The Twymans 
 
 A TALE OF YOUTH
 
 The Twymans 
 
 A TALE OF YOUTH 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY NEWBOLT 
 
 William Blackwood and Sons 
 * Edinburgh and London 
 
 191 1 
 
 Sj 3 O ^ 17 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
 
 /L 
 
 O 
 
 ro 
 
 '-:i 5/i? ARTHUR QUILLER COUCH. 
 
 3 
 
 
 s 
 
 MY DEAR COUCH,— 
 
 I have more reasons than one for wishing 
 this book to be read by you. I offer it to you partly 
 in gratitude for the many hours I have spent over your 
 own adventures — heroic, humorous, and critical, — partly 
 in remembrance of hours further away, when you and I 
 sat together in that bare high-roofed chamber which is 
 now no longer the Sixth Room. What I have to tell 
 you of these will be, I hope, not less new than familiar, 
 for though you and I were fated to look upon the same 
 faces and the same fields of youth, it is not possible that 
 we looked upon them with the same eyes. I have heard 
 of certain mirrors made in the far East, which show 
 not only a reflection of the scene before them but a 
 picture of their own as well, a constant and inseparable 
 pattern appearing from beneath their visible surface and 
 interweaving itself with every representation of the otiter 
 world. Surely the mind of man is such a mirror, and 
 that which he writes just such a constant and inevitable
 
 VI 
 
 transformation of that which he has seen. If I am 
 right, I am sending you here a picture not so much of 
 things you have long known as of things you can never 
 have known, not though you searched the register for 
 every day of your own school life and mine. 
 
 A little more must be said of the other part oj the 
 story, the scenes of which Downton is not the setting. 
 The drama of Hampton St George is my own and no 
 other man's : you will find the place in no map ever 
 published, the history of its owners in no record legal 
 or genealogical. Yet it is true, in the sense in which 
 all Dichtung is also Wahrheit, if the pattern behind 
 the mirror only shows through. Whether in this case 
 the result is clear or muddled, pleasing or unpleasing, 
 I, of course, cannot judge — the mirror cannot see itself. 
 But there is for me no doubt that the main part of 
 what a writer has to offer his friends is this — the per- 
 sonal, not the impersonal reflection. " The brain stuff 
 of fiction is internal history." In a life more and more 
 encumbered with Socialism, calling cards, closure by 
 compartments, church membership, and bathing regtda- 
 tions, the romance which can be spim from the wheel of 
 circumstance must diminish daily : but the true adven- 
 ttires — the Pilgrimage of Grace, the Winning of the 
 Golden Fleece, the Quest of the Sleeping Beauty, the 
 finding of the Land East of the Sun, West of the Moon, 
 — these remain, for they are the realities which the 
 magic mirror creates out of the material world. " The 
 man of romance,'^ says Rostand to our comfort, "is not 
 he whose existence is diversified by the greatest possible
 
 Vll 
 
 number of extraordinary events ; but he in whom the 
 simplest occurrences produce the most live sensations.'" 
 There are no doubt others of the contrary opinion; in 
 life and in literature they still hold up to us the wonders 
 of A laddin's lamp : but all the jewels, palaces, and roc's 
 eggs ever brought for the asking will not make one real 
 fairy tale. 
 
 These truths you know as well as I do, and have far 
 better exemplified them : if I talk of them now it is 
 only, as you will have perceived, because I am filled 
 with parental anxiety for Percival. He has been hard 
 to manage and has ended by going his own way some- 
 what recklessly : but I should be sorry if you did not 
 think his story worth telling. 
 
 HENRT NEW BOLT.
 
 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Percival Twyman, when our story opens, had 
 attained the considerable age of ten. He was 
 in some ways even older than that, for he 
 had been much in the company of his elders, 
 and though not yet emancipated from all the 
 restrictions of childhood he had left behind 
 many childish things, and suffered some of the 
 most symptomatic of the pains which accompany 
 growth. He had long ago told his first lie — 
 and confessed it almost immediately, for no 
 reason known to himself — he had called his 
 brother a fool, and lived for two days and 
 nights in terror of hell-fire ; he had read ' The 
 Wandering Jew ' in spite of strictest prohibition ; 
 fallen in love with a lady just double his age, 
 to whom he had never spoken ; and finally, after 
 learning mensa mensce from an unusually capable 
 governess, had been promoted to attend a tutor 
 three times a-week in the neighbouring town. 
 But even after this ardently desired advance- 
 
 A
 
 2 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 ment his position was not completely satisfactory: 
 several of his young friends already wore the 
 trencher of Queen Mary's Grammar School, and 
 if they still admitted him to their exclusively 
 masculine amusements on equal terms, it was 
 only because he was understood to be very 
 shortly leaving his mother's protection for a 
 sphere even more glorious than their own — a 
 boarding-school " right away from home." 
 
 This change had been proposed by the mother 
 herself : the son, little guessing what it cost 
 her, had accepted it with characteristic readi- 
 ness as an adventure proper to life, which he 
 instinctively regarded as a kind of fairy-tale 
 journey towards a kingdom and a princess of 
 his own. But the step was one too momentous 
 for a young widow, however courageous, to 
 take without advice, and to-day was the day 
 upon which her little council was to meet. The 
 other members were her husband's only brother, 
 and an old friend requested rather than ap- 
 pointed to act in case of need as her fellow- 
 guardian of the three children. 
 
 Percival meanwhile considered the future as 
 settled, and for the present continued to think 
 the thoughts that lay nearest him. He loved 
 all games — cricket above the rest : but he had 
 an equally strong taste for the reading of poetry, 
 of which he assimilated enormous quantities, 
 and the mysteries of heraldry, which expressed 
 for him a whole rainbow of feelings and ideas, 
 none the less brilliant because it would be 
 many years yet before he possessed any spectro- 
 scope of his own capable of analysing them.
 
 THE TWYMANS. 3 
 
 Cricket was of course unorthodox in November, 
 so that to-day, on his return from his tutor, 
 he had only to decide whether he would use 
 the hour before tea-time for reading or painting. 
 He was still dallying pleasantly with this 
 choice as he left the town behind and entered 
 the tiny suburb of a dozen houses which lay 
 to the south of it along the Bromwicham Road. 
 The last but one of these villas was his home : 
 he entered quickly by a side door, tossed his 
 cap on to the hall table, and turned into the 
 dining-room. 
 
 It was empty, as he expected : the children 
 would of course be in the schoolroom upstairs, 
 and his mother busied elsewhere. The light 
 was still good, for the French window looked 
 out westward into a small garden with open 
 fields beyond : it was illuminated at this moment 
 by a pale gold sunset. Against the glass on 
 one side of it hung two transparencies, pre- 
 senting coats-of-arms, whose mediaeval design 
 and rich colours produced a solemn and almost 
 dignified effect, not common in suburban villas, 
 but not altogether incongruous here. The room, 
 it is true, was small, but the furniture was 
 neither new nor cheap ; it had the repose of 
 old and experienced mahogany. The china too 
 upon the mantelpiece was old ; there were good 
 engravings on the wall, and behind the glass 
 doors of the bookcase shimmered, as Percival 
 well knew, volumes which had once been finely 
 bound, and had faded only to become still 
 more attractive. Crabbe in old turquoise 
 morocco, Cowper in black and gold, the early
 
 4 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 Waverleys in dark embossed blue : Rasselas with 
 Westall's plates, Campbell with Turner's, Tenny- 
 son with Rossetti's — but this afternoon was not 
 for any of them ; this afternoon was for the 
 Middle Ages. 
 
 The boy took his paint-box from a corner 
 and sat down to the table. Eager and active 
 as he was out of doors, you must picture him 
 now very quiet and concentrated, his slight 
 figure bowed over the table in a rather cramped 
 position, his bright keen eyes intently riveted 
 upon his work — so intently that he never moves 
 except to lay down a pencil or dip a brush, 
 and is totally unconscious of the passing of 
 time and the quick fading of daylight. But 
 he is alive and alert in every fibre, every sense, 
 and, above all, in the sense of hearing. Few 
 sounds in that small house could escape his 
 net ; and now, even while his powers seemed 
 wholly given up to laying on ultra-marine in 
 carefully ruled slabs, his sub-consciousness was 
 aware of the distant tinkling of tea - cups in 
 the pantry, and the still fainter sound of light, 
 quick steps approaching from the drawing-room. 
 
 A frown clouded his face for a moment, but 
 it passed away as he heard his mother enter 
 the room. Her voice, though he did not realise 
 the fact, was one of the satisfactions that never 
 failed him. Even when it was complaining, 
 controversial, corrective, it was a voice that to 
 him could never be really antagonistic, and it 
 had a timbre that was always true to itself. 
 He knew, without knowing it, that pleasure of 
 having one's expectation unfailingly realised,
 
 THE TWYMANS. 5 
 
 which is surely one of the main elements of 
 our delight in a marked personality. 
 
 "Well, my Old Perseverance," said the quick, 
 friendly voice, " how are you getting on ? " Then 
 the tone changed suddenly. " Oh ! Percy, you 
 can't see in this light — you'll spoil your eyes." 
 
 Mrs Twyman was thirty -three — to Percy an 
 immense age, the age of almost all grown-up 
 people, — and her conventions were those of Staf- 
 fordshire in the seventies ; but she had still, 
 strangely enough, a youthful and easy manner 
 with her children. She was now edging herself 
 on to the corner of his chair and peeping over 
 his shoulder. 
 
 " My dear mother, you're shaking me : I've just 
 done." His tone was irritable but without ill- 
 temper, and she seemed quite unaffected by it. 
 He sat back from his work and looked at it 
 critically, while he rattled his brush in the water- 
 tin. She looked, too, but through and beyond 
 the drawing, and her right hand passed from 
 his shoulder to his head and lay caressingly on 
 the short crisp gold of his hair. 
 
 "It is very nice," she said in a soothingly 
 uncritical tone. " I can't think how you learned 
 to do it." 
 
 He was pleased, but unconvinced. " No," he 
 grumbled, "I'm no good at drawing: my lions 
 wobble." 
 
 "But the other shield is beautifully done." 
 
 "Oh! that, — you see that's our own, and I've 
 done it so often. Besides, it's all straight 
 lines : and the blue's very bad — it ivill dry in 
 streaks."
 
 6 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 " Well, / think it's wonderful : I wish your 
 dear father could have seen it." 
 
 The boy was silent : he had very strong and 
 quick feelings, especially about his father, but 
 his first instinct was generally to postpone the 
 moment of acknowledging them. 
 
 She continued. " He was so proud of every- 
 thing that had to do with his family." 
 
 " But why w^as he proud, mother ? Tell me." 
 
 " Oh ! he had plenty of reasons." 
 
 " Yes, I know : those papers and things in 
 your drawer. Why mayn't I see them ? " 
 
 " You may, some day." 
 
 The frown returned. "Yes, but when?" 
 
 It was an old controversy, and to-day, for 
 the twentieth time, fate w^as against him. The 
 door opened, and his guardian was announced.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Mr Mundy was perhaps fifty years of age, a 
 large man of solid and imposing bulk, with a 
 massive head close - cropped and grizzled. His 
 movements were ponderous, but he had the 
 gentleness of great strength : his habitual tone 
 was so modest as to be almost confidential, but 
 the sheer weight of his character often seemed 
 to give his sentences a judicial effect. He was 
 a hard - working engineer, a distinguished in- 
 ventor, and man of science : in earlier days 
 he had cultivated both society and literature, 
 and had keenly discussed religion with Percival's 
 father, whose preaching he greatly admired ; 
 but the death of this one close friend left him 
 with no real intimacies outside his own pro- 
 fession, and his life now marched rather doggedly 
 along a narrowing and solitary path. He re- 
 raiained devotedly attached to the welfare of 
 Mrs Twyman and her children, but he had little 
 leisure for visiting, and this was only the second 
 time that Percy remembered to have seen his 
 guardian. 
 
 It was contrary to Mrs Twyman's ideal of 
 courtesy to receive her guest in the dining- 
 room, but she could not help being glad to
 
 8 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 see Mr Mundy anywhere and in any way. His 
 kindness and good sense had been a tower of 
 refuge to her in times that she was not hkely 
 to forget; his quiet "Well, Amelia, here I am," 
 revived associations full of comfort. 
 
 He shook hands with the boy too, and surveyed 
 him with interest and something more : then 
 turned to see what he had been doing. Percy 
 appreciated the serious manner of his over- 
 ture, "May I look at your work?" but as the 
 big shoulders bent over it with attention he 
 became suddenly aware of a burning sensation 
 of doubt. He was not ashamed of his beloved 
 heraldry, but he was ashamed for it : it seemed 
 so unlikely to explain itself to so solid an ex- 
 aminer, so certain, for all its rightness, to be 
 misunderstood and perhaps despised. 
 
 Mr Mundv was silent for a moment or two 
 longer than might have been expected. He 
 seemed to find something important, something 
 significant, in the boy's poor little daubs ; but 
 whatever it was he laid it aside on second 
 thoughts and brought himself back to matters 
 of detail. " I see you find your ultramarine 
 troublesome," he remarked confidentially, to 
 Percy's great relief. 
 
 "I do awfully," the boy replied, "it all dries 
 in streaks." 
 
 " Just so : what you want is a little Chinese 
 white. Mix it with your blue on the palette, 
 and you'll find it go on much more smoothly." 
 
 " Thank you, — thank you very much," said 
 Percy with fervour. 
 
 But the examiner was still looking critically
 
 THE TWYMANS. 9 
 
 at the shields. " The geometrical one you ruled : 
 but the lions wanted a little more drawing, didn't 
 they ? " 
 
 He looked about for a pencil, found one and 
 sat down at the table. Percy's misery was re- 
 doubled : bad as his lions were, they were con- 
 sistently bad, and he knew only too well that 
 improvement would be their ruin. Besides, they 
 were done, they were sufficient for his purpose, 
 which was symbolic rather than artistic, and 
 he did not want to be compelled to do them 
 over again. He fidgeted desperately at his 
 instructor's elbow. 
 
 Mr Mundy, having strengthened the wobbling 
 animals, appeared still dissatisfied. "There," he 
 said, " something like that : but if you want 
 them to look really well, why don't you shade 
 them with umber, and make the background 
 green instead of red ? " 
 
 Percy's courage came back with a rush ; the 
 enemy had ventured into his territory and 
 shown that there at any rate he was quite at 
 a loss. He felt his own advantage to be almost 
 unfair, almost embarrassing. 
 
 " Oh ! but it isn't a picture, it's Heraldry," he 
 said with intense earnestness, "and it's not red, 
 it's gules, and you couldn't put brown on the 
 lions, it would make them proper." 
 
 A gleam of fun twinkled in Mr Mundy's blue 
 eyes, but he let the jest go unspoken and 
 continued with perfect seriousness. 
 
 " I see you've learnt the language," he said, 
 "what we call, in my trade, the technical terms. 
 That always makes a game more enjoyable,
 
 10 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 doesn't it? Have you done any Chemistry? — 
 that has a language too." 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Any Botany?" The question seemed to be 
 half addressed to Mrs Twyman. At any rate 
 she replied for both. 
 
 "We have read 'Flowers of the Bible,' and 
 Miss Pratt's book on ferns — it's a very good 
 book, I believe." 
 
 Again the gleam twinkled and died away in 
 Mr Mundy's eyes. 
 
 "No Geology?" he asked, "nothing about 
 rocks and fossils ? " 
 
 " Oh ! no, he's going to try for a classical 
 scholarship, — aren't you, Percy ? " 
 
 This was not so much a question, as an 
 attempt to draw the boy out. He knew that, 
 but he was feeling once more ashamed : his 
 Latin seemed likely to be no more appreciated 
 than his heraldry. Mr Mundy saw the frown 
 gather on his face, and returned, with the best 
 intentions, to the drawings. 
 
 "Well," he said, "I'm glad we both like draw- 
 ing, and I hope you'll have some more for me 
 when I come again. I think if I were you I 
 should give up the ruler, and go on with the 
 animals : those blue and white stripes are not 
 very interesting, are they ? — you might try to 
 do a dog or a cat next time." 
 
 "We have two very pretty little kittens," re- 
 marked Mrs Twyman, anxious to further the 
 general agreement. 
 
 But Percy was far from agreeing ; he was 
 roused beyond all shyness. He felt now only
 
 THE TWYMANS. 11 
 
 an irresistible necessity to disentangle these 
 horrible confusions, to protest against them 
 even if he perished. 
 
 "They're not stripes," he cried with flaming 
 cheeks, "they're our own arms, and what's the 
 use of kittens," — he very nearly sobbed, — "how 
 could you go into battle with kittens on your 
 shield?" 
 
 He began to bundle up his paint - box and 
 papers. His mother was duly shocked. 
 
 " Percy," she said with some firmness, " I can't 
 have you speak like that to your guardian." 
 
 But Mr Mundy ignored her interruption. "I 
 expect you are right," he said to Percy with 
 consoling gravity. " You see I know very little 
 about it ; you must give me another lesson 
 to-morrow morning." 
 
 "Not if I know it," said the boy to himself, 
 as he hurried through the door and fled 
 indignantly upstairs.
 
 12 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Percy was privileged, as a general rule, to 
 take tea in the drawing-room with his mother, 
 but he was quite used to being sent back to 
 Miss Brown's table when there were visitors 
 downstairs. To-day he positively preferred this 
 arrangement, for he was reluctant to face his 
 guardian again immediately. Mankind were for 
 him either friends or enemies, and he felt that 
 Mr Mundy, in spite of his kind and even 
 flattering manner, must clearly be an enemy. 
 " He does not understand" was the child's way 
 of expressing this to himself, and though the 
 phrase was vague, the instinct was justified. 
 The big, quiet man did represent an antagonistic 
 principle. 
 
 Commander Twyman — Uncle Roland — was in 
 the other class : he certainly understood, was 
 in fact one of the main sources of Percy's own 
 understanding, whatever that amounted to. His 
 coming was a relief eagerly anticipated, — it 
 would be the arrival on the field of an invincible 
 ally. 
 
 The implied antagonism between the two men 
 was perhaps not altogether unforeseen by Mrs 
 Twyman ; at any rate Mr Mundy himself was
 
 THE TWYMANS. 13 
 
 quite conscious of it. He had loved the older 
 Percival, but intellectually he had approved 
 only one half of him. He realised that his 
 friend's mind was of a rare and fragrant ripe- 
 ness, but he imagined it to be ripe only on the 
 side which was coloured by the sunlight of 
 science, and crude if not unsound on the other, 
 the side which he himself could not see so "well. 
 The Commander, good fellow though he was, 
 presented a still smaller surface for agreement. 
 It was his health, no doubt, which had actually 
 caused his retirement from the Navy, but his 
 visionary and high - strung temperament, the 
 engineer felt, must have had a good deal to 
 do with it too. A man who had not succeeded 
 in outgrowing the imaginative view of life in 
 his first thirty - five years would never have 
 distinguished himself in a stern fighting service 
 during the twenty - five that remained. No, 
 there was something unpractical, if not actually 
 weak, about this brother : the other, though a 
 parson, was in Mr Mundy's judgment the better 
 man of the two. They were, however, in fact 
 singularly equal, singularly alike. Amelia real- 
 ised this dimly, to her comfort : it meant the 
 preservation of a valuable part of her children's 
 inheritance, for they were often with their 
 uncle and received from him precisely the in- 
 fluence which they must otherwise have lost 
 when they lost their father's presence. 
 
 Mrs Twyman had but one spare room during 
 term time. Her brother - in - law was therefore 
 to put up at a hotel in the town. He had 
 arrived by the same train as Mr Mundy, but
 
 14 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 after engaging his room and walking out he 
 was some three - quarters of an hour later in 
 reaching the house. 
 
 " Where are the children ? " was his first 
 question after the usual greetings. 
 
 He was already sitting on the hearth - rug, 
 with his long legs crossed, and his long, 
 bearded face and large brown eyes turned up 
 to his hostess with solemn but unmistakable 
 humour. 
 
 "You are always in a hurry for the children," 
 she replied, — " not very complimentary to us ! " 
 
 " You are not a Twynian," he said : " they 
 are : the continued existence of the family is 
 always my first care." 
 
 Mrs Twyman enjoyed nothing so much as an 
 opportunity for legitimate pride. "You need 
 have no doubts of that," she answered with a 
 triumphant smile. 
 
 "So I perceive," replied the Commander, 
 catching an inharmonious but animated noise 
 upon the stairs. It ceased suddenly, and the 
 three children entered with demure manners, 
 smooth hair, and a faint fragrance of curd 
 soap. Percy shook hands with his uncle, and 
 then made for his mother's side, where he 
 stood crossing his legs and biting his lips. 
 Molly, a brown - eyed dumpling of six, flung 
 herself completely into the Commander's arms : 
 the third child, who came in age between the 
 other two, greeted everybody with impassive 
 dignity, and seemed undecided which way to 
 turn. This choice was the constant problem of 
 his life: his very name depended on it, for
 
 THE TWYMANS. 15 
 
 when he followed his brother they were com- 
 monly called " Alan and Percy," but when he 
 went with his sister, to whom he was more 
 closely united, the pair were always known as 
 "Ally and Molly." To-night he did not hesitate 
 long : Molly having hauled Uncle Roland to a 
 chair and climbed upon one of his long, hard 
 knees, Ally took the other with unrelaxed 
 gravity. But it was Molly alone who insisted 
 upon stories being told at once. 
 
 While these were in progress Mr Mundy car- 
 ried on a conversation with his hostess in quiet 
 asides, asking short pointed questions about the 
 children, and receiving much longer replies from 
 their proud mother. But in so small a room it 
 was easy to focus the attention upon back- 
 ground and foreground at once, and he missed 
 very little of what was going on across the 
 way. There was a story for each child in turn. 
 Molly demanded, and got, the history of " a 
 very naughty little girl " : Alan preferred a 
 fairy - tale : Percy, when his turn came, asked 
 for something about Sir Percival or Lord 
 Nelson. The Commander took the second 
 choice, and gave a really stirring account of 
 the battle of Trafalgar, delivered with perfect 
 conviction and without for one moment playing 
 down to his little audience. It was an old 
 favourite with all of them, and they all had 
 comments to make when it was finished. 
 
 "He said his prayers," remarked Alan, turn- 
 ing his grave eyes on the narrator. "Did that 
 make it hurt not so much to be killed ? " 
 
 The Commander hesitated, but Mrs Twyman
 
 16 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 interposed with authority and confirmed Alan's 
 doctrine. Molly took the next turn. 
 
 "Was the lady he wrote to like cook?" she 
 asked. " Cook's name is Emma." 
 
 This made Percy furious. "How can you be 
 so silly ! " he cried. " Emma was the most 
 beautiful person in the world, and the best, too 
 — wasn't she, mother?" 
 
 Mrs Twyman blushed and rang the bell : but 
 Percy held on firmly. 
 
 "She was, wasn't she, Uncle Roland?" 
 
 But his mother after all preferred to have 
 the question answered in her own way. 
 
 "I don't think we need make comparisons," 
 she said, " there are so many good people in 
 the world." 
 
 "But she was one of the best, wasn't she?" 
 
 "That will do, Percy," said his mother in a 
 voice of cold and crushing gentleness; "you 
 are worrying your uncle." 
 
 "Oh, no!" said the Commander, "I like to 
 see his bristles up for a woman. Look here, 
 old boy, let us put it this way — " we'll stand 
 up for her against all comers, shall we?" 
 
 "Yes," he replied, "we'll throw our gloves 
 down." 
 
 But in the very middle of his proud little 
 gesture he saw the quiet sensible blue eyes of 
 his guardian fixed upon him, and knew that he 
 had exposed himself once more to the enemy. 
 He coloured deeply, and hastened to fetch a 
 chessboard for which no one had asked.
 
 17 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Late hours were not in fashion in that remote 
 age — at any rate, not in Midland society. By 
 half-past eight Percival had gone to bed, and 
 the two men who were to discuss his career 
 were sitting one on each side of the dining- 
 room fire, preparing to smoke. Their hostess, 
 who inherited traditions of the most careful 
 hospitality, had provided long clay pipes of the 
 kind known as Broseley Churchwardens, which 
 she remembered from of old to be favourites 
 with Mr Mundy. To the Commander they were 
 not so familiar, but anything that would burn 
 tobacco was good enough for his purpose. 
 
 Mrs Twyman was upstairs saying good-night 
 to Percy : she had promised to return immedi- 
 ately, and had begged them not to begin with- 
 out her. Mr Mundy, however, was already 
 busy with the first movement of his well -dis- 
 ciplined but not very mobile thoughts. He 
 took a deep pull at his pipe, closing and slowly 
 reopening his eyes before he began. 
 
 " Roland," he said in his most modest and 
 consultative voice, " have you gone much into 
 the question of modern education ? " 
 
 B
 
 18 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 The slow, heavily accentuated march of the 
 words almost alarmed his companion. 
 
 " No," he replied, " I'm ashamed to say, I 
 haven't. The fact is, I'm afraid I have rather 
 a way of taking things as they come, and not 
 before." 
 
 "We all do that," said the other very quietly. 
 " But sometimes," he went on, with another long 
 pull, "sometimes I take up a question — like an 
 equation — and try to work it out for my own 
 amusement." 
 
 He was silent again : his troops still seemed 
 to find the road heavy at the start, and he 
 pulled harder at his pipe as if to help them along. 
 
 " What do you think," he said presently, " of 
 the kind of education — the kind of training — 
 this boy of Amelia's has had — so far ? " 
 
 " Oh ! " replied the Commander vaguely, " I 
 don't know : she hasn't told me much about it." 
 
 " Nor me : but I've noticed one or two things 
 to-day." 
 
 "He's not been making bad weather of it?" 
 
 " He's been — I'm afraid — on the wrong tack 
 altogether : of course the child himself " 
 
 At this point Mrs Twyman entered the room, 
 pushed back the table, and seated herself be- 
 tween the two men. " Don't stop talking," she 
 said, " I've got my w^ork," and her quick fingers 
 were instantly busy with wool-work, her still 
 quicker eyes and ears alert to watch her com- 
 panions and mark the drift if not the depth of 
 their conversation. 
 
 Mr Mundy deliberately changed his formation 
 and began to march again.
 
 THE TWYMANS. 19 
 
 •' Amelia," he said very gently, " we were 
 talking about modern education. I'm a quiet 
 old fogey myself, but the education of the 
 young is not -what I should like to see it." 
 
 Mrs Twyman smiled at the wistful emphasis 
 on the word "like," — it was so characteristic. 
 But though it pleased her, she saw through it 
 unerringly. " You are talking of Percy," she 
 said in the tone of one accepting a challenge. 
 
 " We were talking generally," he replied, deter- 
 mined to avoid controversy as long as possible. 
 " Your boy, I am sure, has been very well 
 taught, — it is the whole system I criticise." 
 
 She looked at the Commander, but he was 
 looking at the bowl of his pipe. Mr Mundy 
 wreathed himself once more in a deliberative 
 cloud, and as it cleared his gentle voice was 
 heard again in a more even and continuous effort. 
 
 " When you come to think of it," he said, 
 " the only object of education is life. You've 
 got to teach the young as much as possible 
 before they begin to live. The time is short : 
 there's a great deal to be learnt : you can't afford 
 to waste a day. To let them spend time on 
 anything unreal is waste." 
 
 " I quite agree," interposed Mrs Twyman. " I 
 have always loved things to be real : I never 
 would wear imitation of any kind." 
 
 Mr Mundy utilised the interval to keep his 
 pipe going, but made no direct reply to this 
 remark. 
 
 "In the matter of reality," he continued, "we 
 seem to have got off the road some long time 
 ago ; and we have not yet got back. We must.
 
 20 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 There has been a break in our progress. I'm 
 not a scholar myself, but the other day an 
 Oxford Professor showed me some very remark- 
 able passages from Cicero. The ideas were not 
 quite our ideas : but the standpoint was an 
 advanced standpoint. He convinced me that 
 the ancients, some of them, were nearer to us, 
 mentally, than our own forefathers were — 
 nearer to our view of science and politics and 
 religion." 
 
 Mrs Twyman pounced, almost before the word 
 was out. 
 
 " Religion ? You mean the early Christians, 
 I suppose ? " 
 
 " No," said Mr Mundy with great steadiness, 
 " not religion : I should have said Cosmogony. 
 What I mean is that these Romans took a real 
 view of the world : they had given up fairy- 
 tales : they w^anted truth : they were sane. 
 Then unhappily, for some reason, the European 
 world ^vent mad : germs of barbarism got into 
 the system : fever followed : the human in- 
 tellect fell into the delirium of the Middle Ages. 
 It has recovered for some time now, but we 
 still go on teaching our children a good deal 
 of the nonsense we used to talk while we were 
 all out of our senses." 
 
 Mrs Twyman looked very uneasy, but she 
 only shut her lips tightly and gave her brother- 
 in-law a glance that was as good as a command. 
 He took his pipe out of his mouth at once. 
 
 " Yes, Mundy," he said, " for instance ? " 
 
 "For instance, the classics themselves — dead 
 languages."
 
 THE TWYMANS. 21 
 
 Mrs Twynian pounced again. " The New 
 Testament is written in Greek." 
 
 "The translation is more useful," replied Mr 
 Mundy. " I think translations would be always 
 more useful." 
 
 " What about poetry ? " asked the Commander. 
 
 " Of course I only meant translations of books 
 that are useful in the original." 
 
 This appeased Mrs Twyman, but not her ally. 
 
 "I'm not a scholar either," he said; "but, 
 do you know, I believe Latin prose was as good 
 mental exercise as any that I ever got. It 
 teaches you to steer and keep your head." 
 
 "I don't find fault with the classics as gym- 
 nastics," Mr Mundy conceded. 
 
 " As literature, then ? " 
 
 " I admit literature," replied Mr Mundy, " but 
 as an ornament rather than a foundation, and 
 I should wish the literature to be more modern." 
 
 " Percy is very fond of modern literature," 
 said Mrs Twyman. " He has read nearly all 
 Scott's works." 
 
 " Has he ? " The percentage of regret in the 
 tone was almost infinitesimal, but it could not 
 escape Percy's mother. 
 
 "Of course not the 'Heart of Midlothian,'" 
 she said ; " I forbade that." 
 
 "Quite so." Mr Mundy sat up with an energy 
 which Mrs Twyman mistook for approval. 
 
 "I think you can't be too careful about what 
 boys read," she continued : but he only sat back 
 again with a rather discouraged air. 
 
 Presently he began once more, as if from the 
 very beginning.
 
 22 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 *' Amelia, if you won't find it too dull, I should 
 like to tell you and Roland my scheme of 
 education — the scheme I've been thinking over 
 lately. Then you can both criticise it." 
 
 " Do," replied Amelia warmly ; " that is just 
 what I was wishing you would do." 
 
 " Good ! " said the Commander ; " but let me 
 refill first, these clays are so small in the 
 bowl." 
 
 Mr Mundy also refilled, and then began. " The 
 chief thing that struck me," he said, " on looking 
 back at my own education, was its futility. It 
 was a grind, but it ground no grist. It mostly 
 came to nothing. It was mostly waste of time. 
 The knowledge by which I work and earn my 
 living I had to learn afterwards." 
 
 " My dear husband wouldn't have agreed with 
 you about that," said Mrs Twyman. 
 
 " No, it was not all waste," added the Com- 
 mander. " A man must have friends, and it is 
 not by his professional knowledge that he gets 
 them, as a rule." 
 
 "I was coming to that later," said Mr Mundy 
 in his quiet, unshaken way. "A man needs a 
 social education as well as a general training, 
 but the general training comes first. It comes 
 first in time and first in importance. It almost 
 seems as if the whole thing were too simple 
 to be understood — too obvious. We have first 
 to learn all about the world — inanimate nature, 
 then life, then human life. This learning we 
 may call Natural Philosophy — let us stretch the 
 words a little if necessary. Part One would 
 include Geography — the surface of the earth:
 
 THE TWYMANS. 23 
 
 Geology — the framework underneath : Chemistry 
 and Physics — the composition and forces : As- 
 tronomy, — all these sciences gathered up and 
 carried to an immensely higher power." 
 
 " Mathematics ? " suggested the Commander. 
 
 "Mathematics, of course, as the a b c of all 
 the rest. After these would come Part Two, 
 Biology — a whole life and education in itself, 
 I am told ; and then Part Three, History : but 
 History from the anthropological side — no myths, 
 no battles, no personalities. A general training 
 of this kind would give a young fellow a chance 
 of acquiring a broad and natural view of things 
 — a real view : and by pushing it farther in 
 any given direction it could be developed into 
 the special training required for any profession 
 or work in life." 
 
 "Pretty wide — your Natural Philosophy 
 course," remarked the Commander. 
 
 "Yes, indeed," sighed Mrs Twyman. 
 
 " I know," said Mr Mundy, " so wide that to 
 me it seems to claim the whole of the time 
 available : the elements of social training — my 
 second course — must practically be learnt out 
 of school hours — a kind of intellectual game, 
 or holiday task. This course is a triple one too : 
 Moral Science, Politics and Political Economy, 
 and some kind of Esthetics — these would go 
 towards what is called general culture, and 
 form a special training for social life." 
 
 " You promised us Literature," the Commander 
 reminded him. 
 
 " Yes : it would come in under Esthetics." 
 
 At this point Mrs Twyman drew a suspiciously
 
 24 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 deep breath, rolled up her work, and glanced 
 at the clock as an act of formality. "If you 
 will excuse me," she said, " I always go in, 
 about this time, to take a look at the children." 
 Her brother-in-law opened the door and she 
 disappeared.
 
 25 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The two men settled down again into that 
 position of dignified comfort which is only 
 possible for the smoker of a long-stemmed pipe. 
 The Commander waited for his companion to 
 resume. 
 
 "Your sister-in-law is a charming w^oman," 
 said Mr Mundy presently; "but like so many 
 women — most women, I think — she can't get on 
 without concrete instances. Any discussion of 
 general principles makes her yawn — she wants 
 particulars, personalities." 
 
 "Well, in this case," remonstrated the Com- 
 mander, "it ivas rather the idea — wasn't it? — 
 that we were to consider the particular instance 
 of young Percy ? " 
 
 "Yes, my dear Roland," said the other with 
 a more emphatically confidential tone, " but that 
 was just my difficulty : I was bound to avoid 
 the personal question. I am very much in- 
 terested in this boy — too much interested to be 
 cool about the way he has been brought up. If 
 there is anything in my ideas on education, he 
 has been wasting his time even more thoroughly 
 than I did. He has been losing ground — learn- 
 ing only things that must be unlearnt."
 
 26 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 " Let us have that out," said Twyman ; " it 
 might clear nie up a little." 
 
 Mr Mundy seemed quite glad to relieve his 
 feelings. " Percy," he said, " has been fed on 
 sweets. By sweets I mean that kind of stuff 
 that all children love — romantic fantastic stuff, 
 succulent but innutritions ; unreal tales about 
 unreal people with unreal ideas of life. It is 
 the common thing, of course : and it is easy to 
 see how it came about. The taste is inherited : 
 the human race in the primitive stages loved 
 adventure, and what is called the heroic, and 
 mystery — especially mystery about the relation 
 of the sexes. I find no fault with children for 
 being primitive in these ways, — they have only 
 to outgrow it. But see what has happened. It 
 is just these unreal and mystical notions that 
 have always formed the chief material of Litera- 
 ture. Yet instead of putting Literature in its 
 proper place, at the end of the less important 
 part of the curriculum, we go on to this day 
 making it the actual text-book of our education." 
 
 " Good ! " said the Commander. " I am getting 
 hold of it now. We have been putting what is 
 merely one of the dessert dishes in place of the 
 joint ? " 
 
 " In place of all the substantial courses," said 
 Mr Mundy. " And it is not even a well-arranged 
 wholesome dessert dish — it is a sort of compote, 
 a dangerous mixture of all kinds of fruit, ripe 
 and unripe, not at all fit for young and grow- 
 ing people." 
 
 The solemnity and the humour of the Com- 
 mander's expression deepened together. "Well
 
 THE TWYMANS. 27 
 
 now," he asked with evident enjoyment, " how 
 far do you think the mischief has gone, — how 
 much of the dangerous compound do you sup- 
 pose young Percival has absorbed ? " 
 
 " There's a good deal in a complete set of 
 Scott's novels." 
 
 " There is indeed," replied the other ; " but you 
 forget — the set was not complete, it was 
 selected." 
 
 "Just so," said Mr Mundy energetically. " That 
 completes my case. The one story of real human 
 interest is forbidden — the only one which could 
 give the boy any light on the real world : he is 
 allowed all the rest, the fancy-dress Crusaders 
 and Knights, the stagey historical characters, 
 and the still sillier Cavaliers and Jacobites." T' 
 
 " You think poorly of Sir Walter," said the 
 Commander. 
 
 " No," replied Mr Mundy, " I've read his Life. 
 He was a fine character, but he wrote . . ." He 
 hesitated. 
 
 "Yes, yes — he wrote Literature, I admit," said 
 the Commander. " But the question is, What ill 
 effect has it produced on Percy — so far?" 
 
 " This afternoon," replied Mr Mundy, " I arrived 
 a few minutes before I was expected. I found 
 the boy spending his energies on a couple of 
 heraldic drawings. Now I don't understand 
 heraldry. . . ." He paused. 
 
 " I do," said the Commander promptly. 
 
 "Then you can explain to me what it is — I 
 mean, why it attracts. The silly old business of 
 silly old women, some one called it once. What 
 does Percy find in it ? "
 
 28 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 " Probably much what Sir Walter found," said 
 the Commander. 
 
 " I was afraid so," replied Mr Mundy. " Then 
 it appears that my objection to the novels was 
 well grounded." 
 
 " I am sure Percy did not get his love of 
 heraldry from books." 
 
 Mr Mundy looked at the speaker, but seemed 
 unwilling to press the question. 
 
 " You needn't look at me," laughed the Com- 
 mander. " I'm no more guilty than Scott. We 
 all three got it from the same source. We in- 
 herited it. But I may have done something to 
 help the boy on. I own to that." 
 
 " You have told him stories," said Mr Mundy, 
 with the same unwillingness as before. 
 
 " Yes," replied the other, " there's no denying it 
 — you heard me this very afternoon. I needn't 
 ask what you thought of my subjects — myths, 
 battles, and personalities." 
 
 " I'll be frank too," said Mr Mundy in his quiet 
 pleasant voice. " I had this afternoon in my 
 mind when I spoke just now. But the opinion 
 was one already formed — it was not an im- 
 promptu suggested by you." 
 
 " Well," replied the Commander, "you have the 
 better of me there — the fact is, I have a theory 
 of education too, but it is an impromptu sug- 
 gested by you. Still" — he added cheerfully — 
 "I'll play it against you, if you don't mind."
 
 29 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 At this moment Mrs Twyraian entered the room 
 and took her place again. " Where have you got 
 to ? " she asked. " I'm sorry to have been away 
 so long, but Percy was talking in his sleep." 
 
 " About Emma ? " asked her brother-in-law. 
 
 " How did you know^ ? " she exclaimed. 
 
 " My doing," he replied ^th immense serious- 
 ness, "and I am just going to be heard in my 
 own defence." 
 
 She glanced quickly away from him at his 
 opponent, but Mr Mundy's blue eyes shone re- 
 assuringly at her through the cloud of smoke. 
 
 "Roland," he said, "has just thought out a 
 system of education. We are the first to hear 
 it. 
 
 " No hit ! " laughed the Commander boyishly. 
 " The system is a good deal older than me. It 
 is the same old system that he has been abolish- 
 ing : only my ideas on it are new-*- new to me, 
 that is. Seriously," he continued, " I do believe 
 there's more in it than he thinks, and I believe 
 I see why. It is a case of the scientific against 
 the imaginative." 
 
 " I'm with you, so far," said Mr Mundy com- 
 fortably.
 
 30 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 "You won't be much farther," retorted the 
 Commander, " because I mean my view by the 
 scientific, and yours by the imaginative." 
 
 "Continue," said Mr Mundy stolidly, without 
 even moving his pipe. 
 
 Mrs Twyman ventured an apology for her 
 brother-in-law's paradox. "You know Roland is 
 rather good at science : the last time he was here 
 he put the boiler right." 
 
 "Anyhow," resumed the Commander, "I'm 
 trying my best now. I'm quite serious. What 
 I should call a really scientific view of anything 
 is one which is based on ascertained facts, one 
 which takes all the observed facts into account 
 and proceeds from them — never in defiance of 
 them. An imaginative view, on the contrary, is 
 one not based on facts but on a theory, one 
 which ignores some facts and overrides others. 
 Your system of education does this, Mundy, if 
 you will forgive me for saying so. It is a method, 
 arbitrarily imposed from without, and not taking 
 account of man's natural needs." 
 
 " I should have thought knowledge of the 
 world we live in " Mr Mundy was beginning. 
 
 "I grant it," the other interrupted, "we do 
 need that, we do desire it : but not all in the 
 same way. Some desire it methodically, perhaps, 
 as you do : others, and more of them I imagine, 
 desire it experimentally, as a series of adven- 
 tures rather than a mass of useful information. 
 So far as I know anything of men, — or boys, — 
 what they want in life is not a set of material 
 data, but a kind of spiritual romance. They 
 begin by looking for it through the senses, but
 
 THE TWYMANS. 31 
 
 whether they recognise the fact or not, all ad- 
 ventures are really adventures of the spirit." 
 
 " I don't know about that," Mr Mundy replied, 
 " but let me remind you that we are talking 
 of education, not of adventures." 
 
 "I am glad you reminded me," said the Com- 
 mander, " that is just what I wanted you to say. 
 To me — to Percy — to any boy — life is all adven- 
 tures, and education, as I understand it, is the 
 same thing as life. You speak of education as 
 the acquiring of a mass of information, to be 
 used in a later stage called life. I say it is ex- 
 perience, practical exj)erience — that is, experi- 
 ence mainly spiritual." 
 
 " You don't make your living," said Mr Mundy, 
 "out of your spiritual experience — unless you 
 happen to be a great preacher." 
 
 " I should like Percy to take Orders, of 
 course," Mrs Twyman interposed, " but at 
 present he seems more inclined for the Army." 
 
 "Well," said Mr Mundy rather doubtfully, "at 
 any rate for that, Roland will admit, Literature 
 is not much of an equipment." 
 
 " I admit nothing of the kind," answered 
 Roland, " but my present point is that in a truly 
 scientific view education is not so much an equip- 
 ment as a process of development. Biologically, 
 I imagine, you can speak of an organism — the 
 human mind — being developed in powers, but 
 not of its being 'equipped' with external things 
 like information. In order to develop, a boy 
 needs food and air and perhaps a certain amount 
 of clothing, but you merely propose to put him 
 into plaster- of- Paris."
 
 32 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 cc 
 
 I don't believe Mr Mundy ever proposed 
 that," said Amelia firmly. "If he did, it was 
 not while / was in the room." 
 
 " I was speaking of the mind," replied Roland, 
 " but there's no difference between us there — the 
 plaster mould is a mistake in either case : a boy's 
 mind is no more born crooked than his body is. 
 I can believe that our present system of educa- 
 tion is often too cramping, but it is not nearly 
 so rigid or so unlike the human shape as Mundy's 
 would be. That is why I say his view is the 
 unreal view, the unscientific view : he looks upon 
 boys' minds as so many lumps of clay, all feature- 
 less, all similar, all to be squeezed in the same 
 arbitrary mould." 
 
 " I do rather," said Mr Mundy, " and I think I 
 am more right than w^rong." 
 
 " But your Biology has a good deal to say 
 about inherited differences." 
 
 " In the case of plants and animals, yes : but 
 men have to do the work of the world, they 
 must be standardised, you can't have them all 
 going their own way." 
 
 "No indeed," said Mrs Twyman, "it would be 
 the ruin of them — though I must say that Percy 
 is quite an exceptional boy." 
 
 The Commander laughed heartily. " He is : 
 but so are all boys, quite exceptional : as some 
 one said of the angels, there are as many species 
 as individuals." 
 
 "Then you are advocating chaos," said Mr 
 Mundy. 
 
 " Theoretically — imaginatively — you might say 
 so," replied the Commander, "but not if you
 
 THE TWYMANS. 33 
 
 observed the facts. Boys differ in hundreds of 
 ways, but they have some things in common, 
 and one of them is just the thing that makes 
 it possible to educate them together." 
 
 " I see," said Mr Mundy, " the love of sweets — 
 you have only to indulge that." 
 
 Roland laughed again — the laugh of one who 
 admires his adversary's shots without fearing 
 them. " Your disrespect for science," he replied, 
 " is becoming unscrupulous : you are using meta- 
 phors to colour your facts. We are agreed that 
 men love certain things, certain ideas. You do 
 not inquire into the nature of these ideas, you 
 label them ' unwholesome sweets,' and hope that 
 we shall outgrow the taste for them. Too many 
 of us do : love wakes men once a lifetime each, 
 perhaps, but that and the child's unheeded dream 
 is all the light of all their day. Still the desire 
 is immortal — the desire of the soul for adventure. 
 We may forget it, but we hand it on." 
 
 Roland's voice had changed imperceptibly. 
 "Do you know, Mundy," he continued, "when 
 you spoke of the delirium of the Middle Ages 
 you hit me very hard. The Dark Ages do look 
 from this distance rather like a feverish dream 
 — an incoherent grasping at the phantoms of 
 earth. But the Middle Age was a waking to 
 reality, a discovery of things new and old, a 
 recognition of man's true nature and an intense 
 delight in it." 
 
 " A childish delight, may I say ? " 
 
 " All delight is childish if it is intense," replied 
 Roland ; " but it need not be childish in its sub- 
 ject or in its method. The delight of the Middle 
 
 c
 
 34 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 Age was in that with which every man starts, 
 and to which all men must come, — the delight in 
 adventure and in service." 
 
 "I don't quite understand," said Mr Mundy ; 
 "How does service come in?" 
 
 "There is no satisfaction in adventuring merely 
 for profit: that was part of the discovery, that 
 you must serve something greater than yourself, 
 even if it is only a King or a Church. But the 
 strongest impulse, the impulse that we are all 
 born with, is to serve God, or a woman, or the 
 weaker in a fight." 
 
 Mr Mundy's voice was very gentle as he replied. 
 "Roland," — and he paused a moment — "there's a 
 great deal in what you say, though I'm not sure 
 how far it affects the argument. But why 
 shouldn't a man delight in serving Science?" 
 
 " He may," said the other quickly, " he may 
 serve any cause : and if he delights in it he will 
 personify it as feminine." 
 
 "Putting that aside " Mr Mundy began. 
 
 "You can't put it aside — Science, like every- 
 thing else, must be an adventure and a service. 
 It would be mere frivolity to collect information 
 for its own sake. There must be a fight or a 
 pilgrimage in it somewhere." 
 
 " You make life a very restless affair, don't 
 you ? " 
 
 Roland moved suddenly, stretching out his arm 
 with so much energy that his long pipe-stem 
 snapped and fell clattering in the fender. "/.^" 
 he exclaimed, " / make life restless ? When has 
 life ever rested ? How could it rest and be life ? " 
 
 Mr Mundy sat up very deliberately, took a new
 
 THE TWYMANS. 35 
 
 pipe from the table and handed it across without 
 comment. "My dear Roland," he said, "I accept 
 your phrase — Science is a pilgrimage to the shrine 
 of truth. But it has been the only part of my 
 life that has given me any peace." 
 
 "Mere Science may be peace," said Roland 
 more quietly, "but life cannot: life looks be- 
 yond science. Inquietum est cor nosti^um." 
 
 Amelia glanced up quickly, but with gentle 
 eyes. "You got that from my dear husband," 
 she said with old-fashioned simplicity ; " it was 
 one of his favourite quotations. But there is 
 more, isn't there ? — two or three words more ? " 
 
 "Yes," replied Mr Mundy very quietly, "I re- 
 member it well. You are very like your brother, 
 Roland — more like than I knew. I could almost 
 fancy . . ." His slow voice ceased, without any 
 abruptness, and there was a silence, during which 
 his thought seemed still to hang in the air like 
 the last vibrations of a bell. Amelia bent more 
 closely over her wool - work : her lips trembled 
 perceptibly, but after a last vigorous stitch or 
 two she rose with a gallant little gesture of the 
 head. " There are plenty more pipes," she said, 
 "but I'm afraid I must leave you before you 
 begin again. There will be time to finish our 
 telk in the morning."
 
 36 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 After their hostess had said good - night and 
 gone, the two men remained standing near the 
 door : neither of them felt it necessary to ex- 
 press the sympathy and admiration that was 
 moving them both. Roland half seated himself 
 upon the edge of the table and pushed a tray 
 towards his companion. "Shall we light up 
 again?" he asked. 
 
 Mr Mundy poured out a glass of water. "I 
 think it is rather late," he replied, "but there 
 are one or two things I wanted to hear about 
 from you privately. Do you know anything of 
 this school that Amelia is thinking of?" 
 
 " It is a long way off," said Roland, " but it 
 seems quite a good school : the headmaster was 
 my brother's old tutor at Cambridge — a high 
 wrangler as well as a scholar, so his ideas won't 
 be one-sided." 
 
 Mr Mundy drank, and stood looking reflectively 
 at his glass. 
 
 "Roland," he said suddenly, "what is the boy 
 going in for — not the Church, really ? " 
 
 " Oh ! no," replied the other, " that is only her 
 sentiment — it doesn't prevent her from being
 
 THE TWYMANS. 37 
 
 quite business-like. She wants him to have a 
 try for the family fortune." 
 
 •' I never heard of it," said Mr Mundy. " Where 
 does it come from ? " 
 
 " It is land," replied Roland, " a big place in the 
 south of England, belonging to the other Twy- 
 mans. The present man is the last of them, 
 and the property is entailed — at least we say 
 so. He has a married daughter and some grand- 
 children, but the theory is that young Percy is 
 the next male heir." 
 
 " You astonish me," said Mr Mundy. " I never 
 heard of these people — are they near relations ? " 
 " No, very distant : our common ancestor lived 
 in the reign of Henry the Eighth." 
 
 " My dear Roland ! " Mr Mundy remonstrated. 
 " Well, I know," admitted the other, " it does 
 sound rather far-fetched, but it seems that it is 
 a very peculiar case. Legally, I believe they 
 think there may be something in it." 
 
 "Legally?" repeated Mr Mundy. The word 
 seemed to impress him. "Do you mind," he 
 asked suddenly, "if we sit down again for a 
 moment ? — this is all new to me." He turned 
 his chair to face the corner of the table where 
 Roland was still sitting, sank into it, and began 
 to fill a fresh pipe in silence, 
 
 " Do I understand," he began presently, " that 
 this claim has been submitted to a lawyer? It 
 seems so strange to me that I never heard your 
 brother speak of it." 
 
 " He never spoke of it to any one : it troubled 
 him — he had scruples about it. As far as he 
 himself was concerned, he renounced it : but as 
 
 63379
 
 38 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 it was a claim that he had inherited, he didn't 
 think it right to decide against his successors. 
 So he handed over all the papers to me many- 
 years ago, before he married, and it was then 
 that I took a legal opinion." 
 
 "It was favourable, you say?" 
 
 " Well, it was not unfavourable, and Amelia is 
 all for following it up. It is the only thing in 
 which her husband's wish is not law to her ; 
 she thinks he was too unselfish to stand up 
 against a usurper." 
 
 " What view does the usurper take of it ? " 
 
 " Oh, he's very polite — we had some correspon- 
 dence with him. He says he never heard of any 
 ground for such a claim, and he has long ago 
 disentailed the property and resettled it on his 
 grandchildren. That makes Amelia furious." 
 
 " It would," said Mr Mundy. " And what does 
 the boy say to it ? " 
 
 "Well, it doesn't concern him till Sir William 
 dies — he's a man of sixty-five, and quite hearty, 
 I believe. Even then, a family lawsuit is not a 
 career for a boy like Percy. I asked Amelia, 
 when I gave her back the papers, not to talk 
 to him about it at present." 
 
 " I think you are right there," said Mr Mundy ; 
 " it is a matter that may sleep : it has nothing to 
 do with the question of his education — at least, 
 not from my point of view." 
 
 "Nor from mine," added Roland; "the adven- 
 tures you find in the law courts are not usually 
 chivalrous ones." 
 
 The words turned Mr Mundy's thoughts back 
 into their channel of half an hour ago. He
 
 THE TWYMANS. 39 
 
 began again in his sudden and confidential 
 manner — 
 
 "Roland, you haven't told me this. Why do 
 you insist so much on a literary education ? 
 Where does Literature come in ? " 
 
 " Everywhere," replied Roland. "Literature is ' 
 the record of all the adventures that man ever 
 had worth remembering. It is the only school 
 of arms for a boy's soul, and the only guide to 
 the enchanted forest through which his way lies. 
 He will go, of course, by a way of his own ; he 
 will come to castles and fords that he has never 
 read of, but they won't be so different from those 
 his ancestors found — the wooing and the tilting 
 will be very like indeed, and then — " he hardly 
 paused — "whatever else may change, the San- 
 graal does not." 
 
 Mr Mundy was silent, but his silences were not 
 dumb ones ; there was a breadth, almost a 
 warmth about them, which made them more 
 like twilight than darkness. Roland understood 
 that his own last sentence was being received, 
 not with intellectual assent, but with grave re- 
 spect. He could not know that this was but 
 partly for its own sake, and partly because he 
 had once more vividly recalled the mood and 
 manner of his dead brother; but he felt that 
 in the sympathetic talk the edges of their con- 
 troversy had softened. It was a pleasure to 
 hear the quiet, kindly voice begin again — 
 
 "Roland," said Mr Mundy, "you keep your 
 point clear to the end. I like that; it makes a 
 discussion more interesting. But mightn't we 
 leave arguing now, and find some place of agree-
 
 40 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 ment before we go to bed? I mean, of course, 
 on the theoretical question, because practically 
 I imagine the boy will go to whatever school 
 his mother sets her heart upon, and learn what- 
 ever they choose to teach him there. You think 
 the most valuable part of that will be what 
 brings out his inherited character, especially the 
 chivalrous and mystical tendencies of it. May 
 I say that I still believe in another element as 
 even more useful and necessary — the scientific 
 spirit, the will to get clear of the mists of im- 
 agination and to look at the world in the broad 
 daylight of fact and reason, to see things ob- 
 jectively as much as possible and subjectively 
 as little as possible?" 
 
 "My dear fellow," said Roland cordially, "of 
 course you must believe that, and why shouldn't 
 you ? All I ask is that Percy shall not be put 
 into too strait a waistcoat." 
 
 "I think, perhaps, I was hasty there," replied 
 Mr Mundy. " I did my own cause an injustice. 
 What I should have said is that my view of life 
 — the ancient-and-modern view of life, is — well, 
 not less old and true than the mediaeval view^, 
 and cannot give way to it, either in the progress 
 of the race or of the individual. The boy will 
 fall in with both, no fear of that : they will pull 
 him both ways : you and I needn't trouble about 
 the end, because we shall not live to see it." 
 
 " Good ! " said Roland ; " I like that way of 
 putting it : it may very well happen as you 
 say, and if it does, then that will be Percival's 
 adventure."
 
 41 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Percival of course knew nothing, suspected 
 nothing, of the discussion between his elders. 
 But in any case it would not have troubled him 
 for a moment. He had no more apprehension 
 of the future than a horse may be supposed to 
 have of the obstacles over which the hunt is to be 
 follow^ed : he goes to the meet with springy paces 
 and a vague feeling that this is a good day, which 
 may be better still before it ends — for the rest 
 he has a well-bred confidence in the hands that 
 are to guide him. So the entry into school life, 
 uncomfortable and even alarming as it is to 
 many stronger boys, seemed a natural aifair to 
 Percival, to be faced with the wary exhilaration 
 proper to all kinds of competition. His heart 
 did not sink even at the parting from his mother. 
 She had travelled with him herself, two days 
 before the term was to begin, and when the 
 moment came for her to leave him alone among 
 that alien company it was he who played the 
 sanguine and consoling part; — a duckling born 
 for the pond, he seemed to her astonishment, 
 rather than the simple chicken she had always 
 thought him. " He has a courage like his 
 father's," she wrote to her friends. "Like her
 
 42 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 own," commented Mr Mundy warmly ; " a woman 
 of less spirit would have been crying over the 
 discovery that she was no longer indispensable." 
 Casterby was in many ways unlike the private 
 schools of to-day, with their curriculum and 
 compulsory games arranged in elaborate imita- 
 tion of the public schools for which they are 
 preparatory, At one of those, Percival, for all 
 his innocent goodwill, would have found himself 
 much more puzzled, much less able to perceive 
 an inherent fitness even in things new to him. 
 The naturalness of Casterby was due to the fact 
 of its evolution ; for it was not a ready - made 
 thing of yesterday, nor an imitation of something 
 else. King Edward the Sixth founded it as a 
 Grammar School, with Upper and Lower Divi- 
 sions, providing education of two different grades 
 but without distinction of social classes ; by the 
 middle of the nineteenth century it had become 
 merely a school for the boys of Casterby trades- 
 men and farmers, among whom might be found 
 from time to time a few^ younger sons of the 
 neighbouring squires. It was in this small section 
 that the Reverend Ambrose Tanner saw his op- 
 portunity, when he returned to his old school as 
 Headmaster, after a brilliant but disabling career 
 at Cambridge. He boldly handed over to the 
 Lower Master the whole list of plebeian scholars, 
 and developed the Upper Division into a separate 
 school for the sons of gentlemen, of whom in a 
 very short time he had some thirty under his 
 own roof. There, in a dormitory whose w^indows 
 looked towards Casterby Church, Percival slept 
 his first night away from home, and woke to see
 
 THE TWYMANS. 43 
 
 the clock on the west side of the great tower, 
 which had been gleaming in moonlight only a 
 moment before, now marking half-past six on a 
 hard white January morning. 
 
 That day his mother left him, and the School 
 returned. The evening passed in noisy tumultu- 
 ous talk, of which hardly one word in a thousand 
 seemed to concern Percival. He sailed discreetly 
 along under the lee of the three Tanner boys, 
 who had already given him much useful inform- 
 ation, and found the water quite as smooth as 
 he could have hoped. But as he lay once more 
 in his narrow bed beneath the window and once 
 more looked drowsily at the moonlit clock, his 
 own name leapt suddenly at him out of a con- 
 versation. 
 
 " Then what about young Twyman ? " asked 
 one low voice in the darkness. 
 
 " Oh ! he's no weight at all," replied the other. 
 "Better put him at the bottom and let him fight 
 his way up ! " 
 
 " No," said the first, " that won't do ; he's going 
 to work with old Ambrose, and he can't have 
 black eyes every week. Besides, I tell you he's 
 quick — I saw him running with Brosy Tanner." 
 
 " All right," replied the second voice more 
 drowsily. "We'll try him with young Williams. 
 Williams will lick him, but it'll do him good." 
 
 Percival's heart was leaping like a kangaroo. 
 He felt cold-blooded brutality breathing close to 
 him for the first time in his life, and instinct 
 woke his nerves with animal terror. But an- 
 other and a stronger instinct turned him from 
 all thought of escape ; he panted with a fierce
 
 44 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 desire to prove himself better than his repute. 
 He did not know " young Wilhams " by sight : 
 he pictured him as a massive and experienced 
 fighter, but he longed ardently to meet him, and 
 wasted the first hour of the night in highly fanci- 
 ful anticipations of the trial by battle. He would 
 have been astonished if any one had objected 
 that the champions had nothing to fight about.
 
 45 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The peculiarities which distinguished Casterby 
 from more modern places of education were 
 further illustrated next day. The School, a six- 
 teenth-century hall of grey stone, divided into two 
 large rooms for the Upper and Lower Divisions, 
 stood opposite to the north door of the church, 
 and only a furlong from Mr Tanner's house. 
 Every morning at three minutes to nine the 
 Headmaster left his private door and took the 
 road, accompanied in very orderly fashion by a 
 bodyguard of the elder of his pupils, the proces- 
 sion being closed by Mr Slingsby, the usher, with 
 a straggler or two. The main part of the Upper 
 Division was already ahead, skirmishing in the 
 school-yard and greeting the half-dozen day-boys 
 who came in from the country round about. 
 
 To-day Percy was favoured with a command 
 to accompany the Chief himself. He was pleased, 
 for he already felt much liking for this little 
 man with the big head and ceaseless activity of 
 mind, of whom every one else seemed to stand 
 so much in awe. Certainly to the new boy he 
 was reassuringly kind. " Twyman," he said, as 
 they came in sight of the school, " I wonder if 
 you'll be as good a pupil as your father was.
 
 46 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 Ah ! he ivas a sharp fellow — one of the sharpest 
 I ever taught." 
 
