Kitabı oku: «Villa Rubein, and Other Stories», sayfa 11

TO MY FATHER

A MAN OF DEVON

I
“MOOR, 20th July

… It is quiet here, sleepy, rather – a farm is never quiet; the sea, too, is only a quarter of a mile away, and when it’s windy, the sound of it travels up the combe; for distraction, you must go four miles to Brixham or five to Kingswear, and you won’t find much then. The farm lies in a sheltered spot, scooped, so to speak, high up the combe side – behind is a rise of fields, and beyond, a sweep of down. You have the feeling of being able to see quite far, which is misleading, as you soon find out if you walk. It is true Devon country-hills, hollows, hedge-banks, lanes dipping down into the earth or going up like the sides of houses, coppices, cornfields, and little streams wherever there’s a place for one; but the downs along the cliff, all gorse and ferns, are wild. The combe ends in a sandy cove with black rock on one side, pinkish cliffs away to the headland on the other, and a coastguard station. Just now, with the harvest coming on, everything looks its richest, the apples ripening, the trees almost too green. It’s very hot, still weather; the country and the sea seem to sleep in the sun. In front of the farm are half-a-dozen pines that look as if they had stepped out of another land, but all round the back is orchard as lush, and gnarled, and orthodox as any one could wish. The house, a long, white building with three levels of roof, and splashes of brown all over it, looks as if it might be growing down into the earth. It was freshly thatched two years ago – and that’s all the newness there is about it; they say the front door, oak, with iron knobs, is three hundred years old at least. You can touch the ceilings with your hand. The windows certainly might be larger – a heavenly old place, though, with a flavour of apples, smoke, sweetbriar, bacon, honeysuckle, and age, all over it.

The owner is a man called John Ford, about seventy, and seventeen stone in weight – very big, on long legs, with a grey, stubbly beard, grey, watery eyes, short neck and purplish complexion; he is asthmatic, and has a very courteous, autocratic manner. His clothes are made of Harris tweed – except on Sundays, when he puts on black – a seal ring, and a thick gold cable chain. There’s nothing mean or small about John Ford; I suspect him of a warm heart, but he doesn’t let you know much about him. He’s a north-country man by birth, and has been out in New Zealand all his life. This little Devonshire farm is all he has now. He had a large “station” in the North Island, and was much looked up to, kept open house, did everything, as one would guess, in a narrow-minded, large-handed way. He came to grief suddenly; I don’t quite know how. I believe his only son lost money on the turf, and then, unable to face his father, shot himself; if you had seen John Ford, you could imagine that. His wife died, too, that year. He paid up to the last penny, and came home, to live on this farm. He told me the other night that he had only one relation in the world, his granddaughter, who lives here with him. Pasiance Voisey – old spelling for Patience, but they pronounce, it Pash-yence – is sitting out here with me at this moment on a sort of rustic loggia that opens into the orchard. Her sleeves are rolled up, and she’s stripping currants, ready for black currant tea. Now and then she rests her elbows on the table, eats a berry, pouts her lips, and, begins again. She has a round, little face; a long, slender body; cheeks like poppies; a bushy mass of black-brown hair, and dark-brown, almost black, eyes; her nose is snub; her lips quick, red, rather full; all her motions quick and soft. She loves bright colours. She’s rather like a little cat; sometimes she seems all sympathy, then in a moment as hard as tortoise-shell. She’s all impulse; yet she doesn’t like to show her feelings; I sometimes wonder whether she has any. She plays the violin.

