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 THE SPORT OF STARS 
 
 BY 
 
 ALGERNON GISSING 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
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 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. L 
 
 LONDON : 
 
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 All Riokis Reserved.
 
 8£^ 
 
 V. 1 
 
 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ONE TOO MANY. 
 
 ' Got it, Ben V 
 
 ' I've got it, Leah.' And Saloway rose from 
 
 V . . . 
 
 ^ his chair deHberately, taking up a standing 
 
 \J^ position before his wife. 
 
 '^ She, anxious for the outcome of a long and 
 
 f^ fervent dehberatiou, gazed at him with hps 
 
 T apart, letting her hands and sewing fall into her 
 
 ^iv 'I've got it, Leah,' the man repeated, in a 
 ^ tone of firmer conviction, ' and I don't see as 
 ^ any mortal can gainsay it. I shall take 'em to 
 ^ VOL. I. B
 
 2 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 the squire in the morning, that be the upshot of 
 the matter. Let he make of it what seem good 
 to 'n. It be " The Peasant's Warning Voice " 
 as 1 stand upon, and it do seem to I as what be 
 fit for folks in other parishes be as fit for we 
 here in Win'ol.' 
 
 The wife looked silently into her husband's 
 face, until he, saying that he would just go up 
 street to tell 'em, took his hat and went out, 
 leaving Leah to transfer her gaze to the few 
 white wood embers in the grate. 
 
 It was the night of the 3rd of August, 1849, 
 and in Winwold this young energetic cobbler, 
 Benjamin Saloway by name, had been contem- 
 plating the social outlook, as some at that time 
 did here and there with seriousness of a grim 
 kind. This man did not come of a demonstra- 
 tive race, but the fire of his present enthusiasm 
 was not to be hidden. For some time he had 
 been engaged with it, now it clamoured for a 
 definite solution. 
 
 As Saloway stepped into the darkness, the 
 wind moaned over the wooded slopes that sur- 
 rounded this remote village, and handfuls of
 
 THE ONE TOO MANY. 3 
 
 rain were flung from the low scudding clouds. 
 The street was wide and the houses scattered, 
 the only lights being those which appeared in 
 cottage windows, upon the blinds whereof was 
 printed the shadows of geraniums, and here and 
 there of a magnified head and shoulders. Ben- 
 jamin gave these conditions but a casual glance 
 as, pulling his coat about him, he strode hastily 
 along the road. 
 
 The cottage before which he stopped was at 
 the extreme verge of the village, just where the 
 road began its wooded ascent of the hill beyond^ 
 and from which realm of darkness and mystery 
 there came at this moment on the rain the 
 weird halloo of a restless owl. As this touched 
 the cobbler's ears, he knocked and entered. 
 
 * Be John at whum V 
 
 ' That be Bens voice, I count.' 
 
 ' Ult come in the morning, John V said the 
 visitor, with a singular impulsiveness, as he 
 blinked at the candle-light. ' I can't be off it.' 
 
 He was bidden be seated, and John Parish, 
 removing the pipe from his mouth, was about 
 to adjust himself to a leisurely discussion. But 
 
 B 2
 
 4 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 Saloway did not sit, and showed continued 
 signs of anything but leisure. 
 
 ' I thought of you, John, Joseph Leman, 
 Richard and Henry Claydon, Ralph Strange, 
 and me. We be quiet, tidy men, I judges, as 
 any in the country, and as nobody can say a 
 word against. We shall conduct ourselves 
 quite respectful, of course. I be'nt for they as 
 go with violence nohow.' 
 
 * Ne'er a bit, Benjamin. I be ready to go 
 sure enough, and quite peaceable an' all.' 
 
 ' We'll ask he for a bit of land at the same 
 rent as Farmer Righton's, to raise our bread and 
 'tatoes, do you see, to give we employment 
 when there be no work, and to keep we from 
 the public-house and the parish in the winter.' 
 
 ' That be the item, Ben. A be a rum 'un by 
 all accounts, but we'll speak him fair.' 
 
 ' Come at ten o'clock in the morning, John, 
 by the gate in Upper Marbrook.' 
 
 * That I 'ull ; but look 'e, Ben ' 
 
 Hearing the door click, John looked up from 
 
 the fire in the middle of his sentence, and 
 Saloway was no longer there.
 
 THE ONE TOO MANY. 5 
 
 * Well, Benjamin/ mused the astonished 
 wagoner, who was now alone, ' you be a rum 
 'un yourself an' all ; but I'll go, o' course.' 
 
 And John Parish again lapsed into the healthy 
 oblivion of the odd moments of a countryman. 
 
 The cobbler flitted through the wet night to 
 the several houses, leaving with each the same 
 brief summons and the same measure of aston- 
 ishment at his singular appearance and be- 
 haviour. Unwonted action of necessity destroy- 
 ed the somnolent balance in such as Salowa^^, 
 and he found it impossible to be still in on^ 
 place for many consecutive moments. The 
 conversation and society of his comrades would 
 have seemed to offer a refuge from this nervous 
 state, but he found it to be otherwise. His 
 vital announcement once made, he found it im- 
 possible to talk to them. He must be alone. 
 The unruly night was fittest companion for him. 
 Even from his own fire-side, — but perhaps rather 
 from the timid gaze of his Leah, — he shrank. 
 He passed his door, and went on into the soli- 
 tary road beyond it, pacing or standing beneath 
 the trees, amongst the dark branches of which
 
 t) THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 the rain and the wind made mournful music. 
 
 It was nearing midnight when the man, 
 slinking into the flickering candle-Hght, dis- 
 turbed his wife's unquiet slumbers. He would 
 speak but little ; but when summoned to the 
 table he ate ravenously. 
 
 The following morning broke exquisitely fair, 
 with a brisk north-west wind, and a drenched 
 earth sparkling to the stare of the sun. The 
 atmosphere was transparent as crystal, and the 
 invigorating breeze which danced from a clear 
 blue horizon seemed to invite to exceptional 
 enterprise. Ten o'clock was known to be the 
 hour at which the young squire would tolerate 
 approaches from any of his dependents, so that 
 some half-hour before that time the six chosen 
 representatives of the labourers of Winwold 
 could be seen crossing the sunny pastures which 
 lay between the village and the Hall. The 
 * wambling ' gait of the men seemed unusually 
 conspicuous, owing no doubt to the assumption 
 of Sunday garments for an occasion which was 
 secular. The men or their clothes were un- 
 comfortably impressed with the fact of the
 
 THE ONE TOO MANY. 7 
 
 incongruity. To add to it they were preternat- 
 urally silent, scarcely half-a-dozen words being 
 exchanged on the way, and these with but in- 
 dependent reference to the state of the * latter- 
 math ' which the near fields presented, or of the 
 harvest which was proceeding farther off. They 
 all looked for the most part to the ground, 
 taking a general expression from the unusual 
 solidity of their leader Saloway. 
 
 When they came to the back premises of the 
 Hall, there were sounds in the stable-yard, and, 
 finding the opportunity favourable, Benjamin 
 stepped in to inquire of the groom his master's 
 whereabouts. To the cobbler's visible discom- 
 fiture, he confronted that master in person, who, 
 with the groom beside him, was handling a 
 new bit which ghstened like silver. 
 
 ' Hulloa !' cried Mr. Blakenhurst, scanning the 
 intruder, and thinking him alone. ' Saloway ? 
 Do you want me ?' 
 
 Mr. Geoffrey Blakenhurst was in those days a 
 handsome man of but three or four years over 
 thirty, but, as he had inherited early, his magis- 
 terial character was by now familiar to his
 
 8 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 world. Stepping forward, his eye encountered 
 the figures of Benjamin's companions, and his 
 brow clouded. 
 
 ' What do you want V he asked, keeping his 
 eyes upon the regiment, and, as the members of 
 it did not doubt, making a mental note of the 
 names of every one of them. 
 
 The popular unrest of those days is matter of 
 history with which we need not now deal. 
 With positive violence did the plough-workers, 
 like others, clamour for more tolerable condi- 
 tions of life, and the extreme measures were the 
 means of disseminating some amount of theory 
 amongst those who were principally affected, 
 and in places it found abiding soil. Amongst 
 other things, out in the fields the cry for allot- 
 ments went up, — for small plots of land, that is, 
 which the labourer was to hold as strictly sup- 
 plementary to his daily labour, and at admitted- 
 ly disproportionate rental. In some districts 
 the suggestion found ready favour ; in others, 
 that such a preposterous demand could claim 
 even a show of plausibility, not to speak of 
 reason, was as vigorously contested. The status
 
 THE ONE TOO MANY. 9 
 
 of such opposition district was, however, one of 
 intellectual dignity compared with that of a 
 place like Winwold during the supremacy of 
 Mr. Geoffrey Blakenhurst. The former bran- 
 dished some species of argument ; the latter 
 decHned to make use of any such degenerate 
 weapon. 
 
 Upon most subjects Mr. Blakenhurst person- 
 ally loathed argument ; upon such an element- 
 ary postulate as this one it put him into a 
 frenzy. He conceived the world as of several 
 clearly defined circles or galleries. What he 
 conceived, he enunciated ; and what in the 
 name of first principles had argument to do in 
 such a matter ? 
 
 Saloway had already made 'his obedience,' 
 as he himself would have termed the ordinary 
 display of social deference, and now the rest 
 doffed their caps humbly. 
 
 ' We wish to speak to you, sir, if you please,' 
 returned the young cobbler, suddenly awaking 
 to the fact that he had undertaken to bear the 
 brunt of the encounter. 
 
 ' Certainly you can speak to me.' The squire
 
 10 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 took liis watch from his pocket as he said this. 
 * Go ahead.' 
 
 ' I beg your pardon, sir,' said Saloway. * We 
 should have had no thought of intruding, had 
 us known it would be inconvenient to you. If 
 you would rather as we came at ' 
 
 Mr. Blakenhurst laughed, and asked him if 
 he thought he could be bothered twice, ending 
 with a colloquial injunction to him to proceed. 
 Gathering a momentary courage from the 
 unaccommodating reception, Saloway did pro- 
 ceed. 
 
 ' 1 doubt we can't dispose of it all in a minute, 
 sir. I was hopeful as you might be at leisure 
 to talk over with we the subject of allotments, 
 being as they have received a deal of attention 
 in many parts of late, and as it do seem clearly 
 proved that they be of uncommon benefit to 
 poor labourers who don't work half their time, 
 such as be the case with a many in Win'ol at 
 this minute.' 
 
 Saloway delivered this sentence with unusual 
 speed, as though afraid of interruption before 
 getting the preliminaries stated, and as, in truth,
 
 THE ONE TOO MANY. 11 
 
 the squire's countenance betrayed scant appre- 
 ciation of the impending discussion. 
 
 ' You want to talk about allotments, do you ? 
 . . . Allotments, is it ? And who has been put- 
 ting you up to that, eh ? . . . Who ? . . . Tell 
 me, Saloway, for you seem to be the ringleader 
 in the conspiracy. Who has been preaching 
 these revolutionary doctrines in my peaceful 
 parish? Speak, and don't stand there like a 
 sturdy sheep, you blockhead.' 
 
 'I be no man for revolutionary doctrines. 
 Squire Blakenhurst, as you know as well as I 
 do myself. We only come here respectful, like 
 honest, sober men, to talk with you, who be our 
 natural master, concerning our grievances ' 
 
 ' Grievances !' roared the squire, mirthfully. 
 ' Who the devil told you that you'd got any 
 grievances ? Where did you pick the word up, 
 I'd like to know ? It's we that have the griev- 
 ances, I can tell you, for here are six of you 
 lazy blackguards come blathering here about 
 things you don't understand at ten o'clock of a 
 fine morning, when you might be earning a 
 pound a week by cutting all that corn of ours
 
 12 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 waiting for harvest. Go about your business ; 
 and if you, Saloway, don't want to end your 
 days on the gallows, I should recommend you 
 to get rid of all this revolutionary trash about 
 grievances and allotments. You're at the head 
 of this affair, I see, and I won't have it brought 
 into my parish, do you hear V 
 
 ' These may be your opinions now, sir,' re- 
 turned Benjamin, with surprising readiness, ' but 
 if you'd just give a look into things I be quite 
 sure as you'd think differently. It be'nt my 
 place to take it upon me to argue with you, but 
 if I might be so bold as beg you to read this 
 little book which I shall be glad to lend to you, 
 written by a man as be no enemy to his country, 
 landlords or labourers alike, and that is John 
 Denson of Waterbeach, called by title " The 
 Peasant's Warning Voice to Landlords " ' 
 
 * What are you talking about to me, you 
 scoundrel !' cried the squire, at last genuinely 
 incensed by the man's impudence and pertin- 
 acity. * You've got blasphemous and seditious 
 books, have you 1 You're no friend to revolu- 
 tion, and yet you threaten me with warning
 
 THE ONE TOO MANY. 13 
 
 voices, do you ? You'll be burning my ricks, 
 or shooting me from behind a hedge, I suppose? 
 It isn't enough that I've to pay hundreds a-year 
 
 to feed a lot of d d idle paupers like you, is 
 
 it, but you must come here ta^threaten my life 
 if I don't give you my best land to fatten on. 
 Very good ; 1 refuse, I tell you, and I can tell 
 you further that the first man who tries to carry 
 out the threats you speak of will be a dead man. 
 I am ready for you, and can defend myself,' — 
 Mr. Blakenhurst actually did produce a pistol 
 from some mysterious pocket at the back of his 
 trousers — * so I give you notice.' 
 
 Saloway looked into the squire's face, but 
 uttered no other word. As he turned, crest- 
 fallen, to follow his companions, who had shrunk 
 away several sentences ago, it was doubtful if 
 he heard the ringing laugh of mockery which a 
 woodpecker flung him from the great elm-tree 
 on the slope behind. The squire had worked 
 himself into such a rage that he also retreated 
 to the house without another word. 
 
 The result of the cobbler's experiment was 
 quickly noised abroad, as of course the inception
 
 14 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 of it had also been, and sullen faces shook over 
 the conviction that ' no good 'ud come of it.' It 
 seemed to be accepted as final, it occurring to 
 nobody to repeat the attempt. The squire doubt- 
 less knew his public, and his victory was supreme. 
 The energetic young cobbler, moreover, inevit- 
 ably came in for much of the discontent and dis- 
 credit which, in Win wold as elsewhere, signal fail- 
 ure of necessity aroused. The scheme was now 
 attributed wholly to him, the boldness and the 
 miscarriage of it. In the daily expectation of 
 some personal disaster to follow the squire's 
 violent displeasure, the five voluntary associates 
 of Benjamin on his ill-fated journey were not at 
 all sure that they had ever desired allotments. 
 But, happily, Mr. Blakenhurst had accurately 
 singled out the ringleader. 
 
 Saloway was scarcely robust enough to sus- 
 tain the whole odium of the misadventure. 
 The personal disappointment was in itself 
 punishment enough, for him ; for he had 
 worked himself to such a pitch of fanaticism 
 upon the subject that the blow came like a 
 frustration of life itself. It was said that he
 
 THE ONE TOO MANY. 15 
 
 was growing melancholy, and it could not be 
 doubted that he never appeared in places of 
 common resort. Most of his time was devoted 
 to his trade, and if he went beyond his threshold 
 it was invariably at night. The neighbours 
 would question his wife about him, but Leah 
 was as puzzled as the rest. One night, early 
 in October, she received her first glimpse of 
 enlightenment. 
 
 It was about nine o'clock, and Leah sat alone 
 in her cottage expecting her husband's return. 
 He was generally in by half-past eight. But, a^ 
 to-night was exceptionally fine, she as yet 
 thought little of it. The neighbour who had 
 spent the evening in gossip with her had but 
 recently gone, and had left her in good spirits. 
 So the clock struck. After that, sitting so silent- 
 ly in her chair, with only the clock pendulum 
 to keep her company, she dozed. The cottage 
 door opened suddenly and disturbed her, when 
 Leab, looking instinctively to the dial, found that 
 it was nearly ten. 
 
 * Why, Ben, how late you be,' she said rubbing 
 her eyehds, then saw that it was not her hus- 
 band who had entered.
 
 1() THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 'So your husband beunt at home, missis fsaid 
 the intruder, whom Leah now recognized as a 
 new under-keeper of the squire's. 
 
 ' No, he've gone out as usual. Most in gene- 
 ral he be back before this. It be nearly ten 
 o'clock.' 
 
 ' It be,' said the youth, with a note of sar- 
 casm. ' And a fine night for a walk. Good- 
 night.' 
 
 As the man withdrew, a sickening fear came 
 upon the lonely woman. She sped to the door, 
 and called out through the dark, 
 
 ' Have you seen my husband V 
 
 * Oh ay, they'll have him by now,' was the 
 jocular response. 
 
 Leah reeled as from an actual blow, and 
 slunk again into her cottage. But the silence 
 and the solitude were intolerable. She snatch- 
 ed down her white linen bonnet from its 
 peg on the door, and went out. Still the stars 
 and the dark tree outlines, held only by the 
 whispering night breezes. When she had taken 
 half a dozen steps from her doorway, a figure 
 approached through the dark.
 
 THE ONE TOO MANY. 17 
 
 *Is that you, Ben?' the woman almost 
 screamed. 
 
 ' No, Leah, it be John Parish. I was a-coming 
 to tell you as they've got Ben locked up for 
 poaching.' 
 
 ' Locked up ! But — John, a never did such a 
 thing in his life,' cried the distracted woman. 
 
 ' That were my version of it,' the man replied, 
 ' but they've took he none the less. It do all 
 come of Ben's mooching about i' the dark, do 
 you see, Leah? But don't 'e be affrighted, 
 'oman, it'll come right after a bit. However, I ^ 
 thought as you better know, you might have 
 sat up all night for he else.' 
 
 ' Oh, John ' 
 
 ' Ay, ay,^ said the man, kindly. ' It be un- 
 common ockard for you, that's certain. I cannot 
 think what Ben be about in letting his head into 
 such a maunder. But it'll come right arter a 
 bit, never fear.' 
 
 Unable to sustain her part any further, Leah 
 shrank back into the darkness, and heard the 
 man's good-night without being able to give 
 articulate response. Leah did sit up for her 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 18 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 husband throughout the night, despite the kind- 
 ly intentions of her neighbour. Dayhght proved 
 the report quite accurate. With every appear- 
 ance of irresistible circumstance Saloway had 
 been taken, and was in custody to await his 
 trial. That there had lately been marauders 
 amongst the squire's game was matter of com- 
 mon gossip, but that the fanatical cobbler was 
 the instigator of these lawless practices had 
 never been even remotely suspected by his most 
 intimate acquaintance, until this skilful capture 
 of him, so to speak, red-handed. His nocturnal 
 wanderings became at once of course intelligible 
 to everyone. It was true, he had not the impli- 
 ments of his nefarious trade about him when he 
 was taken, nor any corpus delicti in his posses- 
 sion, but it was not difficult to surmise that he 
 Avas too shrewd a hand for that. The squire's 
 keepers had for some weeks had their suspicions 
 against him, and upon this particular evening, 
 after a skilful routing of a determined gang, 
 Benjamin was caught in full flight homewards, 
 everyone of his associates having unfortunately 
 effected their escape.
 
 THE ONE TOO MANY. 19 
 
 Before the criminal was removed from the 
 village, he was allowed an interview with his 
 wife. The desperate calamity gave Leah un- 
 wonted strength. 
 
 'It'll come right, Ben/ she affirmed, whilst 
 gripping her husband's hand, ' you never did it, 
 let 'em say what they will.' 
 
 Saloway was gloomy and undemonstrative. 
 At the moment of parting, he clutched his 
 wife. 
 
 ' I never went a-poaching in my life, Leah, 
 never,' twice he bitterly asserted. *But — but, 
 they'll send me to Gloucester — I know 'em 
 will.' x\nd then his voice failed him. 
 
 The cobbler's presentiments proved well 
 founded. Much went to substantiate the charge 
 against him ; in fact, as at Quarter Sessions it 
 was ultimately decided, to put his guilt beyond 
 any reasonable doubt. In view of the evidence 
 given, the man was a dangerous one, from whom 
 so secluded a district must have ample protec- 
 tion. In those times of social unsettlement, so 
 the chairman cogently remarked, the duty of 
 
 c2
 
 20 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 the magistracy was a clear one, however irk- 
 some or unpleasant. The country must be pro- 
 tected from the unprincipled bands of fanatics 
 rising up in all directions, who seemed to find a 
 strong religious virtue in subverting the order 
 of the universe, and promoting a popular dis- 
 regard of the laws of the realm. In country 
 places this crime of poaching was one of the com- 
 monest manifestations of the evil spirit he had 
 referred to, and as it was one fraught with the 
 gravest danger to the community, frequently 
 leading to riots and loss of life, the law had 
 properly placed very considerable powers in the 
 hands of the court, which it was their duty to 
 exercise firmly. Although it was this prisoner's 
 first proved offence, in face of the dangerous 
 character incidentally revealed by it, the court 
 would consider itself remiss in its duty to society 
 at large, if it passed a smaller sentence than 
 that of detention in Gloucester gaol for six 
 months with hard labour. The newspaper 
 reports of the time added, that after hearing the 
 sentence the prisoner had to be assisted from 
 the dock.
 
 THE ONE TOO MANY. 21 
 
 It was in the sunlight of the following spring, 
 that a pale-faced silent man flitted like a ghost 
 through Winwold, to be seen of several, but 
 only to become thenceforth a mere traditional 
 rumour and a tale. A day or two before his 
 passing, this spectre's wife, — for alas, he had a 
 woman that still clung to him, — received a 
 letter in which, as in the midst of a consuming 
 fire, these words were stamped, ' Only one night 
 in Winwold, then we'll go to MiUington where 
 nobody will know us.' 
 
 Saloway came in by the lower road, and left 
 by that which went by the Upton Quarry, 
 passing beneath a row of beech-trees which 
 bounded the parish at its eastern side. The 
 sun shone down on him from a cloudless sky.
 
 22 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 IN EXILE. 
 
 Since Saloway's youth, increasing numbers 
 have become the victims of that irresistible in- 
 fluence urging to the new, constantly present in 
 the rational existence, but of action impulsive 
 and intermittent, whereby ' the old woe o' the 
 world' is periodically promoted, and through 
 which now, for close on a century, man's soul's 
 wings have been kept feverishly unfurled. 
 Between such victims, however, and the serious 
 cobbler of Winwold there was but little in 
 common. They seek their new voluntarily, and, 
 as may be supposed, find recompense sufficient 
 in the uncertainty of the issue : the highest
 
 IN EXILE. 23 
 
 flight ever intended by Benjamin was pitifully 
 short and definite. 
 
 Banishment from a homely soil, wherein all 
 his habits and aims were deeply rooted, had 
 formed no part of his plan ; through none of the 
 instinctive forces was he driven from the prim- 
 rose path of the sunlit village to the dark and 
 arid ways of a large industrial centre. The 
 temperament of the ' revolutionary cobbler,' as 
 the Winwold squire henceforth invariably called 
 this insignificant antagonist, was simple in the 
 extreme ; a simplicity which proclaimed his iur 
 competence for the modest enterprise he had 
 taken in hand. But a small degree of com- 
 plexity would have sufficiently equipped him, 
 and by bringing the squire's life, or even his 
 ricks, into the account, would have afforded 
 Saloway more solid and worthy ground for the 
 assumption of the martyr's crown. 
 
 For no uneven path was Benjamin made. 
 He lacked hopelessly the pugnacious virtues. 
 A staggering blow, instead of arousing all that 
 was ferocious in him, and giving frantic strength 
 to the excited energies, extinguished all the
 
 24- THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 spirit he owned, and sent him off to fret his 
 bruised soul in deepest retirement. This pusil- 
 lanimity, (as our Christian ethics commonly ad- 
 judge it,) drove Saloway to the town, for even 
 he seemed to be aware that no such effectual 
 annihilation could be elsewhere presented. He 
 needed this burial from himself as much as from 
 his neighbours, so that mere exchange of a 
 rural state would by no means have been to his 
 mind. 
 
 For several years Benjamin Saloway steadily 
 sank, until, short of crime, he sounded the low- 
 est depths that a highly civilised existence can 
 offer. From the cobbler of breezy Winwold, he 
 in short developed into a cog in the Millington 
 wheel, merging what might remain of a once 
 fairly definite personality in the hopelessly in- 
 animate toil of this inexorable engine of man's 
 greed. 
 
 His wife Leah had soon succumbed to the 
 altered conditions of life, somewhat earlier per- 
 haps than need have been, on account of the 
 feeble spark that remained to her being at that 
 moment claimed for the continuance of her kind.
 
 IN EXILE. 25 
 
 She died, bequeathing for her sole legacy a 
 baby girl. The child lived, and Saloway's low- 
 est point had been reached. 
 
 Throughout all his hours of toil, the child lay 
 at his feet in a rude cradle made of a grocer's 
 box, either watching in open-eyed bewilderment 
 the dumb pantomime of the nimble fingers, or 
 sleeping in still profounder indifference to the 
 alien world into which she had come. Saloway 
 was an object of ready sympathy to his neigh- 
 bours, and a regular recipient of those number- 
 less acts of benevolence upon which, intercourse, 
 nay, life itself, in that dingy world is so largely 
 founded. Doubtless, without it the man's task 
 would have found an end, for out of his trade 
 he was by no means what women call a handy 
 man. 
 
 The struggle for mere bread continued as 
 severe as ever, but by a week of untold hours 
 Saloway managed to supply his child with ade- 
 quate provision ; to what his own demands had 
 fallen it is unnecessary to inquire. His Emily 
 grew and prospered, and it had come that in 
 this fact the whole of Benjamin's life was cen-
 
 26 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 tred. He watched, and even taught her with 
 unwearying care, thinking only of what could 
 minister to her comfort or development. Penny 
 toys he bought her, and he made a whole al- 
 phabet for her instruction out of odds and ends 
 of leather which were useless in his work. The 
 child showed a bright intelligence, and could 
 read when she was five. Then began the cob- 
 bler's soul to revive within him. He would 
 snatch half-an-hour to seek the nearest book- 
 stall, and return triumphantly with some tattered 
 volume. As he worked through the days that 
 followed, he got a glimpse of a world beyond 
 him, through the slowly articulated spellings of 
 the little maiden planted on the floor by his side. 
 In this way whole books were read, amongst 
 them being the inevitable Bunyan, a volume of 
 Josephus, and the ' Story of the Robins.' 
 
 But this very development of his child, pro- 
 foundly as it encouraged the man, was at times 
 as profound a source of depression. The im- 
 possibility of a moment's respite from the hourly 
 grind presented its tragic stare, and through it 
 all that green and flowery world from which
 
 IN EXILE. 27 
 
 these little feet were so rigorously excluded. 
 Saloway felt that spectral problems began daily 
 to gather about him. Any thought of a return 
 to country scenes unnerved him still, but was 
 he for that to condemn an independent soul to 
 what his homely instincts felt to be an unnatural 
 fate ? Emily had never known the freedom of 
 the fields and lanes, to be sure, but the cobbler 
 could draw no casuistical distinctions. Was it 
 not a source of shame and bitterness to himself 
 that she never had ? 
 
 These questions assailed him with merciless 
 frequency, but the child was nearing seven years 
 old before Benjamin found strength to face the 
 inevitable. 
 
 One morning Emily awoke, and instead of 
 seeing the figure of her father bent over his 
 work, she saw him at the table with a book. 
 Aware of her movement, Saloway looked into 
 the small, inquiring face, and quailed before the 
 mute gaze of astonishment. 
 
 'Not at work, father?' said the child, with 
 precocious directness. 
 
 * It be Sunday,' was the man's reply.
 
 28 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 * When people go to church ? I thought you 
 couldn't afford to know Sunday, father.' 
 
 ' I be a-going to try, maidie. I must get it 
 into the week somehow.' 
 
 It was not that 8aloway had adopted any 
 heterodox opinions in the course of his expe- 
 riences ; his life, like that of millions, was ordered 
 solely by material stress. 
 
 ' You have never seen the country as God 
 made, Emily. We be going there to-day.' 
 
 Benjamin's decision was an heroic one, and 
 it had been heroically come to. It was now 
 physically as well as mentally painful to the 
 cobbler to emerge into the light of day. His 
 brain and eyeballs were seared by every sun- 
 beam, just as positively as if he had been an 
 owl or other bird of twilight. Yet as he turned 
 the corner of his own dingy by-way into the 
 sunlight of a broader thoroughfare, a sensation 
 not wholly of pain swept over him. A breath 
 of wind from a free inspiring world found its 
 way to his withered heart, and for an instant 
 revivified it, swelling all the chords to their 
 natural suppleness and depth of sonorous tone.
 
 IN EXILE. 29 
 
 But it passed quickly on its way, leaving behind 
 but a desolate sough in the quivering frame 
 through which it had flitted. 
 
 With Emily it was very different. This first 
 adventure into an unknown world was like 
 another birth to her ; a first awakening to an 
 enchanted reality of which she had vaguely 
 heard, but not as yet even dimly seen. In the 
 silence of the Sunday morning and high sun- 
 light of early May, the very stones seemed to 
 her transformed, to have acquired a glitter to 
 heart and eye, and to the foot an elasticity of 
 which she had never dreamed. Her colourless 
 cheeks flushed, and her bright eyes darted hither 
 and thither in speechless ecstacy. The world 
 was not less, but so infinitely more brilliant than 
 she had ever imagined it. 
 
 After an hour's walk, they reached the out- 
 skirts of the town ; where the streets were, at 
 any rate, broken, and bits of garden were 
 allotted to the various houses. They passed a 
 place where a house was building ; a structure 
 boarded and scaffolded, with an open gap be- 
 tween itself and its tenanted neighbour,— one
 
 30 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 of those gaps already sentenced, whereon 
 foundation refuse, brick ends, tins, necks of 
 bottles, and promiscuous filth of every kind 
 defile the surface of its natural green. Saloway 
 paused to examine the new building, in con- 
 fused pre-occupation, then summoned Emily, 
 who was behind. She was upon all fours, on 
 what had once been grass, and heard him not. 
 Nay, was she not eating that soiled and grimy 
 herbage ? The father turned quickly away 
 under the grip of intolerable emotion. When 
 the child rejoined him, she brandished something 
 in her hand. 
 
 ' As many as you like, Emily ; 'em be only 
 weeds.' 
 
 There were but daisies, dandelions, a butter- 
 cup or two, and colts'-foots, but in the child's 
 fingers these despised little weeds acquired a 
 depth of sanctity which could outweigh a whole 
 world of ancient scorn. Saloway even saw 
 this, and it aroused a painful contest in his 
 disordered soul which he was in no condition 
 just then to cope with. The efiect of the 
 flowers, those which grew upon the very road
 
 IN EXILE. 31 
 
 before his door in the old days, was, at opposite 
 extremes, Httle less to him than to the new-born 
 Emily. To her they could but bring a waft 
 from an enchanted world now first disclosed, 
 opening with untold brilliance into a whole 
 infinity beyond, in the dazzling light of which 
 lay screened a universe of hope and joy. To 
 him they spoke of a world gone by, whereon 
 the sun had set in lurid haze never to rise again. 
 It was only these sunset hues which could be 
 presented to him now, but in his daughter's 
 eyes he saw the dawn, and the glimpse of it 
 dismayed him. 
 
 A long day they made of it, advancing even 
 to dishevelled hedge-rows, which enclosed 
 spacious fields whereon only as yet appeared 
 the builder's threat that, occasion fitting, they 
 were ripe for the progressive scourge. Emily 
 got more flowers, and was distressed that they 
 should wither in her hand. Her father told her 
 they would live again at home in water, so 
 privately she sucked them, but not liking their 
 flavour she had to give it up. The day was fine 
 and warm throughout, and it was evening be-
 
 32 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 fore, exhausted but reluctant, they reached the 
 squalid shelter known to them as home. 
 
 * Shall we ever go again, father V asked the 
 child, through her burden of fatigue. 
 
 ' Every Sunday when it be fine,' replied the 
 man, with a courage which might not have 
 been suspected. 
 
 The cobbler kept his word. Regularly, as 
 Sunday morning came, the pair could be seen 
 starting on their Sabbath journey, the child in 
 irrepressible glee, the man in what appeared a 
 faint haze of increased contentment. A few 
 weeks' practice largely diminished the amount 
 of strength expended, and the effect of the day's 
 expedition upon their health was very soon 
 apparent. So satisfactory had the experiment 
 proved, that Benjamin could confront his sordid 
 lot with a remarkable accession of tolerance. 
 He found even a stimulus in the ceaseless 
 prattle of the child, now based exclusively upon 
 these Sunday walks, backward or to come, and 
 it enabled him to widen considerably the range 
 of his vision. Yet was the man's extended out- 
 look exclusively on behalf of the child. His
 
 IN EXILE. 33 
 
 suffering from a sense of fear or crippling ex- 
 posure upon passing the limits of his den con- 
 tinued as acute as ever. 
 
 One Sunday, early in July this time, when 
 their walk had taken them in a fresh direction, 
 they came to a region widely appropriated to 
 market gardens, and the long rows of fruit- 
 trees, with vast patches of vegetables in be- 
 tween, offered a spectacle novel and interesting 
 to them both. It chanced that a public path 
 ran through the centre of such a space, and 
 intense was the delight with which they 
 scanned the acres of lettuce, onions, and cab- 
 bages spread around, any single plant of which 
 would have been a particular dainty in their 
 restricted diet. The strawberries, raspberries, 
 and currants scarcely raised an emotion in them, 
 so hopelessly were they removed from any 
 practical thought. 
 
 As they wandered slowly on, constantly de- 
 tained by some new and startling revelation of 
 the incredible bounty of the land, they came to 
 a wide open sweep covered with a disordered 
 growth which presented a striking contrast to 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 the symmetry and regularity of the parts they 
 had already passed. Both father and daughter 
 stared, but, as it chanced, with totally different 
 reflections. 
 
 ' What are they, father V 
 
 ' Peas,' said Saloway, when the question had 
 been twice repeated. 
 
 * Pea-pickers icanted. Apply to ' 
 
 Emily read out the words thoughtlessly from 
 a board erected a yard or two from the path. 
 
 *That be just the item,' mused the other. 
 < Would you like to come here all day, Emily, 
 and pick the peasf he asked at length, impul- 
 sively, and almost in a whisper. 
 
 ' All day — on Sunday ?' 
 
 'No, no, maidie. To-morrow — and Tuesday 
 — and Wednesday, maybe.' 
 
 Their eyes met, and Benjamin resolved. 
 
 Again Saloway proved equal to the resolu- 
 tion, and the following morning he and Emily 
 appeared amidst the ragged company which the 
 sniff of an hour's open-air employment had 
 gathered to the spot. After a few explanatory
 
 IN EXILE. 35 
 
 words with the overlooker, who, with his weigh- 
 ing-machine, stood hj an empty cart at one end 
 of the field, the timorous pair was drafted to a 
 station on the ground. It happened that, as 
 Benjamin and the child entered, they had passed 
 a woman, by appearance wretchedly poor and 
 weak, who, with a boy by her side, had been 
 evidently intent upon gaining a place in the 
 employment of the day. So eager had the cob- 
 bler been to secure this coveted * leave to toil,' 
 upon which the day's sustenance very hterally 
 depended, that anything resembling the finer, 
 feelings was sunk in the inevitable greed. 
 Having passed, however, and been accepted, 
 the figure of that woman again occurred to 
 him, and a sensitive regret for what he now 
 construed as a brutal outstripping of her feebler 
 efi'orts, suddenly came over him. From his 
 place, therefore, he cast anxious glances to- 
 wards the point whence all must issue, and it 
 was with a sense of positive relief that he saw 
 the tattered object of his scruples, with that 
 boy at her skirts, wending slowly over the 
 field towards him. Conscience thus satisfied, 
 
 D '2
 
 36 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 Benjamin and Emily set feverishly to work. 
 
 It broke into a hot and cloudless day, and no 
 doubt the scene lacked not certain obvious ele- 
 ments pleasing to the fanciful idyllic sense. 
 Incontestable was the fact that here lay a hand- 
 ful of perspiring mortals under the direct eye 
 of heaven, passing at least through their hands 
 a weft of that mysterious texture which cannot 
 be mistaken for the work of man. 
 
 The peas picked were flung into a sack, and 
 the joint exertions of the cobbler and his child 
 soon sufficed to fill the one they had. When it 
 could hold no more, Benjamin tied up the mouth 
 and took his burden to be weighed, emptied, 
 and paid for by the taskmaster. This was the 
 man's duty for the day so long as daylight 
 lasted. 
 
 It chanced that, from the place he occupied, 
 Saloway commanded a near view of that wo- 
 man and boy to whom his attention had before 
 been momentarily given. As the cobbler went 
 up with his third sack too, the diminutive boy 
 toiled along under his first, and the opportunity 
 of rendering a trivial service did not escape
 
 IN EXILE. '61 
 
 Benjamin. After that he was constrained to 
 watch more and more closely the noticeable 
 pair. Simple as the work was, the woman sat 
 frequently with idle hands in what seemed list- 
 less indifference to the occupation. The boy, 
 too, was physically weak, but showed through 
 his shabby clothing glimpses of incongruous in- 
 telligence and refinement. After that helpful 
 encounter he returned Saloway's glances from 
 time to time, and to his childish extent seemed 
 to reciprocate the interest extended to him. If 
 he made any attempt to engage his mother in- 
 the same diversion, his efforts must have been 
 unavailing, for she betrayed not the smallest 
 consciousness of the cobbler's or anybody else^s 
 existence about her. 
 
 Presently Saloway wiped his forehead with 
 his shirt-sleeve, and paused in his work. 
 
 * Emily,' said he, ' it be my opinion as that 
 woman be'nt well. Her can't work solid like 
 we. What do you say to helping her a bit ?' 
 
 The child was timid, but in view of the close 
 proximity to her father she easily gave in to 
 him, and Benjamin went to the woman's side.
 
 38 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 The boy showed a gleeful acceptance of the 
 arrangement in which his mother could but 
 acquiesce in listless astonishment. 
 
 ' Have a race with he, Emily,' said the cob- 
 bler, as he withdrew, 'and see who can pick 
 most. I be'nt afar off.' 
 