 The boy's ear was not pleased with the word 
 "sharp," but he understood. He perceived that 
 the sensible, unaffected voice had something more 
 than geniality in it — a faint tone of genuine re- 
 gret. Through the four years which followed, 
 through all the terrors which he endured from 
 this strange man's volcanic temper, Percy never 
 revolted against him, never doubted that he was 
 his father's friend and his own. But in many of 
 his new companions he saw that the Headmaster 
 inspired a kind of panic. The moment the ap- 
 proach of the autocrat was spied by the watchers 
 on the low school-yard wall, it was announced 
 with the cry of " Nix ! Nix ! " and before Nix 
 himself could enter the building with his body- 
 guard every other boy was in his place and 
 ready to begin work. 
 
 To any one better acquainted with schools the 
 scene would have appeared an amazingly old- 
 fashioned one : to Percy it presented itself as 
 merely a larger copy of the interior of a dame 
 school which he had once attended. The room 
 was filled with long desks and benches, warmed 
 by a large stove, lit by high mvillioned windows : 
 at one end in a commanding position sat Nix 
 himself, enthroned at a larger desk with a semi- 
 circle of seats around it, upon which class after 
 class in turn took their places for judgment and 
 execution. For in case of need the two processes 
 were simultaneous : where the frown of this fiery 
 dominie fell there also upon the instant rose and 
 fell the cane which lay always at his right hand,
 
 THE TWYMANS. 47 
 
 and the weapon being a long one, as often as 
 not two victims smarted where only one had 
 offended. Nor was this the limit of Mr Tanner's 
 capacity. Throughout that large room, where 
 forty boys were working or idling like groups 
 of bees and drones in a single hive, Nix's eye 
 was upon every individual, his ear open to every 
 sound, his attention miraculously awake to every 
 sign of diligence or slackness. He seemed to 
 be at the same time overseeing all and working 
 with each ; and by an unexpected approach and 
 the play of a strong right arm he would untiringly 
 check or stimulate their various activities. Percy 
 was at first sick with terror at the noise and fury 
 of the discipline he witnessed ; but it was impos- 
 sible to feel lethargic when a cut or a flogging 
 might resound in any part of the school at any 
 moment. Never again, in any state of pupilage, 
 did his mental digestion work with such rapidity 
 or regularity. It would appear that what the 
 young appetite needs is not seduction or com- 
 pulsion, but an exhilarating atmosphere, and 
 possibly modern theories overlook the bracing 
 qualities of a little pain in the air. 
 
 It was at a later time that Percy thought 
 about such matters : on this first morning all 
 went smoothly enough. He was set to work 
 in a small scholarship class with only two 
 companions — one a fair-haired and pugnacious 
 Highlander named M'Kay, the other the Head's 
 youngest and most promising son Roger. In 
 spite of Nix and all his terrors they contrived 
 to teach him several new ways of passing the 
 time, and between these and his work he
 
 48 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 thoroughly enjoyed himself till one o'clock, when 
 the authorities departed as they had come. 
 
 This time, however, the bodyguard was 
 diminished : three of the biggest — the cocks 
 of the school — waited with an excited crowd 
 of the rank and file just inside the gate until 
 Nix and his staff disappeared round the curve 
 of the road. Under the churchyard wall opposite, 
 as they well knew, was hiding a similar little 
 crowd of the rough boys of the town, armed 
 with snowballs squeezed and rounded and squeezed 
 again into lumps of ice. A moment to prepare 
 the like, and with a yell the School charged 
 through the gate. " Town cads ! town cads ! " they 
 cried, and received a blinding volley delivered 
 with the hated war-cry of "Yah! yah! Tannery 
 boys ! " Percy found himself standing in the 
 middle of the road, breathlessly clearing his left 
 eye from a cold hard cake of snow. The ready 
 ammunition on both sides was exhausted, and 
 a parley was going on between Stewart, the 
 Tannery champion, and a youth with the figure 
 and head - dress of a coal - carter, who led the 
 town. " Quarter-past two at this gate," shouted 
 Stewart in conclusion, and Percy trotted off 
 with the rest to dinner, blinking painfully but 
 full of valour. 
 
 The day, being the first of the term, was a 
 half holiday, and by two o'clock warlike pre- 
 parations had begun again. Percy, under Roger's 
 stolid instructions, crammed his side-pockets with 
 snow-pellets of the size of tennis-balls and the 
 consistency of turnips. The march up the road 
 was a thrilling experience. There by the church-
 
 THE TWYMANS. 49 
 
 yard wall were the enemy, true to time. Battle 
 was joined fiercely : the air was once more 
 thick with missiles and loud with shouts, amongst 
 which was to be heard the slushy slap of snow- 
 balls against stone walls or tightly buttoned 
 coats. Then suddenly the more venturesome 
 skirmishers in front were driven in, and Percy 
 found himself standing, half sheltered by the 
 great Stewart, in the thick of a sharp fight. 
 The rally was successful : a forward rush followed, 
 and then again the advanced guard gave way 
 and came back at a gallop. 
 
 "What are you running away for?" cried 
 Percy indignantly, as the ebb-tide bore him 
 back with it. 
 
 He was heard only too clearly. 
 
 "Who are you talking to, you new boy?" cried 
 one. "I say, you fellows, here's a big man 
 wants to stay in front : come on ! " 
 
 Two of them took Percy by the arms, ran 
 him into the forefront of the battle and pushed 
 him a yard further. For an instant he was all 
 defiance as he stood there alone and fired his 
 two shots at the enemy : then the stalwart fig- 
 ure of Jakes the coal-heaver moved irresistibly 
 towards him and his heart stopped. Another 
 instant, and he was running, running for sheer 
 blind terror, as he had never run in his life be- 
 fore. 
 
 " Hullo, young Twyman, are you going home ? " 
 It was the voice of Brosy Tanner, who was not 
 much of a hero, and preferred the rear himself. 
 Percy was silent — sick with relief and shame. 
 " Never mind," said Brosy, " it Avas quite time to 
 
 D
 
 50 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 scoot: Jakes would have rubbed your face if 
 he'd caught you." 
 
 They went forward again and found the battle 
 in a fresh phase. Both sides, being for the time 
 out of breath and ammunition, had ceased firing, 
 and only the two champions, Stewart and Jakes, 
 remained facing one another at short range. 
 Stewart fired first, and hulled his opponent — an 
 ineffectual blow. Jakes replied with a feint, 
 discharging his two shots in such rapid succes- 
 sion that there was no evading both — the second 
 struck full on Stewart's chin. But that hero 
 only shook his head and threw up his hand for 
 the final shot. Jakes turned away, to take 
 advantage of the great flap of his headgear, but 
 as he did so he instinctively ducked his head, 
 and Stewart's ball got home in the back of his 
 neck, lifting the cap and driving it off in front. 
 A yell went up from the School as they saw 
 their great enemy bareheaded ; but he knew 
 when he was beaten, and before their volley 
 could reach him he was gone with all his 
 company. 
 
 A wild chase followed : up the narrow street, 
 out into the wide market square, up the slope 
 beyond, and out again into the by-streets the 
 scattering fugitives were driven, till the last 
 stand was broken, and Jakes was left alone, 
 penned in the angle of a wall, but still fighting. 
 Soon he had used what snow was at his feet, 
 and stood helpless. The visitors hesitated for 
 a moment, till Charlie Whittlesey, the quickest 
 boxer in the school, dashed in and brought him 
 to the ground. Gripped by a dozen enemies at
 
 THE TWYMANS. 51 
 
 once, Jakes submitted in stoic silence to the 
 rough but not very deadly penalty of having 
 his face well rubbed with snow. But when Percy, 
 fierce with triumph, came forward with a hand- 
 ful to take his turn, the victim's sense of fairness 
 revolted. " Look 'ere," he said, " what's yon cock- 
 sparrow got to do with it? " 
 
 Stewart was of the same mind. " Stand off, 
 young Twyman," he said ; " you weren't so keen 
 when Jakes was after you." 
 
 The tone was not unkind, but the rebuke was 
 one of the bitterest Percy ever had to bear. 
 In the silent court-martial which he held upon 
 himself that night, the miserable prisoner was 
 almost pardoned for running before a vastly 
 superior force : what the court could not forgive 
 him was the inexplicable fact that he had fallen 
 below even Jakes's standard of chivalry.
 
 52 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 As the hard northern winter melted slowly into 
 spring, the life of Casterby School pushed forth 
 and blossomed into a wilderness of childish 
 games, crimes, terrors, and joys. How unlike 
 to the trim borders and sanitary well-gravelled 
 paths of to-day ! In after years, remembering 
 those informal lessons, those casual and obsolete 
 pastimes, and comparing them with the stereo- 
 typed and standardised patterns which have 
 superseded them, Percy felt a kind of secret 
 shame that the demigods of his own youth 
 should have been so blind to the dignity of 
 boyhood. That a rage for tops, a rage for 
 marbles, a rage for kites, should have gone 
 every year through the School like a succession 
 of epidemics, that one hero should have excelled 
 at rounders and another at prisoner's base, that 
 he himself should have been great with tin 
 pistols and surreptitious gunpowder ! These 
 amusements would hardly bear thinking of : 
 but when memory took him outside the school 
 playground there was a green holiday world 
 to which he could always go back without em- 
 barrassment. Perhaps to a more travelled eye 
 that wide lonely landscape of the high wolds 
 would have seemed less beautiful, or hardly
 
 THE TWYMANS. 53 
 
 beautiful at all. To Percy, with only ten years 
 behind him, and the smoke of great towns 
 hanging closely over all the fields of his ex- 
 perience, it was just the wide high loneliness 
 that made the joy of it. For four years his 
 feet wandered that country with a delight as 
 fresh as morning : and after thirty more had 
 gone by the recollection of it still lay upon his 
 imagination like an enchantment. 
 
 It is probable that many of his schoolfellows 
 were possessed by similar memories, for the 
 natural heart of boyhood cares little for the 
 picturesque but much for the romantic. The 
 wolds are not very picturesque, but they are 
 sufficiently romantic. They have their moments, 
 and the moments, when they come, are filled 
 not only with beauty but with surprise. The 
 pursuits which led Percy and his companions 
 to roam were not of the poetic kind — it was 
 merely the custom of the place to go bathing, 
 bird-nesting, catapulting, and trespassing gener- 
 ally, when a more orderly regime would have 
 prescribed compulsory cricket. But even a dull 
 boy cannot be afield the whole summer through 
 without overhearing now and then some whisper 
 of the secrets that haunt an English countryside, 
 and Percy, without knowing it, was always on 
 the look-out for secrets. Moreover, though they 
 came to him fitfully and through a bewildering 
 haze, they came always with a feeling of un- 
 questionable truth and naturalness, — so strong 
 a feeling that he often seemed to himself to be 
 not learning at all, but rediscovering something 
 that he had unaccountably forgotten.
 
 54 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 To give a coherent account of these redis- 
 coveries, or to place them in any order, would be 
 as impossible as to map out the fog-drift through 
 which gleams of sunlight are breaking from 
 hour to hour. But since, even to the boy him- 
 self, they were gleams, and proceeded so clearly 
 from a light that was always there, behind the 
 mist, the moments of their appearance were 
 never forgotten, and may for us not unreasonably 
 be clothed with the significance which they only 
 bore for him long afterwards. 
 
 Not first in time, but among the most dis- 
 tinguishable of such moments was that in which 
 Percy ceased to be an alien in a far country, 
 took up his freedom and got a glimpse of the 
 wide - reaching extent of it. His first Easter 
 holiday had come and gone ; he had revelled 
 for three weeks in the almost extravagant 
 affection spread for him at home, and the ad- 
 miring envy of his old companions, which he 
 valued, it must be confessed, far more, and which 
 he took some artless pains to increase. The 
 first day of the new term was one of April's 
 best — bright and dark in alternate half-hours, 
 with high clouds and a cool invigorating air. 
 At dinner-time it was announced that Mr 
 Slingsby, the usher, would conduct a party to 
 the Pillar Woods, and that those who accom- 
 panied him would be excused from returning 
 at the ordinary hour. Everybody accepted, as a 
 matter of course, and Percy understood that 
 the occasion was a great one, a sort of annual 
 celebration to inaugurate the summer half. The 
 inarch to the entrance of the woods, which
 
 THE TWYMANS. 55 
 
 stand on the highest northern point of the 
 wolds, was a triumphal procession for the 
 majority of the School, who, being themselves 
 born and bred in the county, were eager to 
 exalt their native landscape and their know- 
 ledge of it to the confusion of all new boys 
 and strangers. They talked of the unparalleled 
 view from the Pillar, enumerated the churches 
 visible from it, made or repeated rhymes con- 
 taining the characteristic village names — Clixby, 
 Claxby, Somerby, Saxby, and the rest, — and 
 shouted down the protests of M'Kay, the mad 
 Highlander, w^ho was rash enough to boast the 
 scenery of Scotland above that of East Anglia. 
 Percy was but faintly interested in the contro- 
 versy, but when his turn came to mount the 
 Pillar and he stood beside Mr Slingsby and his 
 ordnance map, looking over the green world, 
 his heart w^as changed within him. He sud- 
 denly realised that the flat dingy meadows and 
 close -shut parks that he had known were not 
 " the country " at all : they were the intervals 
 of towns or the appurtenance of towns. This, 
 this that lay vast and solitary and smokeless 
 below him, this was part of another life al- 
 together. A confused heap of small observa- 
 tions, gathered half-consciously during the past 
 few months, took some kind of order in his 
 mind. He remembered conversations with the 
 people in the fields, with a keeper here and a 
 gardener there : he had found some difficulty 
 in their broad dialect, but much more in their 
 mental equipment, which seemed to include 
 none of the facts with which he was famihar,
 
 56 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 and was yet surprisingly ample in other ways. 
 At this moment he felt that they were in the 
 right : it was he who had spent his time 
 hitherto among things that were irrelevant, 
 things that "had nothing to do with it." 
 Clearly the country was the natural element 
 of human life — it held birds and beasts, uncon- 
 fined space, abundant privacy, infinite choice of 
 direction. A town w^as an affair of clocks, 
 trains, postmen, and police, a tread-mill of cer- 
 tainties : here anything might happen, probably 
 was happening, on all sides. The Arthurian 
 romances themselves, which he had read while 
 he was so inappropriately penned in by streets 
 and factories, or a prisoner on parole in some 
 hospitable grown - up domain — those very ad- 
 ventures might well have been encountered in 
 the deep woods at his feet, or on the white 
 roads that run by thorpe and vale and grange 
 to all these quiet and lonely horizons. 
 
 "That is Normanby Clump, to the south," he 
 heard Mr Slingsby saying, "and Walesby Top 
 beyond. Tealby will be just there, but you 
 can't see it, — and Bayons, where Tennyson's 
 people live." 
 
 Tennyson's people ! Certainly this loas the 
 land where things were true. A long after- 
 noon in the woods confirmed his new alle- 
 giance, and when towards the end he sat 
 under a hedge with Andy M'Kay and sucked 
 thrushes' eggs, they decided to renounce modern 
 civilisation, with a saving clause in favour of a 
 double-barrelled gun apiece.
 
 57 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 This "land where things were true" held not 
 only the realities so dear to Percy's imagina- 
 tion, but others of a very different kind, of 
 which he had at present but a dim and far-off 
 apprehension. As he had devoured the Idylls 
 of the King with only a shadowy faith in the 
 existence of their author, so he had hitherto 
 accepted his daily portion of bread or milk or 
 mutton, the daily sight of dogs and horses, the 
 constant arrival of kittens and babies upon the 
 scene of life, as phenomena whose causes were 
 distant and unknowable. But now, as he had 
 discovered from the top of the Pillar the actual 
 landscape in which the poet had (no doubt) 
 witnessed or shared the adventures of his 
 knights, so he was destined to glean, though 
 more gradually, from the same teeming fields, 
 a vivid and intimate realisation of the facts of 
 animal life. 
 
 Among his earliest friends was one Jerry 
 Kelstern, a boy of his own age, who rode in 
 to school every morning from his father's 
 house, which lay about five miles out of 
 Oasterby. Jerry found life very lonely at 
 home : he had no brothers or sisters, and his
 
 58 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 mother had died when he was born. He saw 
 very httle of his father, who spent his days in 
 hunting, shooting, breeding horses and short- 
 horns and farming his o^vn land, and enter- 
 tained his neighbours every Sunday at a plain 
 but lengthy midday dinner. But Mr Kelstern 
 was never forgetful of the boy, and it was by 
 his suggestion that Jerry began to invite his 
 particular friends, two at a time, to spend 
 Sunday with him. 
 
 Percy was one of those who came most often 
 to Thornaby, and probably the one upon whom 
 his visits made the strongest impression. 
 Hitherto he had been brought up mainly by 
 women : his tutor and his uncle, the only t^vo 
 men within the circle of his home life, were 
 both his mother's friends, and their dealings 
 with him were conducted from that point of 
 view : he had never known the tune of mas- 
 culine minds except when transposed into the 
 feminine key. At Thornaby he heard the full 
 sound of the major : its robustness was at 
 times fortissimo, and struck him like a phys- 
 ical shock. The house was a man's house, and 
 when Jerry's old nurse had sent the three 
 young gentlemen dow^n to the dining - room 
 with clean hands and neatly brushed hair, 
 they saw no more of womankind for the rest 
 of the afternoon. 
 
 This was to Percy an experience none the 
 less terrifying, because it seemed entirely nat- 
 ural. When he found himself for the first 
 time almost alone, and quite out of his depth 
 in a sea of male conversation, bluff with the
 
 THE TWYMANS. 59 
 
 plainest of speech, and boisterous with laughter, 
 he felt again the panic that had strung his 
 nerves when he heard his first fight being 
 planned for him without his knowledge. Jerry, 
 his host, M'Kay, his bigger and stronger com- 
 panion, — they sat beside him like shadows, 
 useless for cover or support. The faces at the 
 table, keen, stolid, or genial, were men's faces ; 
 the voices were all men's voices, for the boys 
 in their corner at the lower end hardly ven- 
 tured even to communicate with one another, 
 except in undertones and with the short 
 phrases of dining - room etiquette. Not that 
 they wished to talk : the conversation around 
 them was too interesting. Like a thick dark 
 wood it seemed, full of various kinds of game, 
 all desirable, sighted at every moment, fol- 
 lowed breathlessly in short bursts, and always 
 lost by some sudden turn or crossing of the 
 scent. The fox played a great part here, and 
 it was in this very room, six or seven months 
 later, that Percy attended his first hunt break- 
 fast, when hounds met on Thornaby lawn. But 
 in the spring the talk was less of killing than 
 of bringing to birth — a kind of Vergilian sym- 
 posium, a Georgic in dialogue, enriched with 
 the wisdom handed down and accumulated by 
 generations of pastoral experts. 
 
 To the boy, listening with both ears cocked, 
 there was something here more enthralling 
 even than sport, something that shook his 
 heart and drew his feet more irresistibly. 
 Sport was a craft, a prowess ; but this was a 
 mystery. His host, the venerable gentleman of
 
 60 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 fifty who sat at the head of the table and 
 talked of the prize bulls whose portraits 
 adorned the walls, — surely he was an august 
 person, and his quiet brooding laugh and dark 
 eyes covered a knowledge of secrets deeper 
 than any Percy had ever yet come near. 
 Those gigantic and terrible monsters opposite, 
 Thornaby Tom the First, the Second, and the 
 Third, — he, Mr Kelstern, was their owner, their 
 creator. To kill such Minotaurs would be a 
 feat with any weapon, but to call them into 
 being, to endow them, as it appeared, at will, 
 with the very shape and qualities which made 
 them famous, this required magic as well as 
 daring. And for proof that Percy was not 
 mistaken, there remains the fact that the 
 magic, when by degrees it became plainer to 
 his understanding, did not lose in the least 
 either its fearfulness or its attraction. The 
 irreverent speech, which he both heard and 
 practised during the years that followed, never 
 became to him habitual or indifferent : it was 
 at times humorous or interesting, at times re- 
 pulsive, but always it was consciously a dealing 
 with mysteries, an alluring peril. In his com- 
 panions this feeling may have been present 
 too, but it was not always apparent : some of 
 them he hated for their sheer childishness, 
 others, more indignantly, for their sheer 
 brutality, and there were days when the frank 
 fertility of the country and the rustic ways of 
 its inhabitants all seemed part of a nightmare 
 which oppressed him like the knowledge of a 
 criminal conspiracy. But this was later, and
 
 THE TWYMANS. 61 
 
 had nothing to do with Thornaby. There he 
 was always happy, and assured of the fitness 
 of things. When the port had been placed in 
 front of Mr Kelstern, the boys were free for 
 the afternoon, with a whole farmstead for 
 their playground and only a friendly bailiff to 
 limit their activities. For two glorious hours 
 or more they visited the pigs, the sheep, the 
 cows, the reigning bull: the horses were too 
 precious to fool with, but they mesmerised the 
 hens and threw them in the duck-pond, played 
 skittles with turnips, and laid mines with 
 powder unloaded from stolen cartridges. Fin- 
 ally, after a second tidying by Nurse, and a 
 completely satisfying schoolroom tea, Percy and 
 M'Kay were set upon their return journey, and 
 by dint of some rather weary scurrying, 
 reached the gate of Casterby churchyard just 
 before the last bell ceased to ring for evening 
 service.
 
 62 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 On the run home from Thornaby it was Percy 
 who forced the pace, partly because he was 
 more law - abiding than his friend the High- 
 lander, partly because he was now in the choir 
 and had no wish to escape church. This was 
 his mother's doing, and it was one of her most 
 successful strokes. Not that Amelia was in the 
 least Machiavellian, — on the contrary she was 
 all instinct, and would have been righteously, 
 and quite rightly, indignant if any one had 
 praised her for craft in her dealings with her 
 children. But maternal tact, when it does 
 exist, is surer than cunning, and Amelia had 
 it in a high degree. She had married a man 
 with whose character she was in perfect sym- 
 pathy, and whatever she found in his children 
 that was to her unexpected, she ascribed to a 
 source which she revered and trusted. This 
 did not turn her aside by a hair's -breadth from 
 the pursuit of her own way : but it caused her 
 to touch, with a very delicate and sure hand, 
 even the tendencies which she was most reso- 
 lutely set on controlling. No one could be 
 more reasonable, more ready for a compromise : 
 though her ideal of compromise was rather to
 
 THE TWYMANS. 63 
 
 give up the right of compulsion or veto in 
 exchange for the power of direction. This was 
 not, of course, the way in which she formu- 
 lated the principle to herself, but to her 
 curiously literal mind it would probably have 
 seemed quite a fair statement. She had no 
 wish, she might have said, to dominate the 
 opinions of others, but only to make sure that 
 their force was being exerted in the right 
 direction. She would have tolerated even the 
 Darwinian theory, if only its author had pro- 
 claimed himself on the side of the angels. 
 
 As to her children she had no doubts : she 
 was determined that they should go her way, 
 and certain that they would naturally wish to 
 do so. Any little sign of recalcitrance was 
 merely a wrong turn, a starting aside from the 
 destined path of their development. The right 
 qualities were there ; they only needed to be 
 brought out, to be given opportunity for growth. 
 
 This doctrine of original goodness was one 
 of Amelia's most characteristic heresies. She 
 may have owed it to her brother-in-law, the 
 Commander ; in any case it had his approval, 
 and gave Percy cause for lasting gratitude. He 
 never had to associate repression or compulsion 
 with his home life : the influence which he re- 
 membered was a happy mean between the 
 tyranny of one generation and the laxity of 
 another. At the present moment he was not 
 even conscious of it at all : he thought he was 
 joining the choir to please himself, at least as 
 much as to please his mother. 
 
 So in truth he was, but with no thought of
 
 64 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 the issues that were so present to her. Give a 
 child a key and it will serve him for a toy : 
 after that it may be laid aside, perhaps for- 
 gotten for years : in the end, if it is the key 
 to anything of value, it will be found again 
 and used. Already Percy knew, as he sat in 
 the chancel of this bare old church, built by 
 some Norman forefather of the race — already 
 he knew that the feelings he discovered in 
 himself were something more than toys. 
 
 What he loved best were the hours of choir 
 practice, when the nave was a huge vault of 
 darkness, and the chancel a lonely island of 
 dazzling lights and pale glimmering faces. 
 These companions of his everyday life, liked or 
 disliked, admired or despised, for small reasons, 
 seemed here to belong to some serener, larger 
 existence : often he had a feeling that he and 
 they had all survived the trivial round of 
 school- days, and were living in a new period, 
 of which no one had yet told him. It was a 
 period, too, that was peopled with a crowd of 
 ghostly presences, which he knew to belong to 
 the place itself, since they could not be called 
 back from any past of his own. They were 
 not, to his way of thinking, ghosts at all, — 
 they were not dead, nor had they returned 
 from anywhere, merely they used to worship in 
 this church at times, and at times were here 
 still : if you too came to this place, and to 
 those times, you found them beside you. One 
 only among them all had a name: his tomb 
 was under a low arch in the north side wall, 
 with his efRgy upon it in battered stone, one
 
 THE TWYMANS. G5 
 
 leg crossed over the other, and his head resting 
 upon a dog like lion or lion-like dog. Sir William 
 de Wandon — so they had called him, and the 
 name never left Percy's memory again. No one 
 knew anything more of him, except that he 
 had, no doubt, lived at Wandon Manor, hard by 
 Casterby to the north. But the School were 
 perennially interested in him as a fighting man 
 who belonged to Casterby, and on Sunday 
 evenings they often included his life and times 
 among the subjects on which they questioned 
 their good-natured usher. Mr Slingsby, who was 
 a well-read man, supplied them with plenty of 
 general information about crusades and tourna- 
 ments, and out of this they manufactured a 
 biography of Sir William, which was fairly full, 
 considering the very conscientious limitations 
 they imposed upon themselves, or each other. 
 For example, Brosy Tanner's suggestion that the 
 Crusader had in his youth attended Casterby 
 School was mercilessly crushed by some one with 
 a more precise knowledge of dates, and a claim 
 by Percy that he might be admitted to have sung 
 in Casterby Church was similarly defeated on 
 appeal. " Congregational singing is much more 
 modern," said Mr Slingsby. Percy was put to 
 shame as effectually as if he had been detected 
 in a theft, but the imagination which prompted 
 his question was only driven into hiding. Mr 
 Slingsby knew an awful lot, but he had owned 
 that his knowledge of this particular crusader 
 was not intimate. Perhaps, in the matter of 
 singing, the Casterby use had been out of the 
 common : certainly he, Percy, had reasons of his 
 
 E
 
 66 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 own for thinking so. There was no Friday night's 
 practice at which he did not clearly distinguish 
 more voices chanting than there were faces in 
 the choir. They came, too, from the body of 
 the church, and rang up into the darkness above 
 the arches of the nave : among them was always 
 one of deeper tone, which moved him more than 
 the rest. It expressed for him the character and 
 fellowship of Sir William de Wandon, knight, 
 and in spite of his continuing shame he found 
 his belief grow stronger as time went on. He 
 was able at last to put it very tentatively before 
 his friend M'Kay. The mad Highlander saw 
 nothing to doubt, still less to mock at. He 
 knew^ a dozen perfectly authentic stories of 
 wraiths, and his grandmother had herself been 
 gifted with second -sight. So Percy, much re- 
 assured, went on singing treble to the Crusader's 
 bass.
 
 67 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Sir William de Wandon was a good friend 
 for Percy. Not only did his voice, as we have 
 seen, raise the boy's heart above the sickness 
 that the triviahty and savagery of school life 
 brought upon him at too frequent intervals ; 
 but his memory added the dignity of far- 
 descended strength to the country where he 
 had lived, and there came an hour when the 
 idea of his continued presence revealed itself as 
 a belief that could be leaned upon, fanciful but 
 abiding, a defence against something greater 
 than a boy's little personal miseries. That hour 
 was Percy's first realisation of war and national 
 danger. It is true that the war was a small 
 one, and the danger very distant and very 
 limited, but there was a sting in its challenge : 
 it roused feelings that could never again be 
 disarmed, though the pride and faith that were 
 part of them prevailed in time over the fear. 
 
 The day was a warm, still day towards the 
 end of October. Just before sunset Percy and 
 his two friends, Roger Tanner and the High- 
 lander M'Kay, were making their way home 
 across the flat country that lies below Casterby 
 to the west. They had been out all day, beating
 
 68 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 and carrying game for Mr Tanner, — his one 
 sport was shooting, and his skill in it gave 
 him a standing among his neighbours that his 
 intellectual distinction might otherwise have 
 failed to gain. He marched unwearyingly after 
 October partridges, and his three most favoured 
 pupils coveted nothing so much as permission to 
 march with him. To-day he had been out with 
 his friend Morison, the Casterby doctor, a 
 merry Scotsman, who was on good terms with 
 the boys, and at this moment especially in- 
 teresting to them because he had a brother-in- 
 law serving under Sir Garnet Wolseley on the 
 Ashanti Expedition. The two elders were walk- 
 ing in front ; next to them followed the keepers 
 carrying their masters' guns, and leading the 
 pointer and retriever, for they were making a 
 straight cut across land which was not their 
 own. At some little distance behind, the three 
 boys, tired to the point of perfect satisfaction, 
 were straggling along almost in silence. As the 
 sun fell steadily to the horizon a great flood of 
 golden light poured upon the slope towards 
 which they were returning. The red roofs of 
 Casterby glowed among glowing orchards : the 
 place that Percy knew so well for a small town, 
 perched remote and obscure upon the edge of 
 the wolds, with nothing of much dignity in it 
 except some dozen Georgian houses and the 
 heavy square -towered church, now rose trans- 
 figured before him into an elfin city. The very 
 shapes of the houses all seemed changed : the 
 grey tower was burning in a radiance that 
 softened all its outlines and turned its majestic
 
 THE TWYMANS. 69 
 
 sternness to a bright aerial mystery. Imper- 
 ceptible as dew falling, the spell settled down 
 upon the boys' hearts — the spell of ancestral 
 place -magic, that is nowhere stronger than in 
 England : and in that unforgettable moment 
 came the message that rang through their 
 dream like the sound of Arthur's horn through 
 fairyland. 
 
 Dr Morison, who had to steal his shooting 
 days from his practice, and to start out before 
 the post came in, always arranged to be met 
 on his way home by a servant bringing the 
 letters and messages of the day. This time one 
 letter seemed of greater urgency than the rest. 
 Percy saw that he read it quickly and then 
 handed it to Mr Tanner, watching him while 
 he read it in turn, and forgetting to open the 
 two or three others in his hand. With the 
 same instinct the three boys quickened their 
 steps together : the two men stood still to 
 await them. 
 
 "Roger," said Mr Tanner to his son, "we have 
 made a knight's move : Sir Garnet is giving 
 ' check ' to their king." He was a strong chess- 
 player, and constantly played with a capped 
 pawn against his three pupils in consultation. 
 But Roger wanted facts now : he brushed the 
 metaphor aside. 
 
 " Who's licked ? " he asked with a stolid frown 
 peculiar to him. 
 
 "That's just what we don't know," said the 
 doctor, and Percy saw, with a curious sinking 
 of the heart, that the accustomed merry twinkle 
 was absent from his face. " This is only a
 
 70 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 note from a friend in the War Office to warn 
 me of what is going on. Sir Garnet has tele- 
 graphed that he is going to strike the first blow 
 at once : he was to sail to - day with three 
 hundred men from Cape Coast, and make a 
 surprise landing farther down." 
 
 Mr Tanner was by this time also looking 
 grave. " Shall you tell your sister ? " he asked. 
 
 " No," said the doctor quickly, and then, " Yes, 
 I must ; her man's gone with the Chief, and 
 the news may come to-morrow." 
 
 The conversation went on as they all moved 
 slowly homewards, but the boys heard no more 
 of it. They fell behind again as if moved by 
 a common impulse to confide their new solem- 
 nity to each other. 
 
 " Did you hear what he said ? — there may be 
 news to-morrow." 
 
 " They were to start to - day : they may be 
 fighting this very moment." 
 
 " By Jove ! " 
 
 " By Jove ! " 
 
 " By . . . ! " — the formula seemed for once 
 worn out. 
 
 They climbed the hill without any recollection 
 of their late fatigue, and in another quarter of 
 an hour the whole tea-table was discussing their 
 news. The talk exhilarated Percy at first, but 
 as the chatter went on and his weariness re- 
 turned he felt once more that sinking of the 
 heart. The brag and excitement at the younger 
 end of the table only threw^ into contrast the 
 reserve of the elders. Nix himself never ap- 
 peared at this meal, but Mr Slingsby was heard
 
 THE TWYMANS. 71 
 
 giving a judicial opinion that Sir Garnet was 
 no doubt right in taking risks, but there must 
 certainly be losses expected, or the War Office 
 would not have troubled to warn the relatives 
 of those engaged. " Warn " — yes, that had 
 been Dr Morison's word too. The chatter be- 
 came insupportable, and yet to protest, to croak, 
 to reveal his o^vn vague forebodings, was more 
 than Percy could dare. 
 
 The table rose with the familiar roar of 
 benches grinding a bare floor, and a cry was 
 raised for rounders. Percy caught M'Kay by 
 the arm as he was passing out. "Andy," he 
 said, "I'm going to bolt." 
 
 Nothing could be too mad or too sudden for 
 the Highlander. " Of course ye are," he said ; 
 " dinna swither aboot it." He gripped Percy's 
 arm, drew him away from the crowd at the 
 entrance of the playground, and in a moment 
 the two had slipped through the big gate and 
 were running along under the churchyard wall. 
 Behind them, as they looked hastily back, the 
 sky was a dull smoky red ; in front the town 
 was already glimmering with the eerie twilight 
 of October. It seemed strangely unreal, strangely 
 familiar, as they passed through it at that un- 
 accustomed hour. Upon the open road beyond 
 a still stranger sight awaited them — the October 
 full moon, round and golden, hung in the sky- 
 line just above the hill, so huge and so close to 
 earth that Percy caught his breath as he might 
 have done in the instant before a collision at sea. 
 It was a relief to turn at the cross-roads and 
 flee north. Half a mile more and they turned
 
 72 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 again into a footpath that led westward to 
 Wandon. There on the farther side of the 
 hanging woods they threw themselves down in 
 an angle of the beechen hedge, sheltered from 
 the moon, and looked over the lower slope and 
 the plain beyond. 
 
 For some time both were silent. It was M'Kay 
 who spoke first : he had had the full j)leasure 
 of his impulse, and was beginning to wonder 
 
 about results. " I say," he began, " it's striking 
 
 • )> 
 
 SIX. 
 
 Percy made no reply. He felt, in a way com- 
 mon in dreams, that he knew a good reason 
 why on this occasion time did not matter. 
 
 M'Kay pursued his train of thought. " I only 
 hope it'll be the stick and no lines," he said. " I 
 hate lines." 
 
 Percy, too, hated lines, and he had not his 
 friend's indifference to the stick : but now his 
 dream remained unbroken, for it was woven of 
 more tragical things than these. "There may 
 be news to-morrow — they may be fighting this 
 very moment," — and here he was, caught by 
 surprise, ungrown, helpless, spellbound, while 
 his country was in danger of defeat. It did not 
 occur to him that the life of an individual was 
 the cause of Dr Morison's anxiety : nor did his 
 own punishment trouble him : what hung this 
 night in the balance was the honour of England. 
 
 That was the reason, though he hardly knew 
 it, why he had come to Wandon. Sir William 
 had been through all this, and more. Sir 
 William, however unapproachable, was still in 
 some way here, a tower against disaster.
 
 THE TWYMANS. 73 
 
 Down below, in Wandon Manor, the lights 
 were being lit : they glowed through red curtains 
 with a warmth that seemed especially comforting 
 to the watcher on this lonely slope of cold moon- 
 light and blackening shadows. Percy felt more 
 sure than ever of his friend the Crusader : the 
 gulf of the centuries narrowed swiftly till it 
 was no wider than the five hundred yards of 
 twilight that lay between him and those ruddy 
 windows. 
 
 For a long time he sat there, M'Kay wandering 
 the while up and down the long narrow wood 
 like an unquiet ghost. The moonlight grew 
 brighter ; but it was only moonlight no^v, for 
 the moon was mounting to her old place in the 
 universe and resuming her familiar silver. When 
 the hour struck once more, Percy looked for his 
 fear again and could not find it : he saw instead 
 a blow that, even if it fell, was to be borne as 
 only the first in a long contest of endurance : of 
 the end he no longer doubted. 
 
 A good omen greeted the runaways on their 
 return. The faithful Roger was waiting for 
 them at the gate : Nix had gone over to the 
 doctor's immediately after tea, and they were 
 to work in his study till he came in. So when 
 the news of victory arrived next day, Percy had 
 after all nothing to pay for it.
 
 74 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 So far the influence of the Crusader is easily 
 traceable — it was apparent even to Percy himself, 
 though he would hardly have been able to give 
 much account of it. But beyond this, in a way 
 of which perhaps no one could give much ac- 
 count, the ghostly hand of that companionship 
 was firmly clasped upon his arm, and at times 
 lay heavy as steel upon his shoulder for restraint 
 or compulsion. To walk with such a friend, 
 disembodied, unobtrusive, but inflexible, meant 
 to obey this instinct and reject that, without 
 considering reasons : to pick out, for instance, 
 between quagmires the one right way of think- 
 ing about woman — for even before his fourteenth 
 summer a boy will have his notions of love. It 
 meant also the acceptance — again without know- 
 ing why — of heavy burdens : the burden, for one, 
 of deliberate courage, the burden of foreseen 
 defeat. Not perhaps until twenty years after- 
 wards did Percy realise that, as he stood among 
 the many coloured caskets of magical human 
 passions, the saving choice had been suggested 
 to him again and again by a voice from that 
 past which the wisdom of to-day derides as 
 mediaeval. He might never have reahsed it at
 
 THE TWYMANS. 75 
 
 all, if it had not happened that the last of these 
 moments of choice remained as clear as life in 
 his memory when the many others had long 
 faded out of significance. 
 
 In the matter of fighting, so important at 
 Casterby, Percy had held, for the first three 
 years of his school life, an unexpectedly easy 
 position. In two or three brief and painless 
 encounters he had shown himself at once to be 
 too quick for any opponent of his own weight : 
 on the other hand, the desperate match origin- 
 ally proposed for him had been vetoed after all 
 by the elders, on the ground that Williams, his 
 intended antagonist, had come back too well- 
 grown for the combat to offer any chance of 
 sport. In order, therefore, to secure a quiet 
 life, Percy had only to observe the etiquette 
 which bade him refrain from "cheeking" his 
 superiors, or accept with submission the penalty 
 in that case made and provided — generally a 
 formal "smacking" on the back of the head. 
 But the code was inelastic, and to obey it at 
 times more than difficult. Once, at any rate, 
 he found that if he was to keep the Crusader's 
 friendship he must forfeit, at least for a time, 
 that of his nearest visible companion. 
 
 This happened when his final term at Casterby 
 was well advanced. May had come with a burst 
 of hot weather, and the unaccustomed splendour 
 of it gave day after day a holiday feeling. One 
 was in fact a holiday — the day of the annual 
 Casterby sheep fair, to that countryside the most 
 important festival of the year. The School did 
 not escape till afternoon ; but this time Mr
 
 76 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 Tanner, after holding his scholarship class for 
 an hour in his own study, shut his book suddenly 
 and took the three boys up with him to see the 
 
 show. 
 
 The fair was in two parts: the merry-go- 
 rounds, the booths, and the shooting-galleries 
 stood in the market square; but the sheep, in 
 countless flocks, were penned to the north-east 
 of the town near the source of a small stream 
 which ran through a " bottom " in the open down : 
 above, at a corner of the Roman road, the famous 
 Fleece Inn provided a similar convenience for 
 the human part of the herd. Every squire and 
 breeder in the county seemed to be there: Mr 
 Tanner and Roger found many acquaintances in 
 the crowd, and Percy and M'Kay were soon free 
 to lose themselves at discretion. 
 
 They were not long in tiring of the noise and 
 smell of thirty thousand sheep under a hot sun, 
 and at last strayed away down the stream in 
 the mood of half -weary content which early 
 summer brings. The joy of life ran in Percy's 
 veins with a languid but a warm and brimming 
 current : he felt as if this golden day could never 
 end, but must wander on and on from one bliss 
 to another. And there the next romance was, 
 ready to the moment. An old thorn-tree, solitary 
 and weirdly twisted, stood on the bare, rounded 
 bank, a little above the sparkle of the stream. 
 Under it, as the boys came nearer, they saw the 
 figure of a girl ; she was half-sitting, half -lying 
 on the steep slope, i3ropj)ed lazily on her left 
 arm, and the faded blue of her cotton frock
 
 THE TWYMANS. 77 
 
 flowed over the short grey - green turf in a 
 charming outhne. The crook that lay beside 
 her told that she had come in from the country 
 with some shepherd, and it might have been 
 guessed that she had started early, for her dark 
 eyes, ignoring the boys' approach, looked out 
 with a dreamy softness from under the shadow 
 of her little cloth cap. 
 
 Percy's feet began to linger : when the track 
 brought him to the point of passing he stopped 
 altogether, and found himself looking almost 
 level into her face. Looking — and yet he was 
 not so much looking as listening : listening to a 
 tale that was being told him by one of those 
 strange Dwellers in the Innermost, in a tongue 
 that was all in tune with the rich languor of the 
 summer's day. It was not a tale that can be 
 translated ; but it was the most absorbing, limit- 
 less, urgent, irresistible tale that he had ever 
 yet heard. He had, of course, often been in 
 love, sometimes for days on end, but always 
 hitherto with the partners of his Christmas 
 dances, or other young ladies of well-known 
 antecedents. This came to him as romance un- 
 conditioned — a shepherdess out of a fairy tale, a 
 peasant girl who might be a princess in disguise. 
 He heard with sharp annoyance the cheerful, 
 irreverent voice of Andy M'Kay at his elbow, 
 firing a round of commonplace chaff at the 
 vision. 
 
 " Morning, Sukey, and how's your poor feet 
 to-day ? " 
 
 Having thus saluted, Andy was for passing
 
 78 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 on, but finding that Percy was not following he 
 stopped again and called back, " Come on, Percy ; 
 you're not wanted, you know." 
 
 Percy did not move. "Can't you see she's 
 tired?" he said in a low, impatient voice. 
 
 "Rot!" replied Andy; "why don't you kiss 
 her and come along?" 
 
 " Shut up ! " said Percy furiously. 
 
 Andy wheeled sharply round. " Oh ! all right," 
 he said in a very serious tone. " You're cheeky : 
 I shall lick you for that," and he turned and 
 walked on with dignity. 
 
 The girl raised her head a little. "What's he 
 going to lick you for?" she asked in slow, deep 
 Lincolnshire. 
 
 Percy stepped up the bank to her; his sensa- 
 tions were more confused than ever — a chaos 
 of greedy, glorious, reckless, and protective 
 emotions. He sat down on the turf at her side 
 and watched Andy's departing figure. Presently 
 it disappeared, and he looked down at her : with- 
 out leaving her lazy mood she leaned a little 
 farther back and looked up at him. 
 
 It was in that moment that the Crusader in- 
 tervened. I believe he used no arguments ; he 
 may possibly have dra^vn Percy's attention to 
 the difference between a rustic dialect and the 
 speech of princesses, even when disguised ; he 
 certainly told him flatly that he had no busi- 
 ness where he was. 
 
 "I must go," said Percy suddenly, rising to 
 his feet. 
 
 " What's he going to lick you for ? " asked the 
 girl again.
 
 THE TWYMANS. 79 
 
 " Oh ! that's nothing," replied Percy ; " he's only 
 a fool. Good-bye." 
 
 As he went down the path he looked back 
 and waved a hand ; but she was dreaming again 
 and did not see. 
 
 Farther down he came in sight of Andy, who 
 was sitting on a rail with two companions. Percy 
 recognised them for Sam and George Whittlesey ; 
 being day-boys, they had taken leave off morning 
 school. He felt himself very much alone — it was 
 unjust of Fate to give the friends to the stronger. 
 But though he did not know it, the Crusader was 
 with him still. Again he used no arguments ; he 
 held out no hopes : he simply laid it down that 
 this was one of those aifairs which have to be 
 gone through with — life was hard on such terms, 
 but intolerable on any other. Percy walked 
 straight on. 
 
 Andy got deliberately down from the rail and 
 advanced to meet him. Smack, smack, smack, 
 went his hand on Percy's wrist — for he had in- 
 stinctively thrown his left arm round his head. 
 Three more blows followed — quite painless to 
 Percy, but tedious, because they prevented him 
 from doing what he had resolved upon. When 
 at last they ceased again he looked up, and 
 deliberately sent his right fist home upon Andy's 
 mouth. 
 
 The Highlander roared with astonished rage. 
 "You little fool!" he cried, "I'd just done." 
 
 He came on, towering over Percy, and whirling 
 his arms like a windmill. Percy felt the blows 
 rain upon his forehead, but again they were 
 painless, and he gave his whole attention to
 
 80 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 hitting straight from the shoulder. To the sur- 
 prise of the two seconds the fight went on, round 
 after round. Presently Percy's head cleared, and 
 he began to see what was happening: he was 
 striking too low, as his opponent was striking 
 too high — the result of their unequal stature. 
 Next time he reached the enemy's nose, and a 
 stream of blood followed that refused to be 
 staunched. Again and again the fight was in- 
 terrupted, handkerchiefs were dipped in the 
 stream, water was poured on to the champion's 
 head. The blood continued to flow embarrass- 
 ingly — the affair was in danger of becoming 
 sordid or ridiculous : the seconds were casting 
 about for arguments in favour of peace. 
 
 Here George Whittlesey, a youth of charming 
 temperament and a most experienced fighter, 
 had one of his best inspirations. In a prolonged 
 pause, while assisting the wounded, he adroitly 
 assumed that the war -was over. 
 
 " You hit jolly straight, Twyman," he said in 
 a tone of quiet reflection, " but I think M'Kay 
 would have been too much for you in the long- 
 run." 
 
 No one knew that better than Percy. " Of 
 course he would," he replied ungrudgingly. 
 
 Andy looked at the handkerchief that he was 
 holding to his face. " This is yours, I think," he 
 said to Percy ; " thank you very much for it." 
 
 Thereupon their seconds helped them on with 
 coats and caps, and took them away to the dis- 
 tractions of the market-place.
 
 81 
 
 CHAPTER Xy. 
 
 It was full summer when the day came for 
 which Percival had so long been preparing — the 
 day when he was to present himself at Downton 
 for his scholarship examination. Right across 
 England he went, and far to the South: indeed 
 he had only once in his life been so far Sovith, 
 and that was long ago. He seemed now to be 
 travelling in a foreign country: his bare wolds 
 and smoky Midlands looked cold and dark in re- 
 trospect, — as he moved hour by hour down into 
 the rich warm radiance of the West he felt as if 
 he had come into a golden fortune and was leav- 
 ing years of poverty behind. Last of all came 
 the drive from the station to the school. It was 
 at first uninteresting : but presently the drowsy- 
 paced cab emerged from a terrace into the glare 
 of a wide white road which at first descended by 
 a gentle slope. On the left side of it stood a row 
 of substantial houses, taking the sun comfortably 
 on their backs among lilacs and laburnums : on 
 the right was a long range of black paling with a 
 guard of netting above it, and behind both a line 
 of young lime-trees. Even now, while the leaves 
 still hid the view from him, Percival heard again 
 and again the sweet crack of bat on ball : then as 
 
 F
 
 82 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 he drew level and looked between the trees he 
 saw that which took his breath with an entirely 
 new delight. In the distance were buildings — 
 large and stately they seemed, but he hardly 
 thought of them — in front lay a wide green 
 sward, level as a lawn, flooded with low sun- 
 light, and covered in every direction with a multi- 
 tude of white figures, standing, running, walking, 
 bowling, throwing, batting — in every attitude 
 that can express the energy or the expectancy 
 of youth. At the first glance Percival felt his 
 old love of cricket revive in him so strongly 
 that he would at that moment have exchanged 
 all the wolds and woods of Lincolnshire for this 
 one field and what it held. At the second glance 
 something broke over his spirit like a wave : he 
 took it for the tide of joyful anticipation, but I 
 think it was more than that — the inrush of an 
 idea, the sudden perception, however vague and 
 distant, of the meaning of the scene : a glimpse, 
 behind the mere beauty of the white young 
 figures shining so coolly in the slant evening 
 sunlight, of the finely planned order and long- 
 descended discipline they symbolised. He en- 
 joyed keenly every minute of the four or five 
 days that follo^v^ed : the quiet hours of concen- 
 tration in the high airy gymnasium where the 
 examination tables were laid, the conversations 
 with the eccentric and abruptly courteous house- 
 master who gave him hospitality, the intervals 
 when he was free to wander about the Close, 
 taking stock of that which he already regarded 
 as his own inheritance. But what remained in 
 his mind when he returned home was that first
 
 THE TWYMANS. 83 
 
 impression, interpreted, confirmed, and amplified 
 by everything else that he had seen. 
 
 "You see, mother," he explained, "it's all just 
 the opposite of Casterby : there the fellows did 
 what they liked, until Nix spotted them, and then 
 they had to do what he liked. But at Downton 
 they're all governed by the laws, masters and all, 
 — even the headmaster. Mr Don said so. He 
 said we all make the Commonwealth together, 
 and no one can do what he likes." 
 
 " I'm very glad to hear it," said Amelia, who 
 was always in favour of laws ; " but you talk as 
 if you were there already — you may have failed, 
 you know." She did not herself believe it : he 
 knew that she did not, and she was quite aware 
 that he knew. So, conventional decency having 
 been observed, they both laughed and settled 
 down closer on the sofa to enjoy the future. 
 
 " I say, Motherkin," Percy began in his most 
 alluring voice, "you'll let Alan come too, won't 
 
 Alan had been too delicate for Casterby 
 winters. 
 
 " You will, won't you ? " Percy repeated ; 
 "Downton's jolly warm, you know." 
 
 Amelia had her own line to cast, and cast it as 
 usual with a light hand. She smiled mysteri- 
 ously at the boy and pressed his fingers a little 
 closer. 
 
 " Very well," she said, " but you must do the 
 same for me — you must let me come too." 
 
 " Of course — what do you mean ? " 
 
 " If you are both going to live at Downton, 
 I thought I should like to live there too."
 
 84 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 " But you couldn't live with us — at school," said 
 Percy incredulous. 
 
 " No, but you could live with me — at home," she 
 replied. 
 
 There was a moment of suspense, but the strain 
 was soon over. The scheme glowed in the boy's 
 imagination — he saw himself leading the family 
 caravan into that golden Southern country and 
 in some undefined way combining all the joys of 
 home and exploration. 
 
 " Mother," he exclaimed, " you are splendid ! " 
 
 That Amelia's success was so much more easily 
 won than she expected was of course due to 
 Percy's ignorance of Public Schools and their 
 traditions. He did not know that at the Rugbys 
 and Etons the " day boy " has always been an 
 exceptional being, under exceptional disabilities, 
 anomalous, isolated, despised : or that those other 
 great foundations, where day scholars form the 
 vast majority, have generally, for that very 
 reason, failed to attain the corporate life and 
 discipline of a typical Public School. His mother 
 had been well advised on this point, and she had 
 discovered that at Downton alone the two sys- 
 tems were so combined in one as to secure the 
 advantages of both without the disadvantages of 
 either. Her boys might sleep every night under 
 her roof, and escape the sordid barrack life of 
 dormitories : yet by day, as members of one of 
 the two great " Town Houses," they would en- 
 joy — and endure — as full a citizenship as any 
 of the exiles in boarding-houses. Perhaps it was 
 mainly of health and morals that she was think- 
 ing now, for her younger boy's delicacy had
 
 THE TWYMANS. 85 
 
 always been her chief anxiety. But she must 
 have been aware, too, that the merit of the 
 Downton plan did not end there. A school in 
 which one boy out of every four is growing up 
 in the house of his parents may succeed as well 
 as another in impressing the ideals of public 
 spirit and public order : certainly it will not be 
 so fully under the domination of that half- 
 barbarous and wholly pagan tradition commonly 
 spoken of as " Boys' public opinion," and senti- 
 mentally admired by those who have long pro- 
 fessed an exactly opposite faith. The mere fact 
 that a home life — the life of civilised man — is 
 present uninterruptedly side by side with the 
 makeshift existence of the barrack, gives a power 
 of comparison which is more efficient against the 
 tyranny of a primitive superstition than any 
 definite right of appeal could be. 
 
 These considerations, then, may have vaguely 
 influenced Amelia's decision : about her action 
 there was nothing vague. The list was no sooner 
 out, with Percy's name in it, than she began to 
 organise her migration. Her income had been 
 opportunely doubled by the death of a relative 
 some twelve months before : she was free to 
 move at will. In a fortnight she had let her 
 house, in three weeks she had bought a new one 
 at Downton, and was busy with papers, paint, 
 and the removal of furniture. The new house 
 was on the shady slope of the road by which 
 Percy had approached the school, and exactly 
 opposite the spot where he had caught the first 
 glimpse of that white-clad fellowship.
 
 86 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Before the end of September the second great 
 change in Percival's Kf e was accomplished : he 
 had become " Twyman major," a member of the 
 Lower Fifth Form, with a "minor" some way 
 below in the Third. It must be recorded that 
 from the day he entered Downton he remem- 
 bered Casterby dimly and without regret. If he 
 looked back at all, it was upon a primitive 
 chaotic existence, troubled by irrelevant miseries, 
 out of which he had escaped into a secure and 
 well-ordered state, worthier of a man of sense. 
 There was a loss of romance — the elements of 
 wildness and unexpectedness had disappeared 
 altogether, — but there was something about the 
 new life that made it more and more absorbing 
 every day. What that something was, a boy of 
 fourteen could hardly be expected to realise : but 
 he explained it clearly enough to his mother 
 without knowing that he was doing so, and 
 Amelia did her best to impress it upon his 
 guardian, Mr Mundy, who was a gentle but 
 determined critic of Public Schools. 
 
 With his usual fairness and deliberation, Mr 
 Mundy delayed his first visit of inspection until 
 the boys had been a full year at the school. The 
 British Association happened then to be meeting
 
 THE TWYMANS. 87 
 
 at Downton, and he foresaw that by attending it 
 he would gain the opportunity of making ac- 
 quaintance with some of the masters on neutral 
 ground, and at a time when they were not too 
 much immersed in their work to be able to dis- 
 cuss the theory of it. 
 
 This fell out as he expected, and by good 
 fortune the master whom he first encountered 
 chanced to be Mr Don, Percival's host of the year 
 before, a man of quaint appearance and eccentric 
 manner, but, like many of the Downton staff at 
 this time, of strong and original character, not 
 without a touch of genius. The meeting took 
 place during an excursion down the Bristol 
 Channel, the two men leaning side by side against 
 the rail of the small steamer and watching the 
 cloud-shadows on the Welsh coast while they 
 talked. 
 
 Mr Mundy had been answering a series of ques- 
 tions on the geology of the district, but he was 
 glad when they came to an end, for he was more 
 interested in the personality of his companion — a 
 curious and arresting figure, with his long grey 
 hair, high forehead, goat-like beard, and intense 
 visionary eyes. 
 
 "I thank you," said Mr Don after a moment's 
 pause. " You shame my ignorance. I thank 
 you." He compressed his lips, grasped his chin 
 with one hand and forced it down upon his chest, 
 as if in meditation. 
 
 "I wish," replied Mr Mundy with the slow, 
 modest manner habitual to him,— "I wish you 
 would be kind enough to do the same for 
 me. I have never known enough about Public
 
 88 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 Schools — my criticism of them has probably been 
 beside the mark in some ways." 
 
 " In all ways, no doubt," said the other. " Our 
 critics are as much in error as our defenders. 
 You say we play too much : we reply that 
 Waterloo was won upon our playing - fields. 
 Where, then, was America lost ? Where do 
 French or German boys learn the battle of life ? 
 We are stupid : we lie without thinking." 
 
 Mr Mundy was puzzled : but he felt the 
 vehemence and abruptness to be full of meaning. 
 
 " What is your reason then," he asked, " for 
 giving so much importance to athletics ? " 
 
 "We do so because they are wholly unim- 
 portant. This is the doctrine of by - products. 
 Pursue one thing to gain another — seek the 
 trivial to find the permanent. Observe : I must 
 have an object for my walk : I go to buy a 
 pig, or pay a call upon a fool: as I go along 
 — out of the corner of my eye — I gather beauty. 
 My liver, too, benefits." 
 
 He drove an earnest glance into Mr Mundy's 
 eyes, and then continued as if he had heard a 
 reply. 
 
 " No — certainly not. At nothing of importance 
 must you aim directly. Art pleases by felicities, 
 but it does not aim at them. They are a bonus. 
 So in religion — which is not Salvationism : seek 
 ye first the Kingdom, but by losing your life, 
 not by saving it. You were thinking of educa- 
 tion : very well, we grasp information by hand- 
 fuls, we find learning somewhere in the bunch. 
 Yes, the bunch," he repeated in a tone of intense 
 reflection, — " the bunch."
 
 THE TWYMANS. 89 
 
 Mr Mundy ventured again, "I understand 
 something of by - products in chemistry," he 
 said, "but what is the by-product you get from 
 athletics ? " 
 
 "I wandered," replied Mr Don, "I did not 
 stray : I wandered to the other side of the 
 road. It is all one : we learn to hit a ball, to 
 call it a(pacpa or pila — what do we gain by that ? 
 Nothing, but incidentally we learn to construct 
 the Universe. I say to my form, 'Why do you 
 come into this life, where you cheat and waste, 
 and beget cheats and wasters? Why do you 
 come to this school to idle and kick each other's 
 shins and worry me ? My boys,' " he raised his 
 right hand and lowered his voice dramatically, — 
 " ' you come because you have to build a new 
 world, every one of you for himself: a new 
 world : the world you see is chaos — raw material 
 in heaps — a box of bricks. Out of it you must 
 make a house — the House of Eternity.'" 
 
 "I agree," said Mr Mundy, "that facts are 
 useless until they are co-ordinated, but you have 
 
 still to convince me that your schools " 
 
 "Not as schools," Mr Don interrupted, "but 
 as societies, microcosms complete with nations, 
 senates, battlefields, crimes, and seats of justice. 
 They have even birth and death : their gener- 
 ations are always coming to them from an 
 obscurer life and passing away into a wider one. 
 There, too, it is building that is learnt, sometimes 
 better than at school, sometimes worse." 
 
 "You think that teaching is more efficient at 
 the Universities ? " 
 
 Mr Don's equanimity was not in the least
 
 90 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 disturbed by this misunderstanding : his candour 
 and his courtesy reinforced each other. " My 
 dear sir," he replied, "you have dropped the 
 catch : I am glad of it : you see how difficult is 
 the receiving of direct information — difficult for 
 you, more difficult for softer and less willing 
 hands. We talk of teaching, but you and I do 
 not mean the same thing — there is an Undis- 
 tributed Middle between us. Information, I say, 
 is nothing — an illusion of thoughtless parents. 
 For information you would purchase a text-book, 
 an encyclopaedia, perhaps a tutor. For educa- 
 tion you live in a society. Man is a builder from 
 birth, but he does not learn his building in 
 solitude. A Public School is a Guild, a Fellow- 
 ship of builders : it has a tradition, the secret 
 of a style. I would say, an Order : best if akin 
 to the Doric. Spartam nactus es." 
 
 The word Sparta seemed to Mr Mundy to offer 
 a clue. " I think I am following," he said. " We 
 send our sons to you not only for instruction, 
 but for discipline — which we should find it diffi- 
 cult to enforce ourselves." 
 
 "You do," replied Mr Don, "it is another of 
 your illusions — ' Flog my rascal for me, Dominie.' 
 But Magister is not Dominie. No, the People 
 must be their own Police — Prefect is the word. 
 A crime is a crime against the community, not 
 against me. Avnicus curiae — I cannot go beyond 
 that if I am to remain amicus jpueri." 
 
 " If I may take you literally," said Mr Mundy, 
 "the whole duty of a Public Schoolmaster is 
 neither to instruct nor to control, but to befriend 
 his boys."
 
 THE TWYMANS. 91 
 
 Mr Don grasped his chin once more, and looked 
 down : there was a tragic sincerity in his attitude. 
 
 "My friend," he replied, "you press me home: 
 you pierce me. To befriend — would not that be 
 also to instruct and to control ? Yes ! We fail 
 — the Masters of the Guild — we fail. I fail: I 
 have been boasting to you. I take these young 
 friends you send me: with them I follow the 
 paper-chase, the rotifer, the irregular verb. I 
 say to myself, ' While we are running together 
 surely they will see and hear what I see and 
 hear — the light on the horizon, the music to 
 which the City is built.' " 
 
 The long-drawn intensity of his voice changed 
 suddenly to a candour without self-pity. 
 
