The Project Gutenberg EBook of Second String, by Anthony Hope This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Second String Author: Anthony Hope Release Date: February 9, 2012 [EBook #38796] [Last updated: May 3, 2012] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECOND STRING *** Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Transcriber's Notes: Punctuation has been regularized. The following typographical corrections were made: p. 517 "dumurely" changed to "demurely" p. 536 "that's he" changed to "that he's" p. 539 "thing" changed to "think" SECOND STRING BY ANTHONY HOPE THOMAS NELSON AND SONS LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN, LEEDS, AND NEW YORK LEIPZIG: 35-37 Königstrasse. PARIS: 61 Rue des Saints Pères. First Published 1910. CONTENTS. I. Home Again 5 II. A Very Little Hunting 27 III. The Potent Voice 45 pg i pg ii pg iii IV. Settled Programmes 66 V. Broadening Life 87 VI. The Worlds of Meriton 106 VII. Entering for the Race 128 VIII. Wonderful Words 148 IX. "Interjection" 169 X. Friends in Need 190 XI. The Shawl by the Window 212 XII. Concerning a Stolen Kiss 235 XIII. A Lover Looks Pale 256 XIV. Saving the Nation 278 XV. Love and Fear 300 XVI. A Choice of Evils 321 XVII. Reformation 342 XVIII. Penitence and Problems 362 XIX. Marked Money 384 XX. No Good? 404 XXI. The Empty Place 424 XXII. Grubbing Away 446 XXIII. A Stop-Gap 468 XXIV. Pretty Much the Same! 490 XXV. The Last Fight 512 XXVI. Tales out of School for Once 533 XXVII. Not of his Seeking 555 SECOND STRING. Chapter I. HOME AGAIN. Jack Rock stood in his shop in High Street. He was not very often to be seen there nowadays; he bred and bought, but he no longer killed, and rarely sold, in person. These latter and lesser functions he left to his deputy, Simpson, for he had gradually developed a bye-trade which took up much of his time, and was no less profitable than his ostensible business. He bought horses, "made" them into hunters, and sold them again. He was a rare judge and a fine rider, and his heart was in this line of work. However to-day he was in his shop because the Christmas beef was on show. Here were splendid carcasses decked with blue rosettes, red rosettes, or cards of "Honourable Mention;" poor bodies sadly unconscious (as one may suppose all bodies are) of their posthumous glories. Jack Rock, a spruce spare little man with a thin red face and a get- up of the most "horsy" order, stood before them, expatiating to Simpson on their beauties. Simpson, who was as fat as his master was thin, and even redder in the face, chimed in; they were for all the world like a couple of critics hymning the praise of poets who have paid the debt of nature, but are decorated with the insignia of fame. Verily Jack Rock's shop in the days before Christmas might well seem an Abbey or a Pantheon of beasts. "Beef for me on Christmas Day," said Jack. "None of your turkeys or geese, or such-like truck. Beef!" He pointed to a blue-rosetted carcass. "Look at him; just look at him! I've known him since he was calved. Cuts up well, doesn't he? I'll have a joint off him for my own table, Simpson." "You couldn't do better, sir," said Simpson, just touching, careful not to bruise, the object of eulogy with his professional knife. A train of thought started suddenly in his brain. "Them vegetarians, sir!" he exclaimed. Was it wonder, or contempt, or such sheer horror as the devotee has for atheism? Or the depths of the first and the depths of the second poured into the depths of the third to make immeasurable profundity? A loud burst of laughter came from the door of the shop. Nothing startled Jack Rock. He possessed in perfection a certain cheerful seriousness which often marks the amateurs of the horse. These men are accustomed to take chances, pg iv pg 5 pg 6 pg 7 to encounter the unforeseen, to endure disappointment, to withstand the temptations of high success. Mens Aequa! Life, though a pleasant thing, is not a laughing matter. So Jack turned slowly and gravely round to see whence the irreverent interruption proceeded. But when he saw the intruder his face lit up, and he darted across the shop with outstretched hand. Simpson followed, hastily rubbing his right hand on the under side of his blue apron. "Welcome, my lad, welcome home!" cried Jack, as he greeted with a hard squeeze a young man who stood in the doorway. "First-rate you look too. He's filled out, eh, Simpson?" He tapped the young man's chest appreciatively, and surveyed his broad and massive shoulders with almost professional admiration. "Canada's agreed with you, Andy. Have you just got here?" "No; I got here two hours ago. You were out, so I left my bag and went for a walk round the old place. It seems funny to be in Meriton again." "Come into the office. We must drink your health. You too, Simpson. Come along." He led the way to a back room, where, amid more severe furniture and appliances, there stood a cask of beer. From this he filled three pint mugs, and Andy Hayes' health and safe return were duly honoured. Andy winked his eye. "Them teetotallers!" he ejaculated, with a very fair imitation of Simpson, who acknowledged the effort with an answering wink as he drained his mug and then left the other two to themselves. "Yes, I've been poking about everywhere—first up to have a look at the old house. Not much changed there—well, except that everything's changed by the dear old governor's not being there any more." "Ah, it was a black Christmas that year—four years ago now. First, the old gentleman; then poor Nancy, a month later. She caught the fever nursin' him; she would do it, and I couldn't stop her. Did you go to the churchyard, Andy?" "Yes, I went there." After a moment's grave pause his face brightened again. "And I went to the old school. Nobody there—it's holidays, of course—but how everything came back to me! There was my old seat, between Chinks and the Bird—you know? Wat Money, I mean, and young Tom Dove." "Oh, they're both in the place still. Tom Dove's helpin' his father at the Lion, and Wat Money's articled to old Mr. Foulkes the lawyer." "I sat down at my old desk, and, by Jove, I