L I E> RA RY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVLRSITY 
 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
 825 
 Sco792<rh
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/fromonegeneratio01scot
 
 FROM ONE GENERATION 
 TO ANOTHER 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 FROM ONE GENERATION 
 TO ANOTHER 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY SETOX MERRIMAN 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'the SLAVE OF THE LAMP ETC. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES— VOL. L 
 
 ' The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children s 
 teeth are set on edge' 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 1892 
 
 \_All right i reserved^
 
 2Z3 
 
 Sco l^Z f r 
 
 V. I 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Seed ....... i 
 
 II. Suburban . i8 
 
 III. Mercury 34 
 
 IV. Freighted . 51 
 
 V. After Nineteen Years .... 69 
 
 VI. For His Country 87 
 
 VII. On the Roof of the World . . 107 
 
 VIII. Relieved 125 
 
 IX. Re-cast 143 
 
 X. A Last Throw 161 
 
 XI. A Carpet Knight 175 
 
 XII. Bad News 193 
 
 XIII. On Thin Ice . . . . . .212 
 
 XIV. The Curse of a Good Intention . . 230 
 XV. The Touch of Nature .... 246 

 
 FROM ONE GENERATION 
 TO ANOTHER 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE SEED 
 
 II faut se garder des premiers mouvements parce qu'Ils sont 
 presque toujours honnetes. 
 
 ' Dearest Anna, — I see from the news- 
 paper before me of March 13, that I am 
 reported dead. Before attempting to Inves- 
 tigate the origin of this mistake, I hasten to 
 write to you, knowing, dearest, what a shock 
 this must have been to you. It is true that 
 I was in the Makar Akool affair, and was 
 sh'ghtly wounded — a mere scratch in the arm 
 
 VOL. I. *B
 
 2 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 — but nothing more. I have not written tc. 
 you for some months past because I have 
 been turning something over in my mind. 
 Anna, dearest, there is no chance of my being 
 in a position to marry for some years yet, and 
 I feel it incumbent upon me . . .' 
 
 This letter, half written, lay on a camp 
 table before a keen-faced young officer. He 
 ceased writing suddenly, and, leaping to his 
 feet, walked to the door of his bungalow, 
 which was open to the four winds of heaven. 
 In doing this he passed from the range of 
 the lazy punkah flapping somnolently over 
 table and bed. It may have been this sudden 
 change to hotter air that caused him to raise 
 his hand to his forehead, which was high and 
 strangely rounded. 
 
 ' By George ! ' he said, ' suppose I do it 
 that way ! '
 
 THE SEED 3 
 
 He walked rapidly backwards and for- 
 wards with the lithe actions of a man of steel, 
 a light weight, of medium height, keen and 
 quick as a monkey. His black eyes flitted 
 from one object to another with such rest- 
 lessness that It was impossible to say whether 
 he comprehended what he saw or merely 
 looked at things from force of habit. 
 
 He was dark of hair with a sallow com- 
 plexion and a long drooping nose — the nose 
 of Semitic ancestors. A small mouth, and 
 the chin running almost to a point. A face 
 full of interest, devoid of distinct vice — heart- 
 less. Here was a man with a future before 
 him — a man whose vices w^ere all negative, 
 whose virtues depended entirely upon ex- 
 pediency. Here was a man who could be 
 almost anything he liked ; as some men can. 
 If expediency prompted he could be a very 
 
 B 2
 
 4 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 depot of virtues ; for his body, with all the 
 warmer failings of that part of humanity, was 
 in perfect control. On the other hand, there 
 was no love of good for goodness sake — no 
 conscience behind the subtle eyes. All this, 
 and more, was written in the face of Seymour 
 Michael, w^hose handwriting had dried some 
 moments before on the half-filled sheet of 
 letter-paper. 
 
 He returned and stood at the table with 
 slightly bowed legs — not the result of much 
 riding, although he wore top-boots and 
 breeches as if of daily habit — but a racial 
 defect handed down like the nasal brand from 
 remote progenitors. He looked at letter and 
 newspaper as they lay side by side — not with 
 the doubtfulness of warfare between con- 
 science and temptation, but with a calculating 
 thoughtfulness. He was not wondering what
 
 THE SEED 5 
 
 was best to do, but what the most ex- 
 pedient. 
 
 Those were troublesome times in India, 
 for the Mutiny was not quelled, and each 
 mail took home a list of killed, slowly com- 
 piled from news that dribbled in from out- 
 lying stations, forts, and towns. Those w^ere 
 days w^hen men's lives were made or lost in 
 the Eastern Empire, for it seems to be in 
 Fortune's balance that great danger weighs 
 against great gain. No great wealth has ever 
 been acquired without proportionate risk of 
 life or happiness. To the tame and timorous 
 city clerk comes small remuneration and a 
 nameless grave, while to more adventurous 
 spirits larger stakes bring vaster rewards. 
 The clerk, pure and simple, has, within these 
 latter years, found his way to India, sitting 
 side by side with the Baboo, and consequently
 
 6 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 it is as easy to make a fortune in London as 
 in Calcutta and Madras. The clerk has 
 carried his sordid civilisation and his love of 
 personal safety with him, sapping at the 
 glorious uncertainty from which the early 
 pioneers of a hardier commerce wrested quick- 
 founded fortunes. 
 
 Seymour Michael had come into all this 
 with the red coat of a soldier, and the keen 
 ambitious heart of a Jew, at the very nick of 
 time. He saw at once the enormous possi- 
 bilities hidden in the near future for a man 
 who took this country at its proper value, 
 handling what he secured with coolness and 
 foresight. He knew that he only possessed 
 one thing to risk, namely, his life ; and true 
 to his racial instinct he valued this very 
 highly, looking for an extortionate usury on 
 his stake.
 
 THE SEED 7 
 
 At this moment he was like Aladdin in 
 the cave of jewels : he did not know which 
 way to turn, which treasure to seize upon 
 first 
 
 Anna — dearest Anna — to whom this half- 
 completed letter was addressed, was a person 
 for whom he had not the slightest affection. 
 At the outset of his career he had paused, de- 
 cided in haste, and had resolved to make use 
 oi^ the passing opportunity. Anna Heth- 
 bridge had therefore been annexed eii passant. 
 In person she was youthful and rather hand- 
 some — her fortune was extremely handsome. 
 So Seymour Michael went out to India en- 
 gaged to be married to this girl who was 
 unfortunate enough to love him. 
 
 In India two things happened. Firstly, 
 Seymour Michael met a second young lady 
 with a fortune twice as large as that of Miss
 
 8 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 Anna Hethbrldge. Secondly, the Mutiny 
 broke out, and India lay before the ambitious 
 young officer a very land of Ophir. He 
 promptly decided to cut the first string of his 
 bow. Anna Hethbrldge was now useless — 
 nay, more, she w^as a burthen. Hence the 
 letter which lay half-written on the table of 
 his bungalow. 
 
 He paused before this wrong to a blame- 
 less woman, and contemplated the perpetration 
 of a greater. H e weighed pro and con — care- 
 fully withholding from the balance the casting 
 weight of Right against Wrong. Then he 
 took up the letter and slowly tore it to small 
 pieces. He had decided to leave the report 
 of his death uncontradicted. It was morally 
 certain that five weeks before that day Anna 
 Hethbrldge had read the news in the 
 printed column lying before him. He
 
 THE SEED 9 
 
 resolved to leave her in ignorance of its 
 falseness. 
 