 " They do not see," he said, " they go away : 
 they have heard nothing but a middle-aged peda- 
 gogue talking to himself. You hiive heard him 
 too : I beg you will forgive me, and forget as 
 they do." 
 
 Mr Mundy's heart was touched : between this 
 man's point of view and his own there was a 
 wide difference, and he did not lose sight of it, but 
 he recognised and honoured a selfless enthusiasm. 
 
 " Oh ! no," he replied sympathetically ; " that 
 is, if I may say so, an illusion on your side. 
 Whether they profit or not, I am quite sure 
 they don't forget." 
 
 He was probably right : upon him, the mere 
 acquaintance of an hour, that strange dramatic 
 personality, that abrupt and vital utterance, left 
 an impression that was long in fading. Upon 
 Percival's memory they had for a year past been 
 stamped indelibly.
 
 92 
 
 CHAPTER XVIL 
 
 Mr Mundy reported his conversation to his 
 hostess the same evening. " I can hardly say," 
 he conchided, "that I agreed with Mr Don; but 
 I was impressed by the man. He has a clear 
 idea of the system, and he believes in it. Per- 
 haps I should, if I understood it as well as he 
 does." 
 
 " I am sure no one could understand it, if you 
 don't," replied Amelia loyally. 
 
 Mr Mundy pondered. " Perhaps not," he said, 
 without self -consciousness ; " an ideal is hard to 
 communicate. However willing the hearer may 
 be, he can't catch the intensity, or even the 
 exact outline. In Science a disciple may go 
 beyond his master, but in other lines of thought 
 he is generally a caricature, or, at best, a poor 
 copy. I feel that I have not done justice to 
 Mr Don's ideal." 
 
 Amelia had no such misgivings. " And I feel," 
 she replied, " that you have understood perfectly, 
 and made me understand too." 
 
 Mr Mundy was silent. " At any rate," he said 
 presently, "it will be very interesting to see 
 what Percy gets out of the ideal — that's the 
 important point. Meantime I'm glad to find
 
 THE TWYMANS. 93 
 
 that both the boys are being well grounded in 
 Chemistry and Physics." 
 
 " I've given them a room in the basement for 
 a laboratory," said Amelia, with some pride. 
 " They call it the Den. Do you think I ought 
 to give notice to the Fire Insurance Office?" 
 
 This question was soon settled, but the other 
 remained to trouble Amelia's mind : for, con- 
 fident though she was, she never missed a hint 
 from those whom she trusted. What was the 
 Public School system giving Percival? The an- 
 swer was not to be discovered all at once, or 
 by the same person : and if in the end it proved 
 satisfactory as a whole, to each of the inquirers 
 there was something for criticism, something 
 lacking to perfection. 
 
 Amelia's one and only cause of disappointment 
 may be recorded at once. She readily accepted 
 Mr Don's idea, as she understood it : but for the 
 man's more visionary faith and patience she sub- 
 stituted the woman's eagerness for the concrete 
 and immediate. For her " the House of Eter- 
 nity" meant the Church of England, and in 
 school life, as in the life of society at large, 
 she demanded visible efforts in the process of 
 building, and tangible results. When it came 
 to the time of Percival's confirmation, Downton 
 was found wanting, in her judgment. 
 
 For an occasion like this, the Commander, her 
 husband's brother, was her best friend. He ac- 
 cepted her invitation readily, for he was the 
 boy's godfather, and had the Twyman way of 
 taking things naturally, as they came. But this 
 time he had also a sense of his own inadequacy,
 
 94 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 which troubled him, and the week proved in fact 
 even more uncomfortable than he had expected. 
 Ceremonial he understood, as a reasonable part 
 of any Service : religious feeling he shared 
 largely and obeyed with great simplicity : but 
 during these days there came back to him with 
 new force certain recollections long hidden away 
 — recollections of a despairing sense that for once 
 ceremonial and feeling were not being brought 
 into a true relation to each other. 
 
 The disquiet began on the morning after his 
 arrival. Amelia had written to ask old Colonel 
 Twyman, Percival's other godfather and a distant 
 relative, to be present at the Confirmation Ser- 
 vice, and had been considerably perturbed by his 
 reply. It was an affectionate letter, deeply pious 
 and touchingly honest, but it stated plainly that 
 the ceremony in question was not one of which 
 the writer, as an Evangelical Christian, could 
 approve. 
 
 Amelia expressed her indignation with charac- 
 teristic point and vigour. 
 
 The Commander was not wanting in sympathy. 
 " But it's a good letter," he added, " a very good 
 letter: Uncle John is a dear old saint, and he 
 knows what he believes more clearly than we do 
 — than I do, at least." 
 
 " I don't know how you can talk like that," she 
 replied. " We must all make public profession of 
 our faith, or what is the Church for ? " 
 
 Her brother-in-law felt unequal to a discussion 
 on this w^ithout further inquiry and reflection. 
 In the evening he got the boy to himself, and 
 began the inquiry.
 
 THE TWYMANS. 95 
 
 Percival answered his uncle's first questions 
 with an embarrassment never before known 
 between them. The Commander came to close 
 quarters at once. 
 
 " I didn't mean to bother you, old boy," he said, 
 "but I can't help seeing that you look worried. 
 You'll be glad to have this over." 
 
 "I want to be confirmed," replied Percival 
 steadily. 
 
 " Certainly," said the Commander ; " but you'll 
 be glad to have it over. I remember the feeling 
 myself." 
 
 " Well, Uncle Roland," said the boy, " it's no 
 wonder — they do it all in such a rotten way." 
 
 " The preparation part, you mean ? " 
 
 " Oh ! that's nothing — nothing at all. When I 
 went up to the master who prepares us, he only 
 just read my name off a list and asked me, 'Is 
 your language all right ? ' and then said, ' That 
 will do, then,' and I came away." 
 
 "Well," said the Commander, "that was not 
 overdoing it, certainly : it doesn't sound as if he 
 saw much reality in religion." 
 
 "Oh! I'm sure he does," said the boy warmly, 
 " only you see, generally they say nothing about 
 it, and now they have to they're in an extra funk 
 of it." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Oh ! I don't know — there's a sort of fish- 
 out-of-water feeling about it." He forestalled a 
 further question by adding hastily, " Then the 
 fellows rot it so. Ever so many of them know 
 the old Bishop by heart, and they do him to the 
 life. They say that when he gets up into the
 
 96 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 pulpit you can't help grinning, because you know 
 every word beforehand, squeaky voice and all." 
 
 •'No doubt," said the Commander, "it's only 
 too easy to grin when you're nervous. But 
 you'll find you're not nervous Tvhen the time 
 comes — a really great service makes you clean 
 forget yourself." 
 
 "Yes, of course," replied Percy very dubiously, 
 "but there'll be all the school there to remind 
 us, and we shall be sitting in the order of the 
 houses at football." 
 
 " By Jove ! " said the Commander, " that is a 
 rum idea of ceremonial. But look here, Percy, 
 what do you mean about the fish -out -of -water 
 feeling — about the masters 'funking it'?" 
 
 " Well, they do rather : at least they don't 
 seem to know what to make of it — they treat 
 us as if we'd got something infectious. You 
 needn't think I'm inventing — there's a notice 
 up that those who have been confirmed in the 
 morning won't play football that afternoon." 
 
 The Commander's eyes lit up : he longed to 
 laugh, but he thought of Amelia and loyally 
 refrained. 
 
 "All right," he said, "I'm not sorry for that, 
 Percy, — you and your mother and I can have 
 the afternoon to ourselves. I'll take you over 
 to Wells." 
 
 When the day came, they went accordingly, 
 and Percival found in the Cathedral service 
 something that had jjerhaps been lacking in 
 that morning's ceremony. The Bishop had ex- 
 horted him to fight manfully against tempta- 
 tions : the phrase, like an old mirror that has
 
 THE TWYMANS. 97 
 
 ceased to reflect, gave back nothing to his 
 questionings. But here the peace of ages 
 answered him : beneath the vast symmetry of 
 these aisles his own small weaknesses appeared 
 in juster proportion, and the chanting sang to 
 him of an infinite aspiration that seemed to 
 gather up and transform all the small desires 
 of personality. 
 
 G
 
 98 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Though his equanimity was thus happily re- 
 stored, Percy still felt that Downton needed 
 justifying. For his own reassurance and the 
 overruling of his elders' criticism, there was 
 but one power that he could trust. Instinctively 
 rather than of any reasoned purpose, he begged 
 his uncle to stay over the following Sunday 
 and hear the headmaster preach. 
 
 When the time came Mrs Twyman and the 
 Commander were seated in a high gallery at 
 the back of the chapel, remote from the ser- 
 ried mass of the school, and actually invisible 
 to the boy himself. But from the moment 
 when the preacher's voice was at last heard, 
 the feeling of separation ceased, and a vivid 
 consciousness came upon Percy of the signifi- 
 cance of what was said, a significance doubled 
 and trebled by the fact that he knew it to be 
 echoing in the thoughts of those other hearers 
 as well as in his own. 
 
 Dr Cumberland's eloquence — in Percy's opinion 
 stirring beyond all comparison — was eloquence 
 only to those who heard it. His thought was 
 clear rather than rich, forcible rather than 
 subtle : it was expressed in language which
 
 THE TWYMANS. 99 
 
 had no special beauty of its own. The printed 
 record of his sermons or his speeches could 
 scarcely tell more to a reader who had never 
 known the living voice, than the score of a 
 sonata could convey its moving power to one 
 unskilled in music. But the instrument once 
 heard, the bare notation will suffice to bring 
 back the full sound to memory : Percy could 
 never afterwards read a line of these brief and 
 unadorned utterances without seeing instantly 
 and with the clearness of life the tall spare 
 figure, the chiselled face, with its lofty and 
 remote air, saved from too dominant an aus- 
 terity by the grace of the slightly stooping 
 head : or without hearing again in every sen- 
 tence the lingering north - country accent that 
 gave so curious a distinction to the voice, and 
 the unconsciously melancholy cadence that 
 softened its strenuousness with a grave beauty 
 of resignation. 
 
 " Every one meinhers one of another." 
 " Since we last met in this place," the preacher 
 began, "a great change has come upon some 
 among you : you have entered into the full 
 membership of a world-wide society. You have 
 been helped to realise the social character of 
 Christian faith, the truth that corporate life is 
 a necessity to all of us. To you this new 
 experience, this widening of the spiritual out- 
 look, has no doubt come with less strangeness 
 than it must often come to those less fortun- 
 ately placed, for you have already, as you meet 
 here term by term, become familiar with the 
 idea of a common activity and a common pur-
 
 100 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 pose. Even the least thoughtful among you 
 cannot have been here long without becoming 
 aware that our character as members of a 
 society or fellowship is something difPerent 
 from our individual character w^hen we are 
 living apart or in solitude. There is a latent 
 fire in our souls which does not burn up till 
 it gathers an accumulated force by the contact 
 of life with life. There is a certain infection 
 of nature which goes from one of us to another 
 as if by some chemical process, so that our 
 juxtaposition and our common life give to all 
 of us new qualities. We here in this congre- 
 gation are not merely the same six or seven 
 hundred isolated souls that we should be if 
 scattered over a wide area and unknown to 
 one another. As we sit here side by side, with 
 one purpose and one aim, uttering the same 
 words, thinking the same thoughts, stirred in 
 some degree by the same impulses and pene- 
 trated by the same influence, our spirit moves 
 as it were all together, in something like a 
 rhythmic harmony ; we feel that something has 
 been added to us, that we are not the same as 
 before we met. For the time, at any rate, if 
 not indeed for all time, our life is a different 
 thing : for by merely coming together we have 
 created a new element of life, which is reacting 
 on every one of us with its influences, as the 
 case may happen to be, either invigorating or 
 fatally injurious." 
 
 Yes, to Percy, as to every other member of 
 the school, this was all familiar. The very 
 phrases, insisted upon again and again, were
 
 THE TWYMANS. 101 
 
 old and well known : yet such was the strange 
 pathos of the voice, the dread seraphic inten- 
 sity of the presence from which they issued, 
 that they seemed, like music itself, to gain 
 rather than lose in meaning by constant repe- 
 tition. 
 
 "And you will feel the truth of all this," 
 continued the preacher, after developing and 
 reiterating his first theme, — "feel it, that is, 
 in its highest and best sense, as something to 
 purify and stimulate your daily life — you will 
 feel it in proportion as you are penetrated and 
 possessed by that ideal, that standard of school 
 life which is associated in the minds of English- 
 men with the Rugby of Dr Arnold and his 
 successors. It is an ideal which is drawn 
 largely from the patriotism of the Jew, the 
 Greek, and the Roman — from those records 
 which form subjects for your exercises and 
 furnish you with historical parallels. 
 
 "Let us recall for a moment what it is that 
 a historian has to speak of when he comes to 
 this theme of ancient patriotism. He begins 
 with examples of heroic self-sacrifice and pas- 
 sionate devotion : he goes on to tell of the 
 pride of patriotism, the sense of dignity in- 
 spired by it, the bond of sympathy it produces, 
 the common aim : the energy, tenacity, and 
 elasticity of character that grow out of it. 
 These, he says, are the parents of great enter- 
 prises, and these were the common inheritance 
 of the nations of antiquity — the root and 
 origin of many virtues. No other influence, he 
 tells us, has produced so great a growth of the
 
 102 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 sterner and more robust virtues — fortitude, self- 
 reliance, intrepidity. And we must add to these 
 devotion to the common weal, in political as 
 distinct from philanthropic matters, public spirit, 
 general readiness for united action and self- 
 sacrifice. These things, and such as these, make 
 up what we call the old classic type. And one 
 reason why we value so highly our school life, 
 with all its associations, its discipline, and its 
 memories, is that it does so much to preserve 
 amongst us these same elements of character, 
 calls into play similar feelings, and fosters the 
 same virtues." 
 
 The insistent iteration of the sentences, the 
 tonic sadness of the voice, vibrated through 
 the silent half -lit chapel, and set Percy's heart- 
 strings quivering. The Roman virtues needed 
 no other recommendation, he felt, than this : 
 for in this gauntly beautiful figure and clear- 
 cut face he saw^ the old classic type before his 
 eyes. 
 
 "This, then," continued the preacher, "is the 
 secret of our school, the secret of all our 
 schools, the one condition of their enduring 
 worth as a part of our national life. Let us 
 hear for a moment the true founder of our 
 system, the man w^ho was himself the imper- 
 sonation of its greatness, whose name is syn- 
 onymous with the highest aims of school life. 
 ' When I look round,' he said, ' upon boys or 
 men, there seems to be one point or quality 
 which distinguishes really noble persons from 
 ordinary ones : it is not religious feeling, it is 
 not honesty or kindness ; it is moral thought-
 
 THE TWYMANS. 103 
 
 fulness, which is at once strengthening and 
 softening and elevating, which makes a man 
 love Christ instead of being a fanatic, and love 
 truth without being cold or hard.' 
 
 "It may seem to you, perhaps, as if this were 
 scarcely religious teaching ; but let me ask you 
 not to be misled by any conventional words. 
 The root and centre of our religious life lies in 
 these common things, for true religion is the 
 purifying and ennobling of our daily life and 
 actions. God draws us to Him by the cords of 
 our common life, and by every good element 
 in it. And you boys will best cultivate this 
 common life, which we hope will be our stamp 
 and mark, the contribution of our school to the 
 world - wide society of which I have spoken, 
 when you look well to the force of your own 
 example, and when, besides, you remember that 
 public life means public spirit, if it is to have 
 any virtue in it. Next to a pure and blameless 
 life the greatest virtue which any of you can 
 exercise, in this place and afterwards elsewhere, 
 is that which you know by this name of public 
 spirit. If you cultivate the sense of brother- 
 hood, which lies at the bottom of that quality, 
 and denounce everything that is mean or selfish, 
 or in any way opposed to it, then you cannot 
 fail to sow the seeds of a good life, which will 
 grow by your efforts, as time goes on, into a 
 life that can never die." 
 
 Percy returned home glowing : neither his 
 mother nor his uncle were enthusiastic enough 
 to please him. The Commander tried to put 
 things right.
 
 104 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 "But I thought him splendid," he said 
 warmly ; "I never saw any one like him. 
 When he's a Bishop the House of Lords will 
 look plebeians beside him." 
 
 "Yes," grumbled Percy, "but that's nothing 
 to do with the sermon. You're keeping some- 
 thing back, Uncle Roland— some criticism." 
 
 The Commander spoke out at once. " Only 
 this, old boy," he said. "I wondered whether, 
 as a matter of history, the Roman virtues did 
 produce a life that can never die." 
 
 "No, I suppose not," said Percy slowly. "I 
 see what you mean." 
 
 But he remembered the sermon, the words of 
 it, and the very sound of it, twenty years after 
 the criticism was forgotten.
 
 105 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 By the beginning of the following summer, 
 Twyman major had made his way into the 
 Sixth Form, and thereby passed from the con- 
 dition of subject to that of ruler. His pleasure 
 at this promotion was no doubt considerable, 
 but he studiously concealed it at home, where 
 the enthusiasm of his younger brother Alan 
 reduced his privileges to an absurdity by rep- 
 resenting them in the glow of a Fourth Form 
 imagination. "You know, mother, Percy's an 
 awful swell now — he can do anything without 
 leave from anybody, he can go out of bounds — 
 he could go up to London if he liked." 
 
 " I'm sure he won't do that," said Mrs Twyman 
 decidedly ; " the return fare's nearly a pound." 
 
 "Well, but he could if he had the money," 
 rejoined the irrepressible youth, "and he can 
 thrash any one in the school — he could thrash 
 me if he chose." 
 
 But this supreme proof of authority revolted 
 his mother still more. 
 
 "I should write to the headmaster at once if 
 he did anything of the kind. I can't think how 
 you can imagine such things of your brother."
 
 106 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 " Oh ! mother, you won't understand. Of course 
 I don't mean that he will do it." 
 
 But here Percy's patience was exhausted. 
 "Won't I?" he cried. "I will, this minute, if 
 you don't shut up bothering us with such 
 nonsense. Go and do your work for to-morrow." 
 So Alan departed to the study, and Percy gave 
 his mother a more sober account of his j)Owers 
 and privileges. They were in truth not very 
 remarkable : necessary and useful as they were 
 for the good order of the school, they involved 
 few practical advantages for the young prefect 
 himself. But the change, for all that, was a 
 decisive one : the real value of the new position 
 lay in the opportunities it gave Percy of getting 
 the best out of his school in every direction. 
 
 To begin with, he was now finally classed as 
 a being with rights and reasons of his own, 
 one whose actions were beyond suspicion, almost 
 beyond rebuke, at any rate to be taken as pre- 
 sumably rational, and always with his own 
 interpretation upon them. Masters could now 
 befriend him in perfect accordance with Mr Don's 
 ideal, for there was no longer present in their 
 relation to him any trace of a disciplinary 
 element. If in this commonwealth they possessed 
 a more senatorial dignity and filled the high 
 offices of headmaster, housemaster, form-master, 
 he on his part was one of the Tribunes of the 
 People, with an authority which could not be 
 overruled, and a personal security upon which 
 no one could lay a sacrilegious hand. Besides 
 this, he had the advantage of belonging to the 
 militant services of the State, as they could not
 
 THE TWYMANS. 107 
 
 do : he had a place and a voice in all those 
 games and sports which, in the eyes of masters 
 as well as boys, are, ostensibly at least, the main 
 object of a Public School's existence. 
 
 Certainly it was in the playing-fields that the 
 public spirit of Downton chiefly showed itself, 
 that public spirit so often preached by Dr 
 Cumberland in a less restricted sense — or perhaps 
 he too was a believer in the theory of by- 
 products. Percy and his friends, at any rate, 
 had no doubts about the duty that lay nearest 
 them. They translated their headmaster's ex- 
 hortations into pure Spartan, interpreted his 
 " moral thoughtfulness " as a kind of stern, heroic 
 athleticism, and treated work, meals, and sleep 
 as literally interludes — mere necessary pauses 
 between a game and a game. No doubt in these 
 incessant wars they were each striving for his 
 own honour and satisfaction, but none the less 
 it was for each an honour and satisfaction 
 not purely selfish, but invariably bound up 
 with a cause greater than his own. 
 
 In such a way of life there is much to raise 
 inquiry, something perhaps to excite the humour 
 or the indignation of an outside critic, but when 
 all is said the system is a preventive of many 
 maladies and the cause of only one. The suc- 
 cessful athletes are the heroes of the school, and 
 among them from time to time one will arise 
 so successful and so unstable as to lose the 
 balance of his own temperament and even to 
 disturb that of the community. But this is a 
 trouble of rare occurrence, and one against which 
 Downton at least was always on guard : the
 
 108 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 Cumberland tradition insisted that physical and 
 intellectual superiority should, as far as possible, 
 go together, — in every department and at all costs 
 the Sixth must hold their own against the school. 
 
 Percy was not himself in danger of an athletic 
 popularity, though it may be confessed that he 
 would have accepted it joyfully. He must be 
 pictured at this time as a lanky youth, responsive 
 and bright-eyed, but thin and rather sombre of 
 countenance : devoted, in his own opinion, to 
 football, for the wear and tear of which he 
 was not solid enough, and to cricket, in which a 
 too great impulsiveness invariably cut short his 
 best efforts. The truth is that these pursuits 
 had in reality less hold upon him than he 
 imagined : their obligatory nature and importance 
 took from them a good deal of the sporting 
 element which makes a recreation. Little as 
 he realised it, his games were a compulsory 
 military service, a duty to the State, and it was 
 in his character to perform a duty with too 
 much rather than too little intensity. 
 
 Fortunately for him cricket and football were 
 not the only opportvmities at Downton for 
 service or training : competition was carried on 
 with the same keenness on the running track 
 or across country, and also on the rifle range — 
 for Percy at any rate with more enjoyment and 
 more permanent advantage. 
 
 It is not surprising that in stories of school 
 life so little has been said of running, the first 
 of all games. A match between tw^o teams is 
 a battle, with attack and defence, prolonged 
 hand-to-hand fighting, visible tactics, and time
 
 THE TWYMANS. 109 
 
 to view them fully. The scene is eminently one 
 for elaborate description. A race, on the other 
 hand, is only a race : its object is simple and 
 unchanging, its duration too short for any great 
 spectacular effect, its drama silent, mainly in- 
 ternal, appealing faintly to any but the instructed 
 imagination. Yet, when the race is a rep- 
 resentative one, when the runners are each of 
 them the champion of an ardent fellowship, 
 when they know that they contend before the 
 eyes of a crowd which overlooks no sign of 
 courage or judgment, but with tense loyalty 
 follows their fortunes and almost shares the 
 stress of their labours, then it may well be 
 doubted whether this is not the greatest of all 
 forms of sport. Certainly Percy thought it so. 
 He was successful enough to realise all the 
 pleasures that victory and applause can give, 
 and yet so nearly matched by his two or three 
 chief rivals as to learn perforce and by hard 
 proof the two lessons of the track — self-reliance 
 and unflinching resolution. They were not mas- 
 tered in a day or in a year ; indeed experience 
 never delivered him altogether from that cold, 
 deadly sense of loneliness, when the runner comes 
 down to the line where to right and left of him 
 every man is his strenuous enemy, and even 
 among the distant crowd of partisans there is 
 no human being who can help him in his ex- 
 tremity. Nor could familiarity do much to lessen 
 the strain of that merciless struggle between 
 the will and mortal weakness, when the soul, 
 like a determined rider, exacts from the body 
 effort beyond effort, endurance beyond endurance.
 
 110 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 The reward, when it comes, is proportionate. 
 The joy of Percy's last quarter-mile race at 
 Downton never faded : the keenness of it kept 
 even the details of the scene sharp and vivid : 
 the March sunlight on the green Close, the sound 
 of the bell summoning the competitors into the 
 open, the ropes that bounded the course and 
 kept back the surging mass of the crowd, the 
 quiet unemotional face of the starter, so long 
 familiar, so suddenly strange. Then the release 
 of the vital spring, the fierce rush for the first 
 bend, the disappearance of all but two or three 
 of his rivals, the steady flying beat round the 
 half-circle of the course : and at last the moment 
 of entering the straight for home, the hundred 
 yards in which for the possibility of victory 
 the price must be paid to the uttermost 
 farthing. 
 
 Percy knew himself by now, with the wisdom 
 of many defeats : he knew to a yard what he 
 could do and when his time had come. In 
 thirty yards he had shot past two of his three 
 men : in thirty more he had drawn up to the 
 right shoulder of the third. No need of any 
 backward glance to tell the challenged that the 
 challenger was there. For five desperate strides 
 he held his own : but he had spent too much on 
 his long lead : his last effort failed ten yards too 
 soon. Percy saw the tension of his neck and 
 shoulders break and his arms begin to whirl ; 
 he knew that for himself, too, that breaking- 
 point was all but here. But then the calm, 
 remote, inexorable power that was riding his
 
 THE TWYMANS. Ill 
 
 heart at will, drove both spurs home and sent 
 him in one terrible rush across the line — into a 
 darkness full of a thousand faint tumultuous 
 voices and one tremendous sobbing, as of a 
 stormy tide beating itself to death upon the 
 shore.
 
 112 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Many a man has made a garden for himself 
 out of what was once a ploughed field or a 
 bare hillside : but it would probably be useless 
 to ask him twenty years later for an account 
 of the successive diggings and sowings by which 
 the transformation was effected. So it must be 
 with the mind and all that it contains of litera- 
 ture or ideas : no inquiry can rediscover what 
 was its condition at any stage of its first planting. 
 The flowers and trees are there now, — they may 
 be few or ill-chosen or badly grown, but some 
 there must be, or the mind is no garden at all : 
 there will be a vista of some sort, masses of 
 colour, places of shade, but there is seldom 
 anything to tell how this or that came to be 
 where it is, or in what order the various treasures 
 were acquired. 
 
 Still, there may be exceptional instances, cases 
 of happy accident not so easily forgotten. 
 Percival would have found it difficult to ascer- 
 tain when and where he first read Scott or 
 Swift, or what he then thought of them — the 
 one was so necessary, the other so impossible a 
 part of any world in which he could consent 
 to live. But there were others, the moment of
 
 THE TWYMANS. 113 
 
 whose first springing in his imagination was 
 clearly remembered. 
 
 With Homer he had long been familiar before 
 he entered the Sixth Form, — that is to say, he 
 had drudged through certain battles of the Iliad, 
 where men killed each other with barbarous 
 weapons, after unchivalrous boasting, and by 
 the unfair assistance of preposterous gods. He 
 hardly realised his good fortune when Sherwin, 
 the master of the Upper Fifth, proposed to read 
 the Odyssey with him out of school hours. He 
 did not even remember at the moment that this 
 friend, whose duty to him had ended when he 
 left his form a year ago, was offering him a 
 gift of pure generosity and of considerable cost. 
 But he accepted readily, glad of any reason for 
 spending time with a man whom he liked, and 
 sure of the coming pleasure because he had not 
 forgotten how invariably, in the days of his 
 pupilage, Mr Sherwin's tastes had confirmed and 
 enriched his own. 
 
 So it proved again : the gift was one of those 
 fortunate ones that can never be exhausted. 
 The Odyssey, its matchless story, its wine-dark 
 sea, its caverns welling with the fresh springs 
 of Romance, — the Odyssey itself was but the 
 half of it. To read with Sherwin was to walk 
 in a hall of mirrors, all the splendours of 
 literature flashing back light upon each other, 
 setting each other forth in new aspects, illumin- 
 ating, extending, revealing. About the man 
 himself there was something Pythian or Sibyl- 
 line : in the half obscurity of a perpetually 
 renewed cloud of smoke he sat with large round 
 
 H
 
 114 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 eyes and a faint ironic smile, as classic and as 
 wise as Athene's owl. His speech was winged 
 with a soft unwearying enthusiasm, and his pauses 
 were no less alive, for when he threw back his 
 head and closed his eyes in the odd way he had, 
 it was always to find an apt phrase, or to touch 
 the words he had just read with a meaning 
 never before perceived, never afterwards for- 
 gotten. 
 
 How should Percy ever forget the scene where 
 Odysseus on his return home in disguise reveals 
 himself to his dear son, so strangely hard and 
 unbelieving ? To begin with, Telemachus can- 
 not see the goddess, standing close at hand, and 
 manifest enough to the old beggar- man : " for 
 the gods do not by any means appear visibly 
 to all " — "a remark," said Sherwin, with his 
 faintest smile, "that might still, I think, be 
 earning its living among us." 
 
 Then when Telemachus is at last told the 
 truth, that the old beggar is his own father, 
 long and ardently expected, he doubts and 
 questions and argues, until Odysseus rebukes 
 him, for marvelling overmuch, in words that 
 have a strangely deep echo : " for thou shalt 
 find no other Odysseus come hither any more." 
 "Art thou He that should come," said Sherwin 
 quietly, " or do we look for another? It appears 
 that the meeting of Doubt and the Deliverer is 
 always so : whether in Homer's age or Huxley's." 
 
 They read fast, having no need of dictionary 
 or grammar, but the better part of every evening 
 was consumed in digressions. In a hall of 
 mirrors you may find your eye drawn irresistibly
 
 THE TWYMANS. 115 
 
 down avenue within avenue, till it loses itself 
 for the moment in the infinitely distant per- 
 spective. Around these two hung all the classics 
 of the old and new worlds, and though it must 
 be admitted that they did not very perceptibly 
 increase Percival's chance of making a living as 
 a stockbroker or an engineer, yet he may not 
 have been altogether wrong when he imagined 
 himself to be learning as well as enjoying him- 
 self. From Sherwin's Vergilian ramblings, which 
 were of constant occurrence, he got perhaps the 
 greatest satisfaction of all — a continual sugges- 
 tion of feeling, of mystery, of the underlying 
 significance of things. The politics of Cicero, 
 the artistic common-sense of Horace, the positive 
 tone of the books recommended to him by 
 teachers of science, the arid realism of the 
 novels then in vogue, all combined with the 
 routine of the school and its practical inter- 
 pretation of ideals to parch a tongue that was by 
 nature thirsty for the waters that are beneath 
 the earth and above it. In Vergil's country, for 
 those who tramped with Sherwin, they welled 
 up on every page, or fell in the finest dew. 
 Percy was here at one with the men of the 
 Middle Ages — a period hardly ever in sight of 
 Downton, — he recognised in these "pathetic half- 
 lines," these haunting and inexplicable rhythms, 
 the presence of a supernal power : and was as 
 ready as any of his forefathers, at the Wizard's 
 word, to be "going dimly through shadows, 
 beneath the lonely night." 
 
 No other of the ancients, except perhaps 
 Sophocles, gave him anything like this help : but
 
 116 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 he found it again in the poets of his own 
 century, found it with the sense of immediate 
 certainty, of complete ownership, which always 
 came to him at the moment of meeting with 
 great romance in either prose or verse. 
 
 " And they are gone : ay, ages long ago 
 Those lovers fled away into the storm." 
 
 It is surprising that these lines had not been 
 among his early possessions : but Keats hap- 
 pened to be absent from the family bookshelves 
 and insufficiently represented in the anthologies 
 then popular. There they were now, under 
 the lamplight of a January evening, lying upon 
 the table in the handwriting of the sixth-form 
 master, reproduced in the bilious violet ink 
 peculiar to the copying-machine of that period. 
 Three stanzas were there, headed only with the 
 words " For Hexameters." 
 
 Percy loved Latin verses, and wrote them 
 with some ease : the evening devoted to them 
 was generally one of those which passed most 
 quickly and profitably. But to-night a stronger 
 spell was upon him : he had not read six lines 
 of the twenty - seven before he had forgotten 
 dactyls, duty, marks, and masters as completely 
 as any truant — had indeed most truly run away 
 from school altogether. " Down the wide stairs 
 a darkling way they found " — who were they, 
 those stealthy passionate companions, for whose 
 sake he was so ready to risk his life in a blind 
 adventure ? Ha ! what was that ? The arras, 
 rich with horseman, hawk, and hound, fluttered 
 in the besieging wind's uproar, and the long
 
 THE TWYMANS. 117 
 
 carpets rose along the gusty floor. What was 
 this endless, shadowy, sleeping house, so strange 
 and yet so intimately remembered, so stirring 
 with mediaeval beauty and the terror of the 
 living moment? He could half believe it his 
 own home, yet every nerve is straining in the 
 effort to escape from it. A cold, tense hand 
 draws him : they glide like phantoms into the 
 wide hall, like phantoms to the iron porch : 
 a-tiptoe now, past the huge besotted porter, 
 and again with an agony of the heart past the 
 great bloodhound, friendly after all. The door — 
 ah ! softly ! by one and one the bolts full easy 
 glide — softly again, and the chains lie silent 
 on the foot -worn stones — the key turns — the 
 door upon its hinges groans — and they are gone ! 
 
 Ay ! ages long ago, and to-night, and forever, 
 those lovers fled away into the storm, and by 
 some malign enchantment their poor young 
 friend Percival found himself alone in the rain, 
 hurrying under the lamps of College Road to- 
 wards the house of Mr Smith. 
 
 "What is it, Twyman?" 
 
 "The verses, sir, the verses for to-morrow: 
 could you lend me the book ? " 
 
 "Why, have you lost your copy? I have 
 plenty more." 
 
 "No, sir, but I can't get on with the verses 
 till I've read the whole poem." 
 
 Mr Smith had been only half attending, in 
 his absent-minded way, but he was roused by 
 this reply. " Hullo ! " he said, " what's this ? 
 You don't know Keats ? " 
 
 He took the volume from the shelf and began
 
 118 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 to read aloud. Percy's mortal part was comfort- 
 ably dumped upon a sofa by the fire : the rest 
 of him was shivering back through the elfin 
 storm to that arras - hung and windy house. 
 This time he entered by the way we all know, 
 through the chapel aisle ; he passed the sculp- 
 tured dead on each side, imprisoned in black 
 purgatorial rails — knights, ladies, praying in 
 dumb oratories, — passed northward through a 
 little door to where already he could hear the 
 silver snarling trumpets beginning to chide : 
 already the level chambers were glowing to 
 receive a thousand guests. . . . 
 
 The dream was broken : Mr Smith had been 
 interrupted. " You'll stay to supper, Twyman ? " 
 he said, as the white cloth was laid vipon the 
 table. " We can finish this afterwards, and the 
 verses we'll take as written." 
 
 So, with Mr Smith's wine and cakes, Percival 
 kept his first St Agnes' Eve.
 
 119 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 Youth is rightly said to be the time for 
 making friends, but in this sense boyhood is 
 hardly a part of youth — it is certainly not true 
 that the earliest friendships are those which 
 last the longest, or best deserve the name. 
 Boys are, as a rule, very adaptable, loyal, and 
 given to generous admiration : they easily fall 
 in with their next neighbours in class, ally 
 themselves with their house companions, and 
 set up the heroes of their games on pedestals. 
 But these attachments are for the most part 
 ephemeral : the comradeship is one created by 
 circumstance and passing away in the inevit- 
 able course of change ; the pedestal, when the 
 worshipper looks back, too often seems to be 
 rather out of proportion to the figure upon it. 
 It is true that most of us are happy enough 
 to count among our life-long friends some who 
 were also our schoolfellows, but they are seldom 
 those with whom we most commonly linked 
 arms about the playing - fields or shared the 
 hours of preparation over our books : for in 
 those days our choice was restricted to the 
 lines of least remoteness, and too often ren-
 
 120 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 deied ineffective by the rapid divergence of 
 careers or characters. 
 
 Percival found, within five years of leaving 
 Downton, that of those who had been his most 
 congenial companions the greater number had 
 been taken from him by mere distance. For 
 some time he kept up a correspondence with 
 them, and he long continued to follow their 
 doings with a peculiar pride ; they lit up for 
 him all the horizons of the Empire, and he 
 never ceased to feel that in an age of abound- 
 ing romance, theirs were the most unaided 
 achievements, the loneliest adventures, the most 
 heroic fields of death. But with whatever affec- 
 tion or regret his memory clung to them, they 
 were but ghosts : there were even among them 
 some ^vhose return he would have dreaded. As 
 a set-off for these losses Time brought him the 
 realisation of one of the best inheritances of 
 school life. Again and again in after years it 
 was his fortune to meet with men who had 
 been his contemporaries, though not his inti- 
 mates, at Downton : to be attracted once more 
 by their character and distinction, and to found, 
 or refound, in an hour, a friendship which be- 
 tween men who had been strangers in youth 
 could never have been so quickly or so durably 
 built up. 
 
 But we are now considering the influences of 
 those earlier days, and it is certain that neither 
 the first nor the last of his chosen schoolfellows 
 could truly be said, while they were all men in 
 the making together, to have changed the 
 direction of Percival's intellectual advance. In-
 
 THE TWYMANS. 121 
 
 fliience of course they had, but it was intensi- 
 fying rather than formative — the kind of 
 influence that our own actions may be said to 
 have upon us. They were, in a sense, part 
 of his acts as he was part of theirs, and by 
 their interaction they created that intenser Kfe 
 of which Dr Cumberland had spoken, the hfe 
 that was the sum of them all and something 
 more — a new thing, a thing greater than any 
 intention of their own, called into being by 
 the mere fact of their coming together and 
 glowing side by side upon the same anvil. But 
 the hammering was administered from else- 
 where. 
 
 Percival, when he came to think over his five 
 years at Downton, was not unaware of this. 
 Looking back from a changed standpoint he 
 saw here and there patches of failure in the 
 garden, causes for regret or dissatisfaction ; but 
 he was never tempted to make the mistake of 
 attributing any shortcoming of his own to the 
 influence of this or that one among his friends. 
 The State, the Code, which they had helped him 
 to create and administer, he could and did criti- 
 cise with some severity, but his criticism touched 
 no responsibility beyond his own. This was only 
 fair, for no one ever believed in the doctrine 
 by which he lived more whole-heartedly than 
 Percival did at the time. In spite of his 
 mediaeval inheritance, his natural mysticism, 
 his inborn love of romance, the antique-modern 
 ideals of Downton gripped him every day more 
 closely. To be in all things decent, orderly, 
 self - mastering : in action to follow up the
 
 122 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 coolest common-sense with the most unflinching 
 endurance : in pubUc affairs to be devoted as a 
 matter of course, self - sacrificing without any 
 appearance of enthusiasm : on all social occa- 
 sions — except at the regular Saturnalia — to play 
 the Horatian man of the world, the gentleman 
 after the high Roman fashion, making a fine 
 art, almost a religion, of stoicism — this scheme 
 of life drew Percival by its scientific positivism, 
 its lofty reasonableness, its immense possibilities 
 for power. For the time, not even Virgil, Keats, 
 and all the Earthly Paradise could turn him 
 from following it to extremes : he became an 
 ascetic, a Puritan, a blind believer in the 
 curious taboos of his tribe. To show emotion 
 in public, or indeed to show it at all ; to make 
 any sound at a match, beyond a hand - clap, to 
 applaud at the fall of an opponent's wicket or 
 the failure of his kick at goal ; to wear, even 
 in holidays, any but a black or undistinguished 
 dress, — all these were grave misdeeds, acts sig- 
 nificant of moral rebelliousness, or, at the best, 
 of moral deficiency. 
 
 In a reconstruction of the universe upon 
 these rigid and somewhat narrow principles, it 
 was naturally hard to allow space for the free 
 play of certain vital forces. Religion was ad- 
 mitted to this Platonic Republic, but without 
 her altar lights ; Art, Music, and other Joys of 
 Earth, but on condition that they spoke to no 
 one except on public business. There remained 
 the power that is greater even than these, and 
 more inevitable — the power of Sex — and for
 
 THE TWYMANS. 123 
 
 this Percival and his friends could see — in 
 theory — no place at all : suppression, or in the 
 ultimate resort expulsion, was apparently the 
 only method of dealing with it. Here they 
 argued not unreasonably from their particular 
 point of view, for they were considering only 
 the good ordei' of the commonwealth. 
 
 "I see nothing to debate about," said one of 
 the senior prefects at a conference on a sudden 
 scandal, "we know exactly where we are. This 
 is a purely scientific matter : falling in love is 
 like wine — it may be a good article of diet, 
 but not for boys at school. Those with pre- 
 cocious tastes must go." 
 
 Percival heard him with a quick instinctive 
 feeling of repu.lsion. He had himself been hot 
 against the offender for disturbing the public 
 peace ; but he was now hotter against the 
 prosecution, for the Crusader, almost to his 
 surprise, was with him still, and though often 
 silenced by more educated voices, still ready to 
 champion love and defy hypocrisy. 
 
 "I don't agree," he said with unexpected 
 anger, " I mean I agree that the fellow must 
 be sent up, but you know he's not precocious, 
 and the word 'diet' I call — well, it's materialism, 
 that's all, rank materialism." 
 
 He also, as you will see, knew exactly where 
 they were : he had been in love all the summer, 
 and not without discovering how truly and how 
 untruly that passion may be likened to wine. 
 His colleagues could not know this ; the con- 
 viction in his tone seemed to them de^jlorably
 
 124 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 vehement, and quite unintelligible. Moreover, 
 he was leading them on to very uncomfortable 
 ground. 
 
 Most of them were determined not to follow, 
 and signified their refusal by remaining silent, 
 with eyes fixed upon their desks. One only. 
 Giddy the humourist, seemed to be relishing 
 the situation. 
 
 " I'm not a married man myself," he began 
 in a tone of solemn candour. But the senior 
 prefect was too quick for him. "I know what 
 Giddy means," he said; "you were going a little 
 off the rails, Twyman, weren't you? What you 
 say may be all right, but it's not an argument 
 for the defence." 
 
 " Oh, no ! " replied Percival hastily. He had 
 just perceived that it was an argument in his 
 own defence.
 
 125 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 It must not be supposed, because little has 
 been said of Percival's sister Molly, that she 
 was an unimportant member of Amelia's house- 
 hold or counted for little in her brothers' lives : 
 but the time had not yet come when she could 
 be expected to influence them in any defined 
 way. Being the only girl, and the youngest of 
 the family, she had two I'oles open to her, both 
 equally feminine — despotism or devotion. Her 
 loyal and tender little heart knew nothing of 
 such a choice ; from the first possible moment 
 she became a glowing Cinderella, a voluntary 
 — or more than half voluntary — fag-of-all-work. 
 She attended the boys before their departure 
 to school, with boots, caps, and notebooks, and 
 again, on their return, with slippers, buttered 
 toast, and consolation for the troubles of the 
 day. In the holidays she bowled and fielded 
 for them at small cricket, a game in which her 
 skill became quite professional ; carried their 
 fishing -creels, their luncheon, even their ginger- 
 beer bottles ; kept them supplied — in the wilds 
 of Yorkshire or North Wales — with news- 
 papers, chocolate, shot, methylated spirit, and 
 a dozen other unprocurable commodities : and
 
 126 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 accepted as payment in full for all her services 
 the name of "Terts," — Twyman Terts, — after- 
 wards changed by way of promotion to Tertia, 
 as more feminine and better suited to her age, 
 which was now some months over fifteen. 
 
 Of her two brothers, Alan, who was only a 
 year older than herself, had hitherto been her 
 chief ally, but the time was at hand when she 
 was to find Percival the more interesting. For 
 the past year she had been going every day to 
 the neighbouring High School for girls, where 
 the charm of her own brightness and the 
 warmth of her affections had lit up her career 
 with a succession of electric friendships, the 
 current flowing sometimes from her pole to 
 the other, and sometimes in the reverse direc- 
 tion. The latest of these attachments was 
 perhaps the most one - sided : Molly was the 
 adorer, and thought any return too good for 
 her. Her adored, Nelly Egerton, was more 
 than a year older than herself, and both in 
 school and out of it decidedly ahead of her : a 
 tall, staid creature with a kind of veiled beauty, 
 and a reserved but passionate character which 
 seemed capable of finding expression only 
 through music. In this she excelled all her 
 contemporaries, and it became one of the 
 familiar things in Percival's home life to hear, 
 evening after evening, as he sat over his Vergil 
 or his Greek Play, the still deeper flood of 
 Beethoven's tragedy rolling towards him, lift- 
 ing him up on irresistible waves and finally 
 drowning the efforts with which he struggled 
 to finish his allotted voyage.
 
 THE TWYMANS. 127 
 
 When this happened he could only give him- 
 self up to the tide, and the tide, by a kind of 
 natural undertow, drew him across the hall to 
 the room from which its own force was still 
 flow^ing. The evening would then pass from 
 mood to mood, as Mozart, Schumann, Brahms, 
 and Chopin succeeded one another : and these 
 moods, undeniably transient as they were, called 
 into being by the music of the moment and 
 passing away with its cessation, Percival felt 
 nevertheless to be among the most intensely 
 real experiences of his life. He went further 
 than this, and discovered for them a double 
 oi ,'i^in — discovered that what he received was 
 the gift not of the composer only, but had 
 something added to it by the hands through 
 which it came, something which made it un- 
 recognisable for the same work as that pre- 
 sented by a less sympathetic touch, a less 
 kindred understanding. 
 
 " But, Percy," his mother said more than once 
 to him, " surely you know that piece : we heard 
 Sarabandi play it." 
 
 "Sarabandi and Nelly are not the same person," 
 Percy replied. 
 
 " But the Chopin is the same Chopin." 
 
 "My dear mother! you wouldn't say that Mrs 
 Hankinson's whitebait is the same as yours." 
 
 "No," said Amelia, "but I can tell you why 
 that is : she doesn't give her cook the right kind 
 of oil." 
 
 Laughter followed, and the thread of the argu- 
 ment was lost in the oil. But Percy had made 
 his point clear to himself : he continued to prefer
 
 128 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 Nelly's interpretation of music to all others, to 
 feel that she was for him the creator of it, and 
 to find her indirectly revealed in it, as one may 
 see in a beautiful stream the reflection of a sun- 
 set light otherwise entirely hidden by rocks or 
 trees. 
 
 Molly and her mother were neither of them 
 blind to the little romance which was going on 
 before them, but they looked upon it with very 
 different eyes. Amelia's was a wistful pleasure, 
 much tempered by common-sense : as a mother 
 she was more than willing to enter into the 
 dream of the next generation, but she was too 
 much awake to be able to take this for any- 
 thing beyond a dream — she knew how seldom, 
 in the daylight world, marriages of seventeen 
 and eighteen come true. But Molly had no such 
 misgivings : her reading of life — inspired by a 
 charming jumble of ' The Heir of Redclyffe,' 
 Browning's shorter poems, and the 'Religio 
 Medici' — enabled her to see everything that 
 was perfect and nothing that was ominous in 
 a possible attachment between her brother and 
 her most intimate friend. 
 
 It followed that in her eagerness to secure — 
 by giving it away — what was already hers, she 
 was taken with a temptation common to women 
 — she could not resist an impulse to help the 
 unconcious players in the game at which she 
 w^as an onlooker. For some time it had been 
 her custom to walk home w^ith her friend at 
 ten o'clock, accompanied, naturally enough, by 
 Percival, for convoy on the return journey. But 
 now, when the warmer nights of May were
 
 THE TWYMANS. 129 
 
 beginning, and these quiet, starry walks were 
 becoming more and more desirable for their own 
 sake, Molly found one good reason after another 
 for withdrawing from them. 
 
 Percival seemed to remark this change as little 
 as if he had been walking in his sleep. At first, 
 indeed, it was hardly a change, except in the 
 purely arithmetical sense, from a party of three 
 to a party of two : for the walk was a short 
 one, and passed as a rule in a kind of silent 
 afterglow, with few words or none. But where 
 youth and the spirit of music are together under 
 the stars, there can be no true silence : night 
 after night the dim and lonely space of road 
 that lay between the garden doors of one house 
 and the other was for Percy alive with half- 
 heard whispers, and every whisper seemed to 
 promise a strange and unparalleled fortune. 
 
 For some time he was content to wonder if 
 these alluring murmurs were being heard by his 
 companion too : then the wondering gained upon 
 him till it became an overpowering desire to 
 know, to make certain. Speech was of no use 
 for such a question — he would not have known 
 how to word it, even to himself — but it seemed 
 quite natural and unavoidable that he should 
 stretch out a hand softly and try the live dark- 
 ness for an answering pressure. The answer 
 was returned, more softly still, but with a 
 dazzling and bewildering effect, as if light had 
 been suddenly kindled in many obscure byways 
 of his mind. 
 
 So it came about that night by night these 
 young people accomj)lished their little journey 
 
 I
 
 130 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 for the most part hand in hand, like two children 
 straying time after time through the same endless 
 meadow, with no goal beyond it. Their farthest 
 wandering was one breathless July evening, when 
 the stillness was so deep that they seemed to hear 
 even the fall of the jessamine blossoms which 
 dropped about them as they stood in the shadow 
 of the gate at the moment of parting. They 
 looked into the wells of darkness which they 
 knew for each other's eyes, and without per- 
 ceptible movement leaned towards one another 
 for a kiss that was like the long, faint touch of 
 the night- wind on sleeping waters. 
 
 The moment's trance was broken by a sound 
 of footsteps : a long, elastic stride passed their 
 bower without stopping : but a gruff voice came 
 back to them like a stone flung with intentional 
 roughness into their dreaming pool. 
 
 "Good -night. Miss Egerton," it splashed. 
 " Good-night, Percival."
 
 131 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 That was a perplexed and broken night for 
 Percival : towards dawn something like a panic 
 seized upon him, for he felt himself exposed to 
 an assault on both flanks at once. There was 
 first the attack of conscience, already pressing 
 him hard with the heavy artillery of custom, 
 convention, school morality, the code of the 
 Republic, his own duty and consistency. On 
 the other side of him he had heard only a single 
 voice, but a voice which told of a danger more 
 formidable than a thousand lances bearing down 
 for his destruction. 
 
 That grim, unerring, incontrovertible voice, 
 passing so quickly in the darkness, but divining 
 all, accusing all in an instant — what was it ? 
 Alas ! it was the voice of Bullingham, House- 
 master of the West Town, Percival's housemaster, 
 his chief, his colleague, his intimate friend, the 
 man in all Downton who had done the most 
 for him, loved him most, looked most confidently 
 to him for every kind of loyalty. At what 
 moment would he deliver his attack, and from 
 what point ? Upon that, Percival felt, hung his 
 only chance, the whole saving of his position, 
 the whole possibility of marching out of Downton
 
 132 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 at the end of this, his last summer's campaign, 
 with the honour that he had striven for so 
 ardently, still intact and shining. To leave 
 under a cloud — that was exile for life, a shame 
 that could not be thought of without prickings 
 of hot, desperate terror. 
 
 To-morrow: what was Bullingham going to 
 say to him, and he to Bullingham, to-morrow ? 
 He lay, now awake, now in a restless half-sleep, 
 devising dialogues interminably. But they were 
 all guesswork, as he miserably knew. How could 
 he hope to foretell what Bullingham would say 
 or do ? He had never known so original or so 
 uncertain a temperament. There was the man 
 before him, the tall, fair, full -bearded Viking, 
 with huge loose-hung limbs, and frank, unwaver- 
 ing blue eyes. He saw him in a hundred scenes, 
 exhorting his House like a Skald, thanking them 
 like a victorious Berserk, cheering them with the 
 merriment of a sea-wind, rebuking them with 
 the thunder of a Miltonic archangel ; he saw 
 him at home, delighting in a generous hospitality, 
 talking three languages at once, and all the 
 sciences, rolling on his own hearthrug with the 
 playfulness of an enormous dog, laughing 
 Homerically the kindliest of laughter, pouring 
 out sudden ^Etnaean torrents of wrath at some 
 light word, insignificant perhaps to every one else 
 present, but potent to rouse in him the subter- 
 ranean fires of a profoundly moral nature. 
 
 Yes, that was the core of him : often unex- 
 pected, sometimes unintelligible, always Miltonic. 
 It made him a friend to live and die with, but a 
 judge as terrible as any ever pictured by the
 
 THE TWYMANS. 133 
 
 religious conscience. To face him was surely 
 going to be the greatest trial of Percival's life, 
 with only one certainty for comfort in it, the 
 certainty that subterfuge, prevarication, excuse, 
 were not even to be thought of. When a bear 
 grips you in his hug he saves you the pain of 
 wriggling ; and the voice had left Percival in no 
 doubt that the grip had closed upon him. 
 
 Morning came at last, and the common routine 
 of school began ; but its monotony had dis- 
 appeared. Every separate part of the day had 
 now its moment of danger, and soon or late one 
 of these moments must, he knew, bring the crisis. 
 He saw Bullingham come into Big School at 
 prayer time ; on the way out he brushed close 
 by him as they went down to first lesson ; but 
 there was no sign of recognition. It was true 
 that in the clatter of this cataract of boys and 
 masters that streamed every morning down the 
 great staircase there was seldom any opportunity 
 for a greeting — it was, perhaps, hardly once in a 
 year that Percival had caught Bullingham's eye 
 at such a moment, or exchanged a word with 
 him. But to - day he felt somehow convinced 
 that the silence must have been intentional. 
 
 From ten to eleven the Sixth were not in 
 school. Percival glanced at his next lesson, 
 saw that it offered no special difficulties, 
 and decided to prepare for it by refreshing his 
 mind. He engaged himself with three or four 
 others for an hour's batting at the net, and 
 placed his Tacitus and his notebook beside theirs 
 on a bench under the parapet wall of the Close. 
 As he was in the act of laying his coat upon
 
 134 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 the books he heard again the familiar long stride 
 upon the gravel of the quadrangle just above 
 him. Bullingham was looking right over his 
 head, and passed once more without a word. 
 
 This again might have been chance : but the 
 third meeting was decisive. On his way home 
 after twelve o'clock Percival saw his housemaster 
 in his own garden, one part of which looked out 
 into College Road. He w^as tying up a plant 
 against the railings and talking to a friend as 
 he did so. Percival touched his hat as he passed : 
 he had meant to say " Good-morning " too, but 
 his voice refused, and Bullingham appeared as 
 unconscious as ever of his presence. 
 
 Percival began to feel indignant : after all he 
 was not only Bullingham's friend, but the head 
 of his House, a high officer of state who might 
 be impeached, but could not be ignored, or con- 
 demned without a trial. Moreover, he was no 
 coward : he was never for sitting still to be 
 shot at when it was possible to go out and meet 
 his fate. Dinner was no sooner over than he 
 marched resolutely upon Bullingham, missed him 
 only by a minute or two, followed him instantly, 
 and ran him down in the Museum, where he 
 was busy identifying butterflies for two small 
 members of the Fourth Form. 
 
 But now, having found him, Percival suddenly 
 perceived that it was hardly possible to do more 
 than force himself upon his attention ; he could 
 not openly demand to be accused. He hesitated, 
 and Bullingham, looking at him with wide, un- 
 communicative eyes, disposed of him without 
 an effort.
 
 THE TWYMANS. 135 
 
 " These are jolly butterflies that Rankin has 
 got," he said in his most ordinary tone. "They 
 are giving us a good deal' of work. You don't 
 go in for butterflies, Percival, I know." 
 
 He turned to the glass-covered drawer again, 
 and Percival walked on. There was not a 
 shade of meaning in the tone, it was neither 
 kind nor unkind : but he took this treatment 
 for a method of punishment, and a cruel one. 
 It did not occur to him that Bullingham might 
 have his reasons for putting off the moment of 
 speech. 
 
 At six o'clock he dressed for the evening's 
 cricket and was making for the Close again, 
 when he heard the Berserk's voice hailing him 
 loudly. He turned and saw the huge loose figure 
 coming down the road from the direction of the 
 town. 
 
 " No, no ! " he thought with a rather bitter 
 satisfaction, " you wouldn't before, and now you 
 can't. In five minutes I shall be fielding out." 
 But he waited for Bullingham to join him, and 
 they entered the wicket-gate together. 
 
 "I was coming to look for you," said the big, 
 serious voice. "I remembered that yesterday 
 was your birthday, and I've been up to buy 
 you a present." He held out a book. 
 
 Percival was bewildered. "My birthday!" he 
 repeated. " Yesterday ? " 
 
 "Certainly," replied Bullingham, "your birth- 
 day. It is always a man's birthday when he 
 begins the New Life." 
 
 Percival opened the book : the title-page told 
 him that it was the ' Vita Nuova.' On the fly-leaf
 
 136 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 was written his own name, with yesterday's date, 
 and a quotation : 
 
 "Good is the lordship of Love, for that it 
 draws away the mind of his servant from all 
 things mean." 
 
 He looked up and struggled to find thanks : 
 but the bear took no notice of his struggles. 
 
 " It was her birthday too," he said, with the 
 same huge gravity. "She is the youngest of 
 the Angels." 
 
 All this Percival understood some twenty-four 
 hours later : at present he could only taste the 
 consolation in the cup. He was himself, it 
 appeared, after all, and no villain. That even- 
 ing he missed every catch that came to him, 
 and smiled ecstatically at the poor young 
 bowler's reproaches.
 
 137 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 The alarm which Percival had suffered made 
 him doubly careful not to pursue his own affairs 
 to the disturbance of the public conscience ; but 
 BuUingham's unexpected sympathy confirmed 
 him in the belief that there was nothing un- 
 natural or even precocious in his devotion to 
 the lady he now called his donna gentilissima. 
 The result of this, as we have already seen, 
 was a revolt against the more conventional view 
 of his fellow-prefects, and he carried it so far 
 that the offender, less prudent and less fortunate 
 than himself, but hardly more guilty in any 
 serious sense, escaped with a simple caution from 
 the Headmaster. 
 
 A fortnight later the summer term ended, and 
 Percival's school-life with it. It consoled him to 
 feel that he was still a member of the fellowship, 
 an Old Downtonian, one of those fortunate in- 
 heritors of a life-long privilege and an almost 
 world-wide prestige ; but the change was none 
 the less an uprooting, a painful wrench : and 
 between his high romantic passion and his fare- 
 wells to his friends he was in some danger of an 
 attack of sentimentality. 
 
 His uncle, the Commander, who had come
 
 138 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 down for Speech Day, saw that a complete 
 diversion was necessary : he spoke seriously 
 of this to Amelia, and she, with her usual 
 promptness, decided on taking her family abroad 
 without a moment's delay. This was the more 
 courageous of her, because she had herself never 
 been across the Channel before ; but the Com- 
 mander volunteered to act the part of personal 
 conductor, and he put so much goodwill into it 
 that the expedition was a success from the be- 
 ginning. The three young people had never seen 
 their uncle in such spirits : he was a great 
 favourite with all of them, but his mood was 
 generally sympathetic rather than jovial, his long 
 face w^as, to their eyes, melancholy when in re- 
 pose, and his humour was often too ironical for 
 their comfort. But now he appeared simply as 
 a sailor on a holiday, the youngest and most 
 eager of the party, playing the eccentric Eng- 
 lishman of old Continental tradition, talking a 
 mixed and fluent jargon of French and German, 
 curious and admiring of everything foreign, con- 
 vulsing but charming every one he addressed. 
 Dulness, self - consciousness, traveller's shame, 
 could not exist in the same carriage or the 
 same hotel with him. At times his reckless fun 
 carried away even his sister - in - law, the only 
 sober member of the crew, but as a rule she 
 saved the ship's reputation by her steady com- 
 mon-sense and dignified conventionality — the 
 more easily because she had an inborn unfalter- 
 ing contempt for everything that was not Eng- 
 lish. Manners and customs, money and cookery, 
 railways and their regulations, Lutheranism and
 
 THE TWYMANS. 139 
 
 Catholicism, even snow mountains and the daily 
 sunshine, all suffered damaging comparisons, and 
 were condemned to a kind of perpetual banish- 
 ment. They were produced "abroad," and they 
 might stay there. 
 
 This attitude, of course, doubled even Amelia's 
 enjoyment, and trebled that of her children, who 
 were in opposition from the first, declared that 
 they never wished to go home again, and spent 
 all their pocket-money — liberally supplemented 
 for this occasion — in buying up carved boxes, 
 Swiss clocks, dying lions, groups of wooden bears, 
 and other gimcracks not then procurable in the 
 shops of Downton. Moreover, each of them had 
 a plan for future years: Molly intended to get 
 her friend Nelly to herself for a month at 
 Lucerne, and go to organ recitals and concerts 
 in the Cathedral every day ; Alan longed to 
 collect flowers at Engelberg ; Percy meant to 
 come again to the high valleys with more ath- 
 letic companions and an ice-axe of his own. 
 It may be inferred from this that the tour had 
 brought him all the distraction he needed. 
 
 His light - heartedness was in fact rather 
 puzzling to his elders. They could not easily dis- 
 cuss it, for they were hardly ever alone together 
 for a moment ; but the opportunity came at last 
 during a descent from the Rigi, when the young 
 people had completely outstripped them, and 
 could be seen far below among the orchards of 
 Weggis, still zig-zagging at a great pace towards 
 the deep shadowy blue of the lake. 
 