absolutely seemed to hear the old governor talking—talking about the Pentathlon. You've heard him talk about the Pentathlon? He was awfully keen on the Pentathlon; wanted to have it at the sports. I believe he thought I should win it." "I don't exactly remember what it was, but you'd have had a good go for it, Andy." "Leaping, running, wrestling, throwing the discus, hurling the spear—I think that's right. He was talking about it the very last day I sat at that desk—eight years ago! Yes, it's eight years since I went out to the war, and nearly five since I went to Canada. And I've never been back! Well, except for not seeing him and Nancy again, I'm glad of it. I've done better out there. There wasn't any opening here. I wasn't clever, and if I had been, there was no money to send me to Oxford, though the governor was always dreaming of that." "Naturally, seein' he was B.A. Oxon, and a gentleman himself," said Jack. He spoke in a tone of awe and admiration. Andy looked at him with a smile. Among the townsfolk of Meriton Andy's father had always been looked up to by reason of the letters after his name on the prospectus of the old grammar school, of which he had been for thirty years the hard-worked and very ill-paid headmaster. In Meriton eyes the letters carried an academical distinction great if obscure, a social distinction equally great and far more definite. They ranked Mr. Hayes with the gentry, and their existence had made his second marriage—with Jack Rock the butcher's sister—a mésalliance of a pronounced order. Jack himself was quite of this mind. He had always treated his brother-in-law with profound respect; even his great affection for his sister had never quite persuaded him that she had not been guilty of gross presumption in winning Mr. Hayes' heart. He could not, even as the second Mrs. Hayes' brother, forget the first —Andy's mother; for she, though the gentlest of women, had always called Jack "Butcher." True, that was in days before Jack had won his sporting celebrity and set up his private gig; but none the less it would have seemed impossible to conceive of a family alliance—even a posthumous one—with a lady whose recognition of him was so exclusively commercial. "Well, I'm not a B.A.—Oxon. or otherwise," laughed Andy. "I don't know whether I'm a gentleman. If I am, so are you. Meriton Grammar School is responsible for us both. And if you're in trade, so am I. What's the difference between timber and meat?" "I expect there's a difference between Meriton and Canada, though," Jack Rock opined shrewdly. "Are you goin' to stay at home, or goin' back?" pg 8 pg 9 pg 10 pg 11 "I shall stay here if I can develop the thing enough to make it pay to have a man on this side. If not, pack up! But I shall be here for the next six months anyway, I expect." "What's it worth to you?" asked Jack. "Oh, nothing much just now. Two hundred a year guaranteed, and a commission—if it's earned. But it looks like improving. Only the orders must come in before the commission does! However it's not so bad; I'm lucky to have found a berth at all." "Yes, lucky thing you got pals with that Canadian fellow down in South Africa." "A real stroke of luck. It was a bit hard to make up my mind not to come home with the boys, but I'm sure I did the right thing. Only I'm sorry about the old governor and Nancy." "The old gentleman himself told me he thought you'd done right." "It was an opening; and it had to be taken or left, then and there. So here I am, and I'm going to start an office in London." Jack Rock nodded thoughtfully; he seemed to be revolving something in his mind. Andy's eyes rested affectionately on him. The two had been great friends all through Andy's boyhood. Jack had been "Jack" to him long before he became a family connection, and "Jack" he had continued to be. As for the mésalliance—well, looking back, Andy could not with candour deny that it had been a surprise, perhaps even a shock. It had to some degree robbed him of the exceptional position he held in the grammar school, where, among the sons of tradesmen, he alone, or almost alone, enjoyed a vague yet real social prestige. The son shared the father's fall. The feeling of caste is very persistent, even though it may be shamed into silence by modern doctrines, or by an environment in which it is an alien plant. But he had got over his boyish feeling now, and was delighted to come back to Meriton as Jack Rock's visitor, and to stay with him at the comfortable little red-brick house adjoining the shop in High Street. In fact he flattered himself that his service in the ranks and his Canadian experiences had taken the last of "that sort of nonsense" out of him. It was, perhaps, a little too soon to pronounce so confident a judgment. Andy was smitten with a sudden compunction. "Why, I've never asked after Harry Belfield!" he cried. He was astonished at his own disloyalty. Harry Belfield had been the hero of his youth, his ideal, his touchstone of excellence in all things, the standard by which he humbly measured his own sore deficiencies, and contemptuously assessed the demerits of his schoolfellows. Of these Harry had not been one. No grammar school for him! He was the son of Mr. Belfield of Halton Park—Harrow and Oxford were the programme for him. The same favourable conditions gave him the opportunity—which, of course, he took—of excelling in all the accomplishments that Andy lacked and envied—riding, shooting, games of skill that cost money. The difference of position set a gulf between the two boys. Meetings had been rare events—to Andy always notable events, occasions of pleasure and of excitement, landmarks in memory. The acquaintance between the houses had been of the slightest. In Andy's earliest days Mr. and the first Mrs. Hayes had dined once a year with Mr. and Mrs. Belfield; they were not expected to return the hospitality. After Andy's mother died and Nancy came on the scene, the annual dinner had gone on, but it had become a men's dinner; and Mrs. Belfield, though she bowed in the street, had not called on the second Mrs. Hayes—Nancy Rock that had been. It was not to be expected. Yet