II

by Arthur Machen

　　Lucian was growing really anxious about his manuscript. He had gainedenough experience at twenty-three to know that editors and publishersmust not be hurried; but his book had been lying at Messrs Beit'soffice for more than three months. For six weeks he had not dared toexpect an answer, but afterwards life had become agonizing. Everymorning, at post-time, the poor wretch nearly choked with anxiety to knowwhether his sentence had arrived, and the rest of the day was racked withalternate pangs of hope and despair. Now and then he was almost assuredof success; conning over these painful and eager pages in memory, hefound parts that were admirable, while again, his inexperience reproachedhim, and he feared he had written a raw and awkward book, wholly unfitfor print. Then he would compare what he remembered of it with notablemagazine articles and books praised by reviewers, and fancy that afterall there might be good points in the thing; he could not help liking thefirst chapter for instance. Perhaps the letter might come tomorrow. So itwent on; week after week of sick torture made more exquisite by suchgleams of hope; it was as if he were stretched in anguish on the rack,and the pain relaxed and kind words spoken now and again by thetormentors, and then once more the grinding pang and burning agony. Atlast he could bear suspense no longer, and he wrote to Messrs Beit,inquiring in a humble manner whether the manuscript had arrived insafety. The firm replied in a very polite letter, expressing regret thattheir reader had been suffering from a cold in the head, and hadtherefore been unable to send in his report. A final decision waspromised in a week's time, and the letter ended with apologies for thedelay and a hope that he had suffered no inconvenience. Of course the"final decision" did not come at the end of the week, but the book wasreturned at the end of three weeks, with a circular thanking the authorfor his kindness in submitting the manuscript, and regretting that thefirm did not see their way to producing it. He felt relieved; theoperation that he had dreaded and deprecated for so long was at lastover, and he would no longer grow sick of mornings when the letters werebrought in. He took his parcel to the sunny corner of the garden, wherethe old wooden seat stood sheltered from the biting March winds. MessrsBeit had put in with the circular one of their short lists, a neatbooklet, headed: Messrs Beit & Co.'s Recent Publications.

　　He settled himself comfortably on the seat, lit his pipe, and began toread: "A Bad Un to Beat: a Novel of Sporting Life, by the HonorableMrs. Scudamore Runnymede, author of Yoicks, With the Mudshire Pack, TheSportleigh Stables, etc., etc., 3 vols. At all Libraries." The Press,it seemed, pronounced this to be a "charming book. Mrs. Runnymede has witand humor enough to furnish forth half-a-dozen ordinary sporting novels.""Told with the sparkle and vivacity of a past-mistress in the art ofnovel writing," said the Review; while Miranda, of Smart Society,positively bubbled with enthusiasm. "You must forgive me, Aminta," wrotethis young person, "if I have not sent the description I promised ofMadame Lulu's new creations and others of that ilk. I must a tale unfold;Tom came in yesterday and began to rave about the Honorable Mrs.Scudamore Runnymede's last novel, A Bad Un to Beat. He says all theSmart Set are talking of it, and it seems the police have to regulate thecrowd at Mudie's. You know I read everything Mrs. Runnymede writes, so Iset out Miggs directly to beg, borrow or steal a copy, and I confess Iburnt the midnight oil before I laid it down. Now, mind you get it, youwill find it so awfully chic." Nearly all the novelists on MessrsBeit's list were ladies, their works all ran to three volumes, and all ofthem pleased the Press, the Review, and Miranda of Smart Society.One of these books, Millicent's Marriage, by Sarah Pocklington Sanders,was pronounced fit to lie on the school-room table, on the drawing-roombookshelf, or beneath the pillow of the most gently nurtured of ourdaughters. "This," the reviewer went on, "is high praise, especially inthese days when we are deafened by the loud-voiced clamor of self-styled'artists.' We would warn the young men who prate so persistently of styleand literature, construction and prose harmonies, that we believe theEnglish reading public will have none of them. Harmless amusement, agentle flow of domestic interest, a faithful reproduction of the open andmanly life of the hunting field, pictures of innocent and healthy Englishgirlhood such as Miss Sanders here affords us; these are the topics thatwill always find a welcome in our homes, which remain bolted and barredagainst the abandoned artist and the scrofulous stylist."

