iiM)i«i»tit«mt- »^ THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT Bij FRANK A. RUSSELL BRENTANO'S : : : New York Publishers ::::::: MCMXXII Copyright, 1922, bt BRENTANO'S All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America ■ ! THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BT THE MAN WHO WROTE IT TO THE MAN WHO WROUGHT IT 799306 THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT BOOK I— SPARKS CHAPTER I "The Lamp of our Youth will ie utterly out; iut we shall tubsitt on the smell of it, And whatever we do, we shall fold our hands and suck our gums and think well of it. Yet, we shall he perfectly pleased with our work, and that is the perfectest Hell of it!" — The Old Men THE road from Deniliquin, glimmers, gray and uninviting, across a changeless expanse of browned grass, like a soiled ribbon on a drab's hair. It narrows to a point miles ahead, with something like a promise of fulfilment, only to widen maliciously as you approach, to march endlessly on as before, dull and level, an exasperating highway. Like a crawling insect the doctor's buggy crept across the plain. Dr. Payne would have indignantly questioned the word "crept," for he would never use a horse that could not do its level ten miles, and indeed the term i9 but a comparative one, for any progress seemed almost imperceptible in that country of vast distances. The "clop-clop" of the horse was pleasantly muted in the dust, spirals of which slowly mounted into the still, hot air, and marked for miles the passage of the open buggy. Odo Kent, two days off the English boat, looked about him curiously. Inwardly he was wondering how his old school chum could stand this grim monotony. 1 2 THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT "Can't call it pretty," he prouounced. The doctor grinned amiably at his guest. "The Kiverina, my friend," he retorted, "happens to be the finest sheep country in the world. "Why demand prettiness as well? Don't be a glutton. You can get prettiness on a chocolate-box." Kent smiled pleasantly. "Oh, lash me with contempt, you breeder of sheep. But harken! When I look for the smile of God and find myself confronted by a staring sheep's head, I can't swallow my disappointment in the shape of mutton or wool, even if you tell me each is the finest in the world. I travel thousands of miles to find fresh beauty, and you drive me over a dust-heap ; I utter a mild complaint, and you smother me with statistics. Go to I" Payne laughed aloud. "I'll promise you beauty and to spare. Oh, I'll make ample amends, my word-spinning friend. Good Lord I To think of little Bill Kent, that freckled little devil who made my cocoa at Harrow, blossoming out into a word- factory — a novelist, and famous, too, by George ! "When I read of the great Odo Kent, it never occurred to me to connect him with you. Your wire from Melbourne wa3 my first hint. And why — in the name of sanity — why Odo ? It sounds more like a scent than a name. ' ' "Nevertheless it happens to be one of mine — I natur- ally concealed the horrid fact at school," Kent replied, with just a hint of injury in his tones. A popular novel- ist seldom has a sense of humor ; it so rarely survives the blighting breath of popularity. ""Well, you've certainly made it damned acceptable on the cover of a book," Fayne made instant amends, sens- ing his blunder. "You and this new fellow Kipling seem to divide honors. "What do you think of him, by the way?" * * Nothing lasting. A trifling chap who happens to have set a fashion," was Kent's judgment. "In five years nobody will read him — ^he's too raw, too crude." "H'm! I'm an ignorant blighter myself. Like him immensely. "Well, we '11 give you copy for the new book. THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT 3 Just give us a hint of the game you're after, and we'll arrange a drive of the characters that come nearest the mark. I'll say this — they come in all shapes and sizes in Australia. Why, the very man I 'm going to see now is a regular freak — ought to be in a book. ' ' The novelist became alert. "Who is he?" ''Chap named Lee — John Pascoe Lee, to be precise,'* replied Payne. ''What's wrong with him?" Kent wished to know, having in mind his host's profession. "He's been badly mauled by the cogs of a machine he was pitched into," he replied, with a smile in the corners of his twitching eyes. "Good Lord! Is he badly hurt? How horrible!" The smile grew to the characteristic grin, never long absent from the doctor's face. "Pretty badly hurt, I should say. But you'd be a better judge than I." "I?" echoed the mystified novelist. *'Yes, the injury is psychological — or rather moral," PajTie explained, gravely. "But you said a machine ," began Kent. Payne interrupted with a big, jolly laugh. "Metaphorically, my dear Bill, metaphorically speak- ing. He got chewed up nine or ten years ago in the unwieldy English machine, known as primogeniture. I was trying to be funny, ' ' he confessed, ' * a rotten habit of mine, part of a bedside manner, so to speak. Seriously though, this fellow Lee will interest you. He's a perfect example of a man living in a country and yet existing outside of it." "I don't understand," confessed Kent. "And I'm not sure I can explain," said Payne. **Why, you're an Essex man. You must have known of the Lees — ^they own that great, ugly bam just out- side Middleham. Rather big pots- "Of course — Sir Everard Lee; he died some years ago. His youngster inherited." << That's the man. That youngster kicked this John 4 THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT Lee from Middleham to Kiverina — magnificent boot. Well, that's the story." "Very bald sort of story. Where does this machine come in? And what have I to do with it, in any case?" "Oh, you want embroidery, do you? Well, we've got ten miles more to do, so I'll spin the yarn," Payne said. "How do you come to be posted?" asked Kent. "My