Mr. Belfield had recognized an equal in Andy's father; he also, perhaps, yielded some homage to the B.A. Oxon. And Harry, though he undoubtedly drew a line between himself and Andy, drew another between Andy and Andy's schoolfellows, Chinks, the Bird, and the rest. He was rewarded—and to his worship-loving nature it was a reward—by an adoration due as much, perhaps, to the first line as to the second. The more definite a line, the more graciousness lies in stepping over it. These boyish devotions are common, and commonly are short-lived. But Andy's habit of mind was stable and his affections tenacious. He still felt that a meeting with Harry Belfield would be an event. "He's all right," Jack Rock answered, his tone hardly responding to Andy's eagerness. "He's a barrister now, you know; but I don't fancy he does much at it. Better at spendin' money than makin' it! If you want to see him, you can do it to- night." "Can I? How?" "There's talk of him bein' candidate for the Division next election, and he's goin' to speak at a meeting in the Town Hall to-night, him and a chap in Parliament." "Good! Which side is he?" "You've been a good while away to ask that!" "I suppose I have. I say, Jack, let's go." pg 12 pg 13 pg 14 pg 15 "You can go; I shan't," said Jack Rock. "You'll get back in time for supper—and need it too, I should say. I never listen to speeches except when they put me on a jury at assizes. Then I do like to hear a chap fight for his man. That's racin', that is; and I like specially, Andy, to see him bring it off when the odds are against him. But this politics—in my opinion, if you put their names in a hat and drew 'em blindfolded, you'd get just as good a Gover'ment as you do now, or just as bad." "Oh, I'm not going for the politics. I'm going to hear Harry Belfield." "The only question as particularly interests me," said Jack, with one of his occasional lapses into doubtful grammar, "is the matter of chilled meat. But which of 'em does anything for me there? One says 'Free Trade—let it all come!' The other says, 'No chilled meat, certainly not, unless it comes from British possessions'—which is where it does come from mostly. And it's ruin to the meat, Andy, in my opinion. I hate to see it. Not that I lose much by it, havin' a high-class connection. Would you like to have another look in the shop?" "Suppose we say to-morrow morning?" laughed Andy. Jack shook his head; he seemed disappointed at this lack of enthusiasm. "I've got some beauties this Christmas," he said. "All the same I shan't be lookin' at 'em much to-morrow mornin'! I've got a young horse, and I want just to show him what a foxhound's like. The meet's at Fyfold to-morrow, Andy. I wish I could mount you. I expect you ride fourteen, eh?" "Hard on it, I fancy—and I'm a fool on a horse anyhow. But I shall go—on shanks' mare." "Will you now? Well, if you're as good on your legs as you used to be, it's odds you'll see a bit of the run. I recollect you in the old days, Andy; you were hard to shake off unless the goin' was uncommon good. Knew the country, you did, and where the fox was likely to make for. And I don't think you'll get the scent too good for you to-morrow. Come along and have tea. Oh, but you're a late-dinner man, eh?" "Dinner when, where, and how it comes! Tea sounds capital—with supper after my meeting. I say, Jack, it's good to see you again!" "Wish you'd stay here, lad. I'm much alone these days—with the old gentleman gone, and poor Nancy gone!" "Perhaps I shall. Anyhow I might stay here for the summer, and go up to town to the office." "Aye, you might do that, anyhow." Again Jack Rock seemed meditative, as though he had an idea and were half- minded to disclose it. But he was a man of caution; he bided his time. Andy—nobody had ever called him Andrew since the parson who christened him—seemed to himself to have got home again, very thoroughly home again. Montreal with its swelling hill, its mighty river, its winter snow, its Frenchness, its opposing self-defensive, therefore self-assertive, Britishness, was very remote. A talk with Jack Rock, a Conservative meeting with a squire in the chair (that was safely to be assumed), a meet of the hounds next morning— these and a tide of intimate personal memories stamped him as at home again. The long years in the little house at the extreme end of Highcroft—Highcroft led out of High Street, tending to the west, Fyfold way—in the old grammar school, in the peace of the sleepy town—had been a poignant memory in South Africa, a fading dream in the city by the great river. They sprang again into actuality. If he felt a certain contraction in his horizon he felt also a peace in his mind. Meriton might or might not admire "hustlers;" it did not hustle itself. It was a parasitic little town; it had no manufactures, no special industry. It lived on the country surrounding it—on the peasants, the farmers, the landowners. So it did not grow; neither did it die. It remained much as it had been for hundreds of years, save that it was seriously considering the introduction of electric light. The meeting was rather of an impromptu order; Christmas holidays are generally held sacred from such functions. But Mr. Foot, M.P., a rising young member and a friend of Harry Belfield's, happened to be staying at Halton Park for shooting. Why waste him? He liked to speak, and he spoke very well. The more Harry showed himself and got himself heard, the better. The young men would enjoy it. A real good dinner beforehand would send them down in rare spirits. A bit of supper, with a whisky-and-soda or two, and recollections of their own "scores," would end the evening pleasantly. Meriton would not be excited—it was not election time—but it would be amused, benevolent, and present in sufficiently large numbers to make the thing go with éclat. There was, indeed, one topic which, from a platform at all events, one could describe as "burning." A Bill dealing with the sale of intoxicating liquor had, the session before, been introduced as the minimum a self-respecting nation could do, abused as the maximum fanatics could clamour for, carried through a second