 Emily's new companion was an intelligent, 
 half-fed boy of eleven years old. Despite this 
 difference of four years in their ages, they 
 quickly discovered a marked compatibility of 
 temperament, and in half-an-h our they advanced 
 to the stage of a lifelong intimacy. As they 
 picked, picked, at the bloom-tinted pea-pods 
 incessantly, their tongues kept up a ceaseless 
 accompaniment to their fingers. With the con- 
 summate frankness of childhood, they quickly 
 revealed all the dark secrets of their existence, 
 told artlessly, and with an unsuspected sublim- 
 ity of pathos unknown to art. 
 
 ' What shall I call you V asked Emily, early 
 in their confidential intercourse. 
 
 * Theodore,' rephed the boy. ' That's my 
 name.' 
 
 Commenting upon the oddity of the name to
 
 IN EXILE. 39 
 
 her, the httle girl repeated it several times to 
 raake sure of it. 
 
 With the cooler air of evening the strength 
 of the boy's mother somewhat revived in her, 
 and as she and Saloway walked up the twihght 
 field in response to the dismissing bell which 
 summoned them from their labours, the cobbler 
 tried to elicit a few personal details from his 
 new acquaintance ; but beyond the fact of her 
 name being Mrs. Carr it seemed impossible to 
 go. Their homeward way lying in opposite 
 directions, they had then to part. ^ 
 
 The intenser heat of the following day found 
 the scene in the pea-field but little altered. 
 The glaring sun shone mercilessly down from 
 its brazen sky upon the same ragged, half- 
 naked company, amidst which was Benjamin 
 Saloway tearing off the pods with silent assid- 
 uity, and not far away Theodore and Emily 
 engaged in their lighter-hearted contest under 
 the still tranquil eye of the problematic Mrs. 
 Carr. The day wore on very much as the 
 former one had done. But about mid-day, 
 Emily, who paid increasing attention to Theo-
 
 40 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 dore's mother, saw her weep — the child dis- 
 tinctly saw the tears roll down her cheeks, 
 glisten in the sun, and disappear. Only, with 
 that precocious instinct of hers, she pretended 
 not to see. Presently she whispered to her 
 companion, ' Your mother's asleep.' The boy 
 looked, and saw his mother comfortably re- 
 clining on the dry pease-straw. He just screen- 
 ed her head more effectually from the sun, and 
 went back to work. 
 
 Through all the scorching afternoon Ben- 
 jamin worked, the children worked, and the 
 uneasy woman slept soundly. They would not 
 even wake her to partake of food; Saloway, 
 having his own little benevolent scheme for the 
 time to come, noted her repose with peculiar 
 satisfaction. He felt a renewed fervour for his 
 life and work, such zest as he had deemed long 
 since extinct in his adjustment to the world. 
 His temporary unprecedented rate of earnings 
 had no doubt affected him. Five shillings and 
 tenpence had he carried home the day before, 
 and to-day he saw every prospect of outstrip- 
 ping that. No wonder that he made light of
 
 IN EXILE. 41 
 
 brazen skies which had daunted stronger men 
 than he. But at last the sun lowered, and 
 Saloway trudged with what he feared was to 
 be his last sack-load. The great crimson orb 
 was sinking into the bank of dull purple haze 
 which lined the north-west horizon behind the 
 town, and the solemn hush which commem- 
 orates the close of another day was settling 
 upon the land. Near at hand though it was, 
 the ceaseless moan of the great human hive 
 could not disturb the natural stillness, and, as 
 Benjamin strode up the illumined field, his feet 
 rustling in the dry haulm over which they trod, 
 the quietude of the place overwhelmed him 
 with the calm of other scenes. But this only 
 served to confirm in him his increased vitality. 
 Returning with his jingling wealth, he felt to 
 be striding in the direction of a habitable world. 
 Theodore was in the act of shouldering his full 
 sack, with Emily's aid to balance it, amidst 
 mirth in which the cobbler was able to take a 
 part. He looked at the slumbering woman on 
 the ground, and rubbed his hands. When the 
 children came running down the field, he jocu-
 
 42 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 larly bade the boy awake his mother in pre- 
 paration for the bell, whilst he took Emily away 
 to gather up their own possessions. 
 
 As Benjamin leaned to the ground, the boy 
 Theodore, who appeared silently and unexpect- 
 edly beside him, clutched the uncoated arm 
 with a vehemence of grip which startled the 
 cobbler. 
 
 He looked up, and with lips apart stared at the 
 boy's features. 
 
 'What is the matter?' 
 
 '■ I can't wake her.' 
 
 ' Can't wake her I' 
 
 ' You come and try.' 
 
 Saloway turned pale as the twilight cloud 
 overhead, and the perspiration rolled from his 
 face as no sunbeams had been able to make it. 
 He knew it all, but with a silent head-shake he 
 accompanied the boy. 
 
 ' Why, she be dead,' he said, raising up the 
 woman's lifeless hand. 
 
 Benjamin hastened to summon the man in 
 authority, just as the tones of his unmusical bell 
 came upon the evening breeze to announce that
 
 IN EXILE. 4^ 
 
 the day was over, but his or other assistance 
 was now vain. In the brazen sunlight the 
 woman had slept her soul away.
 
 44 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OUT OF THE DEEP. 
 
 The public inquiry into that closing incident in 
 the pea-field divulged one of the grim stories 
 with which the impressible mind is only too 
 familiar. Nothing was known of the woman, 
 Mrs. Carr, beyond the fact, to which neighbours 
 testified, that she had displayed signs of an ex- 
 tinct respectability amidst direst squalor. The 
 immediate cause of death was of course star- 
 vation. She was presumably a widow ; at least, 
 wore a wedding-ring, and the boy had never 
 known a father. The paragraph was comment- 
 ed on at a hundred breakfast-tables, and 'the 
 public conscience was appeased. But, as is cus- 
 tomary in cases of the kind, the undergrowth of
 
 OUT OP THE DEEP. 45 
 
 private beuevoleuce was not wanting. Post- 
 office orders for varying amounts poured in upon 
 the coroner, and the starving orphan, announced 
 to the world as Theodore Carr, was offered every 
 possible kind of appropriate and inappropriate 
 employment. 
 
 The matter was in the hands of the authorities, 
 and they dealt with it in a humane and en- 
 lightened spirit. At the boy's own passionate 
 entreaty all in-door apprenticeship was declined, 
 for, to the cobbler's astonishment, Theodore 
 protested his resolution to live with Benjamyi 
 Saloway and Emily. Whilst fully prepared to 
 give due weight to so earnestly expressed a 
 predilection, public duty necessitated a little in- 
 vestigation into this prospective guardian's moral 
 and material condition. Benjamin's account of 
 his own career, given, as may be supposed, with 
 much reticence and even disguise, did not create 
 a favourable impression. One too outspoken 
 member hinted at the cobbler's possible trading 
 on Carr. This aroused poor Salo way's anger, 
 and at once decided his case. 
 
 ' I have not asked the boy to come to me,'
 
 46 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 cried Beojamin, with heightened colour, ' until he 
 asked my little maid to let him go home with 
 we I had no notion of such a thing. But being 
 as the boy have so set his mind upon it I'll take 
 him gladly and feed him well, but only on these 
 terms, look you, that I touch ne'er a penny of 
 his wages. Let his master keep they until the 
 boy be old enough to have them for himself.' 
 
 The simple energy and sincerity of the man's 
 speech and behaviour turned the general mind 
 in his favour, and although a few questions in 
 elementary theology were put to Emily to test 
 Benjamin's general fitness and orthodoxy, the in- 
 quiry was practically at an end. It was point- 
 ed out that if a man could bring up his child as 
 Emily had evidently been brought up under such 
 grossly unfavourable circumstances, it was 
 ridiculous to pretend that he was unfitted for 
 the custody of a boy eleven years old when the 
 prospect was so obviously brightening. This 
 statement was emphatically made by a pale- 
 faced gentleman known to the company as a 
 prosperous shoe-maker himself, and it was 
 immediately whispered that Mr. Simpkinson had
 
 OUT OF THE DEEP. 47 
 
 his eye on Saloway, which was as much as to 
 say that they might put away the last of their 
 scruples. This soon proved to be the case, for 
 when the meeting broke up, this gentleman had 
 a quarter of an hour's talk with the cobbler 
 aside, which led to important changes in the 
 latter's daily work and wages. 
 
 It had been decided, then, that Theodore 
 Carr should take up his home with Saloway ; 
 that this latter should find, under the assistance 
 and approval of the authority, a dweUing better 
 suited to the fresh demands of his family ; an4 
 that for employment the offer most advantageous 
 to the boy would undoubtedly be that of Mr. 
 Samuel Firkins, a well known timber-merchant 
 on a large scale, the post in whose timber- 
 yard was accordingly accepted on Theodore's 
 behalf. 
 
 'A fortnight on Monday morning at nine 
 o'clock I shall expect you to bring the boy to 
 my office,' was Mr. Firkins' parting injunction to 
 Saloway. 'He'll need that time to get to his 
 feet again.' 
 
 Saloway was for a time overcome by his good
 
 48 THE SPORT OF STA.RS. 
 
 fortune. So suddenly had the world, as he had 
 known it, undergone a dazzling transformation 
 that it was difficult for his clouded senses to 
 associate the new appearance with any recog- 
 nised habits of his own. Not only was the in- 
 congruity passing strange ; it was disquieting as 
 it was wonderful. It seemed a dragging out in- 
 to the open of a shrinking soul whose only effort 
 hitherto had been an avoidance of the light of 
 day, a restless extinction of itself. 
 
 Familiarity with the change enabled the 
 cobbler to surmount this morbid state, but not 
 familiarity alone. As all modifications of his 
 existence hitherto had come through his own 
 child Emily, so now was the development to be 
 extended by Emily and the boy together. Hard- 
 ly with consciousness, Benjamin came to view 
 the world through the eyes of these dependent 
 children. Wide fields were displayed to them of 
 which Saloway in his time had never had so much 
 as a glimpse, and although the man knew him- 
 self rigorously excluded from all participation in 
 their wide prospect, it came to be a central pur- 
 pose of his fife that no rood of land should be
 
 OUT OF THE DEEP. 49 
 
 with-held from them, no ray of sun obscured, 
 through act or negligence of his. 
 
 Emily was forthwith sent to school, and great 
 discussions arose out of her scholastic attain- 
 ments in the Millington back street. Theodore, 
 having been well trained, however indifferently 
 fed, by his mother, was pronounced by the 
 authorities sufficiently grounded in elementary 
 knowledge for such path in life as he was likely 
 to command : a verdict strenuously supported 
 by Mr. Firkins, who entertained his own opinions 
 as to the association of what we call education 
 with a successful career in life. 
 
 Mr. Firkins himself was a man of some in- 
 dividuality. Some had expressed surprise at 
 his having been drawn into the position of public 
 benefactor, but to such he would not have 
 deigned much light. Whatever his motive in 
 seeking out the case, his personal examination 
 of the boy seemed at once to confirm and in- 
 tensify it. It was obvious that there was 
 nothing sentimental about him. Of his private 
 history, too, little was popularly known be- 
 yond the fact that he, hke many in this in- 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 dustrial centre, had risen from submersion by 
 dint of his own indefatigable energy. He was 
 an unsociable man, unmarried, and indulged 
 in but few of the ordinary diversions of his 
 class. At this time he must have been nearing 
 fifty years of age, and was of a harsh, un- 
 sympathetic exterior. His features, never regular, 
 were somewhat marred by traces of small-pox, 
 and his hair, bushy beard, and eyebrows once 
 black, were now getting grizzled. Eyes were 
 as clear and keen as ever. Altogether he was 
 by no means the man to inspire confidence in 
 timorous ^childhood, yet it is doubtful whether, 
 in the same evil circumstance, the sensitive boy 
 would have felt one whit the less keenly the 
 vast bleak solitude of his universe, under hands 
 which had lain in compassion on his wretched- 
 ness, and attempted to hide the thorns in his 
 path under a haze of conventional maxims and 
 benevolent misrepresentations. 
 
 What Carr did feel unmistakably was the 
 strength of his employer, and this as a tonic was 
 no doubt of peculiar value to him. When 
 that Monday morning had duly come, Firkins
 
 OUT OF THE DEEP. 51 
 
 himself initiated the boy into the mysteries of 
 the timber-yard. He took him all round the 
 extensive premises ; displayed the vast accumu- 
 lations of timber gathered from all corners of 
 the globe; the cranes at work relieving the 
 boats of their burdens ; and finally, the interior 
 of the saw-mills, whence issued those fearsome 
 groans and shrieks, rising and falling in every 
 tone of inexpressible torture and anguish, which 
 had throughout their inspection frightened as 
 well as mystified the nervous boy. In this de- 
 partment, it was pointed out to him, his work, 
 would begin ; Mr. Firkins remarking that twelve 
 months sawdust was necessary for everybody en- 
 tering the trade. In showing the timber-stacks 
 he had already impressed upon the boy the 
 necessity of geography, so that sawdust and 
 geography came to be ludicrously intermingled 
 in Theodore's brain, as of some mysterious 
 efiicacy in promoting that magical * getting on ' 
 which everybody enforced so strenuously upon 
 him. 
 
 From this commencement Theodore's advance 
 was rapid ; not so much from the purely mer- 
 
 E 2 
 
 UNIVERSITY or? 
 ILLINOIS LIBRARY
 
 52 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 cantile point of view as from that of general 
 development. Commercial zeal was but one 
 manifestation of the boy's many-sided character. 
 His new domestic life was a revelation to him, 
 and that old isolated companionship with his 
 mother soon became but a dark cloud on the 
 horizon, whereon the golden fringe of mutual 
 devotion, it is true, for a long time lingered, but 
 of which the main component was a dull chaos 
 of tears and wretchedness. The companionship 
 of Emily appeared to Theodore now a perpetual 
 holiday. His old loneliness was at an end. 
 Thus as Carr's sawdust work ministered to his 
 active propensities, so did these domestic joys 
 minister to his emotional and moral. Soon, in- 
 tellectual needs were added, which in their turn 
 were fostered by the aid of some evening classes 
 at a Mechanics' Institution not far from the 
 street in which they lived. It was soon obvious 
 to all that this was a boy of uncommon spirit. 
 Saloway especially made this discovery with 
 pride, and through it he acquired an additional 
 incentive to a more robust acceptance of life. 
 On his own behalf he was no longer capable of
 
 OUT OF THE DEEP. 53 
 
 ambition. That he might by daily labour con- 
 tinue to obtain his present modest livelihood 
 was all that he desired ; so infinitely more than 
 anything he had ever hoped. That there was 
 a different future before 'his boy' he never 
 doubted, and he kept religiously before him the 
 resolution to be nothing at all to the boy if 
 not a direct assistance to his highest develop- 
 ment. 
 
 Through these years Carr often spoke of the 
 dazzling horizon before them all. He would 
 return home at night from some triumphant, 
 exercise of his intellectual faculties, all aglow 
 with irrepressible enthusiasm before which all 
 conceivable enterprise went down, and, as the 
 cobbler pretended to read his newspaper, Emily, 
 perhaps crouching on a stool, would fix her 
 eyes in lustrous wonderment upon the energetic 
 figure waving aside the narrow limits of the 
 room enclosing it, and open her ears widely to 
 the enchanting tales of the magic world beyond. 
 Saloway saw much between the lines of his 
 journal at those times. 
 
 One such evening Theodore and Emily were
 
 54 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 alone, and they had been indulging in a more 
 than ordinarily particular account of this glori- 
 ous future. Then, as always, this blessed state 
 was pitched amidst country scenes, and the 
 youth had drawn with imaginative accuracy 
 the very situation and appointments of the 
 house in which they all should dwell. The 
 necessary trees were planted, the flower-beds 
 were in full bloom, and certain interior arrange- 
 ments were about to be discussed, when an 
 unwonted solemnity came over the girl's fea- 
 tures, hitherto radiant with glee. 
 
 ' It's too good to be true, Theodore,' said the 
 child, now thirteen years old; but, seeing his 
 ruffled brow, she added, quickly, 'At least, I 
 mean, father and I shall not be there. I'm sure 
 we can't be.' 
 
 * What rubbish, Emily ! Do you think I shall 
 live there if you won't come ? There'll be no 
 fun if we are not altogether. As if I should be 
 rich if you and father won't share it.' 
 
 ' But you will marry somebody,' said the little 
 woman, sagely, 'and we couldn't all live in 
 your house.'
 
 OUT OF THE DEEP. 55 
 
 The child had never hinted at such a possi- 
 bility before, nor had the thought ever disturbed 
 the shy boy in his calculations. Now Theodore 
 blushed a little, although he averred angrily 
 that he should never marry ; not if it was to 
 lead to their separation, at least not for a very 
 long time. 
 
 ' Besides,' he added, as a brilliant after- 
 thought, seeing Emily continue pensive, ' why 
 shouldn't I marry you when you are a woman ? 
 We are not real brother and sister, and they 
 would let us. That would settle it.' ^ 
 
 ' Do you really think we might ? . . . But, 
 Theodore, I'm not good enough for you. You 
 would have a real lady if you were rich, like 
 Miss Wilson or Miss Jenkins.' 
 
 ' No, I shouldn't,' asserted Carr, his shy dis- 
 position shrinking from such a situation. ' I 
 shall marry you, Emily, if you will have me 
 when you are old enough ; and if you won't, we 
 can all live together just the same. But here's 
 father. Don't let him hear us talking about it.'
 
 56 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE NEW. 
 
 Not until Carr was nineteen did Mr. Firkins 
 even partially withdraw him from the outside 
 employment of the yard to take any recognized 
 part in the internal machinery of the business, 
 and it was the shrewd, independent exercise of 
 the youth's commercial faculty that led to the 
 modification of his work. In the course of his 
 annual holiday that year, (Theodore was allow- 
 ed a week of freedom every summer,) he came 
 upon the sale of a bankrupt's stock of timber, 
 and there and then bought it to very great 
 advantage, getting by telegram his master's 
 immediate confirmation of the transaction. Carr 
 then quietly finished his holiday.
 
 THE NEW. 57 
 
 On his return Mr. Firkins had a characteristic 
 interview with him, — thought he had better 
 come into the office for a bit, — rated him for 
 wasting his time on worthless studies, — ' now 
 had you known French and German, you might 
 have undertaken some of the correspondence, 
 and that idle scoundrel Jacques ' 
 
 * I can read and write French, sir.' 
 
 * Yes. parlez-vous, compre7iez-vous, and so forth, 
 I suppose ; so can any fool that reads a news- 
 paper. But you want a little more than that in 
 here. You can't read that, for instance.' 
 
 Mr. Firkins thrust out the letter he had been 
 handling, and Carr took it, reading it in English 
 without hesitation. The dictated answer was 
 as easily written in French. 
 
 * I didn't think you had so much sense,' was 
 the master's comment, as he glanced at the 
 sheet. ' Do you know anything else ?' 
 
 * I am learning German and Spanish.' 
 
 * Oh, all right ; you'll do for the present.' 
 Beyond a certain modification of the outer 
 
 man, which more or less regular attendance in 
 the office rendered necessary, Theodore made
 
 58 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 no change in his former course of consistent de- 
 velopment. His emergence from boyhood had 
 already brought the customary deliverance from 
 angles, and it had been matter of common ob- 
 servation in the timber-yard that young Carr 
 was getting very much a gentleman. A glance 
 at him was enough to show that he was en- 
 dowed with the instinct of polite aspirations, 
 which there had been very little in his existence 
 hitherto to foster. His natural thoughtfulness 
 and reserve imparted to a graceful figure an air 
 of dignity, and at this time, to a close observer, 
 signs of a conscious culture and self-discipline 
 might have been apparent. Benjamin Saloway, 
 for instance, saw it clearly. 
 
 Under the guise of cynicism or indifference, 
 Mr. Firkins also saw it all, and confessed secret- 
 ly an unusual degree of satisfaction in the issue. 
 He certainly did not feel tenderness for Carr ; 
 possibly it was merely selfish pride in him as a 
 successful speculation. At any rate, as time 
 advanced, the merchant became infected with 
 a consuming need of exclusive possession of the 
 youth, whence sprang an irritable jealousy,
 
 THE NEW. 59 
 
 which resented the interposition of any other 
 person. He overburdened Carr with work, for 
 the sole purpose of keeping him at the office, 
 and giving him less time to spend at home. He 
 began to take him away on business — very soon 
 to send him as his deputy on distant enterprises. 
 Thus at last it came that Theodore was dis- 
 patched into Norway and Russia. 
 
 To one of Carr's intellectual vigour, this ex- 
 pedition to the Baltic was of the highest im- 
 portance. The traveller was away a month, 
 ostensibly investigating the state of the timber 
 market, and actually doing it, but managing also 
 to combine very much of a more liberal nature 
 with this legitimate object of inquiry. Not con- 
 tent with the purely commercial element of 
 Christiania and Drammen, from the inspection of 
 timber-yards and mills, he passed to the contem- 
 plation of the pine-clad slopes that fed them. 
 He crossed over to Riga ; thence to St. Peters- 
 burg and Archangel. From every place he issued 
 copious reports of his travels ; one series for the 
 eye of the practical, exacting master, another 
 for devoted perusal by an obscure hearth in a
 
 60 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 back part of the town. These letters were from 
 all points of view extremely interesting ; to Salo- 
 way and Emily they were that, but they were 
 very much more in addition. These two, in 
 their stationary humility, were whirled on the 
 ardent wings of the traveller's affection through 
 all the scenes that he beheld, getting how much 
 more than the mere vivid colouring that de- 
 picted them to the outward eye. The same note 
 of personal love rang through the most brilliant 
 words of description, and even the timorous cob- 
 bler was reassured. Emily had never as yet 
 trembled, for she knew nothing of the nature of 
 the abyss. She was now old enough to think 
 with a blush of an incident of her childhood, and 
 too old to remember the fear whence it had 
 sprung. Theodore was now a world to her, and 
 no state of existence was conceivable without 
 him. 
 
 Carr returned, himself scarcely aware of the 
 effect of this journey upon him, so full was he of 
 the distracting details of all that he had seen. 
 Even the dingy street did not immediately ob- 
 trude its disadvantages upon his enthusiastic
 
 THE NEW. 61 
 
 senses, his gaze being fixed upon the radiant 
 faces beyond. He had forbidden Emily and her 
 father to meet him at the station^ in view of his 
 distaste for a greeting of that kind in the eyes 
 of a crowd. So he walked in as though he had 
 come from work ; not owning even to himself 
 that he had avoided a cab solely on account of 
 a disinclination to speak to the driver the name 
 of his street. As he crossed the threshold, he 
 was conscious of a shock of incongruity and 
 disappointment, but he smothered it in an em- 
 brace of Emily, who came into the passage to 
 meet him. 
 
 The old frank buoyancy which Carr displayed 
 throughout the evening permitted no critical 
 consciousness amongst them. That he was more 
 handsome than ever was thought enough for 
 Emily, and with it she cried herself to sleep. 
 Even Benjamin fell off to the soothing medita- 
 tion that ' after all he was just the same.' But 
 Theodore himself, when once the excitement of 
 personal contact was over, found himself restless 
 and depressed. As though to make up for those 
 hours through which it had been defied, the
 
 62 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 critical spirit now rushed in for its revenge. 
 The shock which Carr had resolutely crushed 
 upon entering the house re-asserted itself, and 
 diffused itself throughout the foundations of his 
 being. All the joy with which he had looked 
 forward to this return was annihilated by this 
 pitiful infliction. All, all, he felt, was hideously, 
 intolerably vulgar, and he felt a blush of shame 
 at being an inmate of the dwelHng. 
 
 When they all met in the morning, Carr was 
 in his usual spirits, and no doubt designedly 
 entered in that mood into his project. He jested 
 about the narrowness of the rooms, the depress- 
 ing nature of the outlook. He had never noticed 
 it before ; they must move. Emily entered 
 readily enough into his humour, and before they 
 parted after breakfast, the resolution was de- 
 finitely formed. 
 
 ' Why don't you talk about it, father V asked 
 the girl, when Theodore had left them. ' Don't 
 you want to live in a nicer house V 
 
 ' I be'nt used to much, do you see, Emily. But 
 don't fret about it, maidie ; it be equally the 
 same to I. Theodore must grow.'
 
 THE NEW. 63 
 
 Carr jocularly told Mr. Firkins of his decision, 
 and was surprised at his manner of receiving it. 
 The merchant hardly troubled to disguise his 
 irritation. Seeing that the proposition involved 
 a request for a substantial part of his savings, 
 wherewith to furnish the new home, the youth 
 not unnaturally mistook his master's attitude, 
 and hastened to waive his own airy plans. Fir- 
 kins answered it by flinging to him a cheque 
 for a hundred pounds. Theodore would have 
 spoken farther, but the other dismissed him in a 
 rage. The next day, however, the elder was. 
 more ajffable. 
 
 ' Why don't you live in lodgings ?' asked the 
 merchant. ' I thought you young men were all 
 for freedom.' 
 
 ' I'd rather live at home as long as I can,' said 
 Carr. 
 
 Firkins turned away, and as he muttered 
 something about ' queer tastes,' Theodore went 
 out. 
 
 In a house, then, of twenty-five pounds 
 a-year, with a bow- window, steps up to the 
 door, and some square feet of begrimed grass
 
 64 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 within iron railings was the Saloway family 
 established, and the click of the gate at any 
 hour of the evening was added to the trifles 
 having influence over Emily's heart-strings. 
 The internal harmony continued unbroken. 
 Perhaps Theodore was absent more than for- 
 merly, or when at home more frequently shut 
 up in the room which he had furnished himself 
 plainly for a study ; but he was on the brink of 
 manhood, his intellectual activity was con- 
 siderable, and his engagements consequently 
 more numerous. 
 
 It was, of course, his general development 
 that appeared in the privacy of home. To see 
 or hear him there, might have been to take him 
 for an intellectual aspirant exclusively, so little 
 of the commercial man was there clinging about 
 him. His discussions were instinctively intro- 
 duced from the imaginative standpoint. Al- 
 though Carr had long since abandoned his 
 boyish handling of riches, it could be observed 
 that his attitude of mind habitually pre-supposed 
 wealth. For the last few years he had spent 
 all his week's holiday away from home ; con-
 
 THE NEW. 65 
 
 sistently of late in tours comprising intellectual 
 association. Birth and death places; castles 
 and cathedrals ; camps and battle-fields ; had 
 thus over a wide acre been visited by him, and 
 always in intelligent connection with the facts 
 which made them famous. All he saw he spoke 
 about at home, so that his conversation was 
 alike endless and entertaining, and thereby were 
 Saloway and Emily enabled to make much 
 general progress with him. 
 
 In his universal curiosity, Theodore's eyes, of 
 course, did not overlook the present facts of his 
 own circle. He had always shrunk from an 
 investigation of his mother's history, but no 
 doubt he pondered it not wholly without efi'ect 
 upon his emotional resources. With expanding 
 intelligence, however, he viewed such points 
 with broad interest and in connection with the 
 social or political theories that appealed to him. 
 Himself so essentially an outcome of the people, 
 he had inevitably to pass through the more or 
 less volcanic phases to which the self-confident 
 imagination commonly succumbs; but the 
 material smoothness of his path rendered the 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 €6 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 passage quick and easy. Oddly, too, his sym- 
 pathies were essentially aristocratic ; the ego 
 being of a vigorous growth upon which he was 
 rapidly borne into the optimistic ether wherein 
 alone he could draw full breath. It was from 
 that height that he regarded the darker world 
 whence he had sprung; intelligently and 
 sympathetically as becomes the serious patron. 
 
 He had talked frequently with Saloway of 
 these problems as of others, pointing his re- 
 marks with direct personal inquiries, but always 
 with disappointing results. So persistently had 
 this been the case that it was some time now 
 since Theodore had concluded that the cobbler 
 had matters to hide. Benjamin would talk 
 with manifest interest of problems in general, 
 but once apply them to himself and he was 
 dumb. He had confessed that he was country 
 born ; had spoken with energy on the subject of 
 the agricultural labourer ; but Carr had nothing 
 else wherefrom to draw his inferences. As the 
 young man grew older, this curiosity increased, 
 and he showed a growing inclination for dis- 
 cussing rural problems with Saloway. Strange
 
 THE NEW. 67 
 
 to say, the latter too made progress in com- 
 municativeness, or rather evinced indifiference 
 to sustaining his reserve. 
 
 The fact is that v^ these days the cobbler 
 was conscious of a permanent alteration in his 
 spirits. Although to ail other eyes the prospect 
 seemed of undiminished brilliance, he character- 
 istically saw the clouds appear. The premoni- 
 tory rumblings of certain incongruous elements 
 in his existence kept him in a constant state of 
 agitation. He had always said with pride that 
 Theodore would get on, but only in these later 
 years had he fully recognized how much this 
 involved. Ever since that first expedition of 
 Carr abroad, Benjamin had felt definite dis- 
 comfort in the boy's presence, despite all the 
 latter's affability and personal charm. The 
 homely cobbler felt confronted by a superior 
 world, from which everything that was in- 
 stinctive in him impetuously shrank. Mere 
 book-learning alone would never have van- 
 quished him, had it been bound in plain leather 
 boards. It was the development of Carr's 
 binding that instituted the breach. 
 
 F 2
 
 6S THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 Nor did this exhaust the evils. Simple- 
 minded as Saloway was, still was he super- 
 sensitive on some points. Why should not Carr 
 advance to any heights that his mind aspired 
 to, and yet keep within genial hail of those 
 below to whom, by his affections, he was bound ? 
 The experience is common, as even Saloway 
 knew. But something persistently convinced 
 him that this obvious path was not for them. 
 Theodore's scrupulous temper had been amply 
 revealed, and this, the cobbler felt, must preju- 
 dice the boy's course. The father's eyes could 
 now see his girl a woman, and herein lay the 
 peril. The man could not escape a haunting con- 
 viction that Theodore was not free. The very 
 goodness of his heart would bind him, and urge 
 him to a step which his interests, possibly his 
 passions, would not demand. In this light did 
 Saloway distort all kinds of innocent displays. 
 If Carr were absent or shut up for half-an-hour 
 more than was his wont, the youth was design- 
 edly avoiding Emily; if she were playfully 
 talkative with Carr, then was she forcing her- 
 self upon his affections.
 
 THE NEW. 69 
 
 It was these morbid fancies that induced 
 Saloway's indifference to old secrets of his 
 own. Perhaps some vague reflection hinted 
 that a full revelation of his past ignominy would 
 simplify the situation by damping Carr's affec- 
 tion and affording him an outlet for escape. 
 Thus it came that one evening, in discussing 
 country affairs, the name Winwold issued boldly 
 from the cobbler's lips, and in such connection 
 as to leave no room for doubt in one of Theo- 
 dore's acuteness. Thinking it a slip, incident to 
 momentary excitement, Carr let it pass without 
 comment ; but the name was on his mind, and 
 the next day he looked out the place. One 
 night, a day or two after this, Carr, coming in 
 late, found Benjamin alone reading. In taking 
 his chair the former remarked that the next 
 week he was to have his holiday, and Saloway, 
 as was usual, asked him where he was going. 
 
 *To Gloucester first, and then into South 
 Wales.' 
 
 ' Gloucester,' muttered the cobbler, scarcely 
 knowing that he fixed his eyes wide upon the 
 other's face.
 
 70 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 Theodore adroitly launched into an account 
 of the various other places he had thought of, 
 when unexpectedly Saloway clutched his arm. 
 
 ' Go to Winwold/ said he, almost in a whis- 
 per. ' I'd like you to see it, and I'd like to hear 
 you talk about it, that I would, for I'll never go 
 there myself again, never !' 
 
 Carr took up the suggestion good-humour- 
 edly, and inquired the way and all about the 
 place. Then, for the first time through a long, 
 dark series of years, the exile voluntarily re- 
 called the scenes of his youth. He confessed 
 that he was born there, and had lived there till 
 twenty-five ; but upon the subject of his de- 
 parture he preserved a rigid silence. As he 
 approached the chasm his courage forsook him, 
 and, his agitation becoming extreme, they very 
 soon parted for the night. 
 
 During the next few days Benjamin was 
 more composed, and he spoke in a calmer spirit 
 of the scenes that Theodore was to see. But 
 nothing personal was again disclosed. Only 
 when Carr was leaving for the station the cob- 
 bler whispered to him.
 
 THE NEW. 71 
 
 * Breathe ne'er a word about 1 ; it'll bring no 
 credit to you.' 
 
 When he had taken a few steps along the 
 pavement, Theodore turned to wave his hand 
 once more to those whom he knew would watch 
 him to the farthest limit, and he saw Saloway 
 running hatless towards him. Carr stopped. 
 
 ' Go in by the Upton Quarr/ said the cob- 
 bler, and fled ; for his eyes were full.
 
 72 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A VISION. 
 
 It was always a strange sensation to Carr this 
 first awakening in the dawn which opened upon 
 his week of annual holiday. It generally oc- 
 curred in the same kind of little inn bed-room, to 
 the same musty breath of bed-post and hangings, 
 to the same homely talk of the pigeons on the 
 roof, and the same clatter of the pump-handle 
 in the yard. These were now an inseparable 
 part of the impression, and Theodore loved 
 them all, and rose to a high pitch of enthusiasm 
 under their subtle influence. 
 
 So it was when he opened his eyes in the 
 guest's best bed-room at the ' Frog Mill Inn,' 
 in the village of Winwold. He always awoke 
 early at such times, and for long he lay regard-
 
 A VISION. 73 
 
 iDg the faded hangings suspended from the 
 canopy of his bed, and trying to disentangle 
 the old pattern from the mists and cobwebs 
 which years had woven about it. The spirit 
 and very features of Benjamin Saloway seemed 
 involved therein, in a most unaccountable man- 
 ner ; indeed one of the most noticeable impres- 
 sions upon Theodore since he entered the parish 
 by the Upton Quarry on the previous day had 
 been the subtle interweaving of the cobbler's 
 personaHty with everything about the place. 
 He seemed as inevitable a product of this 
 slumbering country as the stolid cows or 
 shaggy horses that still fed upon it. 
 
 In an exalted condition Carr left his bed, 
 just as the sun's rays first printed the inner 
 wall with the pattern of the lattice window. 
 He hummed, whistled, and sang snatches of 
 melody as he hastily dressed, then he went 
 forth. Outside, everything united to further 
 his buoyant mood. The sounds and fragrance 
 of the June air swept in at every pore ; the 
 artist thrush, the pensive blackbird soliloquizing 
 ethic truth, and the heavenly lark, seemed,
 
 74 THE SPORT OP STARS. 
 
 through the magic of the morning sun, to meet 
 and combine in the soul of Theodore Carr. In 
 him the eternal problem was solved, and he 
 waded the fields an immortal. 
 
 In this exuberant state he met a middle-aged 
 countryman, with whom he stopped to speak. 
 Directly the man's tongue had spoken, the 
 parental Saloway appeared with almost ludicrous 
 distinctness. 
 
 *Did you ever hear of Benjamin Saloway f 
 asked Carr, after the general remarks. 
 
 The man eyed him and shook his head. 
 
 * Dead long since, I count.' 
 ' You knew him, then T 
 
 * Ay, ay, 1 knew he well. But mebbe you 
 know 'un an' all, sirf 
 
 ' Yes, some years ago I did. He was very 
 kind to me when 1 was a boy.' 
 
 ' That he 'ud,' said the countryman, whose 
 features displayed uncommon interest. ' And be 
 he ahve then, after all T 
 
 ' I believe he is, and getting on well.' 
 
 ' Well, well, I'd never ha' thought that, 
 however.'
 
 A VISION. 75 
 
 ' Why not V 
 
 * Oh, 'em crippled him cruel when 'em sent him 
 off to Glorster. A were but a shadow of a man 
 when a came back.' 
 
 * Why, what was it all about V 
 
 * A long tale, sir, and a dark one, as I may 
 say to you,' repHed the man, looking cautiously 
 around him. ' It was along o' the squire sure 
 enough,' he added, in an undertone. * Benjamin 
 Saloway said to I in the Upton Quarr yonder, the 
 very day as a left Win'ol, and that were twenty- 
 two years past on the Tuesday afore Upton Wake, 
 — for that was the very day as a was drove from 
 this parish, having come from Gloucester gaol 
 but the day before — quite a young man a was, 
 but something out of the common, I do believe, 
 and always given to learning, and a was like 
 one sacrificed, as you may say. What for ? . . . 
 Poaching was the item, so 'em said, do you see ? 
 . . . But to cut a long story short, sir, Ben stood 
 there in the quarr, his eyes set as solid as a owl 
 on the cider mill, and a spoke quite solemn. 
 " Thomas Warrilow," a said, "I be a-going from 
 Win'ol ; druv out like a rat from a thrashing
 
 76 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 rick, and I'll never come back, look 'e. But 
 you'll see it, and when you be an old man on 
 the parish you'll mind the words of a despert 
 maD," just like that. " If there be a God in 
 that blue heaven, as Scriptur do plainly tell us 
 there be," — that's what a said, sir, for Benjamin 
 never professed the principles of athaism, very 
 far from it, for all the squire said, although a 
 many did at that time o' day, more's the pity, — 
 ^' If there be a God in that blue heaven, as 
 Scriptur do plainly tell us there be, a'll visit the 
 iniquity o' the fathers upon the children unto 
 the third and fourth generation, and the family 
 o' Blakenhurst 'ull be drove from the acres as 
 they have withheld from the cry of the poor, 
 just as I be a-driven out o' my home at this 
 minute." Those were his very words, sir, and 
 I'll never forget 'em, never.' 
 
 * I should think not,' said Carr, upon whom 
 the picturesque narrative exercised a singularly 
 thrilling effect. ' But what led the squire to 
 drive him out, since you say poaching was only 
 a pretence r 
 
 ' 'Lotments was the real concern. The squire
 
 A VISION. 77 
 
 got a notion that poor Ben was one of these 
 revolutionaries, as he called 'em ; them as burn 
 ricks and all manner ; but a wasn't. Oh, dear, 
 no. A wanted to get land for the like of we, 
 and a went to ask for it, that was all. But as I 
 may say to you, sir, Squire Blakenhurst can't 
 abide a poor man nohow, never could from 
 a boy.' 
 
 'Can't he?' said Theodore, absently; and 
 thrusting half-a-crown into the man's hand 
 continued his walk onwards. 
 