sister was nursing Sir Everard for five years. Her version has been amplified by Lee himself, who never tires of telling his wrong. So I have it pretty pat." And &s the horse held its even pace over the dusty road. Dr. Payne told John Lee's story. Any explanation of Philip Lee that left hig parents out of account would be as complete as a jigsaw puzzle with the key-piece missing. John Lee and his wife were violently uprooted from their natural soil, and transplanted to what, for them, was the uncongenial ground of Australia. They failed to acclimatize themselves, because they surrounded themselves with the atmosphere of that English home from which they had been driven. Prejudice and indul- gence worked subtly on their natures, and possibly reacted on Philip's. As Dr. PajTie had indicated, the Lees were the vic- tims of a system. Eton and Oxford were integral parts of it. As a young man John went up to Oxford, not from any slightest desire to make a career, but merely to do one of the things his position in life ordained, as nephew and heir of a baronet, who had weathered sixty years of life as a bachelor, and who daily congratulated himself on a feat, which, prop- erly regarded, was at least as great a compliment to the innate good sense of women as to his own wari- ness. After a somewhat turgid agricultural experience with wild oats, John, to the surprise and mild scandal of his compeers, developed an enthusiasm for work, and passed THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT 5 out of Oxford with a fairly good degree and an almost indecent desire to amount to something. He ran early against his first stone wall. He found a career made for him — that of being heir to a very exigent old gentleman with a partiality for shift- ing his troubles on to the nearest shoulders. He needed John, and scouted any idea of a career as unworthy. John rebelled, but forty thousand a year in reversion has a certain persuasive power, and there are not want- ing arguments for regarding the management of such a sum as a career in itself. John succumbed, and hitched himself on to a procession, consisting of two nurses, a doctor, a man used to lifting stout old gentle- men from couches to carriages, a courier versed in lan- iguage, gesticulation, peculation and the coinages of Europe. With this entourage he traversed Europe from Spa to Spa, never losing hope that incessant travel must eventually weaken a frame on which gout, ill- temper, and the usual etceteras had already made inroads. With alternating systole and diastole of hope and despair, according to the exasperating fluctuations in his uncle's health, John followed the scent of iodoform across Europe. During a happy fortnight in Baden, when Sir Everard's life was hanging by a thread, the heir fell in love. Things were coming his way. Life was beckoning with rosy fingers. To those who are surprised that Love could flourish in an atmosphere of iodine and ether, not to speak of red flannel, it may be curtly replied that Love is mad enough for anything. Sir Everard, calculating that he could dismiss a nurse if John married, gave his consent. Cicely Mainwaring, pretty, inconsequent, charming, was quite willing to believe herself in love with a prospective baronet with a rent-roll that was a scandal to Socialists. John, thirty- three, and extraordinarily unsophisticated since he had gone a-harvesting that sad crop of oats in his first year at Oxford, felt an urge of the senses that was easily mistaken for a grande passion. He had no friends to whisper a warning that the lovely Cicely was not equal 6 THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT to a long road and a hard year. If there had been, he would have had his answer pat; he was not going to travel such a road. Seven years passed, John wag forty when the blow fell. Sir Everard did the incredible thing — the im- possible thing — the inevitable thing, as John sourly told his wife afterwards. He married, or, rather, he con- verted the rather captious transient nurse into a perma- nent. Of course, she was a designing minx ; that goes without saying. In icy, well-bred, carefully-thought- out phrases, Cicely told her exactly what she thought of her. Lady Lee smiled. She could afiPord to. Still there was no reason for despair. A jointure subtracted from forty thousand still leaves pickings. Common-sense comforted them. They were still heir- apparents. It was certain old Sir Everard could never have children. Common-sense betrayed them. Physiological impos- sibilities must give way to august English law, which decrees, in the face of the strongest evidence that a child born in wedlock is of a husband's begettijig. Use- less to demonstrate the contrary — futile to bandy words •with the smiling mother, secure in the very face of assaulting scandal. Sir Everard, proud bej^ond measure, held in his arms a year after his wedding a boy, strong and vigorous, whose lusty legs had successfully kicked the Lees out-of-doors. Sir Everard gave scant ear to the late heirs. He was prepared to continue the allowance during his life- time, grimly observing that he was willing to pay so much for his nephew's prayers for his continued health. To John's anguished inquiry as to what was to become of them, he blandly countered with a query as to where the devil his ambition had flown to. He then exhorted him to be a man. A family council was held. After forty years of land- holding expectations, John's leanings were evident. Sir Everard, influenced no doubt by the distance and the difficulty of communications, offered to buy a station in Australia, if John would go out. So it was decided. THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT 7 The estate was bought, far down in the wonderful southlands of New South Wales. Not beautiful, as Kent had remarked, save perhaps to an eye that sees deeper than mere surface colors and contours, the Kivcrina