reading considerably amended, and squeezed out by other matters. It was to be re-introduced. The nation was recommended to consider the question in the interval. Now the nation, though professing its entire desire to be sober—it could not well do anything else—was not sure that it desired to be made sober, was not quite clear as to the precise point at which it could or could not be held to be sober, and felt that the argument that it would, by the gradual progress of general culture, become sober in the next generation or so—without feeling the change, so to say, and with no violent break in the habits of this generation (certainly everybody must wish the next generation to be sober)—that this argument, which men of pg 16 pg 17 pg 18 pg 19 indisputable wisdom adduced, had great attractions. Also the nation was much afraid of the teetotallers, especially of the subtle ones who said that true freedom lay in freedom from temptation. The nation thought that sort of freedom not much worth having, whether in the matter of drink or of any other pleasure. So there were materials for a lively and congenial discussion, and Mr. Foot, M.P., was already in the thick of it when Andy Hayes, rather late by reason of having been lured into the stables to see the hunters after tea, reached the Town Hall and sidled his way to a place against the wall in good view of the platform and of the front benches where the big-wigs sat. The Town Hall was quite two-thirds full—very good indeed for the Christmas season! Andy Hayes was not much of a politician. Up to now he had been content with the politics of his métier, the politics of a man trying to build up a business. But it was impossible not to enjoy Mr. Foot. He riddled the enemy with epigram till he fell to the earth, then he jumped on to his prostrate form and chopped it to pieces with logic. He set his audience wondering—this always happens at political meetings, whichever party may be in power—by what odd freak of fate, by what inexplicable blunder, the twenty men chosen to rule the country should be not only the twenty most unprincipled but also the twenty stupidest in it. Mr. Foot demonstrated the indisputable truth of this strange fact so cogently before he had been on his legs twenty minutes that gradually Andy felt absolved from listening any longer to so plain a matter; his attention began to wander to the company. It was a well-to-do audience—there were not many poor in Meriton. A few old folk might have to go to "the house," but there were no distress or "unemployment" troubles. The tradesfolk, their families, and employees formed the bulk. They were presided over by Mr. Wellgood of Nutley, who might be considered to hold the place of second local magnate, after Mr. Belfield of Halton. He was a spare, strongly built man of two or three and forty; his hair was clipped very close to his head; he wore a bristly moustache just touched with gray, but it too was kept so short that the lines of his mouth, with its firm broad lips, were plain to see; his eyes were light-blue, hard, and wary; they seemed to keep a constant watch over the meeting, and once, when a scuffle arose among some children at the back of the hall, they gave out a fierce and formidable glance of rebuke. He had the reputation of being a strict master and a stern magistrate; but he was a good sportsman, and Jack Rock's nearest rival after the hounds. Beside him, waiting his turn to speak and seeming rather nervous—he was not such an old hand at the game as Mr. Foot—sat Andy's hero, Harry Belfield. He was the pet of the town for his gay manner, good looks, and cheery accessibility to every man—and even more to every woman. His youthful record was eminently promising, his career the subject of high hopes to his family and his fellow-citizens. Tall and slight, wearing his clothes with an elegance free from affectation, he suggested "class" and "blood" in every inch of him. He was rather pale, with thick, soft, dark hair; his blue eyes were vivacious and full of humour, his mouth a little small, but delicate and sensitive, the fingers of his hands long and tapering. "A thoroughbred" was the only possible verdict—evidently also a man full of sensibility, awake to the charms of life as well as to its labours; that was in keeping with all Andy's memories. The moment he rose it was obvious with what favour he was regarded; the audience was predisposed towards all he said. He was not so epigrammatic nor so cruelly logical as Mr. Foot; he was easier, more colloquial, more confidential; he had some chaff for his hearers as well as denunciation for his enemies; his speech was seasoned now by a local allusion, now by a sporting simile. A veteran might have found its strongest point of promise in its power of adaptation to the listeners, its gift of creating sympathy between them and the speaker by the grace of a very attractive personality. It was a success, perhaps, more of charm than of strength; but it may be doubted whether in the end the one does not carry as far as the other. On good terms as he was with them all, it soon became evident to so interested an onlooker as Andy Hayes that he was on specially good terms, or at any rate anxious to be, in one particular quarter. After he had made a point and was waiting for the applause to die down, not once but three or four times he smiled directly towards the front row, and towards that part of it where two young women sat side by side. They were among his most enthusiastic auditors, and Andy presently found himself, by a natural leaning towards any one who admired Harry Belfield, according to them a share of the attention which had hitherto been given exclusively to the hero himself. The pair made a strong contrast. There was a difference of six or seven years only in their ages, but while the one seemed scarcely more than a child, it was hard to think of the other as even a girl—there was about her such an air of self-possession, of conscious strength, of a maturity of faculties. Even in applauding she seemed also to judge and assess. Her favour was discriminating; she let the more easy hits go by with a