 The brief conversation had afforded all he 
 was in need of, and it threw into a new and 
 dramatic light many of the cobbler's opinions 
 upon the problems of rural life. Carr pondered 
 them once again as he made his way back to 
 the village inn. 
 
 The effect of the discovery, however, soon 
 passed, in the face of so much that was exhilarat- 
 ing all around him. The weather remained 
 exquisite, and Carr found the idylhc locaHty to 
 inspire him with a pecuharly strong imaginative 
 fervour. For long days he wandered over the up- 
 lands where the sheep and lambs nibbled, startling
 
 78 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 the hawks in old-world quarries, from which 
 nature had long since smoothed all traces of 
 the tools of man. He crouched in the sombre 
 quietude of larch groves to hear the wood- 
 pigeon's tale, or with hand upon the motionless 
 bark to watch the swaying crests of the young 
 trees up in the sun. He threaded the green 
 labyrinth upon the slopes of fragrant gorse, 
 playing without restraint those games of hide 
 and seek with the rabbits of which his own 
 childhood had been cheated. Amidst these 
 sunny scenes, in this state of imaginative ex- 
 altation, one day he became suddenly aware 
 that he was alone ; that he knew the desire to 
 communicate his enthusiasm to a sympathetic 
 ear. It is not at all likely that a youth of 
 Theodore Carr's marked sensibiUty had reached 
 the age of twenty-three without some haunting 
 suspicion of this before, but it had certainly 
 never been so definitely pronounced. He began 
 to seek the woods instead of the open hill-tops, 
 and in every glade lurked ethereal figures 
 which he wished to overtake, but which flitted 
 on with tender beckoning glances. At length,
 
 A VISION. 79 
 
 in the glow of sunset, one he captured. As he 
 emerged from a wood, in front of three tall 
 pine-trees whose trunks and branches had be- 
 come pillars of rosy granite in the gorgeous 
 light, in fancy he resolutely caught her hand, 
 and, turning the averted face to his own eager 
 gaze, recognized the familiar features of his 
 companion Emily. 
 
 A tremulous satisfaction pervaded CaiT upon 
 this discovery. That evening he absented him- 
 self from the homely gossip in the parlour of 
 the ' Frog Mill ' that he might contemplate th^ 
 revelation beneath the few faint stars of the 
 summer sky. By a flash of apprehension many 
 incidents in their home-life acquired new light 
 to him. He dwelt upon them eagerly and with 
 irresistible conviction. What he had always 
 passed as the mere kindliness of domestic affec- 
 tion he now saw to be something more. Could 
 he now doubt that Emily loved him, as he 
 would willingly confess that he loved Emily ? 
 
 On the following day, whilst pursuing the 
 ardent thoughts which this admission gave rise 
 to, Theodore came to a spot which greatly
 
 80 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 delighted him. It was one of those deserted 
 quarries which he discovered occasionally ; one 
 which, lying silent in the high morning sun, 
 looked peculiarly inviting to one in his trans- 
 cendent mood. As Carr entered it by the dis- 
 used and overgrown cart-track to stand in the 
 quietude of the little amphitheatre, at the top 
 of which against a clear sky he saw the young 
 corn waving, a sense of solemnity crept over 
 him. He stood to watch the rabbits scamper 
 home to their shelter in the stony bank, and the 
 one hare bound up the acclivity and clear the 
 rim into the corn. Then he went to a solitary 
 block of rough unhewn stone which had been 
 left in the open centre, lichened and blackened 
 by long exposure, and there sat down. 
 
 First of all, his botanical eye examined all the 
 kindly weeds which had aided the grass to 
 clothe the stony bareness which man had left ; 
 but, his eye travelling to the brilliantly flecked 
 sky which over-arched his little basin, emotional 
 thoughts were not long excluded. In the quiet 
 sun he sat and reflected, breaking the silence 
 sometimes by a sharp stroke of his stick upon a
 
 A VISION. 81 
 
 stone, but otherwise only hearing the Hght 
 breeze rustling the blades of corn, the skylark's 
 song, or a rook which croaked as it sailed lazily 
 above him. He thought that his holiday was 
 ending, and with the thought his joy was less. 
 This was not customary with him. He must 
 return — to what ? To Emily, certainly ; but 
 was it not here that he had found Emily ? Was 
 it not these sunlit woods and fields that her 
 soul inhabited, and by no means those hard 
 blank cells where her daily life was passed? 
 Never before had the world of man appeared 
 other than attractive to the youth. Now he 
 shrank from it; longed to snatch from its 
 poisonous fangs everything he loved, and hide 
 for ever in this heavenly seclusion. 
 
 It was from such thoughts as these that a 
 resonant laugh aroused him. So incongruous 
 was it that Carr leaped up. The sound was 
 repeated, — a musical and sparkling laugh as of 
 some gladsome spirit of the air. The man 
 stared this way and that, expecting some 
 apparition at once to follow ; but he stared in 
 vain. The enclosing sides of the quarry were 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 THE SPORT OP STARS. 
 
 alone around him ; the silent sky alone above. 
 So Theodore again sat down. 
 
 Scarcely was he seated, when there was a 
 sound behind, and turning he saw the light 
 figure of a girl swiftly descending the steep 
 slope which the hare had climbed. Carr rose 
 to his feet and waited. About two yards from 
 him the figure halted, and eyed him imperious- 
 ly. The bashful youth was perplexed, so 
 striking was his opponent in herself and in the 
 singular attitude she adopted. 
 
 ' Why do you intrude here ?' she asked, in 
 queenly accents. ' This spot is mine.' 
 
 So completely was Theodore fascinated by 
 the romantic incident that in his confusion he 
 did not even mutter an apology. With slight 
 increase of colour over his smooth features, he 
 kept his eyes fixed upon the beautiful girl. 
 That she was quite young was apparent, for 
 her frock was above her feet and her luxuriant 
 hair was flung about her head in exquisite dis- 
 order. Her complexion was clear and beauti- 
 ful, the colour of it enriched by her recent 
 exercise. But she was tall, and the free play
 
 A VISION. 83 
 
 of her loose muslin frock, with a coloured sash 
 at the waist, showed every girlish grace of form 
 aad movement. Then the sweet refinement of 
 her tongue, even in what Carr instinctively felt 
 to be affected anger, thrilled him to the core. 
 The man continued dumb. 
 
 ' Speak,' she said, as though construing his 
 confusion and accustomed to such display 
 before her. 
 
 ' I saw that the spot was beautiful, but I did 
 not know it to be yours,' said Carr, smiling as 
 the advantage of his years became clear to him.* 
 His voice and his reply surprised her, as per- 
 haps his whole mien, now that she could see it 
 near. 
 
 ' It is all mine ; every stone, every flower, and 
 every blade of grass that is in it, and I punish 
 those that dare to enter.' 
 
 ' I am now willing to undergo any punish- 
 ment,' said Theodore, gallantly, willing to sus- 
 tain her humour, if only it might prolong his 
 glimpse of such a creature, and the sound of 
 such a voice. 'Name it.' 
 
 g2
 
 84 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 * You Jo not live in this parish,' was the in- 
 consequent reply. 
 
 'I do not, or perhaps 1 should have known 
 your law and have respected it.' 
 
 ' For that word I forgive you, but 1 do not 
 think I ought, for you have even plucked my 
 flowers.' Her eye had just caught sight of the 
 few specimens which Carr had laid upon the 
 stone whereon he sat. 
 
 'They were gathered before I entered here.' 
 
 ' Are you a herbalist, or a botanist ?' asked the 
 girl. 
 
 ' The latter I suppose you would call me. But 
 I gather flowers for the same reason that you 
 possess them.' 
 
 * What reason is that, may 1 ask V 
 ' Because I love them.' 
 
 * How do you know that I love my flowers f 
 ' Yon must.' 
 
 The girl seemed instinctively to foresee the 
 compliment, and with supreme composure to 
 v/aive it. She turned as though to leave. 
 
 * Well, I will allow you to sit here,' she said, 
 scarce able to repress her smile as she became
 
 A VISION. S5 
 
 conscious of her lapse. * You will not desecrate 
 the place.' 
 
 Carr made a courtly obeisance. 
 
 * May I beg a single flower in remembrance 
 of my trespass, and to confirm my pardon ?' 
 
 * Yes, you may have one.' 
 
 ' From the hands of the queen of the garden, 
 I meant,' he pleaded. 
 
 Theodore's frame quivered at his boldness, for 
 habitually he was no adept in such tender pleas- 
 antries, and whatever her age, the aspiring clerk 
 could not but perceive the social extraction of. 
 the divine phantom. The queen seemed not to 
 hear him ; but then she leaned to the ground and 
 plucked a large moon-daisy, (as the wild mar- 
 guerites there were called,) and refaced Carr. 
 The beautiful features were under supreme com- 
 mand this time, and with really very much of 
 queenly grace and dignity, the strange maiden 
 bestowed her favour upon Theodore^ who as no 
 unworthy courtier received it. Then the vision 
 passed. 
 
 Carr was left in a state of higher commotion 
 than his years and experience warranted. Acting
 
 86 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 upon an already over- heated fancy, the exploit, 
 which he could see to have been but a momen- 
 tary whim of an intrepid, imaginative girl, took 
 him at a disadvantage, and made a deeper im- 
 pression upon him than any outcome of super- 
 abundant idleness justified. All else was driven 
 from his mind, and he sat with his eyes to the 
 ground, recalling every minutest detail of the 
 exquisite apparition. Every spark of the critical 
 faculty was for the nonce extinguished in him ; 
 he only gazed to recover, recovered to adore. 
 It was as though another higher embodiment of 
 all his recent sunlit abstractions had been re- 
 vealed to him, eclipsing all behind. It almost 
 lost touch with a material world, and became a 
 dazzling meteor, traversing the spheres. 
 
 At the inn later, in a more sober mood, he 
 talked with the landlady, and had little difficulty 
 in identifying his apparition as a creature of 
 flesh and blood, familiar to her world as Miss 
 Laura Blakenhurst, daughter of the middle-aged 
 squire who reigned in Winwold, and upon the 
 fact Theodore sagely reflected.
 
 87 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE GODS OF WINWOLD. 
 
 WiNWOLD, as other most secluded of rural places, 
 had altered with the times. The mixture of 
 genuine calm and sullen self-containment which 
 characterised its pre-journalistic days had, since 
 the time of Saloway, been gradually but surely 
 invaded by the stealthy pace of disintegrating 
 forces. Its spectacular charm was unimpaired ; 
 the sun still illumining the same moss-grown 
 roofs in the morning, and capping with a crown 
 of gold the same tall elms in the evening, as it 
 had done for generations past. The owls hal- 
 looed, the wood-peckers laughed, and the jays 
 cursed, as heartily as ever over the swelling 
 downs. The human element alone could be
 
 88 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 accused of having forfeited its native dignity by 
 lapse of time, of having dwindled to the ignoble 
 limits of the day's unrest, until now the village 
 had become that normal and inevitable group of 
 detached, indifferent, nay, bitterly antagonistic 
 units which sages have pronounced to be the ex- 
 tinction of all strength. Roughly the population 
 could be divided into three classes. Those who 
 at the plough, upon the ale-bench, and in other 
 convenient places, railed vernacularly against 
 the whole nature of established things ; those 
 who, copying the upper, distrusting the lower 
 classes, trembled for their modest investments, 
 and over the social tea-cup speculated upon the 
 tragic destiny of a world with which they were 
 once familiar ; and those finally who of more or 
 less cosmopohtan propensities cared no whit for 
 any of these things. 
 
 Contemporaneous as this chanced to be with 
 the reign of Mr. Geoffrey Blakenhurst, it were 
 puerile to associate its course with him person- 
 ally in face of the universal development of his 
 time. That the squire laid no claim to enlight- 
 enment we know, but possibly in such obscurity
 
 THE GODS OF WINWOLD. 89 
 
 he was not alone. He sprang from such family 
 as we have agreed to call ancient and honour- 
 able. Knights and baronets had been freely 
 numbered amongst his ancestors in the old fight- 
 ing days, and their fearsome deeds were duly 
 chronicled in the proper pages. The generations 
 of recent centuries had been content to remain 
 landed esquires merely. Yet were the Blaken- 
 hursts of Winwold, through their Geofireys, 
 Rolands and Reginalds of post-restoration days, 
 of some imperial reputation beyond the leafy 
 confines of their proprietary county. The 
 Reginald Blakenhurst who contested the reign 
 of Marlborough with such signal consequences 
 to himself was lord of this manor of Winwold. 
 Geoff*rey, a recognized antagonist of George 
 Fox, was a son of the same house, whilst Mr. 
 Lionel Blakenhurst who, within the memory of 
 some living, died of an apoplectic fit in his place 
 in the House of Commons whilst energetical- 
 ly opposing his last breath to the Reform Bill 
 of '32, was this phantom Laura's own grand- 
 father, the parent of the lord in whose name the 
 chief-rents of the Winwold Manor ran at the
 
 90 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 time when Theodore Carr now first beheld it. 
 Degenerate as in some respects he would 
 legitimately have been considered, it had been 
 reserved for this nineteenth century representa- 
 tive of the race to confront issues of striking 
 novelty in the family annals, for which all the 
 martial and pohtical prowess of his ancestors 
 could not supply a precedent ; this novelty being 
 presented in the form of intellect, and under the 
 fascinating aspect of his daughter Laura. 
 
 The squire's family consisted of a son and 
 heir, Vivian by name ; a daughter Pauline, at 
 this time meditating marriage; another son 
 Walter: and finally Laura. The last from 
 her birth had been regarded as the exception 
 to the family, a brilliant singularity where all 
 was by rule. Rather oddly, it was thought, 
 her engaging unexpectedness could to no- 
 body make more engrossing appeal than to 
 her matter-of-fact father. It was more or 
 less jocularly reported that the tragic fate of 
 the Reform Bill antagonist had extinguished 
 promising talents in his son, (although but a 
 schoolboy of sixteen at the time,) and with them
 
 THE GODS OF WINWOLD. 91 
 
 all shade of extraparochial ambition. It was an 
 undoubted fact that Mr. Geoffrey Blakenhurst 
 had abandoned himself to a strictly domestic, 
 or at any rate manorial career. 
 
 Such affections, then, as the lord of Winwold 
 might have at his disposal would be presumably 
 bestowed upon his immediate family or his 
 estate ; but as nobody ever heard him speak of 
 his tenantry save byway of unreserved vilification 
 and disgust, and as no member of his family ex- 
 cept Laura had ever been aware of his most 
 superficial regard, it is to be presumed that yet 
 a further limitation was put upon his affections, 
 and that it was Laura herself who monopolized 
 the whole of what was known to her father as 
 love. It was never doubted but that this 
 devotion was fully reciprocated by the brilliant 
 object of it. A word from the squire could 
 summon the high-spirited child from the 
 most engrossing diversion ; and, still later, no 
 demand was too exacting for the patience of the 
 girl. She it was who read him the local 
 Journal, The Field, and what he required of The 
 Times ; and she it was who slipped away when his
 
 ^2 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 faculties had duly succumbed to the strain thus 
 put upon them. The parent, on his part, never 
 tired of superintending what he considered the 
 main part of his favourite's education, — what re- 
 lated, that is, to the stable, the kennel, and the 
 field. In trivialities, the assistance of a more 
 conventional governess was not forbidden, and 
 thus it was that Laura had advanced robustly to 
 the years of early maidenhood. 
 
 As fate would have it, though, this governess 
 whom the squire deemed so insignificant an 
 adjunct of his establishment, was not the con- 
 ventional nonentity that the gentleman's esti- 
 mate would have led one to expect. Her name 
 was Miss Birdwell, and under a placid affability 
 and unconcern there lurked an unusually 
 speculative and imaginative temperament. By 
 inevitable instinct the child Laura had early 
 seen her way to the depths of this individuality, 
 and in a situation not too abundantly agreeable 
 the intelligent pupil was not a companion to be 
 despised. Through this intimacy, Laura first 
 found guidance and systematic development in 
 her unbounded youthful curiosity. The first
 
 THE GODS OF WINWOLD. 9.^ 
 
 obvious outcome of it was merely a heightening 
 of her piquant characteristics, and a correspond- 
 ing increase of admiration in her father who ob- 
 served it. He could never sufficiently repeat 
 her witty or cynical remarks, and, so scant is our 
 average logic, he could not so much as suspect 
 their germ of practical antagonism to his own 
 acquiescent modes. This, however, Laura very 
 early did suspect, and it imposed the first strain 
 of self-consciousness upon her. There followed 
 the inevitable dissimulation and reserve under 
 guise of boisterous frankness. Laura posed be- 
 fore her father ; acted a conscious part, such as 
 she knew to be expected of her, solely to 
 humour him, to adjust herself to what she ad- 
 judged his ignoble level. Her high spirits re- 
 sented such tactics in the beginning, and hot 
 arguments were held with Miss Birdwell in 
 favour of establishing intellectual confidence 
 with the squire, but the precocious girl was 
 speedily convinced of her quixotic wish. 
 
 What heightened the difiiculty was that it 
 was in no creed of merely flippant cynicism that 
 Laura had been confirmed by her intimacy with
 
 94 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 the enthusiastic governess. This lady was of 
 obscure extraction, whom sheer intellectual 
 stress had thrust unaided above the current, 
 and, as was not unnatural to one in such 
 independent case, she found all her strength 
 in purely elementar}?- forces. Thus Thomas 
 Carlyle Avas her prophet, and the Latter Day 
 Pamphlets, for chief, her confession of faith : a 
 loud note of incongruity, it may be presumed, 
 in the house of the lord of Winwold. If the 
 sage's sartorial semblances, unveracities, and 
 chimeras dire found anywhere their exemplifi- 
 cation in the world of fact, it was surely here 
 in the squirearchical estabhshment of an upland 
 corner of the county of Gloucester. This un- 
 compromising creed exercised its fascinations 
 over the warm-hearted Laura, despite her more 
 etrictly dramatic sympathies, with at length its 
 logical practical issues. There was so much of 
 the Blakenhurst instinct in her as to preclude 
 wholly the ignoble refuge of merely passive 
 theory, and, as may be surmised, her father's 
 territories offered a peculiarly favourable field 
 for energetic practice. Hence still further de-
 
 THE GODS OF WINWOLD. 95 
 
 velopments iu the tangles of a double life, for 
 the squire's angry antagonism to all contem- 
 porary problems and requirements was familiar 
 to all. If such matter were so much as broached 
 in his hearing, he never failed to meet it with 
 the now locally proverbial boast of his manner 
 of deahng with the revolutionary cobbler, Ben- 
 jamin Saloway, in his younger days. With justi- 
 fiable pride and assurance, the squire truly em- 
 phasized the fact that nobody had ventured to 
 repeat the experiment since that time. 
 
 Such then was the week-day reality of the 
 apparition which had at a critical moment and 
 in a fit of froHc flitted across Theodore Carr's 
 path. General inquiry gave him the bare family 
 facts, which he wove in characteristic fashion 
 about the creation of his own. But when he 
 visited the quarry the next morning (the open- 
 ing of his last free day), his brain was calmer, 
 his vision more clear. That this late-seen spirit 
 of the skies should have (as all had told him) 
 as ' kind a heart as any in the country,' he could 
 well believe, but the discovery of her earthly 
 lineage was at first disquieting. Generous
 
 96 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 loyalty to Saloway had awakened instinctive 
 indignation against the tyrannical squire, and it 
 required some subtle reconciliation to be able 
 to associate in one mind these opposing 
 elements. 
 
 In approaching this, we must bear in mind 
 that the sudden and irresistible effect of the 
 vision upon Carr was not wholly the result of 
 mere youthful sentiment. It was in reality as 
 much an intellectual as an emotional effect, al- 
 though under the circumstances the latter forces 
 seemed naturally to be supreme. For some 
 years the youth's self-culture had been a con- 
 scious design and aspiration, and at such age 
 the crowning height must involve something of 
 the feminine. This highly-bred and beautiful 
 girl, having appeared to him so strangely at a 
 moment of such exceptional susceptibility, had 
 by her figure, mien, tone, and behaviour simply 
 presented to his waking eye the incarnation of 
 his spiritual idea. She embodied the ideal of 
 life which had actuated all his more recent en- 
 deavour, or seemed to him to embody it. She 
 seemed to present to him all that his soul and
 
 THE GODS OF WINWOLD. 97 
 
 brain demanded for its loftiest existence, which 
 presumably the homely virtues of Emily did 
 not, else would not these latter have withstood 
 the contrast? 
 
 Carr had a dim perception of this as he sat 
 again on the stone with his intellectual task to 
 perform. It could not accord with his philo- 
 sophy to accept the daughter as the perfection 
 of all human development, and the father as the 
 type of its most brutal form. Some middle 
 course was imperative in a cause where he was 
 conscious of conflicting instincts. Saloway, who 
 was a father to him, had been barbarously 
 wronged ; the fact clearly was not to be con- 
 troverted. Without suspecting casuistry, Theo- 
 dore penetrated to the depths of that ancient 
 difference, and came out triumphant. His own 
 position, he deemed, gave him exceptional capa- 
 bilities for seeing into this matter, — hanging 
 between the two worlds as he always consider- 
 ed himself. From such position nothing had 
 so strongly assailed him as the utter incompati- 
 bility between the upper and the nether. In 
 the case in hand, had not both sides been in the 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 98 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 wrong through sheer stress of this incompati- 
 Mity? The fanatical sincerity of the cobbler, 
 coupled no doubt with an utter want of judg- 
 ment in his method, had jarred upon the refined 
 perceptions of the squire, and led him into a 
 harsh misconstruction of his suppliant. Carr 
 saw no egoism in such arbitration. Instinct 
 was still philosophy with him. The consequence 
 was that his affection for the sufferer was un- 
 impaired, and his vision of ideal grace suffered 
 no blur from the base clouds of kinship. 
 
 But Theodore was not without a sense of the 
 vital significance of the change which had come 
 over him. He was quite aware that his recent 
 transfiguration of the purely personal in Emily 
 was a dangerous illusion, in which for him would 
 have lain eclipse and general disablement. Love, 
 such as he had recently admitted for Emily, of 
 course meant marriage, and in the light of all 
 his highest aims what did he expect from mar- 
 riage ? Could Emily bring all this to him ? . . . 
 If she could not . . . ? 
 
 His invocation of the vision was without 
 avail. Only a single magpie flew out of the
 
 THE GODS OF WINWOLD. 99 
 
 quarry before him as he left it, and chattered 
 something which he did not understand. In 
 the evening of that day he returned to Mil- 
 lington. 
 
 H 2
 
 100 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WHERE THE ROAD DIVIDES. 
 
 Saloway quivered in every fibre as he listened 
 to Theodore's gi-aphic reproductions of the 
 scenes amidst which both of them had spent 
 the past week. The enthusiasm and uncon- 
 scious artistic skill with which Carr revealed all 
 the subtle influences of Benjamin's earJy and 
 only home disquieted the latter by arousing as- 
 sociations which the exile preferred to keep 
 deeply hidden in his heart. 
 
 'And the field at the boundary, Theodore, 
 anear the beeches — what be the crop this 
 turn V 
 
 * Mostly poppies, with some sort of grain in- 
 termingled,' was the facetious answer.
 
 WHERE THE ROAD DIVIDES. 101 
 
 ' Well, well, 'twere ever so. It needed a deal 
 of Loving did that land, and never got it — 
 never in Master Honyatt's time, however. Who 
 have the place now ? Not the old man . . . ? 
 Can't, o' course, for a was over seventy when — 
 years ago. Dead by now, sure to.' 
 
 Upon these points Theodore could give no 
 information, but they confronted him at every 
 tura in the conversation, and as they afforded 
 opportunities of indulging his playful humour 
 they did no disservice. Emily took little part 
 in the talk, but she listened with intense in- 
 terest, and, as Carr poured forth his glowing 
 words, he became uneasily conscious from time 
 to time of the girl's ardent eyes fixed upon him. 
 But he would turn to sustain them with every 
 appearance of genial unconcern. That night, 
 however, Theodore could not sleep. 
 
 He returned to his daily work with a sense of 
 wearisome disgust which was wholly new to 
 him. The employment had become paltry and 
 ignoble in his eyes, and therefrom sprang fits 
 of abstraction in him who had been all vigorous 
 activity before. If he were writing a letter, he
 
 102 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 would pause with the pen-handle to his lips and 
 gaze at the timber stacks outside, until each 
 rigid beam became supple and graceful, wafting 
 to him the soft whispers of leaves long since 
 mouldered beyond a rustle. The arid world 
 about him dissolved into a rich and fragrant 
 one, wherein the wings of imagination might 
 spread themselves and soar into the light of 
 heaven. He was recalled to the sordid facts 
 of life with a pang, and could face them only 
 with supremest effort. Life lay upon him as 
 an intolerable burden, instead of being an un- 
 conscious inspiration of buoyant good as here- 
 tofore. He suspected himself to be one hope- 
 lessly debarred from light. 
 
 Such an unusual sensation inevitably affected 
 his outward bearing. His numerous interests 
 waned ; scenes wherein he had displayed un- 
 bounded energy knew him no more. He trudged 
 wearily along the streets from his dwelling to 
 his work, from his work to his gloomy dwelling 
 again, with scarcely a glance around him. No- 
 body detected the change so readily as his two 
 domestic intimates, but they were reticent, to-
 
 WHERE THE ROAD DIVIDES. 103 
 
 wards him and towards each other. The gloom 
 of Theodore settled upon the household, as 
 though no sun but his could enter it. Saloway, 
 drawing his own conclusions, felt his home a 
 place of torture, and began to spend all his 
 spare time in a public reading-room, in the vain 
 pursuit of distraction outside himself. Carr 
 passed his time alone in his room, nobody knew 
 how. Emily sat Avith her needle, solitary. 
 
 One night, as she sat so, Theodore came from 
 his room impetuously. He was going out, but, 
 seeing the girl dejected there, he found it im- 
 possible to pass her. He went in and stood 
 before her chair. She, seizing the opportunity, 
 looked up at him. 
 
 ' You are tired, Theodore ; you work too 
 hard.' 
 
 Carr laughed in a hollow, unpleasant manner. 
 
 ' Work, Emily ! I have not worked since I 
 returned from Winwold. It is just because I 
 am unable to work that I have made such a 
 fool of myself. For some time 1 have felt that I 
 should die if I did not go to live in the fields. 
 I have thought of the most frantic schemes,
 
 104 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 even to becoming an agricultural labourer!' 
 Again the laugh grated harshly on Emily, 
 and she looked down silently. 
 
 * But no, no,' cried Theodore, ' we must be 
 rich first — and then !' 
 
 There was a momentary flash of his old de- 
 termination, and Emily's eyes were instantly 
 upon him. 
 
 * Rich — we must be rich. There can be no 
 real happiness without it; no advance, no 
 beauty in life. What is life if we don't attain 
 to the very highest that life can give ? Only 
 with wealth can we attain it. All culture of 
 the human soul springs from wealth, as all 
 squalor and degradation from poverty. We 
 have been cursed in our birth, Emily, but we 
 have weapons, and we can fight. We will 
 carve our way to it. I begin to see the hght 
 again, and I shall work. Work, work, night 
 and day, to be rich. My riches shall buy me 
 light ; shall buy us all light ; if not, we will 
 heave them into the sea. Fear for me no 
 longer.' 
 
 It was thus that Carr announced the truce
 
 WHERE THE ROAD DIVIDES. 105 
 
 which he had come to, and, however her 
 rehgion regarded it, Emily accepted the terms 
 gladly and silently. Any change upon recent 
 days was acceptable. Had there not been 
 good religious rich men? And would not 
 Theodore Carr be another of them? She ac- 
 cepted the sincere conviction that the breeze 
 had sprung up. In a day or two Saloway him- 
 self discerned the change, and soon discovered 
 the source of it, from which he gathered scant 
 comfort. The cobbler could not but feel that 
 high mysteries were weaving about his life, and 
 in the timidity of his nature he distrusted them. 
 Theodore seemed to have regained the whole 
 of his external energy and most of his former 
 health ; but there was a difference in his domes- 
 tic aspect. He was kind, inordinately kind, — 
 unnecessarily generous ; but everybody felt that 
 he was no more a boy. There were none of the 
 old heedless confidences, none of the enthusi- 
 astic talk. If he brought home a new book or 
 engraving, it was put silently aside instead of 
 being displayed jubilantly to Emily, and its 
 attractions pointed out. Needless reticences
 
 106 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 sprang np amongst them which inevitably 
 sapped all common life. Saloway grew dumb. 
 Theodore alone seemed to be insensible to the 
 evil effects of the change. He toiled still and 
 flourished. In all personal appointments he 
 was progressive, without affectation or bad 
 taste. He had a drawer at a toilet club, and 
 bills wdth his tailor were increasing. Yet he 
 simply looked a gentleman, as anybody with 
 the requisite instinct is permitted to do in our 
 day. 
 
 ' He ben't one of we,' had long been poor 
 Saloway's melancholy conclusion, and in these 
 days it was reiterated frequently. 
 
 With Mr. Firkins Carr continued in increasmg 
 favour, — evidenced by excessive multiplication 
 of his responsibilities without any proportionate 
 increase in his pay. But of this Carr directly 
 thought little. The tendency of things he 
 considered to be now obvious, and he was con- 
 tent to be patient. His wages were far in 
 advance of his personal wants, and for petty 
 hoarding he had no faculty. 
 
 Despite all this individual adjustment, Carr was
 
 WHERE THE ROAD DIVIDES. 107 
 
 constantly aware of one central difficulty which 
 he had not yet touched. To his own develop- 
 ment he could not be blind, and he admitted it 
 to surpass his boldest expectations. The de- 
 velopment of Saloway and Emily was by no 
 means so inevitable a matter. Nobody had a 
 truer estimate of personal worth than Theodore, 
 or a more scrupulous sense of generous honour, 
 hence had all Mr. Firkins's insidious attempts 
 to decoy him from his plebeian atmosphere been 
 of no avail. That such atmosphere was in- 
 tolerably oppressive to the youth we know, but 
 it was only through personal endeavour, not 
 ignoble flight, that he looked for a remedy. He 
 would not escape from, but he would transform 
 the atmosphere which was so repugnant to him. 
 A timely increase of wages enabled him at 
 length to assail the evil in its citadel, and he 
 opened fire immediately. His tactics inevitably 
 took a magnanimous complexion. In telling 
 Saloway of his advance, Theodore boldly sub- 
 mitted his proposition, which was simply this : 
 Benjamin was to cease entirely his labours ; a 
 house was to be found at a reasonable distance
 
 108 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 from the town, with a garden and perhaps 
 additional land whereon the cobbler could find 
 congenial work and satisfy his conscience by 
 raising produce for the market ; all the ex- 
 penses of the establishment were to be upon 
 the disinterested proposer, who could pass to 
 and fro for business purposes. As Carr en- 
 larged with enthusiasm upon the delights and 
 manifest advantages of his proposal, Emily 
 looked radiantly upon him, her faith in a 
 moment restored, and her love for Theodore 
 inconsiderately exhibited. Saloway received it 
 more calmly, as befitted his maturer years. 
 
 ' It be good of you, Theodore ; uncommon 
 good,' he said, deliberately ; ' but that, of 
 course, you have ever been. However, it ben't 
 a thing to decide all of a minute. We'll think 
 about it a bit.' 
 
 Carr acquiesced, and beyond that they did 
 not go that night. 
 
 Although Saloway was thus able to tem- 
 porize, the suggestion came to him as a final 
 blow, so exactly did it coincide with sundry 
 communings of his own at the time. He had
 
 WHERE THE ROAD DIVIDES. 109 
 
 long since concluded that the domestic situation 
 was not to be maintained ; this gave him the 
 opening that he had needed. 
 
 In the morning, as Carr set off to work, the 
 cobbler accompanied him ; he generally went 
 some time before. Theodore felt the significance, 
 so he assumed an unusually jocular air. 
 
 ' You are going to agree?' he said, before they 
 had gone many paces. 
 
 ' Not entirely, Theodore,^ was the measured 
 reply. ' I could never give up my work and be- 
 come little more than a log on the earth, for I 
 be too old to begin a new trade, do you see, 
 and 1 doubt I ben't strong enough for digging. 
 But look 'e, boy, I don't mean as that shall stand 
 in the way o^ you. There be a vast odds be- 
 tween your life and mine, thank God as I have 
 lived to see it. All birds have to leave the nest 
 at some time, o' course, and the time have come 
 for you to leave yours, I count. You'll be a 
 great man, but that don't say as you'll ever for- 
 get we, very far from it, I know. But you must 
 go, Theodore. If I have ever done any small 
 good to you, you mustn't make me undo it now
 
 110 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 at last. Yoirll come and see me sometimes — ' 
 
 * Do you think I shall ever do this V interposed 
 Carr, vehemently. 
 
 ' Not only shall, but must, my boy. It be for 
 1 as you must do it. I've seen it a-coming. I 
 be a-hindering you, Theodore, a-hindering you, 
 and I wunt do it, not nohow.' 
 
 The man shook with the vehemence of his 
 conviction. 
 
 ' If you love me ever such a bit you must go. 
 Do you think as I can live on and see you hin- 
 dered by the like o' me '^ I'll take money from 
 'e — plenty — I'll take anything as you like to 
 give ; but, Theodore, you must go ' 
 
 ' No, father, I shall not go. Leave you, leave 
 Emily, just because — bah, I couldn't ! Let us 
 stay where we are and forget all about it.' 
 
 ' Not when we have got our foot so far,' said 
 Benjamin, with undiminished fervour. * I've 
 wanted to say it to you, times, but I couldn't. 
 Now it be said, I'll not unsay it, never. It be 
 for your good, Theodore, and that be the con- 
 clusion of the matter.'
 
 WHERE THE ROAD DIVIDES. Ill 
 
 ' Well, well, we'll talk about it again,' said 
 CaiT, in a kindly tone, and with an affectionate 
 nod went off in another direction. 
 
 Carr was told that the master had been clam- 
 ouring for him, so he went forthwith to the 
 presence. 
 
 ' What are you late for V roared Mr. Firkins, 
 when he saw the youth. 
 
 ' I was detained ' 
 
 The merchant interrupted him with an im- 
 precation, and thrust a letter into his hand. 
 
 ' You must go down at once and see to this. 
 If you miss the ten o'clock, you'll hear about 
 it.' 
 
 The communication had reference to some 
 timber shipped to Hull. 
 
 ' Look here,' — Carr was standing in the door- 
 way, — * you'd better goon to Newcastle when 
 you^'e there, and see Davidson.' 
 
 ' Very good, sir ;' and Carr had gone. 
 
 He was accustomed to instructions of this 
 kind. As there wanted three quarters-of-an- 
 hour to the train time, he felt to be compara-
 
 112 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 tively at leisure, so he decided to return home 
 for a bag. He jumped into a cab. 
 
 As he re-entered the street which he had but 
 just left in the company of Saloway, the subject 
 of their conversation again possessed him. The 
 elder man's attitude had touched all that was 
 generous in Theodore, and the aspirations of 
 mere egoism were for the moment eclipsed. To 
 reduce Emily and her father to the position of 
 pensioners only, seemed impossible to his un- 
 compromising instincts. 
 
 Their services to him had been personal, so 
 should be his to them. With that he strode into 
 the house. 
 
 He went into the room they called the parlour, 
 not expecting to find Emily there, but just with- 
 in the doorway she confronted him. 
 
 'What is it, Theodore?' 
 
 * I have to catch the ten o'clock train, and want 
 ray bag — but what ' 
 
 ' I'll get it you in an instant.' 
 
 Emily tried to push impetuously past him, 
 but he caught her by the hand, and turned her 
 round to him. Her face was disfigured with
 
 WHERE THE ROAD DIVIDES. 113 
 
 weeping, and as he stared at her, she burst mto 
 tears afresh. 
 
 ' Let me go, Theodore — you'll m — miss your 
 train.' 
 
 ' I don't care if I miss a thousand trains,' he 
 asserted, 'I shan't let you go. What is the 
 matter, darling?' 
 
 ' I — I don't know ; nothing ; let me go.' And 
 she passed him. 
 
 During the minute or two that she was ab- 
 sent, Carr stood in a reflective mood. Then 
 hearing her step, he turned. She had command- 
 ed some greater degree of composure, but that 
 it was merely enforced Theodore readily sup- 
 posed. 
 
 Despite her entreaty that he would leave her, 
 that he would miss his train, Carr took her hand 
 and held it. 
 
 *Now, Emily, I must know before I leave 
 you. Do you always spend your mornings like 
 this T 
 
 * No,' she said, a faint smile breaking over her 
 features. 
 
 ' Then why to-day ? You asked me once 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 what was the matter with me, and I told you. 
 Now we will change sides.' 
 
 'Really, Theodore, it is nothing. You didn't 
 know what caused your trouble, and I don't 
 know what caused mine. 1 felt wretched, that's 
 all.' 
 
 His eyes rested upon her in ardent scrutiny, 
 and possibly she felt something of their warmth. 
 
 ' Go,' she muttered, pushing him playfully 
 away. 
 
 ' Yes, I will ; but I will know when I come 
 back, mind that.' 
 
 He placed his arm round her with sheltering 
 strength, and, pressing her to his breast, kissed 
 her twice, thrice, fully upon the lips, — kisses 
 such as Emily had never felt before, from him 
 or from anybody : kisses such as Carr had never 
 given. Then he loosed her and leaped into the 
 cab. 
 
 Theodore travelled in a state of exceptional 
 turmoil that day, — exceptional for late days. 
 His abandonment of all for that honest instinc- 
 tive wave of sentimental emotion appeased 
 certain cravings in him, but he was not long in
 
 WHERE THE ROAD DIVIDES. 11 5 
 
 finding that it created gaps in other directions. 
 A dark suspicion of self-sacrifice crept up from 
 the horizon and brooded over him ; of ideals 
 shattered which of late had constituted fife. 
 Strange visions had haunted him recently, 
 which this impulsive act had scattered to the 
 winds. He knew that in those kisses he had 
 given to Emily his soul ; he knew that she knew 
 it. Retreat from that, now, could not for an 
 instant occur to him; but he knew that it 
 chronicled a loss. The swell of victorious joy 
 which he was aware ought to attend such 
 achievement sounded too much like derisive 
 laughter — from those spirits which had gone. 
 Fair brows, darkened with contemptuous frowns 
 of upbraiding, hovered round him all the way, 
 and he had to confess that he owned no wea- 
 pons to dispel them. They allured him even 
 whilst they despised; their taunts pierced 
 w^ounds into his soul to which the soft glances 
 of Emily could afibrd no balm. 
 