is nevertheless a delectable land of wide rich plains, and rolling downs, carrying countless flocks; possessing wealthy, well-built towns, where Wool is staple and Sheep is King. Here are to be found, in stately homes, some of the richest squatters in Australia, with feet firmly planted in fatness, equally distant from the two largest Australian cities. One would have thought that the Lees would have heen happy in this Land of Promise. Mrs. Lee, a woman, of violent enthusiasms and as violent reactions, began by declaring that at last she lived! Here, in Arcadia, she could develop her real self. She tried it for a month, and then her facile passion seized on a new project. She conceived the idea of making the desert blossom as the rose. With careless extravagance she wired for an expert from Melbourne, and an orgy of sowing and budding commenced. Knowsley Park bloomed into beauty. Knowsley Park! The name is an index of the mind that produced it. John Lee never forgave the country of his adoption the fact that he was forced on its hospi- tality. The people who, with ready Australian kindli- ness, bore them off to visit them in their homes were forced to listen to the better methods that prevailed in the old world. His stiff-necked English prejudices, which most newcomers find melt quickly away in the warm, genial, generous sunlight of Australia, remained with him to the end of the chapter. He was distant to his men, paying on all occasions the role of the old English squire, blind to the mirth he excited. He made the blunder of thinking the sturdy fellows who did his work were Australian peasantry. Now there is no such thing as an Australian peasantry. It excited laughter when the name of Knowsley Park was given to the place which the district always had known as "Wirregulla." But when the mistress, play- 8 THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT ing the part of Lady Bountiful to her husband's Squire, carried to the independent and prosperous homes of the village people gifts of her own superfluities, with a demand for inspection of the premises so that she might pass upon their cleanliness, the sounding name suggested a corruption which stuck to the Lees. ' ' Nosey Parkers' ' was the generic term by which the "Wirregulla" people became known, and though the years corrected the foolish mistakes of inexperience and prejudice, and the feeling of the people changed to something like affectionate con- tempt, the nickname never altered. Philip was born in 1887, just after the famous gar- den had been finished in front, and while the side area still remained to be done. It was time for a new enthu- siasm, and the baby supplied the need in the very nick. The side garden was never finished. That was Dr. Payne's introduction to the family, the latest member of which he had just successfully launched on a career. He watched the new father curiously, as he stood by the bed, looking down on his wife and the morsel she was cuddling. As John Lee looked, his face worked strangely. He was a queer-looking man. Youth had long departed from his face, scared by the old soul that looked out on the world through such jaundiced eyes. Commonplace in feature, a small nose took all character from his face. Time, not an artistic worker, had used his burin savagely, and engraved deep brown lines on either side of the insignificant nose; his eyes, brilliant still, and saving the face from banality, were sunk in cavernous depths; his hands, wrinkled prematurely, were those of a man who is fated not to grasp what he reaches for; they possessed that habit of the weak man, gripping each other behind his back, or resting, wrists outward, on the hips, a position always assumed by indetermined, irresolute men. Impatient eyebrows, constantly knitted, gave an air of irritation to the whole personality. "What shall we make of him, John?" Cicely looked apprehensively at the irritable, nervously working face, and Payne looked at them both. THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT 9 "He's born to the overlordship of more than a few- rotten sheep," replied John. "If only the world hasn't a down on him, as it had on me, we'll make him a big man. ' ' Afterwards PajTie realized how characteristic the assertion was. CHAPTER II " 'How far is St. Eeleiia from a little child at play?' What melees you want to wander there with all the worldi between? Oh, Mother, call your son again or else he'll run away. {No one thinks of winter when the grass is green!)" — A St. Helena Lullaby FOURTEEN miles along the road, a pair of iron gates formed a break in the monotony of sheep- proof fencing, and a driveway, straight as the road itself, gave promise of a house somewhere off in the immensity of flatness. The drive was bordered with discouraged English trees, not yet tall enough for shade. They formed an intrusive note in the landscape. The gates bore the name of the place, and Kent smiled as the incongruity struck him. The ornate, gilt, archaic lettering looked woefully out of place. The im- agination of the novelist, great as it was, bogged vio- lently as he tried to see in the flat, brown expanse, with its grazing sheep and shelter-belts of eucalyptus, any analogy to a park. They drove along the avenue, which had suffered bereavement. Here and there, an oak, hurt and won- dering at the unfltness of things, had given up the unequal struggle ; stiff, dead branches starkly reminded the beholder that the strength of which the oak is a synonym may only be attained by careful selection of soil and adequate treatment. "There's a lesson for Lee in those confounded trees," remarked Pajme, when Kent had given expression to an idea like the foregoing. "His boy is an Australian, and requires Australian handling; instead, it's long odds he will be made into a little English prig." 10 THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT 11 "How old is he?" inquired