slight, rather tolerant smile, while her neighbour greeted them with outright merry laughter. She was not much beyond medium height, but of full build, laid on ample lines; her features were rather large, and her face wore, in repose, a thoughtful tranquillity. The other, small, frail, and delicate, with large eyes that seemed to wonder even as she laughed, would turn to her friend with each laugh and appear to ask her sympathy—or even her permission to be pleased. Andy's scrutiny—somewhat prolonged since it yielded him all the above particulars—was ended by his becoming aware that he in his turn was the object of an attention not less thoroughgoing. Turning back to the platform, he found the chairman's hard and alert eyes fixed on him in a gaze that plainly asked who he was and why he was so much interested in the two girls. Andy blushed in confusion at being caught, but Mr. Wellgood made no haste to relieve him from his rebuking glance. He held him under it for full half a minute, turning away, indeed, only when Harry sat down among the cheers of the meeting. What business was it of Wellgood's if Andy did forget his manners and stare too hard at the girls? The next moment Andy laughed at himself for the question. In a sudden flash he remembered the younger pg 20 pg 21 pg 22 pg 23 pg 24 girl. She was Wellgood's daughter Vivien. He recalled her now as a little child; he remembered the wondering eyes and the timidly mirthful curl of her lips. Was it really as long ago as that since he had been in Meriton? However childlike she might look, now she was grown-up! His thoughts, which carried him through the few sentences with which the chairman dismissed the meeting, were scattered by the sudden grasp of Harry Belfield's hand. The moment he saw Andy he ran down from the platform to him. His greeting was all his worshipper could ask. "Well now, I am glad to see you back!" he cried. "Oh, we all heard how well you'd done out at the front, and we thought it too bad of you not to come back and be lionized. But here you are at last, and it's all right. I must take Billy Foot home now—he's got to go to town at heaven knows what hour in the morning—but we must have a good jaw soon. Are you at the Lion?" "No," said Andy, "I'm staying a day or two with Jack Rock." "With Jack Rock?" Harry's voice sounded surprised. "Oh yes, of course, I remember! He's a capital chap, old Jack! But if you're going to stay—and I hope you are, old fellow—you'll want some sort of a place of your own, won't you? Well, good-night. I'll hunt you up some time in the next day or two, for certain. Did you like my speech?" "Yes, and I expected you to make a good one." "You shall hear me make better ones than that. Well, I really must—All right, Billy, I'm coming." With another clasp of the hand he rushed after Mr. Foot, who was undisguisedly in a hurry, shouting as he went, "Good-night, Wellgood! Good-night, Vivien! Good-night, Miss Vintry!" Miss Vintry—that was the other girl, the one with Vivien Wellgood. Andy was glad to know her name and docket her by it in her place among the impressions of the evening. So home to a splendid round of cold beef and another pint of that excellent beer at Jack Rock's. What days life sometimes gives—or used to! Chapter II. A VERY LITTLE HUNTING. If more were needed to make a man feel at home—more than old Meriton itself, Jack Rock with his beef, and the clasp of Harry Belfield's hand—the meet of the hounds supplied it. There were hunts in other lands; Andy could not persuade himself that there were meets like this, so entirely English it seemed in the manner of it. Everybody was there, high and low, rich and poor, young and old. An incredible coincidence of unplausible accidents had caused an extraordinary number of people to have occasion to pass by Fyfold Green that morning at that hour, let alone all the folk who chanced to have a "morning off" and proposed to see some of the run, on horseback or on foot. The tradesmen's carts were there in a cluster, among them two of Jack Rock's: his boys knew that a blind eye would be turned to half an hour's lateness in the delivery of the customers' joints. For centre of the scene were the waving tails, the glossy impatient horses, the red coats, the Master himself, Lord Meriton, in his glory and, it may be added, in the peremptory mood which is traditionally associated with his office. Andy Hayes moved about, meeting many old friends—more, indeed, than he recognized, till a reminiscence of old days established for them again a place in his memory. He saw Tom Dove—the Bird—mounted on a showy screw. Wat Money—Chinks—was one of those who "happened to be passing" on his way to a client's who lived in the opposite direction. He gave Andy a friendly greeting, and told him that if he thought of taking a house in Meriton, he should be careful about his lease: Foulkes, Foulkes, and Askew would look after it. Jack Rock was there, of course, keeping himself to himself, on the outskirts of the throng: the young horse was nervous. Harry Belfield, in perfect array, talked to Vivien Wellgood, her father on a raking hunter close beside them. A great swell of home-feeling assailed Andy; suddenly he had a passionate hope that the timber business would develop; he did not want to go back to Canada. It was a good hunting morning, cloudy and cool, with the wind veering to the north-east and dropping as it veered. No frost yet, but the weather-wise predicted one before long. The scent should be good—a bit too good, Andy reflected, for riders on shanks' mare. Their turn is best served by a scent somewhat variable and elusive. A check here and there, a fresh cast, the hounds feeling for the scent—these things, added to a cunning use of short cuts and a knowledge of the country shared by the fox, aid them to keep on terms and see something of the run—just as they aid the heavy old gentlemen on big horses and the small boys on fat ponies to get their humble share of the sport. But in truth Andy cared little so that he could run—run hard, fast, and long. His powerful body craved work, work, and work yet more abundantly. His way of indulging it was