 That it was so could not be laid to Emily's 
 charge. If the prayers and benedictions of a 
 pure and tender woman can have efficacy for 
 
 I 2
 
 116 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 the sons of men, then ought Emily's to have 
 availed Carr that day. From the moment that 
 his lips had imprinted consecration upon hers, 
 he was never off her soul for an instant. The 
 dawn had startled and surprised her, but only 
 in the overwhelming of her joy. She was 
 dazed by the unexpected brilhance. 
 
 When Saloway came home to his dinner at 
 midday, he saw the difference in his daughter, 
 but it only added weight to his burden, and his 
 mind was already taxed enough. The father's 
 cloud, however, could not overspread the girl. 
 She did not feel warranted in yet disclosing her 
 hidden source of light, but she herself continued 
 to bathe and flutter in the radiance. It had 
 transfigured her world. The cobbler would not 
 — nay, physically, could not speak, and speedily 
 departed. His only respite was in toil. For 
 two days this state of things continued ; this 
 juxtaposition of darkness and light. Emily's 
 efforts were all unavailing ; she had never been 
 confronted by such extremity of gloom. The 
 spectacle of her father passing silent from night 
 to night recalled dark, dim visions of her child-
 
 WHERE THE ROAD DIVIDES. 117 
 
 hood, which she had long thought dead. Even 
 she began to feel oppressed. 
 
 On the third morning came a letter from 
 Theodore, — a brief note addressed to Emilj. 
 It thrilled her with ecstasy for what she con- 
 sidered its tender close. He had to go on to 
 Ireland, he said, and should probably be absent 
 for a week. A week ! Emily's heart sank at 
 such an age of expectancy. She told her father 
 with some characteristic comment. He looked 
 straight at her as she said it, and for the first 
 time in her life she was frightened by his eyes. . 
 
 ^ What r 
 
 ' Then I do it,' exclaimed the man, in a harsh 
 guttural tone which did little to compose her. 
 
 'Do what, father?' 
 
 'I'll tell you at dinner-time, maidie,' he re- 
 plied, in a softer tone. ' Be brave ; your mother 
 was.' 
 
 With that poor Emily had to sustain the 
 morning — a morning of the darkest surmise. 
 But the dinner-hour came, and Benjamin was 
 true to his promise. 
 
 The dinner was spread, but neither seemed to
 
 118 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 pay regard to such claims. The needs and ex- 
 pectations of both were gathered in their eyes, 
 and these met as the cobbler entered. He went 
 straight up to the outspread table, and placed 
 a small canvas bag upon it. It was tied round 
 with tape, and Emily heard, as she supposed, 
 the clinking of coins within it. Saloway placed 
 his hand upon his forehead. 
 
 * There be two hundred pounds, Emily, and 
 a few odd ones. You wouldn't ha' thought I 
 could have saved so much.' 
 
 « I shouldn't,' faltered the girl, incapable even 
 of hazarding what this might portend. 
 
 « The furniture is mostly Theodore's,' Saloway 
 went on, throwing his eyes around the room 
 and over the table : ' except the few bits as we 
 brought in . . . not a deal, not a deal.' 
 
 'What do you mean, father?' said Emily, 
 going up to him and laying her hands upon his 
 coat in definite alarm. 
 
 ' I be a-going to leave this place to-morrow 
 morning ... Sit 'e down, Emily,' he continued, 
 in an unsteady voice, 'and I'll tell you all as 
 there be in my mind. We shall both want a
 
 WHERE THE ROAD DIVIDES. 11^ 
 
 deal of courage, but there be help other than 
 the help of this world, and reward too, thank 
 God, it 'ud be a poor affair for some at last else. 
 We be a-hindering Theodore, do you see ? And 
 I swore as I'd never stand in his way, come 
 what might; no more I would, oath or no oath, 
 all's one. He ben't one of we, clear enough ; 
 and it do hinder him most dreadful to live with 
 the like o' we. So 1 be a-going, that be the 
 upshot o' the matter.' 
 
 Emily was so far from comprehending the real 
 points of the disclosure that she remained mute. 
 
 ' He won't go, so we must. The goodness of 
 the boy be against him, and there never was a 
 better, never. Only the morning as he went 
 away did I beg him to leave we to ourselves, 
 as children that get on always do, of course, — 
 he could come and see us and all, and I promised 
 as I'd take money and things from him just to 
 calm him, do you see ? but he 'udn't ; he changed 
 in a minute.' 
 
 ' That shows, father, that you are all wrong,' 
 said Emily, collecting herself somewhat. ' He 
 knows best.'
 
 120 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 * That's where it is, Emily ; he do, sure 
 enough, but he 'unt do it. His heart be too 
 good ; it keeps him back, although he be awant- 
 ing most despert to get forward. That be just 
 the item. I've seen it long enough, more's the 
 pity. He be a-sacrificing himself to we. If 
 he 'ud go his own road it ^ud be right enough, 
 but he wunt ; and it be just that as makes the 
 clouds come over him so.' 
 
 * Are you going away from him — to hide, and 
 not let him know where you are?' cried the girl, 
 aghast as the real meaning of her father dawned 
 upon her. 
 
 Benjamin gave a solemn affirmative. 
 
 ' But he loves — us,' Emily began, when the 
 tears checked her, and she buried her face. 
 
 Saloway got up and moved about the room. 
 He had, of course, foreseen this, endeavoured 
 to prepare himself for it. But how ineffectual 
 the preparation. For Emily alone now was he 
 suffering ; to sustain her was his only care. 
 
 ' Mine be the fault, Emily,' confessed the man, 
 bitterly, as he walked to and fro. ' I'd ought 
 to ha' done it before; but I kept hoping. I
 
 WHERE THE ROAD DIVIDES. 121 
 
 never could be a man, and I've tried ever so. 
 It be hard for you, maidie, cruel hard. But, 
 look 'e, Emily,' — Saloway stopped, and put his 
 hand upon the bent head of his daughter, — ' do 
 you hear, little maid ? It be better now than 
 later. Don't yoii see how he have been a-trying 
 to draw himself off from you ? If he have loved 
 you one day, he have repented of it the next. 
 It be a sorry start, Emily, when that comes at 
 the first, I can promise you. Not that Theodore 
 'ud ever do wrong to you, very far from it ; 
 
 but after a bit it 'ud come over him. He'd feel 
 
 • 
 
 as he ought to ha' done better, and oh, dear, it 
 'ud be a black day at the last. Very like it 'ud 
 kill him, Emily, for he be like that. Don't you 
 see what a gentleman he be ? All his mind be 
 on it. He do go on and on. He made as it 
 were for me that he had that notion about 
 leaving off the cobbling ; but it were only as he 
 didn't like it himself. Them as feel like that, 
 don't. He'd grow ashamed o' you, Emily, after 
 a bit ; he couldn't help himself. Oh, I can see 
 it all, but I be a bad hand at talking : ever 
 have been since I saw the last o' Winwold.'
 
 122 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 The cobbler paused, hoping that some of his 
 words had reached their destination. The girl 
 made no sign to show that it was so. 
 
 ' It be for him, do you see, maidie ? You 
 wouldn't do harm to he T 
 
 ' But he has changed, father,' sobbed! Emily. 
 ' I knov/ he has changed.' 
 
 ' Not a deal. It be constant change with 
 him, of course, because of his kind heart. He 
 can't abide to think as he must separate from 
 we. It be for we to do it, do you see, for his 
 good, come what may ; and if not, there be 
 worse behind.' 
 
 A deep silence followed. Then Emily looked 
 up and faced her father. 
 
 ' Yes, we will go, father. Perhaps it is what 
 you say.' 
 
 This wholly unexpected heroism brought 
 Saloway a wave of encouragement, and he dared 
 again to look forward. 
 
 ' He will find us,' was the refrain that had in- 
 spired Emily. 
 
 With it ever ringing about her, she was able 
 to sustain the preparations for their departure,
 
 WHERE THE ROAD DIVIDES. 123^ 
 
 which, as Saloway had intimated, 'was to be 
 effected the next day, and effected it was 
 accordingly. 
 
 Theodore returned a day short of his week. 
 Although the change and movement attending 
 his journey had been favourable to his condi- 
 tion, by enforcing external objects upon the 
 eye and mind, he nevertheless had found no 
 deliverance from the problem agitating him. 
 One thing remained certain, and one thing only : 
 all beyond was indistinct through flame. He 
 came back to pledge his heart to Emily. 
 
 He reached Millington in the twilight, and 
 took a cab home. He stepped out, paid the 
 driver, and then turned to open the gate, which 
 creaked exactly as it had always done. The 
 blinds in the bow windows remained up, (a re- 
 quirement of Emily's,) but no features were 
 printed upon the glass to greet the traveller's 
 return. His heart beat fast as he cleared the 
 steps to the door : he tried it, but it was fastened. 
 They did sometimes drop the latch, so he gave 
 the short ring which would be enough to an-
 
 124 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 nounce him. He heard a voice behind, and 
 facing, distinguished the figure of a neigh- 
 bour, — a widow of their friendly acquaintance. 
 
 ' Here is the key, Mr. Carr. They asked me 
 to give it you as they have gone out.' 
 
 ' Oh,' was Theodore's involuntary exclamation 
 as he took the key. ' Thank you, Mrs. Crow- 
 der,' he added, lightly. * Are you pretty well ?' 
 
 'If you would like to come in to have tea 
 with me ' 
 
 'No necessity, thank you,' laughed Carr. 
 « The fire will be in. 1 shall be all right.' 
 
 The neighbour seemed desirous of saying 
 more, but Carr had unlocked the door, and was 
 entering; so she withdrew, sympathetically 
 curious. 
 
 Once inside the house alone, Theodore felt 
 the full force of his astonishment. Just distin- 
 guishing something on the oil-cloth, he took it 
 up and found it a letter. His own, no doubt, 
 fallen through the letter-hole and left lying 
 there. Striking a match, he saw that it was so. 
 They must have been absent then since early 
 morning. Strange I He lit a gas-jet and looked
 
 WHERE THE ROAD DIVIDES. 125 
 
 about him. All was the same, but the silence 
 fell upon him as distinctly ominous. What on 
 earth was the meaning of it ? He went first to 
 the kitchen : silent and dark. Striking another 
 match, he saw that the fire was laid, the hearth- 
 stone and fender spotless, and all the room in 
 unused order. His heart beat louder as he 
 turned back again, and, without knowing why, 
 he called out ' Emily !' Poising his head to 
 listen, he thought the house seemed unusually 
 hollow as the sound died away and silence fell. 
 Therewith he walked into the parlour. A light 
 came in from a gas-lamp just outside, and alf 
 looked the same. A ray directly struck the 
 table, and revealed something white which la}^ 
 on the crimson cloth. It was another letter, 
 and, taking it into the passage, Carr saw that, 
 upon the envelope was written, in the cobbler's 
 handwriting, ' For Theodore Carr.' Here, then, 
 was the solution of the mystery, but it was some 
 seconds before he had courage to open and re- 
 ceive it. The bottom post of the bannisters 
 against which he leaned creaked, and was 
 answered by another up the stairs. A cat
 
 126 THE SPORT OP STARS. 
 
 mewed at a neighbouring doorway, and there 
 were the footsteps of a passenger outside. A 
 gate moved and the footsteps came nearer, but 
 they went to the adjoining house. Theodore 
 could hear the latchkey put in, the door open 
 and close, a voice, another door close, and all 
 was again still. Then he rent open his letter. 
 
 ' Dear Theodore, 
 
 ' We be gone for good. I have seen 
 it long a-coming, but I had hoped as we might 
 be spared. Don't be put about, for 1 have got 
 two hundred pounds and above ; and I be a- 
 going to buy a little business with it as will 
 keep us well. Forgive me for having hindered 
 you so long. It was 'bliged to come. Go on 
 and get a great rich man, and perhaps w^e shall 
 meet again. God bless you for all the good you 
 have done to both of we, and for all as you 
 meant to do. But it will be a deal better so. 
 * Your loving 
 
 * B. Saloway.' 
 
 There was no addition by Emily.
 
 WHERE THE ROAD DIVIDES. 127 
 
 Theodore stared and stared at the paper until 
 he could see it no more, then he wept. 
 
 About an hour later he went and took up his 
 quarters at an hotel.
 
 128 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE QUEST. 
 
 The flight of Saloway brought Carr's conflicting 
 instincts to an issue which might otherwise have 
 been indefinitely postponed. That the cobbler 
 and his daughter had some moral claim upon 
 himself as well as upon any mere means that he 
 might acquire was an impression from which 
 Theodore could not easily escape. It was this 
 morbid conception of gratitude that came con- 
 tinually to check his loftiest aspirations, as Ben- 
 jamin had only too shrewdly supposed. 
 
 Whatever may have been the nature of Carr's 
 devotion to Emily, it was clearly not the inevit- 
 able impulse of his being wherein lay the su-
 
 THE QUEST. 129 
 
 preme achievement of his ideal Hfe. Whenever 
 he regarded it calmly it was invested with the 
 same sense of sacrifice as it had ever been, and 
 Theodore was by no means actuated by the 
 heroic philosophy which acknowledges self- 
 sacrifice for its highest goal. Nor was merely 
 self-gratification the end of Carr's flight. There 
 was a certain imaginative enthusiasm about his 
 scheme of life ; a certain disinterested regard for 
 what he deemed the elevation of mankind. He 
 knew creative pride in his own development, 
 and through it he could not but feel that he was 
 advancing the highest destiny of his race. 
 
 Still, whatever one's intellectual theory, bhmt 
 human nature will constantly step in. It was 
 thus inevitable that Carr should at this juncture 
 be plunged into a gulf of distress and self- 
 condemnation. All his attempts at pursuit 
 proved futile, and he had to give them up. 
 Therefrom, in mere oblivious despair, he 
 plunged into the dissipations of the town. He 
 spent hours where the glare of life (or is it the 
 dance of death?) was fiercest. Into hitherto 
 dark and forbidden corners he fearlessly peeped, 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 finding strange and unexpected allurements in 
 the recesses. The consequence was that in a 
 week he was seriously ill. 
 
 He sent a note to his emplo^^'er, and the latter 
 came to him in his bed. Firkins expressed 
 astonishment at finding him in the hotel, and 
 the situation was explained. The cobbler's 
 partiug words were put into his hands. 
 
 ' It has been long enough coming,' said the 
 merchant, with brutal bluntness, throwing a 
 swift glance at Carr. There was a glow of 
 sinister triumph on the features of Mr. Firkins, 
 and at that moment Theodore loathed him. 
 After bidding him get well with speed, Firkins 
 departed, and an hour later Carr received a 
 case of port-wine with these words, ' Here is 
 some '43. Get that into your head. — S. F.' 
 
 The timber merchant was in a state of fierce 
 elation for a day or two. He did not love Carr ; 
 had never loved anybody in the whole course 
 of his career, latterly upon principle ; but his 
 system needed Carr, and he viciously resented 
 the intrusion of any other person between 
 them.
 
 THE QUEST. 131 
 
 In about ten clays Carr appeared, although, 
 a8 Firkins said to him, ' he didn't look up to 
 much.' After the usual consultation upon the 
 business of the day, the elder said, 
 
 ' Have you heard anything V 
 
 Carr had not. 
 
 ' Well, I've inquired through the pohce for 
 you. He has left the town.^ 
 
 ' So I supposed.' 
 
 ' It is not known where he has gone. Is 
 there anything else you want to know V 
 
 Carr, not contemplatiug confidence in this 
 man, afiected to dismiss the matter lightly. 
 The other's eyes gleamed. 
 
 ' Now you're reasonable. What was that 
 man to you? . . . Theodore looked away. 
 Firkins stepped up to him, and clapped his iron 
 hand upon the youth's shoulder. * Look here, 
 my boy — will you be my partner at five hun- 
 dred a-year ?' 
 
 Carr's frame trembled from head to foot, and 
 he could not find a word. Firkins frowned. 
 
 ' Wellf said the latter, fiercely. 
 
 « My work would not be worth that.' 
 
 K 2
 
 132 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 * I don't give money,' grinned the master. ' If 
 you were not worth it I should not offer it. Yes 
 or no ?' 
 
 ' Certainly 1 accept it.' 
 
 * Then we'll have the agreement signed in a 
 day or two, and in the meantime you go into 
 the country to put some flesh on. If you send 
 me your address, I can wire when I Avant you.* 
 And Theodore was dismissed. 
 
 For the rest of the day Carr was in the 
 greatest agitation, and he was unable to throw 
 off a harassing fit of indecision. In the evening 
 he met a musical acquaintance in the street. 
 The man chanced to be seeking Carr with a 
 view to carry him off to a great orchestral 
 celebration in the Town Hall that night. They 
 stopped, talked, and Theodore demurred. Ill- 
 health, — only out of bed a day or two, — was 
 going out of town. 
 
 * Humbug, — this is the very thing to put life 
 into you. Time for dinner at Sampson'is, and 
 Town Hall in half-an-hour.' 
 
 Carr's arm was seized, and he was carried off 
 to the restaurant in spite of himself.
 
 THE QUEST. 133 
 
 As they sat at their table, hastily consuming 
 viands for which they had scant time, Theodore 
 felt the glow of life return. The sound and 
 the glitter appealed to him. He took up his 
 glass, and, looking through the wine, drank it. 
 Carr liked wine ; it had a generous suggestion. 
 At the moment it occurred to him that he might 
 always drink it, and of no despicable vintage 
 too. Five hundred a-year ! Could he not also 
 the more easily find and help them % That 
 night his mind flashed further into the depths 
 of music than was its wont, and he talked 
 vivaciously. Irresolution was no more. The 
 armour with which he had dallied fitted him at 
 last. 
 
 The following day Carr went off to Winwold, 
 and established himself again at the * Frog Mill 
 Inn.' He had a definite intention in once more 
 seeking these idyllic haunts wherein the highest 
 peak of human life had been revealed to him. 
 Beneath all the commotion of recent months he 
 had been persistently conscious of Winwold as 
 a creed, and of the girlish sprite Laura Blaken- 
 hurst as its divinity : nay, did not the unrest
 
 134 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 distinctly arise out of such essential revelation ? 
 The glory of it had oppressed him, by reason of 
 his conscious need and of the hopeless remote- 
 ness of its achievement. To his sanguine eye 
 much was now altered, and contemplation of 
 the dazzling eminence became a practical in- 
 spiration rather than a quixotic melancholy. 
 Ignoble, no doubt, but Carr breathed free. 
 
 It will be seen that Carr was not what we 
 call in love with Laura at this time. She was 
 much more of an intellectual than a sexual or 
 emotional conception to him, but at the same 
 time only a feminine nature could have inspired 
 such as he with this poetic reHgion to which he 
 was pledged. To gain him, it must hold out 
 the sentimental possibility, however vague and 
 insubstantial the immediate premises. Even his 
 five hundred a year did not delude him into the 
 absurdity of seeking the affections of Laura, 
 even in remote imagination. All that it had 
 done was to confirm him in the resolution of 
 making himself personally compatible with such 
 aff'ections. Literally as ' a liberal education ' 
 had Laura manifested herself to him, and to such
 
 THE QUEST. 135 
 
 end he came again to behold and to contemplate 
 her. 
 
 As he roamed the mellow autumn fields in re- 
 flective idleness, he found all the former en- 
 thusiasm in the mere joy and ambition of life 
 restored to him. From the eminence to which 
 circumstances seemed determined to thrust him, 
 he could even regard the flight of Saloway with 
 jocularity, so simple would his discovery of 
 them be, and so princely the provision which he 
 would make for their material welfare. From 
 the trammels of personal bondage he was 
 finally freed, for his enlarged income put hfs 
 advance beyond the bounds of merely sanguine 
 speculation, and every movement brought into 
 more prominent relief the duty rather than the 
 selfish preference which lurked in the chosen 
 path. Saloway had truly discerned it, and to 
 his terms Theodore was now ready to submit. 
 
 Even he at length perceived morbid infirmity 
 of judgment. It was obvious from the highest 
 ethical standpoint that his duty to Saloway was 
 even scrupulously discharged by an aficctionate 
 intercourse with his early benefactors and a
 
 136 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 liberal care of their material wants. Even for 
 Emily . . . He had viewed the world narrowly, 
 immaturely; it was inevitable. Five hundred 
 a year enabled him to get a broader glimpse of 
 it. He lamented, nay, felt genuine distress at 
 that impulsive display of tenderness towards 
 her. No syllable of justification would he offer 
 for such a painful lapse. But, fully admitting 
 the shame of it, was it not well that it had gone 
 no further? Carr had come to see a duty in 
 what he deemed the progress of all his faculties. 
 In this connection spectral fears hovered round 
 the thought of marriage with Emily. What 
 would have been her [predicament under the 
 exactions (intellectual as much as material) of 
 affluence? And what would have been his 
 through her ? The answer was clamorous and 
 final. 
 
 Although eager in obtaining surreptitious 
 glimpses of Laura, Carr was especially cautious 
 to avoid another interview with her, as also 
 to escape even her distant observation. This 
 necessitated perilous manoeuvres in one or two 
 instances, since it chanced at this time that Miss
 
 THE QUEST. 137 
 
 Blakenhurst and her governess were addicted to 
 rambles similar to bis own, in ordei- to command 
 privacy for their high discussions. 
 
 Laura's intellectual development was proceed- 
 ing consistently. As has been previously stated, 
 her energetic nature could not rest upon theory. 
 Girl though she was, what she felt, she must put 
 in action ; and thus it arose that a new and 
 strange element had birth in the Blakenhurst 
 family. In this young girl's brain no less a pro- 
 ject than the reorganisation of the entire ances- 
 tral estate upon more or less socialistic, or at 
 least philanthropic, lines established itself, and 
 by stealth Laura forthwith commenced upon 
 the fringe of her benevolent purpose. The old- 
 world agricultural village, already very much 
 overpopulated for the changing methods and 
 conditions of husbandry, gave her ample scope. 
 Her own pocket-money was abundant, and it 
 soon came that nine-tenths of this was secretly 
 expended on behalf of her unwashed neigh- 
 bours. Not one half of the inhabitants pro- 
 fessed any regular employment ; their constitu- 
 tional sluggishness therefore was promoted by
 
 138 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 inactivity so as to preclude wholly, not the power 
 only, but the wish of attaining other more ac- 
 commodating fields. 
 
 Carr, of course, in his idyllic construction of 
 la vie primitive perceived nothing of this : the in- 
 sight which Salo way's conversation had afforded 
 being now blunted by the reflection that since 
 the cobbler's day conditions were much altered. 
 It was therefore with as great a sense of aston- 
 ishment as of tremulous ecstasy that Theodore 
 one day heard from Laura's own lips her idea of 
 the situation. At the time of the disclosure 
 Laura suspected nothing of the addition to her 
 audience, so that she played her part with 
 characteristic energy and completeness. 
 
 It was from the mellowing foliage of a gigan- 
 tic wych-elm tree that Theodore reaped this 
 startling happiness, a shelter to which his mus- 
 ing temper occasionally led him. In it he had 
 found a comfortable couch, whereon he could 
 lie in strictest concealment, and abandon himself 
 to the tapping of the wood-pecker overhead, 
 and the various movements of the horse by the 
 trunk beneath ; revelling in that seductive an-
 
 THE QUEST. 139 
 
 nihilation ' of all that's made to a green thought 
 in a green shade.' The bough upon which he 
 lay hidden at the point where it separated from 
 the parent trunk, some twenty feet from the 
 ground, made a pendulous sweep downwards, 
 and when within a few inches of the earth, rose 
 again to expand into its leafy extremities. Carr, 
 of course, was not aware that from childhood 
 this had been a favourite tryst of Laura's under 
 the name of the Swinging Tree. Singularly 
 thrilling, therefore, was the emotion with which 
 he awakened from his reverie to the conscious- 
 ness of her magic tones beneath him. He moved 
 some leaves that he might see her, and thus, 
 with lips apart and pulse galloping, he did not 
 scruple to devour Avith avidity every syllable 
 that issued from so divine a source. 
 
 ' Impossible, dear Laura ; wholly impossible,' 
 said Miss Birdwell, the attendant governess. 
 
 ' Nothing right and true can be impossible,' 
 retorted the youthful sibyl. 
 
 ' Not in the abstract, to be sure, but this world 
 is a place of compromise. You must know that 
 one syllable of this suggestion to your father, and
 
 140 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 the whole ceases. He would not scruple to dis- 
 miss you from his doors penniless, and then what 
 would become of your schemes, nay, of your 
 very existence!' 
 
 'My schemes and my existence are proof 
 a,gainst poverty,' proudly exclaimed Laura. 
 
 ' That I fully believe, my dear ; but it would 
 curb them disastrously. You could not do one 
 jot of the good you do now, and this sense of 
 inability would madden you. Whereas if you 
 patiently endure a compromise until you are 
 older ' 
 
 ' Oh, your old stock arguments ! But you 
 can't feel the shame and disgrace of it. It is 
 my duty to convince my father of the gross 
 degradation which such management involves 
 him in. Management! . . . chaos and savagery 
 call it. Think of the duties, or the mere glorious 
 opportunities of his position. What a place this 
 might be !' 
 
 ' Yes, Laura, and will be, if you proceed with 
 caution. You have heard your father's opinions ; 
 you must know him by this time. Remember 
 the story of Saloway. He has not altered.'
 
 THE QUEST. 141 
 
 'Do Dot insult and infuriate me, Miss Bird- 
 well,' cried Laura, in such a tone that Carr 
 moved his head so as to watch her more nar- 
 rowly. ' If you mention that name again, all 
 persuasion will be useless. That story would 
 justify a crusade, though it is my father who is 
 the Saracen.' 
 
 Theodore saw the flashing eye and the height- 
 ened colour which but the name of Saloway had 
 been able to awaken, and his own composure 
 was further imperilled by the generous display. 
 His own reconciliation of adverse appearances 
 in this old scandal flashed across him, and he* 
 blushed. 
 
 * In my opinion that very name should be the 
 strongest inducement to patience,' returned the 
 governess. 'In such a matter, violence would 
 be childish. With patience, even the cobbler's 
 fate may be atoned for — to his class, if not to 
 the sufferer personally.' 
 
 A rook called as he aHghted on the top of 
 the tree, and Laura, reflecting, threw her eyes 
 up in that direction, meeting as she little thought 
 another pair amidst those lowest leaves. Carr
 
 142 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 trembled, so impossible in face of such a gaze 
 did it seem that he was effectually hidden. But 
 the lowering of Laura's face proved his fears 
 groundless. 
 
 ' I suppose it is so,' she muttered, and there- 
 with at a bound leapt on to the swinging bough 
 beside which she had been standing, and caught 
 a branch above to serve her as a trapeze. After 
 swaying to and fro thus suspended by her hands, 
 she flung herself some distance forward, and 
 alighted gracefully on her feet. 
 
 ' Come, then, let us mount the Knapp,' said 
 Laura, and as she led the way up the green 
 slope, Theodore's eyes rested in fervid enthu- 
 siasm upon the retreating figure, until it was 
 finally lost behind a great clump of gorse. 
 
 Even then his attitude and the expression of 
 his features did not alter, so great was the eff'ect 
 of the incident upon him. In place of the actual 
 figure which had just appeared and vanished, 
 he was gazing into a dazzling futurity which 
 that figure so brilliantly typified, and in the 
 golden haze of which every emotion of his soul 
 was now aglow. The physical glory of the
 
 THE QUEST. 143 
 
 figure and the music of the voice only intensified 
 impressions previously made upon Carr's sensi- 
 bility, but the significant tenor of the girl's 
 words created something wholly nevv. The 
 revelation surprised, overjoyed, even in some 
 subtle respects reconciled Carr. It had afforded 
 him an entirely new clamp to his armour which, 
 to one so given to self-inspection, rendered yeo- 
 man's service. 
 
 Although Theodore's capitulation to the new 
 creed had been by no means wholly an ignoble 
 one, this clear confirmation of the germ of con- 
 tinuity with the old one was none the less grati- 
 fying, and served to bring out the world for 
 which he was bound into more distinct relief. 
 To the merely sensual allurements of wealth he 
 had never succumbed. All his aspirations were 
 intellectual, spiritual. Every dollar that he was 
 amassing did but increase his power of acquir- 
 ing and of diffusing light. Money as money 
 was utterly repugnant to his instincts. It was 
 grace, beauty, love — the essence of all highest 
 art and life — that alone it held for him. That 
 it should contain unbounded, svstematic bene-
 
 144 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 voleuce also he had firmly resolved, he now 
 knew that it might and did contain it. Long 
 he gazed at that brilliant horizon through the 
 framework made by the leaves around. 
 
 From this moment Carr accepted his quest as 
 an irrevocable aim of life, for which he must 
 equip himself with almost religious enthusiasm. 
 Indeterminate personal elements took substance, 
 and the youth confronted them fearlessly. No 
 longer was Laura Blakenhurst only an ideal 
 source of abstract inspiration in this lofty enter- 
 prise ; that she was still, and of course always 
 must be, but in addition she was concrete wo- 
 man for whom the man Theodore Carr knew 
 human need. This was perceived and acknow- 
 ledged to be an essential part of the quest, and 
 gradually around it all central speculation and 
 hope began to cluster. By its light even the 
 prosaic daily round became transfigured, and 
 Carr could think of his commercial work not 
 with tolerance only, but with aggressive zeal. 
 Laura was so young yet, in that fact lay his 
 only solid encouragement. How much could 
 he not get into the years still allowed him.
 
 THE QUEST. 145 
 
 before it would be so much as seemly to con- 
 nect the full womanly fragrance with her un- 
 folding nature ! . . . But Theodore loved her, 
 and knew that he loved her as aspiring man 
 loves inspiring woman. 
 
 So impatient for activity did this reflection 
 make him, that he leaped down from his con- 
 cealment and strode impetuously towards the 
 village. What had been his strongest impulse 
 to poetic reverie became suddenly a goad to 
 feverish work. The country calm disturbed in- 
 stead of solacing him, and he resolved to quit 
 it without awaiting his senior's summons . . ; 
 Work ! 
 
 That evening accordingly saw him again in 
 Millington. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 146 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE FAIR ENIGMA. 
 
 Two or three years passed in uneventful, if not 
 insignificant, development. Baffled in his early 
 strenuous efforts to trace the fugitive Saloway 
 and his daughter, Carr imperceptibly concurred 
 in what seemed marked out as the inevitable. 
 It is not of course likely that such conclusion 
 ever took definite form in his mind. His life 
 was so full of that one unalterable purpose to 
 which all the world was reduced that all else 
 simply lapsed, — was overgrown by the march 
 of circumstance, — until his association with the 
 homely cobbler faded to the recollection of a 
 ray from a last year's sunset.
 
 THE FAIR ENIGMA. 147 
 
 Laura Blakenhurst as a positive aspiration, 
 now dominated Carr's career. Romantic as his 
 original conception of her had of necessity been, 
 he was now able to recognize the conventional 
 needs of practical life, and he reduced his 
 scheme to almost commonplace terms. In pur- 
 suance of a chivalrous regard for womanhood, 
 as much as with an eye to the supposed require- 
 ments of his own personal culture, Theodore 
 resolved to lay no siege to Laura before she 
 should have completed her twentieth year. It 
 was his determination to present himself to her 
 eye as in every sense a creation worthy of so 
 transcendent a gaze. 
 
 Such lofty aim imposed upon Carr a dignity 
 and gravity of demeanour not common in one 
 of his years. It involved also a certain exclu- 
 siveness towards his commercial neighbours 
 which many resented, and which led still more 
 to inquire by what authority the orphan pauper 
 had become so inordinate a prig. The man 
 persistently declined all part in strictly muni- 
 cipal affairs, but in any social or intellectual 
 movement he remained active. This imagina- 
 
 l2
 
 148 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 tive outlook was but a natural consequence of 
 the association of idyllic conditions with the 
 aims in which he was engaged. If Laura was 
 still the divinity, Win wold, her natural setting, 
 was still the creed. This was the type of high- 
 est existence, just as she was the crown of life. 
 Pastoral literature and art therefore possessed 
 him, and his means now permitted him full in- 
 dulgence of his tastes. These personal ideas 
 led him to propound to one or two municipal 
 magnates a scheme for a Fine Art Gallery 
 under public auspices, and he had the satis- 
 faction of seeing the suggestion ultimately 
 adopted. He was invited to co-operate, and 
 gained much consideration by his knowledge 
 and address. 
 
 To this undertaking Carr devoted much of 
 his spare time, and by giving so definite an 
 outlet to his imaginative energies, it lightened 
 the restraints of his commercial life. It, more- 
 over, brought him a congenial friend in the 
 person of the keeper who was appointed to the 
 chair of authority in the institution, a gentle- 
 man of taste and artistic learning, who, to his
 
 THE FAIR ENIGMA. 149 
 
 other good qualities, united the frank geniality 
 of an enthusiast. Under such influences Carr's 
 horizon widened, and he got further from the 
 introspective meshes that had once threatened 
 him. Nor was this all. 
 
 Coming to the gallery one day as was his 
 custom, Theodore was seized by the curator 
 with characteristic manifestation of high 
 mystery. 
 
 'Come along,' was all to be got from him 
 until they were in that gentleman's sanctum, 
 when, * Now, then, wait a minute,' was added 
 by the spectacled critic with great profundit;^ 
 of tone. 
 
 Carr looked on amused, whilst a picture, 
 which had been turned to the wall, was fetched 
 from a corner. 
 
 ' A new man, sir. David Cox and Mori and 
 in one, not without a strain of J. M. W. T. 
 Nothing less, you understand.' 
 
 The speaker held the treasure behind him, 
 with an arch glance which he had preserved 
 from childhood. 
 
 ' His name ? . . . You wouldn't know it . . .
 
 150 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 Bah, none of us know it . . . but — look there !' 
 
 It was a small picture of a pastoral kind. An 
 upland pasture, gorse-dotted in the noonday 
 sun, as a ridge against the fair clouded sky 
 crowned by a clump of fir-trees planted on a 
 small mound, the sides of which were hollowed 
 by the sheep to lie in. It was not sheep but 
 cows which figured in the present picture, on 
 the mound between the tree-tranks. You saw 
 that the standing animals faced the summer 
 breeze, and the movement of tail and fore-foot 
 was admirably rendered. But, faithful as was 
 all this, Carr felt that it was the breeze and 
 open sunlight of the wold that the artist in- 
 tended for him, and a thrill as of religious 
 ecstasy passed over him at the suggestion. 
 
 ' Yes, that is good,' said he, with noticeable 
 restraint. 
 
 ' It is great. A man to have passed the age 
 of forty in doing such work^ and us not to know 
 of him ! " Fillip me with a three-man beetle.'^ 
 Oh, Carr, it is criminal ! The free breath on the 
 sky-line, man !' 
 
 *It is like a breath from Winwold,' mused
 
 THE FAIR ENIGMA. 151 
 
 Carr, audibly, scarcely knowing that he spoke 
 until his companion's clutch was upon his 
 shoulder and his tragic stare upon his face. 
 
 * You know him, you reprobate !^ 
 
 * Indeed I do not,' laughed Theodore. ' Why 
 sof 
 
 Pacing the room, the enthusiast explained. 
 The artist lived at Winwold ; worked in seclu- 
 sion there, exhibited nowhere ; had an exclu- 
 sively private connection. A Mr. Nevison had 
 presented them with this precious specimen of 
 his skill, or else they had continued in Cim- 
 merian darkness still. 
 
 * But now, come, you explain,' cried he, in 
 conclusion, confronting Carr with suspicious 
 eye. ' Where is this Winwold ?' 
 
 Carr gave in quite general terms his know- 
 ledge of the locality, and an expedition thither 
 for the following Sunday was speedily arranged, 
 the patron, Mr. Nevison, being relied upon for 
 the necessary credentials. 
 
 It was about two years before that this artist, 
 Henry Lindred by name, had established him- 
 self at Winwold, in an ancestral farm-house
 
 152 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 called Farbarrow, somewhat removed from the 
 village, and it was to this retreat that Carr and 
 his friend repaired upon that particular Sunday. 
 Carr naturally made the pilgrimage with much 
 perturbation. Although he had ministered to 
 his spiritual needs by frequent journeys to Win- 
 wold, he had not as yet established any social 
 relationship there. He saw therefore, at a flash, 
 several elements of importance in this projected 
 intercourse with a gentleman of Lindred's po- 
 sition which came opportunely, and which this 
 first visit did not serve to dim. 
 
 In the early autumn sunlight, beside a bed of 
 sunflowers and hollyhocks, the visitors first be- 
 held the artist with his pipe. He bade them 
 welcome before reading the letter they had 
 brought ; afterwards he at once put them upon 
 a footing of refined familiarity. Mr. Lindred's 
 daughter, a girl of sixteen, joined them, and 
 in company they all traversed the garden to 
 confirm their acquaintance by the test of small 
 talk. 
 
 The confirmation was supreme ; Carr at once 
 giving himself up to the glory of the situation
 
 THE FAIR ENIGMA. 153 
 
 with characteristic fervour. The subtle pro- 
 perties of the atmosphere stimulated ideals, nay, 
 schemes of his own, and gave to them an actuality 
 which to long-protracted fancy was peculiarly 
 grateful. Judging by this first glimpse of him, 
 Lindred had attained to that rare intellectual 
 summit wherein spiritual and material life be- 
 comes one appropriate artistic whole. Since the 
 death of his wife, the artist lived only for his 
 daughter and his art, — the latter of which he 
 accepted in a comprehensive spirit more typical 
 of earlier times. To earlier centuries also be- 
 longed his inherent placidity of soul, the rays 
 of which seemed to penetrate smaller mortals as 
 they looked into his eyes. To Carr they were 
 a new source of highest inspiration, and he in- 
 voked them continually. This strong secret 
 sympathy must have been soon perceived by 
 Lindred, and in some measure accepted and 
 reciprocated, for a distinct personal kindliness 
 was rapidly displayed in the artist's behaviour 
 towards Carr. 
 
 The afternoon thus sped swiftly, until tea in 
 the studio was announced.
 