It’s queer to see these two together, queer and rather sad. The old man has a fierce tenderness for her that strikes into the very roots of him. I see him torn between it, and his cold north-country horror of his feelings; his life with her is an unconscious torture to him. She’s a restless, chafing thing, demure enough one moment, then flashing out into mocking speeches or hard little laughs. Yet she’s fond of him in her fashion; I saw her kiss him once when he was asleep. She obeys him generally – in a way as if she couldn’t breathe while she was doing it. She’s had a queer sort of education – history, geography, elementary mathematics, and nothing else; never been to school; had a few lessons on the violin, but has taught herself most of what she knows. She is well up in the lore of birds, flowers, and insects; has three cats, who follow her about; and is full of pranks. The other day she called out to me, “I’ve something for you. Hold out your hand and shut your eyes!” It was a large, black slug! She’s the child of the old fellow’s only daughter, who was sent home for schooling at Torquay, and made a runaway match with one Richard Voisey, a yeoman farmer, whom she met in the hunting-field. John Ford was furious – his ancestors, it appears, used to lead ruffians on the Cumberland side of the Border – he looked on “Squire” Rick Voisey as a cut below him. He was called “Squire,” as far as I can make out, because he used to play cards every evening with a parson in the neighbourhood who went by the name of “Devil” Hawkins. Not that the Voisey stock is to be despised. They have had this farm since it was granted to one Richard Voysey by copy dated 8th September, 13 Henry VIII. Mrs. Hopgood, the wife of the bailiff – a dear, quaint, serene old soul with cheeks like a rosy, withered apple, and an unbounded love of Pasiance – showed me the very document.

“I kape it,” she said. “Mr. Ford be tu proud – but other folks be proud tu. ‘Tis a pra-aper old fam’ly: all the women is Margery, Pasiance, or Mary; all the men’s Richards an’ Johns an’ Rogers; old as they apple-trees.”

Rick Voisey was a rackety, hunting fellow, and “dipped” the old farm up to its thatched roof. John Ford took his revenge by buying up the mortgages, foreclosing, and commanding his daughter and Voisey to go on living here rent free; this they dutifully did until they were both killed in a dog-cart accident, eight years ago. Old Ford’s financial smash came a year later, and since then he’s lived here with Pasiance. I fancy it’s the cross in her blood that makes her so restless, and irresponsible: if she had been all a native she’d have been happy enough here, or all a stranger like John Ford himself, but the two strains struggling for mastery seem to give her no rest. You’ll think this a far-fetched theory, but I believe it to be the true one. She’ll stand with lips pressed together, her arms folded tight across her narrow chest, staring as if she could see beyond the things round her; then something catches her attention, her eyes will grow laughing, soft, or scornful all in a minute! She’s eighteen, perfectly fearless in a boat, but you can’t get her to mount a horse – a sore subject with her grandfather, who spends most of his day on a lean, half-bred pony, that carries him like a feather, for all his weight.

They put me up here as a favour to Dan Treffry; there’s an arrangement of L. s. d. with Mrs. Hopgood in the background. They aren’t at all well off; this is the largest farm about, but it doesn’t bring them in much. To look at John Ford, it seems incredible he should be short of money – he’s too large.

We have family prayers at eight, then, breakfast – after that freedom for writing or anything else till supper and evening prayers. At midday one forages for oneself. On Sundays, two miles to church twice, or you get into John Ford’s black books… Dan Treffry himself is staying at Kingswear. He says he’s made his pile; it suits him down here – like a sleep after years of being too wide-awake; he had a rough time in New Zealand, until that mine made his fortune. You’d hardly remember him; he reminds me of his uncle, old Nicholas Treffry; the same slow way of speaking, with a hesitation, and a trick of repeating your name with everything he says; left-handed too, and the same slow twinkle in his eyes. He has a dark, short beard, and red-brown cheeks; is a little bald on the temples, and a bit grey, but hard as iron. He rides over nearly every day, attended by a black spaniel with a wonderful nose and a horror of petticoats. He has told me lots of good stories of John Ford in the early squatter’s times; his feats with horses live to this day; and he was through the Maori wars; as Dan says, “a man after Uncle Nic’s own heart.”

They are very good friends, and respect each other; Dan has a great admiration for the old man, but the attraction is Pasiance. He talks very little when she’s in the room, but looks at her in a sidelong, wistful sort of way. Pasiance’s conduct to him would be cruel in any one else, but in her, one takes it with a pinch of salt. Dan goes off, but turns up again as quiet and dogged as you please.