Kent. "Let's see. He was born in eighty-six — no, it wasn't ; it was in eighty-seven, the year of the big grass-fire. That would make him just on eight." "How do you manage for education right up here, in this Back o' Beyond?" asked the other, curiously. "Education! You've come to the proper shop for information," laughed Payne. "Behold me" — thump- ing himself on the chest — "chairman of the Board of Advice. I'm on the School Committee. I am the School Committee. And we've got the finest school in the State, and the finest teacher, too. Of course, you know that the State runs all primary education ? ' ' "Oh, damn it, I didn't ask for a lecture. By Jove I that's pretty. That's really beautiful." Kent broke off to admire the prospect that had suddenly opened out, like a scene in a theater, so unexpected was it. The flatness had broken into gracious slopes. The drive fell steeply into a willow-planted billabong, dry at this time of the year. This ran out into a shallow, grassy valley. On the further side of this, stood the house, a wooden bungalow, half hidden by pines and more English trees, sturdy, big fellows these, well-fed and watered. Kent's enthusiasm increased as they approached the place, through white gates that ushered the road into the garden. The latter screened the house on two sides, apparently embowering it wholly in flowers. Koses, roses — and yet again roses, in a riot of color and scent ! They swarmed everywhere in unkempt masses, trailing treacherous, thorny beauty over the paths; climbing triumphantly over espaliers originally meant for fruit, which had long since succumbed to force majeure; lifting thence un- pruned branches to heaven in defiance of all seemly gardening; blooming uproariously where no blooms should be, like high-spirited children escaped^ from a tired governess — very Bolsheviks of roses, carrying their masked loveliness and intruding beauty wherever order and good governance forbade. A gardener would have gazed grimly, and then, 12 THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT dropping his useless tools, he would have blasphemed; an artist would have straightway gat him to pigments and brushes; a lover to praising. Odo Kent gazed with ravished eyes, as if he would fill his soul with the gorgeous and lawless spectacle. Then his eye traveled to the further side of the building. Touzled ugliness met his gaze. Payne laughed at his ludicrous consternation. "Our enthusiasm gave out before we got to that," he explained. ''Also we had our baby. It is eight years ago, but our enthusiasm has never traveled back- wards yet. Ours is a single-track mind. We don't stop for shunting." *'But it's a positive eyesore. Why doesn't Lee do something?" "Lee wouldn't notice if the whole place were like that. He is a sojourner in a laud of exile. When his sheep pay well enough to enable him to buy a place in England, where the County people will call, he'll up- stakes here and get him homewards. Pathetic, isn 't it ? " They had skirted the weedy beds, driving over the flowers which had sown themselves in careless profusion on the very drive itself, and Payne pulled up in front of the bungalow, which rose out of the tangled mass like a Gulliver beset by hundreds of clinging Lilliputian hands. It was flanked by deep, shady verandahs, whose original purpose of rest was sadly interfered with by sinuous, spiky branches of the ubiquitous roses, which, for lack of room to climb, had elected to crawl. At the side, a high tank, raised on perilous wooden stilts, and fed by a windmill which clanked drearily in the fitful gusts of hot summer breeze that intermittently turned the creaking vanes, peered above the roof. As the buggy stopped, their arrival was noted. A French door opened, and a woman stepped out on the verandah, Kent had time to note an air of distinction, and an unusual beauty, before he turned away to avoid the suspicion of staring. "How do you do, Mrs. Lee?" Payne called out, as he sprang over the wheel. "Got your message to come over. Nothing wrong with the boss, I hope. Oh, THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT 13 pardon me, may I introduce Mr. Odo Kent? He's the writing chap, you know; but before he did that he was my fag at Harrow." The booming, genial stream of nonsense bubbled on, and Kent had time to note now the play of feeling on a face that was singularly expressive of every passing ripple of emotion. When the doctor alluded to Lee as "the boss," a quick frown apprised the attentive observer in the background that the cavalier allusion to her husband was not considered humorous. At his own in- troduction, he came forward and took the hand that was held out to him. She stood on the top step of the verandah, and he three steps lower, so that her out- stretched had was presented to him with almost a regal gesture. He had an absurd impulse to kiss it, in an elaborate greeting. Some women liked it ; it was courtly ; it was foreign. He decided not to risk it. "Mr. Kent! I am very pleased you came. Indeed I know your books well. To meet a celebrity in these wilds is as pleasing as it is rare. Please come into the cool, if there is any cool this terrible day. My husband is somewhere about." As she spoke, she led the way into the house. It struck Kent, who was very keen to note social nuances, that Payne and his boisterous humor were not particu- larly popular at Knowsley Park. His own welcome had subtly marked him out as different social material from the local doctor. Payne greeted Lee in a loud, friendly fashion, as he stepped into the dark drawing-room. "Hullo, hullo. Who's sick? Here I drive out on one of the hottest days in January, and can 't even make expenses for my journey. Well, I'll have a drink, anyway. I want you to meet Mr. Kent, friend of mine, just in from the old country. He's a novelist, but tha?t won't convey anything to you, Lee. You tell me you never read, so I'm sure Kent's books won't tempt you. They're awful — those horrible popular things, don't you know." Lee took the doctor's jocularity in heavy, stolid, unen- \ 14 THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT couraging silence. He shook hands with Kent, with courtesy. One of Payne's statements had evidently been noted. He picked it out, like a grain of wheat from so much chaff. "From England? I'd be glad to have a long talk with you. After the infernal flatness of Australian vowels, I'll be glad to hear real English again. In the meantime, I've got some business with Payne. P'raps you'd like to see the garden. 