 Seymour Michael was not, however, a 
 selfish man. All that he did at this time, and 
 later in life — all the lives that he ruined — the 
 hearts he broke — the men he sacrificed were 
 not offered upon the altar of Self (though the 
 distinction may appear subtile), but sold to 
 his career. Career was this man's God. He 
 wanted to be great, and rich, and powerful ; 
 and yet he was conscious of having no de- 
 finite use for greatness, or riches, or power 
 when acquired. 
 
 Here again was the taint of the blood that 
 ran in his veins. The curse had reached to 
 him — in addition to the long sad nose and 
 the bandy legs. The sense of enjoyment 
 was never to be his. The greed of gain — 
 gain of any sort — filled his heart, and ennui
 
 lO FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 secretly nestling in his soul said : ' Thou shalt 
 possess, but not enjoy.' 
 
 He was conscious of this voice but did 
 not understand it then. He only burned to 
 possess ; looking to possession to provide en- 
 joyment. In this he was not quite alone — 
 with him in his error are all men and women. 
 And so we talk of Love coming after marriage 
 — and so women marry without Love, believ- 
 ing that it will follow. God help them ! That 
 which comes afterwards is not even the ghost 
 of Love, it is only Custom. This was the 
 spirit of Seymour Michael. He had already 
 acquired one or two objects of a vague ambi- 
 tion, and, possessing them, had only learnt to 
 be accustomed to them — not to value them. 
 
 There was no elation in the thought that 
 he was freed from the encumbrance of Anna 
 Hethbridge by a chance misprint. Neither
 
 THE SEED li 
 
 was there hesitation in turning accident ruth- 
 lessly to his own advantage. There was only 
 a steady pressing forward — an unceasing, un- 
 wearying attention to his own gain. 
 
 In those days news travelled slowly, and 
 the personal had not yet taken precedence In 
 journalism. In the anxiety for the State, the 
 Individual was apt to be overlooked. Sey- 
 mour Michael counted on six months of ob- 
 livion at the least — he hoped for more, but 
 with characteristic caution acted ahvays in 
 anticipation of the worst. 
 
 He had scarcely thrown the newspaper 
 aside when a comrade entered the bungalow 
 carrying another copy of the same journal. 
 
 ' I say, Michael,' exclaimed this man, ' do 
 you see that you're put In among the killed ? ' 
 
 'Yes,' replied Seymour Michael, without 
 haste, without hesitation. ' I have already
 
 12 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 written to contradict It. Not that there Is 
 anyone to care whether I am dead or aHve. 
 But It might do me harm In Leadenhall 
 Street. I can't afford to be dead even for 
 a week when so much promotion Is going 
 forward.' 
 
 This was artistic. Most of us forget to 
 preserve our own characteristics In diverging 
 from the truth. The tangled web Is only- 
 woven when first we practise to deceive. 
 Later on the facility is greater, the handling 
 superior, and the web runs smooth and 
 straight. Seymour Michael was apparently 
 no novice at this sort of thing. He was even 
 at that moment making mental note of the 
 fact that up-country mails were In a state of 
 disorganisation, and a letter which was never 
 written may easily be made to have miscarried 
 later on.
 
 THE SEED 13 
 
 But even he could not foresee everything 
 — no one can. Not even the righteous man, 
 much less the liar. 
 
 * Do you mean to say,' pursued the new- 
 comer, ' that you are not writing to your 
 family about it — only to the Company ? ' 
 
 'That is all' 
 
 ' Rum chap you are, Michael,' said the 
 other, lighting a cheroot. ' Heartless beggar 
 I take it.' 
 
 * Not at all. The simple fact is that I 
 have no one to write to. I only possess one 
 or two distant relatives, and they would 
 probably be rather sorry than otherwise to 
 have the report contradicted.' 
 
 The younger officer — a mere boy — with 
 a beardless, happy face, walked to the door 
 of the bungalow. 
 
 * Of course there is always this in it,' he
 
 14 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 said carelessly. ' By the time the contradic- 
 tion reaches home the news may be true.' 
 
 Seymour Michael laughed lamely. A 
 joke of this description made him feel rather 
 sick, for a Jew never makes a soldier or a 
 sailor, and they are rarely found in those 
 positions unless great gain is holden up. 
 
 With this pleasantry the youth departed, 
 leaving Michael to write the letter which he 
 had advised as written. As he drew the 
 writing materials towards him he cursed his 
 brother officer quietly and politely for a 
 meddling young fool. He wrote a formal 
 letter to the Company — the old East India 
 Company which administered an empire with 
 ledger and day-book — calling their attention 
 to the mistake in the newspaper, and begging 
 them not to trouble to give the matter pub- 
 licity, as he had already advised his friends.
 
 THE SEED 15 
 
 This done, he proceeded with the ordinary 
 routine of his dally life. Such men as this 
 are case-hardened. They carry with them a 
 conscience like the floor of an Augean stable, 
 but they know how to walk thereon. More- 
 over, he was one of those who assign to their 
 dealings with men quite a different * code of 
 morals' to that reserved for women. His 
 was the code of ' not being found out.' Men 
 are more suspicious — they find out sooner : 
 ergo the morals to be observed vis a vis to 
 them are of a stricter order. Railway com- 
 panies and women are by many looked upon 
 as fair game for deception. Consciences 
 tender In many other respects, have a subtle 
 contempt for these two exceptions. Many a 
 so-called honest man travels gaily in a first- 
 class carriage with a second-class ticket, and 
 lies to a woman at each end of his journey,
 
 1 6 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 without SO much as casting a shadow upon 
 his conscience. 
 
 Seymour Michael carried this code to the 
 farthest Hmit of safety. All through the 
 months that followed he went about his busi- 
 ness with a clear conscience and a heart 
 slightly relieved by the removal of Anna 
 Hethbridge from his path to prosperity. He 
 served his country and the Company w^ith a 
 keenness of foresight and a soldierly exposure 
 of the lives of others which did not fail, in the 
 course of time, to bring him in a harvest of 
 honours and rewards. Neither did he put 
 his candle under a bushel, but set it in the 
 very highest candlestick available. 
 
 But, as has been previously stated, he 
 could not foresee everything. He did not 
 know, for instance, that his cheroot-smoking 
 subaltern — a youth as guileless as he was
 
 THE SEED 17 
 
 indiscreet, for the two usually go together — 
 possessed a memory like a dry-plate. He 
 did not foresee that a passing conversation 
 in an Indian bungalow might perchance 
 photograph itself on the somewhat sparsely 
 covered tablets of a man's mind to be repro- 
 duced at the wrong moment with a result 
 lying twenty-six years ahead in the womb of 
 time. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 1 8 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 SUBURBAN 
 
 L'amour fait tout excuser, mais il faut etre bien sur qu'il y 
 a de Tamour. 
 
 Miss Anna Hethbridge loved Seymour 
 Michael with as great a love as her nature 
 could compass. 
 
 When the news of his death reached 
 her, at the profusely laden breakfast-table at 
 Jaggery House, Clapham Common, her first 
 feeling was one of scornful anger towards a 
 Providence which could be so careless. Life 
 had always been prosperous for her, in a 
 bourgeois, solidly wealthy way, entirely suited 
 to her turn of mind. She had always had
 
 SUBURBAN 19 
 
 servants at her beck and call whom she could 
 abuse illoglcally and treat with an utter in- 
 consequence inherent in her nature. She 
 had been the spoilt child of a ponderous, 
 thick-skinned father, and a very suburban 
 mother, who, out of her unexpected prosperity, 
 could deny her daughter nothing. 
 