Last night, for instance, we were sitting in the loggia after supper. Pasiance was fingering the strings of her violin, and suddenly Dan (a bold thing for him) asked her to play.

“What!” she said, “before men? No, thank you!”

“Why not?”

“Because I hate them.”

Down came John Ford’s hand on the wicker table: “You forget yourself! Go to bed!”

She gave Dan a look, and went; we could hear her playing in her bedroom; it sounded like a dance of spirits; and just when one thought she had finished, out it would break again like a burst of laughter. Presently, John Ford begged our pardons ceremoniously, and stumped off indoors. The violin ceased; we heard his voice growling at her; down he came again. Just as he was settled in his chair there was a soft swish, and something dark came falling through the apple boughs. The violin! You should have seen his face! Dan would have picked the violin up, but the old man stopped him. Later, from my bedroom window, I saw John Ford come out and stand looking at the violin. He raised his foot as if to stamp on it. At last he picked it up, wiped it carefully, and took it in…

My room is next to hers. I kept hearing her laugh, a noise too as if she were dragging things about the room. Then I fell asleep, but woke with a start, and went to the window for a breath of fresh air. Such a black, breathless night! Nothing to be seen but the twisted, blacker branches; not the faintest stir of leaves, no sound but muffled grunting from the cowhouse, and now and then a faint sigh. I had the queerest feeling of unrest and fear, the last thing to expect on such a night. There is something here that’s disturbing; a sort of suppressed struggle. I’ve never in my life seen anything so irresponsible as this girl, or so uncompromising as the old man; I keep thinking of the way he wiped that violin. It’s just as if a spark would set everything in a blaze. There’s a menace of tragedy – or – perhaps it’s only the heat, and too much of Mother Hopgood’s crame…

II
“Tuesday

… I’ve made a new acquaintance. I was lying in the orchard, and presently, not seeing me, he came along – a man of middle height, with a singularly good balance, and no lumber – rather old blue clothes, a flannel shirt, a dull red necktie, brown shoes, a cap with a leather peak pushed up on the forehead. Face long and narrow, bronzed with a kind of pale burnt-in brownness; a good forehead. A brown moustache, beard rather pointed, blackening about the cheeks; his chin not visible, but from the beard’s growth must be big; mouth I should judge sensuous. Nose straight and blunt; eyes grey, with an upward look, not exactly frank, because defiant; two parallel furrows down each cheek, one from the inner corner of the eye, one from the nostril; age perhaps thirty-five. About the face, attitude, movements, something immensely vital, adaptable, daring, and unprincipled.

He stood in front of the loggia, biting his fingers, a kind of nineteenth-century buccaneer, and I wondered what he was doing in this galley. They say you can tell a man of Kent or a Somersetshire man; certainly you can tell a Yorkshire man, and this fellow could only have been a man of Devon, one of the two main types found in this county. He whistled; and out came Pasiance in a geranium-coloured dress, looking like some tall poppy – you know the slight droop of a poppy’s head, and the way the wind sways its stem… She is a human poppy, her fuzzy dark hair is like a poppy’s lustreless black heart, she has a poppy’s tantalising attraction and repulsion, something fatal, or rather fateful. She came walking up to my new friend, then caught sight of me, and stopped dead.

“That,” she said to me, “is Zachary Pearse. This,” she said to him, “is our lodger.” She said it with a wonderful soft malice. She wanted to scratch me, and she scratched. Half an hour later I was in the yard, when up came this fellow Pearse.

“Glad to know you,” he said, looking thoughtfully at the pigs.

“You’re a writer, aren’t you?”

“A sort of one,” I said.

“If by any chance,” he said suddenly, “you’re looking for a job, I could put something in your way. Walk down to the beach with me, and I’ll tell you; my boat’s at anchor, smartest little craft in these parts.”