 154: ^ THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 In a spirit of reverence, worthy of true pil- 
 grims, did the visitors enter here. Carr's eyes 
 travelled quickly round the walls, you might 
 have thought with definite purpose, but they 
 were recalled complacently, and he took the oak 
 stool which Dorothy playfully brought out for 
 him. She always read instinctively her father's 
 construction of visitors, and adapted her be- 
 haviour to them accordingly. The predomin- 
 ence of her natural fun was a sign of highest 
 compliment which Carr was courtier enough 
 to perceive. Moreover, Dorothy's independent 
 judgment readily confirmed her father's taste 
 in this case, for Theodore presented such 
 modified aspect of manhood as was peculiarly 
 agreeable to the simpler types of feminine 
 nature. It was therefore Carr who assisted the 
 young hostess in her duties at the tray. 
 
 Mr. Lindred and his other visitor perambulated 
 the studio, scraps of their conversation coming 
 over to the other two in their lighter sallies, 
 which perhaps caused Carr's occasional glance 
 in their direction. 
 
 ' It is rather too bad, father, that Mr. Carr's
 
 THE FAIR ENIGMA. 155 
 
 good-nature should exclude him from the view 
 of your masterpieces,' said Dorothy, in quick 
 recognition of her companion's glances. 'He 
 is assiduously placing cups for you.' 
 
 'Mr. Carr wisely chooses the better part. 
 Doss,' said the artist, in pretty compliment, turn- 
 ing as he spoke, with a small canvas in his 
 hand. ' But we are at your command.' 
 
 Carr looked over to him, smiling, and in doing 
 so his eye fell upon the picture which Mr. Liud- 
 red was putting down. The expression of 
 Theodore's face suddenly altered, but in the 
 general movement it was not observed. He' 
 however, with quick control, cautiously secured 
 himself behind a display of frankness as the 
 artist came up. 
 
 ' Striking features those even at a distance,' 
 was his remark. 
 
 ' That sketch . . . yes. 1 call it the « Fair 
 Enigma,'" the artist said. 'You shall see it 
 when Dorothy permits.' 
 
 They took up their cups, and the light talk 
 became general. Dorothy, in playful pique, 
 soon gave the needful permission by herself
 
 156 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 fetching the picture they had referred to, and 
 rearing it upon the high mantelpiece that it might 
 appear to preside over them all. Oddly enough 
 a silence of several seconds' duration fell upon 
 them as they looked upon what she had done. 
 
 ' Well, father, it is lovely,' said the girl — 
 the first who spoke. 
 
 Unhke the generality of Mr. Lindred's pic- 
 tures there, it was a portrait, and, as all confessed, 
 a striking one, apart from all knowledge of 
 the original. Carr, indeed, pronounced it an 
 imaginary creation of the artist's brain, but this 
 was negatived. The picture was obviously in 
 progress only, but many might ha^^e deemed the 
 main features completed. Mr. Lindred said they 
 were not so, — confessed his inability to complete 
 them, — that for a twelve-month he had pon- 
 dered the necessary strokes without success. 
 
 ' It eludes me,' added he, addressing Carr. 
 * It is like the " glorious morning " of the son- 
 net, and I hesitate to pronounce upon the day.' 
 
 'But that morning can never permit the 
 basest clouds to rise,' interposed Carr, in prompt 
 interpretation of the allusion.
 
 THE FAIR ENIGMA. 157 
 
 * You think not V asked the artist, pleased, 
 * Basest ... no ; but some clouds V 
 
 ' It is not a human face otherwise,' was 
 Theodore's philosophic response. ' That morn- 
 ing can only ["permit majestic ones; massive 
 glistening, noon-day clouds which heighten 
 the beauty of the day, and give a record to the 
 empty blue.' 
 
 * You think so?' 
 
 Mr. Lindred listened with undisguised atten- 
 tion to the young merchant's mind. Much as he 
 had personally liked him, he mentally confessed 
 that he had not looked for this fund of imagina- 
 tion. Carr's friend, the curator, also eyed him 
 narrowly, and pronounced assent. Having by 
 these few words gained complete command of 
 himself, Theodore let his eyes rest fixedly upon 
 the face they were discussing. 
 
 In general terms it was lovely, so Dorothy 
 had said ; but the clear depth of life within shone 
 also there for such as might behold it. What to 
 the poetical sense of centuries has been vaguely 
 comprised in womanhood was not enough here. 
 Domestic emotion by no means disposed of the
 
 158 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 forces suggested by Mr. Lindred's art. Perhaps 
 there was justification for the mature artist's 
 scruple in striking the balance. As Carr's 
 enthusiasm, however, testified, a younger eye 
 could have no doubt. To this, let the fulness 
 of life there be what it might, it could not but be 
 the effusion of the highest yet revealed to the 
 human soul. 
 
 The topic thus casually raised led the com- 
 pany into deeper water than they had hitherto 
 sounded this particular afternoon. The 
 seriousness w^ith which Carr took part in the 
 discussion proclaimed the fact that contempla- 
 tion of the female element in life was not now 
 first presented to him. His artless fervour was 
 peculiarly agreeable to Lindred, and the artist 
 did not hesitate to show his appreciation of an 
 ingenuous mind. Reception such as this stim- 
 ulated Carr's faculties, and he rose to unwonted 
 heights. 
 
 ' Your opinion highly interests me, Mr. Carr,' 
 said the artist, when they had got back to the 
 text from which they had set out ; * and I hope 
 you will allow me the opportunity of discussing
 
 THE FAIR ENIGMA. 159 
 
 it further with you. I am curious to know how 
 a sight of the original would affect your judg- 
 ment. You would not object to an interview 
 upon neutral ground — here, for instance ?' 
 
 ' By no means,' laughed Carr, light-heartedly. 
 ' 1 hope I should not be insensible to the honour. 
 May I ask the lady's age V 
 
 ' Is that permissible, Doss V 
 
 ' There is certainly no secrecy observed upon 
 the matter. She is ' 
 
 ' But no,' cried the artist. ' Mr. Carr must 
 guess that also.' And thus was the subject 
 humorously disposed of. 
 
 It was noticeable that Mr. Carr discussed with 
 just as brilHant a play of imagination the various 
 landscape studies which engaged their attention 
 for the remainder of their visit. In subjection to 
 Sunday trains, (the station three or four miles 
 away,) the visitors had to leave early. 
 
 Carr was in a state of extreme exhilaration 
 throughout the return journey. His intellectual 
 vivacity astonished his companions, even 
 previous intimacy not having prepared him for 
 quite so mature a display. Theodore had
 
 160 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 purchased on his own behalf two of the land- 
 scapes which Lindred had on hand, and in the 
 train he opened them and throughout the hour's 
 ride descanted in a vigorous manner upon cer- 
 tain aspects of the art exemplified. 
 
 In the seclusion of his own room, too, 
 Theodore continued jubilant. His spirits were 
 not the fleeting effervescence of social con- 
 tact merely. He was conscious of permanent 
 elation due to the miraculous advancement of 
 his plans. The life to which but a year or two 
 ago he had quixotically aspired was now posi- 
 tively within his clutch, it needing but a stretch 
 forward of his hand to make that highest craving 
 all his own. It is astonishing how seldom to the 
 genuinely sanguine man repulses are allowed. 
 His instincts are in league with fate, or else ex- 
 tort the decrees required. Instinct was now law 
 and fact to Carr, and everything seemed bent 
 upon a confirmation of this creed. 
 
 To and fro he paced before those two pictures 
 propped up on a couch. They were but tiny 
 fragments to be sure of the vast horizon he was 
 scanning, but they icere fragments of it, and so
 
 THE FAIR ENIGMA. 161 
 
 served to keep the whole vividly before his gaze. 
 Over it, like a fair cloud crested with the morning 
 rays, rose the enigmatic featm-es which were im- 
 printed on his heart, — enigmatic to the calculat- 
 ing world, clear and sufficing as those rays them- 
 selves to the soul for which they were created. 
 
 And Laura was now turned nineteen ; there- 
 fore a sovereign glory in a world compact of 
 glories — a woman, in soul and body, beautiful. 
 
 In the reflection to which this thought was 
 tending, Theodore was checked. It was eleven 
 o'clock, and all the house was still ; the other in- 
 mates having retired to rest. Suddenly, in the 
 quiet without and in, Carr heard hurried footsteps 
 pass his window on the pavement outside. He 
 paused to listen, he knew not why, and the door 
 bell was loudly rung. So incongruous was any 
 commonplace thought, that for a moment Carr 
 was simply confused. When the bell again 
 sounded, more violently than before, he recover- 
 ed himself and went out into the hall. 
 
 A^OL. I. M
 
 162 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PROSE. 
 
 Carr only had his own rooms in the house, so 
 that this untimely summons was not necessarily 
 for him. Indeed, being a man of regular, almost 
 methodic habits, and of the scantiest social rela- 
 tionships, the probability was that it was not, 
 for even Firkins left him in peace on Sundays. 
 Nevertheless, as the appeal had a ring of 
 urgency in it, and as there were no immediate 
 sounds above, Theodore went and unbolted the 
 door himself. 
 
 'Is Mr. Carr here?' was flung in on the gust 
 of night air before the door was fully open. 
 
 * Yes, I am ' 
 
 ' Mr. Firkins wants you, sir, immediately.'
 
 PROSE. 163 
 
 Carr bit his lip. 
 
 ' At the Queen's V 
 
 ' Yes, sir, he has been ill all day.' 
 
 ' Why, I saw him this morning. Nothing 
 serious, is it V 
 
 'Can't say, sir.' And with a promise of 
 immediate attendance the messenger was 
 dismissed. 
 
 Carr had often thought that the omnipotent 
 merchant's erratic dealings with him were 
 prompted occasionally by sullen caprice alone, 
 and in view of such Theodore found that bare 
 gratitude was capable of a strain. Indeed, since 
 the flight of Saloway, Theodore had been con- 
 scious of a distinct personal antipathy towards 
 his generous partner, which in one of Carr's 
 complex temperament may not have been so 
 incongruous an outcome of five hundred a year 
 as at first sight it may seem to be. Human 
 nature has various ways of appeasing its weak- 
 nesses, one of which may be an energetic intoler- 
 ance of the agent that successfully plays upon 
 the particular failing we are most anxious to 
 repudiate. In his poetical apotheosis of mere 
 
 M 2
 
 164 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 wealth and the grim urgency of its immediate 
 attainment, had it ever occurred to Carr that 
 the bloom of his human virtue had been pur- 
 chased from him in this hot pursuit of ideal 
 good? Had he ever seen through the bald vista 
 of a grey spiritless day, passengers along two 
 diverging roads, not long parted company per- 
 chance, but already fronting very different 
 journeys, the several horizons before them not 
 varying more than the contrasted nature of 
 their paths and the eyes with which they were 
 able to regard them? There was little external 
 evidence whereby to decide it ; but had Theo- 
 dore Carr at any time had so much as hint or 
 glimpse of this, some counteractive emotion 
 would undoubtedly be required of him. 
 
 At any rate, in the quietude of this Sunday 
 night, Theodore threaded the empty streets in a 
 state of rebellious agitation. That a man of 
 Firkins's mould should have the power to sum- 
 mon him thus at any unreasonable moment by 
 a single twirl of a finger was irritating enough ; 
 but in face of the mental attitude in which he 
 had been surprised, the gross savour of the
 
 PROSE. 165 
 
 topic which was ia prospect incalculably 
 heightened the outrage. For the whole of this 
 day had his mind been attuned to abstract 
 things, to things immeasurably removed from the 
 arid wastes to which the bulk of Oarr's life was 
 for the present condemned, and yet was this last 
 hour to dispel the vision by its noisome touch. 
 Upon the hotel steps Theodore recoiled, but 
 there was a sound as of derisive scorn, and he 
 looked around. Nobody else was there. Firmly 
 commanding his lips, Carr went in. 
 
 A waiter informed him that Mr. Firkins had 
 been seized dangerously ill, so Carr hurried up- 
 stairs forthwith. Firkins — ill ! The mere sug- 
 gestion came as such a startling absurdity that 
 the remaining incidents could have but little 
 effect upon Carr. 
 
 He entered the sitting-room which Firkins 
 occupied, but found it empty. Pausing to con- 
 sider, he heard in the next room his own name 
 vociferated in the sick man's most ferocious 
 humour. Unlatching that door, a strange sound 
 was heard. There were quick, heavy breath- 
 ings and the scuffling that might attend a per-
 
 166 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 sonal conflict. Again his name was called, and 
 Theodore stepped hastily in. All was quiet at 
 once. 
 
 The scene presented in the gas-light struck 
 Carr mute. Firkins sat up in bed as it seemed 
 distraught. At one side of him was a man of 
 middle-age, still holding the muscular invalid 
 as though he had wrestled with him. The 
 bed-clothes about them were lying in the 
 utmost disorder. On a chair at the other side 
 sat an old woman with features which bore a 
 strong resemblance to those of Carr's benefactor 
 as there presented. Her fixed eyes had travelled 
 slowly from the bed to Theodore standing just 
 within the doorway, and there remained. 
 
 ' There's the man,' said Firkins, and fell back 
 resignedly upon the pillow. 
 
 ' Do you want a doctor T 
 
 ' Fetch the police.' 
 
 Carr turned mechanically to obey. 
 
 ' There's no need of that. Come along, 
 mother.' 
 
 The man, who had relaxed his hold of the 
 merchant when Carr appeared, rose, and taking
 
 PROSE. 167 
 
 the old woman by the arm, went to the door. 
 
 * God forgive yon, Sam,' muttered she, and 
 they had gone. 
 
 So brief had been the unaccountable scene, 
 so soon dispelled, and so normal all that follow- 
 ed, that Oarr, in such condition as he was, 
 hardly grasped it as an actual occurrence. 
 Firkins, although sHghtly out of breath, was at 
 once collected, and spoke only of the commer- 
 cial affairs that were on his mind. 
 
 ' You must have a doctor, sir,' urged Carr. 
 
 *WiU you listen to what 1 say?' roared 
 Firkins; but, as it seemed, checked by so^^^ 
 physical disturbance, (for there was an involun- 
 tary contortion of his swarthy features,) his 
 voice fell as he added, ' They have done with 
 me, Carr. I have fought with this devil for 
 years.' He then proceeded hurriedly with his 
 financial injunctions. 
 
 Despite the vague alarm which was borne in 
 upon him by the troubled atmosphere, it was 
 scarcely possible for Carr to realise that this 
 man, to whom from any point of view he owed 
 so much, was confronting death. That he was
 
 168 THE SPORT OF STi^RS. 
 
 in constant physical agony was only too ap- 
 parent from the abrupt pauses in his speech, 
 the uncertainty of his tones, and the suppressed 
 muscular convulsions which all the man's super- 
 human efforts were unable to hide. Whatever 
 Carr's previous feelings towards him, it was not 
 possible for him to witness this unmoved. His 
 former construction of Firkins's character only 
 heightened the tragic element in what he saw. 
 Nothing in that iron creature had ever suggest- 
 ed the mere mortal : it was impossible to con- 
 nect Avith him anything but aggressive, preter- 
 human force. Something that had ever been 
 and must ever be, so long as any part of the 
 world's elemental rock remained. This had 
 been in Carr's estimate of him whatever else 
 was there ; but now was he suddenly bidden to 
 beheve that this man must die. The whole of 
 his nature was melted in a fierce unbounded 
 sympathy. He himself loved life. His face 
 showed the workings of his mind, and Firkins 
 detected his inattention. 
 
 ' Do you hear f he cried once, with incipient 
 anger.
 
 PROSE. 169 
 
 ' I hear, but can pay no heed,' promptly re- 
 phed Carr. * Do you think it possible for me 
 to sit here and see you suffer without raising a 
 baud to help you V 
 
 'What can you do?' 
 
 ' Fetch every doctor in the town. If one fails 
 to cure you ' 
 
 ' Come here, Carr.' — Firkins clutched his 
 hand. — ' Nobody has ever oflfered to do so much 
 for me. I tell you that no doctor in the land 
 could now help me. I have seen all the best of 
 them in the world, and have by three years out- 
 lived the time they gave me. Do you believe 
 me now V 
 
 * I believe you, but will not believe that your 
 case is hopeless. If you have outlived their 
 time by three years, you may outlive it by 
 three more. I shall fetch ' 
 
 ' I will see three of them to satisfy you, but 
 not one beyond. Send for them, but you stay 
 here.' 
 
 Carr summoned an attendant and despatched 
 messages to the three principal physicians in 
 the town, he himself taking the chair which
 
 170 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 Firkius indicated. From this moment Theodore 
 could see that his companion's manner altered. 
 Even a ray of human feeling seemed occasion- 
 ally to glimmer through the chill cynical vapour 
 that habitually obscured his face. Indeed, 
 Carr's obviously disinterested sincerity had 
 penetrated even this man in his prostration. It 
 might have seemed as a direct result of this, 
 Firkins's conversation underwent a change. All 
 the urgent commercial schemes, which but a 
 moment ago he had been so impatient to com- 
 municate, were forgotten, and for some seconds 
 he lay in his bed quietly regarding Carr. When 
 he spoke again, his subject was so ludicrously 
 inconsequent that Theodore for a moment sup- 
 posed him deranged. 
 
 * Did you ever forgive your parents, Carr V 
 demanded the merchant, without moving his 
 eyes. 
 
 ' Certainly, for everything they could possibly 
 require pardon,^ was the reply. 
 
 ' And what was that f 
 
 Carr admitted that he knew of no specific 
 charge.
 
 PROSE. 171 
 
 * I didn't think you were such a fool,' said 
 Firkins, more sharply, which betrayed to Carr 
 that the derangement was on his own side, or, 
 at any rate, not on the other. *Do you find the 
 only thing they ever gave you so acceptable a 
 
 giftr 
 
 ' I suppose I am a fool. I don't in the least 
 understand you.' 
 
 * You saw that hag in the room just now — 
 that was my mother.' 
 
 The tone in which the words were uttered 
 horrified Carr, for they awakened at the same 
 moment a vision of the only parent he had ever 
 known, as she lay sleeping in the pea-field, and 
 of whom he had ever thought with reverence 
 and oppressive sympathy. He could not speak, 
 but Firkins read his features. 
 
 ' You think me a fiend — think it and wel- 
 come. " Honour thy father and thy mother," is 
 that it, boy ? It is well for me that my father 
 I never knew, or else I should have honoured 
 him so far as not to have been dying here in 
 bed ... In bed, heavens !' Firkins raised him- 
 self at a bound, and clenched his iron fist.
 
 172 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 *What did they give me between thenar he 
 went on, with a diabolic grin. ' Life !' and he 
 smote his bare chest with a blow that might 
 have killed a man. ' This rotten trunk ! A ken- 
 nel for a bed, and for a plate the gutter, for life 
 . . . hell.' 
 
 Muttering the last word, the man sank upon 
 the pillow and stared at Carr. 
 
 ' Would you be grateful for that V he asked, 
 when the paroxysm was over. 
 
 ' This is frightful,' returned Carr. ' Would 
 you saddle a fly of a mortal with all the grim 
 mysteries of the universe ? Assault the heavens 
 if you like, but hasn't your own nature taught 
 you sympathy with your fellow worms ?' 
 
 'Mysteries of the universe? . . . The heavens, 
 do you sayf mused Firkins, displaying in his 
 eyes the tragic effort that it cost to guide his 
 intellect. ' With the heavens I have nothing to 
 do. If ... if you go by that . . . they'll tell 
 you that I came from hell . . . and that ' 
 
 Carr took the man's hand, and watched his 
 eyes again slowly open. There was something 
 that he strove to say, but beyond ' You are — '
 
 PROSE. 173 
 
 indistinctly uttered, there was nothing articulate. 
 A strange placidity gradually sank upon the 
 hitherto unquiet features, and from the regu- 
 larity of the breath, Theodore gladly perceived 
 he slept. 
 
 In a few minutes the first doctor came. 
 
 ' He was right,' said this gentleman to Carr, 
 ' He has consulted everybody. None but he^ 
 — pointing to the silent figure — ' could have 
 fought it out so long.' 
 
 Some time later Theodore Carr retraced his 
 steps through the quiet streets with yet new 
 subjects of meditation to engage him.
 
 174 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 NOON. 
 
 Oarr had been early initiated into the mystery 
 of death, but had woven nothing of the hideous 
 into his conception of it. His temperament was 
 far too buoyant to be highly speculative, there- 
 fore had he been able to accept the departure 
 of the soul as merely a natural fact, in much the 
 same way as he would accept an ordinary sun- 
 set. It was a sleep, with illimitable possibilities 
 wrapt up within it. His last scene with Firkins 
 had disturbed this healthy optimism by an ob- 
 trusion of mere charnel-house horrors upon him 
 and an unnatural dejection overclouded his 
 spirit in consequence.
 
 NOON. 175 
 
 So exclusively was Carr's instinct imaginative, 
 that this high aspect of the event precluded all 
 hint of the practical. Not so much as a thought 
 of material good or harm to accrue to himself as 
 a result of it for a moment assailed him. Only 
 the abstract bearings upon the human soul of 
 so horrible a disclosure were visible, and he was 
 daunted. Nay, his mere commercial responsi- 
 bilities vanished. At ten o'clock the following 
 morning he was in bed, tracing ghastly legends 
 across the ceiling, supremely oblivious of the 
 world's demands upon Messrs. Firkins and Carr. 
 An arrival of a message from the head clerk in 
 his office failed to disturb him. Having scrib- 
 bled an injunction to the man to do what was 
 necessary and close the premises, he relapsed 
 into his former abstraction and apathetic gloom, 
 and thus he continued until noon. 
 
 Tlie clock had not long struck twelve, when 
 there was another knock, and another commu- 
 nication announced to him. This time he 
 leaped up, and, throwing on a dressing-gown, 
 took the letter in himself. It was addressed in 
 a writing not familiar to him, and had not come
 
 176 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 through the post. In going to receive it, some 
 preposterous fancy had suggested Laura. Now 
 he was so unnerved that the envelope quivered 
 in his hand, and in a fit of impatience he threw 
 it to the floor. When he had done so, there 
 was another knock. 
 
 ' Please, sir, an answer is wanted.' 
 
 * Answer wanted — to what V shouted Carr. 
 
 'The letter.' 
 
 ' Oh, yes.' 
 
 Carr snatched it up, and, having torn it open, 
 saw that it was from Mr. Firkins's solicitor. He 
 requested an interview as soon as possible, 
 whenever Mr. Carr might deem convenient. 
 
 ' I'll be at his office in half-an-hour, say.' 
 
 When the footsteps had left the landing, Carr 
 went to his bath, and under the enforced ac- 
 tivity his mind regained much of its normal 
 tone. 
 
 The lawyer confirmed the cure. He received 
 Carr with afi'ability, whilst properly shocked at 
 the sad occurrence they both deplored. In view 
 of a mysterious visit he had that morning re- 
 ceived, he had thought it advisable that they
 
 NOON. 177 
 
 should at once confer upon executorship affah's. 
 Carr of course would give every assistance in 
 his power, but Mr. Firkins had never disclosed 
 to him much of his concerns. But he would 
 have spoken of his will? Not a word. The 
 lawyer produced from a safe behind him a 
 sealed envelope, and handed it to Carr. Theo- 
 dore demurred. 
 
 ' No hands but yours were to open it; You 
 see, it is addressed to you.' 
 
 Under a return of that former agitation, Carr 
 cut it open and took out the contents — a sheet 
 of ordinary note-paper, at which even the law- 
 yer stared. Theodore read it, and gave it to 
 his companion, who also read : 
 
 ' This is the will of Samuel Firkins, nullius fjius, 
 known to myself and a few others as a timber-mer- 
 chant of the West Docks in Millington, Gloucester- 
 shire, whereby 1 devise and bequeath the whole of my 
 real and personal estate whatsoever, including the 
 whole of my business and everything connected with 
 it, to Theodore Carr, my partner, whom I also ap- 
 point my sole executor. I suppose even by law I may 
 do what I will with my own. I fought for every 
 sixpence that ever I got, and thus I leave it.' 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 178 THE SPORT OF STAKS. 
 
 This document was in the testator's own 
 handwriting, was dated, signed, and attested in 
 due order. The lawyer, looking at Carr in 
 silence, saw that all trace of colour had left his 
 face, so he brought forth a chair. 
 
 'Is it effectual?' asked Theodore, as he sat 
 down. 
 
 ' By all means . . . but do you happen to 
 know whether Mr. Firkins's mother is alive?' 
 
 ' She was last night.' 
 
 ' You would know her ? . . . Yery good. 
 You would of course wish to make some pro- 
 vision for her V 
 
 ' Ample provision. Whatever you may think 
 she would be able to make a right use of.' 
 
 ' To be sure, to be sure. Some foolish man 
 came here to-day, ostensibly an emissary of 
 hers, but no doubt a trader upon his own ac- 
 count, threatening to contest any will that did 
 not, etc. Should you hear of him, pray refer him 
 to me.' 
 
 ' Nothing more will be necessary to-day ?' 
 
 ' You do not forget funeral arrangements.' 
 
 ' That devolves upon me ! . . . You will
 
 NOON. 179 
 
 allow some clerk of yours to give all necessary 
 instructions. I really cannot grapple with it 
 myself ... I have not had the remotest sus- 
 picion of all this.' 
 
 Thus it was arranged, and Carr took to flight, 
 — nobody hearing anything about him until he 
 stood beside the grave. 
 
 For some time after this Carr spent his days 
 conscientiously immersed in the vast commercial 
 imbroglio which had been Firkins's life, and with 
 the mere fringe of which Theodore himself had 
 been hitherto sufficiently employed. His nights 
 he spent with himself. 
 
 When the young capitalist came fully to 
 realize the extent of the business which that 
 Titan had borne unaided upon his shoulders, he 
 quailed before the fund of superhuman energy 
 disclosed. Any attempt on the part of such 
 dilettante faculties to cope with the intricacies 
 of so stupendous a machine seemed ludicrous, 
 and so for some days Carr felt it ; but soon the 
 challenge awakened his innate reserve of de- 
 termination, and he took up the glove. The 
 trnly sanguine man of general capacity is aware 
 
 n2
 
 180 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 of no limit to his range, and, given the mood, 
 will confront herculean tasks for which he might 
 appear the least fitted. This propitious mood 
 had been forced upon Carr just now. The 
 sudden shock of the extraordinary complication 
 of affairs occasioned by the timber-merchant's 
 death had, for the nonce, extinguished Theo- 
 dore's ideal life. The inundation had trans- 
 formed the world, and he saw nothing but the 
 sea of commerce around him. Darkness and 
 chaos it naturally at first appeared, but in mere 
 assertion of a strong vitality he at length struck 
 out, and, after a period of frantic muscular con- 
 tention, he became aware that he was afloat. 
 This rapidly gave him strength to clear his 
 eyes, and thereupon he saw that his own efforts 
 had been enough to still the waters and dispel 
 the night. 
 
 This strenuous exercise had a greater effect 
 upon Carr than he himself imagined. The supreme 
 exertion, and the victory attending it, had im- 
 posed such graduation in responsible manhood 
 as no previous crisis in his life had done. He 
 emerged from the engagement many years
 
 NOON. 181 
 
 older, and bereft for ever of a certain purely 
 idyllic strain which had hitherto entered into his 
 view of things. He had seen the world a fact, 
 and through whatever glow of imagination he 
 might yet again regard it, at least a reahty it 
 must to the end remain. 
 
 Having mastered the difficulty, it was no part 
 of Carr's intention to imperil his hfe by sustain- 
 ing it. Although victor in the field, the pro- 
 spect none the less appalled him, and he forth- 
 with set about the terms of truce. As a first 
 step he enrolled as his working partners two 
 men in whom he had implicit faith ; one an old* 
 and tried dependent of his own timber-yard, 
 the other a man hitherto of smaller enterprise 
 on his own account. He himself retained the 
 post of commander-in-chief. 
 
 All the practical details of his succession 
 Theodore conducted in a most liberal manner. 
 His allies pronounced his behaviour princely, 
 and so were bound to him. His method with 
 himself was on a similar scale. For current use 
 he realised the sum of twenty thousand pounds 
 (Mr. Firkins, he found, had systematically re-
 
 182 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 frained from realizing — the balance on his pri- 
 vate banking account being under eighty 
 pounds) and once again Carr found himself 
 able to confront the world with a calm fear- 
 lessness of gaze. That haunting fiend of means 
 was now finally laid — with the more agreeable 
 end need he alone concern himself. 
 
 His intellectual reaction hereupon he found 
 to be immense. What had been before hori- 
 zons, were now infinities of space. Opportunity 
 and capacity alike were boundless, and the man 
 trembled to essay a flight. It must be admitted 
 that his most sanguine expectations had not 
 foreseen wealth at such an age and upon such 
 terms as these. That he was born to acquire 
 wealth we know he had never doubted ; but in 
 the acquisition he was prepared for years of un- 
 congenial work — what the commercial mind 
 calls work, the speculative parry and thrust of 
 preternatural ingenuity and greed. Solely in 
 the purposes for which he sought his wealth 
 could Theodore Carr claim any distinction from 
 the most rapacious gambler of us all. If he had 
 ever deigned to limit his gaze to this particular
 
 NOON. 183 
 
 point in ethics, it can scarcely have lingered 
 long. Was he not on the current of the es- 
 tablished world ? So far in advance of it, in- 
 deed, as to know that his eye was fixed upon 
 the light. Self-aggrandisement was by no 
 means his farthest point. 
 
 It was in this exalted state that an invitation 
 from Mr. Lindred reached him, and it seemed to 
 lay the train of which Carr's excited energies 
 had been in need. By a flash the combination 
 of present facts with former ideals was accom- 
 plished, and Theodore was conscious of yet a 
 fresh result. His reply to the artist was this :* 
 
 ' Dear Mr. Lindred, 
 
 ' Only a state of mental and physical 
 exhaustion prevents my immediate acceptance 
 of your invitation. I have but just emerged 
 from the swamp of most prosaic toils, and cer- 
 tainly find myself in anything but a fit condition 
 for grappling with enigmas, fair or foul. 1 am 
 on the eve of going abroad for two or three 
 weeks (not more), and I trust that on my return 
 (of which I shall take the liberty of informing
 
 184 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 you) you will be able to find another oppor- 
 tunity of affording me the pleasure of a visit to 
 Farbarrow, my first glimpse of which lingers so 
 radiantly in my affections. May 1 beg my com- 
 pliments to Miss Lindred, and remain, 
 ' Most truly yours, 
 
 ' Theodore Carr.' 
 
 Of course there was a little innocent dis- 
 simulation in this calm response. Until taking 
 the pen in hand to write it, Carr had had no 
 such determinate grasp of the situation, but 
 now that the needed inspiration had come, he 
 saw the real value of its light. From that 
 momentous Sunday visit to Winwold, Mr. Lin- 
 dred had unconsciously become a vital link in 
 Carr's highest affairs, and the artist's personality, 
 as shining through his letter, had prompted the 
 necessary comment upon a future course. For 
 an instant it had appeared that Winwold was 
 Carr's present want. Without any suspicion of 
 the fact, Mr. Lindred had assured him that it 
 was not. 
 
 The fact was, Carr had become suddenly
 
 NOON. 185 
 
 aware that bis next appearance at Winwold 
 must inevitably be as an aspirant for Miss 
 Blakenhurst's hand ; a supreme adventure not 
 to be too lightly faced. In this as in other 
 quests he knew no distrust, but all his confi- 
 dence lay in the completeness of his prepara- 
 tions. The sudden contrast of his frame of 
 mind with that recalled by the artist's placid 
 standard revealed a temporary disadvantage, 
 and he at once shrank from a premature cast of 
 the die. A flight across continents had at the 
 moment suggested a broader day, and it was to 
 this that Carr's words referred. Such seeme'd 
 to promise him an airing from material fumes. 
 From such neutral and exalted ground the right 
 perspective would be restored. Accordingly, 
 in the course of a few hours, Theodore left the 
 smoke of MilHngton behind with his face towards 
 the infinite. 
 
 Without following his movements in any 
 detail, it is enough to know that an inspiriting 
 flight he found it. Upon no previous occasion 
 had he found his mind so vigorously responsive 
 to the calls of the imaginative world. That
 
 186 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 critical contest with the material seemed to 
 have cleared the atmosphere of certain oppres- 
 sive elements which had obscured his range too 
 long. At impassioned moments Carr even felt 
 creative might, and a whole day he spent at 
 the ruins of Rheinfels was passed in the elabora- 
 tion of a vital reminiscence in verse, beginning, 
 
 ' Is mine the star which worlds have sought in vain ?' 
 
 which, however, a few days later he scattered 
 in torn fragments to the Ischian rocks. Feeble 
 the lines were not, but an unerring instinct 
 assured Carr that what of the poet was his had 
 been expended in the creation of himself. He 
 knew no regret at the perception, for even still 
 imaginative hght shone but for him as the sun 
 of an actual day. The supremest poetical power 
 could never by virtue of its own have brought a 
 ray to garret of his. 
 
 Although the man pretended to no systematic 
 additions to his intellectual stores from so brief 
 and erratic a journey, he was none the less 
 conscious of considerable general advancement 
 in that direction. Theodore had the faculty of 
 instinctive assimilation of such material as he
 
 NOON. 187 
 
 knew too well he wanted. But for this it 
 might have seemed strange that so solitary a 
 man should have been able so effectually to 
 supply the deficiencies of the past. But the 
 self-educated man is built upon these self- 
 analyses, having unfortunately to buy his 
 culture at an exorbitant cost of nervous sensi- 
 bility. Theodore Carr could screen these com- 
 plex inner workings as successfully as most. 
 
 It was at Naples he received the impulse for 
 home, and he went thence direct to Marseilles. 
 On board the boat he made the acquaintance of 
 a young Englishman of literary proclivities a^o 
 (so Carr shrewdly surmised) was engaged in 
 the glorification of a newly-acquired bride. In 
 the mood in which each found himself, it 
 required but little intercourse to establish a 
 friendly footing between them, and so con- 
 genial did Theodore find this stranger's ardent 
 conversation that a mere suggestion was enough 
 to transform them for a few days into travelling 
 companions. Under such circumstances, it mat- 
 tered little to Carr that his new acquaintance 
 took him somewhat out of the direct path, and
 
 188 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 SO caused a slight delay iu the realization of 
 those glowing hopes upon which the whole of 
 Theodore's mind now was bent. The delay 
 was more than recompensed by the imaginative 
 zest imparted by their high talk. Galbraith 
 (such the stranger's name) was, it seemed, not 
 bound for the inevitable Paris, but for the 
 seclusion of the brown Brittany rocks, amongst 
 which he meditated an indefinite stay. In- 
 clination immediately prompted advantages in 
 this route for Theodore also, in addition to 
 those he would reap from the proffered com- 
 pany. The country they would traverse was 
 new to him, and it would give an agreeable 
 variation to his travels to reach home by way 
 of the Channel Islands instead of by the ordin- 
 ary route he knew so well. Thus then it was 
 resolved. 
 
 Carr travelled with and parted from his friends 
 in a state of characteristic fervour. The pecu- 
 liar fragrance shed around them by a pair so 
 situated was irresistible to this beholder. As 
 his previous days had ministered mainly to his 
 intellectual springs, so did this closing incident
 
 NOON. 189 
 
 gild all those with its emotional rays, and speed 
 CaiT on his way in just such exalted mood as 
 his high enterprise demanded. The noonday 
 radiance was dazzling. Never before had Theo- 
 dore approached his native land from abroad in 
 such consummate equipment. Whatever his 
 buoyancy, had he not previously always come 
 to face that hard and arid path, stretching its 
 weary length in front of the brilliant peaks to 
 which he would attain? Whereas now at a 
 bound he was at the verdant foot of the very 
 peaks themselves. Small wonder if his heart 
 was stout. 
 
 Despite previous intentions, the traveller 
 found himself unable to linger on his way. He 
 reached St. Helier's one afternoon, and took 
 passage for Southampton the morning following. 
 Even the weather could not deter him. The 
 billows of cloud and sea rather stimulated his 
 vigorous mood, and he gave himself up to the 
 mercies of the deep in a vein of wild hilarity. 
 
 Nor were his spirits damped by the coolness 
 of his reception. Under a leaden sky and all 
 the discomforts of south-west torrents, he landed
 
 190 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 late in the afternoon, and was glad to escape 
 from the hands of the Custom House officials to 
 the train which was waiting to convey him on 
 his homeward flight. He was to proceed di- 
 rectly to London, and thence take the night 
 train to Millington, — the urgency of his impul- 
 sive movements not permitting any more delay. 
 It was with a peculiar sense of satisfaction 
 that Theodore hghted his cigar. With half 
 closed eyes he beheld the sordid world about 
 him through a haze of rosy tolerance. Of such 
 he scarcely now felt himself to form a part. 
 Throughout this tour he had adjusted his mode 
 of travelling to the altered conditions of his 
 purse, and the result had been gratifying. Past 
 benevolence had by no means faded from his 
 mind. His heart positively glowed with chari- 
 table warmth to all mankind. If he spent 
 lavishly upon himself, he gave alms upon a still 
 more extravagant scale when opportunity of- 
 fered. Nothing but purely temporary tactics 
 of his own stood between him and a munificent 
 scheme for the amelioration of at any rate a 
 definite section of pastoral life. He might even
 
 NOON. 191 
 
 have urged that these apparently selfish steps 
 were absolutely essential to his benevolent plan, 
 and a logical introduction to that long-projected 
 enterprise. Memory carried Theodore back to 
 the green shelter of the Swinging Tree. Had it 
 not been pronounced by lips which carried all 
 the weight of irrevocable law to him ? 
 
 The train stopped, and Carr looked slumber- 
 ously out upon the lights. He had been dozing, 
 and perhaps faces had presented themselves to 
 him in those half-conscious visions upon which 
 his soul could dwell with calm dehght. At any 
 rate, a placid serenity lay upon his refined and 
 handsome features as he turned them to the 
 window at his side, and he doubtless afforded a 
 subject of impatient and curious contemplation 
 to hurrying passengers that caught a glimpse 
 of him from without. There were not many 
 such, but his eyes responded to those that passed 
 with unruffled kindliness. Whilst thus engaged, 
 a sudden change came over him, and he leaped 
 up from his seat, as it seemed, in a spasm of 
 alarm. 
 