 Three months after the receipt of the 
 news, Anna Hethbridge went down into 
 Hertfordshire, where, in the course of a visit 
 at Stagholme Rectory, she met and became 
 engaged to the Squire of Stagholme, James 
 Edward Agar. 
 
 A month later she became the second 
 wife of the simple-minded old country gentle- 
 man. 
 
 It would be hard to say what motives 
 prompted her to this apparently heartless 
 action. Some women are heartless — we 
 
 c 2
 
 20 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 know that. But Anna Hethbridge was too 
 impulsive, too excitable, and too much given 
 to pleasure to be devoid of heart. Behind 
 her action there must have been some strange, 
 illogical, feminine motive, for there was a 
 deliberation in every move — one of those 
 motives which are quite beyond the masculine 
 comprehension. One notices that when a 
 woman takes action in this incomprehensible 
 way her lady friends are never surprised, 
 they seem to have some subtle sympathy 
 with her. It is only the men who look 
 puzzled, as if the ground beneath their feet 
 were unstable. Therefore there must be 
 some influence at w^ork, probably the same 
 influence under different forms, which urges 
 women to those strange, inconsequent actions 
 by which their lives are rendered miserable. 
 INIen have not found it out yet.
 
 SUBURBAN 21 
 
 Anna Hethbridore was at this time twenty- 
 four years of age, rather pretty, with a 
 vivacity of manner which only seemed frivo- 
 lous to the more thoughtful of her acquaint- 
 ances. The idea of her marrying old Squire 
 Agar within six months of the untimely 
 death of her clever lo^'er. Seymour Michael, 
 seemed so preposterous that her hostess, 
 good sentimental ]\Irs, Glynde, never dreamt 
 of such a possibility until, in the form of 
 a fact, it was confided to her bv Miss Heth- 
 bridge, one afternoon soon after her arrival 
 at the rectory. 
 
 ' Confound it, Maria,* exclaimed the Rec- 
 tor testily, when the information was passed 
 on to him later in the evening. ' Why could 
 you not have foreseen such an absurd 
 event ? ' 
 
 Poor I\Irs. Glynde looked distressed.
 
 2 2 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 She was a thin little woman, with an unsteady 
 head, physically and morally speaking ; full of 
 kindness of heart, sentimentality, high-flown 
 principles, and other bygone ladylike com- 
 modities. Her small eager face, of a ruddy 
 and weather-worn complexion — as if she had, 
 at some early period of her existence, been 
 left out all night in an East wind — was 
 puckered up with a sense of her own negli- 
 gence. 
 
 She tried hard, poor little woman, to take 
 a deep and Christian Interest In the welfare 
 of her neighbours ; but all the while she was 
 conscious of failure. She knew that even at 
 that moment, when she was sitting In her 
 small arm-chair with clasped guilty hands, her 
 whole heart and soul were absorbed beyond 
 retrieval in a small bundle of white flannel 
 and pink humanity In a cradle upstairs. .
 
 SUBURBAN 23 
 
 The Rector had dropped his weekly re- 
 view upon his knees and was staring at her 
 angrily. 
 
 ' I really can't tell/ he continued, ' what 
 you can have been thinking about to let such 
 a ridiculous thing come to pass. What are 
 you thinking about now ?' 
 
 ' Well, dear,' confessed the little woman 
 shamedly, ' I was thinking of Baby — of 
 Dora.' 
 
 ' Thought so,' he snapped, with a little 
 laugh, returning to his paper with a keen in- 
 terest. But he did not seem to be following 
 the printed lines. 
 
 ' I suppose she was all right when you 
 were up just now ? ' he asked carelessly after 
 a moment, and without lowering his paper. 
 
 ' Yes, dear,' the lady replied. ' She was 
 asleep.' .
 
 24 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 And this young mother of forty smiled 
 softly to herself as if at some recollection. 
 
 This happiness had come late, as happi- 
 ness must, for us to value it fully, and Mrs. 
 Glynde's somewhat old-fashioned Christianity 
 was of that school which seeks to depreciate 
 by hook or by crook the enjoyment of those 
 sparse goods that the gods send us. The 
 stone in her path at this time was an ex- 
 aggerated sense of her own unworthiness — a 
 matter which she might safely have left to 
 another and wiser judgment. 
 
 Presently the Rector laid aside his news- 
 paper, and rose slowly from his chair. 
 
 ' Are you going upstairs, dear ? ' inquired 
 his tactless spouse. 
 
 ' Um — er. Yes ! I am just going up to 
 get ... a pocket-handkerchief.' 
 
 ]\Irs. Glynde said nothing ; but as she
 
 SUBURBAN 25 
 
 knew the creak of every board in the room 
 overhead she became aware shortly after- 
 wards that the Rector had either diverged 
 slightly from the path of which he was the 
 ordained finger-post, or that he had suddenly- 
 taken to keeping his pocket-handkerchiefs in 
 the far corner of the room where the cradle 
 stood. 
 
 It will be readily understood that in a 
 household, ruled as this Rectory was, by 
 a sleepy little morsel of humanity, Anna 
 Hethbridge was in no way hindered in 
 the furtherance of her own personal pur- 
 poses — one might almost add periodical 
 purposes, for she never held to one for 
 long. 
 
 The Squire was very lonely. His boy 
 Jem, aged four, would certainly be the happier 
 for a mother's care. Above all, i^Iiss Heth-
 
 l6 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 bridge seemed to want the marriage, and so 
 it came about. 
 
 If Anna Hethbrldge had been asked at 
 that time why she wanted It, she would pro- 
 bably have told an untruth. She was rather 
 given, by the way, to telling untruths. Had 
 she, In fact, given a reason at all, she would 
 perforce have left the straight path, because 
 she had no reason In her mind. 
 
 The real motive was probably a love of 
 excitement ; and Miss Anna Hethbrldge 
 is not the only woman, by many thou- 
 sands, who has married for that same 
 reason. 
 
 The wedding was celebrated quietly at 
 the Clapham parish church. A humiliating 
 day for the stiff-necked old Squire of Stag- 
 holme ; for he was introduced to many new 
 relatives, who, if they could have bought up
 
 SUBURBAN 27 
 
 Stagholme and its master, were but poorly 
 equipped with the letter ' h.' The bourgeois 
 ostentation and would-be high-toned gracious- 
 ness of the ladies, jarred on his nerves as 
 harshly as did the personal appearance of 
 their respective husbands. 
 
 Altogether it was just possible that Squire 
 Agar began to realise the extent of his own 
 foolishness before the effervescence had left 
 the champagne that flowed freely to the 
 health of bride and bridegroom. 
 
 The event was duly announced in the 
 leading newspapers, and in the course of a 
 few days a copy of the ' Times ' containing 
 the insertion started Eastward to meet 
 Seymour Michael on his way home from 
 India. 
 
 Anna Agar came home to Stagholme to 
 begin her new life ; for which peaceful
 
 28 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 groove of existence she was by the way 
 totally unfitted ; for she had breathed the 
 fatal air of Clapham since her birth. This 
 atmosphere is terribly impregnated with the 
 microbe of bourgeoisie. 
 