 " They'll be there an hour before the steamer," 
 said their uncle, laughing.
 
 140 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 "Never mind," replied Amelia, "we needn't 
 hurry after them : I want to talk to you." She 
 paused a moment before continuing. " Roland, 
 I can't tell what to make of Percy. Is he think- 
 ing of Nelly Egerton? — if he is, he never gives 
 the least sign of it." 
 
 " I suppose they write." 
 
 " No. Molly says they do not : he sends a 
 message now and then by her." 
 
 " He can't have forgotten — already ? " 
 
 Amelia was indignant at the suggestion, even 
 in this negative form. "If he has," she said, 
 "it must be the girl's own fault. Percy is as 
 steady as old Time." 
 
 " No doubt," replied the Commander ; "besides, 
 he has brought his Dante with him, and reads it 
 — often." 
 
 " I know nothing about Dante," replied Amelia. 
 " I looked into this ' Vita Nuova ' of Percy's, but 
 as far as I can make out it is very melancholy — 
 not at all the kind of poetry for a young man in 
 love." 
 
 The Commander reflected. " My dear Amelia," 
 he said at last, " you know your children as well 
 as any mother could do — far better, of course, 
 than I know them. But in a foggy channel like 
 this, perhaps I can make a nearer guess for once, 
 because I've been a boy myself." 
 
 Mrs Twyman gave a formal assent to this, but 
 evidently with reservations. 
 
 He continued : " You know, Amelia, we are 
 rather queer creatures when we are boys. We 
 are not always exactly what you could wish, or
 
 THE TWYMANS. 141 
 
 what you might expect if Nature were as well 
 arranged as Mundy thinks it is." 
 
 " Mr Mundy ! " she replied caustically. " He 
 doesn't believe things are arranged at all ; he 
 imagines that we evolved ourselves." 
 
 "Just so," said her companion soothingly. 
 "Well, then he must admit that evolution has 
 produced a very oddly-adapted creature in the 
 natural boy." 
 
 " Oddly adapted for what ? " 
 
 "For continuing the evolutionary process," he 
 replied cautiously ; " in fact, for keeping up the 
 stock. One would expect instincts to show them- 
 selves at the right moment — the moment when 
 they could be of use — and not before. But we all 
 begin to think of marriage in childhood : most 
 little boys have quite a bent that way, just as 
 most little girls nurse a doll twenty years before 
 the maternal instinct is needed. Surely that is 
 a very odd state of things, a pure waste of time, 
 one would think, on Nature's part, and it makes 
 complications too. The miniature stage we may 
 call that. The second is the animal stage, the 
 stage when the boy develops his powers and 
 becomes a perfect animal — again much too 
 soon." 
 
 Amelia interrupted with decision: "My boys 
 never became animals, I am certain." 
 
 "Oh! I hope for the sake of the family . . ." 
 began the Commander, "but no matter: what 
 I was coming to is this, that there is a third 
 of these apparently purposeless stages, and that 
 is the one Percy has now reached. He is at
 
 142 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 present possessed by a feeling which is not 
 ignorant and empty like the childish one, or 
 instinctive and blind like the animal one : it 
 is a passion, but an ethereal disembodied kind 
 of passion. You might call it real love, but 
 not love for a real person." 
 
 " Oh ! you are quite mistaken there, Roland," 
 said Amelia warmly. " I won't hear a word 
 against Nelly. She's a dear child." 
 
 " I believe she is in every way adorable," he 
 replied. "I only mean that she is to him a 
 distant divinity rather than a live woman — I 
 doubt if she is the wife that he will actually 
 wed when he has come to the fourth and last 
 stage." 
 
 " And what may that be ? " asked Amelia rather 
 distrustfully. 
 
 "Some one called it 'The undivided faith of 
 body and soul.' " 
 
 "I hope you won't put such ideas into Percy's 
 head," she replied; "young people ought not to 
 remember that they have bodies at all." 
 
 Her brother-in-law looked away. "May I 
 quote Browning?" he asked, and went on with- 
 out waiting — 
 
 " I always see the garden, and God there 
 A-making man's wife : and, my lesson learned, — 
 The value and significance of flesh — 
 I can't unlearn ten minutes afterwards." 
 
 Amelia rose with some dignity from the bench 
 on which they had been sitting. " Let us go on," 
 she said; "you know I don't like to hear you 
 making fun of the Bible."
 
 THE TWYMANS. 143 
 
 •' That was not my intention," he replied, "and 
 I doubt if it was Browning's." 
 
 " No ; I'm sure it was not yours," she said, re- 
 lenting at his tone, which she took for serious, 
 "and I know you'll really be very much inter- 
 ested in Percy's marriage when the time comes." 
 
 "How soon do you think that will be?" he 
 asked with the same gravity. 
 
 " Oh ! " she replied, " it can't be for three or four 
 years : not till he leaves Oxford." 
 
 " My dear Amelia ! " the Commander almost 
 shouted with astonishment, "he'll be twenty- 
 two ! and what do you imagine he is going to 
 marry on?" 
 
 " I could give him half my income," she replied, 
 " and do very well with the rest." 
 
 Her brother-in-law stopped short and looked at 
 her, aghast with admiration. " By Jove ! " he ex- 
 claimed, "I believe you are capable of it: and 
 you call yourself a practical, prosaic woman!"
 
 144 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Successful as the tour in Switzerland was, it 
 once came very near disaster ; and if any one 
 was to blame for this it was Percival. He had 
 begun by enjoying everything with every one 
 else, but when a fortnight's experience had taken 
 the edge off this collective amusement he suddenly 
 found himself, as it were, yawning mentally — 
 he perceived that the family coach was a cramped 
 and rather stuffy conveyance for a man. One 
 day he suggested casually to his brother Alan 
 that it would be jolly for the two of them to 
 have a week of travelling by themselves, to 
 escape from the slow, comfortable progress so 
 suitable for ladies and older persons, and take 
 to the road with knapsacks and nailed boots. 
 Alan was more than enthusiastic : he openly 
 admired Percy's assumption of independence. 
 His mother, however, did not : she was taken 
 by surprise and unfortunately made a hasty 
 move, putting Percy in the wrong and also in 
 the right, at the same moment, — a position which 
 hardly ever fails to produce obstinacy. 
 
 "I can't think what has come to you," she 
 said in an unusually reproachful tone. "It is
 
 THE TWYMANS. 145 
 
 not like you, Percy, it is not loyal to try to break 
 up our party." 
 
 Percy had no answer to this : consciousness of 
 the fact made him furious. His silence brought 
 Amelia near to relenting. "Well," she continued, 
 " I will talk to your uncle about it." 
 
 But this was opening an entirely new channel 
 for wrath. " I beg you will do nothing of the 
 kind," he replied. 
 
 "Then," said Amelia more coldly, "I don't see 
 how I can allow it." 
 
 "Allow it!" There was indignation enough 
 in the tone to have alarmed the Thirty Tyrants 
 — too much indeed, for it roused Amelia's courage 
 and prevented her from seeing her own mistake. 
 The word she had let slip was in truth an 
 anachronism : Percy had been living in her 
 house these five years, but for the last two he 
 had been entirely his own master. His mother 
 had of necessity recognised this in all matters 
 relating to the school ; she was proud of his 
 high position there, and she had become ac- 
 customed to his holiday visiting with friends 
 beyond her own circle. But she still clung to 
 the belief that her parental authority, though 
 never exerted, was as valid and indispensable 
 as ever, and she was the more confident of this 
 because she supposed her son to be in all prac- 
 tical matters as dependent on her judgment as 
 on her purse. 
 
 The mistake was natural enough — it is one 
 which probably every good mother makes in 
 her turn. There arc whole tracts of thought 
 and ambition and desire in a boy's life which 
 
 K
 
 146 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 none will ever know of but himself, and the 
 more careful and henlike the anxiety to spread 
 protecting feathers till the latest possible moment, 
 the more painful must be that moment, when 
 it is finally recognised that the chick has been 
 learning, unobserved, to swim in an element 
 entirely his own. Amelia's case was harder than 
 the common one, for by living so close to her 
 boys and entering into their school lives as few 
 parents do, by making them not their mother's 
 darlings but her friends, she had, on the one 
 hand, come to believe that she knew all there 
 was to know of them, and, on the other, she 
 had herself trained them for the independence 
 from which she was now to suffer. Moreover, 
 she need not have suffered at all if Percival had 
 shown his webbed feet in a less startling and 
 peremptory manner. Poor gosling ! his best 
 excuse must be that he too was startled by the 
 sound of clucking so long out of date — he had 
 already paddled in so many deeper little ponds ! 
 But his course was indefensible — as any 
 vindication of rights is apt to be. For the re- 
 mainder of that day he appeared to have aban- 
 doned his project altogether : but on the following 
 morning he put it forward again, this time ex- 
 plaining it to his mother in a patient and quite 
 reasonable tone. They were sitting on the 
 verandah of the Thunerhof, looking out over 
 the lake ; for the family coach, after going a 
 fairly complete round of the Oberland, had now 
 reached Thun ; and from here it had been re- 
 solved, on the advice of some chance acquaint- 
 ances, to break fresh ground and conclude with
 
 THE TWYMANS. 147 
 
 a few days at Zermatt, a place then beginning 
 to displace Chaniouni in the esteem of English 
 tourists. 
 
 " You see, mother," Percival urged, " I am not 
 suggesting any alteration of your plans : only 
 while you go to Zermatt as you proposed, we 
 two shall go by road, walking, and meet you 
 there. It will cost no more than if we went 
 with you." 
 
 The words "shall" and "will" were of course 
 a counterblast to yesterday's "allow," and, of 
 course, like all counterblasts, they revived the 
 heat of contention. 
 
 "You talk of cost," replied Amelia, "then you 
 do admit that I have some right to be con- 
 sulted." 
 
 For the second time Percival's own mistake 
 had defeated him : but this time, for some reason, 
 he did not seem at all put out of temper. "My 
 dear mother," he expostulated, "of course I do: 
 I have consulted you : all I stand out against is 
 the notion of having to ask for leave." 
 
 Amelia pushed her advantage, gently but 
 steadily. " You have to ask for money : it 
 comes to the same thing." 
 
 But Percy seemed quite pleased to have it 
 put in this way. " All right ! " he said cheerfully, 
 " then I've only got to raise the money, and the 
 leave is included." 
 
 His mother smiled back at him : the affair 
 seemed to be turning to a jest. She knew he 
 had spent nearly all his ready money, and 
 quarter-day was a month off. In her pleasure 
 at his good humour she felt almost inclined to
 
 148 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 put her hand in her pocket and give him his 
 way after all. She only restrained herself because 
 she was genuinely afraid of vague things that 
 might happen to such inexperienced travellers 
 if they were once out of her sight. But she 
 was still so much tempted by affection and 
 generosity that she did not venture to say a 
 word on the subject to her brother-in-law — he 
 was too sure to take what would appear to be 
 her side, and she was not clear that she wished 
 her own side to prevail. 
 
 For that evening, however, she remained un- 
 decided, and by next morning it was too late. 
 Molly came into her room before breakfast, as 
 usual, but not with her usual gay early-morning 
 air of enjoyment. " Mother ! " she exclaimed with 
 an energy that made Amelia jump, " the boys 
 are gone ! Their things are all packed up, and 
 they've left a note — one for you and one for me." 
 
 Amelia opened her note : it ran thus — 
 
 "Dearest Mother, — We have walked on, to 
 Zermatt, and will meet you there on Saturday : 
 Molly will bring our luggage. I hope you won't 
 mind our leaving you for these few days, — we 
 have enough money to last us, staying at small 
 inns, and it is quite an easy tramp for Alan. — 
 Your loving son, Percival." 
 
 This had taken some trouble to compose, and 
 there are no doubt mothers who might have 
 been led off the scent by it. But Percy's mother 
 was not one of them : she picked out the true 
 slot unerringly.
 
 THE TWYMANS. 149 
 
 "Enough money. Molly, do you know any- 
 thing of this ? Where have they got the money 
 from ? " 
 
 Molly looked more guilty than she was. "I 
 lent Alan ten shillings," she confessed, " but that 
 was some days ago, and it was only because he 
 had nothing left." 
 
 "They can't live for five days on that," said 
 her mother emphatically. 
 
 Molly's tender heart failed her at this : she 
 pictured her brothers footsore and starving, in 
 a strange land, and burst into tears. Amelia 
 comforted her, and they went down to breakfast 
 together. 
 
 At breakfast the Commander was informed. 
 
 "Yes," he replied, "I thought they must have 
 gone — I looked into their room an hour ago." 
 His own air was much that of a detected 
 schoolboy. 
 
 Amelia pressed him. " Roland, why did you 
 give them the money to do what I didn't wish ? " 
 
 " To save you the trouble," he replied, gathering 
 courage. " I told Percy I disapproved of his 
 going, but I knew you couldn't wish to hold 
 him only by the purse-strings." 
 
 "How much did you give them?" He named 
 the sum. 
 
 " That was enough," she said, not without a 
 shade of relief in her tone. She paid him across 
 the table, and the subject was never again 
 mentioned between them. 
 
 Five days later, when the boys marched into 
 Zermatt, they were received as if their divergence 
 had been one of route only and not of opinion.
 
 150 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 Whatever they may have heard from Molly, 
 who could at times be a very vivacious critic, 
 they were never troubled with any reminder of 
 their escapade from their mother herself. But 
 some time afterwards, when she was discussing 
 with Percy the furnishing of his freshman's 
 rooms at Oxford, she did allow herself one 
 wistful allusion to it. 
 
 " I suppose, now that you need only my 
 money," she said half -playfully, half -sadly, "you 
 would be above accepting your mother's help to 
 settle you in up there ? " 
 
 He put his arm round her waist. "My dear 
 little mother," he replied magnanimously, "I 
 couldn't think of it." 
 
 She sighed, looked proudly up at him, and 
 accepted the situation for good.
 
 151 
 
 CHAPTER XXYI. 
 
 It was past the middle of October when 
 Pereival left home for Oxford. His thoughts 
 were all straining eagerly forward into the 
 future — a mood very different from that of his 
 mother and sister as they walked the platform 
 with him for the ten minutes before the moment 
 of separation. For these five years they had 
 sat by his side, reading one story with him : 
 now he was to turn the page which they could 
 not turn, and press on and on to chapters where 
 they could not follow. A peep between the leaves 
 would no doubt be possible now and then, and 
 something would be told them — in the more- 
 than-shorthand of an undergraduate's letters. 
 Pereival was generous with promises to give 
 what he could, but his eyes were frankly not 
 upon the past. 
 
 Molly jumped into the carriage to give him 
 one more hug at parting : it was a clinging one, 
 but she was not thinking of herself. "I am so 
 sorry," she murmured, " that Nelly was not back 
 to say good-bye to you : what shall I tell her 
 when she comes home?" 
 
 " Oh, give her my love," he replied gaily, " and
 
 152 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 say that I hope she'll come up with you to see 
 my rooms." 
 
 Disappointment and humour struggled visibly 
 on Molly's face : the smile broke through. 
 " What an old stick you are, Percy ! I suppose 
 men have to grow up like that ! " 
 
 The train moved off. Percy waved his hand 
 till it left the station, and then sinking back into 
 his corner took his new pipe and pouch from the 
 pocket of his new covert coat. Unfortunately 
 he had forgotten the matchbox, and there was no 
 one in the carriage to lend him one. He had to 
 fall back upon the pleasures of anticipation — not 
 less warmly glowing than the tobacco might have 
 been, nor indeed less certain to exhale in smoke 
 and disappear. For of all coming years, those to 
 be spent at Oxford are perhaps the most difficult 
 to anticipate, and of all expectations concerning 
 them, those suggested by the experience of a 
 public school are the most likely to fall short of 
 the reality. Percival at any rate was far from 
 suspecting the true beauty and extent of the 
 country he was entering, He was simple enough 
 to suppose that he already knew something of it, 
 because he had spent a week of examination 
 there during the last Christmas vacation, and 
 could find his way about the principal streets. 
 In the University he saw, as he thought, a glori- 
 fied Downton, a Downton multiplied into a 
 federation instead of a single republic, and set in 
 a rather superior kind of cathedral city. The 
 life to be led there he imagined would be in all 
 essentials that with which he was familiar : an 
 improved school life, with greater freedom and
 
 THE TWYMANS. 153 
 
 dignity, a more intense and glorious patriotism, 
 wider opportunities for distinction both in work 
 and games. This continuity seemed the more 
 inevitable because there were, as he knew, some 
 hundred Downton men in residence in the Uni- 
 versity, and twenty more were entering this 
 term with him : how could he doubt that he 
 would hear all the old war-cries on a broader 
 field, echoed by greater companies of more stal- 
 wart heroes ? 
 
 Of these imaginations part no doubt were 
 realised, part quickly forgotten, part given up 
 in sharp disappointment. But almost all were 
 wide of the secret, as such guesses must be. 
 The real charm of Oxford and the life men live 
 there is not to be seen or imagined from outside. 
 It is not an effect of mere sentiment, aroused 
 by the presence of beautiful buildings, of im- 
 memorial customs, of gardens laid with ancient 
 turf and shadowed by stately trees. It does not 
 lie in the quality of the learning that is offered 
 there, or the pastimes and pleasures that abound 
 in many kinds : nor in the prestige of the great 
 names of the past, nor in the morning freshness 
 of youth. To all these there is one thing added : 
 the city is a fairy city, neither in the world nor 
 of it, neither far from the world nor oblivious 
 of it ; it stands solitary but near by, as it were 
 upon the cloud-hills of dawn, at the meeting-place 
 of all yesterdays and all to-morrows, and its life 
 is timeless. While you are there — so the Percival 
 of a later day might have said to his younger 
 self— the world of men will be always before 
 your eyes, a vivid and curious spectacle for
 
 154 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 your philosophy to muse upon : but it will have 
 no power to trouble you. You will suffer none 
 of its anxieties, limitations, perplexities : you will 
 be delivered from the pain of transitoriness, for 
 though you yourself will change incessantly, it 
 will be only as thought and feeling change, to 
 be incessantly renewed, and in all circumstance 
 you will be untouched — set in an unfading oasis, 
 a point of windless calm. Give yourself up to 
 work or play, as you will : it is not these that 
 will haunt you all your life after : it is the sure 
 and certain continuance, the life of timeless, 
 changeless, fearless perfection that we who have 
 so long lost it so long and poignantly regret. 
 
 Farewell, we said, dear city of youth and dream ! 
 And in our boat we stepped and took the stream . 
 
 But these thoughts, though Percival's own, 
 were as yet unborn : to-day he knew no better 
 than to put the scenes of the last five years 
 into the magic-lantern of hope, and take the 
 brilliant enlargement for a picture of the future. 
 One or two touches he added — among them were 
 the substitution of a briar pipe for occasional 
 cigarettes, and the collection of a complete library 
 of the classics — but for the most part his view 
 was limited by two straight lines : he expected 
 to find very nearly what he had found before, 
 and intended to do very nearly what he saw 
 others doing. The virtue of citizenship — that he 
 had learned thoroughly, but at the price of more 
 than half his dreams. 
 
 It was at this moment — this climax of eager 
 dulness — that he entered, without knowing it,
 
 THE TWYMANS. 155 
 
 the forest track of a seven years' quest. Its 
 starting-point was the dingy platform of Didcot 
 Station, along which the great gale of that 
 October was beginning to scream as he hurried 
 across to the Oxford line. This train was fuller 
 than the one he had left, and passengers came 
 crowding in from several quarters. One of the 
 last of them, an elderly gentleman of short stature, 
 with white whiskers, very red cheeks, and round, 
 deep - set eyes, came quickly to the door of 
 Percival's carriage and endeavoured to open it. 
 The handle was too stiff : Percival sprang up and 
 tried it from inside in turn, but without success. 
 He saw a younger man holding open another 
 door farther down the train and shouting to 
 the old gentleman in a tone between respect 
 and impatience : behind him a guard was ready 
 with his green flag and whistle : everything 
 seemed to be making for a desperate flurry. 
 But apparently nothing could flurry the old 
 gentleman : he looked at Percival with a deliberate 
 and humorous smile, raised his hat with a word 
 of thanks, as short as it was courteous, and walked 
 to his place as if he were well accustomed to be 
 waited for.
 
 156 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 The beginning of term being still two days off, 
 Percival settled himself at the Mitre Hotel, where 
 he dined in solitary and oppressive state, coldly 
 envying a noisy party at the opposite table. 
 Next morning he began by inspecting his new 
 rooms. They adjoined the tower over the 
 entrance - gate of the College, up two flights of 
 a turning staircase, and looked out on to one 
 side of Oriel across a narrow street. The bed- 
 room was cramped and uncarpeted ; the sitting- 
 room, though well proportioned, had a very low 
 ceiling, and looked dark on so gloomy a day 
 as this. Percival turned in dismay to the under- 
 porter, who was conducting him — 
 
 " Is there no choice of rooms ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, sir," the man replied, with an odious 
 tone of managing servility. The best rooms are 
 always reserved for the scholars, sir. Mr Marjori- 
 banks had the first choice : I think you were 
 second scholar, sir, and this is the second best 
 set — the second best for gentlemen of your year, 
 sir." 
 
 Then, as Percival remained silent, he added, 
 " This is the Founder's Tower, sir, a very quiet
 
 THE TWYMANS. 157 
 
 staircase, — there's only the Dean and one senior 
 gentleman below you, sir." 
 
 A quick, heavy foot was heard on the stairs; 
 the under-porter vanished suddenly, and his place 
 was taken by a black, thick-set man, who in- 
 formed Percival in a tone of absolute mastery 
 that he was his servant. His manner declared 
 that he was ready to settle everything and stand 
 no nonsense : he took from his pocket a paper 
 containing a list of things which he judged 
 necessary to the refurnishing of the rooms. 
 Percival accepted it at last, but went out de- 
 termined to buy an entirely different set of 
 things at an entirely different set of shops. It 
 annoyed him afterwards that in almost every 
 case he was driven to adopt his scout's sug- 
 gestions. His frame of mind, if she could have 
 known it, would have been a distinct consolation 
 to Amelia. 
 
 As he was passing through the gate on his 
 way out to the town, the porter called his name, 
 and delivered a message that Mr Majoribanks 
 would be glad of the honour of Mr Twyman's 
 company at tea-time that afternoon. He pointed 
 out the rooms, which were in the same quad- 
 rangle, and added a remark or two on the 
 weather and the havoc of the gale among the 
 trees in Christ Church meadows. 
 
 Percival was reminded that the Broad Walk 
 was one of the things which now belonged to 
 him, and felt moved to go and see how much 
 damage had in fact been done to this part of his 
 property. He turned down through Merton fields, 
 and saw at once that it had not been exaggerated
 
 158 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 — several of the biggest elms at this end of the 
 avenue were lying in tremendous ruin, and even 
 in the long walk which leads down to the river 
 some of the trees, though much younger and 
 smaller, had been rocked until the ground was 
 broken and upheaved about their roots. 
 
 It was a dismal scene, and he turned to come 
 back. As he reached the corner where the two 
 avenues intersect, he saw the old gentleman of 
 yesterday, with his younger companion, standing 
 to look at the wreckage of the giants. He walked 
 slowly past them and had time to see that the 
 second figure was that of a man of his own age, 
 neither short nor tall, but well made and with 
 a peculiarly frank upright carriage of the head. 
 His hat was for the moment in his left hand, 
 and with his right he was pushing back an unruly 
 shock of fair and almost red hair. The older 
 man, as Percival passed them, touched his hat 
 with formal courtesy: the younger one, seeing 
 this, called out " Good morning " in a genial tone, 
 and could be heard, before Percival was out of 
 earshot, asking with the same free and un- 
 concerned manner, " Who was that ? " for he had, 
 of course, had no reason to observe Percival the 
 night before. 
 
 This second meeting seemed to introduce the 
 young stranger into Percival's new world as a 
 fellow-freshman: but it would have made little 
 impression on him if a third and fourth encounter 
 had not followed immediately. In his progress 
 that afternoon through the shops of the High 
 Street he came presently to one displaying a 
 window full of wood carving and painted coats
 
 THE TWYMANS. 159 
 
 of arms. He entered with the intention of buying 
 the shield of his college, and while doing so it 
 occurred to him that he might have his own 
 arms painted to match. He was assured that 
 this was an easy matter : paper and pencil were 
 laid before him, and he wrote out the heraldic 
 blason. The shopman read it half aloud with 
 some attention : " Bendy of six ... a crescent 
 for diiference." He looked up with a deferential 
 smile. 
 
 "We have just had the pleasure of receiving 
 a similar order from your brother, sir — Mr 
 Donnelly of New College." 
 
 Percival did not understand. " I have no 
 brother up here," he said, " and if I had, his 
 name would not be Donnelly." 
 
 " Indeed, sir," replied the man ; " then I hope 
 you will excuse my mistake. The two coats are 
 exactly the same, as you will see — except for 
 the mark of cadency." He handed a second sheet 
 of paper across the counter. 
 
 Percival stared at it : his astonishment was 
 not unmixed with indignation. The blason was 
 identical, except that it lacked his own crescent — 
 the mark of a junior branch : below the written 
 description was a rough sketch that looked as 
 if it had been stolen from his own notebook. 
 
 "Who is Mr Donnelly?" he asked. 
 
 " I should say he had just come into residence, 
 sir — a gentleman of about your height, with 
 reddish hair. He came in with an elderly gentle- 
 man, who had white whiskers and was very 
 much the gentleman, sir." 
 
 The description was an absurd one, but it
 
 160 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 sufficed : Percival recognised the pair at once as 
 his semi-acquaintances of the morning, and his 
 curiosity was doubled by the coincidence. 
 
 He was still more impressed when he reached 
 Mr Marjoribanks' rooms at tea-time, and after 
 being introduced to his host's mother and sister, 
 found himself shaking hands with Mr Donnelly 
 of New.
 
 161 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 Two letters, which it concerns us to read, left 
 Oxford by that night's post. One was addressed 
 in a strong but careless hand to Sir William 
 Twyman, Bart., Hampton St George, Wiltbury, 
 Wilts, and ran as follows : — 
 
 My dear Sir, — You're only just gone and 
 here I am writing to you. The fact is, the un- 
 expected has happened— something to tell you 
 already. Fell out of a boat, you'll imagine, or 
 lent money to my tutor. Not much, my old 
 one, I'm Polonius his grandson and I don't 
 forget it. But I've met the other Twyman— 
 the Twyman of the Future, as Thea calls him 
 when she wants to be plaguey. And who do 
 you think he is?— that man you saluted in the 
 Broad Walk this morning, the slim fellow with 
 the big nose and diamond eyes. Of course he 
 asked after you, and jumped when I told him 
 your name. But the coincidence went further 
 than that. Do you know, he had chanced on 
 the same shop to order himself heraldic glories, 
 and saw my drawing there. So he asked me as 
 polite as a poker what a gent, by the name of 
 Donnelly was doing with the arms of Twyman. 
 
 L
 
 162 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 He was quite keen, I can assure you. I said I 
 knew I was rather a fraud at present, but when 
 I came of age I was going to get a Royal 
 Licence to take the name and arms complete. 
 So then he asked whether that would make me 
 head of a family I didn't belong to ; and like 
 an ass I grinned and said that when the time 
 came he and I could toss for the headship. My 
 eyes ! you should have seen the diamonds flash 
 at that ! But he kept his manners nicely, and 
 we agreed to be tenth cousins and make the 
 best of it. I thought this would interest you, 
 and you might send it on to Thea, if she isn't 
 coming home shortly. So farewell from your 
 dutiful grandson, Edward Donnelly. 
 
 It is impossible to say what Sir William felt 
 about this letter. The only witness present 
 when he received it was his sister, Miss Rosa- 
 belle Twyman, a valued but obtuse companion, 
 to whom he never thought of confiding any- 
 thing : and as she was now half blind, rather 
 deaf, and much enfeebled by rheumatism, she 
 had little chance of making discoveries for her- 
 self. Althea, Edward's sister, was away on a 
 visit, and even when at home her keen young 
 eyes did not always succeed in tracking her 
 grandfather's line of thought. Genial as he was, 
 he was never really transparent. He would 
 be hospitable and friendly to all : he loved his 
 two grandchildren with a very complete affec- 
 tion, personal, parental, and dynastic. But his 
 kindliness was always shrewd and unimpulsive, 
 and he kept his own counsel, by a natural gift.
 
 THE TWYMANS. 163 
 
 In speech he was a born tactician, and never 
 uttered at random : if his acquaintances had 
 known how deliberately he could edit what 
 information he gave them, at least half of them 
 would have reproached him with unscrupulous- 
 ness. But his pleasant red face and courteous 
 manner saved him from suspicion, and more- 
 over he never made mistakes of an obvious 
 kind : he was always ready for any event, 
 however unexpected, and always kept the un- 
 shaking hand of the scientific experimenter. On 
 this occasion I believe he read his grandson's 
 letter twice before he forwarded it, but that 
 was not because it took him by surprise : he 
 was only considering exactly how it bore upon 
 certain combinations which he had long been 
 preparing. 
 
 The second letter was from Percival to his 
 mother — the longest he had ever written her. 
 It began with an account of his furnishing, 
 vague enough to hide his discomfiture from 
 himself, but not to deceive Amelia for a moment. 
 "There now!" she exclaimed as she read it, with 
 Molly looking over her shoulder, " he is being 
 swindled right and left. Ah ! my dear, I knew 
 . . . but young people will never listen to advice." 
 
 " Never mind, dearest," said Molly cheerfully, 
 " you'd rather have him swindled than stingy, 
 and you've given him plenty of money, and 
 anyhow it's done now — let's go on." 
 
 She captured her mother's right hand, and 
 turned the page with filial firmness. They read 
 the story of the two shields in silence. " What 
 a rigmarole ! " was Molly's comment : but then
 
 164 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 came the description of Mr Marjoribanks' tea- 
 party, which explained the mystery. The letter 
 ended in a characteristic vein of self- congratula- 
 tion. "Altogether it was tremendously exciting, 
 and I think the whole thing is a very lucky 
 start for me. Term doesn't begin till to-morrow, 
 there's hardly any one up yet, and I've made 
 two friends already. Besides, this one is a sort 
 of relation : I have so few relations, and he's 
 just the kind I should have chosen. I do hope 
 you'll like him — I know you always hate red 
 hair, but his is the good soft red, not metallic or 
 hot. Of course he has the red-haired complexion, 
 rather pink and transparent, but his face is 
 very straight and handsome really, and he has 
 a way of looking at everything as if he had a 
 right to — I mean he never lowers his eyes or 
 turns them away too soon. Then he's very 
 amusing ; he and Marjoribanks have a curious 
 quaint fashion of speech, almost a language of 
 their own — it doesn't make you laugh, but it 
 tickles you quietly all the time and makes you 
 feel on tiptoes to be witty yourself. It's as if 
 he was tasting what he says, and enjoying it so 
 much that you enjoy your part too. I found 
 myself almost falling into the very same tone, 
 and I know Molly would do it perfectly. Tell 
 her that as soon as I'm straight she must bring 
 you up to see the new cousin, and then I hope 
 you'll be glad you married into our family. 
 Forgive that old joke, but, my dearest mother, 
 you've simply got to like him." 
 
 Molly loosed her hold upon the letter and 
 moved away with a dancing step, thrusting
 
 THE TWYMANS. 165 
 
 both hands into the pockets of her blue overall. 
 Her bright brown eyes were as usual brimming 
 with the zest of life. " Mother," she exclaimed, 
 " how like Percival ! the moment a thing be- 
 comes his own, it's perfection." 
 
 Amelia was still absorbed in the letter : her 
 daughter pursued the point. " Don't you think 
 it's absurd? Of course we put a fancy price on 
 our brothers and sons, but you can't make swans 
 of every goose in the family, however distant 
 they may be." 
 
 Amelia was still silent. 
 
 " How distant is this cousin goose ? " asked 
 Molly, still dancing, and then suddenly per- 
 ceiving that she was unanswered, she stepped to 
 her mother's side again, tapped her with a single 
 knuckle and asked in a formal neighbourly 
 voice, " Is Mrs Twyman at home ? " Amelia 
 looked up with a smile and touched her arm 
 caressingly. " Yes, run away now, dear," she 
 said absently, " I have something that I must 
 think over." 
 
 Molly flashed with amused indignation. " Oh ! 
 you funny little mamma ! ' Run away ! ' — why 
 not ' run away and play ' ? I once had a sweet 
 little doll, dear, — is that what you're thinking 
 of? I'm afraid you don't know your dates — I 
 must ask you to write them out for me, twice." 
 
 Then at sight of her mother's face, still grave, 
 tenderness turned her suddenly in mid -flight. 
 She half-ran, half -fluttered back, like a wagtail to 
 her young — a kiss — " how lovely you are to rag, 
 mother ! " — another kiss, and she was gone again, 
 to chase her winged little follies elsewhere.
 
 166 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Amelia sighed — a kind of pro formd sigh, " Ah ! 
 my dear, it's well to be young ! " — and went to 
 her writing-table. There she unlocked a drawer, 
 lifted a mass of well - ordered papers, and took 
 out a packet from the bottom of all. As her 
 quick fingers set about opening it, the dry hard 
 band of india-rubber cracked and fell apart: 
 but the papers had buckled slightly at the waist 
 and still held together as if from long habit. 
 She separated them and looked them through — 
 there were a dozen letters, mostly in the hand- 
 writing of her brother-in-law the Commander, 
 a large sheet-pedigree, a Statement of the Case 
 on brief-paper, with Counsel's opinion, and some 
 explanatory notes. She laid the bulk of the 
 documents aside and unfolded the notes. 
 
 Yes, there he was, Sir William, underlined 
 in red, just as she remembered him, with the 
 date of his marriage, and the birth of his only 
 child, Margaret Althea Cecilia. Her marriage 
 to Turlough Donnelly, and her death a few 
 weeks after the birth of her second child, were 
 added to the record in pencil and in a diiferent 
 hand. There they all were — " the Enemy," as
 
 THE TWYMANS. 167 
 
 she had always thought and spoken of them, 
 these Donnellys who were lying in wait in 
 their unscrupulous Irish way — just like Barry 
 Lyndon — to steal the Twyman inheritance from 
 her Percival : and now here was the boy him- 
 self falling headlong into friendship with them. 
 Who could tell what webs they might entangle 
 him in, what blind promises they might extract 
 from him ? It was her own fault, no doubt, 
 she should have warned him : and she had 
 always wanted to do so, at some far - off in- 
 definite future moment before he came of age. 
 She had forgotten Oxford, forgotten that there 
 or in any other chance meeting - place beyond 
 the school close, he might easily enough come 
 within the reach of this pretender, this plaus- 
 ible impostor, who of course lived only to 
 foist himself like a changeling into Percival's 
 birthright. This was the dangerous time — the 
 two years before twenty - one — and she had 
 forgotten it ! 
 
 In reality the mistake was not one of memory, 
 but of imagination. She had never forgotten 
 "the enemy," but she had always thought of 
 them as existing at present only on paper, lying 
 dormant in a bundle of documents, as in a 
 chrysalis, till the day that should hatch them 
 out, the day of Sir William's death, — then, of 
 course, to be caught and crushed at once. It 
 had not presented itself to her mind that 
 "they" were already living persons, or rather 
 a living person, a boy of much the same age 
 as her own son, growing up in the same small 
 island, — even in the very next county of it.
 
 168 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 Well, the mischief was done now : it re- 
 mained only to face the situation. What 
 should she tell Percival? A little reflection 
 showed her that it must be all or nothing. He 
 had always been eager to hear about the 
 family, the more so because he had retained 
 from very early days some recollection of a 
 secret that his mother was keeping for him in 
 that locked drawer of hers. Tell him that the 
 time for unlocking had come, and he would 
 certainly insist on knowing everything. She 
 had once seen her young scholar deciphering 
 an old Latin deed for some friend, and his 
 thoroughness seemed to her positively ferocious. 
 "Like a terrier at a rabbit-hole," his uncle had 
 said, "wearing his claws out — mad to get to 
 the bottom," Anything of that kind would 
 indeed be waste of claws, for whatever Percy's 
 rights might prove to be, they could not be 
 eifective during Sir William's lifetime. It was 
 this last consideration which made her decision 
 so difficult. On the one hand she saw the in- 
 genuous hero of her romance exposed to vague 
 but possibly fatal dangers, on the other she 
 imagined him spoiling perhaps the whole of 
 his Oxford time in jjreparation for a fight 
 which might not come off for years. It was 
 a real dilemma. So much she discovered in 
 less time than it has taken to write down her 
 thoughts : the next thing — the very next thing, 
 for so prompt a lady — was to find out which 
 was the least deadly horn to rush upon. In 
 an hour's time she had written a clearly - out- 
 lined and highly- coloured sketch of the position
 
 THE TWYMANS. 169 
 
 to each of her two counsellors, and despatched 
 both letters to an early post. 
 
 The answers arrived together. The Com- 
 mander's she opened first, because she expected 
 that of the two it would be the less encourag- 
 ing : her brother - in - law had never shared her 
 ardour in this particular cause. "You know 
 my feeling about the claim," he wrote now ; 
 " it always seems to me like trying to revoke 
 the Norman Conquest. For hundreds of years 
 these people have been in, and we've been out. 
 It may be our property, but it's their home. 
 Besides, isn't it rather a poor - spirited pro- 
 gramme for a boy like Percival, this idea of 
 going out into the world, not to make his own 
 fortune, but to find it ready made — to say 
 nothing of taking it from some one else ? In 
 any case, why suggest it to him before you 
 must ? So many things may happen before 
 Sir William dies : he may marry again, even 
 now, and have a Twyman to succeed him, or 
 these grandchildren may die — there's been an 
 astonishing clearance in that family already — 
 or we on our side may all become extinct. I 
 don't say that any of these chances is very 
 likely : what I do say is that where everything 
 else is uncertain in this business there is one 
 plain certainty — the bad effect on Percy of 
 having his character put to such a strain while 
 it is still growing. Give him the two years — 
 why not the whole four? — and when he leaves 
 Oxford he'll be man enough to choose the right 
 line, — at any rate, to choose his own line, which 
 he could hardly do at present."
 
 170 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 Every sentence of this letter irritated Amelia 
 — none the less because she knew well that it 
 expressed the view which her beloved husband 
 himself had always held. She was determined, 
 for good and sufficient reasons, to set aside 
 that view : she wished to be supported in doing 
 so, to hear it controverted by authority, and 
 here was Roland reaffirming it in his disin- 
 terested, sincere, exasperating way. In two 
 minutes she would take pen and mow down 
 his crop of rank absurdities ; in the meantime 
 she set her lips very firmly and tore open Mr 
 Mundy's envelope. 
 
 " How good of him ! how like him ! " — he was 
 coming by an early train and would be with 
 her by luncheon time. " On his way to Exeter " 
 — that, Amelia thought, was only a kind excuse. 
 He was taking the matter seriously, not in 
 Roland's abstract and unpractical way. The 
 contrast showed her how improperly her 
 brother - in - law had treated his nephew's in- 
 terests, and sharpened her resentment. She 
 spent the next hour and a half in composing 
 a reply, exhausting to herself and not likely 
 to be soon forgotten by the recipient. 
 
 This, when Mr Mundy arrived, she handed to 
 him for his approval, and watched him reading 
 it, with a look of suppressed indignation, ready 
 to blaze up again at a breath. 
 
 Mr Mundy read the correspondence on both 
 sides with his usual deliberation. He took all 
 Amelia's arguments, and being himself the 
 gentlest of men, rather admired the vehemence 
 with which they were put. She was defending
 
 THE TWYMANS. 171 
 
 her young, why should not the points come 
 through the velvet? But he saw also that she 
 was hurting herself as well as her adversary. 
 His blue eyes rested kindly upon her : there 
 was a mountainous quiet about him that 
 soothed her nerves. " Amelia," he said in his 
 old confidential tone, "you write very well, if 
 I may say so. Percy is very fortunate to have 
 such an advocate." A waterfall in August could 
 not have sounded more refreshing to Amelia's 
 ears. She drank, and murmured her content- 
 ment. "I can see only one omission," he 
 continued, "one thing more that you might 
 have said in reply to Roland's letter. You 
 might have reminded him that you only asked 
 his advice on the one question of immediate 
 importance, whereas he has gone beyond that 
 and launched out into general considerations 
 on the claim itself. In fact, the larger part 
 of his letter is off the point and needs no 
 reply." 
 
 Amelia was silent : she no longer felt sure in 
 what direction she was being led. 
 
 "You asked us simply whether Percy should 
 or should not be now informed of his position. 
 I gather that you would wish not to distract 
 him from his work at present, but that you 
 fear he may forfeit or compromise his rights 
 in some way if he is not put on his guard. I 
 know just enough of the law to know that 
 that is impossible : no man can forfeit his 
 rights as long as he is unaware of their exist- 
 ence. I feel certain of that: and you will see 
 that it is a reason for keeping Percy in ignor-
 
 172 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 ance — he is safer so, actually safer. Do you 
 see what I mean ? " 
 
 Ameha was far too quick - witted not to see 
 the argument and its force: but she was not 
 satisfied — the personal point remained. 
 
 " Of course I shall do what you advise. But 
 as Roland did raise all those questions — though 
 I agree that they are utterly irrelevant — don't 
 you think I was right to answer them ? " 
 
 Mr Mundy paused. "I think," he said at last, 
 "if I were you I wouldn't send the letter." 
 
 Her face changed : a black fear had leapt 
 upon her. "You don't take Roland's view — 
 you don't think it's like the Norman Conquest, 
 or that Percy would be mean-spirited?" 
 
 He smiled a grave reassuring smile. "I dis- 
 agree with him from beginning to end — from 
 the Conquest downwards. Roland is a good 
 man, but he is imaginative. He never looks 
 at things objectively — he has had no scientific 
 education. This business we are considering is 
 a purely legal matter. Either it is the law 
 that this property comes to your Percival, or 
 it is the law that it goes to some one else. We 
 do not know at present which way it is, but 
 when the time comes the proper authority will 
 decide. Percival is in no way responsible for 
 the state of the law. His only obligation is to 
 act in conformity with it." 
 
 Amelia, like many another client, felt a little 
 uneasy at the way in which her advocate stated 
 her case for her. 
 
 "You don't think," she asked rather timidly, 
 " that Percival will have any choice in the
 
 THE TWYMANS. 173 
 
 matter? — Roland speaks of his taking a right 
 line, a line of his own." 
 
 Mr Mundy was as deliberate as ever, but per- 
 haps his reply was a little less diffident than 
 usual : he wished to settle his anxious client's 
 mind. " No," he said, " in a case like this the 
 individual can take no line of his own ; his line 
 is laid down for him by the law, the system 
 under which he lives. The more civilised life 
 is, the more strictly conditioned it becomes. It 
 is better so — lawlessness is the worst of evils." 
 
 "Percy would never be lawless," said Amelia 
 with satisfaction, and added, "Then I'll just put 
 Roland right about that, and tear up what I 
 had written about the rest." 
 
 Mr Mundy looked doubtful, but it was time 
 for him to go.
 
 174 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 On the same day and at the same hour Percival 
 was setting out with Edward Donnelly for the 
 Upper River, the haunt of those who take to 
 the water for pleasure. As they left the last 
 skirt of the town an unexpected sight awaited 
 them. The stream, swollen high by the late 
 rains, had overflowed its left bank and com- 
 pletely flooded the vast green pasture known 
 as Port Meadow, which stretches along it be- 
 tween Woolvercot and Oxford. The whole level 
 of the landscape was one broad sheet of smooth 
 water, bordered by lines of pollard willows, now 
 gaunt and leafless, which rose straight from the 
 glimmering surface and showed like witches' 
 brooms outlined against the silver autumnal 
 mist. Here and there, moving like sleepy gulls 
 across the scene, were a dozen tiny white-sailed 
 yachts : not a sound came from them, and the 
 quiet ease of their movement in so gentle an 
 air gave a curious sense of unreality to the 
 picture. The sun, too, though still an hour 
 from setting, was already transformed by the 
 earth -magic of the October afternoon: he hung 
 like a dull red lantern over the water, with a 
 light which seemed only to make more remote
 
 THE TWYMANS. 175 
 
 and more mysterious its infinite expanse of 
 palely shimmering distance. 
 
 Beside the embanked foot - path, which here 
 served in emergency for a wharf, one yacht 
 still lay waiting for a hirer. As the two friends 
 approached, Percy fixed a longing eye upon her, 
 but before he could suggest a change of plan, 
 Donnelly had settled the matter for him by 
 signalling to the man in charge that he accepted 
 his offer of the boat. 
 
 " We needn't go further," he remarked to 
 Percy in his cheerful offhand way; "this looks 
 better than the labouring oar — about three sizes 
 better." 
 
 " Can you sail ? " asked Percy. 
 
 " No, but I expect the ship can." In two 
 minutes they were being pushed off from the 
 shore by the bargee, with voluble instructions 
 as to the management of sail and centre-board. 
 Percy might perhaps have listened to them if 
 he had been alone, but his companion mocked 
 at precautions. 
 
 "That will do, my good man," he said, "heave 
 her off ! You see we don't care which way we 
 go, or when we get there, and if we upset we 
 shall just step out and walk ashore." 
 
 Percy laughed : the careless mood exhilarated 
 him. "I suppose it is pretty shallow," he said 
 by way of assent. 
 
 " It's a lagoon," replied Donnelly, " a two-foot- 
 six patent grass-bottomed lagoon. You sit there, 
 between the punt-pole and the centre-board, and 
 see that we don't go aground, while I steer her 
 — I'm going to take you all round the Ewigkeit."
 
 176 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 The sail drew taut, the shore receded in a 
 dream-like imperceptible w^ay, and Percy found 
 himself in the middle distance of the picture he 
 had been admiring five minutes before. He had 
 nothing to do but lean contentedly against the 
 gunwale and enjoy the smooth, gliding motion, 
 which quickened now and again out of j)erfect 
 silence into a cool, delicious gurgle beneath the 
 boat, like the ghost of a drink satisfying the 
 memory of a thirst. 
 
 Donnelly steered a serene but erratic course, 
 heading always in whatever direction the wind 
 most easily took him, and reljdng on the punt- 
 pole whenever the ship had not enough way on to 
 go about. The method was quite satisfactory to 
 Percy : he was useful at intervals and delighted 
 all the time. They pointed now for Woolvercot 
 mill, now for Cumnor Hurst, back again for the 
 campanile of St Philip and St James, and then 
 once more right up towards Godstow Nunnery. 
 Every view had a wide desolate beauty that 
 became from moment to moment wider and 
 more desolate, as the sun fell with an almost 
 staccato motion to the fringe of the hills and lit 
 up the water levels with a faint smouldering 
 glow above which the mist shone more and 
 more coldly. 
 
 " Ah-h-h," said Percy at last, with mingled 
 contentment and regret in his voice, "and to 
 think that as soon as the floods run down we 
 shall have to row instead of filing ! " 
 
 " Not any for me ! " replied Donnelly with 
 his air of deliberate gusto. " I've told them 
 that this child is not taking compulsory games."
 
 THE TWYMANS. 177 
 
 The attitude was a new one to Percy, and he 
 felt bound to differ. 
 
 "Well," he said, "of course I should feel un- 
 patriotic if I did that— but then we are a much 
 smaller college." 
 
 Donnelly continued to radiate with unabashed 
 humour. " Old man," he said slowly, " do you 
 know what your Torpid crew weighs? About 
 twelve stone per man, and you are somewhere 
 round about ten. Go to, my &on, you cannot 
 make oars without beef." 
 
 Percy laughed ; the tone tickled him so 
 pleasantly : but he stuck to his point like a 
 good Downtonian. 
 
 " Those of us who don't row are expected to 
 play footer for the College." 
 
 "Exercise in the prison-yard twice a week," 
 replied the other ; " but happily you needn't 
 obey the regulations." 
 
 Percy felt again that he must protest, but 
 he was careful to keep up the light tone of 
 the argument. "One would think," he said, 
 " that you had just come out of five years' 
 penal servitude." 
 
 "So I have, and I'm not going to do four 
 more in the galleys." 
 
 "If every one said that, what would become 
 of the College ? " 
 
 " My son," replied Donnelly, " that's one of 
 the Vulgar Errors : a very gross Superstition. 
 The true faith is that the College was made 
 for man, not man for the College. Even Thucy- 
 dides knew that. You remember he says it is 
 the men that make the city, — not the buildings 
 
 M
 
 178 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 nor the boats, I expect he had observed that 
 when rowing stops it's not the College that 
 ceases to exist, but only the Captain of the 
 Boat Club. Of course if you want to be 
 Captain " 
 
 "I don't," laughed Percy, "but I want our 
 boat to go up." 
 
 "Personal pride, anyhow," said the other, 
 "and I have it myself. I'll tell you what I'm 
 going to do about it. I shall have the crew 
 to breakfast, bet on them at current odds, and 
 run with them every day of the races. Mean- 
 time I shall go out sailing, sculling, canoeing, 
 and punting with every Twyman I can find." 
 
 Percy was silent : his new friend's manner 
 gave him a peculiar pleasure ; the argument, 
 though whimsically put, seemed reasonable, and 
 he would have been glad to believe it sound. 
 But he could not bring himself to accept so 
 easy a view of life : he had so long been trained 
 to believe in the necessary opposition of duty 
 and inclination. 
 
 " See here," continued Donnelly, " you don't 
 really think this University was founded as a 
 School of Rowing ? It hasn't even one Remigius 
 Professorship. And look at the landscape — look 
 at it ! Do you come up to a place like this to 
 be told to keep your eyes in the boat ? Oh ! 
 I know what you're going to say — football and 
 esprit de corps and the rest of it. Well, I grant 
 you a certain amount of patriotic mud-larking 
 on wet days : but when it's fine you've got to 
 invite your soul, and play the scholar - gipsy 
 with me, all up and down the stripling Thames.
 
 THE TWYMANS. 179 
 
 Do you know where you are now, Wanderer? 
 — your face is towards Hinksey and its wintry 
 ridge, those are the green-muffled Cumnor hills, 
 and they say that Bablockhythe is somewhere 
 beyond. 
 
 Percy was beaten this time. He had long 
 loved the poem from which Donnelly had pulled 
 a line or two in his random fashion : now he 
 found a meaning in it for himself, guessed 
 dimly that such things were part of a truer 
 Oxford than that which he had looked to find. 
 Cumnor and Bablockhythe — the names had 
 always murmured of romance, now they called 
 him to follow after beauty visible and invisible, 
 promised him the happiness of that double 
 pilgrimage, earthly and immortal. He perceived 
 that his friend had changed the language of their 
 conversation, and was speaking in a tongue in 
 which the trite catch-words of school life had 
 no equivalent. 
 
 "The sun is setting," he said quietly; "how 
 the mist rises — we must be going home."
 
 180 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 That evening Percy dined in Hall for the first 
 time. He might have done so before, for this 
 was the third day of term, but on the two pre- 
 ceding nights Marjoribanks and he had supped 
 together in their own rooms, neither being yet 
 prepared to say the long Latin grace in public — 
 a duty allotted by the rules of the foundation 
 to the junior scholar present in Hall. To-night, 
 however, Marjoribanks, seeing that he would be 
 quite safe himself provided that Twyman — his 
 junior — was there, came round to fetch Percy in 
 good time, overruled his laughing reluctance, 
 put his gown on his shoulders, took him firmly 
 by the arm, marched him across the Quad- 
 rangle where several groups were collecting, 
 and planted him in front of the great fireplace. 
 They were unnecessarily early, and had still 
 a few minutes in which to roast themselves 
 and take in the details of the scene. The Hall 
 itself they had both known before, but only 
 in the dreary daylight of an examination week. 
 Now the dazzling lights that half-lit the sombre 
 and stately building produced on Percy the same 
 effect of enchantment, the same feeling of time- 
 lessness, that he remembered to have known
 
 THE TWYMANS. 181 
 
 years ago in Casterby church. He looked with 
 a confused but vivid sense of recognition at 
 the dark cedar panelling of the walls, at the 
 high muUioned windows, and the great black- 
 timbered roof above. From the ends of the 
 hammer-beams hung rich carven pendants, like 
 black lanterns : below every bracket and over 
 the two door - heads bright shields of arms 
 stood out in relief : the quiet eyes of great men 
 looked down from their portraits above the 
 dais. In the centre, and apart from the rest, 
 the blind old Founder seemed to stand, with a 
 face full of resignation and tenacity, listening 
 always to the hum of the bees for whom he 
 had builded. Below him stretched the long 
 white tables, shining with silver : that they 
 were empty at the moment only added to the 
 mysteriousness of all this dusky splendour and 
 made Percy's satisfaction more complete. What 
 was satisfied in him was not an ordinary ex- 
 pectation, or an ordinary feeling for the pic- 
 turesque, but a longing, as it were, for a past 
 that had been his and was forgotten, the desire 
 of a dream long vanished or perhaps never yet 
 dreamed. The light in which he stood and 
 warmed himself was not the light of this cen- 
 tury or of that, but a light in which all were 
 one : it had power to reanimate, to recall, the 
 spirits that had once known its secret. 
 
 A bell rang outside, the door opened, and a 
 stream of black - gowned figures poured into 
 the Hall. Through the middle of them a single 
 file of more dignified personages advanced in 
 procession and arranged themselves in attitudes
 
 182 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 of passive expectancy at one end of the High 
 Table. The grouj) of scholars round the fire 
 made way for Percy, or motioned him forward, 
 and he found himself standing alone near the 
 dais, with his hands folded awkwardly in front 
 of him, rattling off the grace mechanically in 
 a clear voice which seemed to come from some- 
 where outside him. "... alamur, foveamur, 
 corroboremur." Scarcely had the concluding 
 words been uttered, when conversation burst 
 forth in a joyous buzz all down the Hall : for 
 it is here, in the centre of the hive, and at the 
 time of feeding, that the human bees hum 
 most vigorously. And this is not unnatural, 
 since they are even then using their wings and 
 making honey, no less than when they are 
 skimming the Attic fields, or fixed, proboscis 
 downwards, between the leaves of their antique 
 garden, — as the Founder well knew when in 
 his immortal statutes he included regulations 
 for the conduct of conversation at the dinner- 
 table. They have been oddly amended since his 
 time. 
 
 Percy seated himself at the lower end of the 
 scholars' table, next to Marjoribanks. The place 
 on his other side was taken by a bachelor who 
 had come in a moment too late to sit among 
 his contemporaries. Presently a scout touched 
 Percy's sleeve and asked him whether he pre- 
 ferred ale or cider. He chose the latter, and 
 almost immediately a huge covered tankard of 
 silver was placed before him. It held a quart, 
 and contrasted absurdly with the modest pints 
 and half pints of all his neighbours. " Hi !
 
 THE TWYMANS. 183 
 
 you've brought me too much," he called over 
 his shoulder. A gust of laughter ran boister- 
 ously down the table. The scout, grinning but 
 obsequious, bent down to reply, " That's your 
 sconce, sir, — it's always a quart." 
 
 The bachelor, a hard-looking, hawk-faced little 
 man, explained to Percy in a tone of rather 
 beaky humour. The sconce was a penalty, in- 
 flicted for breaking any rule of the table, in 
 this case for having omitted three words in 
 the middle of the grace. A message followed, 
 from the Head of the table, that Mr Twyman 
 was requested to drink and pass the sconce up. 
 
 "If you finish it all at a breath," added the 
 bachelor with an aquiline look, "you sconce the 
 whole table." 
 
 Percy was reasonably thirsty, and the look 
 roused him : he drank long and deep, but he 
 was beaten before he reached the bottom, if 
 only because the tankard was as cold as a 
 well. The sconce was passed to the senior 
 scholar, who raised it and nodded down the 
 table to Percy as he placed the empty cup before 
 him, shutting down the lid with a clank. 
 
 "Now," murmured the bachelor, speaking as 
 it were sideways out of his clenched beak, 
 "ask what were the words you left out." 
 
 Percy had no sooner put the question than 
 it was answered by several quick voices. The 
 Head of the table, who had remained silent, 
 smiled blandly and ordered sconces for every 
 one who had replied. Three words, it ap- 
 peared, of Latin, Greek, or Holy Writ, were 
 enough to earn the penalty.
 
 184 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 The condemned all protested against their 
 sentence : a hubbub of argument followed, till 
 one of them borrowed a half - sheet of paper 
 and wrote a statement, which was handed up 
 to the dons at the High Table by way of 
 appeal. It seemed to give a much-needed fillip 
 to the festivity of the Olympians, and the 
 Dean was inspired to return a singularly happy 
 judgment. He decided that the offenders were 
 rightly punished, but added that their wrong- 
 doing was caused by a dereliction of duty on 
 the part of the senior scholar, who ought to 
 have given Twyman notice of his failure before 
 sconcing him, and must therefore pay a similar 
 penalty himself. The decision was greeted with 
 vociferous joy, the Head of the table duly 
 sconced himself, and the supply of mild drinks 
 being now ample the humming became more 
 like that of bull-roarers than of bees. 
 
 But the beaky voice beside Percy could be 
 heard through it all. 
 
 " You, I gather, are a sort of John Twyman." 
 
 " My name is Twyman, but not John." 
 
 " Oh ! yes, we are all John here — the President 
 is John Pre., the Porter is John Porter, and you 
 are John What's-your-name." 
 
 The diamonds in Percy's eyes began to flash, 
 but he reflected that such gratuitous rudeness 
 had probably a humorous point somewhere, 
 which it would be better not to fall upon. 
 
 " You come from Downton, I believe," was the 
 next remark. 
 
 " I do," was the reply. 
 
 The eagle eye surveyed him inquisitorially : its
 
 THE TWYMANS. 185 
 
 sidelong glance seemed to be taking stock of his 
 costume. 
 
 "Whist or waistcoats," said the examiner, 
 "have you made your choice yet?" 
 
 Percy contrived to smile as he replied that he 
 did not understand. 
 
 " Oh ! yes, . . . m'yes, you Downton men 
 always take to one or the other. You lace the 
 ego up so tight at school, you must begin by 
 a little outburst. M'yes, you all dress or gamble : 
 dress is the safer. I was quite glad when I saw 
 your friend John Quiller yesterday, looking self- 
 conscious in a crimson plush vest. He's taken 
 the right turn, at any rate. So I daresay have 
 you." 
 
 Percy began to be amused, though he still 
 disliked feeling so soft and callow before this 
 incisive old bird of prey. 
 
 " Well," he said, " I confess to a waistcoat : I 
 ordered one to-day." 
 
 "M'yes, I thought so. Bring it for me to see 
 then, at lunch on Thursday. We'll have Q.'s too. 
 I like Downtonians to be virtuous." 
 
 At this moment some one on the opposite side 
 of the table asked Percy if he would come up and 
 play whist after Hall. Before he could reply the 
 beak snapped, " Twyman doesn't play." 
 
 "Not well," said Percy, "but I will come. 
 Thank you." 
 
 "I said waistcoats or whist," remarked the 
 bachelor. " What are you doing with both ? " 
 
 " Ah ! " replied Percy, " perhaps I laced my ego 
 tighter than the rest." 
 
 The table rose, and he escaped to his game.
 
 186 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 In three weeks' time Percy had made notable 
 progress : he was attired with a gaiety sufficient, 
 if there was anything in the theory of his friend 
 the bachelor, to deliver him from any temptation 
 to gamble ; and he had learned to call for trumps 
 with a skill which, on the same principle, should 
 have guaranteed him against extravagance in 
 dress. His tutor was pleased with his Latin 
 prose, and his companions with his English verse 
 — both composed during the lectures on familiar 
 subjects, which would otherwise have been so 
 much wasted time. He was rapidly losing the 
 shyness which had always seemed to him a 
 natural disability that no experience could cure. 
 Confidence and outspokenness were in the air : 
 whereas at school even the most friendly of his 
 companions had seemed bent on smothering all 
 thought and feeling except the merely common- 
 place, here he found an almost universal frank- 
 ness. Every one was inquiring, no one was 
 reticent. Downtonians, whom he had seen every 
 day for five years, could be heard in a mixed 
 company expressing views of which he had never 
 even suspected them — of which, perhaps, they 
 had never suspected themselves. Percy again
 
 THE TWYMANS. 187 
 
 and again discovered opinions of his own, which 
 seemed to have come from nowhere ; as if a 
 flock of birds should appear in a photograph 
 where none were known to have been 
 within range of the camera — indisputably real, 
 but unlooked for and disconcerting. Already 
 there were enough of them to make a marked 
 difference in his mental picture : they not only 
 added something, but they obscured part of what 
 was there before. 
 