It was very hot, and I had no desire whatever to go down to the beach – I went, all the same. We had not gone far when John Ford and Dan Treffry came into the lane. Our friend seemed a little disconcerted, but soon recovered himself. We met in the middle of the lane, where there was hardly room to pass. John Ford, who looked very haughty, put on his pince-nez and stared at Pearse.

“Good-day!” said Pearse; “fine weather! I’ve been up to ask Pasiance to come for a sail. Wednesday we thought, weather permitting; this gentleman’s coming. Perhaps you’ll come too, Mr. Treffry. You’ve never seen my place. I’ll give you lunch, and show you my father. He’s worth a couple of hours’ sail any day.” It was said in such an odd way that one couldn’t resent his impudence. John Ford was seized with a fit of wheezing, and seemed on the eve of an explosion; he glanced at me, and checked himself.

“You’re very good,” he said icily; “my granddaughter has other things to do. You, gentlemen, will please yourselves”; and, with a very slight bow, he went stumping on to the house. Dan looked at me, and I looked at him.

“You’ll come?” said Pearse, rather wistfully. Dan stammered: “Thank you, Mr. Pearse; I’m a better man on a horse than in a boat, but – thank you.” Cornered in this way, he’s a shy, soft-hearted being. Pearse smiled his thanks. “Wednesday, then, at ten o’clock; you shan’t regret it.”

“Pertinacious beggar!” I heard Dan mutter in his beard; and found myself marching down the lane again by Pearse’s side. I asked him what he was good enough to mean by saying I was coming, without having asked me. He answered, unabashed:

“You see, I’m not friends with the old man; but I knew he’d not be impolite to you, so I took the liberty.”

He has certainly a knack of turning one’s anger to curiosity. We were down in the combe now; the tide was running out, and the sand all little, wet, shining ridges. About a quarter of a mile out lay a cutter, with her tan sail half down, swinging to the swell. The sunlight was making the pink cliffs glow in the most wonderful way; and shifting in bright patches over the sea like moving shoals of goldfish. Pearse perched himself on his dinghy, and looked out under his hand. He seemed lost in admiration.

“If we could only net some of those spangles,” he said, “an’ make gold of ‘em! No more work then.”

“It’s a big job I’ve got on,” he said presently; “I’ll tell you about it on Wednesday. I want a journalist.”

“But I don’t write for the papers,” I said; “I do other sort of work. My game is archaeology.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, “the more imagination the better. It’d be a thundering good thing for you.”

His assurance was amazing, but it was past supper-time, and hunger getting the better of my curiosity, I bade him good-night. When I looked back, he was still there, on the edge of his boat, gazing at the sea. A queer sort of bird altogether, but attractive somehow.

Nobody mentioned him that evening; but once old Ford, after staring a long time at Pasiance, muttered a propos of nothing, “Undutiful children!” She was softer than usual; listening quietly to our talk, and smiling when spoken to. At bedtime she went up to her grand-father, without waiting for the usual command, “Come and kiss me, child.”

Dan did not stay to supper, and he has not been here since. This morning I asked Mother Hopgood who Zachary Pearse was. She’s a true Devonian; if there’s anything she hates, it is to be committed to a definite statement. She ambled round her answer, and at last told me that he was “son of old Cap’en Jan Pearse to Black Mill. ‘Tes an old family to Dartymouth an’ Plymouth,” she went on in a communicative outburst. “They du say Francis Drake tuke five o’ they Pearses with ‘en to fight the Spaniards. At least that’s what I’ve heard Mr. Zachary zay; but Ha-apgood can tell yu.” Poor Hopgood, the amount of information she saddles him with in the course of the day! Having given me thus to understand that she had run dry, she at once went on:

“Cap’en Jan Pearse made a dale of ventures. He’s old now – they du say nigh an ‘undred. Ha-apgood can tell yu.”

“But the son, Mrs. Hopgood?”