 But the novelty of the great house had 
 that all-absorbing fascination exercised over 
 shallow minds by anything that is new\ At 
 first she maintained excitedly that there was 
 no life like a country life — no centre more 
 suited for such an ideal existence than Stag- 
 holme. For a time she forgot Seymour 
 Michael ; but love is eminently deceitful. It 
 lies in a coma-like silence for many years 
 and then suddenly springs to life. Some- 
 times the long period of rest has strengthened 
 it — sometimes the time has been passed in a 
 chrysalis stage from which Love awakens 
 to find itself changed into Hatred.
 
 SUBURBAN 29 
 
 Little Jem, her stepson — sturdy, fair, 
 silent — was her first failure. 
 
 ' Come to your mother, dear,' she said 
 with unguarded enthusiasm one afternoon 
 when there were callers in the room. 
 
 ' I cannot go to my mother,' replied the 
 youthful James, with his mouth full of cake, 
 ' because she is dead.' 
 
 There was an uncompromising matter-of- 
 factness about this simple statement, made in 
 all good faith and honesty, which warned the 
 second Mrs. Agar to press the matter no 
 farther just then. But she was so intent 
 upon exhibiting to her neighbours the ma- 
 ternal affection which she persuaded herself 
 that she felt for the plain-spoken heir to 
 Stagholme, that she took him to task after- 
 wards. With great care and an utter lack of 
 logic she devoted some hours to the instruc-
 
 30 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 tion of Jem in the somewhat crooked ways of 
 her social creed. 
 
 'And when,' she added, 'I tell you to 
 come to your mother, you must come and 
 kiss me.' 
 
 This last item she further Impressed 
 upon him by the gift of an orange, and then 
 asked him if he understood. 
 
 After scratching his head meditatively 
 for some moments he looked into her comely 
 face with very steady blue eyes and said : 
 
 * I don't think so — not quite.' 
 
 'Then,' replied his stepmother angrily, 
 * you are a very stupid little boy — and you 
 must go up to the nursery at once.' 
 
 This puzzled Jem still more, and he 
 walked upstairs reflecting deeply. Years 
 afterwards, when he was a man, the sunlight 
 falling on the wall through the skylight over
 
 SUBURBAN 31 
 
 the Staircase had the power of bringing back 
 that moment to him — a moment when the 
 world first began to open itself before him 
 and to puzzle him. 
 
 It happened that at the precise time when 
 Mrs. Agar was endeavouring to teach her 
 little stepson the usages of polite society, a 
 small, keen-faced man was standing near the 
 table in the smoking-room in the Hotel 
 VVagstaff at Suez. He was idly turning 
 over the newspapers lying there in the hopes 
 of finding something comparatively recent in 
 date. 
 
 Presently he came upon a copy of the 
 ' Times,' with which he repaired to one of 
 the long chairs on that verandah overlooking 
 the desert which some of us know only too 
 well. 
 
 After idly conning the general news he
 
 32 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 glanced at the births, deaths, and marriages, 
 and there he read of the recent ceremony in 
 the parish church of Clapham. 
 
 ' D n it ! ' he muttered, with that racial 
 
 love of an expletive which makes a Jew a 
 profane man. 
 
 In addition to a strong feeling of 
 wounded vanity that Anna Hethbridge 
 should so soon have forgotten him, Seymour 
 Michael was distinctly disappointed that this 
 heiress should no longer be within his reach. 
 The truth was, that the young lady in India 
 had transferred her valuable affections, with 
 all solid appurtenances attaching thereto, to 
 a young officer in the Navy who had been 
 invalided at Calcutta. 
 
 To men who intend, despite all and at 
 any cost, to get on in the world the first 
 failures are usually very bitter. It is only
 
 SUBURBAN 33 
 
 those who press stolidly forward without 
 expecting much, who profit from a check. 
 Seymour Michael was just the man to fail 
 by being too acute, too unscrupulous. He 
 was usually in such a hurry to help himself 
 that he never allowed another the very 
 fruitful pleasure of giving. 
 
 In India his zeal had led him into one 
 or two small mistakes to which he himself 
 attached no importance, but they were re- 
 membered against him. He had cruelly 
 thrown aside Anna Hethbridge when a 
 richer marriage offered itself. Now he had 
 missed both bone and reflection, and he 
 sat with a smile on his dark face, looking 
 out over the dreary desert. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 MERCURY 
 
 ' The evil is sown, but the destruction thereof is not yet 
 come.' 
 
 James Edward Makerstone Agar was not 
 at the age of five the material from which 
 the heroes of children's stories are evolved. 
 He was not a good boy, nor a clean, nor 
 particularly interesting. He was, however, 
 honest — and that is ddja qzielqtte chose. He 
 was as far removed from the ' misunderstood ' 
 type as could be wished ; and he was quite 
 happy. 
 
 Before his stepmother had laid aside the 
 tide and glory of a bride, he had, by his
 
 MERCURY 35 
 
 deadly honesty, made her understand that 
 even a child of live requires what she could 
 not give him — namely, logic. Had she been 
 clever enough to reason logically she might 
 have undermined the little fellow's innate 
 honesty of character, despite the fact that he 
 lacked a child's chief incentive to learn from 
 its mother, namely, the sympathy of here- 
 dity. 
 
 Gradually and steadily ]\Irs, Agar ' gave 
 him up,' to make use of her own expression. 
 She was one of those women who either fear 
 or despise that which they do not understand. 
 She could scarcely fear Jem, so she persuaded 
 herself that he was stupid and unattractive. 
 At this time there came another influence to 
 militate against any excess of love between 
 Jem and his stepmother. It came to her, 
 for he was ignorant of it. And this was the 
 
 D 2
 
 36 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 knowledge that before long the little heir s 
 undisputed reign in the nursery would come 
 to an end. 
 
 With a suburban horror of being a long 
 distance from the chemist, Mrs. Agar pro- 
 tested that she could not possibly remain at 
 Stagholme during the ensuing winter, and 
 that her child must be born at Clapham. It 
 was vain to argue or reason, and at last the 
 Squire was forced to swallow this second 
 humiliation, which was quite beyond his wife's 
 comprehension. He only dared to hint that 
 all the Agars had seen the light at Stagholme 
 since time immemorial ; but feelings of this 
 description found no answering note in her 
 practical and essentially commonplace mind. 
 So Mr. and Mrs. Agar emigrated to Clap- 
 ham, leaving Jem behind them. 
 
 It happened that a few days after their
 
 MERCURY l"] 
 
 arrival at the stately house overlooking the 
 Common, a young officer called to see Mr. 
 Hethbridge, who was at that time one of the 
 Directors of the East India Company. Now 
 It furthermore happened that this young 
 soldier was he whom we last saw smoking a 
 cheroot In the doorway of Seymour Michael's 
 bungalow In India. As chance would have 
 it he called in the evening, and the estimable 
 Mr. Hethbridge, warmed Into an unusual 
 hospitality by the fumes of his own port 
 wine, pressed him to pass Into the drawing- 
 room and take a dish of tea with the ladies. 
 The subaltern accepted, chiefly because it 
 was the Director's self that pressed, and 
 presently followed that short-winded gentle- 
 man Into the drawing-room — thereby shaping 
 lives yet uncreated — thereby unconsciously 
 helping to work out a chain of events leading
 
 ^S FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 ultimately to an end which no man could 
 foresee. 
 
 ' Yes,' he said, in reply to Mrs. Agar's 
 question, ' I am just back from India.' 
 