　　He turned over the pages of the little book and chuckled in high relish;he discovered an honest enthusiasm, a determination to strike a blow forthe good and true that refreshed and exhilarated. A beaming face,spectacled and whiskered probably, an expansive waistcoat, and a tenderheart, seemed to shine through the words which Messrs Beit had quoted;and the alliteration of the final sentence; that was good too; there wasstyle for you if you wanted it. The champion of the blushing cheek andthe gushing eye showed that he too could handle the weapons of the enemyif he cared to trouble himself with such things. Lucian leant back androared with indecent laughter till the tabby tom-cat who had succeeded tothe poor dead beasts looked up reproachfully from his sunny corner, witha face like the reviewer's, innocent and round and whiskered. At last heturned to his parcel and drew out some half-dozen sheets of manuscript,and began to read in a rather desponding spirit; it was pretty obvious,he thought, that the stuff was poor and beneath the standard ofpublication. The book had taken a year and a half in the making; it was apious attempt to translate into English prose the form and mystery of thedomed hills, the magic of occult valleys, the sound of the red swollenbrook swirling through leafless woods. Day-dreams and toil at nights hadgone into the eager pages, he had labored hard to do his very best,writing and rewriting, weighing his cadences, beginning over and overagain, grudging no patience, no trouble if only it might be pretty good;good enough to print and sell to a reading public which had becomecritical. He glanced through the manuscript in his hand, and to hisastonishment, he could not help thinking that in its measure it wasdecent work. After three months his prose seemed fresh and strange as ifit had been wrought by another man, and in spite of himself he foundcharming things, and impressions that were not commonplace. He knew howweak it all was compared with his own conceptions; he had seen anenchanted city, awful, glorious, with flame smitten about itsbattlements, like the cities of the Sangraal, and he had molded his copyin such poor clay as came to his hand; yet, in spite of the gulf thatyawned between the idea and the work, he knew as he read that the thingaccomplished was very far from a failure. He put back the leavescarefully, and glanced again at Messrs Beit's list. It had escaped hisnotice that A Bad Un to Beat was in its third three-volume edition. Itwas a great thing, at all events, to know in what direction to aim, if hewished to succeed. If he worked hard, he thought, he might some day winthe approval of the coy and retiring Miranda of Smart Society; thatmodest maiden might in his praise interrupt her task of disinterestedadvertisement, her philanthropic counsels to "go to Jumper's, and mindyou ask for Mr. C. Jumper, who will show you the lovely blue paper withthe yellow spots at ten shillings the piece." He put down the pamphlet,and laughed again at the books and the reviewers: so that he might notweep. This then was English fiction, this was English criticism, andfarce, after all, was but an ill-played tragedy.

　　The rejected manuscript was hidden away, and his father quoted Horace'smaxim as to the benefit of keeping literary works for some time "in thewood." There was nothing to grumble at, though Lucian was inclined tothink the duration of the reader's catarrh a little exaggerated. But thiswas a trifle; he did not arrogate to himself the position of a smallcommercial traveler, who expects prompt civility as a matter of course,and not at all as a favor. He simply forgot his old book, and resolvedthat he would make a better one if he could. With the hot fit ofresolution, the determination not to be snuffed out by one refusal uponhim, he began to beat about in his mind for some new scheme. At first itseemed that he had hit upon a promising subject; he began to plot outchapters and scribble hints for the curious story that had entered hismind, arranging his circumstances and noting the effects to be producedwith all the enthusiasm of the artist. But after the first breath theaspect of the work changed; page after page was tossed aside as hopeless,the beautiful sentences he had dreamed of refused to be written, and hispuppets remained stiff and wooden, devoid of life or motion. Then all theold despairs came back, the agonies of the artificer who strives andperseveres in vain; the scheme that seemed of amorous fire turned to coldhard ice in his hands. He let the pen drop from his fingers, and wonderedhow he could have ever dreamed of writing books. Again, the thoughtoccurred that he might do something if he could only get away, and jointhe sad procession in the murmuring London streets, far from the shadowof those awful hills. But it was quite impossible; the relative who hadonce promised assistance was appealed to, and wrote expressing his regretthat Lucian had turned out a "loafer," wasting his time in scribbling,instead of trying to earn his living. Lucian felt rather hurt at thisletter, but the parson only grinned grimly as usual. He was thinking ofhow he signed a check many years before, in the days of his prosperity,and the check was payable to this didactic relative, then in but a poorway, and of a thankful turn of mind.

