of the Lord Dumbello. The heir of the Marquis of Hartletop was, in wealth, the most considerable unmarried young nobleman of the day; he was noted, too, as a man difficult to be pleased, as one who was very fine and who gave himself airs,--and to have been selected as the wife of such a man as this was a great thing for the daughter of a parish clergyman. We have seen in what manner the happy girl's mother communicated the fact to Lady Lufton, hiding, as it were, her pride under a veil; and we have seen also how meekly the happy girl bore her own great fortune, applying herself humbly to the packing of her clothes, as though she ignored her own glory. But nevertheless there was triumph at Plumstead Episcopi. The mother, when she returned home, began to feel that she had been thoroughly successful in the great object of her life. While she was yet in London she had hardly realized her satisfaction, and there were doubts then whether the cup might not be dashed from her lips before it was tasted. It might be that even the son of the Marquis of Hartletop was subject to

grasping

How many times the word 'grasping' appears in the text?