 There was nothing immediately to explain
 
 192 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 such unexpected movement. If Carr's eyes 
 were followed in their startled gaze, they were 
 seen but to rest upon two inoJBfensive passengers 
 standing in conversation by the door of the 
 refreshment-room. The features of one of them 
 certainly were noticeable for their animation 
 and (being a woman) striking charm. But 
 general sensibility was by no means the emotion 
 which Theodore betrayed. As the train just 
 moved, he threw down the window, and seemed 
 upon the point of getting out, but an official 
 checked him. Carr acquiesced, but, disregarding 
 the man, kept his eyes fixed upon that particular 
 spot. Both of those faces turned to watch the 
 train depart, but paid no especial heed to the 
 part where Theodore was. Their movement 
 seemed, however, to give him some assurance 
 of which his anxious stare had stood in need, 
 and in pale nervous wakefulness he sank again 
 into his seat. 
 
 He did not doze again.
 
 193 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 DIVINITY TESTED. 
 
 Calm reason could not sustain the ridiculous 
 
 • 
 
 fears with which Carr had been so unaccount- 
 ably overwhelmed. Having crossed London, 
 and being once again ensconced in an easy 
 corner, whirling along towards all that his life 
 had held most dear, he even smiled complacently 
 at the vague shadow which had caused the 
 pang. True, reason with all its powerful light 
 could not dispel the fact that it was Laura 
 Blakenhurst whom he had seen ; did not suggest 
 any evasion of it. But were there not a hun- 
 dred explanations of her presence there? Be- 
 cause his mind held her inseparably associated 
 VOL. I.
 
 19 J THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 with a certain spot, was she to be restricted to 
 the bounds of that imaginative limit ? He re- 
 gained a more reasonable attitude. 
 
 Still it seemed probable that he must submit 
 at least to a temporary disappointment. None 
 the less, when at home, he wrote in the small 
 hours of the night an announcement of his re- 
 turn to Mr. Lindred. Impetuosity demanded 
 so much. The next morning it was posted, and 
 Carr had not long to wait for the coveted 
 answer. 
 
 'Come, by all means at any time,' the artist 
 wrote. 
 
 Theodore sent an appointment for the follow- 
 ing Monday. 
 
 There were four days to elapse before that — 
 a concession probably to Carr's new hopes 
 rather than to any spirit of politeness. It 
 afforded at least just a bare possibility of Laura's 
 return, and she away, Theodore would this time 
 have felt a visit to Win wold depressing and 
 vain. Short as it was, he had some difficulty 
 in spanning the interval. To his chagrin Carr 
 found that, continental exhilaration notwith-
 
 DIVINITY TESTED. 195 
 
 standing, the very atmosphere of MiUington 
 affected him adversely. If he walked through 
 the streets he was seized with a spirit of de- 
 jection. It was a general rather than specific 
 impression. Even to himself Carr admitted no 
 determinate cause. If he met an acquaintance 
 he felt a shock of irritation. He hated to be 
 seen abroad. Not even to his friend, the 
 curator, did he feel genially inclined. He wanted 
 to be alone, or better still amongst a crowd to 
 which he was utterly unknown. So imperative 
 did this become that on the Saturday he went 
 to Birmingham to obtain the respite he required, 
 intending to stay there until his departure for 
 Winwold early on Monday. 
 
 The change at first afforded him the desired 
 effect. All his buoyancy returned, and with it 
 the rosy aspect of the world. An inordinate 
 liberality always accompanied this condition in 
 him, and as Carr prowled about the streets that 
 Saturday night, he stealthily thrust shiUings 
 into unsuspecting hands, the astonished re- 
 cipients turning in vain to catch a glimpse of 
 their mysterious benefactor. He commenced 
 
 2
 
 196 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 this mainly in sport, but as he found it a stimu- 
 lating diversion, he Avent to it at length with 
 systematic ardour. He would change gold into 
 as many shillings as he could conveniently carry, 
 and then scatter amazement throughout the 
 crowded highways. Such was Carr's method of 
 dissipation from which he did not retire until 
 the small hours. 
 
 He dreamed vividly in the night, and when he 
 woke in the morning to the unmusical tone of 
 a church bell, Theodore lay for some time in but 
 a half-conscious state of reverie. The scenes of 
 the night before flitted again across his imagina- 
 tion, but with a subtle significance of suggestion 
 which had not been presented to his waking 
 sight. The appalling reality of that spectacle of 
 wretchedness was irresistibly borne in upon him, 
 and seemed suddenly to connect itself with 
 some far-away sensations which he scarcely 
 knew to have been his own. The gloom and 
 bitterness of the world oppressed a soul 
 over Avhich only its sweetness and light 
 had hitherto much prevailed. Carr would 
 willingly have assured himself that he was
 
 DIVINITY TESTED. 197 
 
 dreaming still, had not the wish but too 
 vehemently gainsaid its object. Just as he was 
 again sinking into an actual doze, features 
 which he knew, from amidst that ghastly 
 throng, pierced him with a glance of intolerable 
 pathos, and at the sound of an imaginary voice 
 he leaped up. 
 
 There was somebody at the door with his 
 shaving- water. 
 
 From this sinister commencement uneasy 
 thoughts clung about Carr of which even 
 the broad daylight of the town could not at 
 once relieve him. Empty though the streets 
 were, or at most sprinkled with well-dressed 
 citizens of orderly intent, to one gaze they v/ere 
 still peopled with crowded woe. If only as a 
 refuge from this disordered state, Theodore went 
 into a church to which he came, the clock of 
 which announced the hour of prayer. He took 
 a seat by the door, and before the service was 
 over he came out, rendered impatient by some 
 incongruity which had struck him there. But 
 none the less he had gained some of that com- 
 posure he had sought.
 
 198 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 He paid no particular heed to his steps as he 
 left the church. One way led at a few paces 
 to the broad thoroughfare of the world, the 
 other to still deeper and duskier by-ways. Carr 
 had taken the latter. 
 
 Before going far, he became aware of being 
 an object of scrutiny to two dirty children that 
 he had casually noticed there, who seemed of 
 the crop indigenous to pavements. Now they 
 were shuffling along the other side of the way, 
 evidently intent upon some estimate of the im- 
 posing stranger. As Carr turned to look at 
 them, the little boy touched his forehead (cap he 
 had none) and seemed inclined to cross the 
 street. Blind factory-walls were on either side, 
 a fact which perhaps induced Carr to stop. The 
 children came to him and muttered the custom- 
 ary plea for a copper. 
 
 Theodore was not in the mood to fling them 
 one and pass on. He questioned the boy who 
 was the spokesman, and got, as he thought with 
 equivocal fluency, the customary tale of squalor 
 and privation. 
 
 '■ Will you take me home ?' said Carr, rather 
 severely.
 
 DIVINITY TESTED. 19^ 
 
 * Father's doing fourteen days, sir ; mother '11 
 be drunk,' was the boy's reply. 
 
 * Never mind — let me see.' 
 
 To Carr's astonishment, the boy readily ac- 
 quiesced, and set off to lead the way. 
 
 A silence fell upon Carr as he followed his 
 odd guides, and he was so absorbed in his own 
 subjects of contemplation that he did not ob- 
 serve the sly glances which were cast upon 
 him from time to time. They turned into one 
 foul alley after another, making a circuitous 
 rather than a progressive route, had Carr been 
 observant enough to detect it, until all at oiice 
 even the philanthropic sense became alarmed^ 
 Theodore looked about to severely question his 
 little leaders only to see that they were gone. 
 Stare this way and that as he would, no vestige 
 of them remained, no indication of the manner 
 of their flight. Carr's uneasiness was naturally 
 heightened under the suspicion that he had been 
 taken in a trap. But there was nothing else 
 to sustain his alarm. No ruffians appeared, and 
 there seemed little difficulty in effecting an es- 
 cape. It was a squalid enough street to be
 
 200 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 sure, but open to the sky, and, as it seemed, of 
 interminable length. Some children played on 
 the curbstone, and in the dingy doorways some 
 women talked, but to this stranger and his 
 affairs nobody seemed to pay any particular 
 regard. Carr could only suppose it a humorous 
 freak on the part of the disappointed urchins, 
 who meant to have out, in pure mischief, the 
 value of the copper denied them in coin. 
 
 Such was his decision, and he was in the act 
 of hastening away when suddenly the same boy 
 was again at his feet. This time he was alone. 
 
 ' Mother ain't drunk, sir,' he said, before Carr 
 could speak. ' Will you come and see V 
 
 ' No, you can give her this,' — and the philan- 
 thropist thrust a shilling into the child's hand. 
 The latter simply stared in astonishment, and, 
 as Carr thought, looked for the instant honest. 
 ' Yes, I will come,' added he, as an afterthought. 
 ' Which is the house ?' 
 
 The boy took him a few paces back, and then 
 turned up a narrow arched passage. Theodore 
 followed this time, ashamed of his fears. Had 
 not some such quarter once been Jiome to him
 
 DIVINITY TESTED. 201 
 
 also? With a shudder at the thought, he en- 
 tered the dingy court, paved so as to slant to a 
 drain in the centre, and across which stretched 
 a line whereon sundry ' washing ' was hung. 
 After he had bowed beneath the rags to reach 
 the door to which the boy was leading, Carr's 
 eyes encountered those of another figure — a 
 strange one for such locality — which issued from 
 a doorway just beyond. 
 
 ' This is it, sir.' 
 
 Carr turned mechanically to the boy, but then 
 abruptly looked round again. Nobody was 
 there. The apparition had gone. The child's 
 eyes were riveted in wonderment upon his mys- 
 terious friend's face, so striking was the change 
 in him. 
 
 ' Who was that V asked Carr. 
 
 'District visitor, sir, I think they call 'em.' 
 
 'But don't you know her name ? Which door 
 did she go into ? Does she often come here V 
 
 A woman came from within the doorway by 
 which they were standing, and cringed to Carr. 
 He merely stared at her. 
 
 ' I don't think that lady has been before, sir ?'
 
 202 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 ' No, no, it must be my mistake,' smiled Carr ; 
 and, taking from his pocket what seemed to be 
 a handful of silver, he gave it to the woman and 
 fled. 
 
 Carr could not command his thoughts until 
 he had taken several aimless turnings, then he 
 went back. For upwards of an hour he vainly 
 wandered in search of that dingy archway, of 
 the boy that led him thither, of the spirit that 
 he there had seen ; but it was to no purpose. 
 When he at length found himself before the 
 church which he had originally left, he seemed 
 to acknowledge his defeat, for he walked slowly 
 along the way which he knew to lead into the 
 lighter world. The main streets now presented 
 a very different appearance, for the population 
 had risen, and as it was a fine day the pave- 
 ment was beginning to assume its aspect of 
 afternoon promenade. Carr hurried to his hotel, 
 and he did not again go forth for the remainder 
 of the day. 
 
 Despite his extraordinary efibrts, therefore, 
 Theodore was not to present himself at Win- 
 wold in any superabundant spirits. An uneasy
 
 DIVINITY TESTED. 203 
 
 suspicion that the world Avas not to be that 
 very plain and intelligible matter which to his 
 eager sense it had hitherto appeared could not 
 be altogether extinguished. It is true that as 
 the sullen grey atmosphere which crowned the 
 housetops was left for the free expanse of 
 heaven over the meadows, shadowed by finely 
 clustered storm-clouds glorious in their frown- 
 ing, much of the weight was blown from Carr's 
 mind, and he began to discern in clearer outline 
 the goal whither he was bound, and the pleas- 
 ant path whereby he was to reach it. After all, 
 the unwonted uncertainty of his spirits caused 
 him less surprise when in this country air he 
 regathered the conviction that he was in love. 
 With his feet upon the grass, only Laura had 
 power over him, — a power which was exercised 
 only for the highest purposes which man can 
 know, and for buckling on the weapons whereby 
 such purposes were to be finally attained. He 
 began again to perceive this, and therefore con- 
 sciously to assert it by way of preparation for 
 the fray. It reconciled much. Nay, it suffused 
 all with a briUiance and warmth of human emo-
 
 204 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 lion without which life would appeal little to 
 Theodore Carr. How much that startling and 
 distracting vision in Birmingham squalor might 
 mean, he did not pretend as yet to decide, but 
 from this distance he was able to see that it 
 contained nothing from which he need shrink. 
 The possibihties rather were that a germ of 
 universal reconciliation for the contending ele- 
 ments of subterranean Carr lay therein. The 
 fulness of this thought only occurred to him as 
 the train stopped at Gosstall, the station for 
 Winwold, else doubtless he would more tho- 
 roughly have worked it ; but as it was it afforded 
 him an inspiriting subject of contemplation for 
 his drive across the downs. 
 
 Theodore did not disguise the importance of 
 the high enterprise upon which he was bent. 
 Save for that accidental encounter in the quarry 
 several years ago, he had never spoken to 
 Laura ; yet had long musing upon her, assiduous 
 gathering of all possible evidence concerning 
 her, and, above all, instinctive interpretation of 
 the exquisite features which had so deeply im- 
 pressed him, inspired him with a confident
 
 DIVINITY TESTED. 205 
 
 knowledge of her character. In the appropria- 
 tion of so much excellence to his own exclusive 
 use he had never known an instant's discour- 
 agement. He had a strong conviction that it 
 was ordained of the fates ; a conviction which 
 had no doubt assisted him to his peculiarly 
 delicate method of pursuit. Laura was now 
 nearing twenty, and to the eye a very mature 
 and lovely woman : Carr pronounced his own 
 equipment adequate, therefore they might meet. 
 The powers had opportunely planted the artist 
 Lindred at Winwold for this one particular 
 purpose. Having met, Theodore pronounced*it 
 wholly within his power as to what the result 
 should be. Heaven be his speed ! 
 
 Mr. Lindred greeted him warmly, and the 
 short time which liad to elapse before the hour 
 of luncheon was passed in the green shade of 
 the orchard. The congenial personal contact 
 at once aroused Carr's vivacity, and he was 
 able to merge in more general interests the ab- 
 sorbing purpose which he had so lately acknow- 
 ledged as his only object here. The interpreta- 
 tion of the ' Fair Enigma' had of course been but
 
 206 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 a polite apology on the artist's part for extend- 
 ing a friendly invitation to one so little known, 
 and he by no means regarded Carr through the 
 medium of a mysterious young woman merely. 
 He had instinctively formed a high estimate of 
 Carr's intelhgence and character, and in face of 
 that he had an inexhaustible supply of interest- 
 ing topics. 
 
 Still at intervals, as the day advanced, Theo- 
 dore was doomed to be conscious that he was 
 acting a part, and, when at last all had separ- 
 ated for the night, he felt definite surprise at 
 the fact that the enigma had not once even 
 jocularly been referred to. He did not sleep 
 well, partly through a too active fancy, partly 
 through the hooting of the owls. 
 
 Early in the morning Carr went out, as was 
 invariably his custom in the country. Natural 
 efifects always exhilarated him keenly, and he 
 found no disappointment to-day. The subtle 
 influence of this particular locahty had lost 
 none of its power. It was not a brilliant morn- 
 ing, but to Carr suggestive enough. Belonging 
 neither to summer nor autumn, it partook of
 
 DIVINITY TESTED. 207 
 
 the character of both. A cold white mist over- 
 spread the valley, and over the grass yon could 
 see the cows' and the labourers' tracks through 
 the frost-like dew. From the sky, pale-blue 
 and cloudless, the sun peered dimly over the 
 eastern hill with just sufficient strength to throw 
 an indeterminate shadow. ChifF-chafFs still piped 
 from the hedge, and at the roots of the thick 
 brambles blackbirds were raking and chuck- 
 ling. There was no wind, but when Carr reached 
 the top of the ridge a cool breath from the 
 uorth-east fanned his face, and the sound of the 
 trains some miles away seemed to be at a field 
 or tAvo's distance from him. Here he stood for 
 some minutes to listen and muse upon the 
 sound. Presently it ceased, then suddenly was 
 clear again, and Carr knew that the train had 
 passed the tunnel. A woodpecker flung a de- 
 tached note; a single rook cawed in passing; 
 and then a heavy, shuffling footstep on the road 
 interrupted the man's reverie. Turning round, 
 Carr saw that countryman, of his acquaintance, 
 Thomas Warrilow, — the man who had first en- 
 lightened him about Saloway, and with whom
 
 208 THE SPORT OF STi^RS. 
 
 upon his several visits he generally exchanged 
 an amicable word. They passed the day to 
 each other, and Carr's attitude encouraged 
 Warrilow to stop. 
 
 ' Good air here, sir, quite,' remarked he, look- 
 ing about him. 
 
 ' So good that I think of coming to live here,' 
 replied Carr, good-humouredly. 
 
 'Do you, sir? Well, we'll be glad to see 
 you, however. Old times be greatly changed, 
 more's the pity. Them as be up in the world 
 have no correspondence with we, and it be my 
 opinion as it do harm to both.' 
 
 'I think so . . . Why do you think that I 
 should be different V 
 
 ' You'll excuse my speech, sir,' said the man, 
 with deference. ' No disrespect to anybody, 
 very far from it, but one can't help but notice 
 things. Our squire (and Mr. Vivian an' all, for 
 that,) never had no respect for their fellow-man, 
 do what 'em would.' 
 
 'I suppose not,' remarked Carr, absently. 
 ' But — but Miss Laura is different.' 
 
 * That her were, but who'd ha' had a notion
 
 DIVINITY TESTED. 209 
 
 of this start, at last V said the countiyman, in 
 an undertone, and with one of those arch, up- 
 ward glances meant to imply so much. 
 
 This instantly recalled Carr, and he looked 
 into the man's face. 
 
 * You'll have heard about it, sir, I count?' 
 
 All Carr's sickening and vague depression of 
 recent days was gathered into that one clouded 
 second during which he stared again at his 
 companion, and said, 
 
 'About what?' 
 
 Before the reply was uttered, he felt the 
 heavens had closed over him. 
 
 * Why, her've married Tom Chatwiu, and 
 gone into foreign parts. 'Em do say as her be 
 a -married, however, but 'twould be hazardous 
 to say which way.' 
 
 'And who is Tom Chatwin?' said Carr, with 
 a composure which under the circumstances was 
 tragical. 
 
 'Master Chatwin's son o' the Knapp. A 
 common labouring man a were, — the father, 
 however, — and the son be'nt much better. No 
 scholar for the like o' she. 'Em tell me as the 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 squire be like to lose his intellects over the con- 
 cern, for a thought a deal o' Miss Laura/ 
 
 * H'm, quite a village romance,' remarked 
 Theodore, looking to the horizon. ' Some of 
 you ought to make a ballad about it.' 
 
 * Well, well,' laughed Warrilow, at what he 
 considered an admirable joke. 
 
 < But Avhen did this happen ?' 
 
 'Last Monday I was a-talking to Miss Laura 
 as it might be to you, sir, at this minute, and it 
 do appear as on Wednesday morning Mr. Vivian 
 got a letter to say that 'em were wed. There 
 is a common report as he followed 'em to 
 Southampton, and had a fight with Tom in the 
 street, but Mr. Vivian be'nt much of a hand, so 
 I doubt, as we say in our plain Gloucestershire 
 way, common report be a liar in this respect. 
 He came home a Saturday night, however, and 
 there have been strange doings up at the Hall, 
 by all accounts.' 
 
 * There must have been,' said Carr, and mut- 
 tering an adieu, he took out his watch and 
 turned away rather abruptly. 
 
 How much of this remarkable story was
 
 DIVINITY TESTED. 211 
 
 worthy of belief, Theodore was not in a condi- 
 tion just now to determine. That something 
 tragical and conclusiye had come over the 
 hopes of his existence his instinct at once knew, 
 and as the tutored soul receives really criti- 
 cal strokes, he accepted it with unfathomed 
 calmness. 
 
 He found Dorothy in the garden cutting the 
 blossom which was to be laid at each place at 
 the table, — a pretty custom of hers whether with 
 or without visitors, — and she was aware of no 
 change in him. Thej went in together, talking, 
 and greeted the artist in the breakfast-room 
 where he was reading the newspaper — the 
 previous day's, come by post. 
 
 ' H'm — sad,' said he, and lowered the paper to 
 take Carr's hand. They exchanged a few words 
 on the visitor's morning observations. 
 
 Dorothy, who had done at the table, asked 
 her father what was sad. 
 
 ' Only one of those tourist accidents,' replied 
 he, ^giving the paper to her ; ' on the Brittany 
 rocks. — That is the normal effect of the east here,' 
 he went on again facing Carr. 'As to the 
 
 p 2
 
 212 TFIE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 sounds, you have to remember that in a mist 
 they travel with especial clearness ' 
 
 Breakfast was served, and they took their 
 places. 
 
 Carr had so far managed to sustain his part 
 well, but when it came to eating, the trial was 
 severe. It seemed physically impossible for him 
 to swallow his food. He tried to talk vivacious- 
 ly in order to disguise the cause of his indifferent 
 appetite. In the artificial enthusiasm to Avhich 
 this at last raised him, he managed to take the 
 plunge before which his soul had been 
 shivering. 
 
 ' By-the-by,' said he, ' this is a singular story 
 about your squire's daughter.' 
 
 The artist's eyes turned rather suddenly upon 
 the speaker, but Carr's placid smile was ready 
 for the gaze. 
 
 ' More light on the enigma,' Mr. Lindred said. 
 * How did you hear of if?' 
 
 ' What, she is the enigma ! — A rustic gossip 
 gave me some picturesque outHnes up the hill 
 this morning.' 
 
 It seemed both to Dorothy and her father that
 
 DIVINITY TESTED. 213 
 
 this was a singularlj^ cynical tone for one who 
 had spoken so ardently in the studio a month or 
 two ago. 
 
 < Is it true that she has married this squire of 
 low degree V 
 
 ' Quite true,' said the artist, going on with his 
 meal and not disguising his disinclination for 
 the talk. * They have gone to the Cape, 1 un- 
 derstand. — But it is an appalHng tragedy.' 
 
 There was something in the artist's voice which 
 Theodore had not before heard and which, find- 
 ing an echo in the depths of his own being, 
 struck him dumb. None of them quite succeed- 
 ed in dispelling the cloud for the rest of the 
 time at table. 
 
 Carr had an uneasy impression that, in his 
 effort to act the worldly part, he had appeared 
 unfavourably before his friends. Since it had 
 been at the cost also of his own most sacred 
 feelings, he was not long in deciding to throw 
 off the mask ; so far, that is, as such candour 
 was consistent with merely a general display. 
 On rising from the table, Mr. Lindred had in- 
 vited him to the studio, so w^ithout scruple Carr 
 made his appearance there.
 
 214 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 'May I see the picture again f he said at 
 once ; and, without hesitation, the artist placed 
 his portrait of Laura where Dorothy had put it 
 before. 
 
 ' You have altered it !' exclaimed Carr, 
 abruptly. 
 
 * Do you disapprove V 
 
 ' Most vehemently.' 
 
 ' In the face of recent development ?' 
 
 'There is possibility — certainty, of crime 
 now, and it is unnatural to such a face.' 
 
 ' I had hoped so more ardently than yourself,' 
 was Lindred's response, 'but the harsh truth has 
 subdued me.' 
 
 ' But what evil has she done — can she possibly 
 do ? — You are mistaken.' 
 
 ' Womanhood is our only ideal possession. In 
 the highest it dwells absolutely inviolable.' 
 
 ' But may not excess of highest womanhood 
 impel to its own apparent violation ?' 
 
 'By no manner of means,' declared the artist, 
 his marvellously calm deep eyes fixed upon 
 Carr, with whose manner and appearance he was 
 now vastly more satisfied.
 
 DIVINITY TESTED. 215 
 
 'But is not love beyond the reach of con- 
 ventional proprieties V 
 
 'Conventional proprieties, yes; but to a 
 rational life it is on the other hand the essential 
 key. Tamper with that, and human existence 
 becomes a devil's farce. 
 
 " If you loved only what were worth your love, 
 Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you." 
 
 All centres in it, and herein the germ of woman- 
 hood lies, jy^e woman cannot love unworthily.' 
 
 ' And has our enigma, then '? You, I know, 
 cannot regard the mere social glove. I know 
 nothing of the man.' 
 
 '1 do not regard the social glove, as you 
 remark, (although, by the way, excellence is 
 mighty apocryphal without it,) but this man is 
 worthless exactly in proportion to your philo- 
 sophical analysis of him.' 
 
 ' Then perhaps she did not love him.' 
 
 ' How so V 
 
 ' Might there not be some other motive for 
 the step r 
 
 Lindred's amazement disconcerted Carr, and.
 
 216 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 imder the impression that he was construed as 
 heaping still more dishonour upon Laura's head, 
 Theodore lost the thought which had flashed 
 over him, and he regarded the picture in silent 
 despair. 
 
 * No, no, my friend, we cannot mend matters, 
 so let us accept them with a sigh, and forget 
 that human nature has once again given us a 
 slip.' 
 
 All power of argument was dead in Carr, 
 although his whole soul rose in rebelHon against 
 this base verdict upon the vision whereon all 
 his recent life was built. 
 
 'You will dispose of that picture?' was all he 
 eaid, with an attempted smile. 
 
 * Impossible. It interests me extremely.' 
 ' Then you will do one for me V 
 
 ' I cannot promise it.' 
 
 The artist was removing the canvas, and, 
 having been placed away in its corner, it was 
 not again referred to during the remainder of 
 Carr's visit. 
 
 There were two more days to be surmounted, 
 no light task in view of the effect of this begin-
 
 DIVINITY TESTED. 217 
 
 ning upon the visitor. Despite the most heroic 
 efiforts, Theodore knew himself to be the most 
 intolerable company, and urged various excuses 
 for shortcomings which others could not see. 
 It is true that it could be easily perceived that 
 he was not especially brilliant, that he fre- 
 quently appeared preoccupied ; but the artist, 
 knowing of the revolution in Carr's commercial 
 and pecuniary affairs (and having, moreover, 
 learnt something of his previous history) was 
 astonished rather at the amount of self-confi- 
 dence he was able to display. 
 
 One or two of the new magazines were of 
 assistance, and in the evening, as Carr chanced 
 to be looking at one, he came across a page of 
 verses signed ' Owen Galbraith.' He thought 
 them good, and drew Dorothy's attention to 
 them. 
 
 ' Odd,' said he ; * that is a man I met recently 
 in the Mediterranean. I crossed France with 
 him, and left him in Brittany.' 
 
 ' With his wife V added Dorothy, looking up. 
 
 'Certainly. How did you know? Do you 
 know him V
 
 218 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 Dorothy did not, but she recalled the fact 
 that such was the name mentioned in the news- 
 paper account of the accident in Brittany the 
 day before. Carr evinced genuine interest and 
 concern, and the newspaper was looked out for 
 his perusal. There could be small doubt of the 
 identity, and Theodore read with peculiarly 
 sympathetic horror that that brilliant, newly- 
 acquired wife was killed. It haunted him 
 throughout the evening, and, as they were 
 parting at bed-time, he announced his deter- 
 mination to leave early in the morning for 
 Brittany. 
 
 Possibly the definite cause of action prompted 
 him as strongly as his wounded sensibility. Per- 
 haps the comparison of his own calamity with 
 that suffered by one to whom he had felt power- 
 fully drawn, prompted a desire for the society 
 of that other. In the morning, at any rate, 
 Carr set off. 
 
 He was in Brittany the following day, only to 
 hear that Galbraith had buried his wife and 
 gone. His disappointment was extreme . . . 
 Whither? ... 'A Londres.' . . . Nothing more
 
 DIVINITY TESTED. 219 
 
 precise could be obtained. However, to Lou- 
 don Carr accordingly pursued ; but, by the time 
 he set foot in the Strand, a change had come 
 over himself, and he no longer felt impelled to 
 discover his afflicted fellow-traveller. 
 
 For the first time for many years the depressed, 
 and to some extent disillusioned, man found, of 
 all places, the dingy streets of Millington the 
 refuge which his soul required. Thither he 
 went that day.
 
 220 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 BACK-WATER. 
 
 Mr. Lindred succumbed to Carr's importunity, 
 and a replica of the ' Fair Enigma' at length 
 adorned the young timber-merchant's wall. 
 There it acquired much of the significance of a 
 shrine to him. 
 
 The extraordinary action of Miss Laura Blaken- 
 hurst naturally excited much comment. So re- 
 mote from philosophic or imaginative impulse is 
 the common mind, that her step was unintel- 
 ligible, save by way of vulgar irregularity of the 
 tender passion. This, when directed to any 
 social discomfiture, is traditionally a crime in 
 woman ; as a crime it was generally imputed to 
 Laura in consequence.
 
 BACK-WATER. 221 
 
 In view of a prolonged transcendental estimate 
 of her, such explanation was, as we have seen,, 
 not sufficient for Carr. Crime in her was for 
 ever impossible, as thunder from a cloudless 
 sky, therefore must some other way be found. 
 
 With this purpose did Theodore devote hours 
 
 of his days to the exhaustive interpretation of 
 
 the enigma ; a task sweet though embittering, 
 
 and one to which he went with irresistible ardour 
 
 whatever the anguish hidden in it for himself. 
 
 Whatever his conclusion of the matter, certain 
 
 it was that as a personal aspiration Laura was 
 
 • 
 dead to him, and never until now had he really 
 
 recognised what a vital source of all his own 
 later effort she had become. At moments it 
 seemed to him that his very life itself had been 
 involved in this chimerical adventure, and that, 
 the crown extinguished, there was no further call 
 for breath. Confused visions of a shattered, 
 wholly frustrate existence assailed him, into 
 which crept gloomy suggestions of the relative 
 merits of the motives whereupon his life had 
 been built. In so unnerved a condition, sensi- 
 tive hints, which had hitherto been easily and
 
 222 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 magnanimously disposed of, assumed the shape 
 of disquieting scruples from which there was no 
 escape. So tyrannical did these shades become, 
 that at length in sheer self-defence Carr plunged 
 again into commercial engagements. 
 
 From them, however, he was not to draw any 
 lasting balm. The uncompromising qualit}^ of 
 his instincts denied him practical refuge of 
 this kind. From sensual pleasures, moreover, 
 he found that he now recoiled, and from all 
 sources of refined enjoyment he was debarred 
 by the insidious glances which lurked within 
 them. Thus it was that irresistibly, from day to 
 day, Carr was thrust further and further towards 
 that vision which had affected him so power- 
 fully, and withal so irreconcilably, in the Bir- 
 mingham by-ways. 
 
 So essential is self-deception to a certain tem- 
 perament, that even yet Theodore confronted 
 that but vaguely. Never had the resolution to 
 find and munificently recompense Saloway and 
 Emily for a moment faded from his mind. With 
 Laura it was to be undertaken by way of crown- 
 ing celebration of his union with her. Laura's
 
 BACK-WATER. 223 
 
 opinioD of her father's behaviour to the revo- 
 lutionary cobbler he had heard from her own 
 lips, there had always seemed therefore an al- 
 luring artistic fitness in his being the agent for 
 redeeming the Blakenhurst family from so gross 
 an imputation, and at the same time restoring 
 poor Saloway to the rights of life. Circum- 
 stances had inevitably affected this motive, and 
 perhaps the tardiness with which he approached 
 the narrow road bespoke a grain of ungracious- 
 ness in his impulse. 
 
 Like a schoolboy w^ho has long toiled over 
 his task unsuccessfully, one morning Carr awoke 
 to find his enigma solved. It might almost seem 
 that he had dreamed it, for the full clear thought 
 possessed him wholly with his earliest conscious- 
 ness. Laura had sacrificed herself. Not in the 
 pursuit of her own selfish, impetuous needs had 
 she flung the world away, as her grosser 
 critics imputed; but deliberately, as a con- 
 scious oblation. He himself had heard her speak 
 of a crusade, though her father should be the 
 Saracen ; this she had found impracticable, 
 therefore had she carried her warfare higher
 
 224 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 against the very nature of things itself. To 
 his clear morning vision this was all-sufficing, 
 and, as an instinctive corollary, Carr found light 
 also for himself. What she had done might not 
 he do also ? For that day the thought haunted 
 and allured him. In the evening he took train 
 to Birmingham, 
 
 As he alighted upon the platform, he almost 
 collided with a man who had issued from the 
 adjoining compartment. 
 
 ' I thought it was you,' said the stranger, by 
 way of apology, and, looking up, Carr was aston- 
 ished by the face of his Mediterranean acquaint- 
 ance Galbraith, whom he had so vainly sought. 
 That was a month ago, yet was there something 
 incongruous to Theodore's mind still in the 
 contented, almost jocular appearance of the 
 afflicted poet. Nevertheless, Carr took the hand 
 and pressed it sympathetically, without any 
 reference to the circumstances of their previous 
 meeting, or his own impulsive pursuit. 
 
 They stood back to have the necessary pre- 
 Hminary conversation after both had acknow- 
 ledged that they were not travelling farther.
 
 BACK-WATER. 225 
 
 In the course of their talk, Galbraith confessed 
 a journalistic object in his visit ; had a paper to 
 do on one of the midland industries ; he was 
 going to a hotel. No pressure was necessary 
 to get him to accompany Carr as a guest at 
 any rate for dinner, and off they went. 
 
 The man of letters was pre-eminently soci- 
 able, although when Carr came to examine him 
 more closely in a bright light he discerned 
 traces of the shock he had sustained. Galbraith 
 looked noticeably older, cast harsher looks upon 
 the world, threw out cynical retorts from time 
 to time, and moreover had absent moments, 
 when the observant Carr detected an under- 
 current which he deemed the habitual vivacity 
 was assumed to hide. Under the companion- 
 ship, Theodore's own spirits began to rise. 
 
 Three days was Galbraith to stay. On the 
 evening of the second, when he came to dinner, 
 instead of finding Carr awaiting him, as had 
 been agreed, a note was there to explain that 
 his friend had been called away on business, 
 and, it was much to be feared, would not be 
 able to see him again before his return to 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 London; but would Galbraith (Carr added) 
 send his town address to Millington, so that 
 they might meet up there when there was 
 occasion fitting. 
 
 Presumably, therefore, Theodore had once 
 more returned to Millington, but such was not 
 actually the case. The exhilaration with which 
 Galbraith's society threatened Carr's sombre 
 instincts had awakened scruples whereby he 
 had been spurred to definite action. He had 
 felt that once more an ignoble temptation was 
 assaihng him just at the moment that he had 
 succeeded in discovering the right path, and 
 momentary vigour enabled him to withstand 
 the assault. 
 
 After writing the explanatory note for Gal- 
 braith, Carr had left the hotel as twilight was 
 falling, and made his way rather hurriedly to 
 the neighbourhood of the market. After look- 
 ing through one or two of the dingy streets 
 about there, he found what he sought, and 
 entered it. This was an old clothes' shop, 
 which proved to be insufferably redolent of 
 coarse leather and fustian. The fat woman
 
 BACK-WATER. 227 
 
 came forward with deference, and Theodore 
 visibly shrank before her panting urbanity. 
 
 ' I want some clothes for a working printer,' 
 began Carr, in a patronising manner, as he cast 
 his eyes over the various garments suspended 
 around him. 'The poor fellow has nothing 
 whatever to come in, so ' 
 
 * Oh, we can fit him, sir — 'ph — 'ph — is he a 
 big man V 
 
 ' About my own size, I should think ; but no 
 doubt you would change any article which — ' 
 
 'With pleasure, sir. I always tries to ^ac- 
 commodate my customers, more partiklerly the 
 poor.' 
 
 Not being wiUing to refine the excruciating 
 torture which he had voluntarily elected to 
 undergo, Carr made no further comment, but in 
 grim silence inspected the articles recommended, 
 and in a very few minutes decided upon a suit 
 which would answer his benevolent purpose. 
 
 * Any boots, sir ?' 
 
 Yes, boots were necessary. 
 ' A hat V 
 
 Carr shuddered. No, at a hat he drew the 
 
 q2
 
 228 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 line. He thought the object of his bounty had 
 one. For the present this would do. In the 
 face of detailed persuasion Theodore grew 
 wroth, and the woman recognized the limit. 
 But as the price asked and obtained covered a 
 large transaction of an ordinary kind, she was 
 well content. With a large brown paper parcel 
 Carr escaped from the suffocating shop, and at 
 the end of the street paused to consider his 
 purpose. 
 
 ' Ay,' soliloquised the fortunate woman in the 
 meantime, as she again regarded her coin, ' if 
 there were a few more o' they practical pherlan- 
 thopists, what a word'ld it would be, to be 
 sure !' 
 
 As a man came along lighting the lamps, Carr 
 moved onwards, and in a minute or two he 
 plunged into a disreputable public-house, over 
 the door of which in the glass of a dark red 
 lamp he had read the sign, 'The Shades.' No 
 Theodore Carr came thence again, but after a 
 short space of time a decent young artisan in 
 his Sunday clothes was hurrying from this street 
 as though fearing detection in so discreditable
 
 BACK-WATER. 229 
 
 a quarter. A man of ragged aud vicious 
 appearance followed him to the corner at a 
 heavy shuffling trot, but as a coin glistened in 
 the lamplight and jingled on the stones, the 
 ruffian snorted and stopped short, whilst the 
 youth had at a run effected his escape, not 
 slackening his pace until he felt pursuit 
 impossible. 
 
 By dint of inquiry, this young man found his 
 way to a certain church which was at no great 
 distance from the low quarter whence we have 
 seen him issue. At the angle of two streets 
 opposite the main gateway of the church, liglits 
 displayed a small newsvendor's window to 
 which the man drew. He glanced at the bills 
 and paper literature exposed there, then moved 
 away. After slowly pacing the pavement sur- 
 rounding the church, he came again to this 
 shop window, and as a child was coming out of 
 the doorway he looked inside. The next 
 moment he also entered. 
 
 ' 1 see you have some lodgings to let,' he 
 said to the man who was reading at the 
 counter. ' May I see them V
 
 230 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 A scrutinizing stare was his first reception, 
 but as though ashamed of so bkint a betrayal of 
 his suspicions, the shopkeeper dropped his eyes, 
 and said, 'Certainly,' adding that it was but 
 one room furnished plainly as a bed-room. 
 
 The housewife of the establishment was 
 called, and the inspection made. 
 
 Civil, middle-aged people these seemed to be 
 upon a closer examination, and, upon the visitor 
 expressing satisfaction with the accommodation 
 and the terms, there was even a suspicion of 
 delicacy in the woman's mode of eliciting per- 
 sonal details of her prospective lodger. The 
 latter on his part met her frankly, and an- 
 nounced himself one Thomas Clarke, a timber- 
 merchant's clerk, out of employment just then, 
 but with sufficient^ funds for some weeks, and 
 prepared to pay every week in advance. The 
 man's behaviour was re-assuring and his pro- 
 posal sound, so that the agreement was con- 
 cluded there and then. 
 