　　The old rejected manuscript had almost passed out of his recollection. Itwas recalled oddly enough. He was looking over the Reader, and enjoyingthe admirable literary criticisms, some three months after the return ofhis book, when his eye was attracted by a quoted passage in one of thenotices. The thought and style both wakened memory, the cadences werefamiliar and beloved. He read through the review from the beginning; itwas a very favorable one, and pronounced the volume an immense advance onMr. Ritson's previous work. "Here, undoubtedly, the author has discovereda vein of pure metal," the reviewer added, "and we predict that he willgo far." Lucian had not yet reached his father's stage, he was unable togrin in the manner of that irreverent parson. The passage selected forhigh praise was taken almost word for word from the manuscript nowresting in his room, the work that had not reached the high standard ofMessrs Beit & Co., who, curiously enough, were the publishers of the bookreviewed in the Reader. He had a few shillings in his possession, andwrote at once to a bookseller in London for a copy of The Chorus inGreen, as the author had oddly named the book. He wrote on June 21st andthought he might fairly expect to receive the interesting volume by the24th; but the postman, true to his tradition, brought nothing for him,and in the afternoon he resolved to walk down to Caermaen, in case itmight have come by a second post; or it might have been mislaid at theoffice; they forgot parcels sometimes, especially when the bag was heavyand the weather hot. This 24th was a sultry and oppressive day; a greyveil of cloud obscured the sky, and a vaporous mist hung heavily over theland, and fumed up from the valleys. But at five o'clock, when hestarted, the clouds began to break, and the sunlight suddenly streameddown through the misty air, making ways and channels of rich glory, andbright islands in the gloom. It was a pleasant and shining evening when,passing by devious back streets to avoid the barbarians (as he veryrudely called the respectable inhabitants of the town), he reached thepost-office; which was also the general shop.

　　"Yes, Mr. Taylor, there is something for you, sir," said the man."Williams the postman forgot to take it up this morning," and he handedover the packet. Lucian took it under his arm and went slowly through theragged winding lanes till he came into the country. He got over the firststile on the road, and sitting down in the shelter of a hedge, cut thestrings and opened the parcel. The Chorus in Green was got up in whatreviewers call a dainty manner: a bronze-green cloth, well-cut goldlettering, wide margins and black "old-face" type, all witnessed to thegood taste of Messrs Beit & Co. He cut the pages hastily and began toread. He soon found that he had wronged Mr. Ritson—that old literaryhand had by no means stolen his book wholesale, as he had expected. Therewere about two hundred pages in the pretty little volume, and of theseabout ninety were Lucian's, dovetailed into a rather different schemewith skill that was nothing short of exquisite. And Mr. Ritson's own workwas often very good; spoilt here and there for some tastes by the"cataloguing" method, a somewhat materialistic way of taking an inventoryof the holy country things; but, for that very reason, contrasting to agreat advantage with Lucian's hints and dreams and note of haunting. Andhere and there Mr. Ritson had made little alterations in the style of thepassages he had conveyed, and most of these alterations were amendments,as Lucian was obliged to confess, though he would have liked to argue oneor two points with his collaborator and corrector. He lit his pipe andleant back comfortably in the hedge, thinking things over, weighing verycoolly his experience of humanity, his contact with the "society" of thecountryside, the affair of the The Chorus in Green, and even somelittle incidents that had struck him as he was walking through thestreets of Caermaen that evening. At the post-office, when he wasinquiring for his parcel, he had heard two old women grumbling in thestreet; it seemed, so far as he could make out, that both had beendisappointed in much the same way. One was a Roman Catholic, hardened,and beyond the reach of conversion; she had been advised to ask alms ofthe priests, "who are always creeping and crawling about." The other oldsinner was a Dissenter, and, "Mr. Dixon has quite enough to do to relievegood Church people."