 Into this changing scene a figure from his old 
 life was suddenly projected. His sister wrote 
 that Nelly Egerton, who had now left school, 
 was coming to Oxford at once, to stay for a 
 day or two with the Heavitrees, before going 
 abroad. Dr Heavitree was the Head of a neigh- 
 bouring college : Molly did not know the eti- 
 quette of Oxford, but supposed that Percy would 
 be allowed to call. This news brought Percy 
 pleasant anticipations, but nothing that could 
 be called excitement. He thought of it as an 
 event, certainly, but if Molly could have ex- 
 amined his emotions her warm romantic heart 
 would have been disappointed in them, for they 
 were more concerned with family affection than 
 with love. He was exhilarated by the first 
 actual touch between his home life and his new 
 surroundings. Nelly was welcome, very welcome, 
 but as part of the past rather than the future. 
 Yet so out-of-date was his knowledge of his own 
 feelings that he imagined himself about to re- 
 sume a dream that had been only interrupted. 
 
 He was already slightly acquainted with Mrs 
 Heavitree, whom he had once met at Downton.
 
 188 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 But a note must be written to her, and this 
 was a distinct check to his pleasure. There was 
 something very uncomfortable in thus putting 
 himself forward : he became suddenly aware that 
 at Oxford, and in the eyes of a President's wife, 
 he was far younger than he had been at Downton 
 and in his mother's house. He had come down 
 from the position of a Senior Prefect to that of 
 a freshman, and freshmen do not go a- wooing 
 w^ithout a risk — more than a risk — of ridicule. 
 Nevertheless he faced the situation, as he would 
 have faced an even more absurd one, and received 
 a kindly, matter-of-course invitation to call next 
 afternoon. At half-past three, when every one 
 was down at the river or in the parks, he dressed 
 with care and hurried quickly from the gate of 
 the one college to the gate of the other. 
 
 Mrs Heavitree was at home : Miss Egerton was 
 not, but would be in presently. Percy sat with 
 his hostess in a drawing-room that seemed by its 
 size and dignity to reduce a freshman almost to 
 childhood. Mrs Heavitree's conversation was not 
 patronising, not even condescending, but it was 
 terribly kind. She exhausted the whole range 
 of possible inquiries about Downton, and Percy, 
 as he answered, began to feel at last as if he 
 were applying for a situation, and giving an 
 account of his antecedents too orthodox to be 
 convincing. Worse still, his account was smil- 
 ingly accepted as if subject to a usual discount, 
 and he was encouraged to take up his duties at 
 Oxford with the assurance that he would like 
 them better as time went on. 
 
 At length the door opened, and they both rose.
 
 THE TWYMANS. 189 
 
 " I think you and Miss Egerton are already ac- 
 quainted," said Mrs Heavitree. "You will stay 
 for a cup of tea with us, I hope, Mr Twyman." 
 She saw them shake hands, and then left the 
 room with a large and unembarrassed sweep. 
 Percy stood irresolutely by his chair, and Nelly 
 took a seat on the sofa from which their hostess 
 had risen. The choice was an unfortunate one : 
 it seemed to Percy to identify her somehow with 
 the Heavitree dignity, and set a certain fixed 
 distance between them. No, he could not find 
 his dream again as he had hoped, could not see 
 how to strike back into it. If only he had found 
 Nelly alone, the moment of greeting might have 
 shown him the way, an impulse might have 
 carried him over the barrier. Even now — but 
 he looked in vain for any signal from her side : 
 he could see only that he had been entangled 
 and thwarted by circumstances, as by briars 
 about his knees. The fact chafed him, and the 
 chafing ended all possibility of a successful leap 
 at the hedge. He sat down. 
 
 A dumb preoccupation seemed to seize upon 
 the inner consciousness of both : above it their 
 voices kept up an exchange of obvious remarks. 
 " Have you seen Molly lately?" 
 •' I saw her yesterday — no, the day before." 
 " Did she give you any message for me ? " 
 " No particular message — she sent you her 
 love." 
 
 It seemed impossible to find the door into the 
 past. He began again. 
 
 "I suppose you are going abroad for music?" 
 " Yes, I am going to Dresden."
 
 190 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 " Are you going for long ? " 
 
 " Six months certainly, perhaps a year." 
 
 The future did not appear likely to bring them 
 nearer together. She seemed to be turning away 
 from his path, the path that was so alluring, so 
 clearly the path for him. 
 
 "Do you know Oxford? Have you been up 
 before?" 
 
 No, she had not, and she was sorry to have 
 only one more day : there seemed to be so much 
 to see. 
 
 A sense of strangeness fell upon Percy while 
 she answered him. This was the lady whom he 
 had called "madonna"; he had thought of him- 
 self as her own, yet he did not even know 
 whether she had ever been in Oxford before. 
 He embarked with a desperate energy upon a de- 
 scription of the buildings and treasures of his 
 College : he determined to ask her hostess to 
 bring her to view them on the following day. 
 But when Mrs Heavitree returned she brought 
 with her the President, several other guests of 
 mature age, and the full glare of convention and 
 common-sense. When Percy took his leave he 
 could not frame an invitation, he could not 
 even press his lady's hand an instant longer than 
 formality required. He went away still remem- 
 bering Downton and the jessamine of the garden- 
 gate, still looking forward to another June : still 
 unaware that the flower was dead, simply for 
 lack of root.
 
 191 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 Percy was not mistaken when he imagined 
 himself to have undergone some curious process 
 of rejuvenation — of regeneration he might have 
 said — since the days of his power and responsi- 
 bihty at Downton. But the change was not 
 one to be regretted, nor was it due to any 
 sinister influence : it was simply a natural and 
 salutary reaction, preliminary to fresh growth, 
 a return to the growing age, nowhere more 
 necessary or more certain to be experienced 
 than in Oxford. For Oxford is always boyish, 
 always a playground strewn with disused statutes 
 and broken regulations. The undergraduate of 
 the thirteenth century, with his taste for faction- 
 fighting in the High, sallies from Logic Lane, 
 arrowshots at Carfax, sieges at St Peter-le-Bailey, 
 and generally for intermittent war against dons 
 within and town without, makes a striking 
 character in a printed book : a quaint extinct 
 animal from the old world of our imagining. 
 But the really striking thing about him is his 
 persistence. His name and date may be fossil- 
 ised in records : his vitality is not. In every gen- 
 eration he is reincarnate, and still enjoys the 
 perpetual contest with authority, the rebellion
 
 192 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 against obsolete ceremony ; still in wilder mo- 
 ments finds delight in mere clamour and 
 breakage, dances round bonfires among vener- 
 able buildings, or saves himself from trivial 
 fines by running desperately through a labyrinth 
 of midnight streets and passages. 
 
 To-night, when Percy's spirits were recovering 
 with a rebound from the depressing influences 
 of Mrs Heavitree's drawing-room, this mediaeval 
 devil found him with certain of his companions, 
 and entered into them with all the force of 
 demoniacal possession. They had been playing 
 cards in Marjori banks' rooms : the game had 
 lasted longer than they intended, and it was 
 now more than half-past nine — much too late, 
 as Marjoribanks said, to begin working, and 
 much too early to go to bed. Percy was walking 
 restlessly up and down the room, wishing he 
 had not missed his chance of getting out of 
 College before the gates were shut. Griffiths, a 
 big commoner with a passion for whist, was still 
 seated at the table, dealing imaginary hands, 
 which Thirlby, a still bigger commoner, persist- 
 ently spoiled at the critical moment by a well- 
 directed sofa-cushion or tobacco-pouch. 
 
 Griffiths was growing irritable. " Confound you, 
 you red-headed punt-pole," he said at last, " I wish 
 you'd go and rag some one as silly as yourself." 
 
 At that moment the flat familiar clang of the 
 chapel bell was heard, calling attention to the 
 daily ten o'clock service. The monotonous tone 
 had an unfortunate effect on the nerves of those 
 who heard it — it was so obviously futile and 
 despairing.
 
 THE TWYMANS. 193 
 
 " Hang that beastly bell," remarked Thirlby ; 
 "what's the use of it? — no one ever goes." 
 
 " That's all you know," replied Percy. " There's 
 always a scholar there to read ^the lessons — it 
 was my turn last night." 
 
 " Thank the Lord I'm a commoner, then," said 
 Thirlby ; " but I'll bet you had no congregation." 
 
 "There was the chaplain," said Percy, "and 
 the under-porter, and me, and that fellow Gould 
 — the quiet dark man." 
 
 "By Jove!" exclaimed Marjoribanks. "Was 
 Gould there ? He was there when I read too." 
 
 Griffiths looked up as he shuffled his cards. 
 " Gould goes every night," he remarked malici- 
 ously, as if conscious that he was throwing 
 something more annoying than cushions. 
 
 Marjoribanks knit his black brows. " Every 
 night ! " he said. " And what the devil does he 
 do that for?" 
 
 Griffiths smiled broadly. " To make a quorum," 
 he replied. " Scholars and under-porters don't 
 count, you know." 
 
 "Do you mean to say " 
 
 "That's it: when two or three are gathered 
 together, you wretched hirelings have to read to 
 them ; when there aren't, you don't." 
 
 " Confound the fellow ! " said Marjoribanks, 
 " and I had to como all the way back from Keble, 
 — if only I had known I'd have settled with 
 Master Gould beforehand." 
 
 "Oh, no, you wouldn't," laughed Griffiths; "the 
 fourth-year men have tried that game already. 
 Gould told them solemnly that he considered it 
 his duty to support the institutions of the College. 
 
 N
 
 194 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 He couldn't row in the boats, he said, but he could 
 keep the chapel going." 
 
 " Oh, could he ? " said Marjoribanks with grim 
 humour. "We'll see about that: I bet he doesn't 
 do it to-night. Look here, you fellows, let's go 
 over and talk to him." 
 
 " Talking's no good — we must screw him up." 
 
 Marjoribanks was a man of practical gifts : he 
 opened a cupboard, and there lay hammers, nails, 
 gimlets, screws, and screw-drivers ready to hand, 
 " We've just time," he said, as he took them 
 out : and the four conspirators rushed across 
 the quadrangle. 
 
 To Percy, as he ran madly with the rest, the 
 enterprise seemed suddenly to be a supreme 
 crisis, full of romance and glory. He could not 
 have found you a reason for this, either then, 
 in the heat of the moment, or a week afterwards 
 upon cooler reflection : it was simply a quick 
 ferment of youth, an intoxicant stronger than 
 any wine of grapes. He plunged from the echo- 
 ing staircase into the shadow^y silence of the 
 quadrangle as a Polynesian diver plunges, shout- 
 ing with delight, into a still, dark pool below 
 the rocks, desiring nothing but to fling himself 
 out of the whole visible and reasonable world 
 for the sake of one whirling, blinding crash into 
 an element in which he could not live or breathe 
 beyond the ecstatic instant. 
 
 The first rush over, there was a check. Gould's 
 nameplate stared at them in neat black and 
 white, but entrance was impossible : the thick 
 outer door was shut. This was not Gould's first 
 experience.
 
 THE TWYMANS. 195 
 
 " Ugh ! sported his oak ! " said Marjoribanks. 
 "Well, that won't do him much good. If we 
 can't get in, he can't get out." 
 
 " Hi there ! Gould ! " shouted Thirlby, hammer- 
 ing on the door. " Let us in ; we've come to call 
 on you." 
 
 " Thank you," replied a muffled voice front 
 within, " but would you mind coming some other 
 time ? — I'm just going to chapel." 
 
 " There won't be any chapel to-night." 
 
 •' Who says so ? " 
 
 "I do." 
 
 " Then what is the bell ringing for ? " 
 
 " It isn't," replied Marjoribanks : and in fact 
 the bell had that moment stopped. 
 
 Absolute silence followed. Then Marjoribanks 
 delivered an ultimatum. 
 
 " Look here," he shouted through the oak, 
 " you're ~ too late for chapel now : if you'll 
 let us in we'll explain : if you don't, we'll screw 
 you up." 
 
 But there was no answer, nor any sign of 
 life. 
 
 " Obstinate brute ! " said the four, and two of 
 them screwed screws into the edge of the door 
 while the other two beat a devil's tattoo upon it 
 with hammers. Then they went down into the 
 quadrangle, placed themselves under Gould's 
 window, and sang " We won't go home till 
 morning," with a coda of wild screeches and 
 tally-hoes. 
 
 After this they drifted back to Marjoribanks' 
 rooms. Before they had been there five minutes 
 a knock was heard at the door. It opened, and
 
 196 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 on the threshold, in cap and gown, stood the 
 sober and courteous figure of Gould. 
 
 " May I borrow your screw-driver ? " he asked. 
 
 The quiet naturalness of the tone stunned 
 Percy. He looked at Marjoribanks, whom nothing, 
 surely, could stun. But even Marjoribanks was 
 staring now as if he saw an impossibility per- 
 sonified. 
 
 "Where the blazes have you come from?" he 
 asked presently. 
 
 "I've been to evening service, and I want to 
 get back to my rooms." 
 
 " You may have the screw - driver," said 
 Marjoribanks, " when you tell us how you got 
 out." 
 
 Gould put out his hand for the tool. " You 
 can't blockade the staircases on that side," he 
 said simply ; " their coal-cupboards are all con- 
 nected. Thank you." He left the room as if 
 nothing had happened. 
 
 While he was going downstairs, Thirlby 
 rushed for a water-jug and carried it to the 
 open window. The instant Gould's cap appeared 
 in the doorway below, as though peeping out to 
 reconnoitre, the water w^as discharged. But 
 Gould w^alked out untouched, replacing his cap 
 on his head. 
 
 " Done ! by Jingo ! " shouted Thirlby, and with 
 one impulse the four hurled themselves down- 
 stairs in pursuit. Gould took the nearest stair- 
 case, vanished behind a friend's oak, and was 
 immediately visible at his own window, looking 
 down placidly on his discomfited pursuers. 
 
 By this time the whole neighbouring population
 
 THE TWYMANS. 197 
 
 was aroused, and the quadrangle began to re- 
 sound with laughter and remonstrances. The 
 party of disorder was joined by a dozen other 
 lusty spirits into whom the demon entered in 
 like manner. Some one threw down a football, 
 and a mad fantastic game began, a game played 
 on hard gravel, in the dark, without rules, and 
 with only one principle, — that every one was 
 against the man with the ball. Percy found 
 himself dribbling, kicking, charging, collaring, 
 with extraordinary success : running swiftly like 
 a shadow among shadows, for it was a cloudy 
 night and no faces were distinguishable, nor did 
 shocks or bruises seem for the moment to produce 
 their usual effect of pain. The feeling of exulta- 
 tion rose to a climax : a dozen victories were 
 compressed into one — Percy seemed to have 
 spent the whole evening in a brilliant and 
 sustained forlorn hope. 
 
 Losing the ball for a time, he paused for 
 breath near the entrance of his own staircase. 
 There, in the shadow of the doorway, unobserved 
 but observing, stood Mr Smallman, the Dean, a 
 philosopher whom Percy had learned already to 
 respect. " What are you all celebrating to-night, 
 Twyman ? " he asked quietly, without leaving his 
 shadowy ambush. 
 
 Percy could not find the answer: he had seen 
 it clearly all evening, brilliantly but two minutes 
 since ; now it was irrecoverable as burnt - out 
 fireworks. 
 
 " Never mind," continued the Dean ; " at what 
 hour are perambulators ordered ? " 
 
 He stepped out, and at the mere rumour of
 
 198 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 his coming the gentleman from the thirteenth 
 century vanished. The bodies from which he 
 was cast out were, as is usual in such cases, 
 rent and dishevelled : Percy's ached heavily 
 as he climbed the Founder's Tower and went 
 to bed.
 
 199 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 For Percy, as for other dwellers in the En- 
 chanted City, the sense of Time, as we know 
 it in the outer world, practically did not exist. 
 The Seasons, it is true, flitted round him in 
 their accustomed circle, and a very gay dance 
 they made of it, with the help of the nine 
 Muses, the seven-and-seventy Spirits of Delight, 
 Pan and the River Nymphs, Thyrsis and the 
 Dryads : among them too the iridescent wings 
 of Cupid flashed continually in and out. The 
 whirl was unresting, but it never seemed to 
 move : it changed without advancing. As it 
 was last year, so was life to-day, so it would 
 be the next year and the next, as full of mad 
 pursuit and wild ecstasy as the men and 
 maidens on the Grecian Urn, as fixed too in 
 its unfading beauty, the audible and visible 
 beauty of the little town by the river, the 
 forest branches, the songs for ever new, the 
 loves that are always winning near the goal, 
 but always unfulfilled, — the beauty of the 
 marble that has no thought for the day when 
 it will wake and pass beyond into the world 
 of attainment and mortality. 
 
 Percy, then, and his friends saw nothing of
 
 200 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 Father Time ; but with his daughters they 
 danced merrily enough, one after another, 
 round and round the magic circle. Soon May, 
 for the second time, was calling them, with 
 blowing of horns through sleepy streets, with 
 singing of psalms on high towers at sunrise, 
 with early wanderings in "the forest ground 
 called Thessaly." One more week and the fes- 
 tival of the Eights was here again. 
 
 At this the town filled suddenly with fresh 
 life and unfamiliar beauties : you saw them 
 everywhere — bright faces, bright frocks, bright 
 parasols, glowing patches of colour, turning old 
 grey streets to the semblance of garden borders 
 newly blossomed ; or crossing and recrossing 
 before the set background of cloisters and 
 quadrangles like the light-footed groups which 
 pass over the stage when the curtain rises and 
 the play is just beginning, but hardly even yet 
 begun. 
 
 Among them, Percy knew, was to be Althea 
 Donnelly, the sister of whom his friend so 
 often spoke, the cousin of his own silent imag- 
 inings, — she who had named him " the Twyman 
 of the Future " : but she was not among the 
 earlier comers. On the first three days of the 
 races Percy and Edward ran with their respec- 
 tive boats, and afterwards assisted at the tea- 
 parties of various friends. The knowledge that 
 something more interesting was in store for 
 them, gave a feeling of suspense to their plea- 
 sure which heightened it, and, for Percy at any 
 rate, added to it that touch of significance 
 which marks the difference between great occa-
 
 THE TWYMANS. 201 
 
 sions and lesser ones. It may perhaps seem 
 unnecessary to suspect youth, which has so 
 many absurdities to answer for, of the supreme 
 absurdity of falling in love by anticipation. 
 But there is evidence that even well-built and 
 lasting strongholds of affection have been 
 founded before dawn : others, if not begun 
 entirely in the dark, have certainly been reared 
 very quickly upon ground strangely well pre- 
 pared to receive them. If Percy had not been 
 busy with some such unauthorised planning, he 
 would hardly have felt the sense of unanswered 
 expectation which made the long - looked - for 
 meeting, when it came, seem almost like a dis- 
 illusionment. For, judged by all that could be 
 said of it in words, that Monday was a day of 
 days. True, it was blurred from beginning to 
 end by the continual mist of confusion in Percy's 
 mind, yet that mist was itself fascinating as well 
 as dazzling, full of changing colour as an opal: 
 and the details which it obscured at the time 
 long afterwards reappeared in memory with 
 minutest clearness. Percy, when he thought of 
 it, was again back in the bright world-without- 
 end twenties, again contentedly lounging upon 
 Edward's comfortable window-seat and looking 
 out upon that massive remnant of the ancient 
 city wall which divides the new buildings of 
 New College from the older portion of the 
 College. Again he saw the heavy round towers 
 as they slumbered in sun and shadow ; the 
 smooth turf below them was pied with fresh 
 spring daisies ; rooks cawed lazily ; the sky 
 was of tender unflecked blue. Opposite to him,
 
 202 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 like a doorway from the past, was the narrow 
 arch which pierces the old wall, and leads from 
 the inner quadrangle to the outer court : upon 
 this his eyes were fixed in an expectation that 
 was dreamy rather than intense. 
 
 Presently from this doorway the expected 
 group emerged : he could always see them 
 more clearly and solidly than one ever sees the 
 hurrying phantoms of the moment that is with 
 us. First came Edward with a short, stout 
 lady — how the bugles on her black silk flashed 
 in the sun! — then two more short ladies, very 
 young, dark and pretty, dressed exactly alike, 
 and sharing one proud undergraduate between 
 them : lastly their brother, and with him beyond 
 doubt the real Althea — not, after all, much like 
 the image Percy had made for himself. That 
 image vanished for ever as he saw her, but it 
 fled with a kind of remonstrance — an indignant 
 protest, as it were, against the discrepancy — 
 that remained in his mind to trouble it. How 
 came she to look so much older and more 
 experienced than his own sister ? They were 
 both, he knew, upon the upward slope towards 
 eighteen, with only a few months between 
 them : why, then, should one be the child he 
 could command at will, and the other a woman 
 grown, elegant and self-possessed? With what 
 a leisurely air she stopped and turned to admire 
 the feudal aspect of the old wall ! It is true 
 that the whole group had also turned, and 
 lingered for exactly the same space of time ; 
 but Percy did not observe this, for in his eyes
 
 THE TWYMANS. 203 
 
 she was already the sole cause of the party 
 and all its actions. 
 
 When at last they met, a new discrepancy 
 faced him. He had been told that Althea was 
 much like her brother : and certainly she had 
 Edward's upright carriage of the head, and the 
 soft auburn of his hair ; her grey eyes were as 
 quiet and unflinching as his, her voice in the 
 same rich tones spoke of the same unfailing 
 vitality. But the differences ! the slender spring- 
 ing of the figure, so essentially unmasculine, so 
 like a flower-stem drawn by the hand of Diirer : 
 the delicate modelling of cheek and chin, the 
 shell -like perfection of the ear and the living 
 curve of the hair above it ; beyond all, that 
 peculiar grace of the head in listening, with 
 brows averted and downward, grave eyes look- 
 ing up from under them, and the generosity of 
 the lips narrow^ed for the moment to a whim- 
 sical point of doubt — everywhere finish, com- 
 pleteness, individuality, a whole new world to 
 be discovered at peril, instead of the half- 
 familiar landscape he had thought to see. To 
 the adventurous what could be more desirable? 
 yet to Percy it was at first like finding himself 
 in a land of exile : he was as much lost as the 
 hero of his favourite old romance, who comes 
 back after three daj'^s' absence to his own home, 
 and finds it with the changes of three centuries 
 upon it, barely to be recognised at all. 
 
 But now they must be moving towards the 
 scene of the races, whither, as it soon appeared, 
 the rest of the world had gone some time before
 
 204 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 them. The streets through which they passed 
 were empty : empty too the avenues in Christ 
 Church Meadows ; but a faint confused roar 
 came up the Long Walk to meet them, and 
 died away with sharp pistol - shots like the 
 cracking of whips. The lower division races 
 were over : no matter, their own boats were 
 both in the First Division, and for that part of 
 the contest they were exactly in the nick of 
 time. Here was the river at last, a sheet 
 of dancing gold wherever it could be seen ; at 
 present it was only visible between the College 
 barges, which lay in a seemingly endless line 
 close under the near bank. Strange amphibious 
 structures they looked to the visitors, half ship, 
 half pavilion, or as the more critical wits ob- 
 served, something between a canal-boat and an 
 omnibus. Each was distinguished by its own 
 colours, its own heraldry, its own flag at the 
 masthead : on one a band was playing, on the 
 roof or upjper deck of all the brilliant crowd of 
 frocks and parasols were gathered in bunches. 
 
 The New College barge was soon reached, the 
 ladder was climbed, and the whole scene lay 
 open to the view. Down the shining waterway 
 boat after boat was disappearing towards the 
 starting - point, their eight oars moving with 
 the live precision of an insect's legs — for these 
 were all good boats, the fittest survivors of the 
 past. There goes the Pelican, there goes New ; 
 there goes the Head of the River — last of all, 
 you see, because these are bumping races and 
 she starts nearest to the winning-post. Look 
 now at the opposite bank — the towing-path is
 
 THE TWYMANS. 205 
 
 dense with a very different crowd from ours — 
 one which provides occasion for much astonish- 
 ment and mirth. Strolling, hurrying, endless, 
 it passes along down-stream like the march of 
 a Rabelaisian army, or the chorus of a Greek 
 Pantomime : a procession of athletic bare-legged 
 figures, dressed, so far as they are dressed at 
 all, in garments of grotesque proportions and 
 phantasmagoric colours. Now they too are 
 gone, the bend of the river hiding the mass of 
 them, as it also hides the line of boats that lie 
 waiting for the signal. Then suddenly the deep 
 boom of a gun startles the spectators — they 
 press towaids the outer thwarts of their various 
 barges, giving them a decided list to port. The 
 men take out their watches. "No hurry: there's 
 a minute yet. There'll be two guns when they 
 start." "Why two?" "One might miss fire," 
 says Percy, still looking at his watch and 
 Althea's face alternately, as if to claim a cer- 
 tain fellowship in the excitement. Yet they 
 are enemies, for his own boat is next behind 
 that of New, and likely to bump it. "Twenty 
 seconds more" — the same words are being called 
 out all down the line on both banks. "Ten 
 seconds more," and they begin to count each 
 
 second. "Five, four, three, two " The last 
 
 word is cut oif by the double boom of the guns, 
 and close upon that follows a strange noise, like 
 the discordant clamour of a moving flock of 
 gulls. Nearer and nearer it comes, and changes 
 suddenly to a louder note as the head boat is 
 seen emerging from the Gut and crossing into 
 full view. Keeping pace with it upon the bank
 
 206 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 the Rabelaisian rout reappears, more Rabelaisian 
 now than before, bareheaded, brazen - lunged, 
 running recklessly, with half - turned heads, 
 elbows working, hands grasping bells, rattles, 
 and pistols, ready to give the signal for supreme 
 effort. In the midst of clanging, rattling, and 
 frenzied yells a bump is made : the defeated 
 coxswain holds up his hand, the two boats, 
 conqueror and conquered, fall out of the line, 
 and the remainder of the race goes past them. 
 The leading boats are now abreast of the 
 barges, with the winning - post in sight : the 
 first of them reaches it unbumped, and is once 
 more, for to-night at least. Head of the River. 
 A few places behind come New College, fated 
 apparently to fall within sight of their own 
 barge. Percy, seeing his own boat spurt for 
 the bump, for one tense moment forgets every- 
 thing but the coming triumph. 
 
 "What is happening?" asked Althea, as he 
 bent eagerly forward. "Will they catch us?" 
 
 The boats were already overlapping : only 
 the wash of the rudder was saving New for a 
 second or two more. Then a faint crash, and 
 confusion among the pursuers : they rallied 
 stoutly, but an oar had broken, and they ended 
 by struggling past the line their full distance 
 behind. The barge, as one corporate whole, 
 drew a long breath : on the towing-path exactly 
 opposite their friends waved and yelled un- 
 tiringly. 
 
 Percy and Althea looked at one another : each 
 was seeking something, and neither of them 
 found it. How should they ? The situation was
 
 THE TWYMANS. 207 
 
 sudden and complicated : and they had known 
 one another for less than two hours. 
 
 "Is that all right?" she asked. "Is that 
 fair ? " She was inwardly rather troubled, almost 
 frightened : but he thought her strangely cool. 
 
 " Oh ! yes, it's right enough : the fortune of 
 war." He meant to spare her, by a lofty affec- 
 tation of indifference : but she took the tone to 
 imply suppressed indignation, perhaps even re- 
 sentment. Her head drooped, her lips drew to a 
 point, and she looked up at him with her pretty 
 little stolen glance of puzzled humour. He caught 
 it, and his magnanimity drew itself up an inch 
 higher. 
 
 "You have nothing to regret," he said; "that 
 kind of accident often happens : ask Edward." 
 
 " Old man," said Edward with his usual gusto, 
 " we don't care whether we have anything to 
 regret or not ; you tried to bump us and you 
 didn't do it : regret is not a business proposition." 
 Everybody laughed, but neither to Percy nor to 
 Althea did the laughter bring any satisfaction. 
 They had discovered that they were strangers, 
 and they both regretted that.
 
 208 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 Two days later the races ended : but Old Mayday 
 is not a time when any one would wish to leave 
 Oxford who could conveniently stay there, and 
 many of the visitors lingered on. Althea's friends 
 were departing, but she herself accepted an in- 
 vitation from the wife of Edward's tutor, who 
 had a pleasant house beyond the Parks. The 
 general gaiety continued. A dance in the Masonic 
 Hall was improvised : there were daily expeditions 
 by river to Nuneham, to Godstow, to Water 
 Eaton : the comedy of Love's Labour's Lost was 
 played once more in every college garden, between 
 irresistible young ladies who might have forced 
 any blockade, and irresolute young gentlemen 
 who proved, like Biron, how well read they were, 
 by finding plenty of reasons against reading. 
 
 At this appropriate moment a meeting of the 
 Browning Society fell due. Edward and Percy 
 were members : Althea could be introduced by 
 her hostess as a guest. The proceedings were 
 announced to consist chiefly of a paper by Mr 
 Hedgeley on the Love Poems of Robert Browning : 
 they began, however, with a kind of evening 
 tea-party in the Hall of one of the smaller 
 Colleges, whose master, a great scholar with
 
 THE TWYMANS. 209 
 
 a literary wife, was chairman and entertainer 
 for the occasion. The Society was unique among 
 Oxford institutions : one - third of the members 
 were dons, one - third ladies, one - third under- 
 graduates : to-night most of them were present, 
 and the addition of a fourth contingent of visitors 
 made the gathering unusually large and animated. 
 
 "Who is this Mr Hedgeley?" Althea asked 
 Percy as she sipped the tea which he had hastened 
 to offer her. 
 
 " The Hedger ? " he replied. " He was my Mods, 
 tutor — the best in Oxford. It is a splendid piece 
 of luck that he should be reading when you are 
 here — there's no one near him for things of this 
 sort." 
 
 " There's no one near him for things of several 
 sorts," remarked Edward, who was standing by. 
 " He's the only man here to-night who's not in 
 evening dress," 
 
 Althea marked Mr Hedgeley at once : a hand- 
 some man with a fine forehead, and a blush-rose 
 complexion which combined rather oddly with 
 his flowing beard of silver. He seemed to be 
 amusing those who stood near him with a series 
 of delicately dramatic stories. 
 
 "What a nice quick way he has," she said, — 
 " that way of laughing heartily and getting it 
 over and going on again. Yes, I think there is 
 something different about him." 
 
 Percy's criticism was generally light enough, 
 but he was always serious when he praised a 
 friend. "I assure yovi," he said gravely, "that 
 he is the man in all Oxford who has made the 
 most difference to me." 
 
 o
 
 210 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 " My child," said Edward to his sister, " that's 
 a testimonial you needn't swallow — there's not 
 enough bread behind the butter. The dismal fact 
 is that our young friend is a rank Tennysonian, 
 and the Hedger hasn't been able to convert him 
 to Browningism in two long years." 
 
 " Perhaps he may succeed better to-night," she 
 replied. 
 
 "The paper was written, I understand, with 
 that object, and when Mr Hedgeley sits down 
 Mr Twyman will be called on to reply." 
 
 Percy could not help laughing, but he was hit : 
 there was a certain amount of truth in his friend's 
 accusation. The language of the Lotus Eaters 
 and the windless valley of Avilion was still the 
 language that he understood best : he contrasted 
 it with that, say, of Flemish troopers riding 
 noisily from Ghent to Aix. 
 
 But now a door was thrown open, and the 
 whole company was conducted from the hall 
 into a large withdra wing-room, where groups of 
 chairs and well-shaded lamps had been arranged. 
 Every one sat down, and the reader of the evening 
 was called upon. 
 
 Mr Hedgeley was already on his feet, though no 
 one had seen him rise. He stood at one end of 
 the room, in the open, without a desk, without 
 a pose of any kind, holding his paper out before 
 him with one hand only, tilting his head a little 
 back and casting his eyes down so as to show 
 the eyelids almost closed. This effect, combined 
 with the flowing silver of his beard, gave him a 
 resemblance to a bust of Homer, which struck 
 Althea at once. She noted, too, that the un-
 
 THE TWYMANS. 211 
 
 conventional attitude was one which could hardly 
 be imagined in a dress-coated figure. Finally, 
 when he began to read she was attracted by his 
 singularly quiet and pleasant voice. 
 
 From the first moment the whole audience was 
 silent and attentive : they sat spellbound all 
 through the shadowy room. The paper was 
 grave in tone, grave even when it was humorous : 
 it flowed on from one point to another with as 
 little apparent art as an essay by Montaigne, 
 and much of the time was taken up by the 
 reading aloud of considerable passages, and even 
 of whole poems. To the hearers these were 
 probably all familiar, but familiar only in the 
 dumb show of print : to-night they took on 
 from the beauty of the reader's tones and the 
 subtlety of his interpretation all that wealth of 
 meaning and reality which the living voice confers 
 even upon its least memorable utterances. At 
 every pause, low murmurs of admiration and 
 assent came from the obscure corners of the 
 room : the Society was responding like an in- 
 strument to the hand of a skilled player. 
 
 Percy overheard Althea replying to a glance 
 from her brother. " Joachim," she whispered. 
 
 Edward afiirmed her judgment in less cautious 
 tones. "The old man's dead on the note every 
 time," he said ; " ev-er-y time." 
 
 The paper was not a long one : at the end of 
 forty minutes it ceased as quietly as it had begun, 
 without a word of summing-up or anything like 
 a peroration. The audience, after following as 
 happily as the children of Hamelin behind the 
 Pied Piper, felt a sudden sense of loss — the music
 
 212 THE TWYMANS, 
 
 had stopped, and they were bewildered to find 
 that they had been led so far. There was a 
 certain strain about the pause which followed. 
 
 At a slight stir every one looked up : another 
 speaker had risen, a tall, dark man with rugged 
 features, whose contours were etched by the 
 shaded light in strong contrasts of pallor and 
 blackness. As he stood silent for a moment, 
 grasping the back of a chair with nervous in- 
 tensity, Althea turned to Percy with a question. 
 But he was already leaning towards her. 
 
 "Arthur Turnbull," he murmured; "he's a 
 Balliol don." 
 
 A lady sitting at Mr TurnbuU's side was seen 
 to look up at him as he stood hesitating. He 
 saw, and began to speak at once with perfect 
 confidence. 
 
 " The paper to which we have been listening 
 has exceeded even our hopes. I do not presume 
 to praise. I am unable to criticise. I desire to 
 express my gratitude for it, and especially for 
 the generosity with which the w^riter has given 
 us of himself. It is but rarely that for a convito 
 like this, a host can be found who will draw for 
 his guests the wine of price, the wine from the 
 inner chamber. My own store is of no such 
 value, but I am moved to set it forth : I feel 
 that the example is binding upon me." 
 
 He looked down at his companion. Percy, 
 with a hot and almost shamed feeling of tension, 
 glanced sideways at Althea's face ; but it showed 
 nothing more than sympathetic interest. 
 
 " The point," continued Mr Turnbull, " upon 
 which I have to speak is one upon which Mr
 
 THE TWYMANS. 213 
 
 Hedgeley touched but lightly : he put aside the 
 historical question, the inquiry into the origins 
 of Browning's ideas on love. I would go further. 
 I would venture to say that it matters little to 
 us where he got them, since we know where 
 alone we got them — we, the men and women of 
 to-day. I am speaking rashly perhaps : the 
 influence of Robert Browning is for me so 
 personal, so dramatic a force, that in thinking 
 of it my own experience becomes a universal. 
 I may w^ell be wrong, but I cannot believe that 
 I am wrong, in saying that he beyond all other 
 poets is the creator of our modern world. The 
 poets of the past have spoken much to me of 
 love. First, and mainly perhaps, of instinctive 
 love — that which Browning, too, acknowledges 
 as ' the obvious human bliss,' needed and sought 
 for 'To satisfy life's daily thirst With a thing 
 men seldom miss.' They have spoken also in 
 more reflective and more uplifted moods. To 
 some love is a dream ; to some it is a devotion. 
 I do not despise such conceptions, or the beauty 
 born of them. As long as we are men we shall 
 at times cherish the vision of ' a shadowy isle of 
 bliss Midmost the beating of that steely sea, 
 Where tossed about all hearts of men must be.' 
 As long as we are men, love will send youth on 
 quest and pilgrimage, for the sake of distant 
 or half -mythical Madonnas. I do not claim that 
 we have outgrown either of these notions of 
 love — the idyllic or the chivalric. But in the 
 mind and work of Browning I find a new, a 
 greater, form of love. It includes all the old 
 primitive colours and lights in one rainbow. It
 
 214 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 arches the whole landscape in which we make 
 our earthly journey. It reveals life as dynamic 
 instead of static, spiritual instead of sentimental. 
 " Nothing is omitted there. Instinctive love — 
 Browning forgets least of all poets, the body's 
 meaning and glory. He knows the moth's kiss 
 and the bee's kiss — the old measure of Women 
 and Roses. He knows too the love of great 
 moments, of brief eternal hours. But they are 
 not idyllic, for with him love is never an escape 
 from life. It is always a part of life, the chief 
 part of it, that part to which all else, in our own 
 experience or the history of mankind, is but an 
 approach, a climbing of steps. It is Earth's 
 returns 
 
 " ' For whole centuries of folly, noise, and sin ! 
 )Shut them in 
 With their triumphs and their glories and the rest ! 
 Love is best.' 
 
 " It is something more than best : — 
 
 " ' Ages past the soul existed. 
 
 Here an age 'tis resting merely. 
 And hence fleets again for ages, 
 
 While the true end, sole and single, 
 It stops here for is, this love-way 
 
 With some other soul to mingle.' 
 
 " But if we believe that life is love and nothing 
 else to speak of, what then must we say of love ? 
 Love surely cannot be anything less than life, the 
 whole of life, and the highest to which life can 
 reach. Instinctive it may be, and idyllic too and 
 chivalric, but it must go beyond all these and
 
 THE TWYMANS. 215 
 
 take into itself every possible communion of man 
 and woman. It must be an intimate personal 
 alliance for all the ends of being. 
 
 (( ( 
 
 Oh ! I must feel your brain prompt mine, 
 Your heart anticipate my heart : 
 
 You must be just before, in fine. 
 
 See, and make me see, for your part, 
 
 New depths of the divine.' "
 
 216 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 The night was not late when the meeting broke 
 up, but to Althea, as she walked homewards with 
 Percy, the town seemed curiously silent and de- 
 serted. The Broad, as they turned into it, was 
 empty of all sign of life, except the barely recog- 
 nisable figures of Edward and his companion, 
 moving at some distance in advance of them. 
 The heavy front of Balliol, the picturesque houses 
 by the gate of Trinity, the sombre mass of the 
 old Clarendon building, seemed in the light of 
 stars and gas-lamps to be remote from humanity 
 as the architecture of some huge black engrav- 
 ing. 
 
 Percy, too, was reluctant to speak. In old 
 days he had thought a walk by starlight the 
 most perfect of all enjoyments : but that was 
 when the spell of music had for the time thrown 
 both him and his companion into one dream- 
 ing mood. Much as he desired to like Althea, 
 he was uncomfortably wide awake to the fact 
 that her mood, or at any rate her habitual way 
 of thinking, did not entirely agree with his own. 
 He had not yet recognised the truth, which after- 
 wards seemed to him so obvious, that the first 
 meeting with a personality or an idea which is
 
 THE TWYMANS. 217 
 
 destined to work a vital change in us, can seldom 
 be free from all sense of disturbance. It is only 
 when very old and familiar inmates enter our 
 consciousness that we are spared the trouble of 
 rising from our mental easy-chairs. 
 
 They turned the corner of the street and 
 passed towards the elm-walk which leads in the 
 direction of the Parks. Under these deep 
 shadows conversation seemed more possible to 
 both of them. 
 
 " Are all your meetings like that ? " Althea 
 asked. 
 
 " Not at all," he replied. " I have never heard so 
 good a paper there before, and TurnbuU's speech 
 was extraordinary, don't you think ? " 
 
 " In what way extraordinary ? " 
 
 "Well, you wouldn't expect a man to speak 
 quite like that before strangers, would you ? " 
 
 " I don't know "what is usual in such societies 
 . . ." — she hesitated a moment — " but if a man is 
 going to speak about that subject, I think that 
 is rather what I should have expected him 
 to say." 
 
 " Oh, I'm not criticising what he said ? " 
 
 " But wasn't the manner good too ? " 
 
 " Yes, the manner was all right, but . . . the 
 whole thing seemed to me so excessively personal, 
 with his wife sitting there too, — it was a kind 
 of making private things public, I thought : rather 
 what we call ' an exhibition.' " 
 
 " Still, you do discuss things very openly in 
 Oxford, don't you ? — you told me you approved of 
 that." 
 
 " Oh, among ourselves, of course, we are abso-
 
 218 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 lutely open." His thoughts went back to certain 
 meetings of the Flamingo Essay Club, a College 
 society, the " cardinal rule " of which was that 
 " acceptance of the principle of full and free dis- 
 cussion on any subject is indispensable to mem- 
 bership." Perhaps Althea had heard of some- 
 thing of the kind : at any rate she pressed her 
 inquiry. 
 
 " I don't quite understand," she said. " Weren't 
 you among yourselves to-night ? " 
 
 " No, not at all — you see the Browning Society 
 is unlike any other : it admits ladies." 
 
 " But you praised it to me for that very differ- 
 ence." 
 
 " Certainly, it is delightful : but it does make 
 it more difficult to talk of certain things." 
 " Poetry, you mean ? " 
 " Well — Browning's poetry." 
 
 She laughed. " Then the Browning Society is 
 just the one in all Oxford which is least fitted to 
 discuss Browning's poems ! " 
 
 Her frank merriment carried him along w^ith 
 it. "You are like Socrates," he retorted. "You 
 make me appear to be standing on my head, but 
 all the time there really is something to be said 
 for my point of view." 
 " Of course there is." 
 
 He suspected her now of sarcasm, and was 
 driven to reassertion. "You do agree," he asked, 
 " that there is a difference between Browning's 
 poetry and most other kinds ? " 
 "Tennyson's for instance?" 
 
 Again he suspected an ironical intention, and 
 fought against it. " I'm not afraid of being called
 
 THE TWYMANS. 219 
 
 a Tennysonian," he said, in the tone of one who 
 had often suffered under the accusation. " My 
 point is that you could always talk about 
 Tennyson's poems to any one, because he takes 
 you away into a world of his own ; but 
 Browning conies down into the real everyday 
 world and insists upon talking about that." 
 
 " Yes ? " 
 
 " Well, then, if you discuss Browning you have 
 to speak of real feelings. I mean feelings which 
 are your own and not the poet's — at least, not 
 the poet's only. That is what I should find em- 
 barrassing." 
 
 She seemed to reflect a moment before the next 
 question. " Have you ever read papers to any of 
 your Societies ? " 
 
 " Yes, but always on poets like Tennyson or 
 William Morris." 
 
 " What Mr Turnbull would call the idyllic, not 
 the rainbow sort." 
 
 " I don't call them idyllic : I should say that 
 their poems are dreams and Browning's dramas." 
 
 "And don't you agree that there's more life in 
 a drama than a dream ? " 
 
 " Not necessarily. I should say that life may 
 be a drama, but it must be a dream. In art you 
 can only represent life through your dream of it : 
 drama is a frantic attempt to get at it more 
 directly — to make it, and not its picture." 
 
 Their companions were now visible, waiting for 
 them by the garden gate. By a common impulse 
 they both lowered their tone a little for the final 
 exchange, and thereby gave it a more personal 
 turn.
 
 220 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 " Mr Turnbull," said Althea, " seemed to find 
 Browning's method satisfactory : is it not perhaps 
 a question of age ? " 
 
 " Perhaps — but then you agree with him, and 
 you are not older than I am." 
 
 " Well — but I have been through the idyllic 
 period — the age of dreams." 
 
 " And left it — outgrown it ? " 
 
 " No, but women naturally admire action most. 
 You remember the Lady of Shalott ? " 
 
 " I should think he did remember the Lady of 
 Shalott," remarked Edward as they came up. 
 " He is always remembering her. But w^hich one 
 do you mean ? — I have known three-and-twenty 
 Ladies of Shalott."
 
 221 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 Though Edward and Percival had been friends 
 for nearly two years, it was so far only in Oxford 
 that the round of their lives had intersected. A 
 home visit on one side or the other had been 
 more than once proposed, but slight dislocations 
 had always prevented the completion of such 
 plans. The truth about these failures was per- 
 haps known only to Sir William : it is at least 
 possible that he may have been waiting for a 
 particular occasion. At any rate, when the de- 
 cisive invitation reached Percival it conveyed not 
 only Edward's wishes, but also a personal message 
 of welcome from his grandfather, which seemed 
 at once to give the engagement a fixed place in 
 the calendar. 
 
 The particular occasion was Edward's twenty- 
 first birthday — the coming of age of Sir William's 
 heir. Amelia, when she first heard of it, suffered 
 a shock : she could not conceal the indignant 
 prancing of her emotions, Molly was quick to 
 observe this, but she naturally mistook the cause. 
 
 " Dearest," she said, as her arm stole round her 
 mother's waist, " I wish you could be there too : 
 you ought to be there — it's a family celebration." 
 
 " That's impossible," Amelia replied. " I
 
 222 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 couldn't accept invitations from people I have 
 never seen." 
 
 Molly flashed a look at Percival : the half-com- 
 bative tone was easily recognisable as a mere 
 salve to disappointment. 
 
 " Well, mum," she said firmly, " they haven't 
 asked you yet, but if they do you'll have to go — 
 remember that ! " 
 
 Three days later the invitation came in Sir 
 William's own hand and style. 
 
 " Dear Mrs Twyman, — Although I have never 
 yet had the pleasure of meeting you, you will, I 
 am sure, forgive me for addressing you directly 
 upon a matter of interest to the family to which 
 we both belong. My grandson will shortly be 
 attaining his majority, and we are marking the 
 event by a gathering of relatives and by a small 
 entertainment to our tenants and workpeople. It 
 w^ould add much to our pleasure if we could have 
 the support on this occasion of the only other 
 living representatives of the name. Your son has 
 kindly consented to come to Hampton early in 
 August for a visit of some length, so that if you 
 ^vould give us the honour of your company from 
 the 16th to the 19th of that month, you would 
 find him already here to receive you, and my 
 sister and I trust that in these circumstances you 
 may be able to feel yourself at home among us. 
 
 " Believe me, with compliments to my young 
 kinsman, yours very faithfully, 
 
 " William Twyman." 
 
 " At home ! " Amelia's eyes sparkled — she 
 tossed her head at the words, " Ah ! " she said
 
 THE TWYMANS. 223 
 
 aloud, " fine phrases ! but I know what they mean 
 and what they don't mean." 
 
 To Molly, this exclamation was a lingering trace 
 of the indignation she had before interpreted 
 correctly ; but into Percy's mind a different 
 theory began to push its way. Somehow, at 
 some time or times unremembered, he had 
 gleaned from his mother's conversation a hand- 
 ful of stray hints that could just be twisted to- 
 gether into a meaning. 
 
 "You are wrong, Molly," he said when they 
 were alone. "Mother's feelings are never hurt 
 for more than two minutes, and they're always 
 soothed again by the least little attention. She 
 likes being asked to Hampton, and she'll come 
 right enough : what she is kicking at now is 
 the contrast betw^een my coming of age and 
 Edward's. He belongs really to another family 
 — he's not a Twyman at all — but he gets the 
 name and the property. I am the genuine 
 article and I get nothing. Of course, that's 
 all right, and it is absurd to mind it, but if 
 you once begin to worry over it as she does, 
 it does make rather a contrast, you know, 
 especially as my twenty-first birthday happens 
 to come only ten days before his." 
 
 So far, then, he saw what he had gathered ; 
 but he had no susjDicion of what the thing 
 would prove to be when his gleanings were 
 completed. Amelia had kept the secret with 
 very creditable tenacity, and was intending to 
 keep it for two years more, but there she was 
 over-estimating her own fortitude, as she pres- 
 ently discovered.
 
 224 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 The ninth of August was hot and cloudless. 
 On such a day even two hours of travelling 
 seemed long, and by half-past four Percy was 
 glad to escape from the train and mount the 
 high dog - cart which Edward had brought to 
 meet him. The drive from the station roused 
 him partially from the afternoon lethargy of 
 the railway journey, but his imagination was 
 still sluggish, and he had none of the feelings 
 appropriate to a first visit to the home of his 
 ancestors. Conversation was an effort : the 
 dusty road, bordered by dusty trees, seemed 
 monotonous and interminable. A turn down 
 a by-road brought them across two streams 
 and into a long avenue of white poplars, lofty, 
 cool, and refreshing : woods darkened it on 
 the right ; to the left lay water-meadows, deep 
 with rank green grass and fringed with willow- 
 copses. Again the road turned sharply and led 
 through the tiny village of Hampton St George, 
 a mere row of cottages comfortably spread in 
 gardens and lying back behind a stiff line of 
 Lombardy poplars. At the further end stood 
 a church with a quaint tower of old red brick : 
 beyond that the lane passed through an open
 
 THE TWYMANS. 225 
 
 gate with plain wooden posts, and became the 
 carriage road of the park: a hundred yards 
 more and the house came into the view. 
 
 At first sight of it Percy was a little dis- 
 appointed ; it was so small and unpretending, 
 so successful, as he afterwards discovered, in 
 hiding the bulk of itself under one wing. But 
 though it is three times as large and more than 
 three times as beautiful as he first thought it, 
 yet he was not altogether mistaken, for Hamp- 
 ton is far from being a great house. It was 
 built in days when baronets were not invented, 
 and when a manor-house was not bound to be 
 a palace, or even to imitate one. It is a house 
 of three storeys and of no great height : its 
 ground - plan is simple, and was originally 
 simpler still. The Elizabethan founder was 
 content with a long straight building, placed 
 end-on to the road, and separated from it by a 
 forecourt with a stone-flagged path and a pair 
 of wrought-iron gates. The walls were of the 
 chequer - work — stone and flint alternately — 
 which is common to many old Wiltshire houses ; 
 the windows were numerous, but small. The 
 founder's grandson, when he came back with 
 King Charles to enjoy his own again, rebuilt 
 the upper storeys in brick, enlarged the win- 
 dows, and added two w^ings, converting the 
 shape of the building from an I into something 
 like an E without the central member. The 
 lower wing, which faces south to the road, he 
 dignified with a facjade of solid stone. This 
 was handsomely done : the reveals of the 
 windows which pierce it are unusually deep, 
 
 P
 
 226 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 and in the centre of them, above the entrance, 
 is a characteristic round-headed niche which 
 seems to this day to be waiting for a statue to 
 occupy it, and gives a curiously personal touch 
 to the formal design. The parapet above is 
 now adorned with three stone urns in a later 
 and more florid style, but the side-lines of 
 the elevation fall away outwards and down- 
 wards in severely graceful curves, the beauty 
 of which is enhanced rather than obscured by 
 a light web of creepers — roses, wistaria, winter- 
 sweet, and trumpet-ash. Beneath and between 
 these you will admire the colour which glows 
 faintly upon the stonework — in shady hours 
 a kind of exquisitely minute rust, but in sun- 
 shine more like a delicate mist of many- 
 coloured bloom, breathed out from a surface 
 no longer hard or cold. 
 
 Some, at any rate, of these details Percy 
 marked, though vaguely and ineffectually : but 
 his more definite approval was gained by the 
 position of the house, which looks across a 
 level stretch of park to the wide slope of the 
 downs, but is itself closely embowered within 
 the forecourt, of exactly its own width, and 
 screened from the carriage - road by a lime 
 hedge and by the tracery of blue armorial 
 gates. The sight of the familiar shield, too, 
 added a little shock of pleasure, — the kind of 
 empty but undeniable pleasure that is caused 
 by reading one's own name in a not dishonour- 
 able list. 
 
 "Same old coat," remarked Edward, as he 
 saw him glancing up at it. He took Percy's
 
 THE TWYMANS. 227 
 
 arm, and they passed through the open gate 
 into the forecourt. The door of the house 
 was also wide open, and gave a cool shadowy 
 glimpse of the hall within. Before they could 
 reach it the dusk was crossed by a white 
 figure, and Althea appeared in the doorway. 
 
 She advanced a step or two to meet them : 
 her light hat and dress, her quiet voice and 
 cool hand-clasp, brought into the hot glare of 
 the August sun some of the tranquillity and 
 freshness of the dusk from which she came. 
 She seemed to be surrounded by an atmosphere 
 of inviolable peace, to be receiving the voyager, 
 as it were, in a deep, still bay, where he had 
 no choice but to strike his sails at once and 
 forget the bustle of the outside waters. He 
 obeyed without resistance or difficulty : the 
 fatigue of his journey left him at the first 
 word, and he ceased even to feel that slight 
 fret, that need of adaptation to a new environ- 
 ment, which commonly makes the moment of 
 arrival a discomfortable one. The whole place 
 took on a different aspect : it was still new 
 to him, but it was no longer alien. Though he 
 was seeing it for the first time, it was all 
 natural, all recognisable : he looked at it as one 
 re - reads a favourite book, with liking rather 
 than curiosity. 
 
 His friends credited him with the more 
 ordinary kind of interest, but they knew 
 better than to begin by over-feeding it. Still, 
 there was just ten minutes before the elders 
 would return, and tea was not quite ready. 
 Instead of taking their guest straight into the
 
 228 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 house they led him across the grass to a door 
 in the side- wall of the forecourt. As he stepped 
 through it after them he found himself in an 
 entirely new picture. On his right lay the 
 west side of the house — the whole length of 
 the original building, totally different in style 
 from the stone front which he had left a 
 moment before. The much greater extent of 
 this, its low proportions and long even line of 
 windows, as well as the simplicity of the 
 straight flower - border out of which it rose, 
 gave it a character that had something homely 
 and something monastic in it at the same time. 
 On the opposite side of the long smooth lawn 
 upon which it looked out lay another border, 
 with a blue wooden paling at the back of it, 
 over which the orchard trees and thatched 
 roofs of a home farm were visible. At the 
 near end the road was screened off by a high 
 old brick wall, thickly bushed with roses and 
 honeysuckle. The far end of the lawn was 
 framed with a low yew hedge, beyond which 
 a wilderness garden merged in the park, and 
 the park in a blue distance of woods and 
 water-meadows. 
 
 Percy in deeper and deeper contentment 
 paced the turf between his companions. At 
 the yew hedge they made him turn to see the 
 high line of the downs above the old wall, and 
 the quaint effect of the white Corinthian porch 
 which formed the garden entrance to the 
 drawing - room. From a nearer side - door tea 
 was now being carried out to a table, with
 
 THE TWYMANS. 229 
 
 deck - chairs and cushions scattered round it. 
 This slight touch of Hving comfort added a 
 sense of ease and ordered pleasure to Percy's 
 aesthetic satisfaction. 
 
 " There's just one thing more he ought to see," 
 said Edward. "Thea, you might take him to 
 the other side while I get some tobacco." 
 
 So Percy walked on with Althea, behind the 
 yew hedge and along the north wing of the 
 house, shady and windowless. Another door- 
 way in the blind wall led through to a second 
 surprise. The inner side of the house was a 
 courtyard still more homely and more monastic 
 — an open quadrangle, on the fourth side of 
 which lay an old square garden with high 
 thatched walls, green cross alleys bordered with 
 flowers and espaliers, and in the centre of all 
 a sundial on a pillar of grey stone. Apples 
 gleamed among the leaves, a south wall was 
 clustered with peaches, hollyhocks lifted their 
 faint beauty in a long still line against the 
 sky, bending slightly as if drowsed by the hum 
 of the bees who came and went in thousands 
 among their bells. 
 
 Althea led the way to a seat under the wall, 
 from which the dormer windows of the quad- 
 rangle were seen as a fitting background to 
 the green alley with its sundial. This, Percy 
 felt, was a scene of absolute and final peace : 
 all the possible repose and charm of a human 
 dwelling - place seemed to be here summed up 
 and made perpetual, — as if Time, having spent 
 slow incalculable years in ripening its perfec-
 
 230 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 tion, had himself fallen asleep under his own 
 spell, and become only a memory — only the 
 dream on which all other dreams are woven. 
 
 For us who are mortal, the beauty that 
 brings this peculiar charm brings pain too. 
 Percy was positively aching with it, and 
 searched hastily for some form of words to 
 assuage the ache. He found a quotation — for 
 quotations are the patent medicines of youth — 
 and applied it gently. "A haunt of ancient 
 peace." 
 
 Althea looked up at him with that little 
 sidelong look of hers — was it timid or mocking ? 
 
 " You are still a Tennysonian." 
 
 He found the challenge flattering — it implied 
 recollection and a mutual understanding. 
 
 "I wonder," he replied, smiling, "how you 
 can be combative in such a place : you must 
 admit that this, at any rate, is idyllic." 
 
 " Oh, no," she said, " it is states of mind that 
 are idyllic, not places. This looks quiet enough 
 now, but the most dramatic things may have 
 happened here — or be going to happen." 
 
 "The appearance of it is against you." 
 
 "Oh, but think of the appearance of a land- 
 scape on the morning of a battle — as quiet as 
 this, perhaps, but only like the curtain of a 
 theatre. If you could roll it up you would see 
 a whole tragedy behind it, waiting to be acted, 
 — a tragedy that can't be altered." 
 
 " Yes," he said, still struggling, " but a garden 
 isn't quite a landscape, — men don't fight or 
 die in gardens, do they ? " 
 
 "No, but hopes and fears may." Certainly
 
 THE TWYMANS. 231 
 
 she was timid now, afraid of pressing him too 
 hard. 
 
 He knew she had the best of the argument, 
 girl as she was, younger than himself and not 
 even one term deep in Oxford philosophy. He 
 did not like the situation, but he could not 
 shuffle out of it — the Crusader must be obeyed, 
 even on so trivial an occasion. 
 
 " I believe you are right," he said decidedly ; 
 "you have thought it out and I haven't." 
 
 Her heart beat fast with pleasure : she had 
 never liked him so well before. This he could 
 not know, but as they walked back the slight 
 embarrassment between them told him that a 
 new intimacy had stolen into their friendship.
 
 232 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 Percy was swinging very easily to his new 
 anchorage, and before the next evening he 
 might be said to have landed in this new 
 country, surveyed the general lie of it, and 
 made friends with its inhabitants. They, like 
 the house, began to gain a hold upon him 
 which he had not at first expected. Sir 
 William talked a good deal to him, and led 
 him on to talk still more in reply : Percy 
 found himself invited to discuss Edward's 
 affairs as though his own superiority in age 
 were of ten years rather than ten days. He 
 perceived that this appearance of a consulta- 
 tion might be only tactics on his host's part, 
 but he enjoyed it nevertheless. He further 
 flattered himself that he was getting on ex- 
 tremely well with old Miss Twyman — Edward's 
 deaf and purbKnd aunt. But there, too, he 
 was a little sanguine : in spite of her infirmi- 
 ties. Aunt Rose was a caustic lady with a 
 considerable power of resistance. 
 
 "I'm rather disappointed in your young 
 friend," she told Edward after the first twenty- 
 four hours of examination ; " he has a sort of 
 good looks, and his manners are well enough,
 
 THE TWYMANS. 233 
 
 but he is nothing out of the common. Lively, 
 I call him — not more than that." 
 
 "Sir appears to find him all right," Edward 
 bawled back at her. 
 
 "William is always silly about the family," 
 she replied; "he talks as if it was something 
 extraordinary to be a Twyman. I tell him we 
 are very decent people, but nothing particular, 
 — nothing at all." 
 
 Edward grinned and bowed. "Thank you, 
 Aunt!" 
 
 "What for?" asked the old lady. "You 
 aren't even a Twyman, — you're only plated 
 goods." 
 
 "My poor old relative," retorted Edward, "it 
 must be maddening for you that Thea's going 
 to be ' Miss Twyman ' now." 
 
 He linked his arm in hers and took her out 
 to see him play bowls with Percy, whom she 
 astounded by an unprovoked broadside. 
 
 "I've been telling Edward that you're nothing 
 extraordinary." 
 
 Percy murmured confusedly, and Edward pre- 
 tended to repeat his answer. 
 
 " He wishes he could say the same of you, 
 Aunt." 
 
 But the old lady knew her nephew too well : 
 she turned upon him at once, and made common 
 cause with his injured friend. 
 
 So even with Aunt Rose Percy was soon on 
 terms of domestic intimacy. In a few days 
 more the whole family had adopted him by 
 the simple ceremony of the Christian name, 
 and before the week was over they and their
 
 234 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 home seemed to be for him no longer among 
 the mere landmarks of life, but to have taken 
 their place as one of the constellations which 
 are always with the voyager. 
 
 Satisfactory as this change was, he was aware 
 that it was not really complete, or rather that 
 it was complete only from his individual point 
 of view. There still remained the vital ques- 
 tion of his own family and their relation to 
 this other house which seemed so ready to 
 adopt him. Natural pride assured him that his 
 mother would be welcomed too : but he was 
 equally sure that she would have her own way 
 of receiving the welcome, and of accepting it 
 only on her own terms.
 