to call on it for all its energies; he exulted in feeling its brave response. Fatigue he never knew—at least not till he had changed and bathed; and then it was not real fatigue: it was no more than satiety. Now when they had found—and they had the luck to find directly—he revelled in the heavy going of a big ploughed field. He was at the game he loved. pg 25 pg 26 pg 27 pg 28 pg 29 Yes, but the pace was good—distinctly good. The spirit was willing, but human legs are but human, and only two in number. Craft was required. The fox ran straight now—but had he never a thought in his mind? The field streamed off to the right, lengthening out as it went. Andy bore to his left: he remembered Croxton's Dip. Did the fox? That was the question. If he did, the hunt would describe the two sides of a triangle, while Andy cut across the base. He was out of sight of the field now, but he could hear the hounds giving tongue from time to time and the thud of the hoofs. The sounds grew nearer! A thrill of triumph ran through him; his old-time knowledge had not failed him. The fox had doubled back, making for Croxton's Dip. Over the edge of yonder hill it lay, half a mile off—a deep depression in the ground, covered with thick undergrowth. In the hope of catching up, Andy Hayes felt that he could run all day and grudge the falling of an over-hasty night. "Blown," indeed, but no more than a rest of a minute would put right, he reached the ledge whence the ground sloped down sharply to the Dip. He was in time to see the hunt race past him along the bottom—leaders, the ruck, stragglers. Jack Rock and Wellgood were with the Master in the van; he could not make out Harry Belfield; a forlorn figure looking like the Bird laboured far in the rear. They swept into the Dip as Andy started to race down the slope. But to his chagrin they swept out of it again, straight up a long slope which rose on his left, the fox running game, a near kill promising, a fast point-to-point secured. The going was too good for shanks' mare to-day. Before he got to the bottom even the Bird had galloped by, walloping his showy screw. To the left, then, and up that long slope! There was nothing else for it, if he were so much as to see the kill from afar. This was exercise, if you like! His heart throbbed like the engines of a great ship; the sweat broke out on him. Oh, it was fine! That slope must be won—then Heaven should send the issue! Suddenly—even as he braced himself to face the long ascent, as the last sounds from the hunt died away over its summit—he saw a derelict, and, amazed, came to a full stop. The girl was not on her pony; she was standing beside it. The pony appeared distressed, and the girl looked no whit more cheerful. With a pang to the very heart, Andy Hayes recognized a duty, and acknowledged it by a snatch at his cap. "I beg your pardon; anything wrong?" he asked. He had been interested in Vivien Wellgood the evening before, but he was much more than interested in the hunt. Still, she looked forlorn and desolate. "Would you mind looking at my pony's right front leg?" she asked. "I think he's gone lame." "I know nothing about horses, but he does seem to stand rather gingerly on his—er—right front leg. And he's certainly badly blown—worse than I am!" "We shall never catch them, shall we? It's not the least use going on, is it?" "Oh, I don't know. I know the country; if you'd let me pilot you—" "Harry Belfield was going to pilot me, but—well, I told him not to wait for me, and he didn't. You were at the meeting last night, weren't you? You're Mr. Hayes, aren't you? What did you think of the speeches?" "Really, you know, if we're to have a chance of seeing any more of the—" It was not the moment to discuss political speeches, however excellent. "I don't want to see any more of it. I'll go home; I'll risk it." "Risk what?" he asked. There seemed no risk in going home; and there was, by now, small profit in going on. She did not answer his question. "I think hunting's the most wretched amusement I've ever tried!" she broke out. "The pony's lame—yes, he is; I've torn my habit" (she exhibited a sore rent); "I've scratched my face" (her finger indicated the wound); "and here I am! All I hope is that they won't catch that poor fox. How far do you think it is to Nutley?" "Oh, about three miles, I should think. You could strike the road half a mile from here." "I'm sure the pony's lame. I shall go back." "Would you like me to come with you?" During their talk her eyes had wavered between indignation and piteousness—the one at the so-called sport of hunting, the other for her own woes. At Andy's question a gleam of welcome flashed into them, followed in an instant by a curious sort of veiling of all expression. She made a pathetic little figure, with her habit sorely rent and a nasty red pg 30 pg 31 pg 32 pg 33 scratch across her forehead. The pony lame too—if he were lame! Andy hit on the idea that it was a question whether he were lame enough to swear by: that was what she was going to risk—in a case to be tried before some tribunal to which she was amenable. "But don't you want to go on?" she asked. "You're enjoying it, aren't you?" The question carried no rebuke; it recognized as legitimate the widest differences of taste. "I haven't the least chance of catching up with them. I may as well come back with you." The curious expression—or rather eclipse of expression—was still in her eyes, a purely negative defensiveness that seemed as though it could spring only from an instinctive resolve to show nothing of her feelings. The eyes were a dark blue; but with Vivien's eyes colour never counted for much, nor their shape, nor what one would roughly call their beauty, were it more or less. Their meaning—that was what they set a man asking after. "It really would be very kind of you," she said. Andy mounted her on the suppositiously lame pony—her weight wouldn't hurt him much, anyhow—and they set out at a walk towards the highroad which led to Nutley and thence, half a mile farther on, to Meriton. She was silent till they reached the road. Then she asked abruptly, "Are you ever afraid?" "Well, you