Her eyes twinkled with sudden shrewdness: She hugged herself placidly.

“An’ what would yu take for dinner to-day? There’s duck; or yu might like ‘toad in the hole,’ with an apple tart; or then, there’s – Well! we’ll see what we can du like.” And off she went, without waiting for my answer.

To-morrow is Wednesday. I shan’t be sorry to get another look at this fellow Pearse…

III
“Friday, 29th July

… Why do you ask me so many questions, and egg me on to write about these people instead of minding my business? If you really want to hear, I’ll tell you of Wednesday’s doings.

It was a splendid morning; and Dan turned up, to my surprise – though I might have known that when he says a thing, he does it. John Ford came out to shake hands with him, then, remembering why he had come, breathed loudly, said nothing, and went in again. Nothing was to be seen of Pasiance, and we went down to the beach together.

“I don’t like this fellow Pearse, George,” Dan said to me on the way; “I was fool enough to say I’d go, and so I must, but what’s he after? Not the man to do things without a reason, mind you.”

I remarked that we should soon know.

“I’m not so sure – queer beggar; I never look at him without thinking of a pirate.”

The cutter lay in the cove as if she had never moved. There too was Zachary Pearse seated on the edge of his dinghy.

“A five-knot breeze,” he said, “I’ll run you down in a couple of hours.” He made no inquiry about Pasiance, but put us into his cockleshell and pulled for the cutter. A lantern-Jawed fellow, named Prawle, with a spiky, prominent beard, long, clean-shaven upper lip, and tanned complexion – a regular hard-weather bird – received us.

The cutter was beautifully clean; built for a Brixham trawler, she still had her number – DH 113 – uneffaced. We dived into a sort of cabin, airy, but dark, fitted with two bunks and a small table, on which stood some bottles of stout; there were lockers, too, and pegs for clothes. Prawle, who showed us round, seemed very proud of a steam contrivance for hoisting sails. It was some minutes before we came on deck again; and there, in the dinghy, being pulled towards the cutter, sat Pasiance.

“If I’d known this,” stammered Dan, getting red, “I wouldn’t have come.” She had outwitted us, and there was nothing to be done.

It was a very pleasant sail. The breeze was light from the south-east, the sun warm, the air soft. Presently Pasiance began singing:

“Columbus is dead and laid in his grave, Oh! heigh-ho! and laid in his grave; Over his head the apple-trees wave Oh! heigh-ho! the apple-trees wave…

“The apples are ripe and ready to fall, Oh! heigh-ho! and ready to fall; There came an old woman and gathered them all, Oh! heigh-ho! and gathered them all…

“The apples are gathered, and laid on the shelf, Oh! heigh-ho! and laid on the shelf; If you want any more, you must sing for yourself, Oh! heigh-ho! and sing for yourself.”

Her small, high voice came to us in trills and spurts, as the wind let it, like the singing of a skylark lost in the sky. Pearse went up to her and whispered something. I caught a glimpse of her face like a startled wild creature’s; shrinking, tossing her hair, laughing, all in the same breath. She wouldn’t sing again, but crouched in the bows with her chin on her hands, and the sun falling on one cheek, round, velvety, red as a peach…

We passed Dartmouth, and half an hour later put into a little wooded bay. On a low reddish cliff was a house hedged round by pine-trees. A bit of broken jetty ran out from the bottom of the cliff. We hooked on to this, and landed. An ancient, fish-like man came slouching down and took charge of the cutter. Pearse led us towards the house, Pasiance following mortally shy all of a sudden.

The house had a dark, overhanging thatch of the rush reeds that grow in the marshes hereabouts; I remember nothing else remarkable. It was neither old, nor new; neither beautiful, nor exactly ugly; neither clean, nor entirely squalid; it perched there with all its windows over the sea, turning its back contemptuously on the land.