 It happened that these two were left 
 almost beyond earshot at the far end of 
 the room. The old people, among whom 
 was Mrs. Agar's husband, were settling 
 down to a game of whist. Mrs. Agar 
 was leaning forward with considerable 
 interest. This was not a mere passing 
 curiosity to hear further of a country and of 
 an event which has not lost its glamour yet. 
 
 The very word ' India ' had stirred some- 
 thing up within her heart of the presence of 
 which she had been unsuspicious. She was 
 as one who, having a closed room in her life, 
 and thinking the door thereof securely barred, 
 suddenly finds herself within that room.
 
 MERCURY 39 
 
 'Whereabouts in India were you?' she 
 asked, with a sudden dryness of the 
 lips. 
 
 ' Oh — I was north of Delhi.' 
 
 * North of Delhi — oh, yes.' 
 
 She moistened her lips with a strange, 
 sidelong glance round the room, as if she 
 were preparing to jump from a height. 
 
 ' And . . . and I suppose you saw a great 
 deal of the Mutiny ? * 
 
 Even then — after many months, in a 
 drawing-room in peaceful Clapham, the young 
 man's eyes hardened. 
 
 * Yes, I saw a good deal,' he answered. 
 Mrs. Agar leant back in her chair, drawing 
 
 her handkerchief through her fingers with 
 jerky, unnatural movements. 
 
 ' And did you lose many friends ? ' she 
 asked.
 
 40 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 ' Yes,' answered the young fellow, * In 
 one way and another.' 
 
 ' How ? What do you mean ? ' She had 
 a way of leaning forward and listening when 
 spoken to, which passed very well for 
 sympathy. 
 
 ' Well — a time like the Mutiny brings out 
 all that Is In a man, you know. And some 
 men had less In them than one might have 
 thought, while others — quIet-goIng fellows — 
 seemed to wake up.' 
 
 ' Yes — ,' she said, ' I see.' 
 
 * One or two,' he continued, ' betrayed 
 themselves. They showed that there was 
 that In them which no one had suspected. I 
 lost one friend that way.' 
 
 'How?' 
 
 It was marvellous how the merest details 
 of India Interested this woman, who, like
 
 MERCURY 41 
 
 most of US, did not know herself. Moreover, 
 she never learnt to do so thoroughly, thereby 
 being spared the horrid pain of knowing 
 oneself too late. 
 
 ' I made a mistake,' he explained. * I 
 thought he was a gentleman and a brave 
 man. I found that he was a coward and a 
 cad.' 
 
 Something urged her to go on with her 
 pointless questions — the same inevitable Fate 
 which, according to the Italians, 'stands at 
 the end of everything,' and which had 
 prompted Mr. Hethbridge to bring this 
 stranger into the drawing-room. 
 
 * But how did you find it out ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, I did not do it all at once. I first 
 began by a mere trifle. It happened that 
 this man was reported dead in the Gazette — 
 I showed it to him myself.'
 
 42 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 The young officer, who was not ac- 
 customed to ladies' society, and felt rather 
 nervous at his own loquaciousness, kept his 
 eyes fixed on his boots, and did not notice 
 the deathly pallor of Mrs. Agar's face, nor 
 the convulsive clutch of her fingers on the 
 velvet arm of the chair. 
 
 She turned right round, with a peculiar 
 movement of the throat as if swallowing 
 something, and made sure that the whist- 
 players were interested in their game. In 
 that position she heard the next words. 
 
 ' He did not even take the trouble to 
 write home to his friends. I thought it rather 
 strange at the time, and told him so. Later 
 on I heard the truth of it. I heard him tell 
 someone else that he was engaged to a girl 
 In England, and he thought it a very good 
 way of getting out of the engagement.'
 
 MERCURY 43 
 
 ' You heard him tell that, with your own 
 
 ears ? 
 
 * Yes, and he seemed to think It a good 
 joke.' 
 
 Mrs. Agar was shuffling about in the 
 chair as if in pain. 
 
 Then she asked again in a strangely 
 metallic voice, ' Did he say that he . . . did 
 not love her ? ' 
 
 * Yes, the cad ! ' 
 
 ' He cannot have been a nice man,' she 
 said with that evenness of enunciation which 
 betrays that the tongue is speaking without 
 the direct aid of the mind. 
 
 The young officer rose with a glance 
 towards the clock. 
 
 * No,' he said, ' he was not. He did 
 other things afterwards which made it 
 quite impossible for a man with any self-
 
 44 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 respect whatever to look upon him as a 
 friend.' 
 
 * Did he,' asked Mrs. Agar, ' say anything 
 about her personal appearance ? Was it that ? * 
 
 The subaltern looked puzzled. It was 
 as well for Mrs. Agar that he was not a man 
 of deep experience. Instead of being 
 puzzled he might suddenly have seen clear. 
 
 ' No — o,' he replied. ' It was not that. 
 It was merely a matter of expediency, I 
 believe.' 
 
 But, womanlike, Mrs. Agar did not be- 
 lieve him. 
 
 She sat while he made his farewell speech 
 over the whist-table, but as he went to the 
 door she rose and followed him slowly. 
 
 In the hall she watched the servant help 
 him on with his coat — her features twisted 
 into a stereotype smile of polite leave-taking.
 
 MERCURY 45 
 
 * By the way,' she said, with a sickening 
 Httle laugh, * what was the man's name — 
 your friend, whom you lost ? ' 
 
 'Michael — Seymour Michael.' 
 
 * Ah ! Good-night — good- night.' 
 
 Then she turned and walked slowly 
 upstairs. 
 
 We are apt to read indifferently of human 
 ills, whether of the flesh or the soul. We 
 are apt to overlook the fact that what we read 
 may apply to us. Some of us even bear 
 upon us the mark of hereditary disease and 
 refuse to believe in it. Then suddenly 
 comes a day when a pain makes itself felt — a 
 dumb little creeping pain, which may mean 
 nothing. We sit down and, so to speak, feel 
 ourselves. Before long all doubt goes. We 
 have got it. The world darkens, and behold 
 we are in the ranks of those upon whom
 
 46 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 we looked a little while back with a semi- 
 indifferent pity. 
 
 It was thus with Mrs. Agar. As some 
 play with nature, so had she played with her 
 own heart. She had heard of a consuming 
 love which is near akin to hatred. She had 
 read of passion which is stronger than the 
 strongest worldliness. She had smilingly 
 doubted the existence of the broken heart 
 pure and simple. And now she sat in her 
 own room, numbly, blindly feeling herself, 
 like one to whom the first warning of an 
 internal deadly disease has been manifested. 
 She was conscious of something within her- 
 self which she could not get at, over which 
 she had no control. 
 
 With quivering lips she sat and wondered 
 what she could do to hurt this man. She
 
 MERCURY 47 
 
 did not only want to inflict bodily pain, but 
 that other gnawing pain of the heart which 
 she herself was now feeling for the first time. 
 And through it all there ran the one thought 
 that he must die. It was strange that hate 
 should first teach her that love is a living, 
 undeniable reality in the lives of all of us. 
 She had never realised this before. Her 
 bringing-up, her surroundings, all her teach- 
 ing had been that money and a great house, 
 and servants, and carriages w^ere the good 
 things of this life, the things to be sought after. 
 She had been conscious of a vague ad- 
 miration for Seymour Michael, and that was 
 the full extent of her knowledge of herself. 
 This admiration took the worldly form of a 
 conviction that he was destined one day 
 to be a great man, and she had a strongly
 
 48 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 developed, common-minded desire to be a 
 great lady. 
 