　　Mrs. Dixon, assisted by Henrietta, was, it seemed, the lady high almoner,who dispensed these charities. As she said to Mrs. Colley, they would endby keeping all the beggars in the county, and they really couldn't affordit. A large family was an expensive thing, and the girls must have newfrocks. "Mr. Dixon is always telling me and the girls that we must notdemoralize the people by indiscriminate charity." Lucian had heard ofthese sage counsels, and through it them as he listened to the bittercomplaints of the gaunt, hungry old women. In the back street by which hepassed out of the town he saw a large "healthy" boy kicking a sick cat;the poor creature had just strength enough to crawl under an outhousedoor; probably to die in torments. He did not find much satisfaction inthrashing the boy, but he did it with hearty good will. Further on, atthe corner where the turnpike used to be, was a big notice, announcing ameeting at the school-room in aid of the missions to the Portuguese."Under the Patronage of the Lord Bishop of the Diocese," was the imposingheadline; the Reverend Merivale Dixon, vicar of Caermaen, was to be inthe chair, supported by Stanley Gervase, Esq., J.P., and by many of theclergy and gentry of the neighborhood. Senhor Diabo, "formerly a Romanistpriest, now an evangelist in Lisbon," would address the meeting. "Fundsare urgently needed to carry on this good work," concluded the notice. Sohe lay well back in the shade of the hedge, and thought whether some sortof an article could not be made by vindicating the terrible Yahoos; onemight point out that they were in many respects a simple andunsophisticated race, whose faults were the result of their enslavedposition, while such virtues as they had were all their own. They mightbe compared, he thought, much to their advantage, with more complexcivilizations. There was no hint of anything like the Beit system ofpublishing in existence amongst them; the great Yahoo nation would surelynever feed and encourage a scabby Houyhnhnm, expelled for his foulnessfrom the horse-community, and the witty dean, in all his minuteness, hadsaid nothing of "safe" Yahoos. On reflection, however, he did not feelquite secure of this part of his defense; he remembered that the leadingbrutes had favorites, who were employed in certain simple domesticoffices about their masters, and it seemed doubtful whether thecontemplated vindication would not break down on this point. He smiledqueerly to himself as he thought of these comparisons, but his heartburned with a dull fury. Throwing back his unhappy memory, he recalledall the contempt and scorn he had suffered; as a boy he had heard themasters murmuring their disdain of him and of his desire to learn otherthan ordinary school work. As a young man he had suffered the insolenceof these wretched people about him; their cackling laughter at hispoverty jarred and grated in his ears; he saw the acrid grin of somemiserable idiot woman, some creature beneath the swine in intelligenceand manners, merciless, as he went by with his eyes on the dust, in hisragged clothes. He and his father seemed to pass down an avenue of jeersand contempt, and contempt from such animals as these! This putrid filth,molded into human shape, made only to fawn on the rich and beslaver them,thinking no foulness too foul if it were done in honor of those in powerand authority; and no refined cruelty of contempt too cruel if it werecontempt of the poor and humble and oppressed; it was to this obscene andghastly throng that he was something to be pointed at. And these men andwomen spoke of sacred things, and knelt before the awful altar of God,before the altar of tremendous fire, surrounded as they professed byAngels and Archangels and all the Company of Heaven; and in their verychurch they had one aisle for the rich and another for the poor. And thespecies was not peculiar to Caermaen; the rich business men in Londonand the successful brother author were probably amusing themselves at theexpense of the poor struggling creature they had injured and wounded;just as the "healthy" boy had burst into a great laugh when the miserablesick cat cried out in bitter agony, and trailed its limbs slowly, as itcrept away to die. Lucian looked into his own life and his own will; hesaw that in spite of his follies, and his want of success, he had notbeen consciously malignant, he had never deliberately aided inoppression, or looked on it with enjoyment and approval, and he felt thatwhen he lay dead beneath the earth, eaten by swarming worms, he would bein a purer company than now, when he lived amongst human creatures. Andhe was to call this loathsome beast, all sting and filth, brother! "I hadrather call the devils my brothers," he said in his heart, "I would farebetter in hell." Blood was in his eyes, and as he looked up the skyseemed of blood, and the earth burned with fire.

　　The sun was sinking low on the mountain when he set out on the way again.Burrows, the doctor, coming home in his trap, met him a little lower onthe road, and gave him a friendly good-night.

　　"A long way round on this road, isn't it?" said the doctor. "As you havecome so far, why don't you try the short cut across the fields? You willfind it easily enough; second stile on the left hand, and then gostraight ahead."

　　He thanked Dr. Burrows and said he would try the short cut, and Burrowsspan on homeward. He was a gruff and honest bachelor, and often felt verysorry for the lad, and wished he could help him. As he drove on, itsuddenly occurred to him that Lucian had an awful look on his face, andhe was sorry he had not asked him to jump in, and to come to supper. Ahearty slice of beef, with strong ale, whisky and soda afterwards, a goodpipe, and certain Rabelaisian tales which the doctor had treasured formany years, would have done the poor fellow a lot of good, he wascertain. He half turned round on his seat, and looked to see if Lucianwere still in sight, but he had passed the corner, and the doctor droveon, shivering a little; the mists were beginning to rise from the wetbanks of the river.

　　Lucian trailed slowly along the road, keeping a look out for the stilethe doctor had mentioned. It would be a little of an adventure, hethought, to find his way by an unknown track; he knew the direction inwhich his home lay, and he imagined he would not have much difficulty incrossing from one stile to another. The path led him up a steep barefield, and when he was at the top, the town and the valley winding up tothe north stretched before him. The river was stilled at the flood, andthe yellow water, reflecting the sunset, glowed in its deep pools likedull brass. These burning pools, the level meadows fringed withshuddering reeds, the long dark sweep of the forest on the hill, were allclear and distinct, yet the light seemed to have clothed them with a newgarment, even as voices from the streets of Caermaen sounded strangely,mounting up thin with the smoke. There beneath him lay the huddledcluster of Caermaen, the ragged and uneven roofs that marked the windingand sordid streets, here and there a pointed gable rising above itsmeaner fellows; beyond he recognized the piled mounds that marked thecircle of the amphitheatre, and the dark edge of trees that grew wherethe Roman wall whitened and waxed old beneath the frosts and rains ofeighteen hundred years. Thin and strange, mingled together, the voicescame up to him on the hill; it was as if an outland race inhabited theruined city and talked in a strange language of strange and terriblethings. The sun had slid down the sky, and hung quivering over the hugedark dome of the mountain like a burnt sacrifice, and then suddenlyvanished. In the afterglow the clouds began to writhe and turn scarlet,and shone so strangely reflected in the pools of the snake-like river,that one would have said the still waters stirred, the fleeting andchanging of the clouds seeming to quicken the stream, as if it bubbledand sent up gouts of blood. But already about the town the darkness wasforming; fast, fast the shadows crept upon it from the forest, and fromall sides banks and wreaths of curling mist were gathering, as if aghostly leaguer were being built up against the city, and the strangerace who lived in its streets. Suddenly there burst out from thestillness the clear and piercing music of the réveillé, calling,recalling, iterated, reiterated, and ending with one long high fierceshrill note with which the steep hills rang. Perhaps a boy in the schoolband was practicing on his bugle, but for Lucian it was magic. For him itwas the note of the Roman trumpet, tuba mirum spargens sonum, fillingall the hollow valley with its command, reverberated in dark places inthe far forest, and resonant in the old graveyards without the walls. Inhis imagination he saw the earthen gates of the tombs broken open, andthe serried legion swarming to the eagles. Century by century they passedby; they rose, dripping, from the river bed, they rose from the level,their armor shone in the quiet orchard, they gathered in ranks andcompanies from the cemetery, and as the trumpet sounded, the hill fortabove the town gave up its dead. By hundreds and thousands the ghostlybattle surged about the standard, behind the quaking mist, ready to marchagainst the moldering walls they had built so many years before.