'Fraid Mrs. Lee will be engaged with me for a time, but you may like to wander round by yourself a bit." Perceiving that he was being dismissed, Kent rose with alacrity. "Certainly, I was entranced with the garden, as we drove in. It's just a dream," he said, with warmth. "A hobby of mine," murmured Mrs. Lee. "We won't be long, Mr. Kent. Perhaps you and the doctor will stay and have some tea, and drive back in the cool?" She led him from a dark room through another French window into the brilliant sunshine. He blinked rapidly, like an owl. When he could look up without distress, he found he was alone. The French window was shut. Without more ado he strolled off into the tangle and began to enjoy himself as only a flower- lover can. Some minutes later he looked up, with the uncanny conviction that eyes were watching him. At first he could see nothing to account for the feeling. Then, behind a thick screen of dead fruit branches, matted with rose boughs, he perceived two eyes. "Hullo!" he said. * ' Hullo ! ' ' the eyes replied. Kent felt a queer embarrassment. The beginning of the conversation was not encouraging. An impulse to walk unconcernedly away, pretending preoccupa- tion, was rejected. He looked up again. The eyes were still on him, bright, large eyes, full of intelligence, full of questioning. He essayed a brilliant query. "Who are you?" he asked. Like an echo his ques- THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT 15 tion was thrown back at him. This verbal tennis would soon get on his nerves. He made an effort. "My name's Kent. I'm a friend of Dr. Payne. "Won't you come out and talk to me? What's your name, in the first place?" "Philip Pascoe Egerton Lee," the voice that belonged to the eyes made precise answer, with an old-fashioned exactitude that the other found infinitely charming. A moment later Philip made up his mind that his refuge was unnecessary. He came out of hiding, and stood revealed as a boy of eight, absurdly and unnecessarily beautiful, straight and sturdy, with two steady eyes, unscreened now by rose leaves, gazing with the innocent curiosity of boyhood at the stranger. "Ah, that's better. Now we know each other. I haven't imposing names like yours. You can call me Mr. Kent." "Mister Kent," the boy dutifully echoed, and his voice was very free from that flatness of which his father had complained as being an Australian charac- teristic. "What's imposing?" Kent entered on an explanation, only to find that the child was hopelessly ignorant. There was such slender ground common to both, such as there must be between the teacher and the taught, that the man had to laugh off tlie strange embarrassment the boy caused. One thing impressed him — a weird charm that was not a thing of voice, of manner, of beauty, but which seemed to emanate from the whole personality of the tiny chap. Kent felt a most unusual interest in the child, enhanced by the knowledge he had gleaned from his friend Payne of the antecedents of the parents. Whilst he was searching round for a topic which should draw Philip into conversation, Mrs. Lee came out on the verandah and called the boy. With a bright, affectionate smile of farewell, the youngster ran off. Interested, speculating on the Lees and their curious history, Kent strolled onwards. In the drawing-room, as soon as he had left it, the atmosphere was suddenly electric. Payne had sensed 16 THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT hostility when Mrs. Lee had first appeared, but he had not guessed the cause. Genial to a degree, his advice waft sought in quite other than professional ways, and he was always at the service of those who required any sort of help. But there was another side of his character that people sometimes got a glimpse of, and seldom cared to repeat the experience. Pie possessed a straight- forward, honest nature that dared to say exactly what he thought, careful only to avoid giving unnecessary pain; but let that man beware who thought that Payne could be bounced into doing something his own sense of decency or honesty condemned! The lightning of scorn was likely to blast him; the doctor's geniality would freeze; the kindly face would grow rigid, the easy voice cutting. Lee had had no opportunity to discover this. He was about to put his fingers into a wasp's nest. As soon as the window closed on Kent, Payne turned inquiringly to Lee. "Nothing wrong with the kid, I hope?" **No. He's all right; that is to say, my dear Payne, I — ^we — ^Mrs. Lee and I, are both anxious about him." Lee's voice had that pompous note which one often finds in an Englishman, addressing one he thinks is slightly his inferior. Just as he was speaking, his wife returned from the garden. She heard her husband's last words. * * Oh, very anxious, doctor. "We want you to say that he is not fit for any severe strain." Pavne looked from one to the other. "What's it all about?" he asked. "Where's the youngster? If there is any mysterious illness, I bet I twig it quick enough. Is he in bed ? ' ' "Oh dear no," came from Mrs. Lee. "It is merely precaution on our part. He's all right so far." "Well, better let me judge for myself. All this sounds like a conspiracy. I feel like sinking my voice. Where the dickens is the kid?" The big, booming voice