Seated in a kind of porch, beside an immense telescope, was a very old man in a panama hat, with a rattan cane. His pure-white beard and moustache, and almost black eyebrows, gave a very singular, piercing look to his little, restless, dark-grey eyes; all over his mahogany cheeks and neck was a network of fine wrinkles. He sat quite upright, in the full sun, hardly blinking.

“Dad!” said Zachary, “this is Pasiance Voisey.” The old man turned his eyes on her and muttered, “How do you do, ma’am?” then took no further notice. And Pasiance, who seemed to resent this, soon slipped away and went wandering about amongst the pines. An old woman brought some plates and bottles and laid them casually on a table; and we sat round the figure of old Captain Pearse without a word, as if we were all under a spell.

Before lunch there was a little scene between Zachary Pearse and Dan, as to which of them should summon Pasiance. It ended in both going, and coming back without her. She did not want any lunch, would stay where she was amongst the pines.

For lunch we had chops, wood-pigeons, mushrooms, and mulberry preserve, and drank wonderful Madeira out of common wine-glasses. I asked the old man where he got it; he gave me a queer look, and answered with a little bow:

“Stood me in tu shillin’ the bottle, an’ the country got nothing out of it, sir. In the early Thirties; tu shillin’ the bottle; there’s no such wine nowadays and,” he added, looking at Zachary, “no such men.”

Zachary smiled and said: “You did nothing so big, dad, as what I’m after, now!”

The old man’s eyes had a sort of disdain in them.

“You’re going far, then, in the Pied Witch, Zack?”

“I am,” said Zachary.

“And where might yu be goin’ in that old trampin’ smut factory?”

“Morocco.”

“Heu!” said the old man, “there’s nothing there; I know that coast, as I know the back o’ my hand.” He stretched out a hand covered with veins and hair.

Zachary began suddenly to pour out a flood of words:

“Below Mogador – a fellow there – friend of mine – two years ago now. Concessions – trade-gunpowder – cruisers – feuds – money – chiefs – Gatling guns – Sultan – rifles – rebellion – gold.” He detailed a reckless, sordid, bold scheme, which, on the pivot of a trading venture, was intended to spin a whole wheel of political convulsions.

“They’ll never let you get there,” said old Pearse.

“Won’t they?” returned Zachary. “Oh yes, they will, an’ when I leave, there’ll be another dynasty, and I’ll be a rich man.”

“Yu’ll never leave,” answered the old man.

Zachary took out a sheet of paper covered with figures. He had worked the whole thing out. So much – equipment, so much – trade, so much – concessions, so much – emergencies. “My last mag!” he ended, “a thousand short; the ship’s ready, and if I’m not there within a month my chance is as good as gone.”

This was the pith of his confidences – an appeal for money, and we all looked as men will when that crops up.

“Mad!” muttered the old man, looking at the sea.

“No,” said Zachary. That one word was more eloquent than all the rest of his words put together. This fellow is no visionary. His scheme may be daring, and unprincipled, but – he knows very well what he’s about.

“Well!” said old Pearse, “you shall have five ‘undred of my money, if it’s only to learn what yu’re made of. Wheel me in!” Zachary wheeled him into the house, but soon came back.

“The old man’s cheque for five hundred pounds!” he said, holding it up. “Mr. Treffry, give me another, and you shall have a third of the profits.”

I expected Dan to give a point-blank refusal. But he only asked:

“Would that clear you for starting?”

“With that,” said Zachary, “I can get to sea in a fortnight.”

“Good!” Dan said slowly. “Give me a written promise! To sea in fourteen days and my fair share on the five hundred pounds – no more – no less.”

Again I thought Pearse would have jumped at this, but he leaned his chin on his hand, and looked at Dan, and Dan looked at him. While they were staring at each other like this, Pasiance came up with a kitten.

“See!” she said, “isn’t it a darling?” The kitten crawled and clawed its way up behind her neck. I saw both men’s eyes as they looked at Pasiance, and suddenly understood what they were at. The kitten rubbed itself against Pasiance’s cheek, overbalanced, and fell, clawing, down her dress. She caught it up and walked away. Some one, I don’t know which of us, sighed, and Pearse cried “Done!”