　　He turned sharply; it was growing very dark, and he was afraid of missinghis way. At first the path led him by the verge of a wood; there was anoise of rustling and murmuring from the trees as if they were takingevil counsel together. A high hedge shut out the sight of the darkeningvalley, and he stumbled on mechanically, without taking much note of theturnings of the track, and when he came out from the wood shadow to theopen country, he stood for a moment quite bewildered and uncertain. Adark wild twilight country lay before him, confused dim shapes of treesnear at hand, and a hollow below his feet, and the further hills andwoods were dimmer, and all the air was very still. Suddenly the darknessabout him glowed; a furnace fire had shot up on the mountain, and for amoment the little world of the woodside and the steep hill shone in apale light, and he thought he saw his path beaten out in the turf beforehim. The great flame sank down to a red glint of fire, and it led him ondown the ragged slope, his feet striking against ridges of ground, andfalling from beneath him at a sudden dip. The bramble bushes shot outlong prickly vines, amongst which he was entangled, and lower he was heldback by wet bubbling earth. He had descended into a dark and shadyvalley, beset and tapestried with gloomy thickets; the weird wood noiseswere the only sounds, strange, unutterable mutterings, dismal,inarticulate. He pushed on in what he hoped was the right direction,stumbling from stile to gate, peering through mist and shadow, and stillvainly seeking for any known landmark. Presently another sound broke uponthe grim air, the murmur of water poured over stones, gurgling againstthe old misshapen roots of trees, and running clear in a deep channel. Hepassed into the chill breath of the brook, and almost fancied he heardtwo voices speaking in its murmur; there seemed a ceaseless utterance ofwords, an endless argument. With a mood of horror pressing on him, helistened to the noise of waters, and the wild fancy seized him that hewas not deceived, that two unknown beings stood together there in thedarkness and tried the balances of his life, and spoke his doom. The hourin the matted thicket rushed over the great bridge of years to histhought; he had sinned against the earth, and the earth trembled andshook for vengeance. He stayed still for a moment, quivering with fear,and at last went on blindly, no longer caring for the path, if only hemight escape from the toils of that dismal shuddering hollow. As heplunged through the hedges the bristling thorns tore his face and hands;he fell amongst stinging-nettles and was pricked as he beat out his wayamidst the gorse. He raced headlong, his head over his shoulder, througha windy wood, bare of undergrowth; there lay about the ground molderingstumps, the relics of trees that had thundered to their fall, crashingand tearing to earth, long ago; and from these remains there flowed out apale thin radiance, filling the spaces of the sounding wood with a dreamof light. He had lost all count of the track; he felt he had fled forhours, climbing and descending, and yet not advancing; it was as if hestood still and the shadows of the land went by, in a vision. But at lasta hedge, high and straggling, rose before him, and as he broke throughit, his feet slipped, and he fell headlong down a steep bank into a lane.He lay still, half-stunned, for a moment, and then rising unsteadily, helooked desperately into the darkness before him, uncertain andbewildered. In front it was black as a midnight cellar, and he turnedabout, and saw a glint in the distance, as if a candle were flickering ina farm-house window. He began to walk with trembling feet towards thelight, when suddenly something pale started out from the shadows beforehim, and seemed to swim and float down the air. He was going down hill,and he hastened onwards, and he could see the bars of a stile frameddimly against the sky, and the figure still advanced with that glidingmotion. Then, as the road declined to the valley, the landmark he hadbeen seeking appeared. To his right there surged up in the darkness thedarker summit of the Roman fort, and the streaming fire of the great fullmoon glowed through the bars of the wizard oaks, and made a halo shineabout the hill. He was now quite close to the white appearance, and sawthat it was only a woman walking swiftly down the lane; the floatingmovement was an effect due to the somber air and the moon's glamour. Atthe gate, where he had spent so many hours gazing at the fort, theywalked foot to foot, and he saw it was Annie Morgan.