see," said Andy, with a laugh, "I never know whether I'm afraid or only excited—in fighting, I mean. Otherwise I don't fancy I'm either often." "Well, you're big," she observed. "I'm afraid of pretty nearly everything—horses, dogs, motor-cars—and I'm passionately afraid of hunting." "You're not big, you see," said Andy consolingly. Indeed her hand on the reins looked almost ridiculously small. "I've got to learn not to be afraid of things. My father's teaching me. You know who I am, don't you?" "Oh yes; why, I remember you years ago! Is that why you're out hunting?" "Yes." "And why you think that the pony—?" "Is lame enough to let me risk going home? Yes." There was a hint of defiance in her voice. "You must think what you like," she seemed to say. Andy considered the matter in his impartial, solid, rather slowly moving mind. It was foolish to be frightened at such things; it must be wholesome to be taught not to be. Still, hunting wasn't exactly a moral duty, and the girl looked very fragile. He had not arrived at any final decision on the case—on the issue whether the girl were silly or the father cruel (the alternatives might not be true alternatives, not strictly exclusive of one another)—before she spoke again. "And then I'm fastidious. Are you?" "I hope not!" said Andy, with an amused chuckle. A great lump of a fellow like him fastidious! "Father doesn't like that either, and I've got to get over it." "How does it—er—take you?" Andy made bold to inquire. "Oh, lots of ways. I hate dirt, and dust, and getting very hot, and going into butchers' shops, and—" "Butchers' shops!" exclaimed Andy, rather hit on the raw. "You eat meat, don't you?" "Things don't look half as dead when they're cooked. I couldn't touch a butcher!" Horror rang in her tones. "Oh, but I say, Jack Rock's a butcher, and he's about the best fellow in Meriton. You know him?" "I've seen him," she admitted reluctantly, the subject being evidently distasteful. For the second time Andy Hayes was conscious of a duty: he must not be—or seem—ashamed of Jack Rock, just because this girl was fastidious. "I'm related to him, you know. My stepmother was his sister. And I'm staying in his house." She glanced at him, a slight flush rising to her cheeks; he saw that her lips trembled a little. "It's no use trying to unsay things, is it?" she asked. pg 34 pg 35 pg 36 "Not a bit," laughed Andy. "Don't think I'm hurt; but I should be a low-down fellow if I didn't stand up for old Jack." "I should rather like to have you to stand up for me sometimes," she said, and broke into a smile as she added, "You're so splendidly solid, you see, Mr. Hayes. Here we are at home—you may as well make a complete thing of it and see me as far as the stables." "I'd like to come in—I'm not exactly a stranger here. I've often been a trespasser. Don't tell Mr. Wellgood unless you think he'll forgive me, but as a boy I used to come and bathe in the lake early in the morning—before anybody was up. I used to undress in the bushes and slip in for my swim pretty nearly every morning in the summer. It's fine bathing, but you want to be able to swim; there's a strong undercurrent, where the stream runs through. Are you fond of bathing?" Andy was hardly surprised when she gave a little shudder. "No, I'm rather afraid of water." She added quickly, "Don't tell my father, or I expect I should have to try to learn to swim. He hasn't thought of that yet. No more has Isobel— Miss Vintry, my companion. You know? You saw her at the meeting. I have a companion now, instead of a governess. Isobel isn't afraid of anything, and she's here to teach me not to be." "You don't mind my asking your father to let me come and swim, if I'm here in the summer?" "I don't suppose I ought to mind that," she said doubtfully. The house stood with its side turned to the drive by which they approached it from the Meriton road. Its long, low, irregular front—it was a jumble of styles and periods—faced the lake, a stone terrace running between the façade and the water; it was backed by a thick wood; across the lake the bushes grew close down to the water's edge. The drive too ran close by the water, deep water as Andy was well aware, and was fenced from it by a wooden paling, green from damp. The place had a certain picturesqueness, but a sadness too. Water and trees—trees and water—and between them the long squat house. To Andy it seemed to brood there like a toad. But his healthy mind reverted to the fact that for a strong swimmer the bathing was really splendid. "Here comes Isobel! Now nothing about swimming, and say the pony's lame!" The injunction recalled Andy from his meditations and also served to direct his attention to Miss Vintry, who stood, apparently waiting for them, at the end of the drive, with the house on her right and the stables on her left. She was dressed in a business-like country frock, rather noticeably short, and carried a stick with a spike at the end of it. She looked very efficient and also very handsome. Vivien told her story: Andy, not claiming expert knowledge, yet stoutly maintained that the pony was—or anyhow had been—lame. "He seems to be getting over it," said Miss Vintry, with a smile that was not malicious but was, perhaps, rather annoyingly amused. "I'm afraid your having had to turn back will vex your father, but I suppose there was no help for it, and I'm sure he'll be much obliged to—" "Mr. Hayes." Vivien supplied the name, and Andy made his bow. "Oh yes, I've heard Mr. Harry Belfield speak of you." Her tone was gracious, and she smiled at Andy good- humouredly. If she confirmed his impression of capability, and perhaps added a new one of masterfulness, there was at least nothing to hint that her power would not be well used or that her sway would be other than benevolent. Vivien had dismounted, and a stable-boy was leading the pony away, after receiving instructions to submit the suspected off fore-leg to his chief's inspection. There seemed nothing to keep Andy, and he was about to take his leave when Miss Vintry called to the retreating stable-boy, "Oh, and let Curly out, will you? He hasn't had his run this