The bargain had been driven.

“Good-bye, Mr. Pearse,” said Dan; “I guess that’s all I’m wanted for. I’ll find my pony waiting in the village. George, you’ll see Pasiance home?”

We heard the hoofs of his pony galloping down the road; Pearse suddenly excused himself, and disappeared.

This venture of his may sound romantic and absurd, but it’s matter-of-fact enough. He’s after L. s. d.! Shades of Drake, Raleigh, Hawkins, Oxenham! The worm of suspicion gnaws at the rose of romance. What if those fellows, too, were only after L. s. d…?

I strolled into the pine-wood. The earth there was covered like a bee’s body with black and gold stripes; there was the blue sea below, and white, sleepy clouds, and bumble-bees booming above the heather; it was all softness, a summer’s day in Devon. Suddenly I came on Pearse standing at the edge of the cliff with Pasiance sitting in a little hollow below, looking up at him. I heard him say:

“Pasiance – Pasiance!” The sound of his voice, and the sight of her soft, wondering face made me furious. What business has she with love, at her age? What business have they with each other?

He told me presently that she had started off for home, and drove me to the ferry, behind an old grey pony. On the way he came back to his offer of the other day.

“Come with me,” he said. “It doesn’t do to neglect the Press; you can see the possibilities. It’s one of the few countries left. If I once get this business started you don’t know where it’s going to stop. You’d have free passage everywhere, and whatever you like in reason.”

I answered as rudely as I could – but by no means as rudely as I wanted – that his scheme was mad. As a matter of fact, it’s much too sane for me; for, whatever the body of a scheme, its soul is the fibre of the schemer.

“Think of it,” he urged, as if he could see into me. “You can make what you like of it. Press paragraphs, of course. But that’s mechanical; why, even I could do it, if I had time. As for the rest, you’ll be as free – as free as a man.”

There, in five words of one syllable, is the kernel of this fellow Pearse – “As free as a man!” No rule, no law, not even the mysterious shackles that bind men to their own self-respects! “As free as a man!” No ideals; no principles; no fixed star for his worship; no coil he can’t slide out of! But the fellow has the tenacity of one of the old Devon mastiffs, too. He wouldn’t take “No” for an answer.

“Think of it,” he said; “any day will do – I’ve got a fortnight… Look! there she is!” I thought that he meant Pasiance; but it was an old steamer, sluggish and black in the blazing sun of mid-stream, with a yellow-and-white funnel, and no sign of life on her decks.

“That’s her – the Pied Witch! Do her twelve knots; you wouldn’t think it! Well! good-evening! You’d better come. A word to me at any time. I’m going aboard now.”

As I was being ferried across I saw him lolling in the stern-sheets of a little boat, the sun crowning his straw hat with glory.

I came on Pasiance, about a mile up the road, sitting in the hedge. We walked on together between the banks – Devonshire banks, as high as houses, thick with ivy and ferns, bramble and hazel boughs, and honeysuckle.

“Do you believe in a God?” she said suddenly.

“Grandfather’s God is simply awful. When I’m playing the fiddle, I can feel God; but grandfather’s is such a stuffy God – you know what I mean: the sea, the wind, the trees, colours too – they make one feel. But I don’t believe that life was meant to ‘be good’ in. Isn’t there anything better than being good? When I’m ‘good,’ I simply feel wicked.” She reached up, caught a flower from the hedge, and slowly tore its petals.

“What would you do,” she muttered, “if you wanted a thing, but were afraid of it? But I suppose you’re never afraid!” she added, mocking me. I admitted that I was sometimes afraid, and often afraid of being afraid.

“That’s nice! I’m not afraid of illness, nor of grandfather, nor of his God; but – I want to be free. If you want a thing badly, you’re afraid about it.”