 235 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 Sir William and his sister drove in to meet 
 Amelia in the barouche, that slow and stately 
 descendant of the family coach. She arrived 
 at tea - time, as Percy had done a week ago, 
 and it was a great pleasure for him — a plea- 
 sure, too, of a new kind — to welcome her to a 
 house where he was himself already established. 
 But other guests had arrived by this time, the 
 simmer of the coming festivity was beginning, 
 and in the general gay disorder he found it 
 impossible to get his mother quietly away and 
 alone for an exchange of confidences. Amelia 
 herself was perhaps the chief cause of this : she 
 was tremendously alive, enjoying herself to the 
 very height of the opportunity, eager to see 
 everything and talk to everybody, bright, alert, 
 critical, confident, prominent, even dominating. 
 Sir William professed his admiration openly, in 
 his own courteous and unassured way. "Your 
 mother is the only Mrs Twyman living," he 
 said to Percy, "but if there were ten others 
 they would not eclipse her." Percy was de- 
 lighted, but all the more impatient to be able 
 to report her success to her in xDrivate. 
 
 It was not until next morning after break-
 
 236 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 fast that he succeeded. They walked out 
 together into the walled garden, and sat down 
 on the bench under the wall at the farther 
 side, where Percy had sat once, and more than 
 once, with Althea. As they went, Amelia was 
 talking of a hundred things, to which he listened 
 with a quiet, almost indolent, smile of satisfac- 
 tion. Their moods were, in truth, very different: 
 he was carelessly happy, pleased with every cir- 
 cumstance of his life, and content to watch the 
 ripples on the stream : she was furiously busy 
 in mind, full of energy and resolution, watching 
 that same current with the determination to 
 embank, divert, or dam it for the furtherance 
 of her own purpose. She had thought and 
 thought over her boy's claim and his present 
 position until the occasion now before them 
 seemed, in her imagination, to be a crisis of 
 the last importance. Her intentions were pru- 
 dent, no doubt, but as she always felt, thought, 
 and acted in flashes, and was now as fully 
 charged as an electric accumulator, the chances 
 were all in favour of a spark sooner or later. 
 
 They sat down. "Now," she said, after closing 
 her parasol with a snap, "tell me what you 
 think of this place." 
 
 Percy looked lazily at the sunlit garden and 
 smiled. "I like everything about it: don't 
 you ? " 
 
 "Of course, any one might like it: but that 
 is not what I mean. I mean, what do you feel 
 about it — being who you are?" 
 
 " Oh, I feel quite at home now — quite as if I 
 belonged to it." Again he smiled, as if to him-
 
 THE TWYMANS. 237 
 
 self, with half - closed eyes. Amelia almost 
 flashed, from sheer impatience of his placid 
 innocence. 
 
 " People don't belong to places," she said ; 
 " places belong to people." 
 
 "My dear mother!" He laughed indulgently. 
 " Well, in a way I feel that this belongs to me." 
 
 "You do?" — the spark was there now unmis- 
 takably : it seemed as if it must leap out in 
 speech. But the connection was never made : 
 before the words could be discharged her face 
 changed suddenly. At the end of the green 
 alley of turf, beyond the sundial, Sir William's 
 short, upright figure was seen approaching. 
 There was evidently no help for it — she must 
 rise to meet him. 
 
 "Pray do not move," he said, with serious 
 courtesy, "but if you have a moment to spare, 
 I should be glad of your advice." 
 
 He looked at Amelia only : Percy excused 
 himself and left them. 
 
 " It was about your son," Sir William began, 
 "that I wished to consult you. I hope he 
 enjoys being with us, and likes the place." 
 
 Amelia's heart beat to arms at once. "How 
 could he help it?" she replied. "He was just 
 saying so as you came up." 
 
 " You are most kind," her host answered, 
 " and what you say is a relief to me. I have 
 been a little anxious lest anything in our 
 doings to-morrow should jar upon him." 
 
 "What can you mean. Sir William? Is there 
 anything which is likely to jar?" 
 
 His reply was not direct. " May I tell you
 
 238 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 about our programme?" he said. "We propose 
 to divide our entertainment : to have the fire- 
 works to-night and the dinner and the dancing 
 to - morrow. Legally, as I daresay you know, 
 a man comes of age on the day before the 
 anniversary of his birth : to-morrow is Edward's 
 birthday, but he attains twenty-one to-day." 
 
 "No," replied Amelia firmly, "I did not know 
 that." 
 
 " What I was going to do," he continued, " if 
 you thought it would not be troublesome, was 
 to ask your son to make a short speech at the 
 tenants' dinner." 
 
 She was silent, swiftly surveying all the pos- 
 sible bearings of this proposal. 
 
 "You must remember," he added, "that Per- 
 cival is not only Edward's friend, but his 
 nearest relative of the name." 
 
 "I am not likely to forget it!" She looked 
 him full in the face, but his dark deep-set eyes 
 continued to glow genially without embarrass- 
 ment. 
 
 " My dear lady," he said, " I am very glad to 
 hear you say so : the more fully it is in your 
 remembrance, the better you will understand 
 my reason for asking you to decide in this 
 matter." 
 
 Amelia drew a breath : the fog of silence and 
 secrecy had rolled away ; the claim, of which 
 neither had actually spoken, was yet confessedly 
 in both their minds. It seemed suddenly to 
 have become more solid, since its existence was 
 acknowledged. Her next feeling was a recog- 
 nition of her antagonist's generosity: he had
 
 THE TWYMANS. 239 
 
 been unwilling to take advantage of a boy's 
 ignorance. 
 
 " I am sure Percy will wish to speak," she 
 replied, " but he knows nothing of his position : 
 his speech will seem to recognise your grandson's 
 right to everything — you force me to tell him." 
 
 "I think not," he said deferentially. "You 
 will of course do as you think best : but no 
 speech of his could prejudice a position of which 
 he is ignorant." 
 
 She was struck by the argument : the very 
 phrase was the same with which Mr Mundy 
 had convinced her two years ago. 
 
 " I will think it over," she replied, rising 
 from the seat. 
 
 " If you please," said Sir William with a little 
 bow, and they walked away together. 
 
 For the remainder of the day Amelia was 
 more restlessly vivacious than before. It was 
 characteristic of her to seek her way rather by 
 throwing out tentacles of quick feeling in all 
 directions, than by sitting down deliberately to 
 think it out. By evening she was tired, and 
 when the fireworks began at half-past nine she 
 escaped to her own room, which was in the 
 front of the house and would command an 
 excellent view of the entertainment. 
 
 After some preliminary skirmishing with 
 squibs, crackers, and Roman candles, the sky 
 became dark enough for the great set pieces. 
 Percy joined his mother at her window, and 
 they sat in the soft night air, looking on at 
 the fantastic coruscations and shadows from a 
 very advantageous distance.
 
 240 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 "This is the finale," said Percy at last, as 
 lanterns were seen moving towards a huge 
 framework in the centre of the ground. 
 
 The fire caught with a rapid crackling detona- 
 tion, and ran up the right - hand side of the 
 frame. In less than half a minute it had out- 
 lined a tolerable portrait of Sir William, which 
 was greeted with a round of clapping from the 
 spectators. The crackling continued as the fire 
 ran across to the left, and a second effigy blazed 
 forth, not so successful perhaps as the first, but 
 still recognisable as a likeness of Edward, facing 
 his brilliant grandfather. The applause broke 
 out again, and was redoubled when beneath the 
 two figures there was seen blossoming into flame 
 the legend " A Twyman for ever." Amelia was 
 instantly roused ; the flame that had lit the 
 words seemed to be rushing along her veins 
 too. She was fuming, but she succeeded in 
 keeping silence. The portraits began to fall 
 piecemeal : first Sir William disappeared ; and 
 then his grandson, after shining alone for a 
 brief space, dripped fierily into darkness. Only 
 the legend was left. Some one in the crowd 
 shouted "A Twyman for ever!" and there was 
 more cheering. 
 
 " Ah ! " exclaimed Amelia in her most pro- 
 foundly significant tone, "they may well say 
 that : a Twyman indeed ! " 
 
 " Dearest ! " said Percy, taking her hand, " don't 
 be so indignant. Birth's an accident — you can't 
 find fault with that." 
 
 " Birth ! " cried his mother ; " whose birth ? I 
 can't help it, Percy, I must tell you — I don't care
 
 THE TWYMANS. 241 
 
 what that man wishes or does not wish. This 
 place — this and all the land that he is leaving 
 to his grandson, is not his to leave, and he 
 knows it ! It is yours, yours by right and by 
 law too, every yard of it, and they invite you 
 down here to give away your birthright, to 
 stand by while they hand over the Twyman 
 inheritance to an interloper called Donnelly. 
 Fireworks indeed ! it will take more than fire- 
 works to do that ! " 
 
 "Steady, my dear mother," said Percy in a 
 much lower voice; "you'll be overheard." But 
 he made no other reply : he saw that such an 
 outbreak could not be wholly without warrant 
 of some kind. 
 
 By a natural sequence her thought followed 
 his. " I wish I had brought the papers with me," 
 she said, "but how could I tell? You shall see 
 them directly you come home." 
 
 " Of course I must," he replied, " but till then 
 suppose we say no more about it." 
 
 He was more perturbed than he cared to show : 
 he had perceived already, and with acute appre- 
 hension, that his relation to every one in the 
 house would be inevitably changed by this 
 discovery. 
 
 Q
 
 242 
 
 CHAPTER XLL 
 
 The following morning was bright and still, 
 promising one of those clear warm days of 
 August that are a whole summer in themselves, 
 and give a sense of abundant time in hand to 
 every one, however occupied. Moreover, the 
 festivities were not to begin till dinner - time, 
 so that when breakfast and the first informal 
 congratulations were over, the house party dis- 
 persed to finish their preparations at leisure. 
 Sir William transacted business in his own 
 room : Edward was understood to be composing 
 a speech : Althea came and went, divided be- 
 tween her housekeeper and her guests. Percy 
 was for some time alone. His head might well 
 have been whirling with the sudden spin given 
 to his thoughts overnight, but the restfulness 
 of those empty hours and the quiet beauty of 
 the place laid a soothing touch upon it. He 
 wandered about the gardens in a kind of ex- 
 perimental mood, his hand still upon the rudder 
 of his mind, but deliberately refraining from 
 control. It was as if he wanted to see first 
 where the light airs of this calm would take 
 him, if he gave himself up to them : there would 
 be time enough afterwards to decide on what
 
 THE TWYMANS. 243 
 
 the ship's course must be, and how strenuously 
 he was to bring her up into the wind. Naturally 
 enough, he soon forgot that there was any ques- 
 tion of steering at all : he began to drift on the 
 unruffled waters of reverie, vaguely conscious of 
 a prosperous current, looking through half-shut 
 eyes at every beautiful aspect of house and 
 gardens, and always with a deepening sense of 
 their complete desirability, their combination of 
 romance and comfort. As Molly had long ago 
 observed, everything became for him more per- 
 fect as soon as it became in any way his own. 
 His newly-discovered claim to be something more 
 than a guest there had brought Hampton incom- 
 parably nearer perfection. 
 
 Presently he found himself near the gate 
 leading into the water - meadows which form 
 the further side of the little park. He walked 
 on as far as the river bank and sat down on 
 a grassy mound overlooking the water. It was 
 low and clear, even for a chalk stream ; but 
 among the dense green continents of weed that 
 almost filled it solid there were still a few 
 bays and channels open here and there, with a 
 great trout poised in each, and above them a 
 pair of kingfishers passed up and down at in- 
 tervals, flying to and from the same convenient 
 branch like bright blue shuttles in a green and 
 silver loom. 
 
 A faint and distant sound at last intruded : he 
 looked over his shoulder and saw his mother's 
 smart black-and-white parasol moving towards 
 him over the deep grass. 
 
 " I'm afraid I've come to disturb you," she said,
 
 244 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 as she drew near. He smiled lazily, as if nothing 
 could disturb him. 
 
 " Sir William wants you to make a speech," she 
 added. 
 
 " Yes, I know — you told me that last night." 
 
 " Oh ! Percy, you mustn't be vexed with me. I 
 do want you to be careful — it is so important." 
 
 " My dear mother ! " He frowned and tore a 
 handful of grass. " It's all right — I know exactly 
 what I'm going to say." 
 
 "What?— do tell me." 
 
 " Oh ! I can't — it is just nothing, ordinary com- 
 plimentary stuff." 
 
 " Couldn't you give me an idea of it?" 
 
 He struggled hard with growing irritation. 
 "No," he said at last, "I really can't. There's 
 nothing in it, and what's more, I don't agree with 
 you. There's no risk — Sir William is not a card- 
 sharper, you know." 
 
 " That man ! " cried Amelia. " How little you 
 can judge — I tell you he's equal to anything ! " 
 
 Percy was genuinely indignant : he got up and 
 held out a hand without asking whether she 
 wished to rise. Then he perceived the ugliness 
 of his attitude and repented. " My dear mother, 
 you ought to set up as a private detective in 
 high life — ' Wicked Baronets watched ; suspicions 
 gratis,' and that kind of thing." 
 
 Amelia gave up her point with a laugh, and 
 they returned to the lawn. Percy had conquered 
 his irritation: he had also, he thought, repelled 
 his mother's absurd insinuations. 
 
 Three hours afterwards they no longer seemed 
 so absurd. In the marquee, where the tenants'
 
 THE TWYMANS. 245 
 
 dinner was given, Edward and he sat at the two 
 ends of the high table, with Sir William and the 
 ladies between them, facing down the length of 
 the tent. The long and rather tedious ceremony- 
 was drawing to a close : Sir William had pro- 
 posed the Queen, the oldest tenant had proposed 
 the hero of the day, Edward had replied in a 
 formless happy-go-lucky speech, full of genuine 
 good feeling and alive in every sentence with 
 his own peculiar gusto. Sir William, after a 
 short interval, had risen once more to give the 
 toast of the guests. He said a word or two in 
 a pleasant homely way about each relative pres- 
 ent, and then made a short but evidently inten- 
 tional pause. "Lastly," ho went on, and Percy 
 divined somehow, with a sense of impending 
 shock, that he himself was to supply the climax 
 — "lastly, we have among us to-day two guests 
 not hitherto known to you, Mrs Percival Twyman 
 and her son. Mrs Twyman has, I believe, the 
 distinction — if I may so call it — of being the only 
 lady now living who is entitled to that name and 
 style : and all who know her will agree with me 
 that she is unique in other ways as well." He 
 made a little bow to Amelia as he said this, and 
 continued — "Of her son Percy, I need only say 
 that he is my grandson's friend as well as his 
 kinsman, and that he has come here to-day to 
 give the future Twyman of Hampton a loyal 
 support which we value most highly." 
 
 Percy knew that Amelia must be looking at 
 him, but he avoided her eye : the crisis had come 
 suddenly after all, and he could not get his 
 thoughts in hand. At this moment, too, a servant
 
 246 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 stooped and whispered in his ear that the time 
 for concluding was already past, and Sir William 
 would be much obliged if he would make his 
 speech as short as possible. 
 
 On the instant his brain cleared as if at the 
 salute before a duel. He threw aside everything 
 he had prepared to say, and addressed himself 
 only to the business of the fight. " I have much 
 pleasure in returning thanks on behalf of my 
 fellow guests, and especially for the kind things 
 Sir William has been good enough to say about 
 my mother. I think he is quite right in saying 
 that she is unique — from my point of view she 
 certainly is, for she is the only mother I ever had." 
 
 There was a laugh at this, but Percy did not 
 wait to enjoy it. 
 
 " I thank you on my own account, too : as Sir 
 William has told you, I am here both as a kins- 
 man and as a friend. But he has not told you — 
 perhaps he has hardly realised — all that that 
 double advantage means to me. It means first 
 that I have the pleasure of joining in the adop- 
 tion into our family of one ^vho cannot fail to 
 bring credit to the name : and secondly, I am 
 doing what I can to show honour to my best 
 friend. That is an even greater pleasure, for 
 I believe that our friendship is a strong and 
 equal one — so strong that it will last our lives, 
 and so equal that if by some strange turn of 
 fortune our positions should be reversed to- 
 morrow, I am confident that he would stand 
 by me as I am happy to stand by him to-day." 
 
 With the last word the whole company rose : 
 some one cried "hear, hear," and there was a
 
 THE TWYMANS. 247 
 
 little clapping, but the general air was one of re- 
 lief. Percy felt with a kind of desperate, too-late 
 regret that he had been strained, abrupt, hurried. 
 But his mother's eyes were flashing excited ap- 
 proval; and as he passed out in the crowd he 
 overheard an old farm-wife delivering a favour- 
 able judgment. 
 
 "I liked what that young gennleman said: it 
 come like stones rattlin' out of a wall."
 
 248 
 
 CHAPTER XLIL 
 
 Amelia left next morning. Percy accompanied 
 her as far as the station ; but he was tired and 
 slack after dancing late at the tenants' ball, and 
 though he had scarcely had a moment alone with 
 her since the dinner in the tent, his fatigue and 
 the heat of the day made him dull and not very 
 responsive. Amelia saw that it was not the time 
 to press him, and the drive passed with a mere 
 accompaniment of smaller talk. But when she 
 was seated in the train, and the moment of part- 
 ing was almost here, she could not let him go 
 back without a word of warning, however it 
 might jar upon his present mood. 
 
 "Dear boy," she said, "do be careful when I 
 am gone." 
 
 He smiled, a faint worried kind of smile. 
 "When I'm gone! One would think you were a 
 deathbed parent in a book." 
 
 "No ; but you will be careful, won't you?" 
 
 "I promise not to sign anything, if that will 
 content you." 
 
 She looked at his downcast face as he stood 
 by the still open carriage door. " You were 
 splendid yesterday: don't let that old wretch 
 turn the tables on you."
 
 THE TWYMANS. 249 
 
 Percy was easily flattered. "Yesterday was 
 good enough," he said more affably. " I don't 
 think Sir William will try that on again." 
 
 " I could post the papers to you at once, if 
 you wished." 
 
 " Oh ! no : that would never do — that's not the 
 right game for me. While I'm here — I'm not 
 sure I ought to stay on at all, but while I'm 
 here I can't be on the offensive. If he lets 
 things alone, I must let them alone too. Edward 
 ought to know, of course. . . ." He paused and 
 looked worried again. 
 
 " Oh ! Percy, you won't speak to any one but 
 Sir William ? I shall be sorry I told you. I 
 ought to have waited till you left Oxford — Mr 
 Mundy thought so, but I couldn't keep you in 
 the dark while they were doing fireworks." 
 
 Percy's face cleared instantly, his head went 
 up, and he shouted with laughter. " Oh ! you 
 are priceless ; you are worth all the money in 
 the Fair!" 
 
 She was uncertain whether to be pleased or 
 offended. Meantime the whistle sounded, the 
 door was closed, and the train moved away with 
 her. Percy returned to the house feeling more 
 his own master. 
 
 On arriving he received a message from his 
 host, who wished to see him in his own room. 
 Percy entered with all his wits about him, but 
 in one minute he had dismissed them from their 
 guard. He really liked Sir William, and found 
 it impossible when alone with him, facing that 
 humorous mouth, those ruddy cheeks and 
 benevolent white whiskers, to believe that the
 
 250 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 old gentleman could be devising anything more 
 crafty than a sly jest or an ironical hit. There 
 are probably few boys of twenty-one who would 
 not have been equally disarmed. After all, there 
 was hardly yet a real tug of war between these 
 two. To Percy it was a purely abstract position 
 for which he was contending : to Sir William, 
 who had held it for thirty years, it was the 
 most visible and tangible thing in the world. 
 
 "I hope your mother went off comfortably," he 
 began. " We are all sorry to lose her, but I am 
 glad we are not losing you too. I was afraid 
 at one moment that she would insist on taking 
 you with her." Percy wondered inwardly when 
 that moment could have been. 
 
 " I don't mean," continued Sir William, " that 
 she spoke of it, but after telling you of the claim 
 which she expects you to make on this property, 
 I really thought she might not like to leave you 
 with us." He smiled confidentially, as if he too 
 were rather under Amelia's authority. Percy 
 felt as if he must defend her attitude. 
 
 "Well," he said, "you see my mother feels so 
 very sure of her ground." 
 
 "Naturally," conceded Sir William, "and for 
 that very reason I was rather sorry that she did 
 not talk it over more fully with me before 
 speaking to you. For your sake, I mean, of 
 of course." 
 
 "Thank you," said Percy; "but how would 
 that have helped ? " 
 
 " Well, it would have helped in this way : I 
 could have completed her information, and so 
 saved you perhaps from the risk of over-estimat-
 
 THE TWYMANS. 251 
 
 ing your chances. I don't know, of course, what 
 details she was able to give you. . . ." 
 
 Percy was dumb : he knew no details — nothing 
 beyond the bare existence of his claim. 
 
 Sir William appeared not to notice his em- 
 barrassment, but opened a drawer in his writing- 
 table and searched it to the bottom. 
 
 " Ah ! here it is ! " he exclaimed at last. " I 
 thought it must be here." He took out a bundle 
 of papers, untied them, and, after a brief glance, 
 handed them to Percy, who looked them through 
 in turn, trying to hide his curiosity, and not 
 succeeding even to his own satisfaction. 
 
 "There is really nothing much there," said 
 Sir William, "beyond what you probably know 
 already ; but you are quite welcome to what 
 there is. You will remember that, granting the 
 pedigree once proved, there is only one real point 
 in the case. Hampton has been entailed in the 
 male line ever since the days of the founder, our 
 common ancestor. I disentailed it, and one would 
 suppose that it is consequently now mine to dis- 
 pose of as I please. But there you come in. 
 * Stay,' you say, ' this must come to me at your 
 death, as the next male heir : the entail is a very 
 unusual one — one that cannot be broken.' To 
 that I reply that I am astonished to hear it: I 
 had supposed that there was no such thing 
 in England now as an entail which cannot be 
 broken. But there it seems I am wrong: the 
 estates settled by the nation on the dukedoms 
 of Marlborough and Wellington cannot be dis- 
 entailed, nor, it apj)ears, can estates similarly 
 granted for services to the State before the 3dth
 
 252 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 year of Henry the Eighth. That is your point, 
 and it is a very interesting one, especially to a 
 member of our family. Our ancestor Sir Edward, 
 the Founder as we call him, certainly did render 
 services to Henry the Eighth — but you know all 
 this already." 
 
 "No, please go on," said Percy with intense 
 interest. 
 
 "Well, he didn't win battles, but he made 
 waterworks, and was rewarded with a knight- 
 hood. He may have been given lands too, but 
 the Record Office contains no evidence of the 
 fact, so far as I know. About my own docu- 
 ments I believe I ought not, from a lawyer's 
 point of view, to hold any communication with 
 you. . . ." The broad candour of his smile as 
 he paused seemed to make all technicalities 
 futile and shabby. Percy felt a corresponding 
 elevation. 
 
 " No, no," he cried, " I am the enemy : of course 
 you mustn't show me your position." 
 
 "Perhaps I should not wish to, if it were a 
 weak one," Sir William replied, still smiling 
 genially, "but I don't think it is, and in any 
 case war has not yet been declared — you are 
 still my guest. I am showing you my house," 
 he continued, rising and taking a bunch of keys 
 to a door in the corner of the room. " This is 
 my strong-room, my muniment-room." 
 
 He threw open the door, and disclosed a 
 large iron safe built into the wall. This he 
 also opened, and then stood aside for Percy to 
 approach.
 
 THE TWYMANS. 253 
 
 "There," he said, pointing to a shelf heaped 
 with brown paper parcels tied up with red tape, 
 " those are my documents of title. Most of them, 
 as you may see, are comparatively modern, and 
 relate to various purchases and sales of odd 
 fields : one or two bundles belong to my York- 
 shire property ; the one which has the Hampton 
 deeds in it is in the left-hand corner at the 
 back." 
 
 He handed them out one by one to Percy, 
 who looked mechanically at the list of contents 
 on each, and then laid them on the sofa by which 
 he was standing. The last bundle Sir William 
 untied, and shuffled the parchments out before 
 him like a pack of cards. 
 
 "I have looked them through and through," 
 he said, "but you may have sharper eyes than 
 I have." 
 
 Percy knew something of old deeds, and had 
 deciphered their squat or spidery characters 
 before now. But to read them fluently in a 
 moment of confusion was another matter al- 
 together : still, by looking for nothing but dates 
 he managed to single out the only document of 
 Henry's reign. 
 
 " Well done ! " said Sir William. " That is the 
 oldest ; but, as you see, there is nothing in it to 
 our purpose." 
 
 Percy was not anxious to prolong a rather 
 uncomfortable situation. He tied up the bundle 
 again and replaced it. Sir William closed the 
 safe and turned to him more gravely. 
 
 " Now you see," he said, " how it is that I have
 
 254 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 done nothing rash. My position is just as visible 
 from outside as from inside : you have only one 
 point to attack, and you know all about that 
 already. When you can find evidence of that 
 entail — that gift of Hampton for public services 
 — then you are my successor. But so long as 
 such evidence is not forthcoming, the property 
 goes as I have arranged." 
 
 "I quite understand," said Percy; "thank you 
 very much." 
 
 "My dear boy," replied Sir William with a 
 touch of affectionate familiarity, " you have 
 nothing to thank me for — I can do nothing for 
 or against you. It is for you to work up your 
 case : I have no case to work up — my position 
 is a purely negative one. I sit here, as you may 
 say, to be shot at. And, by the way, that reminds 
 me of one more point that I might mention. In 
 the circumstances I think it was quite natural 
 for your mother to wish you to know of your 
 claim. It might perhaps have waited a little 
 longer; but still there is a long search before 
 you, and the younger you are the less it will 
 worry you. But the case is quite different with 
 my grandchildren. They could do nothing to 
 defend themselves against you, if they knew. 
 This place has been their home, and they may 
 as well enjoy it as long as they can without 
 apprehension : so I have not told them a word 
 of all this." 
 
 Once more Percy responded warmly : the situa- 
 tion, as Sir William represented it, was entirely 
 to his mind — a great contest greatly conducted.
 
 THE TWYMANS. 255 
 
 it seemed, and his antagonist all that was fear- 
 less, generous, and thoughtful. 
 
 " I quite understand," he said again, and in- 
 stinctively held out his hand. Sir William did 
 the same, and the hand-grip ended the interview 
 without another word being necessary on either 
 side, 
 
 \
 
 256 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 " How nice to be ooly five again ! " said Althea, 
 as they sat down to dinner that evening. The 
 guests had all departed and they were once more 
 in their old places at a round table. The hour 
 passed gaily — the events of the last two days 
 were all lit up in turn by the rays of five search- 
 lights, crossing one another with confused but 
 exhilarating effect. To Percy's relief the one 
 thing which escaped observation was his own 
 speech. That, however, was not because it was 
 forgotten. 
 
 The night was warm and still, and after dinner 
 every one sat out under the Corinthian portico, 
 until conversation died away under the influence 
 of the soft summer dusk. For some time they 
 watched for stars falling in the blue overhead, 
 like swift thoughts made visible in silence. 
 Then Althea rose from her seat and began to 
 pace slow^ly up the long vista of the lawn. 
 When she had gone some way and was now 
 only a glimmering white phantom, Percy rose 
 in turn and followed her. He moved instinctively 
 with sympathetic slowness, and did not overtake 
 her until she had passed round the house and 
 was entering the walled garden. She turned as
 
 THE TWYMANS. 257 
 
 if to welcome him without words, and they sat 
 down together on their favourite seat under the 
 thatched wall. 
 
 "I have been thinking over one thing," she 
 said at last. "What did you mean — in your 
 speech at the dinner yesterday — about a possible 
 turn of fortune, a reversal of your position and 
 Edward's? What could have put such an idea 
 into your mind ? " 
 
 Percy felt his pulse leap : for a blindfold player 
 she had gone very near his secret. " Oh ! " he 
 replied, "I suppose I meant more or less what 
 I said. Don't you think Edward would stand 
 by me, whatever the circumstances were ? " 
 
 *' Of course, but ... do you know, it was rather 
 painful to me your saying it. I saw how it 
 excited your mother : I couldn't help seeing how 
 all our festivities must look from your side. It 
 is a very unfair division : I almost wished . . . 
 I almost wished that the turn of fortune might 
 really happen." 
 
 To the mediaeval heart there is no challenge 
 so irresistible as complete surrender. Percy was 
 on his knees at once. " Oh, no," he replied, "you 
 couldn't wish that — I can't let you say it." 
 
 She looked up at him from under her brows 
 with that look that was so peculiarly her own — 
 half-wistful and half-mischievous. " Mayn't Psay 
 that — mayn't I feel it if I like? Mayn't I have 
 a romantic prejudice? You know you are Twy- 
 man of Hampton — by descent." 
 
 •' By descent ! — ten generations old ! But it 
 is your home." 
 
 " Is that a very conclusive argument ? Couldn't 
 
 R
 
 258 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 I say in reply that we have had the place all 
 to ourselves longer than is fair, and it is quite 
 time you took your turn ? " 
 
 " No," said Percy resolutely, " that is not serious 
 — your home can't become any one else's home. 
 It is part of you, and you can't give away what 
 is part of yourself." 
 
 " I wonder," she murmured, as if to herself or 
 the surrrounding twilight. 
 
 "You don't really wonder," he expostulated; 
 "you can't — the thing is so plain." 
 
 " I don't think so : I think nothing is plain 
 about property — it is a mysterious thing to me, 
 quite unintelligible." 
 
 " Ownership, you mean : yes, it is rather a 
 mystery — do we own places or do places own 
 us?" 
 
 "There's that too, but to begin with I don't 
 see how any one can own anything — we can't 
 really keep anything entirely for ourselves, can 
 we ? — and if we did, it is still part of the 
 
 universe." 
 
 He made no reply, and there was a silence 
 until she began again in a lower and more 
 pensive tone. 
 
 " I wonder who owns this garden — now." 
 
 He became instantly conscious of the still yet 
 stirring beauty of the hour and the place. White 
 flowers shone through the dusk, the air was 
 breathing with the scent of them : owls were 
 calling in the water-meadows : the lighted win- 
 dows of the house glowed softly beneath the 
 cold brilliance of the stars. 
 
 " I should have thought that this was ours,"
 
 THE TWYMANS. 259 
 
 she said. "Can any one give it away from 
 us?" 
 
 A figure came noiselessly along the grass : 
 it was Edward in his cheerful mood. 
 
 " My infants," he said, " unless I misunderstand 
 your question, which would be very unlike me, 
 I can answer it with tolerable precision. This 
 place is not yours — not much ! — it's the old man's : 
 and the old man can give it away as easy as 
 signing a cheque to bearer. That's the law, my 
 little dears." 
 
 " There's the mystery again," said Althea, "you 
 men all talk of legal rights. What is the use 
 of saying ' legally, I can,' when morally you 
 daren't and essentially you can't ? " 
 
 The words tore holes in Percy's mind and let 
 in jagged gleams of light : he caught a glimpse 
 of things half suspected and troublesome : but 
 Edward was only amused. 
 
 " Very good, my child," he said, " you tell the 
 old man all about ' morally and essentially ' — it 
 will liven him up, I should say. But not just 
 now, if you please, because Aunt Rose is clamour- 
 ing for her usual whist."
 
 260 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 We almost all believe in freewill, in the possibility 
 of choice, the power of taking our own direction 
 at decisive moments : but probably very few of 
 us realise how often and how unobtrusively those 
 moments present themselves, and how lightly, 
 as a rule, we stride past the cross-roads. In 
 this, as in other things, we imagine life to be 
 louder than it is. The pulpit and the stage have 
 taught us to look for strong situations, for clearly 
 defined issues which must be faced with painful 
 doubts or with appropriate facial contortions. In 
 real life those of us who are in a position to 
 look back vipon important decisions, recognise 
 that even w^here the case Tvas a difficult one and 
 the deliberation perplexed, we had made the 
 actual choice at a moment which came some 
 time before the declaration of it, — just as we 
 do not stand hesitating in front of the ballot- 
 box, but come to the poll with our vote ready 
 determined. The decision is made, of course, 
 none the less because it is made in silence and 
 by ripening degrees : life is not less dramatic, 
 though it is less melodramatic. 
 
 In the struggle of influences which had now 
 begun in Percy's mind, there was a real choice
 
 THE TWYMANS. 261 
 
 involved ; the forces impelling him in either 
 direction were strong and of deep leverage ; 
 before the end they would come into action 
 again and again, now on one side and now on 
 the other. But the hour of decision was far off 
 yet, and when it did come it proved not to be 
 the decisive hour. That had slipped by long 
 ago — perhaps, as Percy himself afterwards be- 
 lieved, during a summer evening's talk in a 
 remote and peaceful garden. 
 
 For the present, however, he was far from 
 realising this. His first instinctive efforts went 
 towards forgetting, evading, postponing — he 
 wished to be happy while he could, while a wall 
 of secrecy not built by himself still kept the 
 blossoming of friendship from cold or boisterous 
 winds. 
 
 Then came his return home, when he at any 
 rate must face the weather. Amelia went through 
 her papers with him, and received or extracted 
 from him every minutest detail of Sir William's 
 conversation. Her commentary was full and 
 vigorous : it fell upon unwilling ears, but made 
 an impression nevertheless. For some weeks he 
 pictured himself by turns as a gull, a usurper, 
 and a spoiled child of fortune, and finally, to- 
 wards the middle of October, escaped to Oxford, 
 where he had no difficulty in once more postponing 
 and forgetting the whole question. 
 
 The vivid unreality of life up there in the 
 Cloud-city was exactly what was needed to dis- 
 tract him at this juncture. The mere pleasures 
 of it were so many, so simple, and so intense, 
 that from the first day of term to the last, and
 
 262 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 even when term is over, the whirl of them keeps 
 off the influences of the outer world as a revolving 
 fan drives away the dust that would settle upon 
 it. Youth, in that time of vibrant and sustained 
 activity, scorns to consider any occupation as 
 a limit or a drudgery. In its dreams of the 
 future, even the social round, even the 'x^prj/xa- 
 TiariKo^ ^Lo<;, the day labour of office or profession, 
 takes the name of a career and is drawn across 
 the chart of the zodiac : the arts and sciences 
 are all offered for choice : the aspiring politician 
 is unquestionably of Cabinet rank. This is no 
 absurdity, or if it is, the absurdity may be laughed 
 at and forgiven, as natural to the place, where 
 power is running to waste all day, like a yet 
 unharnessed Niagara, and where the twilight 
 of every quadrangle is haunted by the spirits of 
 great men. Percy, whose rooms had once been 
 Ruskin's, lectured to his fellow Pilgrims on Albert 
 Diirer with much the same assurance as his 
 predecessors : recognised no disparity between 
 his own verses and those of Praed or Francis 
 Doyle : contended earnestly with future Viceroys 
 at the Union debates, and never spoke of the 
 Liberal Government of the day by any other 
 term than " we." Perhaps his only serious trouble 
 at this period of his existence was his growing 
 inability to see eye to eye with Mr Gladstone 
 in matters of Imperial policy.
 
 263 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 At Christmas Percy was invited to bring his 
 sister to Hampton for a dance. Amelia, for 
 all her distrust of Sir William, was pleased at 
 this : she thought it a very proper attention, 
 and expected Molly to accept with enthusiasm. 
 Molly accepted, but not with enthusiasm : she 
 was conscious of reservations. 
 
 "It is all right, Mum, as a compliment to you 
 and Percy, but I don't feel quite sure of liking 
 Althea." 
 
 Amelia protested : Edward might be a budding 
 usurper, and his grandfather a hoary old Machi- 
 avelli, but Althea was perfect. " You are certain 
 to like her," she replied ; " she is quite straight- 
 forward, and she behaved very nicely to me." 
 
 "Oh! it's not her behaviour, it's Percy's — I 
 can't forget Nelly so easily." 
 
 " Well," replied Amelia, " you do say the oddest 
 things — considering that Nelly has been married 
 nearly a year, and most unsuitably too ! A girl 
 who could throw herself away on a German 
 fiddler is no wife for any son of mine." 
 
 " Certainly not — while the fiddler's alive ; but 
 you see she became a kind of sister to me, and
 
 264 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 I can't so easily take on a new one in her place — 
 her place isn't vacant. Do you see, Mum ? " 
 
 " I see your dear loyal little heart," said her 
 mother, embracing her with gratified pride, " but 
 you will find plenty of room for Althea, without 
 talking of vacancies. I hope you will, for all 
 our sakes." 
 
 She was quite right: Molly found Percy's 
 Althea doubly irresistible. Her visit was a great 
 success, and promises were made for a joint de- 
 scent on Oxford at the next Commemoration, and 
 for less definite festivities in the Long Vacation. 
 These plans, however, were all defeated by what 
 seemed at first but a small and transient cause. 
 Edward, whose disregard of his own health was, 
 even by the undergraduate's standard, habitually 
 reckless, suffered during the summer from a 
 succession of feverish chills, and before the end 
 of term came, his doctor sent him home, that 
 he might be less in the way of temptation, and 
 better looked after. But he continued to be 
 cheerful and careless, and the fever continued 
 to recur. 
 
 Percy came to stay with him, but it was at 
 an unfavourable time, when every one was be- 
 ginning to be puzzled, and in secret rather 
 worried, by the duration of the illness without 
 any discoverable cause. At the end of a week 
 he agreed with Althea that he had better take 
 himself away for a month or so, and he soon 
 afterwards accepted an invitation to fish in 
 Norway. 
 
 For the first three weeks of his absence he 
 received regular bulletins : they were not very
 
 THE TWYMANS. 265 
 
 satisfactory, but having had no experience of 
 illness beyond the usual school epidemics, he 
 supposed that all maladies, after running a 
 certain course, must automatically disappear. 
 So he fished as unconcernedly as if Edward 
 had been in quarantine for mumps or German 
 measles, and at last started homewards expect- 
 ing to find him convalescent. 
 
 It was during the week of Percy's return 
 journey that a letter addressed to him and 
 marked " Immediate " came to Amelia's hands. 
 She was at Wejonouth, with Molly and the 
 Commander, and the letter, having been for- 
 warded from home, was already one day late. 
 Amelia tore it open at once, — Percy being for 
 the next few days beyond the reach even of 
 telegrams, she had no scruples, and was rather 
 glad of her opportunity, for she recognised Sir 
 William's handwriting on the envelope. 
 
 The news it contained was brief and bad. 
 Edward's illness had finally been pronounced 
 by a specialist to be consumption in an early 
 stage, and his sister and grandfather were 
 taking him abroad at once to an open-air cure. 
 The case was a hopeful one — Edward himself 
 was the only obstacle to a complete recovery 
 — but they expected to be away till the follow- 
 ing summer. 
 
 Amelia's first feeling was one of quick in- 
 stinctive sympathy : she knew only too well 
 what illness and anxiety can be. " Oh ! poor 
 boy ! " she exclaimed, as she read. " Poor 
 people ! I am sorry for them." 
 
 Her serious tone fanned the ever -glowing
 
 266 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 tinder in Molly's heart : she rushed upon the 
 letter and devoured it with one glance, as a 
 flame might have licked up the paper in a 
 single blaze. 
 
 •* Mother, how dreadful ! how dreadful for 
 Percy if anything should happen to Edward ! " 
 She stared at the letter as if at a vivid picture 
 of some terrible scene. 
 
 Her uncle Roland came into the room at this 
 moment, and stopped short as he entered, with 
 an instant sense that misfortune was in the 
 air. Then he came forward, put one arm round 
 Molly's shoulder and bent his tall figure to read 
 the news, his right hand folding over hers. 
 But the actual touch added more poignancy 
 than she could endure : two large tears fell 
 upon the page and she was gone, leaving the 
 letter in his hand. He finished it and looked 
 up at Amelia. 
 
 "Yes," he said, with the usual man's assump- 
 tion of cool detachment. "This would be a 
 blow to Percy — if anything did go wrong." 
 
 Amelia was sincerely attached to her brother- 
 in-law, but on the subject of the Twymans 
 there was now a permanent and never - for- 
 gotten soreness between them. He could not 
 come near her on that side without giving her 
 nerves a twinge. 
 
 "I don't know why you say 'go wrong.' 
 Things don't go wrong for those who don't do 
 wrong ; they go as they are ordered." 
 
 " I was just using the common phrase," he 
 replied. "But you don't deny that it would
 
 THE TWYMANS. 267 
 
 be a hard knock for Percy if things were 
 ordered so?" 
 
 " Dear boy ! he is as true as steel — all my 
 children are — but he must learn, like the rest 
 of us, to see how good is made to come out of 
 evil. There's always a silver lining to the cloud, 
 if we only look for it." 
 
 The Commander was silent — looking for the 
 silver lining to this cloud, and hardly daring 
 to admit that he saw it. Amelia followed his 
 thoughts with perfect accuracy. 
 
 " Of course," she went on, •' I should never 
 wish any one to suffer, but if it is to be . . . 
 you know, Roland, it was you yourself who 
 pointed out to me years ago how likely it was 
 . . . what a clearance there has been in that 
 family already." 
 
 He did remember. " One may talk of things 
 when they are merely hypothetical — when 
 there's no actual question of their coming 
 true." 
 
 " I don't agree with yovi : it is just when 
 they are coming true that you 7nust talk of 
 them. And why not? After all, these people 
 are the enemy, — would you be so shocked if 
 your enemy sank just as you were going into 
 action ? " 
 
 " I hope I should be sorry — I think I should." 
 
 "Not if you thought there was any chance of 
 his sinking you ! " 
 
 '* By Jove ! " said the Commander, not with- 
 out admiration. " You are a hard hitter, 
 Amelia."
 
 268 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 "You think me callous" — as she said this 
 Molly re-entered the room — "your uncle thinks 
 me callous, because I can bear to think of Percy 
 coming to his own even through his friend's 
 misfortune. I'm not afraid of Percy thinking 
 so — I shall tell him what it means to me, how 
 I never can forget that his father died young 
 and poor and unrecognised. I want Percy to 
 get back his father's share of the world, to be 
 rich and highly placed, and have all the things 
 that his father deserved, and I'm not going to 
 pity the people who try to keep him out. 
 That's what I shall tell him, and I know he 
 will understand, if no one else does." 
 
 "He understands already, dearest," said Molly, 
 "and so do I, and so does Uncle Roland."
 
 269 
 
 CHAPTER XLVL 
 
 When Percy returned a few days later, his first 
 impulse was to rush off to Davos at once ; but 
 his mother succeeded in delaying and at last 
 preventing this move. The approach of the 
 October term would have made a long stay 
 impossible, and the letters in which Althea and 
 Edward informed him of their arrival did not 
 give any reason to suppose that a visit from 
 him would be helpful at this moment. Both 
 wrote cheerfully, but Edward was evidently 
 tired and Althea preoccupied with the business 
 of finding a house to settle him in for the 
 winter — Davos being then, by comparison with 
 its present condition, a small and uncomfortable 
 place. 
 
 Sir William was the next to write, and his 
 letter astonished Percy. It spoke in a confident 
 matter-of-course way of Edward's recovery and 
 the return of the family from this unforeseen 
 exile : then came boldly to the main point, 
 which was actually a strong recommendation 
 to Percy to lose no time in working up the 
 preliminaries of his claim. "I am getting on 
 in years," Sir William concluded, "and I should 
 like to see the matter settled one way or the
 
 270 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 other. I have asked Rouge Rose, the official at 
 the Herald's College, to show you my pedigree, 
 which he registered there for me, and to give 
 you every assistance in completing your own. 
 I also venture to suggest that you should have 
 another search made at the Record Office, and 
 then take a lawyer's opinion on your best 
 tactics." 
 
 Percy handed the letter down the breakfast 
 table as a final and surprising proof of his 
 antagonist's honourable methods. 
 
 It failed to convince Amelia, and she seized 
 the occasion for delivering a counter - attack 
 which she had for some time been planning. 
 
 "Very well," she said, "that's how you look 
 at it. Now listen to me. I know you often 
 think my opinions worthless, but you must 
 admit that in the long-run they always turn 
 out to be right." 
 
 The claim at any rate was familiar, and 
 something like a wink passed between Molly 
 and her brothers. 
 
 "I tell you," continued Amelia, "that that 
 old man is playing a regular deep game from 
 beginning to end. Oh ! you don't know him 
 as I do — I've not been all these years alone in 
 the world without learning something about 
 character. I saw through him at once, and 
 now I've guessed what his game is. To begin 
 with, he knows your claim is a sound one, 
 Percy. He knows all about that grant of 
 Henry the Eighth : either his father told him, 
 or he has seen the deed himself. His trouble 
 is that he can't find it. He doesn't know what
 
 THE TWYMANS. 271 
 
 has become of it latterly, and he is in terror 
 lest it should turn up unexpectedly when he is 
 not there. No wonder he showed you his strong- 
 room openly : he was sure enough that the deed 
 wasn't in its place with the rest. How do I 
 know all this ? Because if he had found it he 
 would have destroyed it instantly — it isn't in 
 the least necessary to him, though it is to you, 
 because he's in possession and you are not. 
 Then he would have just sat still and let you 
 do your worst, without worrying himself. But 
 as it is, there's always the danger of the deed 
 being found by some one more honest than 
 himself. His first idea was to get you and me 
 to go and commit ourselves, to give away our 
 claim as far as possible by seeming to approve 
 of his doings in public. Then he tried on the 
 confidence trick, and pretended to show you his 
 hand, so that you might be discouraged from 
 going on. Now he's been shaken up by Edward's 
 illness. I'm sure I hope he has no real cause 
 for anxiety, but evidently he feels insecure all 
 round, and wants to get things settled — in 
 other words, he wants you to make your at- 
 tack and get beaten, and leave him in peace ; 
 and all I have to say is, don't you be deceived, 
 — you take your own time and go your own 
 way, and leave him to go his." 
 
 Percy, of course, contested this view, and a 
 family discussion followed, in which a certain 
 amount of heat was generated. It was ended, 
 as such affrays usually were, by Molly, whose 
 humour was so mixed with affection as to be 
 an irresistible cure for the wounds of argument.
 
 272 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 "Now, my good people," she said, "let's play 
 at something else : we've all been characteristic 
 long enough." 
 
 By "characteristic" she meant, of course, that 
 they were contentious, each in his or her own 
 way. Percy's way was an honest one, but un- 
 comfortable : it was characteristic of him to 
 undergo an inward conversion at the very 
 moment when he was fighting most keenly, 
 and this was especially common with him when 
 his opponent was his mother. Molly had often 
 likened him to the son in the Parable : his 
 motto, she said, was "I go not, and went." 
 To-day he felt that he was once more earning 
 the criticism : he had maintained his position, 
 but in doing so had perceived it to be un- 
 tenable. 
 
 His thoughts, once effectually disturbed, flew 
 wildly for a time, then circled more and more 
 closely over one place in his mental landscape. 
 Finally he recognised that they were settling, 
 like tame pigeons, down upon the familiar roof 
 of Hampton St George. An irresistible force 
 drew him, and he was on his way to the 
 station before he knew what he had decided.
 
 273 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 It was nearly half -past three when Percy left 
 the train and started across the fields to Hamp- 
 ton : four was striking as he came in sight of 
 the house. This view of it from the more 
 distant water-meadows was almost strange to 
 him: the north side was windowless, and lay 
 with its red -brick mass half hidden behind a 
 clump of ancient yews, presenting the appear- 
 ance of a mediaeval grange rather than a 
 modern dwelling. The feeling of strangeness 
 was deepened by the entire absence of any 
 sign of life, and became quite oppressive as he 
 passed across the wild garden, down the lawn, 
 and through into the forecourt, still without 
 coming on one human being or seeing one 
 window that was not closed and shuttered. 
 The front, however, seemed to be awake, and 
 he ventured to ring the door - bell. A long 
 pause followed, and the silence brought back 
 the sensation of desertedness. Then came a 
 hurried step, a noise of unbolting and unlock- 
 ing, and everyday reality faced him in the 
 form of Mrs Mackenzie, the Scotch housekeeper 
 with whom Althea used to hold so long a con- 
 sultation every morning. Visibly glad she was 
 
 s
 
 274 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 to see him, for she was already tired of keep- 
 ing house with a much reduced staff for one 
 old lady. Even that one — Aunt Rose — had 
 been away lately, and was only returning late 
 this evening. Could Mr Percy stay and dine 
 with Miss Twyman? No? then would he not 
 have tea? — there was no train now till nearly 
 seven. This he accepted, and was soon sitting 
 comfortably in the familiar drawing-room with 
 the familiar brass tray before him on the 
 familiar Indian trestles, and the still more 
 familiar arms facing him upon teapot and urn : 
 for Mrs Mackenzie had treated him exactly as 
 she would have treated Sir William himself. 
 
 The sense of strangeness continued : but now 
 the sense of possession was added to it, and 
 seemed in some odd way to explain it. He felt 
 as if he had come home after many years of 
 absence, to find himself the sole survivor of all, 
 the sole owner of everything. It was not an 
 exhilarating illusion. 
 
 Presently he went out and crossed the quad- 
 rangle to the walled garden. This, too, was the 
 same and not the same. The October afternoon 
 sun lay broad and serene upon it, hardly less 
 glowing than that of the summer days he re- 
 membered : the hollyhocks were taller, and 
 clustered about with many smaller shoots : 
 everywhere there was a last luxuriance of 
 growth that gave an air of solitariness, and even 
 of neglect. The tameness of the robin that fol- 
 lowed him about, and the red admirals that 
 floated from flower to flower close beside him,
 
 THE TWYMANS. 275 
 
 made more complete and more desolate the feel- 
 ing of his own last survivorship. 
 
 He walked up and down the green alleys ; he 
 sat upon the old seat under the wall : he rose 
 and began his pacing again. His thoughts were 
 not definite, they were restless : but they were 
 all of one colour, and it was a sombre one. He 
 found no pride in the imagination of ownership, 
 and little pleasure even in the perfect beauty of 
 the place. That was still visible, still undeniable : 
 but the meaning was no longer there. He 
 wondered why he was there himself, and what 
 he could have expected to find there — it was all 
 so irrelevant, so clearly a backwater outside the 
 main stream of his real life. His adventure was 
 not here, or in any place of the material earth : 
 it was out there, away in the unbounded future, 
 in a wide world of sunrise, which could have 
 nothing to do with any mere possession. 
 
 As he walked back to the station he told him- 
 self that he had missed Althea : then that he had 
 missed Edward : finally, that Sir William too was 
 necessary to his contentment. Without them 
 Hampton was not.
 
 276 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIIL 
 
 In the history of England there have been many 
 years of doubtful war, many times of suspense 
 and foreboding endurance. The winter through 
 which Percy w^as now to pass was one of the 
 most memorable of these, and his own anxiety 
 for his friend was intensified by the ominous 
 cloud which hung over the national honour. 
 Since daybreak on September the tenth Gordon 
 had been solitary and in extreme danger, the 
 last white man in Khartoum. On the same day 
 on which his last friends steamed away from 
 him, the first of the hastily built boats for the 
 relief expedition left England. The drowning 
 man having "already bobbed down two or three 
 times," and having then been officially interro- 
 gated as to the exact moment when he " expected 
 to be in difficulties," his friends on the bank had 
 at last decided to throw the lifebuoy. By the 
 twenty -first of October the expedition was at 
 Wady Haifa : by the tenth of November it had 
 reached the Third Cataract. On the thirtieth of 
 December Stewart's column left the river at 
 Korti for the march across the desert. Then 
 came the news of the fighting, the victories of 
 Abu Klea and Metemmeh, and Stewart's death :
 
 THE TWYMANS. 277 
 
 then, late in January, the meeting with the 
 steamers, and Wilson's embarkation for Khar- 
 toum, with five -and -thirty men. Even in the 
 Cloud-city, even in the morning-glory of life, it 
 was difficult in those last days to go about the 
 ordinary games in the ordinary mood. Dread 
 gnawed the heart under the jersey, and when the 
 final news came, Percy, like many of his com- 
 panions, heard it with no real surprise. The very 
 moment was one of those that are deeply branded 
 on the memory. He was crossing the end of the 
 Broad and making for the Parks ; at the corner of 
 the street stood a boy with a bundle of evening 
 papers. " Fall of Khartoum I Fall of Khar- 
 toum ! " — at the sound of three words from the 
 shrill young voice, whatever light there was in 
 the air of that February afternoon was suddenly 
 darkened by despair. 
 
 A week later came a letter from Althea. She 
 gave an account of Edward which was intended 
 to be hopeful, and only succeeded in being cour- 
 ageous : then she went on at much greater length 
 to speak of the news from the Soudan. " If you 
 have time," she wrote, " I wish very much that 
 you would tell me how you feel about it — not 
 how intensely, because I know that, but exactly 
 what your point of view is, and what you think 
 the nation ought to be feeling. We get English 
 papers here, but they are not much use to a 
 woman. I am less able than ever to vinderstand 
 men and their ways of looking at things. It 
 seems so strange to me — of course I am quite 
 wrong, but it does seem strange — that this should 
 be taken just as an external fact, a national
 
 278 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 disaster. I should have thought it was some- 
 thing much bigger than that — a catastrophe 
 in the history of mankind, an event that ought 
 to be kept in remembrance by a Good Friday of 
 its own. Gordon, of course, was an Englishman, 
 and a servant of the State, but I can't think of 
 him as that. He seems to belong to the other 
 world, the real world, where Nelson and Philip 
 Sidney and the Black Prince live and die. When 
 they die I can't think why the universe doesn't 
 stand still. Men don't feel anything like that, 
 evidently. They go on with their debates and 
 business, or they dine out and go to the play. Can 
 it possibly be true that the Prime Minister was at 
 the theatre the same night the news came ? That 
 is the kind of thing I mean — superlatively mas- 
 culine. I should as soon have expected him to 
 dance at a funeral. Death is so personal a thing 
 — I don't understand why every one doesn't feel 
 it so. Why isn't every one thinking, not about 
 governments and policies, but about the man him- 
 self who is dead, and what he died for, and what 
 is happening to him, and will happen to all of us ? 
 We do, when one of our own circle dies, or is in 
 danger of dying. Why is it different because the 
 loss has come to all of us at once ? I wish you 
 would tell me what you feel when you think 
 about death." 
 
 Percy knew Althea by this time well enough to 
 be able to read the inarticulate as well as the 
 outspoken thoughts in her letter. He knew that 
 she had a point of view which was not the mas- 
 culine one — how should it be ? — but he also saw 
 that there was a special reason why her interest
 
 THE TWYMANS. 279 
 
 in this disaster should be of the personal rather 
 than the national kind. It was not the loss of 
 Khartoum but the death of her hero that was 
 in her thoughts, and not that one death only but 
 all death, all final partings from the body and its 
 world, all sudden breakings of those personal 
 relations which make life as we know it. He 
 divined easily enough that she had written of 
 this public loss in order to give voice to her 
 private anxieties, and he very nearly made the 
 mistake of replying to her indirect question 
 directly. But he reflected in time, and answered 
 her in the code which she had used herself. 
 
 " No, you are quite right : such feelings can't be 
 put into adverbs. I can only tell you that for 
 several days I found it physically dilficult to eat. 
 It has been partly anger, of course : the Govern- 
 ment wasted time hideously. As to Mr Gladstone, 
 it is quite true he went to the play — not on the 
 Thursday when the news was announced, but on 
 the day he first heard it. That shows an extra- 
 ordinary want of feeling, I think, and every one 
 here hates him for it, so you mustn't call it 
 'masculine.' My tutor, old Billy Buck, wants 
 him hanged. I took him an essay two nights 
 ago, and he talked of nothing else but Gordon, 
 whom he admired enormously in his own way. 
 ' A fine feller, one of the finest instruments we 
 had, criminally wasted.' You see his philosophy is 
 that the mind is a function of the brain and dies 
 with it, like a candle-flame when the wax is done. 
 He says we can only advance now by investigat- 
 ing the physical basis of mind— I believe he really 
 regrets that he can't investigate the physical
 
 280 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 basis of Gordon's mind. ' Realism ' he calls that, 
 and you can imagine how maddening it seems to 
 him when a flame like Gordon's is allowed to go 
 out before his time. I got no consolation there, 
 so last night I went to see Robbins, who doesn't 
 coach me now, but is always good for a talk. He 
 is a Hegelian, the only one I know. (Hegel isn't 
 set for the Schools.) I asked him what the 
 Hegelian theoiy of death is, and we discussed 
 Gordon, and I put your view and the other — the 
 subjective and objective views. He said there is 
 truth in both, but neither view will do by itself. 
 To the ordinary man, the realist, like Billy Buck, 
 death is an event in Time, the last event of a life. 
 Biologically, it is a necessity — for the good of the 
 race — and historically, it is just a fact. On the 
 other hand, to the idealist nothing exists except 
 for the mind, so that death is as shadowy as 
 everything else. If you depended on an abstract 
 theory like that, you might well feel when a 
 friend did die that your universe had been 
 brought to a standstill. Even if he was only a 
 thing in your dream, his death would spoil the 
 dream. Gordon's death would spoil every one's 
 dream. 
 
 " So neither the candle theory nor the dream 
 theory can satisfy us. The ordinary idea of a 
 future life is no good either — it is only a prolonga- 
 tion or a repetition. When a man has died like 
 Gordon or Nelson or Sidney, you don't want to 
 repeat or prolong him, you want to make him 
 permanent, including his death, because it was 
 the most significant part of his life, and summed 
 him up. As far as life in Time is concerned, he
 
 THE TWYMANS. 281 
 
 is complete : the finite view of him is done with. 
 We must reach a point of view from which his 
 completeness is eternal — timeless — like the perfec- 
 tion of a work of art. It is the same, Bobbins 
 said, with a friend who dies an ordinary death. 
 We don't really desire that his life should be 
 indefinitely prolonged into any future, here or 
 elsewhere. We don't really wish to meet him 
 again as we knew him yesterday, after an 
 interval in which we ourselves may have greatly 
 changed — or if we have not changed, he may 
 have become in that other life quite a new 
 person. What we do desire is to keep him 
 always what he is to us, and to be always what 
 we are to him. We want to realise the Everlast- 
 ing Now, a timeless state which is not future but 
 coexists with our life in Time. Do you remember 
 we once talked about that before ? It is difficult to 
 put it so that any one else can see it : I may not 
 have got it right myself, but it is to me as if we 
 were mentally amphibious — a kind of mermen. 
 We land on the shores of Time, and spend a great 
 part of our lives waddling about there more or 
 less uncomfortably, but we have also the power, 
 whenever we choose, of diving off again into the 
 deep sea of the eternal. Down there we are no 
 longer mere facts in Time, and our relation is not 
 that of fact to fact : all union there is timeless 
 and complete, spirit with spirit ; our existence 
 has the perfection of a poem or a great 
 romance. Isn't that why we enjoy things like the 
 Odyssey or the Morte Darthur or the Lovers of 
 Gudrun more than any pleasure in the world ? — 
 because they are a deep dive back into the eternal
 
 282 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 beauty from which we came ? Of course to those 
 on shore this is a kind of madness. To State 
 officials Gordon was no doubt the maddest of men 
 and a fearful nuisance — he lived more than half 
 his time in the deep sea. But the natural man 
 knows better, — he may laugh at knights and 
 pilgrims and poets, but in his heart he loves 
 them more than politicians."
 
 283 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 Whatever Percy might think of his claim, it 
 was not in his nature to pursue it half-heartedly, 
 so long as he pursued it at all. On the first 
 morning of the Easter Vacation he made straight 
 for London, and the working day was still only 
 beginning when he knocked at the door of 
 Mr Mundy's chambers in Westminster. " Can 
 you tell me," he asked as he shook his guardian's 
 hand, "how I ought to approach these Heralds? 
 I don't even know where the College of Arms 
 
 IS. 
 
 Mr Mundy retained his grasp, and tapped with 
 his left hand on Percy's arm. "It is you who 
 ought to tell me that," he replied. " I hardly 
 know the difference between lions and kittens, 
 you know." 
 
 Percy well remembered the scene of that 
 first antagonism — he had remembered it many 
 times in past years. But now the recollection 
 brought none of the old uncomfortable feeling : 
 he difi:ered from Mr Mundy in that taste, he 
 was about to differ from him more strongly 
 upon a more practical matter, but he knew that 
 their friendship would none the less remain 
 unbroken, and even unruffled. In these thirteen
 
 284 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 years he had had time to study his guardian ; 
 instinctively at first and then more consciously, 
 he had perceived that the difference between 
 their views of life was deeper than a mere 
 question of preferences, and finally that it was 
 not a complete difference after all, since there 
 was within himself a whole range of feelings 
 and ideas very like those against which he had 
 in old days contended. Mr Mundy had ceased 
 to be an enemy; he had become, so far as his 
 philosophy was concerned, merely a rather un- 
 manageable part of Percy's own mind : the 
 man himself remained outside, genial, hum- 
 orous, and quiet, with a mountainous calm that 
 was very refreshing to one of Percy's quick, 
 irritable temperament. But now Mr Mundy, 
 having made his little score, turned to a book- 
 case, and with appropriate slowness took out 
 a ponderous red Directory. " Queen Victoria 
 Street," he said. " If you will allow me, I 
 think I will go there with you. I can give 
 an order in Fleet Street as we pass." 
 