 There are some things in this life which 
 to a moderate intelligence are quite unmistak- 
 able. Most of us, having left childhood be- 
 hind, recognise at once an earthquake, and 
 death. Love is as unmistakable when it really 
 comes. And Anna Agar, having suddenly 
 learnt to hate Seymour Michael, knew that 
 she had loved him with that one all-absorbing 
 love which comes but once to a woman. 
 
 She was not a deep-thinking or a subtle 
 woman. Her actions were usually based 
 upon impulse, and her one all-absorbing 
 desire now was to see him, to speak to him 
 face to face. In this indefinite longing there 
 was probably a vulgar love of vituperation — 
 the taint of her low-born ancestors. 
 
 She wanted to shout and shriek her
 
 MERCURY 49 
 
 hatred into the evil face of the man who had 
 tricked her. She wanted to frighten him, 
 to threaten, to lash him with her tongue. For 
 she was conscious all the while of her own 
 inability to harm him. Without defining the 
 thought, her common-sense taught her one 
 lamentable, unjust fact ; namely, that unless a 
 woman is loved by the object of her wrath 
 she can hardly make him suffer. 
 
 She rose at last, and, lighting the candles 
 on the writing-table, she proceeded to write 
 to Seymour Michael. Even in this epistle 
 the natural cunning of her nature appeared. 
 
 * Dear Seymour ' — she wrote on a sheet 
 of paper bearing the address of the house in 
 which she was staying, the roof under which 
 Seymour Michael had first paid his careless 
 tribute to her wealth — ' I learnt by accident 
 this evening that your regiment has returned 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 to England. If you are In London, I hope 
 you will make time to come and see me. 
 Come to-morrow evening at four, if that time 
 
 is convenient to you. 
 
 * Anna.' 
 
 She purposely signed her Christian name 
 only, purposely refrained from vouchsafing 
 any personal news. She did not know how 
 much or how little he might know. 
 
 Rinoflnof for her maid she sent the letter 
 to the post, addressed to Seymour Michael, 
 at the Service Club, of which she knew him 
 to be a member. Then she went to bed to 
 toss and turn all night. The doctors, good, 
 portly Clapham practitioners, had warned 
 her In the usual way to spare herself all bodily 
 fatigue and mental worry for the sake of the 
 little one. It is so easy to urge each other 
 to spare all mental worry, and so eminently 
 useful.
 
 51 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 FREIGHTED 
 
 * I shall remember while the light lives yet, 
 And in the darkness I shall not forget.' 
 
 Seymour Michael was no coward where 
 hard words and no hard knocks were to be 
 exchanged. His faith in his own keenness 
 of intellect and unscrupulousness of tongue 
 was unbounded. 
 
 He smiled when he read Anna Agar's 
 letter over a dainty breakfast at his club the 
 next morning. The cunning of it was ob- 
 vious to his cunning comprehension, and the 
 fact of her suppressing her newly-acquired 
 
 E 2 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILUNOIS 
 LIBRARY
 
 52 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 surname only convinced him that she knew 
 but Httle about himself. 
 
 That same evening at four o'clock he 
 presented himself at the lordly hall-door of 
 Mr. Hethbrldge. Since first he had raised 
 his hand to this knocker, fingering his letter 
 of Introduction to the East India director, 
 Seymour Michael had learnt many things, 
 but the knowledge was not yet his that In- 
 discriminate untruths are apt to fly home to 
 roost. 
 
 Anna Agar had easily managed to send 
 her mother out of the house ; her husband 
 spent his days as far from Clapham as cir- 
 cumstances would allow. She was seated 
 on a sofa at the far end of the room when 
 Seymour Michael was shown In, and the first 
 thing that struck her was his dimlnutlveness. 
 After the hearty country gentlemen who
 
 FREIGHTED 53 
 
 habitually carried mud into the Stagholme 
 drawing-room, this small-limbed dapper sol- 
 dier of fortune looked almost puny. But 
 there is a depth in every woman's heart 
 which is only to be reached by one man. 
 Whatever betide them both, that one is 
 different from the rest all through life. 
 
 Neither of these two persons spoke until 
 the servant had closed the door. Then, as 
 is usual in such cases, the more indifferent 
 spoke first. 
 
 ' Why did you never write to me ? ' asked 
 Seymour Michael, fixing his mournful glance 
 on her face. 
 
 ' Because I thought you were dead.' 
 
 ' You never got my letter contradicting 
 the report ? ' 
 
 ' No,' she answered, with so cheap a 
 cunning that it deceived him.
 
 54 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 'And,' he went on with the heartlessness 
 of a small man, for large men respect woman 
 with a deeper chivalry than ever puny knight 
 yet compassed, * and you did not trouble to 
 inquire. You did not even give me six 
 months' grace to cool in my grave.' 
 
 * How did you send your letter ?' she 
 asked, with a suppressed excitement which 
 he misread entirely. 
 
 ' By the usual route. I wrote off at 
 once.' 
 
 ' Liar ! liar ! liar ! ' she shrieked. 
 
 She had risen, and stood pointing an ac- 
 cusatory finger at him. Then suddenly the 
 dramatic force of the situation seemed to fail, 
 and she burst out laughing. For some 
 seconds it seemed as if her laughter was 
 getting beyond her control, but at last she 
 checked it with a gurgle.
 
 FREIGHTED 55 
 
 The complete success of the trap which 
 she had laid for him almost disappointed her. 
 Few things are more disappointing than com- 
 plete success. She hated him, and yet for the 
 sake of the one gleam of good love that had 
 flickered once in her essentially sordid heart, 
 she had nourished a vague hope that he 
 would clear himself — that at all events he 
 would have the cleverness to see through her 
 stratagem. 
 
 ' Liar ! ' she repeated. * In this room last 
 night — not twenty-four hours ago — Mr. Wyn- 
 derton told me all about it. He said that you 
 told several men in his presence that you did 
 not love me, and that your death, reported in 
 the papers, was the best way of breaking off 
 the engagement' 
 
 Seymour Michael's eyes never wavered. 
 For once they were still, with that solemn
 
 56 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 depth of gaze which tells of the curse laid on 
 a smitten, miserable race. It was strange 
 that before honest men and women his 
 glance wavered ever — he could never meet 
 honest eyes ; but looking at Anna Agar they 
 were as steady as those of a true man. 
 
 ' Wynderton,' he said, ' the man whose 
 promotion I stopped, by a report against him, 
 for looting.' 
 
 When Nature makes a fool In the guise 
 of a woman she turns out a finished work. 
 Mrs. Agar's eyes actually lighted up. Sey- 
 mour Michael saw ; but he knew that he had 
 no case. Nevertheless, in view of the 
 Squire's advanced age (a fact of which he 
 had made sure), he attempted to carry through 
 a forlorn hope. 
 
 ' And you believe this man before you 
 believe me ? ' said Michael. It Is strange how
 
 FREIGHTED 57 
 
 often one hears the word ' believe ' on the 
 lips of those whose veracity is doubtful. 
 
 Now it happened that Mr. Hethbridge 
 had spoken of Wynderton at breakfast that 
 morning in terms which left no doubt as to 
 the untruth of the statement just made in re- 
 gard to him. But even this would have been 
 passed over by the woman who had a natural 
 tendency towards falsehood herself, had not 
 Seymour Michael made a hideous mistake. 
 A wiser man than any of us has said that 
 there is a time for all things. Most distinctly 
 defined is the time for making love. More 
 men come to grief by making too much love 
 than too little. Seymour Michael, being 
 heartless, deemed erroneously that this was a 
 propitious moment to essay the power which 
 had once been his over this woman. 
 