 The newsvendor proved to be a man of some 
 originality of character, and from the outset 
 evinced a strong partiality for his lodger. After
 
 BACK-WATER. 231 
 
 a few days' tentative experience of each other, 
 Clarke boarded wholly with the family, (the man 
 and his wife, that is; there were no children,) 
 and he was given clearly to understand that his 
 company after closing hours was more than 
 acceptable downstairs. If for no other reason, 
 the dogmatic shopkeeper willingly accepted so 
 intelHgent a pair of ears whereinto to pour all 
 the zeal and eloquence of his social and political 
 cranks. The man's central fanaticism was, the 
 land for the people and the people on the land, 
 and nightly would he pursue this topic into all 
 its fiery ramifications through what he etn- 
 phatically called * the stinking miasma of a 
 pestilential slough ' (pronounced sloff) ^ of land- 
 lordism and robbery.' 
 
 But Clarke evidently was not prepared to 
 enter deeply into his friend's ardent specula- 
 tions. He listened admirably, and frankly ad- 
 mitted agreement upon theoretical points, but 
 was in no mood to take part in active propa- 
 gandism. He even decHned to accompany the 
 shopkeeper to meetings of enthusiasts at an 
 adjoining tavern, held every Saturday night.
 
 232 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 where these particular tenets were exhaustively 
 discussed. Indeed, despite the obvious con- 
 geniality so soon established, the newsvendor 
 and his wife were not long in discerning some- 
 thing mysterious in the personality of their 
 lodger. The woman hinted to her husband 
 religious mania, for she asserted that he had 
 attended every service at the church opposite, 
 week-days though they were, that had been 
 celebrated since his arrival. Her explanation, 
 however, received some discredit when the 
 second Sunday morning came, and Clarke did 
 not go out before the bells had stopped. He 
 had gone up to his room presumably to prepare 
 for church, but had not come down again. 
 This was so unexpected that the landlady 
 easily found occasion for some domestic office 
 upstairs. 
 
 Clarke was sitting at his window when the 
 woman knocked, entered, apologized, and with- 
 drew, just as he had been doing since the com- 
 mencement of the church bells. Her movement 
 received no notice from him, and he said no- 
 thing to her apology. His eyes remained fixed
 
 BACK-WATER. 233 
 
 upon the irou gateway through which some 
 time ago the last worshipper had entered, and 
 his face was unusually pale, even haggard. He 
 was still sitting there, more than an hour later, 
 when some children came running from the 
 door in advance of the general congregation. 
 But then he suddenly seized his hat, and went 
 out. 
 
 As though suspecting the eyes of his inquisi- 
 tive landlady, Clarke put the church between 
 him and his dwelling before taking up a position 
 on the pavement to the south. By skilful 
 management he could command therefrom" a 
 tolerably full view of all issuing from the church 
 doorway, even should they turn abruptly round 
 towards the north side of the church. He had 
 stood there but a few seconds when a deep 
 colour suffused the whole of his clean-shaven 
 features, and he altered his position. After 
 looking intently in a certain direction, he darted 
 across to a narrow street opposite and ran, 
 turning again at the first corner to the right. 
 One more turn brought him to a broader 
 thoroughfare along which were coming several
 
 234 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 passengers. He threw his eyes eagerly along 
 the pavement, and then turned round and 
 lingered. After several of the people he had 
 noticed had passed the end of his narrow by- 
 way, he also advanced and walked boldly into 
 the wider street. 
 
 His pace, his movements, and the activity of 
 his eyes now at once showed that his object 
 was to keep certain figures in view, without 
 himself incurring the risk of observation. Owing 
 to the number before him, it could not be im- 
 mediately determined which individual was the 
 object of his scrutiny. When presently, how- 
 ever, he turned off into a less frequented street, 
 the task was easier. From end to end of this 
 street there were only visible a man and a young 
 woman with their backs in Clarke's direction, 
 and a girl coming on the other side towards 
 him. When the latter had passed, he crossed 
 over to her side, and still went forward. 
 
 It was, then, with the movements of the 
 other pair that he was engaged. His eyes now 
 were not permitted to leave them for an instant.
 
 BACK-WATER. 235 
 
 although the distance at which he folloAved was 
 to some extent increased. 
 
 The street was a long, straight one, changing 
 much in quality as it ascended a slope. The 
 houses were smaller, and from being buildings 
 of a mercantile appearance became artisan dwell- 
 ings with a small shop-window here and there. 
 It was in this part that those two figures stopped. 
 Clarke watched them mount the two steps in 
 front of a door which he marked intently, and, 
 as soon as they had entered, he went to that 
 side of the street and walked quickly forward. 
 On the door as he passed it he read the number 
 159, and glancing at the window by its side — 
 the ordinary parlour-window of such a house, 
 with the blind drawm down — he saw at the 
 bottom corner, by the grace of the irregularity 
 of the blind, a portion of a workman's boot. 
 With this ghmpse Clarke passed on, and made 
 his way back to his lodging by another route. 
 
 The following morning Clarke told his land- 
 lady that, as he had not succeeded in finding 
 work, he should have to resume his travels once
 
 236 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 more. The announcement was received with 
 astonishment and frank regret, — even the news- 
 vendor's magniloquent advice was unavailing, — 
 and Clarke took his leave. 
 
 He went direct to Primrose Hill, the street 
 wherein his pursuit had ended the previous day, 
 and in the broad daylight applied for lodgings 
 at three or four of the houses opposite to No. 
 159. At length at No. 80 he succeeded. 
 
 'I shall always pay in advance,' he said to 
 the woman with whom he was dealing, and 
 laying the sum demanded for the first week on 
 the table as he spoke. ' I have to move about 
 a good deal,' added he, 'and may be absent 
 sometimes for some days at a time, but of course 
 that will not affect the payment. I shall want 
 my room to be kept whether I am here or not. 
 In fact, I shall be away to-night.' 
 
 ' Exactly. I had a brother as was a com- 
 mission agent myself,' said the woman, ' so 1 
 know what it is.' 
 
 ' Certainly.' 
 
 Mr. Carr had not been to his timber-office for
 
 BACK-WATER. 237 
 
 some days, but it chanced that he appeared 
 there that evening shortly before the time of 
 closing.
 
 238 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 FROM NO. 159. 
 
 * You do too much at it, maidie,' said Benjamin 
 Saloway to his daughter, as they sat at dinner, 
 for which Emily showed but scant appetite. 
 < Charity be a good thing, we all know, but I 
 can't think as we were ever meant to do injury 
 to ourselves along of it. My father 'd used to 
 talk of old Parson Harrison of Upton, as how he 
 was always there in the day of trial and treated 
 the poor in the best o' ways at all times, but 
 none the less as he kept a tall, stout man to the 
 last, and a was eighty-five when a died.' 
 
 ' I am sure I can believe it, father,' replied 
 Emily, with a smile. ' There is nothing so good 
 for the health as active charity, and it is cer-
 
 FROM NO. 159. 239 
 
 tainly not that which hurts me. I have not got 
 such a strong body as Parson Harrison, that's 
 all. You may be sure that, if I did not do my 
 poor work of charity, I should not be so well as 
 I am.' 
 
 ' Well, well, Emily, you be a queer 'un, I 
 always say.' 
 
 And silence once niofe settled upon them. 
 
 It was a Sunday morning, and Emily had 
 returned home, as it seemed, more than usually 
 exhausted. As a rnle, she accompanied her 
 father to the church of their adoption, but this 
 particular day she had instead been sitting with 
 a sick woman in a squalid court of this more or 
 less particularly squalid parish. On this occasion 
 the young woman spoke literal truth to her father. 
 It was not her charitable labour which affected 
 her appetite and blanched her cheeks. That 
 morning Emily had had a singular and a start- 
 ling experience, for her eyes had tried to make 
 her beheve that once more she had beheld Theo- 
 dore Carr, and under circumstances in them- 
 selves astounding.
 
 240 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 This glimpse, dream, vision, or whatever it 
 was, had had an extraordinary effect upon 
 Emily, and she could not in any case have 
 disclosed to her father the real cause of her 
 disquiet. For one thing, the peculiar quality 
 of the emotion aroused in her was of an un- 
 speakable nature, had there not been other 
 forcible impulses to reticence. Since their 
 flight of more than four years ago, in conver- 
 sation the name of Theodore Carr had not 
 escaped the lips either of father or daughter. 
 
 This, of course, was but small indication of 
 the tenor of their thoughts, for it would not 
 be rash to assert that no day had passed in 
 those years which had escaped them whereof 
 the name of Theodore Carr did not form for 
 both an essential part. The * he will find us ' 
 which had confessedly sustained Emily through 
 the first tragic weeks after their clouded 
 exodus had inevitably become merged in an- 
 other syllabled burden as these weeks had 
 drawn themselves out to months, and these 
 months again to years. Had elemental ques- 
 tion and answer been possible with Emily, as
 
 FROM NO. 159. 241 
 
 she was leaving her home early that Sunday 
 morning, she would doubtless have confessed 
 that that brilHant companion of her sunlit girl- 
 hood had at last sunk into as immaterial a 
 dream for her as any sinking rays of the suu 
 itself which she had gazed on during the same 
 period. It was the sudden desertion of this 
 unexpressed idea that had so unnerved Emily 
 to-day. To her consternation she discovered 
 that that comely figure was indelibly imprinted 
 in the centre of her nature still. 
 
 A host of bewildering questions, too, of a 
 more practical kind overwhelmed her. Granting 
 the occurrence an actual one, Emily could not 
 but persuade herself that Carr's eyes had looked 
 into her own with conscious recognition. What 
 was there involved in it ? Was it the triumph 
 of four years' pursuit of her ? . . . Was it the 
 result of ironical accident ? To Emily's reason- 
 ing the latter at any rate was impossible. Carr 
 had never been a retail dispenser of small 
 personal mercies, therefore not hkely to have 
 developed into a district visitor, even an un- 
 attached one. Again how far and strangely 
 
 vol.. I. R
 
 242 THE SPORT OP STARS. 
 
 removed were these squalid fields of her own 
 choosing from any of the probable haunts of the 
 timber merchant of Millington. No, no, mere 
 accident was impossible ; what alternative there- 
 fore was alone irresistibly presented to her ? . . . 
 Irresistible, probable, passing radiant as it was 
 to her, Emily^s soul sank before the acceptance 
 of it. It was far, far too radiant for such as life 
 had now become to her. Her reason dared not, 
 would not submit to it, without at least some 
 move precise and every-day a confirmation of it. 
 
 But the inflammable train of hope had be- 
 come ignited, a train not easily to be quenched. 
 The heroic efi*ort of years was undermined, and 
 Emily confronted her daily life with a single 
 mind no longer. 
 
 We have had a glimpse of Carr's movements 
 since the startling encounter, and know some- 
 thing of its efi'ects upon him. Radically different 
 as was the source of his emotion, his disquiet 
 was little less than that of Emily. How it was 
 afi'ected or intensified by the course of events 
 at Winwold we need not inquire. Utterly 
 ignoble Theodore Carr was not ; infected by a
 
 FROM NO. 159. 243 
 
 pernicious epidemic of the moment he Hved in 
 he may have been; but some constitution he 
 had beneath it all, and it might well be 
 that his ethic feebleness was due to the 
 ravages of fever rather than of organic disease. 
 Given this relic of sounder things, scoff at such 
 palpable puerilities as we may now do, fate is still 
 sometimes our imperious physician. But it is 
 not with alacrity that we submit to the physi- 
 cian's hand, or even admit the necessity of it. 
 
 From that day Emily found it scarcely possi- 
 ble to hide the change that had come over hoj-. 
 xlssured by her father that he could earn their 
 daily bread, since their establishment in Bir- 
 mingham the girl had, with his consent and, in 
 so far as he was able, with his active co-opera- 
 tion, abandoned herself systematically to a path 
 in life rendered attractive, and under her altered 
 outlook necessary, to a devotional temperament. 
 With this disturbing spirit now again hovering 
 about her she was still unable to make any 
 outward change, but a great nervous strain was 
 put upon her. She could never leave her father's 
 door upon the simplest errand but in tremulous 
 
 R 2
 
 244 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 fear of that alluring spectre. It seemed to 
 rustle in the air and frustrate by its breath her 
 most solid endeavour. She was condemned 
 to turn corners fearfully, and start at the most 
 unlikely encounters. Not highway or byway 
 was secure to her, for go where she would she 
 felt those eyes were constantly upon her. 
 
 But when a fortnight had passed, and she 
 had not known any actual recurrence of 
 the vision, the unrest became less acute. Be- 
 yond a certain point the most sensitive nature 
 cannot go, if it have, that is, any conscious 
 principle of life to be proof against the extrava- 
 gances of hysteria. Emily had such principle 
 in a very pronounced degree, and she became 
 daily more conscious of its efficacy. It must 
 not be supposed that it enabled her to regain 
 what only through the fire of years she had 
 acquired. For that doubtless an increased pro- 
 gression of years would be necessary, and then 
 only providing that no recurrence of the dis- 
 turbing factor should in the meantime assail 
 her. But she at least got nearer to the com- 
 promise of life.
 
 FROM NO. 159. 245 
 
 The immunity from disturbance, however, 
 upon which all her strength depended was not 
 allov/ed her. The third week had scarce elapsed 
 ere another dart out of the obscurity reached 
 her, and all previous effort was undone. 
 
 There was nothing extraordinary in Emily's 
 receiving a letter. Her social activity had made 
 her the recipient of sometimes two or three of 
 a morning, from clergymen, philanthropic ladies, 
 or even needy applicants to whom her propen- 
 sities were now familiar. If her father chanced 
 to take them in, he put them unexamined at a 
 particular part of the mantelpiece to which the 
 daughter's eyes first went upon her entering. 
 So it was this day. It was afternoon, and 
 Emily coming home found two such for her. 
 She was in the room alone, and after examining 
 their exterior she sat down before taking the 
 next step. The handwriting upon one of them 
 was familiar, — of a ghostly ante-natal familiarity 
 touching unfathomable sensations. Poor Emily 
 was tired, and before she could thrust her finger 
 into the envelope she burst into a flood of tears 
 over it.
 
 246 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 When she hrad been able to regain some 
 measure of calm, outward composure at any 
 rate, she opened the letter. She drew out the 
 contents, unfolded them; stared at them with a 
 strange, confused expression of face, and let 
 the rustling paper fall into her lap. It seemed 
 with scant consciousness she fumbled in the 
 empty envelope as though she had missed some- 
 thing, but without effect. Her hands again fell 
 hstlessly into her lap, and her vacant eyes rested 
 upon what had come to her under the mocking 
 guise of a letter. Two five-pound Bank of 
 England notes ! No other word accompanied 
 them. 
 
 A few moments of this vacancy or reflection, 
 whichever it was, sufficed, and Emily placed 
 the money again in its envelope. She then got 
 up, and began to prepare tea for her father. 
 By the time they sat down she had succeeded 
 n removing all traces of her recent emotion 
 from her face. 
 
 When on the following day Emily v^as able 
 to form a calmer estimate of this occurrence, 
 she could not draw much comfort from it. She
 
 FROM NO. 159. 247 
 
 would never have doubted from whom tlie 
 money came, even if she had not recognized 
 the handwriting, and this was where the sting 
 lay. It was not through the medium of coin 
 that she had ever looked for a renewal of in- 
 tercourse with Theodore. If the fact did reveal 
 to her that his eyes had without her knowledge 
 followed her to her home, it also irresistibly pro- 
 claimed how he was altered . . . Could he 
 think that cash was the first thing she wanted 
 of him? That it was only in that that she had 
 lost by the deprivation of his companionship ? 
 Perhaps Emily too had some far-fiway hidden 
 pride in her. The evil of the incident lay in 
 this ; the good, in that it had imparted a day- 
 light reality to that dreamlike vision which had 
 recently harassed her. It is always easier to 
 confront a fact than a fancy. 
 
 The money had been stowed away in a secret 
 receptacle without anything being said to Salo- 
 way about it, and Emily had lived through 
 another week. On the same day — it was Satur- 
 day — Emily found again the same handwriting 
 awaiting her. She opened the envelope more
 
 248 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 resolutely upon this second occasion, and placed 
 the one five-pound note that it contained with 
 the others. The repetition of the experience 
 was to prove that Emily's pride — if pride had 
 been the emotion — was not impregnable. She 
 was awake through the whole of the night suc- 
 ceeding, and in the review which the dark 
 hours prompted she modified her position. We 
 know that Emily's nature irresistibly leaned to 
 charity. Had she not wronged Theodore ? 
 Might not his delicacy rather than the reverse 
 have actuated his behaviour ? A sudden meet- 
 ing would, he knew, be disconcerting ; he had 
 detected her in her benevolent duties, had by 
 indefatigable effort traced her to her home and 
 calling, — was it not rather natural that he 
 should seek a restoration of their intercourse by 
 this surreptitious ministering to her unselfish 
 instincts? Had he not constituted her his 
 almoner rather than his pensioner, — intended 
 these munificent sums for her joy in dispensing 
 gladness to those in misery rather than for any 
 common necessities of her own ? This was far 
 more like him.
 
 FROM NO. 159. 249 
 
 This desired conclusion stood the test of day, 
 and Emily immediately set about dispensing 
 Carr's riches in consequence. Fifteen, twenty, 
 twenty-five, thirty pounds she thus without 
 difficulty disposed of, and another month had 
 elapsed. Then her old scruples revived. Still 
 no word from him ; no further glimpse per- 
 mitted. The cash began to be again put by. 
 
 After six months' regular reception of this 
 five pounds weekly, every note of which had 
 been silently added to the hoard in a box in 
 Emily's bed-room, something further happened. 
 This week the remittance arrived by the morn- 
 iug-post as it sometimes did, and Emily took it 
 upstairs unopened when she went about her 
 household work. In the vague reverie which 
 alone it was now able to arouse in her, she 
 chanced to stand by the window of her 
 room with the envelope in her hand before 
 opening it. She did not know that her eyes 
 were looking out upon the street, that they were, 
 as a matter of fact, resting upon the houses op- 
 posite. It was a wet, cloud}^ morning, and the 
 pavements shone. There were a couple of
 
 250 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 hucksters' carts outside, the discordant voices 
 of the owners audible. After the early depar- 
 ture of the artisan population to their daily 
 labours, there were few other signs of life here 
 through the day, except at meal times. The 
 sound of a street-door, shut loudly, half con- 
 sciously drew her attention, and where she 
 looked her eyes remained. On the opposite 
 pavement a man was raising his umbrella, and 
 in the action he seemed to look directly into 
 Emily's face. As though detected in some 
 crime she shrank back, but the next minute 
 pressed her face against the window-pane to 
 watch to the farthest that departing figure. 
 Unless her reason once again deceived her, she 
 had beheld, for certain feverish seconds, the 
 spectre, Theodore Carr . . . And he must be 
 living there I And why ? 
 
 In an instant all Emily's preconceptions of 
 him were put to flight, and a wave of sympa- 
 thetic affection overwhelmed her. Of every 
 crime of faithlessness and ingratitude did she at 
 once become convicted. By a flash of intuition 
 all the heartless w^orldliness was hers; he the
 
 FROM NO. 159. 251 
 
 centre of all noblest tenderness. Emily's world 
 was altered, and, in the course of the week, her 
 father had to comment on it. 
 
 The money came as usual the following 
 Saturday, and, very soon after its arrival, Emily 
 went out. She passed down her own side of 
 the street for some distance, then crossed and 
 retraced her steps along the other pavement. 
 At the door of No. 80 she stopped, and, what- 
 ever the condition of her nerves, she plied the 
 knocker. Soon a woman came to answer it. 
 
 * Is Mr. Carr at home V 
 
 ' Who's xMr. Carr r * 
 
 ' Doesn't he live here V 
 
 ' Nobody o' that name lives here. Try next 
 door.' 
 
 The door was slammed without ceremony. 
 Emily did try the next door, but her reception 
 was more curt than at No. 80. So she went 
 away in a haze of mystery. 
 
 Watch as she would, Emily could not again 
 recapture that vision which had so disturbed 
 her. The money came as usual, and was put 
 away with the other, whilst Emily grew in the
 
 252 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 firm conviction that long brooding had made 
 her the subject of delusions. With intenser 
 energy she sought the refuge of devotion and 
 works of charity. If at any time what seemed 
 a shadow flitted away from the pavement as she 
 came home in the darkness, she hardly noticed 
 it. Spectres of all kinds began to lose their 
 power over her. 
 
 For two years things thus continued, the 
 money regularly arriving, but not a syllable of 
 explanation to accompany it. The notes had 
 become mere paper to Emily, and the putting 
 them away a pure matter of form. But that 
 the envelopes were still addressed in that known 
 handwriting, she could just as easily have put 
 the money into the fire. Young though she 
 was, Emily had never been robust, and the 
 course of her life began at this time to tell con- 
 siderably upon her health. She had long prac- 
 tised every kind of self-denial, whether in mere 
 resistance of bodily fatigue or in the giving 
 away her own dinner. It became obvious to 
 her father that she was frequently suftering, or, 
 at any rate, far from well. Since her attain-
 
 FROM NO. 159. 255 
 
 ment to womanhood she had painfully struck 
 Saloway by a strong physical resemblance to 
 her mother during her days of trial, and this 
 depressed the cobbler unspeakably. Depression 
 in Benjamin invariably sapped his energies, and 
 perhaps it was partly owing to this that his 
 petty CQmmercial affairs (never of a wide mar- 
 gin of prosperity) went badly with him. The 
 savings from his prosperous days in Millington 
 had for some time been exhausted, and, try to 
 hoodwink himself as he might, it was becoming 
 but too apparent that there was an increasing 
 difficulty in meeting the bare weekly needs. 'It 
 was just at the dawning of this fact definitely 
 upon Saloway that Emily fell ill. 
 
 She was confined to her bed for a week, and 
 the exceptional outlay to which the cobbler was 
 put could leave him in no sort of doubt as to 
 the financial problem. It chanced that on the 
 Saturday afternoon, as Saloway was considering 
 what other article he could conveniently dispose 
 of in order to procure the necessary delicacy 
 for his daughter's Sunday food, the post- 
 man came. The cobbler took the letter in, —
 
 254 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 there was only one, — and contrary to his cus- 
 tom he exanciined the envelope. It was more 
 the heedless play of nervousness than any fixed 
 intention, but in whatever spirit undertaken it 
 was soon serious enough. Benjamin stared at 
 the paper, and trembled from head to foot. 
 Emily, too, in her bedroom had heard the post- 
 man, and she called from upstairs. 
 
 ' Only one, Emily,' said Saloway, as he shuffled 
 into the room. 
 
 She took it from his hand, saw it to be the 
 expected one, and laid it on the counterpane. 
 Then her eyes rose calmly to her father's. 
 Seeing his expression, she read it rightly, and 
 her thin face was suffused with a deep colour. 
 
 * See what he says, father,' said she, pointing 
 to the envelope ; and Benjamin silently obeyed. 
 
 With tremulous fingers he tore it open, took 
 out the five-pound note, which he let fall from 
 his hand, and searched for the more precious 
 document behind. Finding the envelope empty, 
 as Emily too upon her first occasion had done, 
 he looked into his daughter's face, and muttered, 
 
 ' Ne'er a word, maidie.'
 
 FROM NO. 159. 255 
 
 Surprise could no longer assail Emily, so she 
 only smiled ; hut the next moment a tear rolled 
 down her cheek, once again pale, and there was 
 a minute's silence. 
 
 * What be the meaning of it V asked Saloway, 
 as though waking from a dazed condition. 
 
 ' That he never wishes to see us again,' re- 
 plied Emily, with a calm, but firmly uttered 
 conviction, never formulated until that moment. 
 
 The quiet decisiveness took Benjamin aback, 
 for to him this was the first ray of communica- 
 tion across a dark void of expectant years, and 
 so instantaneous a construction of it was rfot 
 in keeping with his own habits of mind. But 
 he had come to have an almost childlike de- 
 pendence upon the mental superiority of his 
 daughter, and he accepted her opinions without 
 question. 
 
 ' Then we can't use this money, Emily, 1 
 count,' was all his comment. 
 
 * No, we can't, father. Give it to me/ 
 There is strange spiritual intercommunion 
 
 between those that live very much and very ex- 
 clusively together, leading to intuitive readings
 
 256 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 of the mind from what were but a vacant page 
 to a stranger. Emily felt a flash of this as the 
 paper passed to her own hand from that of her 
 father, and she looked up at him. 
 
 ' You are not in want of it, father V she asked, 
 quickly. 
 
 ' No, no, maidie, never fear.' 
 
 When dusk fell, Saloway went out shopping. 
 Emily lay reflecting in her bed. 
 
 By the middle of the following week Emily 
 could crawl about again, but her strength re- 
 turned to her slowly. She read much in books 
 of devotion, but would sometimes sit for an 
 hour at a time in listless idleness. It was not 
 Carr now that occupied her attention, but 
 her father. She was unable to rid her mind 
 of that ugly impression which had so unac- 
 countably possessed her. Having once oc- 
 curred, there was so much ready to rush in 
 upon her and confirm the worst. She wondered 
 that certain things could so long have escaped 
 her. When she began to dust the rooms again, 
 she missed sundry articles long familiar to her, 
 but dared not put any inquiry. Long immersed
 
 FROM NO. 159. 257 
 
 in her own absorbing topics, she had scarcely 
 given a practical thought to the common 
 problem of her own existence. The small sums 
 necessary for so humble an establishment had 
 alwa^^s been forthcoming, with even modest 
 contributions to her charitable fund upon oc- 
 casion. That this should be altering was natur- 
 ally not easy of immediate comprehension. 
 
 But upon the brink of so startling an emerg- 
 ency Emily did not linger long. She was re- 
 solved to spare her father the anguish of another 
 explanation, so she formed her own conclusions 
 and laid her own plans in complete independence 
 of him. One morning, when her strength per- 
 mitted it, she went out. 
 
 Emily's efforts proved successful, and with the 
 aid of a philanthropic lady with whom her 
 charitable work had brought her in contact, she 
 at once obtained employment. This was at a 
 wholesale stationery establishment where Emily 
 became merged in the ranks of those who 
 gummed and folded envelopes. But the con- 
 sciousness of the needful increment would have 
 sustained her through very much worse than 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 this. Indeed, her health showed definite im- 
 provement under it, and life soon accommodated 
 itself to the new channel. Thenceforth only 
 on Sundays and after working hours did Emily 
 find time for her works of mercy, but No. 159 
 was rescued, and therein Emily could discern 
 mercy enough.
 
 259 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 IN THE BALANCE, 
 
 One windy September night, with gusts of rain 
 dashing against his face, Clarke trudged wean- 
 ly along the pavement of Primrose Hill towards 
 his lodgings at No. 80. Upwards of two years 
 now had he retained this room, and he had fre- 
 quently to confess to himself that it had not 
 supplied him with all that he had wished from 
 it. The man had been conscious latterly of 
 increased repugnance for the locality and all 
 that it implied in life ; a feeling which, as now, 
 rose sometimes to a height of intolerable 
 loathing. 
 
 Let the rain beat as it might, he was unable 
 
 s2
 
 260 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 to turn into his shelter. He strode along the 
 interminable pavement, fleeing from he scarcely 
 knew what, seeking that which he could define 
 no better. The negative possessed his veins, 
 veins which were adapted only to a very defi- 
 nite afiirmative. There Avas nothing exceptional 
 in his disorganized condition ; the exception 
 merely lay in his inability to neutralize the 
 mischief by a homoeopathic dose of artificial 
 sensation. 
 
 In a world of practical endeavour, whose eye 
 tips a nose of faultless projection, momentary 
 indecision is viewed with contempt ; a two 
 years' indecision doubtless with boisterous vili- 
 fication. For upwards of two years had it been 
 Clarke's daily intention to call at No. 159 oppo- 
 site, and it was an intention still. 
 
 At length by the side of a lamp-post Clarke 
 stopped, and looked consciously forward into 
 the dim perspective stretching endless before 
 him. To his present state of mind it suggested 
 the grimmest of vistas, and he recoiled from it. 
 Too possibly it reflected the chaos of his own 
 soul, a prospect upon which he could never
 
 IN THE BALANCE. 2(il 
 
 dwell with much delight. With the same kind 
 of impulsive movement that had characterized 
 his steps hitherto, the man suddenly crossed the 
 street, and set off on his return journey down 
 the other pavement. 
 
 Without the slightest hesitation he stopped 
 in front of No. 159. There was no light in any 
 of the windows, but he did not at first notice 
 that. He stepped up to the door and knocked. 
 As there was no response, he repeated the 
 summons louder. This still remaining un- 
 answered, he cast his eye over the front of the 
 building and noticed it was dark. The window 
 of the house adjoining was a-light, so he knock- 
 ed at that door. Yes, Mr. Saloway did live at 
 No. 159. There was nobody in, then. That 
 was possible, for the father went out every 
 evening, and since the daughter had gone to 
 work she was ne^'er in before eight o'clock, 
 sometimes later ; but would he leave a message ? 
 
 ' The daughter goes out to work, does she V 
 he asked, in astonishment. 
 
 'Yes, sir,' — Clarke was in his best clothes, 
 and looked pre-eminently respectable although
 
 262 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 wet, — * has done for two or three mouths.' 
 ' Thank you, I needn't leave a message. 1 — 
 I'll call again.' 
 
 The visitor went some distance down the 
 street, then returned directly to No. 80. 
 
 When in the light of his own room the ex- 
 pression of Clarke's face denoted unmistakable 
 anger. There was a promptitude apparent, too, 
 in his movements with which these walls were 
 not familiar, and which seemed to astonish the 
 landlady when she appeared, anxious to know 
 his wishes. Upon the table were gathered 
 several of his personal possessions from the 
 walls and mantel-piece, and into a box which 
 had always been stowed away under a side 
 table he was in the act of packing his books. 
 
 ' Yes, I shall want some tea . . . And, Mrs. 
 Ellis, I shall have to leave to-night. For good, 
 1 am afraid. Of course I shall pay you for a 
 month's notice. I have to go to Manchester.' 
 ' Lor, Mr. Clarke, I'm sorry to hear that.' 
 ' Yes, I'm sorry, but it seems inevitable.' 
 After a few more words the woman went to 
 make the tea, and Clarke resumed his packing.
 
 IN THE BALANCE. 263 
 
 His resolution did not again desert him. 
 Through all the months that Clarke had con- 
 templated that house opposite, not once until 
 this moment had he regarded it with other than 
 sympathy and solicitude. He had paced before 
 it in the darkness, (fleeing from the vaguest 
 shadow that approached its doorway,) and 
 watched it by the hour from the security of his 
 ctirtained window, weaving all sorts of tender 
 fancies about the unsuspecting inmates, and 
 investing them with all the idyllic halo of an 
 ideal future : and the mere discovery that the 
 daughter worked could in an instant change all 
 that. It can hardly be supposed that Clarke re- 
 sented work as derogatory to his ideal of human- 
 ity, but whatever his interpretation of it the re- 
 sult was as stated. He was angry. His disgust 
 with the locality, with the purpose for which he 
 sought it, and with the whole phase of life that 
 it implied, was complete. He could resist it no 
 longer, and flight was an imperative need. 
 When the tea was laid, he had done his pack- 
 ing. His meal was a pretence. He thrust 
 some of the bread into his pocket to make be-
 
 264 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 lieve that he had eaten it, daubed the uncleaned 
 knife with butter in obvious disgust, and mixed 
 some tea in his cup. For the few minutes that 
 he would have been engaged he stared about 
 the vulgar appointments of the room and mut- 
 tered audibly. 
 
 A quarter of an hour later the wheels of a cab 
 were heard rattling over the stones of Primrose 
 Hill, an unusual sound for that locahty, and then 
 all was left to the wind and rain again. 
 
 II. 
 
 For some time Carr's world had deemed his 
 behaviour uncommonly erratic. In view of his 
 extraordinary good fortune at so early an age, 
 this did not in itself exactly excite surprise ; 
 what chiefly occasioned comment was the air of 
 mystery that seemed to hang over his youthful 
 errantries. The courses of the ordinary mortal 
 under such enviable circumstances can be fore- 
 seen with some measure of exactness, as they 
 generally lie over one or other of the very well- 
 beaten tracks. In Carr's case this was not seen 
 to be so, irregularity in his attendance at busi-
 
 IN THE BALANCE. 265 
 
 ness being the only apparent point at which he 
 touched the common route. When he fled 
 abroad, it was rumoured that he had started a 
 yacht ; this collapsing, he was made the purchaser 
 of the parish of Winwold, and the intention of 
 inaugurating a new race of squires there was at 
 once attributed to him. This in its turn had to 
 give way to the haze of indeterminate specu- 
 lation. 
 
 The fact was that, directly, nothing was 
 popularly known of Carr and his propensities, for 
 he played no social part, and could number his 
 friends on the fingers of one hand. That "he 
 was a fine-art connoisseur was of course 
 generally accepted, but none of his colossal 
 purchases were publicly chronicled, so that there 
 was no ground for supposing that he was 
 developing this. 
 
 Carr himself was in the meantime no less 
 mystified than the most envious of his neigh- 
 bours. Bluntly confronted with the question, 
 he could not have told you what he was doing. 
 From a life of definite purpose and high en- 
 deavour he had at a plunge become immersed in
 
 266 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 a welter of indecision and uncertainty. At 
 particularly lucid moments he would ponder the 
 fact, and shudder at it. There was something 
 on his mind that he wanted to do, of that he 
 was intolerably conscious, but not for the life of 
 him could he carry it into action. Yawning 
 gulfs opened before him when he raised his foot 
 upon what seemed solid road to him, and for 
 immolation in gulfs Theodore had never known 
 any faculty. Thus it was that the raised foot 
 came to be continually drawn back again. 
 
 Two friends, indeed, Carr had by this time 
 acquired, but neither seemed to be of any assist- 
 ance to him at this juncture. These were Lin- 
 dred, the artist, and Galbraith, the literary man ; 
 two natures of very different calibre, but each 
 making definite appeal to something in Theo- 
 dore's nature. To Winwold he occasionally 
 still went for a Sunday : the conjunction with 
 Galbraith in London had been made and con- 
 tinued. But the fact was that Theodore Carr 
 was one of those afflicted mortals (significantly 
 increasing in our day) condemned to the desert 
 of essential solitude. They may number friends,
 
 IN THE BALANCE. 267 
 
 but they expand not ; the heart-strings being 
 constricted by the chill oversight of intellectual 
 scruples. Intercourse becomes a tragically 
 superficial matter. With the exception of Laura 
 Blakenhurst, Carr had not set eyes on the mortal 
 to whom he could reveal his soul. 
 
 In this period of tribulation, Carr naturally 
 leaned rather to the nomadic Galbraith than to 
 the placid and stationary Lindred. The vaga- 
 bondage and versatility of the contemporary 
 imaginative nature (fairly typitied in Galbraith) 
 appealed strongly to momentary sensations of 
 revolt which characterised this transitional 
 period in Carr. Aware of nothing disgraceful in 
 Galbraith, even according to the most antiquat- 
 ed standards, still was there an engaging eman- 
 cipation in his habits of action and of thought 
 which to Theodore's restricted experience of real 
 life came with all the pleasure of discovery. By 
 the countenance which it gave to recent im- 
 pressions in himself, it added a new dignity to 
 impulses which he had formerly regarded with 
 more or less dismay. 
 
 Late one wet September night, Carr arrived in
 
 MS THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 Millington from one of his mysterious journeys, 
 and as it was too late for a visit to his timber- 
 yard he went directly to his rooms. Judging 
 by his looks and actions he was not in the best 
 of moods, and he regarded a pile of letters 
 awaiting him with audible impatience. By a 
 dash of the hand he spread them, like one 
 might do a pack of cards, and from the lot his 
 eye quickly selected one only. This he at once 
 tore open. 
 
 ' Dear Carr,' — it ran, — 'I came to Wolver- 
 liampton on Friday by the ten a.m. from Pad- 
 dington. May I hope for your company in an 
 interesting exploration? Yours, 
 
 ' Owen Galbraith.' 
 
 It was now Thursday. Carr went to town by 
 the sleeping car on the mail train a couple of 
 hours later, and the next morning he met Gal- 
 braith at Paddington. They travelled to Wolver- 
 hampton in company, and, after a couple of 
 exhilarating days there, Theodore took his friend 
 with him to MilKngton. 
 
 They arrived in the evening, and dinner was 
 ready for them. When Carr came from his room
 
 IN THE BALANCE. 269" 
 
 be gave a glance at the dinner-table, gave a 
 few words of instruction to the maid, and then 
 went himself to fetch up the wine. On re-en- 
 tering the dining-room, he did not for an instant 
 see Galbraith, then his eye became aware of the 
 back of him. The poet had immediately detected 
 some good paintings on the walls, and had been 
 engaged with one of them before Carr's entrance. 
 
 ' Now, sir You approve of that V 
 
 ' It is by no common artist,' said Galbraith, 
 coming towards the table. 
 
 Carr laughed acquiescence, and before taking 
 his seat, put light to a lamp which was evidently 
 suspended and shaded with the sole object of 
 throwing light upon the one picture they had 
 referred to. It consequently afforded the first 
 topic of conversation. Garr descanted volubly 
 on the merits of the artist in question ; Galbraith 
 on the purely artistic merits of the picture. 
 
 ' My only objection would be,' added the latter 
 at one point, ' that there is just a trace of vin- 
 dictiveness in the artist, the result probably of 
 lack of appreciation of the real character of the 
 original.'
 
 270 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 ' You think so V laughed Can*. ' Not arising 
 from disappointed affection V 
 
 ' I should say not, but it might be either.' 
 
 ' I believe you were right at first ; the latter 
 it can hardly be in view of Lindred's age and 
 placid philosophy. I think, as you say, the real 
 character is not exactly to his standard, and so 
 he has unduly emphasized certain traits. As a 
 matter of fact, the lady is now married and gone 
 abroad. He is disappointed in her.' 
 
 ' They of the old dispensation might be ; that 
 woman is for the future.' 
 