 Percy was familiar with London, for he had 
 been a member of Lincoln's Inn this year or 
 more, and had wasted much time in eating- 
 dinners there. But as a town he did not yet 
 like it : the architecture — a mixture, he thought, 
 of the sordidly grandiose and the mechanically 
 decorated — did not compare well with that of 
 Oxford. Fleet Street, Ludgate Circus, Queen 
 Victoria Street itself, all oppressed him : only 
 the black and grey beauty of Wren's churches 
 from time to time lifted the weight for a 
 moment as he passed them, — words of a Ian-
 
 THE TWYMANS. 285 
 
 guage that he could understand, in the midst 
 of much alien gibberish. Then came a welcome 
 surprise. In a little courtyard of its own, 
 standing well back between two huge meaning- 
 less blocks of building, he saw a low red house 
 with a balustrade and double flight of steps in 
 front of it. Fitness, proportion, dignity — it 
 had every quality that was lacking in its neigh- 
 bours. So plain was the rebuke it implied that 
 Percy, as he jumped from the hansom, found 
 himself wondering how much longer the creators 
 of this world of giant warehouses would refrain 
 from crushing it out of existence. 
 
 " Shall I go first ? " he asked, and took ten 
 steps in three bounds : at the toj) a porter held 
 open one of the doors, and answered his inquiry 
 for Rouge Rose. 
 
 " Mr Wilbraham — yes, sir ; this way, if you 
 please." 
 
 The bathos of the fall from " Rouge Rose 
 Pursuivant" to plain "Mr" was partly atoned 
 for by the venerable appearance of the hall 
 which the visitors were now crossing. It was 
 fitted with a high seat and barriers as a Court 
 of Chivalry, and on the walls and cornice were 
 the shields of all the Heralds and Pursuivants 
 of the College for more than two hundred 
 years past. With these Percy would have loved 
 to linger, but Mr Mundy was already following 
 the porter out of another door and up a sombre 
 staircase, exactly like the typical Oxford college 
 staircase. The painted tin-plate with Mr Wil- 
 braham's name over his door increased the 
 resemblance, and therefore seemed appropriate,
 
 286 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 though Percy was again disappointed by the 
 absence of the more picturesque title. 
 
 Inside the room, when they were ushered 
 into it, there was still nothing to lessen this 
 disappointment. Mr Wilbraham at his knee- 
 hole table might have been a solicitor of the 
 most ordinary kind, a courteous man of the 
 world with a business-like manner and an air 
 of being entirely at the disposal of his clients 
 for a strictly limited space of time. He under- 
 stood Percy's position already, and assured him 
 that the Twyman pedigree, by Sir William's 
 order, had been recently completed, and was 
 in the library ready for his inspection and 
 signature. He then led his visitors back across 
 the hall, through an ante - chamber, and into 
 the library on the far side of it. This was a 
 room entirely to Percy's mind, hushed and 
 reposeful, with dark shelves on which stood 
 none but huge and venerable tomes. Even the 
 catalogue, as he soon afterwards discovered, was 
 in manuscript on vellum, and seemed to contain 
 no recent entries : anything new^, it appeared, 
 would be out of place here — he felt out of 
 place himself, as a creature of to-day, and had 
 to recall the generations of dead and buried 
 Twymans to warrant him no mere intruder. 
 
 They were more numerous, these ancestors, 
 than he had expected : they covered pages in 
 the broad heavy volume which was laid upon 
 the desk before him. He was invited to criticise 
 only the entries relating to his own generation 
 and the two before it, which were not yet 
 entered, but all the rest were of course open
 
 THE TWYMANS. 287 
 
 for his information, and he set himself to go 
 through the whole pedigree from the beginning. 
 But the work was not very enlivening : it re- 
 quired more active imagination than he could 
 bring to bear at the moment, to give any 
 human interest to these names and dates, 
 tabulated in rigid and uniform script, like 
 epitaphs on a cold, bare chapel wall. Very 
 soon, though he continued to peruse them 
 mechanically, he found himself listening to a 
 conversation between his guardian and Mr 
 Wilbraham, the only other occupant of the 
 library having vanished noiselessly. 
 
 "Thank you," Mr Mundy was saying, "there 
 certainly are questions which occur to me, but 
 I'm not quite sure how far I could put them 
 without seeming rude. You see, I am what is 
 called a man of science — what I call a practical 
 man — and my questions would be practical, 
 scientific. I always want to understand the 
 purpose of anything, the function it is intended 
 to perform." 
 
 "Certainly," replied Mr Wilbraham. "Well, 
 our records have a legal value, and a scientific 
 value too : they might be useful in a lawsuit 
 about land — the sort of case you have come 
 about — or in writing a work on heredity. But 
 I must tell you candidly that I don't regard 
 either of those uses as our justification. We 
 exist for the sake of family pride. So far as 
 it is a natural feeling we supply its demands ; 
 so far as it is a cultivated one we . . . well, 
 we cultivate it." 
 
 Mr Mundy laughed quietly, but with un-
 
 288 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 mistakable enjoyment. " I admire your frank- 
 ness," he said, " but I confess that I am 
 astonished. I did not know that any institution, 
 except the churches, claimed to exist only for 
 the sake of a sentiment." 
 
 Mr Wilbraham was evidently amused and 
 attracted in his turn. He leaned back against 
 the desk, rumpled his black hair, and otherwise 
 relaxed his professional correctness. 
 
 "A sentiment!" he echoed. "Why not say 
 a vice at once? But in the name of science, 
 what better reason for existence could we have ? 
 The State is only a federation of families : the 
 qualities of a nation are only the qualities of 
 the families composing it. That's the scientist's 
 belief as well as mine, isn't it? Then why 
 ridicule it as a sentiment ? " 
 
 " No," replied Mr Mundy ; "I won't ridicule 
 any belief — not even my own. When I said 
 ' sentiment ' I was thinking not of your belief 
 in genealogy but of your — forgive me — your 
 heraldic pomps and vanities. Isn't it a large 
 part of your business here to indulge that 
 pride, that rather primitive family feeling — to 
 cultivate it, as you say — by the use of bright 
 colours and exclusive little personal devices ? " 
 
 " Certainly, certainly, certainly ; I admit it 
 all. That is the part of my business that I 
 enjoy most. For twenty reasons : but this is 
 the one for you. Only you must let me use 
 my own terms — for instance, what you call 
 primitive I call fvmdamental. Now ! Every 
 family, I take it, is the contributor of a unique 
 element to the world of human society — an
 
 THE TWYMANS. 289 
 
 element which it always has given and goes 
 on giving again and again in successive genera- 
 tions. Is that not scientific ? Very well ; we 
 attach to that element a label, a practical 
 scientific label, which we call a surname. Many 
 of us — a large proportion of mankind — like to 
 have a pictorial symbol too, an exclusive per- 
 sonal symbol for this exclusive personal element. 
 Some of us call the symbol a coat- of -arms, 
 others call it a totem, and so on. These — like 
 all symbols — have been observed to possess a 
 curious power over the human mind. There 
 must be a science of symbols. There would be, 
 there would have been, long before this, only 
 the Church of Science shrinks from such modern- 
 ism. She is afraid, like other churches, that 
 free investigation might produce results fatal 
 to some of her most valued axioms. Symbols 
 are unorthodox, heretical, dangerous — certainly ; 
 but primitive ! The sea, I believe, is also 
 primitive, — is it any the less deep or less salt 
 or less navigable? You see my point? — I'm 
 rather keen about it." 
 
 Mr Mundy was silent for a moment. He 
 had just become aware that Percy was following 
 the discussion, and he saw that Mr Wilbraham's 
 argument might hereafter be turned to account 
 for his own purposes, if not too much damaged 
 in this encounter. 
 
 " I belong to no orthodox church," he said, 
 smiling, " so that I need not shrink from your 
 investigations. Heredity is not my subject, and 
 I know nothing about symbols, but I can allow 
 
 T
 
 290 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 you anything that really tends to preserve the 
 family — even if the colours are rather crude." 
 
 The herald laughed again. "Evidently," he 
 replied, " our symbols are not the right kind 
 to influence you." 
 
 " Neither yours nor others, I'm afraid," said 
 the engineer, laughing too. " I often say — if 
 you will forgive my punning on my own name — 
 that I am a born Mundy, the antithesis of every- 
 thing that is Sunday, in which I include symbols 
 and sentiment." 
 
 Mr Wilbraham no longer laughed ; his eyes 
 expressed a deeper and more humorous satis- 
 faction. " Perfect, perfect, perfect," he said, as 
 if to himself. " A born Mundy ! I don't think 
 we need go any further — my frankness was 
 nothing to that."
 
 291 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 Mr Mundy, as he sat at lunch with Percy, was 
 still preoccupied with his intention of turning 
 Rouge Rose's doctrines to advantage for his 
 own end. He had been warned by Amelia that 
 Percy was a little difficult just now ; that on 
 the one important subject of his own rights he 
 was inclined to take a heretical view — instilled 
 in him, she feared, and certainly fostered, by 
 his perverse uncle Roland. Mr Mundy knew 
 better than that : he had seen enough of Percy 
 to realise that the heresy was a result of the 
 temperament which the Commander and he 
 had both inherited from a common source. 
 But he had also reason to hope that there 
 was another side to the boy, another self on 
 which his own influence — being the influence 
 of reason too — might act not less powerfully. 
 He could not believe that the Wisps of imagin- 
 ation would permanently mislead a judgment 
 which had the lantern of common - sense un- 
 doubtedly within reach. It was only necessary 
 for the lantern to be trimmed and put into the 
 wanderer's hand. This, he thought, he could 
 do naturally, without the set purpose being
 
 292 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 apparent ; but he felt an unaccustomed nerv- 
 ousness about it, for he was conscious of a 
 certain independence in the boy's tone, — it was 
 courteous and affectionate as ever, but with a 
 new touch of self-confidence, a sense of muscle 
 in the grip. He hesitated, but Percy gave him 
 one opening after another. 
 
 " Yes," he said in reply to one of them, " I 
 liked the College of Arms — there was something 
 very attractive about it. What did you think 
 of your Herald ? " 
 
 Percy was ready with approval of Mr Wil- 
 braham — his appearance, his manners, his effi- 
 ciency. "And he was pretty quick on his feet, 
 too, I thought. He got the ball past you rather 
 smartly, didn't he ? — when you were talking 
 about symbols ? " 
 
 Mr Mundy admitted it readily. •' He did more 
 than that: he showed me that I had somehow 
 got turned round in the wrong direction. We 
 are on the same side really, he and I, — he's 
 quite scientific about the family. The family — 
 the element he spoke of — is a real thing, a thing 
 of importance. Galton has collected a good deal 
 of evidence to show that it is chiefly in the male 
 line that qvialities persist." 
 
 The young Oxonian opj)osite to him was inter- 
 ested. " Quite so," he said keenly, " and they tell 
 us now that that is why the matriarchal system 
 was superseded by the patriarchal. Primitive 
 man seems to have anticipated Galton." 
 
 Mr Mundy was startled. The independent tone, 
 it seemed, might be the result of a wider educa- 
 tion than he had thought Literce Humaniores cap-
 
 THE TWYMANS. 293 
 
 able of affording. He must not let himself be 
 floated out on these waters of unknown depth. 
 
 "Percy," he said in his most impressive and 
 confidential manner, " when you make a remark 
 like that it comes over me that our relations are 
 changed. You have grown up — about many 
 things you know more than I do, or ever did. 
 I am in some ways only nominally your guardian. 
 It would be nearer the truth to say that you and 
 I are fellow-guardians — co-trustees — of the Twy- 
 man inheritance. You see what I mean ? " 
 
 Percy's keen face coloured with pleasure. 
 " Yes, I see," he replied ; " and I think it's a 
 very sound way of putting it. But " 
 
 His fellow - guardian concealed his anxiety in 
 silence, but at last he had to give way. " What 
 does your ' but ' lead to ? " 
 
 " Well, CO - trustees ought to understand one 
 another clearly, I should say, without any hold- 
 ing back." 
 
 The anxiety became more acute, and it was 
 justified by what followed. "I mean that we 
 ought to agree about what the inheritance is 
 — what the most important part of it is. My 
 mother thinks it is Hampton St George ; my 
 uncle Roland thinks it is an ideal or tradition, 
 and a career — nothing material, like land or 
 money. I agree with him — I don't know what 
 your view is." 
 
 Mr Mundy realised that his little ambush was 
 destroyed by this straightforward marching, but 
 he admired his adversary for it. '* I agree with 
 your mother," he replied; "and I think perhaps 
 you will, when you consider what her view really
 
 294 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 means. She doesn't wish you to desire Hampton 
 for itself — she is perfectly unworldly, as you 
 know. But if you are to do the great things 
 she expects of you, you mustn't have to begin 
 at the very beginning. I have always agreed 
 with your uncle Roland, that to get a fortune 
 by a lawsuit Avas no career for you ; but such 
 a fortune may very well be the spring-board of 
 a career. If there is a good point about old 
 families, it is that the later-born take off from 
 the place gained by the earlier generations. The 
 saving of effort is immense — just as in science, 
 Darwin's advance was only made possible by a 
 long line of predecessors. If you throw away 
 your accumulated resources, you can't hope to 
 advance ; you are thrown back ; your contri- 
 bution to the world is less weighty, less widely 
 felt. Your own ambitions are political — that's 
 where you will do your best work. You ought 
 not to waste your best years in preliminary 
 money-making." 
 
 Percy followed this argument with great seri- 
 ousness, and his guardian saw that he was getting 
 into touch with allied forces. But his hopes were 
 overthrown by a sudden counter-attack. 
 
 " It seems to me," said Percy, " in a private 
 case like mine, more of a game to begin at the 
 beginning, and be your own founder." 
 
 Mr Mundy was silent — wondering how to 
 reason with unreason. 
 
 "Then there's another point," Percy went on, 
 " quite a smasher in itself. The spring - board 
 happens to belong to some one else. My mother 
 won't see that."
 
 THE TWYMANS. 295 
 
 " You think she is bhnded by her affection for 
 you. Very likely she is — she would be. Anyhow, 
 her opinion is not yours. But it isn't really a 
 matter of opinion, personal opinion, is it? — it's 
 a case for judgment, for a balance of considera- 
 tions. There's no dispute about the facts, but 
 there's a conflict betw^een the literal and the 
 imaginative estimate of them. You are imagin- 
 ative ; you see life as a romance, don't you ? " 
 
 " I always have," replied Percy, with a glory 
 of retrospect in his smile. 
 
 " It doesn't follow that you always will. At 
 present you have only seen it in the distance, 
 in the future. When you come to enter it, you'll 
 find that it is real, and the only way to succeed 
 in it is to take a real view of it, to act on real 
 motives. Your Greeks and Romans were first- 
 rate at that — I should have thought you would 
 have seen their superiority." 
 
 " I am not much of an Aristotelian," said Percy. 
 
 "Possibly not," replied Mr Mundy warily. "I 
 was thinking rather of the Romans. I believe 
 we got the best part of our law and social prin- 
 ciples from them." 
 
 "The Romans," said Percy,— " they were un- 
 romantic, certainly ; but see what it brought 
 them to — using nightingales' tongues to make 
 entries! Was that taking a real view?" 
 
 " Percy," replied Mr Mundy, with an appealing 
 candour in his blue eyes, " you have an unfair 
 advantage there — you know where to pick the 
 damaging instances. But T am not without 
 authority — you know, I daresay, that Schopen- 
 hauer has stated my case better than I can."
 
 296 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 " Authority ! " cried Percy, with unrestrained 
 scorn. "I loathe Schopenhauer : do you remem- 
 ber his Metaphysic of Love — his view of women? 
 Another nightingale entree ! " 
 
 The possibilities of direct persuasion seemed to 
 be exhausted. Mr Mundy took the opportunity 
 for paying his bill. 
 
 •'I don't quite understand," he said as they 
 walked away, "if you are so decided, why you 
 took the trouble to go through this business of 
 the pedigree." 
 
 "All I've decided at present," replied Percy, 
 "is to go on with the case till the lawyers can 
 advise upon it." 
 
 "Meantime," said Mr Mundy gently, "you 
 might weigh my view with your own. I really 
 think you won't find it so contemptible." 
 
 Percy was quite contrite. " Contemptible !" he 
 replied. " Not much ! I always argue ; and one 
 naturally argues most keenly against a view that 
 tempts one." 
 
 His fellow-guardian thought it best to leave 
 matters there.
 
 297 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 Mr Mundy need not have been afraid that his 
 arguments might fail to receive attention : 
 rather, since they found something congenial 
 in Percy's mind, they made themselves at home 
 there, and after the fashion of very lively guests 
 soon became exacting and troublesome. They 
 dined out with him that night and interrupted 
 the conversation, went with him to the theatre 
 and spoiled the play, and next morning when 
 he took the train for Devonshire they sat be- 
 side him all through the journey, distracting 
 him equally from the 'Daily News' and the 
 'Republic of Plato.' But when he found that 
 they were intruding themselves with the same 
 pertinacity upon every occupation of the reading- 
 party he had joined, it was time to be rid of 
 them. He lost a whole morning's work over a 
 letter to his guardian ; destroyed it in the end, 
 and wrote to his mother instead : — 
 
 "I did the Herald's College before I came 
 away — quite satisfactorily, I think. But Father 
 Mundy went with me, and that was not so 
 satisfactory. He was very jolly, but he thought 
 it necessary to give me an ultra-paternal jaw 
 afterwards on the scientific aspect of primo-
 
 298 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 geniture. His arguments don't trouble me in 
 the least — they're very far - fetched, and I an- 
 swered them completely — in fact, I've been 
 answering them ever since. They worry me, 
 not as arguments, but because they represent 
 your point of view, or rather your wishes, — 
 and, of course, his too, though I think his are 
 only an echo of yours. That is why I write 
 to you instead of to him. I want this argu- 
 mentation to stop. It can have no effect : I 
 am the only person w^ho has to act, and I'm 
 not going to act on the balance of argument. 
 What matters to me is not an abstract question 
 at all, — it is my own life. It will be very un- 
 comfortable for me if I have to do what you 
 don't approve ; but it will be much more than 
 uncomfortable if I do what I don't approve 
 myself. I am very, very sorry to disappoint 
 you, but I simply can't see things as they look 
 from your side at all. I don't see why I should 
 get out of making my own way like other people, 
 and I don't see Hampton in the light of a spring- 
 board — that's what Mr Mundy called it. To me 
 it is not just so much money and influence, it is 
 a very beautiful home — but not mine. If I took 
 it I should spoil my whole idea of it, and also my 
 idea of the people who live there — my own 
 friends. Can you imagine a man going through 
 life on a fortune grabbed from his best friends ? 
 Isn't it a contradiction in terms, — a completely 
 false situation? I feel that even now, when we 
 are only talking about it. I shall never be easy 
 till they know, and this is what I wanted to say
 
 THE TWYMANS. 299 
 
 to you. I am not going to do anything self- 
 willed or inconsiderate, I am quite willing to 
 have the whole case advised on, but I am going 
 to hear as soon as possible how it looks to the 
 two who are most concerned. Directly my 
 schools are over I shall go out to Davos, or 
 wherever they are then, and get Sir William 
 to tell them all about it, or to let me do it — 
 I promised I wouldn't say anything without his 
 consent." 
 
 The letter concluded with lighter matters, but 
 there was a postscript. " On reading this over 
 I see that I've expressed myself clumsily. You 
 mustn't think that the fact of these people being 
 my friends is what makes the difficulty, — it 
 would be exactly the same if they were complete 
 strangers. I don't want to take any one else's 
 shoes, I want my own, — they'll fit me better, 
 besides being honestly mine. But their hap- 
 pening to belong to Edward and Althea has 
 absolutely nothing to do with it." 
 
 The postscript was a great consolation to 
 Amelia. " Of course he ought to tell them," 
 she remarked to Molly after showing her the 
 letter. "Sir William ought never to have made 
 such a condition — just like him ! Now we shall 
 see what Althea says, and whether that has 
 ' absolutely nothing to do with it.' I'm not 
 so sure ! " 
 
 "Poor Percy!" said Molly, "how they do all 
 push and pummel him — like making a bed ! But 
 I don't believe it really changes his shape, any 
 of it."
 
 300 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 "Ah, my dear, we shall see," remarked her 
 mother, with the air of a Wise Woman. 
 
 "Well, anyhow," replied Molly, "it's awfully 
 exciting. You know what the newspapers said 
 about the Boat Race, ' The contest now began 
 to partake of a ding-dong character.'"
 
 301 
 
 CHAPTER LII. 
 
 By the end of July Percy was free. It was 
 strange that such a word should express any 
 part of his feelings on leaving Oxford — the 
 Holy City, as he and his friends had called it — 
 but for this last term the City had been dese- 
 crate. In the hurry and anxiety of preparation 
 for his final schools, the real Oxford seemed to 
 have vanished : the Future had at last broken 
 in upon it like a flood and ruined the gardens 
 of its eternal Present. In time to come, when 
 they were once more gardens, "when all that 
 was of value in them had been cleared of hastily 
 piled rubbish, when examinations had been 
 gloriously, or at least honourably, left behind, — 
 when he could comfortably laugh with Heine 
 at the "bourgeois polypi" who think "love a 
 pastime and a University degree a thing of im- 
 portance," — Oxford might again be the cloudland 
 of youth and dream. At this moment he was 
 actually glad to escape from it. 
 
 The escape could not have been more complete 
 or more romantic, though it bore only the ap- 
 pearance of a very commonplace holiday. To 
 the clerk at the Tourist agency it was merely an 
 affair of a return ticket to Chur, available for
 
 302 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 six weeks, with directions for finding diligences 
 or carriages beyond that point. To the traveller 
 himself it was what no gold could have bought 
 — a flight from the Old World, a voyage of 
 discovery in the New, not without vague 
 hope of horizons beyond all maps and all 
 conjecture. 
 
 The distance was the more alluring because 
 he did not even know for certain when or where 
 he would fall in with his companions and enter 
 upon the new alliance he was seeking. He had 
 written to Sir William to announce himself and 
 his object in coming : the reply had been cordial 
 but indefinite. Not a word of the proposed dis- 
 cussion with Edward and Althea : as for meeting, 
 the Davos party were all to leave immediately 
 for a driving tour. They could not be sure about 
 dates, but their route would be by main roads 
 and passes, so that Percy could have no difiiculty 
 in cutting into it at one point or another, and 
 they would leave messages for him at all their 
 stopping-places. 
 
 The song of the road was ringing gaily in his 
 head as his train pounded along through France. 
 He looked with idle content at the changing 
 landscape : when daylight faded he got out his 
 new Reisekarte der Schweiz and found that still 
 more picturesque. The names of unimportant 
 Engadine villages, dully familiar to the least 
 enterprising of summer tourists, gleamed through 
 the mist of anticipation with all the magic of 
 sunrise, which is sometimes more potent than 
 that of sunset. He was astonished when in the 
 break fst restaurant at Bale he overheard a party
 
 THE TWYMANS. 303 
 
 of obvious Londoners speaking of these places in 
 his song as if they knew them all as well as 
 Piccadilly. He had to remind himself that how- 
 ever they might echo names, no two travellers 
 ever reached the same place yet. 
 
 The second night out he slept at Chur, hoping 
 for a telegram which did not come. Next morn- 
 ing, being still without news, he drove south to 
 Tiefenkasten, a place for him of great strategic 
 importance, since it is the starting - point from 
 which both the main routes to the Engadine 
 diverge, and whether Sir William chose the 
 Albula or the Julier Pass he must be met or 
 heard of there. 
 
 Percy had the instinct of the chase : it was 
 stronger in him now than it had ever been. The 
 steady pace of his carriage fretted him : when 
 it came to the edge of a deep valley and began 
 to descend still more tediously by a zigzag road, 
 he took to his feet and plunged down by a suc- 
 cession of short cuts. At the hotel he called at 
 once for luncheon and the visitors' book. There 
 in the cool verandah which hangs over the 
 loudest river in Switzerland he found the first 
 trace of his quarry — three names written only 
 that morning. His eagerness redoubled at the 
 sight of them, and he read, a dozen times over, 
 the appended note which told him that the 
 destination of the party was the Kronenhof in 
 Pontresina, and their route the Julier. The 
 journey would take them two days, he was in- 
 formed by the innkeeper, and he might be 
 practically certain that they would spend the 
 night at Molins. He could make sure of over-
 
 304 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 taking them there or even on the road, for they 
 were but an hour in advance of him. 
 
 His excitement rose still higher at this : he 
 resolved, with a furious exultation, to run them 
 down at a gallop. The steep and dusty ascent 
 of the Julier is perhaps the least ideal country 
 that could be chosen for such a pursuit, but his 
 determination was not to be reasoned with. In 
 three-quarters of an hour he had swallowed a 
 hasty meal, dismissed his comfortable little eins- 
 panner and engaged a larger carriage with two 
 fresh horses. The promise of additional trinkgeld 
 roused his new driver to a very unusual effort, 
 and probably no traveller going that way ever 
 covered the ground more quickly on a July 
 afternoon. But neither on the road nor at 
 Molins did he see anything of the two gentle- 
 men and a lady for whom he was looking so 
 eagerly. 
 
 In his present mood there was but one thing 
 to be done, because there was but one thing to 
 believe. Since the chase was still in front of 
 him he must go farther and if possible faster. 
 If his friends had gone beyond Molins, his driver 
 assured him, there was only one place where 
 they could find accommodation for the night. 
 Stalla, it was called, or Bivio, because the 
 deserted Septimer branched off there from the 
 Julier. So to Stalla Percy came in the twilight, 
 very tired, and found himself the only guest in 
 a singularly dreary inn. While his supper was 
 preparing he telegraphed back to Tiefenkasten 
 and forward to Silvaplana and Pontresina — but 
 no one could give him any clue. The scent
 
 THE TWYMANS. 305 
 
 was lost : no hound was ever so completely at 
 fault. 
 
 He woke early next morning and sat for a 
 long time after breakfast puzzling over maps. 
 At last he wandered out of the house and stood 
 looking alternately up and down the road. A 
 carriage came in sight — the first up the pass that 
 day. As it came nearer he saw that it contained 
 a single passenger — a white-haired old gentleman 
 with ruddy cheeks. 
 
 " Good morning," said Sir William ; " which way 
 did you come here ? " 
 
 "From Tiefenkasten — I was behind you there," 
 replied Percy, still bewildered. 
 
 " Ah, I see," remarked Sir William, as if nothing 
 had happened. "We turned aside a few miles to 
 see the Schyn — it was odd that you should happen 
 to pass just then. Edw^ard and Althea are some- 
 where behind, walking." 
 
 They waited, looking back. 
 
 " I hope," said Percy, seizing his opportunity, — 
 " I hope you don't mind my coming like this, on 
 my own invitation." 
 
 "Not at all — we are very glad to be four." 
 
 " But you only answered half my letter : you 
 said nothing about my object in coming." 
 
 "Oh!" said Sir William, "about speaking to 
 the young people, you mean. Well, I said 
 nothing, because I saw no reason to depart from 
 what I had said before." 
 
 The tone was his most courteous and most 
 absolute, but he saw even as he spoke that there 
 was a new and formidable resolution in Percy's 
 manner. " Of course," he added, without apparent 
 
 u
 
 306 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 haste, " the stipulation hardly applies so strictly 
 to Althea, — she is not concerned in the same 
 way." 
 
 Percy heard the remark, but without feeling 
 of any kind. He had just sighted two travellers 
 approaching on foot.
 
 307 
 
 CHAPTER LIII. 
 
 His memory retained scarcely any record of what 
 happened during the next twenty minutes. There 
 must have been greetings, certainly ; hand-grips 
 and perhaps a confused intense glance, hurriedly 
 averted. Althea had said of her brother, " Isn't 
 he looking well ? " Edward had inquired with 
 genial irrelevancy, " How are the boys ? " and both 
 had asked at once how^ Percy came to be w^here 
 he was. His own voice had replied to some or 
 all of these questions : then there had been an 
 argument with his driver, a final payment, and 
 a transfer of baggage : Sir William and Edward 
 had subsided into the carriage, and here he was 
 himself striding away in front of it up the long 
 last gradient of the Pass, with Althea by his side 
 and a sort of luminous haze between them, in 
 which were lost, for the time being, all the 
 thoughts of the past few days, all the matters 
 which he had come so far to discuss, and even 
 his hopes for the future, far or near. 
 
 But while his consciousness lost in outline it 
 gained in intensity : the earth was beautiful to 
 him as it had never been before. Last night he 
 had seen much that was picturesque, — the
 
 308 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 gigantic adamantine ranges above him, the river 
 Julia at his feet, the wooded hill and tower of 
 Spllidatsch, the ruined battlements of Marmorera, 
 — to each of them in turn he had applied the 
 epithet "fine," but always without feeling, or 
 with no more feeling than could be fully ex- 
 pressed by that bankrupt word. And now? 
 Now he was turning his back on all these, 
 trudging from bend to bend of a monotonous 
 road, climbing without advancing on bleak and 
 stony terraces of moorland. Ay ! but it was 
 new, it was new born, it was new created : it 
 was the widest of all worlds under the highest 
 of all heavens, filled with an ocean of sunlight, 
 and alive with the wind of morning. In such a 
 country he did not walk, he marched, and while 
 his feet marched his pulses danced to the same 
 music. Whatever can be given by romance, by 
 the union of the unexpected, the desirable, and 
 the fantastic, was now created for him out of 
 nothing by the mere presence of a companion, 
 upon whom his own proximity was working with 
 the same curious power, though he did not 
 suspect it, did not even stop to think of the 
 possibility of it. Althea too was marching buoy- 
 antly : Althea too was dancing in the chamber 
 of her own heart : but Percy, though his affections 
 were deeply and irrevocably bound, was pre- 
 occupied not so much with her dear self as with 
 his own relation to her. They had been separated 
 for a year : throughout that time their intimacy 
 had continued and prospered, but on paper only, 
 and paper is not the true medium, letters are 
 not the true symbols, for the expression of young
 
 THE TWYMANS. 309 
 
 love. Intellectually they were, perhaps, nearer 
 than they had ever been ; but that warmer and 
 more subtle nearness which is for sweet-and- 
 twenty so much the most binding of life's tendrils, 
 this they had lost for the time and could not 
 instantly recover. It would grow again, but 
 not without due process of the seasons. 
 
 This Percy felt plainly enough, but without 
 any kind of dismay. To be once more with 
 Althea in unrestricted companionship was a 
 solution of all possible difficulties, a way of life 
 that might confidently be trusted to lead any- 
 where. Perhaps she felt the same confidence : 
 at any rate, they both set themselves, without 
 thinking about it, to talk, and talk, and talk of 
 everything that they had ever talked about 
 before, mixed in novel and pleasing combinations 
 with things of the living hour. It may seem 
 strange, but among these there was no place 
 found for Percy's own affair, the business that 
 had brought him here. That was in the mist 
 and remained there, whatever else might be 
 brought out into clearer and clearer sunlight. 
 Percy would as soon have talked of his examin- 
 ation papers. Sir William's concession was a 
 grant of free speech to one who had yet to learn 
 the whole language again from the beginning. 
 
 Of course a language is more quickly learnt 
 the second time : the learner does not really go 
 back quite to the beginning. These two thought 
 they were doing so, but that very illusion proved 
 how completely they had left their beginning 
 behind. In a very few minutes Percy was once 
 more at his favourite sport, beating the under-
 
 310 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 woods of conversation with ardent keenness, 
 starting ideas, quotations and arguments in every 
 direction at once, missing or hitting with equal 
 enjoyment, thinking all the time less of the 
 game than of the company in which he hunted 
 it. Althea too was almost her old self, following 
 him at first with eager attention, then suddenly 
 hanging back as it were a pace or two to get 
 a more detached view of his performance, and 
 with a whimsical half- timid question forcing 
 him to self-ridicule or self-defence. 
 
 In an hour and a half they had reached the 
 top of the pass, and the carriage was still behind 
 them. They walked on with fresh energy down 
 the reverse slope, and here at last was a land- 
 scape deserving all that Percy's enthusiasm could 
 say of it. Right opposite, towering incredibly 
 into the height of heaven, were the tremendous 
 black and white ridges of the Bernina range. 
 Far below, in the wooded gulf between, lay the 
 long narrow valley of the Upper Engadine, a 
 chain of turquoise lakes set in brilliant gold- 
 green enamel. But Percy had no more adjectives : 
 he had failed already once that morning to paint 
 in words the light that shone for him upon the 
 Julier ; he was silent as they stood looking upon 
 this. 
 
 " That beats me," he said at last ; " there's 
 nothing to be said." 
 
 "Is there ever anything to be said about 
 scenery ? " 
 
 He knew, suddenly and with a rush of happy 
 recollection, how she would be glancing up at 
 him : he turned and saw the look.
 
 THE TWYMANS. 311 
 
 " You are quite wrong now," he replied ; " you 
 are putting down scenery as one of the common 
 topics of the conventional. So it is sometimes ; 
 but there's a great distinction. It is not like 
 the weather. A man talks about the weather 
 when his mind's at its slowest, when the propeller 
 is making the smallest possible number of rev- 
 olutions per minute. Scenery is most interesting 
 when you're at your top speed." 
 
 "When those who talk about it are walking 
 hard, do you mean?" 
 
 " I meant when they are at their best. We 
 enjoy this view because we are at our best 
 to-day." 
 
 "Are we? Why?" 
 
 He made no sign, but some inward control 
 checked him suddenly, as one might rein back 
 a horse on the edge of a precipice. Yet he was 
 within an inch of plunging over. " Because we 
 are in love ! " — since it was true . . . but though 
 he was indeed bound for that happy valley, this 
 path was too abrupt. Not that he had learned 
 to calculate, at twenty-three, still less to hesitate ; 
 but the instinct to give chase and capture was 
 dominated by the instinct to save alive, to grasp 
 with no irreverent or selfish hand. So he could 
 not answer Althea's "Why?" He could only 
 evade it. 
 
 "Oh!" he said, "only that I feel at my best— 
 don't you ? " 
 
 " I don't know," she replied. " I've been walking 
 hard enough." 
 
 "But, seriously," he said, "don't you think 
 there are higher possibilities in scenery? It is
 
 312 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 not like the weather, just a convenient meeting- 
 place for two empty heads. It is a room with 
 windows — there's always the mere beauty. Even 
 if the talkers are only a pair of idlers, 'Who 
 have no need of a remoter charm By thought 
 supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the 
 eye,' at any rate they are looking at something 
 better than a rain-gauge. If they are not . . . 
 well, if they are not merely passing time, they 
 may do better still, they may give each other 
 the ' sense of something far more deeply in- 
 terfused.' " 
 
 Again she glanced up at him, sympathetic, ad- 
 miring, but very mischievous. 
 
 "Wordsworth is rather an elderly taste, isn't 
 he?" 
 
 " Scenery is not," he replied. " It was in Words- 
 worth's boyhood that it haunted him like a 
 passion ; and it is commonly when people are 
 young and in love that they feel most in touch 
 with nature — with the beauty of the world." 
 
 "Do they?" 
 
 "Well ... it has always been the custom 
 for . . ." He started back once more. What 
 abyss was before him now ? — a Discourse on the 
 History of the Honeymoon ! This time he was 
 saved by the sound of wheels and voices on the 
 road above. As he handed Althea into the 
 carriage and took his own place opposite Sir 
 William, he tingled with the afterglow of an 
 escape. The passes of the Grisons seemed to 
 abound in precipices.
 
 313 
 
 CHAPTER LIV. 
 
 So it was : the country he had now entered was 
 a dangeroi\s one. Not a day passed that did 
 not bring him to the edge of at least one of 
 these unforeseen decHvities, and there was not 
 one of them down which he would not gladly 
 have thrown himself headlong. But he was no 
 longer the merely impulsive young animal, no 
 longer the head-in-air fantastic lover of Downton 
 days, who could turn so happily out of the 
 workaday world by the first bye-lane of starlight 
 and jessamine. He had now a share of his own, 
 a troublesome share, in that more dusty world. 
 He had come out here with a definite purpose, 
 and until he had fulfilled that and extricated 
 himself from his perplexities he had no right — 
 so he kept telling himself — to go even one step 
 further on the true journey of his life. 
 
 So he walked as warily as he could : but the 
 difficulty of it ! He was all day in twofold peril : 
 besides these chance perils of the road, there was 
 a peril of the air in which he moved. It had a 
 radiance that dazzled, a power that surged up 
 all the channels of his blood : there were sudden 
 moments when upon no temptation, no glimpse
 
 314 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 of opportunity, he was seized with the passion 
 of the cataract for the pool, the desire to make 
 a headlong end — dizzy, lost, but unbewailing. At 
 other times the world was changed by a softer 
 spell, filled with deep undertones, whispering 
 secrets to be overheard by him alone : he 
 had a continual consciousness of the fairyland 
 that lies behind all the busy life of mortals — 
 every face, every human voice, bore a sig- 
 nificance for him beyond its plain and trivial 
 meaning. 
 
 If this was possible among the bare black and 
 white mountains of the Engadine, how much 
 more powerful was the enchantment when at 
 last the travellers turned towards Italy. There 
 can be but few days of pilgrimage to compare 
 with that on which for the first time the wanderer 
 looks back at the great rock wall of the Maloja, 
 shutting out the whole north behind him, and 
 then forward again to the white road that goes 
 winding by chestnut groves and wayside shrines 
 to the Land of Goth's Desire. 
 
 On this journey Promontogno is the general 
 place of halt, but it was hot and crowded, and 
 some chance acquaintance had told Sir William 
 of Soglio, which lies on a shelf a thousand feet 
 up the western side of the valley. Percy and 
 Althea went on foot, as usual, and their footpath 
 led through orchard after orchard, the air that 
 stirred the leaves breathing more and more cool 
 in that Southern twilight which comes so quickly 
 and seems to have so little darkness in it. 
 
 When they reached the top and turned the 
 corner of the little street they stood in silence —
 
 THE TWYMANS. 315 
 
 the rare silence of perfect satisfaction. They 
 seemed, as in a delightful dream, to have climbed 
 out of their own century altogether. This way 
 and that ran a tangle of tiny mediaeval alleys : 
 across them the houses leaned towards one 
 another, and were only saved from falling by 
 high arches pitched like bridges from side to 
 side. Below one of these hung an iron cresset, 
 with a feeble light already showing yellow in 
 the dusk. 
 
 The little square before the inn was quite 
 deserted : they sat down upon a bench and 
 looked across the deep gulf from which they 
 had come. On the far side of it a line of 
 strangely serrated crags rose into a clear sky : 
 they seemed to be the sea-wall of the world, 
 and beyond them the moon was sailing rapidly 
 like a silver boat on a swift and rising tide. 
 
 Percy felt as if he were making that voyage, 
 and Althea with him. By a common impulse 
 they turned away and came back to Earth again, 
 but the sense of close companionship remained. 
 They looked at one another like two who have 
 come far together and have lost their way. 
 Suddenly he started up. 
 
 "What is it?" she asked. 
 
 "I have a feeling — I can't explain it — that this 
 is one of the places where things happen. Do 
 you feel that?" 
 
 " No, not quite : but I have an odd sensation 
 of being expected here — of being intended to 
 come." 
 
 Yes, he thought, that is what I meant. But 
 he said no more : he was trying to recall his
 
 316 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 own purpose in coming — it had been so important 
 a few days ago. 
 
 When Edward and Sir William arrived they 
 all went into the house together. It had little 
 of the inn about it : to all appearance it was 
 still the palazzo da state of the counts who 
 built it centuries ago. The stairs and passages 
 were all of cool grey stone, round - arched in 
 the solid and serene Italian style : the dining- 
 hall was vaulted with a groined roof of stone, 
 and its windows were set high up in deep 
 embrasures, strongly barred with iron. By the 
 great fireplace hung a couple of swords, their 
 blades damascened with the motto Vigilandum, 
 their vellum scabbards worn as with constant 
 use. The rooms above were stately and well 
 furnished, pannelled and ceiled with a dark 
 aromatic wood : the fragrance was so exqui- 
 sitely faint that the air was rather haunted 
 by it than perfumed. Outside in the corridors 
 stood great presses, carved with the names of 
 the successive brides and bridegrooms for whose 
 home-coming they had been made. 
 
 Who were those ancient lords? Their hos- 
 pitality seemed to have survived them : their 
 quiet and spacious house, with its open doors 
 and ready chambers, seemed to be still await- 
 ing their guests, and now at last the guests 
 were here. For what purpose ? and by whose 
 desire? Again Percy felt, as the door of his 
 own room closed upon him, that this was the 
 place of an event.
 
 317 
 
 CHAPTER LV. 
 
 The next day was to be an idle one : but 
 before the morning was half gone it had pro- 
 vided a surprise for Percy — the arrival of a 
 letter, which had been overlooked at Promon- 
 togno the evening before. It was from Molly, 
 and pressed him in her own peculiar style for 
 an account of his progress to date. "Look 
 here, my man," she wrote, " I don't want to 
 be severe with you, but you must think a little 
 more of your responsibility to your owners. 
 Your aged mother will have a fit if you don't 
 tell us how you are getting on. I'm nearly 
 worn out with anxiety myself : a ding - dong 
 contest is a very exhausting thing to watch." 
 
 He smiled faintly as he read, then frowned, 
 put the letter in his pocket, and went out in 
 search of Althea. He tracked her to the 
 garden, an empty and almost desolate little 
 place, but still -endearingly formal and elegant. 
 By a corner of one of the square-cut hedges he 
 stood for a moment to enjoy the picture. She 
 was sitting in the angle of the old wall, her 
 dove - coloured dress and shadowy straw hat 
 making a curiously perfect harmony with the 
 crumbling plaster and deep eaves behind her.
 
 318 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 One hand was pressed downward on the seat, 
 the other she was holding out with a charming 
 gesture of persuasion to a Hzard which lay 
 along the slab of stone as motionless as a 
 carven ornament. At last it glided away and 
 he advanced. 
 
 " It was nice of you not to move," she said. 
 
 " I wanted to watch," he replied ; and then, 
 " How did you know I was there ? You couldn't 
 see me and the lizard too." 
 
 "I wonder," she murmured, and began to 
 move towards the door which led out on to 
 the hillside. 
 
 They wandered out together, and came pres- 
 ently to the edge of the little plateau on which 
 the village stands. The camj)anile jutted out 
 against the sky, sheer over the gorge : far 
 below to right and left stretched the Val 
 Bregaglia, filled with a deep blue mist like 
 sleep, the river winding through it a thread of 
 paler and brighter blue, like the path to dream- 
 land. Right beneath them, small and clear as 
 a town in one of Perugino's distances, Bondo 
 lay clustering by road and river. 
 
 Althea mused as she looked, happily and 
 quietly. "It is like looking from one world 
 at another. It is impossible to believe there 
 can be anything in common between our life 
 and theirs." 
 
 To Percy, conscious of the letter in his pocket 
 and ready to clutch at any help, the words 
 were an encouragement : he saw an analogy 
 which seemed to him to lessen the abruptness 
 of his opening.
 
 THE TWYMANS. 319 
 
 "I have not yet told you," he said in a rather 
 strained voice, "what I really came out here 
 for." 
 
 Her heart sprang up out of sleep and fled 
 away into darkness with tremendous leaps. 
 But being a man, he did not perceive that, 
 and, while he went on with his plodding, the 
 wild thing returned to something like courage. 
 
 "It seems an incredible story, but they think 
 . . . there's a theory, a legal theory, that I am 
 the next heir to Hampton after your grand- 
 father. It's a question of the terms on which 
 it was granted to our ancestor — they say it 
 can't be disentailed ; it must come to me instead 
 of Edward." 
 
 She looked steadily down at Bondo, and made 
 no sign. His embarrassment increased; he talked 
 volubly and inconsecutively of all the aspects of 
 the case, eager to explain, to make it clear how 
 repugnant his own claim was to him. In truth, 
 it had never been more so, but a kind of hot 
 shame took from him the power of putting 
 into words a feeling that was so obvious. 
 
 "Anyhow," he said at last, more quietly, "I 
 got so worried that I came out here to ask you 
 for your advice." 
 
 Still she was silent — thinking, thinking swiftly 
 and intensely, with all her mind and all her 
 heart ; but both were hidden from him. 
 
 He felt puzzled, alarmed. "Althea . . ." he 
 laid his hand very gently on her arm. Slie 
 turned to face him, and to his astonishment 
 her eyes rained bright tears, her lips were 
 crisped in curves that he had never seen before.
 
 320 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 " Don't ask me now," she pleaded, and two 
 last tears fell as she spoke. " Let us go home." 
 
 When they reached the garden again he made 
 one more effort to rebuild his ruined palace. "I 
 am afraid," he began very humbly, — "I am 
 afraid I have spoiled the morning for you. . . ." 
 
 "The morning!" Then seeing him wince she 
 seized his hand, pressed it, put it firmly from 
 her, and walked away into the house.
 
 321 
 
 CHAPTER LVL 
 
 The day mounted from heat to heat, laying on 
 every one a deadening weight of drowsiness. 
 In the streets, on the hillside, nothing moved : 
 the house itself was mute with a kind of 
 breathing silence. Only in the garden, as Percy 
 looked out upon it from the deep cool em- 
 brasure of his own window, a phantom seemed 
 to pass at times along the deserted walks that 
 trembled in the hot air, like the all but in- 
 visible presence of the moon - princess in the 
 story, fainter at mid - day than the faintest 
 shadow, and only recovering her embodied 
 loveliness when the glaring afternoon declined 
 into the freshness and dusk of evening. 
 
 Would evening ever come again, he wondered 
 in dull misery, and would it bring with it that 
 refreshment, that renewal of vivid life, in which 
 his perplexed brain might at least understand, 
 if not solve, the problem before him? For he 
 was at this moment unable even to see the 
 rock upon which he had struck so unexpectedly. 
 
 At last the great shadow of the mountain 
 ridge spread swiftly up the hill like an inun- 
 dation : he woke with a sudden return of re- 
 solve, and went to look for Edward. There was
 
 322 ' THE TWYMANS. 
 
 no other way out of it, he said to himself, and 
 no room left for scruples. 
 
 Edward was reclining in the cool upper hall, 
 a sort of spacious landing with a great fire- 
 place and gallery, hung with armour and a 
 portrait or two. A game of patience lay on 
 the table beside him. 
 
 " Edward," said Percy with decision, " I want 
 your advice ; I've got a case to put before you 
 — one that concerns us both." 
 
 "You needn't trouble," replied Edward with 
 enjoyment of the astonishment he was causing. 
 " I know it already — Twyman v. Twyman alias 
 Donnelly." 
 
 " He has told you ! " exclaimed Percy. " Well ! 
 but that doesn't matter now : what is your 
 view of the business ? " 
 
 "I should imagine," replied Edward with de- 
 liberate humour, "that it is exactly the opposite 
 of yours." 
 
 " Then you're wrong — I hate my own claim, 
 and that's just what I've been trying to tell 
 your sister this morning." 
 
 " Oh ! you've been trying to tell her that : 
 didn't you succeed ? " 
 
 "No; I can't understand why, but she burst 
 into tears." 
 
 "Quite so," said Edward; "obviously, inevit- 
 ably — in fact, how otherwise ? " 
 
 Percy's face darkened with puzzled indigna- 
 tion. Edward enlarged upon his text. 
 
 " Consider for a moment, you old dunderhead, 
 consider the perplexities of the situation : put 
 yourself at some one else's point of view. Your
 
 THE TWYMANS. 323 
 
 particular friend sets up a claim to your 
 brother's house and home : if he succeeds 
 there's an end of the particular friendship — as 
 one of your own poets has said, ' farewel, al is 
 go.' If, on the other hand, he fails, he is either 
 an injured man for life or a detected burglar. 
 Who would not weep to see one's particular 
 friend in such a case ? Who indeed ? " 
 
 " Oh ! stop your tomfoolery," cried Percy ; "I 
 never meant to succeed : and as for being in- 
 jured, how could I be injured by losing what 
 I never had any right to ? " 
 
 " A very sound view, — remarkably sound : it 
 has my entire sympathy : but it will never 
 have Thea's." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Well, if you press the question, because she's 
 an unreasonable, infatuated, prejudiced little 
 owl." 
 
 Percy had perhaps some knowledge of that 
 prejudice already, but it had always hitherto 
 been decently ignored by every one. To hear 
 it spoken of, even in so ribald a phrase, was 
 like the first real flash of the rising sun. In 
 another instant the whole earth was golden. 
 
 "Edward," he said, "you're cured — you're 
 quite yourself again — good-bye ! " 
 
 He ran downstairs to Althea's sitting - room. 
 The door was open, and he could see her read- 
 ing on the balcony. " May I come in ? " he 
 cried in a round ringing voice, and entered 
 without the permission. 
 
 She rose and came forward into the room, 
 the book in her hand, and her face full of
 
 324 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 wonder at his changed manner. He took the 
 book and tossed it upon a table ; took her two 
 hands, lifted them, bent over and kissed them. 
 Her fingers tightened upon his ; when he raised 
 his head he saw that she had closed her eyes, 
 as if she too were making a vow in her own 
 heart. She opened them again, and he took 
 her in his arms. 
 
 " What is it ? " she asked as she rested there. 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " It is not separation," he said, " and that 
 was what hurt. They may all be against me 
 now." 
 
 "They? Against you? Oh! I remember. 
 But what does all that matter ? " 
 
 " Nothing — less than nothing : it never did 
 — it is not in our story — yours and mine, 
 darling. It is utterly irrelevant." 
 
 For half an hour they talked only of things 
 that were not so utterly irrelevant.
 
 325 
 
 CHAPTER LVII. 
 
 Now that the wanderer had at last had speech 
 with his princess, he found all things easy — even 
 the confronting of that venerable monarch, her 
 grandfather. This was a pressing matter, yet it 
 did not seem to press upon Percy. In the garden, 
 to which, towards the hour of dusk, Althea and 
 he had once more escaped, they let a good deal of 
 time slip by before they spoke of the future : the 
 past was so much more interesting, for they had 
 two separate, though parallel, versions of it to 
 compare. 
 
 " And now," said Percy at last, " what comes 
 next ? " 
 
 " Oh ! clearly," she replied, " Sir comes next." 
 
 " Why not Edward ? " 
 
 "Well, Edward . . . you see, Edward may have 
 guessed something already." 
 
 "Very unlikely," he replied, and they both 
 laughed. 
 
 " I expect," she said presently, " you wish it 
 were over." 
 
 His head went up confidently. " Not a bit ; but 
 isn't it just possible your grandfather may have 
 guessed too ? " 
 
 "I should say just possible." They laughed
 
 326 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 again, and she continued, " But it doesn't fol- 
 low . . ." 
 
 " If he knew, all this time, he can't make diffi- 
 culties now." 
 
 " Oh ! can't he ! " 
 
 " Well, then, if he will, he must — there's no use 
 in thinking about it." 
 
 So they ceased to think about it. Perhaps 
 they almost ceased to think at all, for in spite of 
 what Socrates proved in his lecture to Philebus, 
 lovers still at times take emotion and not in- 
 tellect for the true source of pleasure. Perhaps 
 they felt, as many like them have felt, that such 
 thinking as may be necessary to the situation has 
 already been done by the poets and left ready in 
 this House of No-abiding for the use of all who 
 come after them. 
 
 "I wonder," said Percy, mocking a favourite 
 phrase of his beloved, 
 
 " What do you wonder ? " 
 
 " I wonder, by my troth, what you and I Did 
 till we loved." 
 
 Her eyes flashed into mischief. " We know 
 what you at any rate did : you loved Another." 
 
 " Oh I if you call that loving ! And if it was, I 
 loved an idea, not a reality." 
 
 " Her name was Nelly," said the lady re- 
 lentlessly. 
 
 " I was eighteen." 
 
 " What was she like ? " 
 
 " I hardly remember." 
 
 " What was she like, sir ? " 
 
 " Oh ! well . . . she was tall." 
 
 " Taller than me ? "
 
 THE TWYMANS. 327 
 
 " Oh, Egypt, Egypt ! " he cried, " how Shake- 
 speare knew ! That was always my favourite 
 play." He was extravagantly delighted. 
 
 " I don't think I like the part of Cleopatra." 
 
 He made a suitable apology, and was re- 
 ceived back into favour. Then he began again. 
 " You haven't answered my question — seri- 
 ously." 
 
 " I can't, unless you tell me when . . . we 
 first loved." 
 
 " I'll answer for myself, if you will do the same 
 — honestly." 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " With me it was the first day, the first possible 
 moment, that afternoon on the College barge : 
 do you remember ? " 
 
 " Perfectly." 
 
 " And you ? " 
 
 " With me," she said, " it was yesterday." 
 
 u Oh! " — his face fell — " yesterday ! not till 
 yesterday ? " 
 
 " You speak as if you had something to com- 
 plain of." 
 
 " No, no," he answered, but still regretfully. 
 
 " No, indeed," she said with wicked enjoyment, 
 " it is I who ought to complain. You waited 
 years to inform me of your feelings ; I told you 
 mine within twenty -four hours after I knew 
 
 them." 
 
 Again he submitted and was forgiven. This 
 time the sound of a bell broke in upon the 
 ceremony. He sprang to his feet and looked up 
 at the house as if with a defiant consciousness 
 of power.
 
 328 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 " We must go in," he said ; " I should not be 
 afraid now if you had ten grandfathers." 
 
 " It is not as bad as that," she rephed, glancing 
 up at him. 
 
 That look was now his own, his only, like 
 everything else in the world that w^as most 
 beautiful. His heart became the heart of a 
 giant: it beat like the hammer of Thor.
 
 329 
 
 CHAPTER LVIIL 
 
 That night Sir William and Percy sat alone 
 together, finishing the last glass of Grumello 
 slowly and contentedly, a stranger might have 
 thought. But they both knew where their con- 
 versation must take them before it ended : and 
 both felt confident in the possession of superior 
 ground. It was evidently for the younger man 
 to attack, and in spite of his previous determina- 
 tion to do it in deliberate and masterly fashion, 
 Percy, after waiting too long for an opening, 
 ended by rushing to close quarters with ungrace- 
 ful directness. "Sir William," he said after a 
 chance pause, " I have something to tell you 
 which I hope will not altogether surprise you. 
 This afternoon I put the happiness of my life 
 entirely in Althea's hands." 
 
 Sir William's round eyes turned full upon him. 
 " Indeed," he replied, " and what was your object 
 in doing that ? " 
 
 Percy was staggered. " My object ? I hoped 
 that my happiness and hers might be the same. 
 If not, of course hers would come first." 
 
 "Naturally. But we have not got the defini- 
 tions quite right yet. When you speak of your
 
 330 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 happiness, you include your interests of all kinds, 
 your welfare generally ? " 
 
 " Certainly," Percy replied with conviction. " It 
 is simply everything to me — I ask for nothing 
 more in life." 
 
 " But when you speak of Althea's happiness — 
 you may have good grounds for speaking of it — I 
 imagine you mean rather her feelings than her 
 interests ? " 
 
 Percy was silent : from the point of view now 
 presented to him the match did not look a very 
 equal one. But he kept his head and reflected 
 that if this had been a real disability, he would 
 long ago have been reminded of it. His fault 
 must be that he had spoken. 
 
 " I see that I must appear to you to have acted 
 inconsiderately," he replied. " I can only say 
 that when I came out here I did not intend to do 
 this." 
 
 " And I did not intend that you should," said 
 Sir William. His power of assuming a tone of 
 great gravity, without in the slightest degree 
 altering the genial quality of his voice, made 
 him a very formidable antagonist. He wished 
 now to be magisterial, to make Percy feel 
 that there was no room for argument or plead- 
 ing, that he had been called up for judgment 
 and must bow to the sentence, whatever it 
 might be. He very nearly succeeded — for the 
 first few moments. " I think it will be better," 
 he said, " that I should tell you my view of the 
 whole situation at once. We made your ac- 
 quaintance in the ordinary Avay : you came to us 
 as a friend of Edward's, and we were almost im-
 
 THE TWYMANS. 331 
 
 mediately able to accept you as a relative. Your 
 position, your opinions, your prospects were, 
 from that point of view, satisfactory : and you 
 succeeded, if I may say so, in making the new con- 
 nection agreeable to all of us. But, for me, there 
 were two other aspects of this connection : I had 
 to consider your relation to us as a claimant of 
 the family property, and as a suitor for my 
 granddaughter. You probably were not aware 
 of the fact, at any rate in the earlier days, but 
 you pushed your advance almost as openly in the 
 one affair as in the other. 
 
 " You will perhaps say that as you made your 
 intentions clear, I ought to have taken some 
 opportunity of explaining my own. My answer 
 to that is that I have done my best — I have been 
 at a good deal of pains to control the develop- 
 ment of this double situation. My intentions 
 have not been hostile, but dilatory — I wished not 
 to thwart your intimacy with my granddaughter, 
 but to keep it back, to prevent it from ripening 
 before the fitting time. I am speaking frankly 
 to you. My intention was, and I think you 
 realised it, that you should get the one claim 
 settled before you put forward the other. But 
 my intentions have been defeated all through : 
 from step to step my wishes have been overruled. 
 You were informed of your position against my 
 advice, you spoke to Edward in spite of my stipu- 
 lation to the contrary, you have now taken a still 
 graver step without asking my consent. And all 
 this time you have resisted or disregarded my 
 urgent desire that the question of the property 
 should be disposed of. The result is that I do
 
 332 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 not yet know with whom I am deaHng. I do not 
 mean merely that I do not know whether you 
 are a rich suitor or a poor one : I mean that I 
 have not yet had the opportunity which I am 
 entitled to, of judging your character by your 
 conduct of a very unusual claim." 
 
 Five hours ago, when he was still single- 
 handed, Percy would have hastened to give 
 assurances on this point M^hich w^ould have amply 
 satisfied his opponent. Sir William was probably 
 quite aware of his feeling about the claim, and 
 perhaps looked for a formal declaration of it : 
 but if so, he was disappointed. Percy was no 
 longer alone, his ship carried Althea and her 
 fortunes. This did not change his resolution, 
 but it enhanced his pride and forbade him to 
 surrender at discretion, however much inclined 
 he might be to abandon the contest at his own 
 time. 
 
 "I admit, sir," he replied, "that I have acted 
 upon impulse, more than once. I beg you to 
 forgive that, and give me an idea of your wishes 
 for the future." 
 
 Sir William was conscious of the resistance, 
 and made one more attempt to bear it down by 
 sheer weight. 
 
 " I certainly think that I ought now to have 
 a voice in the matter, and I am glad that you 
 take that view. My proposal is that things 
 shall go on as if this impulsive move had not 
 been made. You will return to England at the 
 time originally intended — next week, I think 
 you said — you will be called to the Bar in due 
 course, and in the meantime you will get legal
 
 THE TWYMANS. 333 
 
 assistance and proceed with the investigation of 
 your claim. Althea and you will remain upon 
 your ow^n terms of friendship : I have no desire 
 to interfere there. During my lifetime I have 
 no fear of her marrying without my consent : 
 and if I am asked to give her to you, I shall 
 require to know first exactly how you stand." 
 
 This decision was in no way disappointing to 
 Percy. Marriage had not been in his thoughts 
 as a possibility of the immediate future — the 
 idea of that would rather have alarmed him. 
 He wanted permission to love and be loved, to 
 go on and on through the enchanted forest, 
 holding his princess by the hand that she might 
 share or at least witness all his adventures. 
 But glad as he was to receive this permission, 
 he did not like the words in which it was con- 
 veyed. They seemed derogatory — his lady was 
 not to be " given " by any will but her own. 
 
 " Very well, sir," he replied, with a gravity 
 almost as dignified as Sir William's own manner, 
 " I accept your proposal. But you must allow 
 me to say that I shall never ask you to give 
 me anything. The only thing in the world 
 that I could ever ask for has been given me 
 already." 
 
 Sir William looked at his wine-glass, still 
 half full of the deep red wine, and for three or 
 four minutes he made no answer. He may 
 have been controlling an inclination to resent 
 Percy's attitude : but he was a wise old man, 
 and it is more probable that he was quietly 
 recognising the irresistible alliance of youth 
 and love. What power was his but the power
 
 334 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 of the purse ? — a right which he could not 
 exercise without losing all that he most desired 
 to keep in the few years that were left to him. 
 He finished his Grumello and looked at his 
 young challenger, not unkindly. 
 
 "If I told you," he said, "that Althea will 
 have little or nothing to call a fortune . . ." 
 