 He accompanied his reproachful speech
 
 58 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 with a tender glance, which in olden times 
 had never failed to call forth an answering 
 look of love in her eyes. Now, it suddenly 
 aroused her to realise the extent of her 
 hatred. In some subtle way it humiliated 
 her ; for she looked back into the past, 
 and saw herself therein a dupe to this 
 man. 
 
 * No ! ' she cried, and her raised voice had 
 a sudden twang in it — suggestive of the 
 streets ; of the People. * No — you needn't 
 trouble to make soft eyes at me. I know you 
 now — I know that what that man said was 
 true. He called you a coward and a cad. 
 You are worse ! You are a Jew — a mean, 
 lying Jew.' 
 
 There are few greater trials to a man's 
 dignity than vituperation from the lips of a 
 woman. She walked towards him, clumsily,
 
 FREIGHTED 59 
 
 menacingly, and raised her hand as If to strike 
 him. 
 
 Seymour Michael's brown face turned 
 yellow beneath her blazing anger. 
 
 ' Sit down ! ' he commanded, ' and don't 
 make a fool of yourself 
 
 He was mean enough to pay her back in 
 her own coin — the paltry, loud-ringing coin 
 which Is all that a woman has. 
 
 ' I do not mean to wTangle,' he said coolly. 
 ' But I may as well tell you now^ that I never 
 cared a jot for you. I was laughing at you 
 In my sleeve all the time. I did not want 
 you, but your money. I concluded that the 
 money would be too dear at the price, so I 
 determined to throw you over. The way I 
 chose to do it w^as as good as any other, be- 
 cause It saved me the trouble of writing to 
 you.'
 
 60 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 Anna Agar had obeyed him. She was 
 sitting down in a stiff-backed arm-chair, 
 looking stupidly at the pattern of the carpet 
 as if it were something new to her. Between 
 physical pain and mental excitement she was 
 beginning to wander. She was the sort of 
 woman to lose control over her mind with a 
 temperature of one hundred and one. 
 
 Michael looked keenly at her. He had 
 a racial terror of physical ailment. He saw 
 that something was wrong, but his knowledge 
 went no further. He had never seen a 
 woman faint, so limited had been his ex- 
 perience of the sex. 
 
 * Come,' he said consolingly, * it is all for 
 the best. We made a mistake. In a few 
 years we shall look back to this, and thank 
 Heaven for saving us many years of un- 
 happiness. We are not suited to each
 
 FREIGHTED 6 1 
 
 Other, Anna. We never should have been 
 happy.' 
 
 It was characteristic of the man to be 
 more afraid of a fainting fit than of a broken 
 heart. 
 
 He went to her side and stood, not 
 daring to touch her, for fear of arousing 
 another of those fits of passion in her which 
 neither of them seemed to understand. At 
 length she spoke in a singular monotonous 
 tone which an experienced doctor would 
 have recognised at once as the speech of a 
 tongue unguided for the time being. She 
 did not look up, but kept her eyes fixed on 
 the carpet as if reading there. 
 
 * Some day,' she said, ' I will pay you 
 back. Some day — some day. I do not know 
 how, but I feel that you will be sorry you 
 ever did this.'
 
 62 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 Twenty-five years afterwards these words 
 came back to him in a flash. They passed 
 through his brain — conglomerate — in a flash, 
 in a hundredth part of the time required to 
 speak them. 
 
 Even at the time of hearing them, spoken 
 in that voice which did not seem to belong 
 to Anna Hethbridge at all, he turned pale. 
 For all the hatred that burnt within her like 
 a fire smouldered in the deliberate tones of 
 her voice. Hatred and love can teach us 
 more in a moment than the experience of a 
 lifetime ; for through either of them we see 
 ourselves face to face. This hatred made 
 Anna Agar in twenty-four hours, and the 
 woman thus created went through a lifetime 
 unchanged. 
 
 Michael went towards the bell.
 
 FREIGHTED 63 
 
 ' I am going to ring,' he said, ' for your 
 maid.' 
 
 ' Twice,' she muttered in the same vague 
 way. 
 
 He obeyed her, ringing twice. 
 
 Presently the woman came. 
 
 * Your mistress,' said Michael in a low 
 voice to her at the door, ' has been suddenly 
 seized with faintness. I leave her to you.' 
 
 Without looking round he passed through 
 the doorway and out into his own self- 
 seeking life. But Anna Agar's revenge 
 began from that moment. To a man of his 
 nature, in whose veins ran the taint of a 
 semi-superstitious Oriental blood, there was 
 a nameless terror in the hatred of a human 
 being, however helpless. Surely the hell of 
 the coward will be a twilight land of vague
 
 64 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 shadowy dangers ever approaching and re- 
 ceding. 
 
 In such a land Seymour Michael moved 
 for some months, until he returned to India ; 
 and there in the daily round of a new life he 
 gradually learnt to shake off the past. The 
 world is very large despite chance meetings. 
 It is easy enough to find room for two even 
 in the same county, with the exercise of a 
 little care. 
 
 Twenty-five years elapsed before these 
 two met again, and then they only had time 
 to exchange a glance. By that time the 
 result of their own actions had passed be- 
 yond their control. 
 
 Seymour Michael walked across the 
 Common, which was in those days still wild 
 and almost beautiful ; and on the whole he 
 was pleased with the result of this interview.
 
 FREIGHTED 65 
 
 He knew that it was destined to come 
 sooner or later — he had known that all 
 along ; and it might have been worse. It is 
 characteristic of an untruthful nature to be 
 impervious to the shame of mere detection. 
 In Eastern countries the liar detected smiles 
 in one's face. Detection is to an Oriental 
 no punishment ; something more tangible is 
 required to pierce his mental epidermis. 
 
 Being quite incapable of a strong love 
 this man was innocent of consuming hatred. 
 He therefore vaguely wondered whether the 
 day might come wherein he would once 
 more lay siege to the affections of Anna 
 Agar, a rich widow. 
 
 Had he seen the face of the woman 
 whom he had just left as It lay at that 
 moment, hardly less pale than the pillow 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 between the fluted mahogany pillars of a 
 huge four-post bed, he would not have under- 
 stood its meaning. He would never have 
 divined that the dull gleam shining between 
 her half-closed eyelids was simple hatred of 
 himself, that the restless, twitching lips were 
 whispering curses upon his head, that the 
 half-stunned brain was struggling back to 
 circulation and thought for the sole purpose 
 of devising hurt to him. 
 
 Seymour Michael, ignorant of all this, 
 went peaceably back to his club, where he 
 dressed, dined, and proceeded to pass the 
 evening at a theatre. 
 
 That night, while he was displaying his 
 diamond studs in the stalls of Drury Lane 
 Theatre, was born into the world — long 
 before his time — a child, Arthur Agar, 
 destined to walk the smoothest paths of life.
 
 FREIGHTED 6"] 
 
 literally in silk attire ; for he grew up to love 
 such things. 
 
 But the ways of nature are strange. 
 She is very quiet, patient as death itself 
 She holds her hand for years — sometimes for 
 a generation, but she strikes at last. 
 