was so little like sinking that it was raised to quite a loud pitch. Mrs. Lee gave a little, distressed moan, and put her hand to her head, THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT 17 as if to indicate that she was suffering. The hint did not have its desired effect. " I '11 call him in, but really, doctor, it 's unnecessary, ' ' she exclaimed. It was at this juncture she called Philip away from Kent, and brought him inside. ** Hullo, you young radical, and what have you been up to? Too much fruit, I suppose." At the sound of his voice, Philip ran to him and sprang into his arms. "Hooray! it's you," he cried. '* 'Course it's me. Didn't you recognize Dandy outside?" "Yes — ^besides the man told me he was your friend, but I can say 'hooray' when I see my very ownest friend, can't I?" "You can say it all day. I'd be very proud. Now let's have a look at you. Feel all right?" " 'Course I do. I always feel all right, silly," "You do. I'll say that for you. A healthier young- ster I never did see. Here, give us a squint at your tongue. ' ' Philip laughed aloud at this. "Mum sayg you're the slingiest — no, the slangiest — ' man she ever saw. It's because you say 'give us a squint.' I'm not allowed to say it." "So I am — the very worst man I ever met. Your mother's quite right. But that's because my education was neglected." * ' What 's that ? " the boy asked. "Mean to say you don't know? That shows yours is neglected, too," said the doctor. All the time he had been making a hurried examination of eyes, throat and nose. The Lees said never a word, but on the doctor's last remark Lee interposed. "I never said there was anything wrong with the boy, Payne," he said, irritably. "For Heaven's sake stop that farcical business. Philip, leave the room. I want to talk to the doctor." At the tone, Payne looked curiously at the speaker. 18 THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT Philip vanished, with a rare smile at his friend. Then the doctor turned to Lee. **Now let's have the explanation," he said. "You seemed worried over something." "Oh, we are, doctor, we are. We have just got a notice from the Government that Philip must go to school." Payne laughed aloud — a sudden, immense gale of Homeric laughter that turned the faces of the absurd pair of Lees into black wrath. "Good Heavens! What a terrible experience! Forced to educate your only child ! Now, what in the world am I brought out fourteen miles for, because your boy has to go to school ? Why in the name of all that 's reasonable should he not go to school? He's the most charming ignoramus I've ever come across, if that's any comfort to you." Lee said a few words to his wife in a low tone, and she sat down, with an air that gave him complete per- mission to deal with the matter. "I don't think you understand the position, Payne. I have no intention of allowing my boy to attend the Government school in the village, with the sons of peasants. He's too young, anyway." "The law says that every child of six shall go to school. It need not be the public school," said Pa>Tie. "There is no other here," Lee explained. "Our choice becomes limited, you see." "Get him a governess or a tutor, then," exclaimed the doctor bluntly. "That is needless expense, especially when I want all the money I can lay my hands on for an experiment which, if successful, will enable us to take our proper position in England. I cannot consent to anything that will prejudice that." "Then there's no remedy. He must go to the public school," declared the doctor. "The law grants a loophole, Payne," suggested Lee. 'Well, let's see if you're small enough to crawl <<■ THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT 19 through it, Lee," invited Payne, not without malicious intention in the double meaning his words bore. "A doctor's certificate that the boy is not strong enough to go to school would give me a respite." Lee looked with bright eyes at Payne, who stood facing him. "But the boy is as strong as a horse," he replied. "Surely you'll do this to help us," Lee said. "I've never committed perjury even to help myself, Lee," was the reply, and the eyes began to get a film of ice on them, which should have warned the other man. "You'll have to go through with it. What's so terrible about the public school? It's been the nursery of three- quarters of our best men." "Do you think a Lee will herd with ploughboys and hobbledehoys?" Lee asked, his tones raised, and his eyes flashing. "There are ploughboys at the school, of course," as- sented the doctor; "but there are no hobbledehoys. Not a boy there, from the tiniest upwards, who couldn't lick your boy's head off in everything that's worth doing." "Do you include speaking the Queen's English?" inquired Mrs. Lee coldly. Her husband struck in. "Yes. Do you consider it right to let my boy herd there with boys and girls like Jim "Wister 's, for instance ? They say, 'It's a fine dy, Mr. Lee — fine for Austrilyer.' " He laughed angrily. The doctor laughed with him, in perfect enjoyment. "Yes, you've made out a case against Wister 's kids. That flat 'a' of the Australian child is ugly. But I'm going to bring you nearer home, Lee. You've made this an important question. It isn't, you know; but I'll take it on your own grounds. You stipulate for the Queen 's English, but you've got to determine what that is. Is it what you talk, for instance?" "I speak as an educated man. Dr. PajTie. I want my child to do the same." John Lee was on stilts. He was being outraged by this vulgar fellow. "No, you speak as an Oxford man, Lee. There's quite a difference. Listen. That is what you said just now. Listen closely, and tell me how it must sound to the ear 20 THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT of the villager you laugh at." He repeated slowly a remark Lee had made a minute ago: " *Yas. Do you consider it raight to lat mai boy hard with boys