　　"Good evening, Master Lucian," said the girl, "it's very dark, sir,indeed."

　　"Good evening, Annie," he answered, calling her by her name for the firsttime, and he saw that she smiled with pleasure. "You are out late, aren'tyou?"

　　"Yes, sir; but I've been taking a bit of supper to old Mrs. Gibbon. She'sbeen very poorly the last few days, and there's nobody to do anything forher."

　　Then there were really people who helped one another; kindness and pitywere not mere myths, fictions of "society," as useful as Doe and Roe, andas non-existent. The thought struck Lucian with a shock; the evening'spassion and delirium, the wild walk and physical fatigue had almostshattered him in body and mind. He was "degenerate," decadent, and therough rains and blustering winds of life, which a stronger man would havelaughed at and enjoyed, were to him "hail-storms and fire-showers." Afterall, Messrs Beit, the publishers, were only sharp men of business, andthese terrible Dixons and Gervases and Colleys merely the ordinarylimited clergy and gentry of a quiet country town; sturdier sense wouldhave dismissed Dixon as an old humbug, Stanley Gervase, Esquire, J.P., asa "bit of a bounder," and the ladies as "rather a shoddy lot." But he waswalking slowly now in painful silence, his heavy, lagging feet strikingagainst the loose stones. He was not thinking of the girl beside him;only something seemed to swell and grow and swell within his heart; itwas all the torture of his days, weary hopes and weary disappointment,scorn rankling and throbbing, and the thought "I had rather call thedevils my brothers and live with them in hell." He choked and gasped forbreath, and felt involuntary muscles working in his face, and theimpulses of a madman stirring him; he himself was in truth therealization of the vision of Caermaen that night, a city with molderingwalls beset by the ghostly legion. Life and the world and the laws of thesunlight had passed away, and the resurrection and kingdom of the deadbegan. The Celt assailed him, becoming from the weird wood he called theworld, and his far-off ancestors, the "little people," crept out of theircaves, muttering charms and incantations in hissing inhuman speech; hewas beleaguered by desires that had slept in his race for ages.

　　"I am afraid you are very tired, Master Lucian. Would you like me to giveyou my hand over this rough bit?"

　　He had stumbled against a great round stone and had nearly fallen. Thewoman's hand sought his in the darkness; as he felt the touch of the softwarm flesh he moaned, and a pang shot through his arm to his heart. Helooked up and found he had only walked a few paces since Annie hadspoken; he had thought they had wandered for hours together. The moon wasjust mounting above the oaks, and the halo round the dark hillbrightened. He stopped short, and keeping his hold of Annie's hand,looked into her face. A hazy glory of moonlight shone around them and litup their eyes. He had not greatly altered since his boyhood; his face waspale olive in color, thin and oval; marks of pain had gathered about theeyes, and his black hair was already stricken with grey. But the eager,curious gaze still remained, and what he saw before him lit up hissadness with a new fire. She stopped too, and did not offer to draw away,but looked back with all her heart. They were alike in many ways; herskin was also of that olive color, but her face was sweet as a beautifulsummer night, and her black eyes showed no dimness, and the smile on thescarlet lips was like a flame when it brightens a dark and lonely land.

　　"You are sorely tired, Master Lucian, let us sit down here by the gate."

　　It was Lucian who spoke next: "My dear, my dear." And their lips weretogether again, and their arms locked together, each holding the otherfast. And then the poor lad let his head sink down on his sweetheart'sbreast, and burst into a passion of weeping. The tears streamed down hisface, and he shook with sobbing, in the happiest moment that he had everlived. The woman bent over him and tried to comfort him, but his tearswere his consolation and his triumph. Annie was whispering to him, herhand laid on his heart; she was whispering beautiful, wonderful words,that soothed him as a song. He did not know what they meant.

　　"Annie, dear, dear Annie, what are you saying to me? I have never heardsuch beautiful words. Tell me, Annie, what do they mean?"

　　She laughed, and said it was only nonsense that the nurses sang to thechildren.

　　"No, no, you are not to call me Master Lucian any more," he said, whenthey parted, "you must call me Lucian; and I, I worship you, my dearAnnie."