 "She will have mine," answered Percy, "the 
 fortune I am going to make." 
 
 Sir William smiled to himself — he had got 
 nearly, if not quite, all that he wanted. " Go 
 and tell her about it, then," he said ; and 
 Percy went.
 
 335 
 
 CHAPTER LIX. 
 
 Every enchanted forest has somewhere its wide 
 and dreary spaces of marsh or sand. Percy's 
 adventure had now brought him into one of 
 these. When he came to London in October, 
 and entered the dingy pupil-room in Lincohi's 
 Inn, where he was to be put in the way of 
 seeking his fortune, the desolation of the pros- 
 pect almost turned him back. He had no 
 dislike of being taught, even from the beginning, 
 even where he was at first a lame duck among 
 companions whom he must one day leave be- 
 hind. It was, of course, baffling and rather 
 humiliating to come down suddenly from the 
 eminence of the Fourth -year- man's position at 
 Oxford, from the Scholar's Table and the Union 
 Front Bench, into the vast dark warren of the 
 Inns of Court, where only giants were visible 
 at all, and long years must be spent in obscurity 
 before gianthood could be reached. But what 
 was more immediately depressing was the nature 
 of the work. To begin with, there was waiting 
 for him, at the end of some eight months, an 
 arid and perfunctory examination ; a trial in 
 which honour could be lost but not gained, a 
 test which was no real preparation for what
 
 336 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 was to follow, and which was at once too easy 
 to be stimulating and too difficvilt to be taken 
 easily. Then there was the daily task of the 
 pupil-room, the actual cases and drafts at which 
 his unskilled hand was to labour under the 
 guidance of the equity lawyer to whom he was 
 apprenticed. Property, property, property, that's 
 what the work seemed to say. But upon a 
 closer view it appeared that property was 
 something very different from anything that 
 you could have supposed it to be. Its material 
 aspect was not visible from Lincoln's Inn at 
 all : what the novice was to look for was a 
 tangle of relations, obligations, devolutions, and 
 contingent interests, shadows of fantastic size 
 and shape Avhich bore no proportion to the 
 substance that appeared to cast them. Land 
 was especially subject to this strange process 
 of distortion : it ceased to be any part of the 
 inhabited earth, the home of men, any part of 
 the historic England, any part of the landscape 
 visible to - day : it became either a legal estate 
 or an equitable interest, a fee-simple or a lease 
 for lives, a servient or a dominant tenement. It 
 made itself plain, even to the eye, when that 
 was necessary, but only in the flattest and least 
 realisable form, in a map, or a plan, or a section 
 — never as a picture that could be grasped by 
 the imagination. The concrete being wholly 
 absent, there was nothing for poetry to grow 
 upon, and without poetry, Percy felt as much 
 defrauded as he would have been in a garden 
 that was all gravel and no flow^ers. 
 
 But as time went on he became more content.
 
 THE TWYMANS. 337 
 
 more at home in this curiously abstract world. 
 As time went on, it seemed to him less and less 
 unnatural to think of possession, the fact and 
 the mode of possession, as of more importance 
 than either the person possessing or the thing 
 possessed. He began to find that pleasure in 
 the law which we find in our games — a pleasure 
 derived not from the scene in which we play, 
 or any useful result which we attain, but merely 
 from the rules which limit our activity with so 
 many checks and counter-checks. He was fairly 
 on the way to become a Conveyancer. 
 
 The deadness of this period was greatly in- 
 creased by his prolonged separation from Althea. 
 Edward was now pronounced by the doctors 
 to be entirely recovered, and Percy hoped 
 anxiously to hear that the whole party would 
 return to England. But Sir William had learnt 
 to keep his distance : he was determined that 
 there should be no more opportunities for im- 
 pulse, and decided accordingly to winter still 
 farther away in Egypt. Not only were the 
 lovers effectually kept apart by this move, but 
 their correspondence was cruelly diminished : 
 they began at once to starve on a five days' 
 post, and afterwards, when Sir William's daha- 
 beah started on its slow voyage up the Nile, 
 supplies came at longer and longer intervals, 
 until Percy was brought low in spirit from 
 sheer lack of nourishment. The corn of Egypt 
 was life and strength when it reached him ; but 
 he had at times to make a single ration of it last 
 him for a fortnight's march among the sandhills. 
 
 This was perhaps the most Roman period of 
 
 Y
 
 338 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 Percy's life : it was Mr Mundy's chance, if he 
 had only known it. Amelia did know it, by 
 some feminine instinct, and contrived, while 
 sympathising with all the feelings that her son 
 confided to her, to drop into every comforting 
 draught a pinch of the remedy she most firmly 
 believed in. Her hints were almost unperceived, 
 and wholly unresented. That they had some 
 effect is certain : for a day came when Percy, 
 resting for a moment not ill at ease among his 
 sandhills, saw the road before him in a new 
 light. He perceived that the fortune he was 
 seeking lay too far off for practical purposes, 
 and must look to all the world much less solid 
 and acceptable than an estate in tail in re- 
 mainder expectant on the determination of a 
 life already failing.
 
 339 
 
 CHAPTER LX. 
 
 In this hungry time, with its alternating periods 
 of inanition and recovery, the tonic influences 
 which did most for him were those of poetry and 
 poHtics. The two are not associated in all men's 
 minds : but the statesman can differ little from 
 the party hack or the old Parliamentary hand, 
 if it is not his jjerpetual care to substitute insight, 
 ideals, and enthusiasm for routine, materialism, 
 and the marshalling of selfish interests — in other 
 words, to replace the antique-modern method by 
 the chivalrous, the prosaic view by the poetical. 
 It was Percy's good fortune to come to full age 
 in a day when the young men of both parties 
 were dreaming dreams. Since then they have 
 now and again run into characteristic extrava- 
 gances : these have strained towards an irrespon- 
 sible idealism, those towards an over- combative 
 patriotism. Yet they have done well, for they 
 have grown up on both sides in the spirit of 
 service, without which our political life might 
 have become only a noisy squabble between 
 richer and poorer : a spirit so vital and sym- 
 pathetic that if he is once seen to be possessed 
 by it, forgiveness may be found even for the 
 most unscrupulous of mob-orators.
 
 340 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 But in that day, as in this, there was one huge 
 impediment which threatened to exhaust the 
 nation's political energy and block the advance 
 of all its chivalry, liberal or conservative. Percy 
 and his contemporaries were called away from 
 their dreams to fight over the question of the 
 government of Ireland, as they might have 
 fought in a closely blocked street, where there 
 could be neither victory nor surrender. A united 
 effort might have cleared away the barricade, 
 but united efforts are not common in politics, 
 and men were bewildered by their leaders' rapid 
 changes of front. They had no time to distinguish 
 certain from only possible dangers : some would 
 fight desperately against what others on the 
 same side could have accepted. Percy was 
 one of a large contingent who would have 
 risked an experiment in the retention or non- 
 retention, or even the partial retention, of the 
 Irish members at "Westminster, — though he sus- 
 pected it to be a problem "passing the wit of 
 nian," — but the abandonment of the landlords 
 or the raising of a vast sum to buy them out 
 seemed to him equally impossible. We had 
 not then learned to spend by the hundred 
 millions. Upon this point, perhaps the only 
 one now obsolete, he took his resolution, and 
 was soon shouting as hotly as the rest. 
 Several of his Oxford contemporaries were 
 selected as candidates for the election which 
 was imminent : he went about speaking for 
 one of them, and envied him as he had never 
 envied any one before. 
 
 In the middle of this turmoil the travellers
 
 THE TWYMANS. 341 
 
 returned. Percy and Althea met for a single 
 afternoon in London : Sir William had gone 
 straight on to Hampton, feeling shaken by 
 his homeward journey. He wished to see Percy 
 as soon as possible, and hoped to hear from him 
 the result of his consultation with the lawyers. 
 Percy went down on the following Saturday, but 
 empty handed : the very eminent Queen's Counsel 
 on whose table his case had been lying for some 
 weeks was now in the forefront of the election 
 battle, and could not even sign an opinion, much 
 less make an appointment for a consultation. 
 Sir William took the delay seriously : he foresaw 
 that nothing more would be done till after the 
 Long Vacation. His disappointment impressed 
 Percy, but only for a moment : Althea and the 
 campaign had all his thoughts. He barely found 
 time to be sorry for Edward, who was as keen as 
 himself, and in vigorous health, but forbidden, as 
 a final precaution, to try his newly recovered 
 powers upon the platform.
 
 342 
 
 CHAPTER LXL 
 
 In October, a day or two before his return to 
 London for the beginning of term, Percy received 
 an urgent letter from Althea. Her grandfather, 
 who had been ailing ever since his return, was 
 now taken with a fit of depression, very unusual 
 with him, and in his own opinion a dangerous 
 symptom. He Avas entering his eightieth year, 
 and could not forget the fact : his diminished 
 force was being further exhausted by unneces- 
 sary anxieties. Among these were the questions 
 connected with Percy's claim, and it would be a 
 relief if progress could be made at once towards 
 settling them. 
 
 Percy read part of this letter to his mother, 
 and she did not fail to give it its full significance. 
 She was certain that the crisis was at hand, the 
 moment she had been ^vaiting for these fifteen 
 years. She exhorted Percy to get ready for it 
 with all possible haste : she made him write and 
 telegraph in all directions, until the long-intended 
 consultation was fixed, and Mr Mundy and the 
 Commander engaged to attend it with herself 
 and her own lawyer. 
 
 At a quarter-past four, then, on the appointed 
 day, the whole party, under the guidance of the
 
 THE TWYMANS. 343 
 
 family solicitor, entered Lincoln's Inn, ascended 
 a grimy stone staircase in Old Square, and were 
 admitted to the presence of Mr Randall Riggs, 
 Q.C., M.P. Mr Riggs was a large quiet man, 
 larger and quieter even than Mr Mundy, but as 
 dominating and self-confident as the other was 
 gentle and modest. He shook hands with every 
 one of his visitors, and directed them to chairs 
 with a terse politeness which proclaimed that he 
 intended to be master of the situation, and that 
 there would be no time whatever to spare for 
 trifling or discursiveness. 
 
 When they were all placed in a semicircle 
 round the opposite side of the room he took 
 his seat at the table, opened a bundle of 
 papers, spread one of them out before him, 
 and began to speak in a voice that was neither 
 genial nor cold, courteous nor discourteous, per- 
 suasive nor repellent, but simply colourless, un- 
 tinged by any shade of personal feeling, the 
 perfection of scientific impartiality. " I have 
 written an opinion," he said, looking towards 
 the solicitor, " upon the questions submitted to 
 me : but your clients will probably understand 
 the position better if I explain it in slightly 
 different language." He turned to Percy. "Your 
 case, Mr Twyman, is this" — and at the sound 
 of the words Percy felt himself singled out 
 from all the inhabitants of his own world and 
 invested with a kind of public dignity. "You 
 are descended from a common ancestor with 
 Sir William Twyman. Sir William is the heir 
 male of the body of that ancestor, and he is 
 also admittedly in possession of estates origin-
 
 344 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 ally acquired by that ancestor and handed down 
 from him. It is further admitted, and has, I 
 understand, been proved in the College of Arms, 
 that upon the death of Sir William, if he should 
 die without male issue, you will succeed to the 
 position which he now occupies, of heir male of 
 the body to your ancestor. The question is 
 whether this is a bare legal position, a mere 
 genealogical fact, or whether it carries with it 
 the right of succession to the estates. In Sir 
 William's view it does not. He maintains, and 
 has always maintained, that he became pos- 
 sessed of the property as tenant in tail under 
 a deed of the ordinary kind — I purposely use 
 a vague expression here, — and that by execut- 
 ing a disentailing deed he has become the 
 absolute owner of the fee simple, with the 
 power of giving it or leaving it by will to 
 whomever he pleases. 
 
 " Your claim is that the estates cannot be so 
 disposed of — that they must continue to follow 
 the strict line of male descent. To make this 
 good you assert that the lands in question 
 were inherited under no ordinary deed, but 
 under a grant from the Crown to your an- 
 cestor, a grant in tail male, made before a 
 certain year of King Henry VIII. for public 
 services, and therefore not capable of being 
 defeated by a disentailing deed. In my opinion 
 this claim, though a very unusual one, is not 
 in law an impossible one. It is, in fact, not 
 unprecedented. In the case of Williams v. 
 Williams, hardly fifty years ago, a similar claim 
 was made, and failed."
 
 THE TWYMANS. 345 
 
 "Failed?" — the interruption came from Amelia, 
 and her voice was alive with disappointment and 
 indignation. "And why, may I ask?" 
 
 "That failure," continued Mr Riggs, "in no 
 way prejudices your case, but is rather in- 
 structive. The plaintiff there asserted the exist- 
 ence of a Crown grant, but he could furnish 
 no particulars of its contents. He believed the 
 original deed to be in the defendant's posses- 
 sion, and asked for its production. This method 
 is Avhat is known as a fishing inquiry, and it is 
 not countenanced by the Court. His statement 
 of claim was therefore struck out, and the action 
 could not proceed." 
 
 "It seems to me," said Percy, "that I am in 
 precisely the same position." 
 
 "You are certainly," replied Mr Riggs, "under 
 the same necessity of getting up your own case 
 — that is, of obtaining information as to the 
 existence and contents of the document under 
 which you propose to claim. I understand that 
 you have had searches made at the Record 
 Office without result." 
 
 " Of course," exclaimed Amelia, " the deed is 
 at Hampton : I am certain of it." 
 
 " Is it not probable," asked Mr Mundy, cover- 
 ing her vivacity Avith his grave confidential 
 manner — " is it not very probable that Sir 
 William has the deed ? " 
 
 " I cannot make any conjecture," replied Mr 
 Riggs. " I do not know the gentleman. The 
 possibilities are these. Assuming the correct- 
 ness of the tradition that it once existed, it 
 may still be at Hampton, under lock and key.
 
 346 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 or it may be lost, or it may have perished at 
 some past time, or it may even have come to 
 Sir William's hands and been destroyed by 
 him." 
 
 " That would be simply immoral," cried Amelia. 
 
 "Very likely, madam," said Mr Riggs impar- 
 tially, taking out his watch and glancing at it. 
 
 " One moment ! " This time it was the Com- 
 mander who spoke, and Percy knew instantly 
 what he was going to say. "Would it not be 
 quite as immoral to bring such an action — to 
 take advantage, I mean, of an obsolete point of 
 law to rob a man's own grandson of his 
 inheritance ? " 
 
 Amelia turned away and shrugged her 
 shoulders with a look of indignant patience. 
 But Mr Riggs's face relaxed for the first time : 
 he seemed almost amused by the question. 
 
 "I fear I must demur," he said, "to all four 
 of your terms. The law cannot be ' obsolete,' 
 since it is still the law : no one can ' rob ' another 
 by legal process ; property to which a man is 
 not legally entitled is not his ' inheritance ' ; and 
 until Sir William dies we cannot know whether 
 he will leave a will or name his grandson in it." 
 
 The Commander was crushed — justly so, it 
 appeared to every one but Percy. To him the 
 criticism seemed an empty cavil. 
 
 " He is right all the same," said the Crusader 
 in his heart. 
 
 Mr Riggs was shaking hands with his dis- 
 persing clients. Percy and the family solicitor 
 came last. 
 
 "This is all you have to remember," said the
 
 THE TWYMANS. 347 
 
 great man ; " you can do nothing till you know 
 the contents of that deed. But when you do 
 know^ them your claim is alive, and you will 
 have no further difficulty with the moral ques- 
 tion. Good morning." 
 
 Percy wrote to Althea the same evening, 
 enclosing a short note of Mr Riggs's opinion.
 
 348 
 
 CHAPTER LXIL 
 
 It is beyond question that events and discoveries 
 have a way of clustering at certain points upon 
 the thread of life. It is not that the unusual or 
 the unlikely has happened, but the ordinary 
 things that any one might have expected have 
 all happened together, and produced an effect 
 of intended co-operation — they seem to have 
 been focussed, as a concerted movement is 
 focussed by agreement or by order of an un- 
 seen Commander - in - Chief. The commonest 
 experience of this kind is the case of simul- 
 taneous correspondence. You write a letter, 
 upon a sudden impulse, to a friend who has no 
 reason for expecting to hear from you, perhaps 
 no particular reason for thinking of you at all. 
 Next day, the first envelope you receive bears 
 his handwriting upon it, and the contents answer 
 your thoughts — his impulse has coincided with 
 your own. In many such cases the explanation 
 is easy to be seen : in others, where it is not 
 traceable by us, it will probably be plain enough 
 to a future generation, when telepathy has been 
 transplanted from the tangle of charlatanism 
 and superstition and given a place in the experi- 
 mental garden of science.
 
 THE TWYMANS. 349 
 
 What now happened to Percy was not perhaps 
 unaccountable, but it bad upon him the intense 
 effect naturally produced by focussing. When 
 he entered the pupil-room in Lincoln's Inn on 
 the morning after the consultation with Mr 
 Riggs, he found a letter from Althea lying on 
 his table. It was a little surprising that she 
 should have addressed him there, and not, as 
 usual, at his rooms in Eaton Terrace. Also the 
 envelope was a large one, containing evidently 
 something more than an ordinary letter. He 
 had reason enough to feel, as he opened it, that 
 he should come upon something unexpected 
 within : but he always believed afterwards that 
 his feeling went further, that he knew what he 
 should find, — knew it for one distinct moment 
 before he found it. 
 
 The first sheet was from Althea herself. "I 
 cannot w^rite to-day — you will understand why, 
 when you read Edward's. — Your A." 
 
 But he did not read Edward's letter next : 
 with it was enclosed something more interesting 
 — a double sheet of fine old paper, musty and 
 yellow, creased with half - tattered folds, and 
 covered inside with columns of neat w^riting in 
 faded brown ink. The first column was headed 
 " Documents of Title to Lands now in the pos- 
 session of Sir John Twyman, Baronet." The 
 first item in that column ran as follows : — 
 
 " 1517, Aug. 24. — Deed of grant from King 
 Henry the Eighth of the Manors of Hampton 
 St George, Hampton St John, Harnwood, Red- 
 stock, Combe Vassal, to Sir Edward Twyman,
 
 350 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 Knight, and the Heirs Male of his Body, failing 
 whom to the Heirs of the Body of the said 
 Sir Edward Twyman, with an ultimate Re- 
 mainder to the right Heirs of the said King 
 Henry." 
 
 Percy read it again and again ; his pulse 
 quickened and a smile played round his lips. 
 He had been far from desiring the prize of 
 victory, but he would have been less than human 
 if he had not enjoyed winning the game. It 
 was a triumph worth having for its own sake ; 
 and, moreover, it freed him from that gibe of 
 Edward's — that good-humoured but unforgetable 
 picture of him as " a disappointed man for life," 
 or even "a detected burglar." Whether the 
 paper he now held in his hand was in itself 
 sufficient for success he did not know, nor did 
 he care ; it was enough for him that it proved 
 his claim to have been neither a delusion nor a 
 fraud. 
 
 He laid it down at last and took up Edward's 
 letter. 
 
 "My dear P., here's a game — doose-an-all of a 
 game. Looks remarkably like as if you were 
 going to be the one and only Twyman of Hamp- 
 ton in spite of everything. I suppose you've 
 done your consultation by this time. Never 
 mind, you can go round again to old man Riggs 
 with this little document, and fire it off in his 
 ear. I wish I could be there to see him jump. 
 I jumped myself when I found it ; we had finished 
 our search and I was just rummaging in Sir's
 
 THE TWYMANS. 351 
 
 own bureau for elastic bands to do up some of 
 the debris — stop ! — I tell this tale vilely. I must 
 start again. The way it began was this. Sir, 
 under the melancholy illusion that he was ill — 
 he's as sound as a roach, really — gave me a sort 
 of final-confession-and-last-wishes interview two 
 days ago, mostly about your affair. He told me 
 — I say, by the way, this is Most Secret and 
 Confidential, and if confronted with my own 
 handwriting I'm prepared to denounce it as a 
 forgery — he had always believed the Grant to be 
 in existence and in the house. He thought he 
 had seen it and handled it many years ago, when 
 he first succeeded — it was of no importance then, 
 because he might have had a son of his own 
 any day. Latterly his one idea was to find it 
 again, and (evidently, I thought) to put it in the 
 fire, on strictly moral grounds. He says your 
 claim is a technical one, in the deplorable Tudor 
 style, now quite out of taste in decent society. 
 I agree with him. He thinks he is entitled to 
 meet it by any stroke that's not illegal. Now 
 it can't be illegal for a man to destroy his own 
 title-deed — I suppose that is so? — and, anyhow, 
 if Henry VIII. has been inadvertently giving my 
 house and home to you, it is always lawful to 
 prevent injustice. Therefore, with all the spirit 
 of a righteous cause, he instructed me to hunt 
 this document down and burn it at once. Of 
 course he didn't say that, but there is such a 
 thing as trusting to sympathetic interpretation. 
 So Thea and I had a grand turn-out. We looked 
 in all the oak chests and wainscot cupboards 
 and other novelistic places, and we made a
 
 352 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 thoroughly good job of it. Finally, we con- 
 cluded that there ain't no deed to find. I do 
 believe there ain't, but there was once — see 
 enclosed ! I don't know if an entry of this kind 
 will do the trick for you, but it has an ancient 
 and unprejudiced look about it. I should guess 
 it slipped down between those drawers a century 
 ago — probably before the original went up the 
 chimney. 
 
 "You may wonder why I didn't do as the 
 Wicked Baronet meant, and send this memor- 
 andum to the same Safe Deposit. Well, I 
 thought I was going to, and then I thought I 
 would give it him and let him do it, being a 
 little too nearly concerned myself to see quite 
 straight in the case. Then I fancied that looked 
 rather a shuffle, because it \\'^ould certainly come 
 to exactly the same thing. So I consulted Thea, 
 and first she said Sir was right, and then she 
 said I was right, and then she said you were 
 right, and then she cried. But I gathered that 
 she didn't like the idea of anything being bottled, 
 so I hand you the nut to crack, and sincerely hope 
 it may turn out a deaf 'un. — Yours very foolishly, 
 
 " Edward Twyman. 
 
 " P.S. — You might wire to me what Riggs says 
 — now I've told you I can't go on keeping it from 
 my own side."
 
 353 
 
 CHAPTER LXIII. 
 
 Percy spent much time over Edward's letter 
 that day, and suffered many alternations both 
 of thought and feehng. There were two points 
 to think upon : he was anxious to be quite sure 
 that he had understood Althea's wishes, and there 
 was also the legal question of how far the new 
 evidence really carried his claim. The paper was 
 unsigned and unattested, it was not even a full 
 copy of the deed it recorded : but it did contain 
 all the information for lack of which the plaintiff 
 in that other case had failed. Was it just this 
 and nothing more — a sine qua non, but not in 
 itself conclusive? He would much have liked 
 to run across Old Square and put the question 
 to Mr Riggs. But while that would have satisfied 
 the curiosity of his intellect, it would have in- 
 volved, he knew, a train of other consequences 
 from which his heart shrank. Mr Riggs took a 
 very plain view of the choice which he, Percy, 
 had long ago decided against himself and his own 
 family. That decision was unshaken, but it was 
 not unshakeable : he was aware that his claim 
 had become more interesting from the moment 
 when it had appeared more substantial, and he 
 did not wish to put his resolution to any further 
 
 z
 
 354 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 strain. He pictured himself, as it were, drowning 
 by inches, helplessly entangled in the weeds of 
 law and common-sense. 
 
 Mr Riggs then must be avoided — and after 
 all he himself could give an opinion on this case 
 which would weigh more heavily than anything 
 Mr Riggs could say. Yes, to-morrow at Hampton 
 — but in the meantime there was this evening, 
 there was his mother to be told. She was staying 
 with him for one night more at his rooms in 
 Eaton Terrace, and they were to dine together 
 and go to the play. After that would come his 
 opportunity, and he knew how he meant to 
 use it. 
 
 It was half-past eleven when at last they 
 were alone over the fire. For a few minutes, 
 while the cocoa and sandwiches lasted, they 
 discussed the play they had just seen : then, 
 before Amelia could make the final move to 
 leave him, Percy drew the long envelope from 
 his pocket, took out Edward's letter and handed 
 it to his mother with a serious business-like air. 
 
 " I wish you would just look at this : I shall 
 have to act upon it to-morrow." 
 
 He thought his voice was steady and common- 
 place, he w^as sure she could not hear the 
 thumping that was going on beneath his ribs, 
 and probably he was right. But some women 
 have more senses than five, and Amelia was 
 certainly one of them. She knew on the instant 
 that he was excited, and that his excitement 
 was due to no ordinary cause. When she had 
 read five lines of Edward's letter she had guessed 
 everything.
 
 THE TWYMANS. 355 
 
 " Where is the document ? " she asked, her eyes 
 flashing and her voice quick and peremptory with 
 eagerness. 
 
 The tone and all that was implied in it jarred 
 upon Percy. But he was prepared to find this 
 scene a trying one in its earlier stage — the end 
 would compensate him if he could only be patient 
 and bring it off as he intended. He held out 
 the faded and tattered sheet of paper without 
 a word : it annoyed him to see, as he did so, 
 how genuine and convincing it looked. 
 
 Five lines of this, too, Amelia read, and no 
 more. Then her hands fell to her lap, and she 
 looked at Percy. 
 
 " Well ! . . . Then you've won ! " 
 " Not necessarily." 
 
 " Not necessarily ! What do you mean by 
 that? I heard all that Mr Riggs said, and you 
 needn't think because your mother's only a 
 woman that she doesn't understand. Am I 
 right or wrong? Isn't this exactly what was 
 wanted ? " 
 
 " It comes to this," he replied grudgingly, 
 "there's material for a fight now, which there 
 wasn't before." 
 
 "Ah — h!" Ruthless determination, triumph, 
 ecstatic thankfulness — a whole Song of Deborah 
 sounded in that monosyllable. Percy was terrified 
 into self-control, — he had to tame passions fiercer 
 than he could have believed to exist in so tender 
 a nature. 
 
 "My dear mother," he said very gently, "you 
 must remember . . . you do know, don't you, 
 that a fight is just what I want to avoid?"
 
 356 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 "My dear Percy," she retorted with decision, 
 "you are making a very great mistake. You 
 haven't Hved in the world as long as I have. 
 People don't think less of a man because he 
 fights — they respect him the more. And let me 
 tell you this. You imagine you have got all 
 that you want, that you would only be fighting 
 for something further that you don't want. 
 You never made a greater mistake. So long 
 as you can defeat them, so long as you have 
 even a chance of defeating them, you are some- 
 body, you may come and go as you please among 
 them, you may become engaged to their daughter. 
 But once you give them to understand there 
 will be no fighting, and where will you find 
 yourself ? " 
 
 " I'll take my chance of that," he replied, with 
 an attempt at a light touch. She took it for 
 flippancy. 
 
 " Oh ! my dear boy, do be prudent, do be serious, 
 do listen to reason. I know you love Althea, 
 I know you are set on marrying her." 
 
 " I'm not set on marrying Hampton St George." 
 
 " Of course not — you "would never be worldly — 
 but you can't take the one and give up the 
 other : they go together, as I have told you." 
 
 He refrained from contesting this point, and 
 she thought she was making an impression. 
 
 " Oh ! do think," she urged. " This means 
 everything for you, and for me too : you would 
 be settled for life." 
 
 Her voice was no longer eager, it was wistful — 
 it had in it the memory of past hopes. Percy 
 heard it, and was touched with a great tenderness
 
 THE TWYMANS. 357 
 
 for this wrong-headed, obstinate, devoted little 
 mother. He could not bear to go on flinging 
 answers at her across a gulf. " My deai%" he said, 
 taking her hand in his, " I know you wish me 
 all that is good : but to be settled in life is not 
 good — for me. Althea and I are not settlers, 
 we are pilgrims. We want to make a journey 
 together. We don't know where we are going, 
 exactly, and we don't know what we shall do 
 when we get there. We admit that we don't 
 even know what we shall find to eat by the 
 way. But the journey is the only thing for 
 us, because it's the only way of life that doesn't 
 end. Settlers have to turn out at last, and go 
 into exile : a pilgrim can't be exiled, because 
 the only country he cares about is always ahead 
 of him." 
 
 "You mean that it wouldn't suit you to be 
 a great landlord — I think you'd do it beauti- 
 fully." 
 
 " Oh ! that ! I suppose I should do it decently 
 for a year or two : then I should get bored like 
 the rest, and hate it." 
 
 As he spoke the word, all those other hates 
 came back to him — the many rebellions of his 
 soul against his intellect, against a world of 
 knowledge without beauty, of law without 
 personality, of possession without mystery. He 
 caught a glimpse of his real necessity : his 
 right hand quietly crushed the papers it held 
 into a meaningless lump. 
 
 "I hate it now!" he said. "I wish it all in 
 blazes ! " and threw the lump into the fire. 
 
 For a moment Amelia saw only the act and
 
 358 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 not its significance. Percy still held her hand, 
 and they pursued their own thoughts, silently 
 watching the fire darken and expand the paper 
 ball. But when at last it broke into flame 
 and the name of King Henry shone out clearly 
 as it perished, she started up involuntarily. It 
 was too late. She turned to Percy, and to his 
 astonishment, though she was deeply moved, 
 there was resignation in her voice, and even 
 pride. 
 
 " Oh ! Percy, Percy ! . . . But I always knew 
 you would do it. You are just like your father. 
 The T^vymans are the noblest family in the 
 world." 
 
 No belief could be more gratifying to Percy, 
 so long as it was unacknowledged : to hear it 
 put into words rasped his most sensitive fibres. 
 He almost snapped — 
 
 "My dear mother! why will you say such 
 things?" 
 
 " Why shouldn't I say them, if they're true ? " 
 
 "They're not true — at any rate of me. I've 
 been in two minds all along." 
 
 " Never mind ! you are a Twyman through and 
 through." 
 
 "Very well — perhaps that's only another way 
 of putting it."
 
 359 
 
 CHAPTER LXIV 
 
 Three days afterwards Percy and Althea were 
 once more sitting in their old place under the 
 thatched wall. In these three days a good many 
 things had been happening to Percy : an interview 
 on legal affairs with Sir William, two midnight 
 conversations with Edward on things in general, 
 and a dozen long talks with Althea on subjects 
 less irrelevant. Amelia and Molly had been in- 
 vited to Hampton, and had arrived : a jflight of 
 letters had been sent off and some answers 
 received : a formal announcement had been de- 
 spatched to the Press. This bubbling of small 
 events affected the lovers less than their friends, 
 but it was pleasant enough in its way : like the 
 effervescence of wine it seemed a natural, though 
 not an essential, quality of the exhilarating 
 draught at their lips. 
 
 The October morning was bright and very 
 calm — as bright and calm as that other day of 
 a hundred years ago, when the place in all its 
 beauty had been only the drop - scene of a 
 deserted stage. To-day the garden looked more 
 like a painted scene than ever — its loveliness 
 seemed no longer to be born of growth or 
 ripening, but to be all one piece of made per-
 
 360 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 fection, inanimate and changeless — only now 
 there was a sense of life and expectation behind 
 the curtain. 
 
 " Darling," said Percy in the low voice that is 
 like a touch, " do you remember our talk about 
 dramatic and idyllic places? I think I agree 
 with you now." 
 
 " How fortunate ! " 
 
 " But I mean it. I used to think nothing was 
 dramatic unless it was ' tuppence coloured.' " 
 
 "Whereas now? " 
 
 "Now I'm inclined to think that there's no 
 effective colouring except what we put on for 
 ourselves." 
 
 " How true ! " 
 
 Her mockery was the most delicious irritant he 
 had ever known ; he felt himself delicately corru- 
 gated with laughter, like sand beneath the small 
 irresistible ripples of a sparkling tide. The next 
 moment he perceived his mother and sister 
 advancing from beyond the sundial, each with 
 a newspaper in hand. 
 
 " Well," cried Molly, " you are announced all 
 right, but you can't think how absurd you look." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " Why, you're both engaged to people of the 
 same name — with all the directory to choose 
 from ! It's like the peas in Hans Andersen — 
 they were green, the pod was green, they thought 
 the whole world must be green." 
 
 " Now, when you've done chattering," remarked 
 Amelia, "I've got some letters to show Percy." 
 
 " Oh ! please, not now," he cried. " Althea and 
 I were just going for a walk."
 
 THE TWYMANS. 361 
 
 "Certainly not," said Althea. "I particularly 
 want to hear those letters." 
 
 " But couldn't they wait till lunch- time ? " 
 
 "Percival!" said Molly severely, "what do you 
 suppose Thea took the place for, if it was not for 
 the perquisites ? " 
 
 " This is what Mr Mundy says," began Amelia, 
 but upon second thoughts she handed the letter 
 over to be read in silence. 
 
 "Your letter almost took my breath. Two 
 such pieces of news at once have seldom come 
 my way. But I suppose they are in reality one 
 — or at least two counterbalancing terms in the 
 same treaty, if the young people will forgive 
 me for using such a word. I am sorry you 
 thought that I should not be pleased with the 
 arrangement, and I hasten to assure you of my 
 cordial sympathy and approval. Sir William 
 seems to have behaved quite as generously as 
 any one could have expected. The sum you 
 name is a very substantial acknowledgment, 
 and will relieve Percy of any feeling of inequality 
 of fortune. He is a lucky young dog, if I may 
 say so, to have caught so solid a shadow in place 
 of the reality he dropped. Of course I cannot 
 help thinking he would have come off still better 
 — a great deal better — if he had persevered 
 with his claim, but when the pinch comes it 
 is always training that tells, and his education 
 has been too much on the old unscientific lines 
 for his choice to be really free. However, since 
 you are satisfied, all is well, and you may 
 be sure that no one wishes him happiness more 
 sincerely than I do, for his own sake and his
 
 362 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 father's, and perhaps even more, my dear 
 Amelia, for yours." 
 
 Percy and Althea looked at one another : their 
 eyes, like heliograph mirrors, exchanged messages, 
 and the messages seemed to be full of humour, 
 but not a word was spoken. 
 
 "Well, Percy," cried Molly, "what do you 
 think of Father Mundy?— hits you off to a dot, 
 doesn't he?" 
 
 " Dear Mr Mundy ! " said Amelia, with sympathy 
 for everybody, " but he doesn't quite understand, 
 does he, Percy ? " 
 
 "He is right about one thing," Molly insisted, 
 "Luck's the word: it isn't often that a dog can 
 drop his bone and have it." 
 
 "My dear child," said her mother, "Percy did 
 what he thought right, and those who do that 
 always have their reward." 
 
 "Most unfair, I call it," retorted Molly. But 
 she failed to draw Percy, who was already begin- 
 ning his Uncle Roland's letter. 
 
 " Your new^s is good hearing, and your com- 
 ments on it even more so. If happiness can be 
 obtained in this world, Percy has gone the right 
 way to find it, and deserves all he gets. He has 
 had plenty of difficulties — wrong notions sug- 
 gested to him at every turn — the way he has 
 checked his bearings and come through the fog 
 is worthy of his father. It is born, not taught, — 
 that eye for the stars. I'm glad he is going into 
 politics — very glad that he is escaping from the 
 Bar, and from Mundyism too. No doubt there 
 must be lawyers and men of science, but who 
 would be an umpire or a ground-man if he had
 
 THE TWYMANS. 3G3 
 
 a chance of playing in the game himself? Not 
 Percy, at any rate — life is his Job. I wish him 
 joy of it with all my heart." 
 
 Again the lovers looked up from their reading : 
 again their eyes met, but this time Althea's were 
 full of something tenderer than humour. That 
 phrase about the stars sounded a note to which 
 her own thoughts had more than once vibrated. 
 She gave the letter back to Amelia and glanced 
 again at Percy, this time in readiness to be gone. 
 In both of them the impulse was quickened by 
 the sound of yet more voices approaching, — Sir 
 William and Edward were coming through the 
 doorway in the wall that led from the other 
 garden. 
 
 " I hope you will let my grandfather see 
 those letters," Althea said, as she began to move 
 away in the opposite direction, " then we could 
 all talk about them — later." 
 
 Percy followed her quickly and silently along 
 the green alley : past the sundial they went, 
 across the courtyard and through the house. 
 No voice recalled them, but they did not feel 
 safe until they had closed the iron gates of the 
 forecourt behind them and were making for the 
 high ridge of the down. 
 
 Percy walked with a kind of expanding energy, 
 as if a spring had been released within him : 
 from time to time he looked at Althea and 
 smiled with a wordless invitation to share his 
 outburst. At last she spoke. 
 
 " I don't exactly know why we are running 
 away." 
 
 " I do — for the joy of escaping."
 
 364 THE TWYMANS. 
 
 " Yes, but escaping what ? " 
 
 " Everything, everybody, the world ! " 
 
 " The world we are to live in ? " 
 
 " We are not ! We are going to find a new 
 one of our own. Come along!" and away he 
 went up the hill faster than before. Under 
 the brow stood a huge stack, with loose straw 
 at the foot of it. He threw himself down and 
 she sat beside him. Below them lay the house 
 they had left, its quiet grey front shining softly 
 in the misty October sunlight, small and perfect. 
 
 " How far away it seems already," she said. 
 
 He did not answer her immediately : his 
 memory was busy with all the to and fro of 
 the emotions which that house had brought upon 
 him — it seemed too distant and too much like a 
 painted show to have ever set in motion the 
 swinging tides of life and purpose. His mood 
 fell to quieter and quieter reflection. 
 
 " Yes," he replied at last, " it is not a place at 
 all, it is just a poem. What would you have 
 done if I had succeeded in making prose of it ? " 
 
 " I wonder," said Althea. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SOKS.
 
 Blackwood's New Novels. 
 
 The Keepers of the Gate, 
 
 By SYDNEY C. GRIER. 
 
 Contents. — The Wild Man of the Wilderness— The Dashing Miss Dashwood— The 
 Fiery Cross — Not long a-Doing — The Diplomatist — A Contest of Wills — The Honours of 
 Battle— To War's Alarms I Fly— The Better Part of Discretion— Fightings Without, 
 and Fears Within— "As when a Standard-Bearer Fainteth" — Forth to the Fight— 
 From the Man at the Front — Vera Incessu patet Dea — In and out of a Fool's Paradise — 
 The Byways of Finance— A Reprieve — Thus Far and no Further— The Bara Late Sahib 
 Speaks— Blow upon Blow— The Day of the Concert — The Night of the Concert— The 
 Great Gulf Fixed— Cast-otf Property— Received with Thanks— " By the Festal City's 
 Blaze." 
 
 A King of Vagabonds, 
 
 By BETH ELLIS. 
 
 Contents. — Prologue : The Grim Fortalice — A Knight-Errant — The Vagabond sets 
 forth — An Ambassador of Love — The Coming of the Prlnce^The Turning of the Ways 
 — The Bargain — A Royal Progress^A Wooer of Men — The First Menace of Fate — 
 Unwelcome Allies — On the Verge of the Abyss — The Oath of Moll Osbeck — Maying — 
 The Beginning of tli-i End— A Farewell— Panic— The Triumph of the East Wind- 
 Under the Guardianship of St Michael — The Prince Aspires — The Vagabond Prevails — 
 The Revelation of a Sunrise — A Shattered Ideal — Henry of England weaves a Web — 
 Vagabond Richard breaks it>-The Marriage of the Mayor's Daughter — The Last Throw 
 — The Atonement — The Shadow of a Memory— The Message. 
 
 Richard Somers, 
 
 By H. GRAHAME RICHARDS. 
 
 Contents. — In which Richard Bows to you — Richard checks with a Queen — 
 Richard is struck Blind — Richard's Lady Scornful — Richard loses his Breeches — 
 Richard's Little Comrade — Richard dons Armour — Richard's Puppets — Richard as 
 Priest — Richard and One Woman. 
 
 The Multiplicities of Una, 
 
 By E. DOUGLAS HUME, 
 Author of ' The Globular Jottings of Griselda.' 
 
 Contents. — Part I. : Feminine Darkness — Another's Kindness — Meeting and Part- 
 ing—The Sea's Soul — Prior Plighting — Land between Tropic Seas — The Noise of the 
 Carpenters— The Perishing Woodpecker— The Fortune-teller and Fate— The Beginning 
 of Separation— The Mirror Cleft — Love like a Cockroach Flving— The Self-same Moon 
 —The Local Great— The Voice of the Wild— The Front Gate of Misfortunes. Part II. : 
 The Onward Course— The Self-same Boat— The Worn Pathway— Land of the Cherry 
 Blossom — The Trenchant Shock — Ubiquitous Happenings — The Broken Pounding- 
 Stick — Different Ways— The Mirror Dim — One Crane's Voice— The Alternation— Sad 
 as a Temple Bell. Part III. : Sea Tides— Penalty— Entering Life— Dreaming- The 
 Prize of_the Quest — Darkness Ends. 
 
 Saints, Sinners, and the Usual People. 
 
 By St JOHN LUCAS. 
 
 Contents.— Expeditus— The Little Friend of Saint Ambrosius— The Iconoclast — 
 Three Grotesques: I. Pogson's Descent; II. The Reminiscent Bishop ; III. Tlu' Old 
 Maid— The Diary of a Short-sighted Man— The Absent Friend— The Friend of the 
 Family— The Statue of the Commander— The Smoke of the Tripod— The Gorgou'.s 
 Head— The Pale Cat— The Demeter of Cnidos.
 
 BlacKwood*s New Novels— continued. 
 The Joyous Wayfarer. 
 
 By HUMFREY JORDAN, 
 Autlior of 'My Lady of Intrigue.' 
 
 Spinners in Silence, 
 
 By RACHEL SVVETE MACNAMARA, 
 Author of 'The Trance,' ' Seed of Fire," &c. 
 Contents.— The Wednesday Boxes— Rags Interrupts— The Bagenals of Brittas— 
 The Dqu-s of War—" A Song, left by the way and long remembered " — Who came down 
 the Moon's Path— What Lu tie had Forgotten— The Gift of the Wind-Children— " The 
 Sea of Souls "—Of Mermaid's Hair— Fingal's Palace— The Riddle of the Sphinx— Miss 
 Hen is called Worthy— M. for Mareotis- Fingal talks Nonsense— Wine of Bordeaux- 
 Doors of Delight— Miss Hen is Horrified— Mareotis Dances— Of Dogs and Wolves— The 
 Witch's Daughter— A Summer Fire— Fingal is Puzzled— Dede Arrives— Sea- Magic— " A 
 Nymph who Flees from Shadows"— Fire and Ashes— An Immortal Soul— The Silent 
 Spinners— " The High Rose-Hedge round Paradise." 
 
 Troubled Waters. 
 
 By L. COPE CORN FORD, 
 Author of 'Captain Jacobus,' &c. 
 
 Contents.— The Passenger from the Martha and Mary— The Romneys— Captain 
 Romney's Choice— Mrs Romne.y's Choice— Diplomacy— The Rebel— Highly Educational 
 —" Little Thousand "—" Free Speech"— In Harbour— Dick Denial gets his Chance- 
 Law and Order— Joseph's Dream- Nevil makes Discoveries— Children of Industry— 
 The Sealed Packet^Dick's Penny— Each to his own— Youth— A Break— One String 
 Broken— Mr Denial Explains— Maria's Dilemma— A Meeting of the L. L. L. — Nevil 
 sees Things for Himself— The Stepfather— Faint Heart and Pair Lady— The Distressed 
 Damsel— Two ways of looking at it^-The Election— The Man of Business— The Man of 
 War— Mr Borlase speaks his Mind— Adventures in a Yacht— Left behind— The Minister 
 of State— His Native Laud— Denial comes to Judgment— Nevil Romney comes Home — 
 The Silver Box. 
 
 The Missing [Millionaire. 
 
 By CHRISTOPHER WILSON, 
 
 Contents.— A Maiden Voyage— "Conscience doth make Cowards "—Sir Peter 
 Calton's Luck— Flotsam— Tangled Threads— An Unfortunate Pledge— The Wayward- 
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 exceedingly good .selection from the poems of Byron, and added to them a clear 
 and cai)al)le introductory stn<ly." 
 
 Professor R. Wulker in 'EnglischeStudien.'-" Wight Duff's Byron wird 
 sicherlic^h da/.u heitragen des Diuhteis Werke in England mehr zu verbreiten, 
 als dies bisher geschehen ist. Aber auch in Deutschlaud ist das Buch alien 
 Freundeu Byron's warm zu empfehlen."
 
 42 William Blackwood & Sons' List. 
 
 HISTORY. 
 
 A Short History of Scotland. 
 
 By Andrew Lang. Crown 8vo, 5s. net. 
 
 LATIN AND GREEK. 
 
 Higher Latin Prose. 
 
 With an Introduction by H. W. Auden, M.A., Principal, Upper Canada 
 College, Toronto ; formerly Assistant-Master, Fettes College, Edinburgh ; 
 late Scholar of Christ's College, Cambridge, and Bell University Scholar. 
 2s. 6d. 
 
 *^* A Key (for Teachers only), 5s. net. 
 
 Educational Times. — "Those who are in need of a short practical guide on 
 
 the subject will find Mr Auden's little work well worth a trial The passages 
 
 chosen are well suited for translation. " 
 
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 on composition are first-rate, and should be of considerable use to the stiident 
 
 of style who has mastered the ordinary rules of prose writing Altogether, 
 
 this is a very valuable little book." 
 
 Lower Latin Prose. 
 
 By K. P. Wilson, M.A., Assistant-Master, Fettes College, Edinbiirgh. 
 2s. 6d. 
 
 *^* A Key [for Teachers only), 5s. net. 
 
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 book is well printed and clear. We can unreservedly recommend the work." 
 
 Higher Latin Unseens. 
 
 For the Use of Higher Forms and University Students. Selected, with In- 
 troductory Hints on Translation, by H. W. Auden, M.A., Principal, Upper 
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 burgh ; late Scholar of Christ's College, Cambridge, and Bell University 
 Scholar. 2s. 6d. 
 
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 Lower Latin Unseens. 
 
 Selected, with Introduction, by W. Lobban, M.A., Classical Master, High 
 School, Glasgow. 2s. 
 
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 School Guardian. — "The introductory hints on translation should be well 
 studied ; they are most valuable, and well put."
 
 Educational Works. 43 
 
 Now issued at Is. 6d. net to meet the requirements of the 
 Education Department for a Latin Translation Book suited to 
 pupils in the early stage of the subject. In its more expensive 
 form the volume has been extensively used by the greater Public 
 Schools, and is in its Twelfth Edition. A specimen copy will be 
 sent gratis to any teacher wishing to examine the book w^ith 
 a view^ to introduction. 
 
 TWELFTH EDITION. 
 
 Aditus Faciliores. 
 
 AN EASY LATIN CONSTRUING BOOK, 
 
 WITH VOCABULARY. 
 
 BY 
 
 A. W. POTTS, M.A., LL.D., 
 
 Late Head-M.ister of the Fettes College, Edinburgh, and sometime 
 
 Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge ; 
 
 AND THE 
 
 Rev. C. DARNELL, M.A., 
 
 Late Head-Master of Cargilfield Preparatory School, Edinburgh, 
 
 and Scholar of Pembroke and Downing 
 
 Colleges, Cambridge. 
 
 Contents, 
 
 PART I.— Stories and Fables— The Wolf ou liLs Dt-ath-P.ed— Alex- 
 ander and the Pirate — Zeno's Teaching — Ten Helpers— The Swallow 
 and the Ants — Di-sconteut — Pleasures of Country Life — The Wolf and 
 the Lamb — Simplicity of Farm Life in Ancient Italy — The Conceited 
 Jackdaw — The Ant and the Grasshopper — The Hares contemplate 
 Suicide— The Clever Parrot— Simple Living— The Human Hand— The 
 Bear — Value of Rivers — Love of the Country — Juno and the Peacock — 
 The Camel— The Swallow and the Birds— The Boy and the Echo— The 
 Stag and the Fountain— The Cat's Device— The Human Figure— The 
 Silly Crow— Abraham's Death-Bed— The Frogs ask for a King— The 
 Gods select severally a Favourite Tree — Hear the Other Side. 
 
 PART II.— Historical Extracts— The Story of the Fabii : Histori- 
 cal Introduction— The Story of the Fabii. The Conquest uf Veii : 
 Historical Introduction— The Conquest of Veii. The Sacrifice of 
 Decius : Historical Introduction — The Sacrifice of Decius. 
 
 PART HI.— The First Roman Invasion of Britain— Introduction 
 to Extracts from Caesar's Commentaries— The First Roman Invasion of 
 Britain. 
 
 PART IV.— The Life of Alexander the Great — Historical Intro- 
 duction — Life and Campaigns of Alexander the Great. 
 
 Appendix. Vocabulary. Addenda. 
 
 Two Maps to Illustrate the First Roomm Invasion of Britain and Hie 
 
 Campaigns of Alexander the Great.
 
 44 William Blackwood & Sons' List. 
 
 First Latin Sentences and Prose. 
 
 By K. P. Wilson, M.A., late Scholar of Pembroke College, Cambridge; 
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 Saturday Review. — "This is just the right sort of help the beginner wants. 
 
 It is certainly a book to be recommended for preparatory schools or the 
 
 lower classes of a public school." 
 
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 A First Latin Reader. 
 
 With Notes, Exercises, and Vocabulary. By K. P. Wilson, M.A., Fettes 
 College. Crown 8vo, Is. 6d. 
 
 Tales of Ancient Thessaly. 
 
 An Elementary Latin Reading - Book, with Notes and Vocabulary. By 
 J. W. E. Pearce, M.A., Headmaster of Merton Court Preparatory School, 
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 a Preface by J. L. Paton, M.A., late Fellow of St John's College, 
 Cambridge ; Headmaster of the Grammar School, Manchester. Is. 
 
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 Latin Verse Unseens. 
 
 By G. MiDDLETON, M.A., Classical Master, Aberdeen Grammar School, 
 late Scholar of Emmanuel College, Cambridge ; Joint-Author of ' Student's 
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 For Army Classes. By L. C. Vaughan Wilkes, M.A. 2s. 
 
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 5tonyhurst Latin Grammar. 
 
 By Rev. JoHN Gerard. Second Edition. Pp. 199. 3s. 
 
 Aditus Faciliores Qraeci. 
 
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 Camenarum Flosculos in Usum Fettesianorum decerptos 
 Notts quibusdam illustraverunt A. Gul. Potts, m.a., ll.D ; 
 
 GUL. A. Heard, M.A., LL.D. New Impression. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
 
 Educational Works. 45 
 
 Greek Accidence. 
 
 For Use in Preparatory and Pnblic Schools, By T. C. Wbatherhead, 
 M.A. , Headmaster, Choir School, King's College, Cambridge; formerly of 
 Trinity College, Cambridge, and Bell University Scholar. Is. 6d. 
 
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 An Elementary Greek Pleader. With Exercises and Full Vocabulary. By 
 H. W. Adden, M.A., Principal, Upper Canada College, Toronto ; formerly 
 Assistant-Master, Fettes College, Edinburgh ; late Scholar of Christ's College, 
 Cambridge, and Bell University Scholar. Is. 6d. 
 
 Saturday Review. — "A far more spirited narrative than the Anabasis. We 
 warmly commend the book." 
 
 liiglier Greek Prose. 
 
 With an Introduction by H. W. Auden, M.A., Principal, Upper Canada 
 College, Toronto. 2s. 6d. *#* Key {for Teachers only), 5s. net. 
 Guardian. — "The selection of passages for translation into Greek is certainly 
 well made." 
 
 Journal of Education. — "A manual of well -graduated exercises in Greek 
 Prose Composition, ranging from short sentences to continuous pieces." 
 
 Lower Greek Prose. 
 
 By K. P. Wilson, M.A., Assistant- Master in Fettes College, Edinburgh, 
 2s. 6d. *^^* A Key [for Teachers only), 5s. net. 
 School Guardian. — "A well-arranged book, designed to meet the needs of 
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 Higlier Greek Unseens. 
 
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 Upper Canada College, Toronto ; formerly Assistant- Master, Fettes College, 
 Edinburgh. 2s. 6d. 
 Educational Times. — "It contains a good selection quite difficult enough 
 for the highest forms of public schools." 
 
 Schoolmaster. — "The introductory remarks on style and translation form 
 eminently profitable preliminary reading for the earnest and diligent worker in 
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 Greek Unseens. 
 
 Being One Hundred Passages for Translation at Sight in Junior 
 Classes. Selected and arranged. With Introduction by W. Lobban, M.A., 
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 This little book is designed for the use of those prei^aring for the Leaving Cer- 
 tificatrf, Scotch Preliminar y, Loinioii M.-itii<'iiluti<>ii, ainl simihir i'.\:(iiiiii:iti(iiis in 
 Greek. The extracts are drawn from over a score of different authors, .-ind regard 
 has been had in the selection to literary or liistorical interest, and in the arrange- 
 ment to progressive difficulty.
 
 46 William Blackwood & Sons' List. 
 
 Greek Verse Unseens. 
 
 By T. R. Mills, M.A., Lecturer in Classics, University College, Dundee, 
 formerly Scholar of Wadham College, Oxford ; Joint-Author of ' Student's 
 Companion to Latin Aiithors.' Is. 6d. 
 
 School Guardian. — "A capital selection made with much discretion It 
 
 is a great merit that the selections are intelligible apart from their context." 
 
 University Correspondent. — "This careful and judicious selection should 
 be found very useful in the higher forms of schools and in preparing for less 
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 Greek Prose Phrase Book. 
 
 Based on Thucydides, Xenophon, Demosthenes, and Plato. Arranged accord- 
 ing to subjects, with Indexes. By H. W. Auden, M.A., Editor of 
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 Spectator.— " A good piece of work, and likely to be useful." 
 Athenaeum.— " A useful little volume, helpful to boys who are learning to 
 write Greek prose." 
 
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 Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by H. Sharplet, M, A., late Scholar 
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 A Short History of the Ancient Greeks from the 
 Earliest Times to the Roman Conquest. 
 
 By P. Giles, Litt.D., LL.D., University Reader in Comparative Philology, 
 Cambridge. With Maps and Illustrations. [In preparation. 
 
 Outlines of Greek History. 
 
 By the Same Author. In 1 vol. [In preparation. 
 
 A Manual of Classical Geography. 
 
 By John L. Mtres, M.A. Fellow of Magdalene College ; Professor of 
 Ancient History, Oxford. [In preparation.
 
 Educational Works. 47 
 
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 48 William Blackwood & Sons' List. 
 
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 Educational Works. 
 
 49 
 
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 MODERN LANGUAGES. 
 
 FRENCH. 
 
 Historical Reader of Early French. 
 
 Containing Passages Illustrative of the Growth of the French Language 
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 D
 
 50 William Blackwood & Sons' List. 
 
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 French Historical Unseens. 
 
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 French Test Papers for Civil Service and University 
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 All French Verbs in Twelve Hours (except Defective 
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 By Alfred J. Wtatt, M.A. Is. 
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 The Children's Guide to the French Language. 
 
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 Street, Edinburgh. Is. 
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 A History of German Literature. 
 
 By John G. Robertson, Ph.D., Professor of German in the University 
 
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 Outlines of the History of German Literature. 
 
 For the Use of Schools. By the Same Author. Crown 8vo.
 
 Educational Works. 51 
 
 DR LUBOVIUS' GERMAN SERIES. 
 A Practical German Grammar, Reader and Writer. 
 
 By Louis Lubovius, Ph.D., German Master, Billhead High School, Glas- 
 gow; Lecturer on German, U.F.C. Training College; Examiner for Degrees 
 in Arts, University of Glasgow. 3s. 6d. 
 
 Part I. — Elementary. 2s. 
 
 Part IL 3s. 
 
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 By Louis Lubovius, Ph.D. 2s. 6d. 
 
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 Preparatory Schools Review.— "A capital reading-book for middle forms." 
 
 Progressive German Composition. 
 
 With copious Notes and Idioms, and First Introduction to German 
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 Also in Two Parts : — 
 
 Progressive German Composition. 2s. 6d. 
 
 *»* A Key {for Teachers only), 5s. net. 
 First Introduction to German Philology. Is. 6d. 
 
 Journal of Education.— "The passages for translation are well selected, 
 and the notes to the passages, as well as the grammatical introduction, give 
 
 real assistance The part of the book dealing with German philology deserves 
 
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 A Compendious German Reader. 
 
 Consisting of Historical Extracts, Specimens of German Literature, Lives 
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 Guardian. — "This method of compilation is certainly an improvement on the 
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 School. 2s. 
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 52 William Blackwood & Sons' List. 
 
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 Educational Works. 53 
 
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 Elements of Modern Geography. 
 
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 54 William Blackwood & Sons' List. 
 
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 Educational Works. 55 
 
 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
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 Introductory Text=Book of Physical Geography. 
 
 With Sketch-Maps and Illustrations. By David Page, iiL.D,, h,c., Pro- 
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 Tub Home of Abraliam— Into Africa — 
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 CONTENTS 
 
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 Tom Thumb. 
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 Puss in Boots. 
 
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 Jack and the Bean-Stalk. 
 .Gol-dy. 
 Cin-der-el-la-Part I. 
 
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 10. 
 
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 At-a-lan-ta's Race. 
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 The Spi-der and his Web 
 
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 Teacher's Appendix. 
 
 la. 
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 19. 
 20. 
 21. 
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 23.
 
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 Educational News. — "The gradation of the exercises is perfect, and the 
 examples, which are very numerous, are of every conceivable variety. There is 
 ample choice for the teacher under every head. We recommend the series a.s 
 excellent School Arithmetics." 
 
 Merit Certificate Arithmetic. 
 
 96 pp. Paper cover, 6d. ; cloth, 8d. 
 
 Mensuration. 
 
 128 pp., cloth, Is. Also in Two Parts. Pt. I., P.-irallelogi'ams and 
 Triangles. 64 pp. Paper, 4d. ; cloth, 6d. Pt. II., Circles and Solids. 
 64 pp. Paper, 4d. ; cloth, 6d. Answers may he had separately, price 
 2d. each Part. 
 
 Educational Times. — "The explanations are always clear and to the point, 
 while the exercises are so exceptionally numerous that a wide selection is 
 offered to the students who make use of the book." 
 
 A First Book on Physical Geography. 
 
 For Use in Schools. 64 pp. 4d. 
 Journal of Education.— " This is a capital little book, describing shortly 
 and clearly the geographical phenemena of n.ature."
 
 64 William Blackwood & Sons' List. 
 
 Manual Instruction — Woodwork. Designed to meet the 
 
 Requirements of the Minute op the Science and Art Department 
 ON Manual Instruction. By GEORGE ST JOHN, Undenominational 
 School, Handsworth, Birmingham. With 100 Illustrations. Is, 
 
 Blackwoods' Simplex Civil Service Copy Books. 
 
 By John T. Pearce, B. A., Leith Academy. Price 2d. each. 
 
 CONTENTS OF THE SERIES. 
 
 No. 1. Elements, Short Letters, Words. 
 
 II 2. Long Letters, Easy Words. 
 
 II 3. Capitals, Half-line Words. 
 
 II 4. Text, Double Ruling, Sentences. 
 
 II 5. Half-Text, Sentences, Figures. 
 
 II 6. Intermediate, Transcription, &c. 
 
 II 7. Small Hand, Double Ruling. 
 
 II 8. Small Hand, Single Ruling. 
 The Headlines are graduated, up-to-date, and attractive. 
 
 Blackwoods' Universal Writing Books. 
 
 Have been designed to accompany the above series, and teachers will find it 
 advantageous to use them as Dictation Copies, because by them the learner 
 is kept continually writing at the correct slope, &c. No 1. is adapted for 
 Lower Classes, No. 2 for Higher Classes. Price 2d. each. 
 
 Practical Teacher. — ''Our readers would do well to write for a specimen of 
 this book, and of the blank exercise-books ruled on the same principle. They 
 are worth careful attention." 
 
 School World. — "Those teachers who are anxious to train their pupils to 
 write in the style associated with Civil Service Competitions should find the 
 copy-books designed by Mr Pearce very useful. The writing is certainly simple ; 
 it may, in fact, be reduced to four elements, in which the pupil is rigorously 
 exercised in the earlier books before proceeding in later numbers to continuous 
 writing." 
 
 Schoolmaster. — " Those of our readers in search of new books should see 
 these." 
 
 Journal of Education.— "Aids the eye and guides the hand, and thus 
 checkmates any bias towards error in the slope." 
 
 UNIVERSITY CALENDARS. 
 
 St Andrews University Calendar. 
 
 Printed and Published for the Senatus Academicus. Crown 8vo, 2s. fid. not. 
 
 St Andrews University L. L.A. Calendar. 
 
 Printed and Published for the Senatus Academicus. Crown 8vo, Is. 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS. Edinburgh and London. 
 
 9/11.
 
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 AA 000 374 342 4 
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