and gals laike Jim Wister's thej^ah, for instance?' That was what you said, and is isn't the Queen's English." "Damn your impertinence, Dr. Payne," sputtered Lee. "You a^ed me to commit perjury, you know, Lee," put in PajTie, smiling with his lips, but with his eyes quite frozen now. "I think j^ou owed me a license to be impertinent in return for your suggestion. But I wasn 't being impertinent. We were having a philological discussion, and I w^anted to show you that quaint turns of speech and pronunciation are due only in part to edu- cation, much more to climate and environment." "All I know is that if I only find out the interfering blackguard who sent information to the Education Department that Philip wavS not attending school, I'll have something to say — something to do. You needn't tell me the confounded fools in Sydney found it out off their own bat." "I don't suppose so," returned Payne. ^'What could you do, if you knew?" "I'd break every bone in his body," threatened Lee, looking very fierce. "Please, John, don't talk that way," begged his wife. "Just a minute, Mrs. Lee," said Payne; "perhaps Mr. Lee doesn't understand the system of education in this country?" "I don't want to understand the rotten system," the infuriated man almost shouted. "It's not a rotten system. It's one of the best in the world. And the best point about it is the one you object to. It is compulsory. Furthermore, the local affairs are administered by a committee, which sees that the inten- tions of the Government are not mocked. We have a man here who is entrusted specially with that duty. It was he who informed the Government of all children of school age in the district who were not in regular attendance." THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT 21 "If you don't tell me his name, I'll find it out for myself," Lee blustered. Palme's face was a study in silent, icy contempt, as he looked at the raised fist and the congested brow. *'0h, I'll tell you, Lee. It was the man you asked to forswear himself. It was myself. You did fall in properly, didn't you!" CHAPTER III "To the Jiush of the "breathless morning On the thin, tin, crackling roofs, To the haze of the turned blaclc-ranges And the ditst of the shoeless hoofs — To the risk of a death by drovming, To the risk of a death by drouth — To the men of a million acres, To the Sons of the Golden South!" — The Native-born PAYNE gained his point at the expense of friendship with the Lees. For the next three years Philip rode his pony to the tiny villag^e school, which, with the general store and post office and a few straggling houses, made up the settlement of Wandilla. A parental stop-watch was put upon his movements, however. He left the gate of the homestead at a fixed hour every morning, timed to reach his class as school was assembling. He had strict orders to leave as soon as the afternoon session had finished. This plan was considered to bring contamina- tion to the vanishing point. "With the queer perspicacity of childhood, the position was quickly understood by the other children. The tribe of Wisters — seven of them — who came to school packed tightly on two horses, knew no spiritual restraints, and recognized no class distinctions. Peter, the second Wister boy, who shared one of the horses with a brother and a sister, the latter in the middle for safety, was a freckled, good-tempered youngster of about the same age as Philip, He had a nature so dogged and determined that his fellows at the school, girls and boys, had learned to give way before it. He had never been known to bluster; bullying and he were as the poles 22 THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT 23 asunder; yet, when he set his mind on a thing, that thing came his way. To attack him physically was useless. He took punishment without flinching from older boys who thought that primitive methods must prevail. He faced them, as he faced life, solid and immovable, his square body firmly planted, a grin on his lips that humorously displayed a wide gap once filled by a tooth lost in glorious combat, red hair like a gonfalon waving through the crevices of an old slouch hat. Such is the childish portrait of the urchin who developed for Philip a species of hero-worship. Nor could one wonder at it. His day began at five in the morning with the cows, and ended with the same animals after the long ride from school was over; who, at an age when his kind in England are still babies and in tender charge of elders, was ploughing and doing the miscellaneous work of a farm with his father and George, his stolid senior. On Peter, then, Philip dawned suddenly, as a being from another sphere, exquisitely dressed in a real riding-suit, handsome and spotless, speaking musically a different language. Peter had to thrash a friend hitherto dear to him for daring to imitate, with thin, mincing voice, an observation Philip had made on his first day. The mingled dirt and blood with which he emerged from the fray was an excellent cement for a friendship that had no end, and knew no rebuffs. For a week Peter made no attempt to take advantage of his knight-errantry. He simply stared at the bright new being, who ate delicacies whose very names were unknown, in a space his frigid shyness had made empty and void. Poor child! He had been taught that these boys and girls were of another kind — peasants — material for servants and workmen. How could the lonely, isolated mind divine the cruelty and ignorance that lay behind the injunctions he was expected to obey? Philip's pony had immediately become a source of admiring curiosity to Peter. He felt its legs surrep- titiously. The discovery of a splint tortured him. He glanced sideways at Philip, eating his lunch a few yards away. He knew a sure remedy for a splint. Should he 24 THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT impart his knowledge? This pony was a magnet that