　　He fell down before her, embracing her knees, and adored, and she allowedhim, and confirmed his worship. He followed slowly after her, passing thepath which led to her home with a longing glance. Nobody saw anydifference in Lucian when he reached the rectory. He came in with hisusual dreamy indifference, and told how he had lost his way by trying theshort cut. He said he had met Dr. Burrows on the road, and that he hadrecommended the path by the fields. Then, as dully as if he had beenreading some story out of a newspaper, he gave his father the outlines ofthe Beit case, producing the pretty little book called The Chorus inGreen. The parson listened in amazement.

　　"You mean to tell me that you wrote this book?" he said. He was quiteroused.

　　"No; not all of it. Look; that bit is mine, and that; and the beginningof this chapter. Nearly the whole of the third chapter is by me."

　　He closed the book without interest, and indeed he felt astonished at hisfather's excitement. The incident seemed to him unimportant.

　　"And you say that eighty or ninety pages of this book are yours, andthese scoundrels have stolen your work?"

　　"Well, I suppose they have. I'll fetch the manuscript, if you would liketo look at it."

　　The manuscript was duly produced, wrapped in brown paper, with Messrs

　　Beit's address label on it, and the post-office dated stamps.

　　"And the other book has been out a month." The parson, forgetting thesacerdotal office, and his good habit of grinning, swore at Messrs Beitand Mr. Ritson, calling them damned thieves, and then began to read themanuscript, and to compare it with the printed book.

　　"Why, it's splendid work. My poor fellow," he said after a while, "I hadno notion you could write so well. I used to think of such things in theold days at Oxford; 'old Bill,' the tutor, used to praise my essays, butI never wrote anything like this. And this infernal ruffian of a Ritsonhas taken all your best things and mixed them up with his own rot to makeit go down. Of course you'll expose the gang?"

　　Lucian was mildly amused; he couldn't enter into his father's feelings atall. He sat smoking in one of the old easy chairs, taking the rare relishof a hot grog with his pipe, and gazing out of his dreamy eyes at theviolent old parson. He was pleased that his father liked his book,because he knew him to be a deep and sober scholar and a cool judge ofgood letters; but he laughed to himself when he saw the magic of print.The parson had expressed no wish to read the manuscript when it came backin disgrace; he had merely grinned, said something about boomerangs, andquoted Horace with relish. Whereas now, before the book in its neat case,lettered with another man's name, his approbation of the writing and hisdisapproval of the "scoundrels," as he called them, were loudlyexpressed, and, though a good smoker, he blew and puffed vehemently athis pipe.

　　"You'll expose the rascals, of course, won't you?" he said again.

　　"Oh no, I think not. It really doesn't matter much, does it? After all,there are some very weak things in the book; doesn't it strike you as'young?' I have been thinking of another plan, but I haven't done muchwith it lately. But I believe I've got hold of a really good idea thistime, and if I can manage to see the heart of it I hope to turn out amanuscript worth stealing. But it's so hard to get at the core of anidea—the heart, as I call it," he went on after a pause. "It's likehaving a box you can't open, though you know there's something wonderfulinside. But I do believe I've a fine thing in my hands, and I mean to trymy best to work it."

　　Lucian talked with enthusiasm now, but his father, on his side, could notshare these ardors. It was his part to be astonished at excitement over abook that was not even begun, the mere ghost of a book flitting elusivein the world of unborn masterpieces and failures. He had loved goodletters, but he shared unconsciously in the general belief that literaryattempt is always pitiful, though he did not subscribe to the other halfof the popular faith—that literary success is a matter of very littleimportance. He thought well of books, but only of printed books; inmanuscripts he put no faith, and the paulo-post-futurum tense he couldnot in any manner conjugate. He returned once more to the topic ofpalpable interest.

　　"But about this dirty trick these fellows have played on you. You won'tsit quietly and bear it, surely? It's only a question of writing to thepapers."

　　"They wouldn't put the letter in. And if they did, I should only getlaughed at. Some time ago a man wrote to the Reader, complaining of hisplay being stolen. He said that he had sent a little one-act comedy toBurleigh, the great dramatist, asking for his advice. Burleigh gave hisadvice and took the idea for his own very successful play. So the mansaid, and I daresay it was true enough. But the victim got nothing by hiscomplaint. 'A pretty state of things,' everybody said. 'Here's a Mr.Tomson, that no one has ever heard of, bothers Burleigh with his rubbish,and then accuses him of petty larceny. Is it likely that a man ofBurleigh's position, a playwright who can make his five thousand a yeareasily, would borrow from an unknown Tomson?' I should think it verylikely, indeed," Lucian went on, chuckling, "but that was their verdict.No; I don't think I'll write to the papers."

　　"Well, well, my boy, I suppose you know your own business best. I thinkyou are mistaken, but you must do as you like."