 Carr ruminated this remark in silence, his 
 commonplace word or two not really breaking 
 it. A few minutes later he interposed the 
 remark, 
 
 * Then there is antagonism between the old 
 and the future*?' 
 
 ' The everlasting one between light and 
 darkness.' 
 
 Carr did not contest the assertion, but it gave 
 him food for reflection at such moments as he 
 was alone. The thought had vaguely occurred 
 to him before in the course of his development.
 
 IN THE BALANCE. 271 
 
 and Avith particular reference to the relative 
 temperaments of Theodore Carr and Laura 
 Blakenhurst ; but he had not put it so dog- 
 matically. Lindred he knew was of another 
 opinion. As the wine circulated, Carr favoured 
 Galbraith and Laura. The acceptance of the 
 poet^s dogma undoubtedly stimulated his host's 
 conversation, a certain recklessness being ap- 
 parently necessary for Carr's fullest intellectual 
 play. A brilliant evening was passed over cigars 
 and Theodore's artistic collections. 
 
 Galbraith had two days at his friend's service, 
 and a visit to Winwold was agreed upon. Be- 
 fore leaving in the morning, Carr went to his 
 office, as he did at sufficiently frequent intervals, 
 to enable him to keep in touch with the reins of 
 commercial activity there, and it chanced that 
 he found one of his partners in the act of setting 
 oJBf to find him, or at least discover if he were at 
 home. By way of explanation, a business letter 
 was put into his hand, which, to Carr's astonish- 
 ment, was dated from the * Five Gables, Win- 
 wold.' It was brief, and merely requested a 
 private interview with Mr. Carr upon an im-
 
 272 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 portant commercial transaction, being subscribed 
 by 'Yours faithfully, George H. Hascard.' 
 
 * Yes, I know him by repute, — a speculative 
 soHcitor. He has recently gone to live there ; 
 but why should he write on business from his 
 private residence, and on Sunday?' 
 
 However, Carr was going to Win wold, and 
 undertook to attend to the matter. He was of 
 course accustomed now to commercial sohci- 
 tations in his capacity of prominent capitalist. 
 
 Once away, Carr did not make so hght of 
 the occurrence as he had affected to do. Any- 
 thing connected with Winwold disquieted him 
 still, and he had not mentioned a fact with which 
 he was familiar, namely, that this same Hascard 
 was the family solicitor of Squire Blakenhurst. 
 This might be of slight or no significance, but 
 to Theodore's present mood it was considerable. 
 
 This he dismissed for the moment, and in a 
 state of apparent exhilaration he sped with his 
 companion across the autumn country, glory- 
 ing in the golds and greys that the placid land- 
 scape so lavishly presented. The three or four 
 miles from Gosstall station, spanning the upland
 
 IN THE BALANCE. 273 
 
 pastures which rose around the village of Win- 
 wold, they had arranged to walk. At noon 
 they alighted on the quiet platform, the little 
 station embodying itself for them in the rank 
 of black frost-bitten dahlias and tall sun-fiowers 
 with faces down which skirted the long white 
 palisade. It was a clear, sunny, shadowy day, 
 with scarce a breath of wind ; snow-white 
 crested clouds sailing majestically over bluest 
 space. Both of the travellers felt the influence 
 of the scene, and they took the road blithely. 
 
 Around them lay a picturesquely wooded 
 landscape, of some diversity of outline, backed 
 by stretches of bare open wold in the direction 
 in which they walked, whereon a grey stone 
 barn, a fir-tree or a beech, stood out clearly 
 amongst the geometrical lines of wall. Their 
 own road passed between that fir clump on the 
 farthest ridge, in which at this distance the 
 passage appeared as a little cut against the 
 blue sky. Carr at least felt younger here. The 
 placidity of the sunlit country road fell as a 
 balm upon his soul. The artificial stress of life 
 was not obtruded upon his sight. All sorts of 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 other healthier ideals could be for the moment 
 harboured and sustained, finding sanction in all 
 the silent fragrant influences which every leaf 
 and blade exhaled. As a consequence bespoke 
 but little. A magpie that flew chattering away 
 could instantly dispel a topic. 
 
 Very little of directly human suggestion did 
 they encounter on the way. For some distance 
 it was a green-margined road with hedges of 
 blackberries and rose hips on either side, and 
 ash and beech leaves scattered over the surface. 
 Under a horse-chestnut tree Galbraith would 
 stop to pick up the cracked prickly husks and 
 extract the mahogany white-tonsured nuts from 
 then' cosy beds. In a quarry opening from the 
 roadside, the exhausted half of which was a 
 sombre grove of tall silent larch-trees, an ancient 
 and sohtary labourer was at work ; another was 
 breaking stones by a wall skirting a turnip- 
 field ; a robin sang from a bush of clematis ; a 
 wheeling kestrel uttered its deceptive plaint; 
 and then from that ridge towards which from 
 the first they had been aiming, the village of 
 Winwold lay just before them, on the wooded
 
 IN THE BALANCE. 275 
 
 dope leading to still further ridges beyond. 
 
 Here Carr halted to display his prospect : a 
 prospect which still he could never behold with- 
 out a peculiar thrill of deep proprietary emotion. 
 Galbraith was astonished. The richness of the 
 land surprised him, the bare stony uplands end- 
 ing almost abruptly where he stood. There 
 were luxuriant pastures before him ; fine trees 
 in the brilliance of every variety of autumn hue, 
 and stubble on which stood shocks of grain still 
 to be carried. After interchange of appropriate 
 enthusiasm, they went on. Having descended 
 the slope, they entered the irregular street of 
 grey stone gabled and mullioned cottages, 
 many overgrown with various creepers, and 
 each with its garden of hollyhocks, chrysanthe- 
 mums, and sunflowers, and came to the ^ Frog 
 Mill Inn,' which fronted the spacious village 
 green, in the centre of which was a shattered 
 elm-tree, the gnarled, cleft, decapitated old 
 trunk alone possessing one great arm stretched 
 out pathetically towards the heavens. 
 
 After partaking of such homely fare as the 
 inn could afford, and for which their walk had 
 
 T 2
 
 276 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 made them ready, Carr took his friend off to see 
 Mr. Lindred. On arriving at Farbarrow, how- 
 ever, they found to their disappointment that 
 the artist was in Orkney, so they had to spend 
 the afternoon in another walk on their own 
 account. They took the * Five Gables ' in their 
 course, and Carr learned that Mr. Hascard 
 would be at home to dinner at seven, whereat 
 it would give him pleasure to have the company 
 of Mr. Carr : an invitation which was as gra- 
 ciously accepted. 
 
 When in the evening accordingly Galbraith 
 was left alone, he sought the diversion of the 
 vernacular conversation which he heard pro- 
 ceeding in the common room of the inn, where 
 some half-a-dozen countrymen were assembled. 
 Immediately before his entry, it chanced that 
 he himself, as the unkoown companion of Mr. 
 Carr, had been the subject of discussion. 
 
 *A artist, Gearge,' had been the verdict of 
 one of the observers in the company. 
 
 *To be sure, I could see that in his hair, 
 Thomas, in a minute. But a civil-spoken man 
 a be, quite.'
 
 IN THE BALANCE. 277 
 
 ' Quite so. It be iincommou strange 
 what ' 
 
 As the door opened and Galbraith walked in, 
 all faces were turned upon him in silence, and 
 there was a murmured response to his ready 
 greeting. He took one of the wooden chairs 
 and drew it up to the settle. 
 
 ' Plenty of room, don't move,' said he. * Got 
 a match?' so he put a light to his pipe. 
 
 Galbraith entered with gusto into the spirit 
 of the place, talking affably upon every sort of 
 local topic. The story of the squire and his 
 family he had soon elicited, and, when he hear^ 
 it, he fancied that his friend Carr had displayed 
 some reticence in his casual references to it. 
 Blending with the idyllic atmosphere which, 
 throughout the day, had so pleasantly im- 
 pressed him, the poet o\v"ned a singular fascina- 
 tion in this mouldering Winwold, and its imag- 
 inative capabilities began actively to assert 
 themselves. For the hours ensuing he gave 
 himself up unreservedly to their influence. 
 
 The clock had struck ten when Carr returned, 
 and, as his companions had departed, Galbraith
 
 278 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 was found reclining in the settle, in amicable 
 conversation with the landlady's daughter. Carr 
 joined them with a thoughtful countenance, 
 which his best efforts were not able altogether 
 to lighten. 
 
 The enterprising Hascard had, for some time, 
 sought a favourable opportunity of bringing 
 himself to young Carr's notice. The oppor- 
 tunity had come, not quite in the manner that 
 he had expected, but, since he was not a man 
 of any inconvenient degree of sensibility, it 
 would serve as well as (perhaps, he thought, 
 better than) another. He received Carr with 
 well-bred cordiality, but not until they were 
 alone with cigars in his study did the lawyer 
 broach the particular subject of the hour. 
 
 ' You haven't made the personal acquaintance 
 of our squire, Mr. Carr?' 
 
 Carr had not ; had not understood that there 
 was hkely to be any compatibility between their 
 respective worlds. 
 
 ' No, no, I think not. He is quite an old 
 stager. But one must feel sympathy for the 
 old man. That remarkable escapade of his
 
 IN THE BALANCE. 279 
 
 daughter has quite unhinged him. He would 
 have sacrificed all the rest of his family to retain 
 her.' 
 
 'H'm . . .• 
 
 * I sometimes think that he has closed his 
 account with life through it . . . His reckless- 
 ness amounts to lunacy.' 
 
 * Financial recklessness?' 
 
 ' That is all which my profession, takes cog- 
 nizance of,' smiled the lawyer. 'It is gross in- 
 justice to Vivian, the heir, but my best efforts 
 are unavailing. I once suggested a full dis- 
 cussion with Mr. Vivian about the state of affairs 
 — I thought I had committed apoplectic mur- 
 der. It is no breach of confidence to tell you 
 that he threatened to transfer the whole of his 
 affairs to another adviser if Vivian got so much 
 as wind of his affairs. What can one do ? In 
 other hands matters would be hopeless. The 
 fact is, he is now intent upon disposing of the 
 timber. If I decline to do the negotiations, he 
 will himself do it surreptitiously, and heaven 
 only knows into what hands he will fall.' 
 
 ' What, he wants to dispose of the timber to
 
 280 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 be felled,' exclaimed Carr, rising in his chair, 
 * all the timber — here V 
 
 ' Such is his serious proposal.' 
 
 ' But why doesn't he sell the estate rather ? 
 What is it worth without the trees ?' 
 
 Hascard shrugged his shoulders, and eyed 
 Carr through the smoke which he had driven 
 from his lips. Carr himself was, as by some 
 magic process, transported to the green re- 
 cesses amidst the lower boughs of one of the 
 trees referred to, and, for an extensive dealer in 
 the commodity, certainly admitted a very senti- 
 mental vein of reflection. It was the lawyer's 
 business to divine his guest's attitude, and turn 
 it to his own account accordingly. This Mr. 
 Hascard was able to do with greater ease than 
 he had thought probable. The fact was that 
 Carr's sensation was too genuine to admit of 
 disguise, even if he had been minded to attempt 
 it. The proposal came to him with all the ve- 
 hemence of a personal calamity. 
 
 *But can't the man be brought to see the 
 
 gross absurdity ' 
 
 ' That would be its greatest recommendation.'
 
 IN THE BALANCE. 281 
 
 * Then, if he is mad, can't the law restrain 
 him from acting V 
 
 ' We couldn't prove absolute dementia,' 
 laughed Hascard. 
 
 ' Evidence does not seem wanting . . . But 
 of course I should be prepared to treat.' 
 
 ' Ha, you would ? Armed with that assur- 
 ance I shall feel satisfied, so far as one can in 
 such a deplorable case. If you can surrepti- 
 tiously form an estimate of the value of the 
 timber it would be kind. Should the squire 
 come across checkered poles and note-books 
 upon his estate, the consequence would, I a*m 
 convinced, be tragical. He himself will com- 
 municate with you direct : it may be in a month, 
 it may be in twelve. Such is his condition.' 
 
 The few moments' reflection had presented 
 things in a still stronger light to Carr, and he 
 began to fear that he had not made his own 
 ground strong enough. 
 
 ' I will undertake to do it secretly,' he said, 
 with more animation. ' I will do it myself, in 
 fact. It shall not be done through my office ; 
 so will you address in future to my private
 
 282 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 residence ? You understand I should not like 
 the transaction to escape me. so you may cal- 
 culate upon rather more than strictly commercial 
 dealings. I would go to the utmost possible 
 value, so long as I indemnify myself from ' 
 
 ' To be sure, to be sure, — no actual loss. 
 You are generous, Mr. Carr. You will pardon 
 my saying that report had prepared me for 
 delicacy of this kind from you. I don't care 
 for business after dinner, so let this suffice. 
 You can spare us the night? I have an en- 
 gagement in Millington in the morning, and 
 we might ' 
 
 Carr interposed his engagement at the * Frog 
 Mill' 
 
 ' Then an hour or two. Shall we go into 
 the drawing-room ? I always like to end the 
 day • 
 
 And the gentlemen exchanged the dense at- 
 mosphere of commerce and tobacco fumes for 
 the fragrant presence of Mrs. Hascard and her 
 daughter Gwendoline. 
 
 The next morning, contrary to his wont, Carr 
 slept late, and, what was equally unaccustomed,
 
 IN THE BALANCE. 283 
 
 Galbraith was up half-an-hour before sunrise. 
 The poet had projected a magazine paper upon 
 the awakening of the sun which the idyllic cir- 
 cumstances had prompted in him, and accord- 
 ingly, at the moment registered by the calendar 
 for that suggestive phenomenon, Galbraith was 
 stationed at the White Lad^^'s Clump, a pic- 
 turesque group of beech-trees crowning the 
 ridge, to take his observations. When Carr 
 came down to breakfast he heard with some 
 surprise of his friend's expedition, and of the 
 fact that the gentleman wished Mr. Carr to begin, 
 as he was writing in his bed-room and might be 
 some little time. Just as Carr was finishing 
 what had at best been an apology for a break- 
 fast, Galbraith came in hilariously to join him, 
 with a letter for post in his hand. 
 
 The words, the ink whereof was as yet scarcely 
 dry, were these : 
 
 'The "Frog Mill Inn," 
 
 ' Winwold, Gloucestershire. 
 
 ' Dear , 
 
 ' Is the enclosed of any use to you ? 
 It is not bunkum, and has been literally this
 
 284 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 moment written at the seat of sunrise and under 
 its direct inspiration. 
 
 * The man Carr of whom I spoke to you has 
 done me a considerable service by bringing me 
 to this place, the very name of which aptly re- 
 veals to you some of its brave qualities. It 
 is exactly the spot I have wanted for occasional 
 rusticatioQ, and to show you that I am in earnest 
 I may tell you that I have just secured a cottage 
 here on a seven years' lease. Grey lichen ed 
 stone, with two gables to the front, which 
 from foundation to roof is overgrown with ivy, 
 honeysuckle, clematis, roses, and another thing 
 which is just now a blaze of scarlet berries. A 
 flower garden, kitchen garden, and some half 
 acre of green orchard. For this, fifteen pounds 
 per annum ! But you shall see it. 
 
 *If you want any rustic articles now and 
 then you know where to turn. I shall be up 
 day after to-morrow, so address to 49. 
 
 * Yours, 
 
 ' 0. G.' 
 
 Carr received his friend's enthusiastic an-
 
 IN THE BALANCE. 285 
 
 noTincement without any corresponding fervour. 
 Indeed, had Theodore been able to reveal his 
 mind, a very complex state of emotion would 
 have been discovered there. He was somewhat 
 preoccupied, it is true, but that did not prevent 
 a very positive turn of feeling in him. In 
 plain terms he resented this action of Gal- 
 braith. 
 
 Despite the abdication of the divinity, Win- 
 wold was still more of a creed to Theodore than 
 he would have been willing to admit. All his 
 relationship with the locality was of an extreme- 
 ly serious and emotional kind, too deep for apy 
 disturbance from surface ruffling, and to see 
 another hghter temperament able to step in and 
 enjoy the cream, so to speak,from very idleness, 
 irritated Carr. The jealousy of extreme sus- 
 ceptibility was no doubt at the root of the 
 sensation ; intolerance of any more frivolous con- 
 ception of existence than he was himself possess- 
 ed of. Without his in the least suspecting it, 
 Carr's temperament was profoundly and insur- 
 mountably religious, however indeterminate the 
 dogmas whereon it was founded. In Galbraith,
 
 286 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 as in the general intelligence of his moment, 
 the religious faculty was adulterated to non- 
 existence. Perhaps only by this particular 
 juncture could Theodore have learned where 
 such subtle antipathies joined issue. 
 
 The discovery, however, was of course only 
 for his own benefit, and a short time enabled 
 him to accommodate himself to his friend's re- 
 quirements. The morning was spent in what 
 remained to complete the poet's bargain, and 
 Carr was able to sustain it without any flagrant 
 betrayal of his condition. When they wander- 
 ed over the country, he talked much of the trees 
 with a highly poetical rather than a commercial 
 suggestion, and when not speaking of them 
 his eyes seemed to dwell upon very Httle else 
 in the landscape. Just as his coming, so was 
 Galbraith's departure, an infinite relief to Theo- 
 dore, and when again alone he spent two reflec- 
 tive days in the silent byways of Winwold. 
 
 He seemed in those two days to regain several 
 of the threads which his recent life had entirely 
 lost. His soul returned to the devotional aspect
 
 IX THE BALANCE. 287 
 
 of the mere universe ; to the inspiring natural 
 attributes of mother earth. Once again he 
 sought out the Swinging Tree, that great um- 
 brageous wych-ehn from whose recesses he had 
 looked out upon the generous enthusiasm of 
 Laura, the logical prosecution of which he him- 
 self could never doubt to be the only rational 
 explanation of her later errantries. The leaves 
 which had so kindly screened him were now 
 thin and mellow, but he climbed up to his old 
 shelter, and by force of association, (always 
 peculiarly powerful in him,) recalled the hap- 
 pier dispensation of those former days. The 
 buoyant Carr was conscious of supremest failure 
 in all that he had held the crown of life whilst 
 being at the same time conscious that his life 
 had hardly yet begun. Until he had seen 
 Laura he had barely known the meaning of 
 solitude, (save for that momentary but indelible 
 impression at his mother's death) ; having seen 
 her he had found the ideal antidote to the sting 
 which she had herself occasioned ; having lost 
 her, the poison had found a free current through
 
 288 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 his veins, to the stemming of which all his 
 feverish vagaries had contributed little more 
 than the hollowest of mockeries. The wealth, 
 whereto as means he had attached so exclusive 
 an importance, was his in undreamed-of abun- 
 dance, and its golden teeth rattled ironically in 
 the jaws which had expanded into that broad 
 and ghastly grin. He found that he was solitary 
 still. 
 
 Trees, like waves, have a remarkable faculty 
 of attuning their notes to the heart-strings of 
 the hearer : scarcely the platitude which insensi- 
 bility may adjudge it, since the lesser chords of 
 Nature are constant, for dule or for joy. Carr 
 had learned this before, in effect if not by con- 
 scious examination. Thus now did the leaves 
 give forth to him tones of muffled solemnity, 
 although it was a sparkling north-west that 
 played them. What might have been a glee 
 was a silvery dirge, which owned through its 
 melancholy cadence an irresistible power of 
 soothing. Despite his material occupation with 
 them, Carr had throughout his life been pecu- 
 liarly sensitive to the spiritual influence of trees.
 
 IN THE BALANCE. 289 
 
 This feeliDg he now found to have been inde- 
 finitely deepened. Under the sense of solitude 
 to which his soul had become subjected he 
 knew a fresh and unsuspected source of con- 
 solation in an abandonment to these purely 
 natural sources. Not to the merely aasthetic 
 interpretation of them, still less to the merely 
 human association through which he had for so 
 many years exclusively beheld them. It was to 
 the elemental germ that he had penetrated, to 
 the point where his own inscrutable being 
 blended with the mysterious winds of heaven, 
 whereof you may hear the sound but know not 
 whence they come nor whither they may lead 
 you. 
 
 This transcendental experience had more 
 than a fleeting effect upon Carr. It is true 
 that it was not consistently maintained in his 
 immediate daily practice, else would he never 
 have retraced his steps to the dusty highway of 
 the world ; but it materially affected his habits 
 of mind in the privacy of his own reflections. It 
 had registered a spiritual point from which 
 there was no human possibility of receding. 
 
 VOL. I. U
 
 290 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 It to some extent calmed the restless current of 
 his existence, if it established no very positive 
 safeguard for its future course. Through it he 
 came to regard the prospective transaction with 
 regard to the Winwold trees with an imagina- 
 tive mysticism savouring strongly of religious 
 obligation. The threatened destruction of them 
 caused him as much agitation as an act of 
 gravest sacrilege, and he was impatient to 
 interpose his own reverent authority between 
 the venerated object and the hand of the in- 
 sensible destroyer. In this the squire did not 
 seem inclined to humour him, for as the weeks 
 extended to months, and as month after month 
 went by, the looked-for communication never 
 came. 
 
 In the course of the following year, in re- 
 sponse to one more inquiry, Mr. Hascard had to 
 announce a further indefinite postponement of 
 the affair, as his unfortunate client, Mr. Blaken- 
 hurst, had sustained a severe paralytic seizure 
 upon the field of St. Leger, and there was 
 great uncertainty as to what the issue might be.
 
 IN THE BALANCE. 291 
 
 < In either contingency, however,' added the 
 lawyer, significantly, ^something will have to 
 be done in the course of the next few months/ 
 So it eventually proved. 
 
 u2
 
 202 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 BY THE SS. * KARROO.' 
 
 As the vessel passed the Needles, exchanging 
 the rolling swell of the Channel for the calm of 
 narrower shores, a lady stepped out from the 
 companion doorway to the deck, and for an 
 instant, dazed by the scene which met her, 
 abruptly stopped. Recovering herself, she ad- 
 vanced to the side, and raised one hand to the 
 level of her rippling eyebrows. 
 
 All the water was aglow with the crimson 
 radiance of a sinking October sun, and beyond 
 lay the English coast-line in a halo of mystic 
 and profound light. A thrill of emotion passed 
 through this woman's heart as she continued to
 
 BY THE SS. * KARROO.' 293 
 
 gaze westwards, but, as she was aware of the 
 glance of other passengers turned from the 
 scene upon herself, there was no danger of any 
 outward betrayal of her feelings. Major Ken- 
 net, one of these passengers, a middle-aged 
 gentleman of unimpeachable appearance, had 
 taken a few hurried steps forward as the lady 
 came forth, but he too stopped short. Imme- 
 diately, the waggish Miss Felling nudged her 
 mother to look at the major struggling to im- 
 part to his own pose and features a proper 
 degree of poetic expression, and her ropther 
 could not repress a smile, suggestively carrying 
 her eyes on to that other lady also as she did 
 so. The gallant major had, throughout the 
 voyage, been jocularly regarded as the self- 
 constituted cavalier of this Mrs. Chatwin, who 
 travelled alone and, despite the appearance of 
 wealth and dignity which her person and ap- 
 pointments alike presented, wholly unattended. 
 But he had felt instinctively repelled by the 
 aspect of solemn reflection with which now, 
 silent and apart, she regarded the sunset, and 
 he was obliged to withhold for the moment the
 
 294 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 characteristic pleasantries with which such natu- 
 ral phenomena had been heretofore received. 
 
 Whatever the instances of individual senti- 
 ment, the excitement incidental to a long- 
 expected landing soon surged uppermost, and, 
 amongst the general company, the busy move- 
 ments and brisk, short utterances of preparation 
 for the shore effectually dispelled the imagina- 
 tive attitude. Nurses and governesses ran about 
 the deck, up steps, down steps, peering into 
 every possible forbidden corner, impatiently 
 summoning their charges to the detested toilet. 
 There was much jostling with good-humoured 
 nods and apologies on the companion-way ; 
 gentlemen folding rugs complacently, to the 
 general inconvenience, in the narrowest spaces ; 
 ladies with flushed and eager faces enjoining 
 
 Tom and Ned on no account to forget ;. 
 
 younger, more self-conscious ladies smiling criti- 
 cally at the general confusion to emphasize their 
 own wiser calm and unconcern. 
 
 But the major perceived that the passenger 
 of his especial interest held aloof from all this^ 
 popular commotion, and detected in her, as he
 
 BY THE SS. ' KARROO.' 295 
 
 thought, a very notable change. Hitherto she 
 had, at any rate, graciously acquiesced in his 
 polite attentions, even approving his facetious 
 exuberance by an intellectual pleasantry which 
 ravished the soldier. Mrs. Chatwin, he always 
 after averred, was in no way the same after that 
 first glimpse of the English sunset coast. Ven- 
 turing at length to approach her, to all his 
 remarks and kindly officiousness she presented 
 a constrained, not to say repressive demeanour. 
 
 Might he not get her ? Oh, no, her personal 
 
 incumbrances were nothing. There was a sin- 
 gular appearance of reserve in such general 
 remarks as the major was able to extort. The 
 lady was preoccupied, and gazed obliviously 
 towards the land. 
 
 'And through the customs — you will allow 
 me — ha, but of course somebody will meet you 
 here V 
 
 She smiled, but made no direct response. 
 Was not the major overstepping the bounds of 
 civilised behaviour % They were no longer in 
 the chartered liberty of the high seas. The 
 man positively repeated his hint as to the un-
 
 296 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 conventional situation. She showed displeasure 
 at his pertinacity. 
 
 ' 1 shall not be met at Southampton, Major 
 Kennet,' she said, brusquely, turning further 
 away. 
 
 The gentleman lifted his eyebrows in genuine 
 dismay and, no doubt, unaffected solicitude. 
 
 ' Then, at the risk of your highest displeasure,' 
 cried he, ' 1 must see you through their hands. 
 This place, Mrs. Chatwin, — they boast of it, but 
 believe me, the insolence of the canaille is un- 
 paralleled. Talk of ItaHans — nay, of Boers and 
 Zulus ' 
 
 The major expanded his palms expressively, 
 a travelled gesture habitual with him. 
 
 'Do you hear. Miss Felling?' said the major's 
 victim, adroitly appealing to the young lady, 
 who was passing. * Here is Major Kennet re- 
 vihng your English officials. Surely you will 
 never allow it V 
 
 ' Oh, major, that is too unkind,' returned Miss 
 FelHng, with unconcealed sarcasm ; — she was a 
 blonde young lady who blushed, and who, so 
 said the deck gossips, had been anxious to share
 
 BY THE SS. ' KARROO.' 297 
 
 the good will of the soldier with Mrs. Chat win, 
 or, as some hinted, even to divert it into a more 
 exclusive channel. The gentleman, in polite- 
 ness, had never disguised his aversion for Miss 
 FeUing, There was a shade of tragic discom- 
 fiture, therefore, in his eyes as they followed the 
 elder lady who, under cover of this manoeuvre, 
 took to flight, and disappeared amidst the 
 throng by the companion doorway. Miss Fell- 
 ing saw it, and smiled openly as Major Kennet 
 abruptly discovered how important it was to 
 gather together his own possessions also, and 
 therewith to leave her with scarcely dignified 
 abruptness. 
 
 When Mrs. Chatwin ventured again to emerge, 
 the scene had altered. The great vessel was in 
 still calmer water, and seemed to smile with 
 giant pride as she ploughed her way through 
 the glittering ripples into the roads, contempt- 
 uously conscious of her strength, but only by 
 the way of ostentatious dalliance finding oc- 
 casion to exert it. Other great craft and small 
 were there to see her, to eye her with interest, 
 for she was from the Cape and two days late. The
 
 298 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 sea-gulls with short scream and croak kept 
 swooping around her ; and the coast-line with 
 its fringe of yellow sand, so strangely placid and 
 stationary, was diversified with the various 
 familiar suggestions of human enterprise. The 
 lady gazed at it with undiminished ardour, and 
 allowed her intellectual sensibility to play in 
 ripples about her eyelids and over her smooth 
 wide forehead. The last rim of the sun had 
 disappeared, and now in the evening light the 
 sky was clearing. In the west lay numberless 
 streaks of thin clouds^ rosy pink, whilst a single 
 narrow belt of the same hue girded the blue 
 heavens in the south, with the clear half moon 
 above it, and the landscape in a mist of damson 
 bloom below — the homely English landscape. 
 
 This time she was permitted to indulge her 
 reverie uninterrupted, for the major had resolved 
 no longer directly to obtrude his services, and 
 everybody else was far too busy to be concerned 
 on her account. The gallant gentleman busied 
 himself over his own baggage with ostentatious 
 exclusiveness, even to the last moment of the
 
 BY THE SS. ' KARROO/ 299 
 
 groaoing, backing, and sidling necessary to the 
 bringing of the unwieldy vessel to her proper 
 moorings. When she was fairly alongside, and 
 the steady panting of the engines announced 
 the completion of their long heroic task, Major 
 Kennet hurried forth and cast his eagle glance 
 upon the crowded gangways and the busy 
 throng beyond. Artificial lights were beginning 
 to obscure the autumn twilight, and wholly to 
 extinguish the subtle tints of sky and water 
 which had engaged the attention of one or two 
 of the passengers until now. The scene hei^ 
 presented was distinctly human, in supremest 
 contrast to that which these travellers by the 
 Karroo had beheld for so many days. To the 
 major the contrast was wholly gratifying. He 
 took in at a glance the active commonplace 
 crowd on the quay, and the blank masonry be- 
 yond. He sought no face in the expectant 
 throng, and primarily a man of the world, and 
 an extensively travelled one, naturally he knew 
 none of the imaginative emotions which might 
 be stirring more susceptible bosoms upon step-
 
 300 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 ping towards the land. One emotion alone was 
 agitating him. He was angrily intent upon 
 counteracting the evil machinations of those he 
 would only recognize as ' Southampton dock 
 ruffians,' so far as they should be put in practice 
 against the unsuspecting object of his care. As 
 he had expected, the lady herself held back un- 
 til the main company had passed ashore, there- 
 fore he of necessity went over in the front. 
 Skilfully concealed in the crowd, he narrowly 
 watched the movements of the remaining 
 passengers. 
 
 When her feet once touched the stones, Mrs. 
 Chatwin felt as practical as the major. Anticipa- 
 tion was to a certain extent therewith turned 
 into reality, and this lady was by no means con- 
 stitutionally a dreamer only. A sense of over- 
 whelming delight certainly assailed her as she 
 passed on into the waiting-room which adjoined 
 the custom-house, but it was essentially a 
 practical delight, a healthy, physical sensation, 
 altogether distinct from the roseate sunset 
 emotion of an hour ago. It seemed to her that
 
 BY THE SS. ' KA.RROO.' 301 
 
 this was the first breath of the fulness of Hfe 
 that she had taken in all her twenty-seven year® 
 of existence, and she drew it deeply. 
 
 It was in this state of spiritual exaltation that 
 in due course she passed out with the stream of 
 passengers to experience the tender mercies of 
 the dock officials, and just as she was countenanc- 
 ing the overtures of an obsequious, red-faced, 
 red-whiskered man, with a brass label on his 
 arm, with his ' Found your luggage, mum ?' she 
 observed Major Kennet hurry on in front of her. 
 The task of selection was speedily accomplished, 
 and a place at the counter obtained. Mrs. Chat- 
 win's personal possessions numbered six, of 
 which, after making the statutory inquiry, the 
 officer selected two as tests, — of necessity the 
 bulkiest and the most complex of lock and 
 buckle. But this lady's fragrant secrets were 
 rifled considerately, almost with respect, her in- 
 different good-humoured smile doubtless conduc- 
 ing to such liberal treatment. Hot altercations 
 proceeded upon either hand, and in one of these 
 Mrs. Chatwin became so engrossed that the
 
 302 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 brass-labelled porter had to recall her attention 
 to the Tinlocked trunks. She then turned to 
 secure them. 
 
 ' I've taken the others on, ma'am/ remarked 
 the man, seemg the lady glance about her. 
 
 ' All right. Is the train here?' 
 
 ' Just outside, ma'am.' 
 
 Mrs. Chat win followed the man with his 
 truck, giving a last glance at the disputants 
 she was leaving, and then confronted another 
 scene. In the high confusion she recognised 
 the infuriated features of Major Kennet lit up 
 by the gaslight, backed by the luggage-van of 
 a train, and opposed by several unwashed faces 
 of the gross type peculiar to docks. 
 
 * I know you, you scoundrels,' he was shout- 
 ing, as the lady drew near. ' I saw your winks. 
 Guard, put those things in the van, do you hear, 
 or I'll report you. Drag 'em through the town, 
 will you ? No ' 
 
 To Mrs. Chatwin's supreme astonishment, she 
 at once recognized her own half-dozen pack- 
 ages as the centre of the uproar. As she came
 
 BY THE SS. ' KARROO.' 303 
 
 "up, the major checked his oaths, and vo- 
 ciferated, 
 
 ' Waterloo, madam V 
 . ' Yes, I am going to Waterloo.' 
 
 The guard was closing one half of the van 
 doorway, wholly oblivious of what was going 
 on. Mrs. Chatwin's goods were piled upon a 
 hand-cart in the possession of two ragged out- 
 door adventurers who showed anxiety to start. 
 But the major physically arrested them, and 
 began to remove the luggage with his own 
 hand, 
 
 'Get in, madam,' cried he, excitedly — 'get 
 in, and I'll see to these blackguards.' 
 
 After another glance at the situation, Mrs. 
 Chat win deemed it wise to acquiesce, scarce 
 able, it is true, to restrain her laughter. The 
 major's promptitude had evidently thwarted 
 a little plot, but her own buoyancj^ was such 
 that no humorous incident of travel could have 
 caused her much vexation. Had the men car- 
 ried off her luggage to the town station, (which 
 the major's words seemed to proclaim to be
 
 304 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 their scheme,) and had she in consequence 
 missed that particular train, it had been no 
 catastrophe. She was in that state of high 
 imaginative enthusiasm which only sees diver- 
 sion in the petty adversities whence spring 
 exasperation for the commonplace temper. 
 
 Seeing the device frustrated and no excessive 
 gratuity in prospect, the guard for the first time 
 became aware of the disagreement, and quickly 
 brought the quarrel to an end. The major, 
 assured of victory, smiled contemptuously at 
 the volley of abuse to which he was subjected 
 in hurrying to his place. ' Go to the devil, I 
 tell you,' was all the satisfaction he vouchsafed 
 to the threatening, importunate demands of the 
 ragged volunteers, and at the door of his com- 
 partment he literally threw them off. He was 
 just planted in his corner when there was a 
 whistle and a shout, aad the train moved 
 onwards. 
 
 Major Kennet was not as a rule troubled with 
 infirmity of purpose or the scruples of inde- 
 cision generally, yet through the couple of 
 hours' journey which was to bring him to Lon-
 
 BY THE SS. * KARROO.' 305 
 
 don he was strangely afflicted by both. He 
 bought a fresh paper at each station where the 
 train stopped, and it was flung on to the heap 
 beside him unopened. He was alone in the 
 carriage for the greater part of the way, so he 
 stood up, looked out into the dark, or walked 
 from end to end of the carpet hke an animal 
 encaged. He would put Hght to a cigar, then 
 munch the tip obliviously, until awaking to the 
 vile effect upon his palate he would fling the 
 thing angrily from the window. The infernal 
 
 end had come, and he but it should not. 
 
 At length he dozed uneasily until the stop at 
 Vauxhall finally aroused him. Then he found 
 that his mind was made up. He would, must 
 confront Mrs. Chatwin once more, come of it 
 what might. He stepped out at Waterloo as 
 though he had but come up from Bournemouth. 
 
 Unknown to the major, the lady herself was 
 seconding his resolution, but upon grounds far 
 enough removed from his own. It seemed to 
 her that common courtesy demanded some 
 acknowledgment of the service which Major 
 Kennet had rendered her, and on this account 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 she would permit one casual encounter on the 
 station platform before their roads finally di- 
 verged. This divergence was the centre of the 
 major's perplexity. He had suddenly discovered 
 his unwillingness to arrange a day of which 
 Mrs. Chatwin was not an essential part. The 
 experience was a novel one, and presented a 
 dilemma with which this gentleman was con- 
 stitutionally not well fitted to deal. Beyond 
 fifty though he was, he could not recall any 
 personal precedent on such a point, — wherein, 
 that is, considerations of his own convenience 
 had found even a momentary serious depend- 
 ence upon the movements or the existence of 
 any other person. Whilst engaged with his 
 luggage, Mrs. Chatwin came up to him, wearing 
 her frankest, most fascinating smile. Major 
 Kennet was conscious of a tremor before it. 
 
 ' Oh, I'm so glad to catch you. Let me thank 
 you so very much, Major Kennet.' 
 
 The gentleman seemed actually to hesitate in 
 his ecstasy. He was prompted to remark jocu- 
 larly upon her recovered good-humour, but his 
 reason instantly checked him. When he did
 
 BY THE SS. ' karroo/ 307 
 
 speak, it was merely a commonplace disclaimer 
 that he permitted himself, coupled with an un- 
 necessarily ardent scrutiny of the fair face 
 before him. Mrs. Chatwin glanced at the lug- 
 gage, and made some ingenuous reference to 
 the joy of being here again ; then by another 
 movement of her e^^es adroitly gained the 
 intervention of a porter. 
 
 ' Yes, to a cab — that and that — this — that 
 leather one — the next ' 
 
 Having indicated them all, she turned again 
 to the major and held out her hand. 
 
 ' Good-bye ' 
 
 * Good-bye, good-bye,' cried he, grasping her 
 fingers. * But we may meet again, you know. 
 I cannot be content with a mere ' 
 
 'Possibly,' returned she, and was gone, 
 whilst the major shuddered to hear Miss Fel- 
 ling's voice just beside him, talking about her 
 luggage. 
 
 But he kept his back resolutely in that direc- 
 tion, until he left the place abruptly. His 
 baggage remained there, and he went over 
 towards the cabs. He had carefully noted the
 
 308 THE SPORT OF STARS. 
 
 porter, and now met him with his empty truck. 
 
 ' Where did that lady drive to V asked the 
 major, as he thrust half-a-crown into the man's 
 hand. 
 
 « The Mettropole, sir.' 
 
 'Thank you.' 
 
 At his leisure. Major Kennet took a cab also. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 London : Printed by Duncan Macdonald, Blenheim House, W.