afternoon." Vivien turned her head towards the stables with a quick apprehensive jerk. A big black retriever, released in obedience to Isobel Vintry's order, ran out, bounding joyously. He leapt up at Isobel, pawing her and barking in an ecstasy of delight. In passing Andy, the stranger, he gave him another bark of greeting and a hasty pawing; then he clumsily gambolled on to where Vivien stood. "He won't hurt you, Vivien. You know he won't hurt you, don't you?" The dog certainly seemed to warrant Isobel's assertion; he appeared a most good-natured animal, though his play was rough. "Yes, I know he won't hurt me," said Vivien. The dog leapt up at her, barking, frisking, pawing her, trying to reach her face to lick it. She made no effort to repel him; she had a little riding-whip in her hand, but she did not use it; her arms hung at her side; she was rather pale. "There! It's not so terrible after all, is it?" asked Isobel. "Down, Curly, down! Come here!" The dog obeyed her at her second bidding, and sat down at her feet. Andy was glad to see that the ordeal—for that pg 37 pg 38 pg 39 pg 40 was what it looked like—was over, and had been endured with tolerable fortitude; he had not enjoyed the scene. Somewhat to his surprise Vivien's lips curved in a smile. "Somehow I wasn't nearly so frightened to-day," she said. Apparently the ordeal was a daily one—perhaps one of several daily ones, for she had already been out hunting. "I didn't run away as I did yesterday, when Harry Belfield was here." "You are getting used to it," Isobel affirmed. "Mr. Wellgood's quite right. We shall have you as brave as a lion in a few months." Her tone was not unkind or hard, neither was it sympathetic. It was just extremely matter-of-fact. "It's all nerves," she added to Andy. "She overworked herself at school—she's very clever, aren't you, Vivien?—and now she's got to lead an open-air life. She must get used to things, mustn't she?" Andy had a shamefaced feeling that the ordeals or lessons, if they were necessary at all, had better be conducted in privacy. That had not apparently occurred to Mr. Wellgood or to Isobel Vintry. Indeed that aspect of the case did not seem to trouble Vivien herself either; she showed no signs of shame; she was smiling still, looking rather puzzled. "I wonder why I was so much less frightened." She turned her eyes suddenly to Andy. "I know. It was because you were there!" "You ran away, in spite of Mr. Harry's being here yesterday," Isobel reminded her. "Mr. Hayes is so splendidly big—so splendidly big and solid," said Vivien, thoughtfully regarding Andy's proportions. "When he's here, I don't think I shall be half so much afraid." "Oh, then Mr. Wellgood must ask him to come again," laughed Isobel. "You see how useful you'll be, Mr. Hayes!" "I shall be delighted to come again, anyhow, if I'm asked—whether I'm useful or not. And I think it was jolly plucky of you to stand still as you did, Miss Wellgood. If I were in a funk, I should cut and run for it, I know." "I thought you'd been a soldier," said Isobel. "Oh, well, it's different when there are a lot of you together. Besides—" He chuckled. "You're not going to get me to let on that I was in a funk then. Those are our secrets, Miss Vintry. Well now, I must go, unless—" "No, there are no more tests of courage to-day, Mr. Hayes," laughed Isobel. Vivien's eyes had relapsed into inexpressiveness; they told Andy nothing of her view of the trials, or of Miss Vintry, who had conducted the latest one; they told him no more of her view of himself as she gave him her hand in farewell. He left her still standing on the spot where she had endured Curly's violent though well-meant attentions—again rather a pathetic figure, in her torn habit, with the long red scratch (by-the-by Miss Vintry had made no inquiry about it—that was part of the system perhaps) on her forehead, and with the background, as it were, of ordeals, or tests, or whatever they were to be called. Andy wondered what they would try her with to-morrow, and found himself sorry that he would not be there—to help her with his bigness and solidity. It was difficult to say that Mr. Wellgood's system was wrong. It was absurd for a grown girl—a girl living in the country —to be frightened at horses, dogs, and motor-cars, to be disgusted by dirt and dust, by getting very hot—and by butchers' shops. All these were things which she would have to meet on her way through the world, as the world is at present constituted. Still he was sorry for her; she was so slight and frail. Andy would have liked to take on his broad shoulders all her worldly share of dogs and horses, of dust, of getting very hot (a thing he positively liked), and of butchers; these things would not have troubled him in the least; he would have borne them as easily as he could have carried Vivien herself in his arms. As he walked home he had a vision of her shuddering figure, with its pale face and reticent eyes, being led by Isobel Vintry's firm hand into Jack Rock's shop in High Street, and there being compelled to inspect, to touch, to smell, the blue-rosetted, red-rosetted, and honourably mentioned carcasses which adorned that Valhalla of beasts—nay, being forced, in spite of all horror, to touch Jack Rock the butcher himself! Isobel Vintry would, he thought, be capable of shutting her up alone with all those dead things, and with the man who, as she supposed, had butchered them. "I should have to break in the door!" thought Andy, his vanity flattered by remembering that she had seen in him a stand-by, and a security which apparently even Harry Belfield had been unable to afford. True it was that in order to win the rather humble compliment of being held a protection against an absolutely harmless retriever dog he had lost his day's hunting. Andy's heart was lowly; he did not repine. Chapter III. THE POTENT VOICE. After anxious consultation at Halton it had been decided that Harry Belfield was justified in adopting a political career pg 41 pg 42 pg 43 pg 44 pg 45 and treating the profession of the Bar, to which he had been called, as nominal. The prospects of an opening—and an opening...