　　"It's all so unimportant," said Lucian, and he really thought so. He hadsweeter things to dream of, and desired no communion of feeling with thatmadman who had left Caermaen some few hours before. He felt he had made afool of himself, he was ashamed to think of the fatuity of which he hadbeen guilty, such boiling hatred was not only wicked, but absurd. A mancould do no good who put himself into a position of such violentantagonism against his fellow-creatures; so Lucian rebuked his heart,saying that he was old enough to know better. But he remembered that hehad sweeter things to dream of; there was a secret ecstasy that hetreasured and locked tight away, as a joy too exquisite even for thoughttill he was quite alone; and then there was that scheme for a new bookthat he had laid down hopelessly some time ago; it seemed to have ariseninto life again within the last hour; he understood that he had startedon a false tack, he had taken the wrong aspect of his idea. Of course thething couldn't be written in that way; it was like trying to read a pageturned upside down; and he saw those characters he had vainly soughtsuddenly disambushed, and a splendid inevitable sequence of eventsunrolled before him.

　　It was a true resurrection; the dry plot he had constructed revealeditself as a living thing, stirring and mysterious, and warm as lifeitself. The parson was smoking stolidly to all appearance, but in realityhe was full of amazement at his own son, and now and again he slipped slyfurtive glances towards the tranquil young man in the arm-chair by theempty hearth. In the first place, Mr. Taylor was genuinely impressed bywhat he had read of Lucian's work; he had so long been accustomed to lookupon all effort as futile that success amazed him. In the abstract, ofcourse, he was prepared to admit that some people did write well and gotpublished and made money, just as other persons successfully backed anoutsider at heavy odds; but it had seemed as improbable that Lucianshould show even the beginnings of achievement in one direction as in theother. Then the boy evidently cared so little about it; he did not appearto be proud of being worth robbing, nor was he angry with the robbers.

　　He sat back luxuriously in the disreputable old chair, drawing long slowwreaths of smoke, tasting his whisky from time to time, evidently well atease with himself. The father saw him smile, and it suddenly dawned uponhim that his son was very handsome; he had such kind gentle eyes and akind mouth, and his pale cheeks were flushed like a girl's. Mr. Taylorfelt moved. What a harmless young fellow Lucian had been; no doubt alittle queer and different from others, but wholly inoffensive andpatient under disappointment. And Miss Deacon, her contribution to theevening's discussion had been characteristic; she had remarked, firstly,that writing was a very unsettling occupation, and secondly, that it wasextremely foolish to entrust one's property to people of whom one knewnothing. Father and son had smiled together at these observations, whichwere probably true enough. Mr. Taylor at last left Lucian along; he shookhands with a good deal of respect, and said, almost deferentially:

　　"You mustn't work too hard, old fellow. I wouldn't stay up too late, if Iwere you, after that long walk. You must have gone miles out of yourway."

　　"I'm not tired now, though. I feel as if I could write my new book on thespot"; and the young man laughed a gay sweet laugh that struck the fatheras a new note in his son's life.

　　He sat still a moment after his father had left the room. He cherishedhis chief treasure of thought in its secret place; he would not enjoy ityet. He drew up a chair to the table at which he wrote or tried to write,and began taking pens and paper from the drawer. There was a great pileof ruled paper there; all of it used, on one side, and signifying manyhours of desperate scribbling, of heart-searching and rack of his brain;an array of poor, eager lines written by a waning fire with waning hope;all useless and abandoned. He took up the sheets cheerfully, and began indelicious idleness to look over these fruitless efforts. A page caughthis attention; he remembered how he wrote it while a November storm wasdashing against the panes; and there was another, with a queer blot inone corner; he had got up from his chair and looked out, and all theearth was white fairyland, and the snowflakes whirled round and round inthe wind. Then he saw the chapter begun of a night in March: a great galeblew that night and rooted up one of the ancient yews in the churchyard.He had heard the trees shrieking in the woods, and the long wail of thewind, and across the heaven a white moon fled awfully before thestreaming clouds. And all these poor abandoned pages now seemed sweet,and past unhappiness was transmuted into happiness, and the nights oftoil were holy. He turned over half a dozen leaves and began to sketchout the outlines of the new book on the unused pages; running out askeleton plan on one page, and dotting fancies, suggestions, hints onothers. He wrote rapidly, overjoyed to find that loving phrases grewunder his pen; a particular scene he had imagined filled him with desire;he gave his hand free course, and saw the written work glowing; andaction and all the heat of existence quickened and beat on the wet page.Happy fancies took shape in happier words, and when at last he leant backin his chair he felt the stir and rush of the story as if it had beensome portion of his own life. He read over what he had done with arenewed pleasure in the nimble and flowing workmanship, and as he put thelittle pile of manuscript tenderly in the drawer he paused to enjoy theanticipation of tomorrow's labor.

　　And then—but the rest of the night was given to tender and deliciousthings, and when he went up to bed a scarlet dawn was streaming from theeast.