daily drew Peter and the others to handle and admire. Peter, who had never bestrid anything but the third of a horse, had hitherto found his cause of pride in that very circumstance, rejoicing exceedingly over his four unfortunate brothers and sisters, who only had a quarter of a quadruped apiece. This is a common thing in the bush. There is one school, to which five small children, arranged like sardines, ride an old white nag, along the giddy edge of a mountain precipice. Well might these youngsters say — "a little learning is a dangerous thing." Peter confided the splint remedy in a loud whisper. It was received in stony silence. It is doubtful if Philip knew what a splint was. But if the Lee boy expected to rebuff Peter into withdrawal, he knew not his man. When the "Nosey Parker kid," as he was soon called, mounted to ride home, he found the Wister family, whose way lay along the same track, awaiting him. Outriders, in the shape of the four assorted Wisters on old Dolly, moved off solemnly in front, while Peter and his co- riders closed the procession. In vain Philip tried to get away from this humiliating adulation. His pony, delighted at the presence of companions, and restrained by no such aristocratic feelings as its master, merely tossed its head at the tiny flicks of the whip, and settled down into a pace that accommodated itself to the long, lumbering strides of old Dolly. Meantime, four pairs of Wister eyes turned back in military precision to watch the red-faced Philip, while at the rear he became conscious of six additional Wister orbs boring into his back their message of homage and admiration. No word was spoken. The Wisters had inherited a splendid paternal gift of silence. Wister, pere, had a farm on the river. From him Peter received his doggedness. When other farmers complained of God and the tax-gatherer, Wister merely worked earlier and later. Polly, his wife, looked like one of her children till you got a close view of her. Under five feet, every one of her inches was an inch of indomitable humor. THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT 25 To make up for the taciturnity of the rest of the family, she talked incessantly. A river of conversation rushed eternally through the house, fed by tiny tributary streams that hardly counted. Polly was its source. Her conversation continued even when she left the room and had occasion to go to the dairy or cow-house, many yards distant from the source of the stream. Her light cheerful tones could be heard, though distance rendered the precise words indistinguishable. On her return, she finished her remarks, oblivious of the yawning gap that lay between — "so I think that's the last we'll hear from her," she might cheerfully conclude, with a bright smile, leaving to her hearers' imagination the important details that conditioned the anticipated silence of "her." It may be that this undue loquacity had stunned her offspring into silence. On Philip Peter's persistent adoration had at last an effect. Nothing human could have resisted it ; certainly not Philip Lee 'a friendless heart, craving for something or someone on whom he could pour out all the thoughts and desires that childhood engenders. He was wonderfully quick at school. Like a flash the meaning of a thing would jump to his mind, while the others would still be groping. Peter, one of the slow ones, admired this tremendously, and presently Philip, who loved to display himself, was helping the duller boy with explanations, couched in the language of careless pity. But what Peter once understood he never forgot. His mind was a bulldog that gripped tenaciously. Luckily he had a friend who was planning to use the qualities he was displaying in a sphere larger than a farmyard. Payne, who had made acquaintance with each succeed- ing Wister at birth, took an immense interest in Peter. In his sureness, his unemotional nature, his reliability, he saw the makings of something unusual. With this in his mind, he asked Wister one day what he was think- ing of doing with the boy. **Well, I dunno', Doctor. Y'see, it's like this. There ain't enough land fer 'em all, an' I don't s'pose 111 26 THE ASHES OF ACHIEVEMENT ever have enough money to set 'em all up on their own places. That George knows as much as me 'bout horses an' sheep. So does Petey, fer that matter. Likely they'll git a selection somewheres up in the Mallee — wonderful country up there. Wheat! Don't talk to me 'bout it. There's wheat up there 'ud make your mouth water." Said the doctor: **Well, Jim, I think that kid's cut out for something better than Mallee farming. Have you ever noticed his marvelous power of observation? His eye^s a magnifier, I believe." **Yes. He's mighty good. He can tell the number in a mob of a coupla thousand sheep to a dozen or so. But there's nothin' in that. Plenty kids can do it. Can meself." *'I'm going to try and push him along, Jim. Here's the j^oung beggar now. By Jove, that horse of yours won't be able to pack those kids much longer. They're growing like gum-trees." Peter and George came up, prepared for milking. ''Come here, Pete," called Fayne, and the boy walked over with a grin of pleasure. "Just been talking about you. Ever thought what you'd like to be when you grow up?" The grin became wider. **Aw, go on, doctor. Ain't I gotta stop here an' help with the place?" "Not necessarily. There'll be plenty to help with the place, won't there, Jim?" He appealed to the father, busy mending some sacks. "Oh, I reckon one won't make much difference," Jim answered, not looking up. "There you are. How'd you like to be a doctor, like me?" 'Nofear," Peter smiled; "I ain't clever." 'Neither am I, old chap; but don't let on," confided the doctor. "How about a lawyer, then?" Peter, with visions of the irritable practitioner whose appearance on a farm was usually a forerunner of woe, was violently opposed to this walk in life. <