 She is more cruel than man, or even 
 than woman, which is saying much. She is 
 the best friend we have, and the worst foe, 
 for she never forgives an outrage. 
 
 Nature raised her hand over this puny, 
 whimpering child, Arthur Agar. She never 
 forgot a mother's selfish passion. She for- 
 gets nothing. When first he opened his 
 little pink lids upon the world he looked 
 round with a scared wonder In a pair of 
 colourless blue-grey eyes ; and that vague 
 look of expectation never left his eyes in 
 later life. It almost seemed as if the infant 
 
 F 2
 
 68 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 orbs could see ahead into the future — could 
 discern the lowering hand of outraged nature. 
 This hand was suspended over the ill- 
 fated, poorly-endowed head for years, then 
 nature struck — hard.
 
 69 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 AFTER NINETEEN YEARS 
 A sharp judgment shall be to them that be in high places. 
 
 ' Yes, dear. I have great news for you to 
 take back to your mother. Jem has got his 
 commission — in a Goorkha regiment!' 
 
 The lady who spoke leant back in her 
 chair, half turning her head, but not looking 
 entirely round in the direction of the on^y 
 other occupant of the room — a girl of nine- 
 teen. 
 
 ' In a Goorkha regiment, Aunt Anna ? ' 
 repeated the girl ; ' what is that ? It sounds 
 as if he would have to black his face and
 
 70 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 wear a turban. It suggests curry and 
 gymkhanas (whatever they may be) and 
 pyjamas and bananas and other pickles. A 
 Goorkha regiment.' 
 
 There was a faint drop In her tone — on 
 the last three w^ords, which to very keen ears 
 might have signified reproach, but the 
 hearer was not keen — merely cunning, which 
 is quite a different matter. 
 
 'Yes, dear. They tell me that these 
 Indian regiments are much the best for a 
 young man who is likely to get on. There 
 are so many more chances of promotions and 
 — er — er — distinction. ' 
 
 The girl was standing by the open win- 
 dow, and she turned her head without 
 otherwise moving, looking at the speaker 
 with a pair of exceedingly discriminating 
 eyes.
 
 AFTER NINETEEN YEARS 71 
 
 * Bosh, my dear aunt,' she whispered 
 confidingly to the blind-cord. 
 
 ' Yes,' pursued the lady, with the eager 
 credulity of her first mother ; ever ready to 
 believe the last speaker when belief is con- 
 venient. * Yes. Sister Cecilia tells me that 
 all the great men began in the Indian 
 Service.' 
 
 ' Oh ! I wonder where they finished. 
 Royal Academy — finishing Academy. Regi- 
 mentals and a gold frame — leaning heroically 
 on a mild-looking cannon with battles in the 
 background.' 
 
 * Yes, dear,' replied Mrs. Agar, who only 
 half understood Dora Glynde at all times ; 
 *Jt is such a good thing for Jem. Such a 
 splendid opportunity, you know ! ' 
 
 * Yes,' echoed the girl, with a twist of her 
 humorous lips. ' Splendid ! '
 
 72 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 She had turned again, and was looking 
 out of the window across a soft old lawn 
 where two Wellingtonias towered side by 
 side like sentries. Without glancing in the 
 direction of her companion she knew the 
 expression of Mrs. Agar's face, the direction 
 of her gaze ; the very thought in her shallow 
 mind. She knew that Mrs. Agar was sitting 
 with her arms on the little davenport, 
 gazing rapturously at the photograph of an 
 insipid young man with a silk-faced smoking 
 jacket ; with clean linen, clean countenance, 
 clean hands, immaculate hair, and a general 
 air of being too weak to be mean. 
 
 ' Sister Cecilia,' went on the elder lady, 
 ' seems to know all about it' 
 
 It is useless to attempt concealment of 
 the fact that at this juncture Dora Glynde 
 made a face— an honest schoolgirl behind
 
 AFTER NINETEEN YEARS 73 
 
 your back face — indicative of supreme scorn 
 for some person or persons unspecified. 
 
 Hers was a countenance which lent itself 
 admirably to the purpose, with lips full of 
 humour, and capable, as such lips are, of 
 expressing a great and wonderful tenderness. 
 The face, die reste, was that of a healthy, fair- 
 skinned English girl, liable to honest change 
 from pale to pink, according to the dictates 
 of an arbitrary climate. Her eyes were of a 
 dark grey-blue, straightforward and steady, 
 with a shadow of thought in them which 
 made wise people respect her presence. She 
 was not painfully beautiful, like the heroine 
 of a novel — nor abnormally plain, like the 
 antitype who has found her way into fiction, 
 and there (alone) brings all hearts to her feet. 
 
 ' Is Jem glad ?' she asked cheerfully. ' Is 
 he thirsting for gore and glory ? '
 
 74 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 ' Oh, delighted ! Arthur will be so 
 pleased too. Dear boy, he is so interested 
 in soldiers, but of course /le could not go 
 into the army. He is too delicate — besides, 
 the life is rough, and the risks are very 
 great.' 
 
 Mrs. Agar was speaking with her head 
 slightly inclined to one side, and she never 
 raised her adoring eyes from the photograph 
 of the insipid young man. Had she done so 
 she would have seen a look of patient, if 
 comic, resignation come over the face of her 
 youthful companion at the mention of her 
 son's name. 
 
 ' I will tell mother,' said Dora Glynde, 
 purposely ignoring Arthur Agar, whose name 
 was always dragged sooner or later into 
 every conversation. ' Fancy Jem in a helmet, 
 or a turban, with his face blacked ! All the
 
 AFTER NINETEEN YEARS 75 
 
 same, if I were a man I should be a soldier. 
 When does he go — to join his regiment ?' 
 
 * Oh, almost at once.' 
 
 The girl winced, quietly, between herself 
 and the blind-cord. 
 
 * And in the meantime,' she said lightly, 
 ' I suppose he is fully engaged in buying 
 swords and guns and bomb-shells, or what- 
 ever the Goorkhas use in warfare.' 
 
 ' He is coming home to-morrow for Sun- 
 day,' replied Jem Agar's step-mother absently. 
 She was thinking of her own son, and there- 
 fore did not hear the quick sigh which was 
 almost a gasp ; did not note the sudden light 
 in the girl's eyes. 
 
 Dora Glynde was rather a solitary-minded 
 young person. The only child of elderly 
 parents, she had nev^er learnt in the nursery 
 to indulge in the indiscretions of confiding
 
 76 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 girlhood. She had the good fortune to be 
 without a bosom-friend who related her most 
 sacred secrets to other bosom friends and so 
 on, as is the way of maidens. From her 
 father she had inherited a discriminating 
 mind and a most admirable habit of reserve. 
 She was quite happy when alone, which, ac- 
 cording to La Bruyere, is a great safeguard 
 against all evil. 
 
 She wanted to be alone now, and there- 
 fore passed out of the open window with a 
 non-committing ' Good-bye, Aunt Anna ! ' 
 
 ' Good-bye, dear,' replied the lady, waking 
 suddenly up from a reverie. But by the 
 time she had turned round in her chair, the 
 girl was gone. 
 
 Dora crossed the lawn, passing between 
 the sentinel pines and crossing the moat by 
 the narrow footbridge. She climbed the
 
 AFTER NINETEEN YEARS 77 
 
 railing with all the ease of nineteen years 
 and struck a bee-line across the park. She 
 never raised her eyes from the ground, never 
 paused in her swinging gait, until she reached 
 the brown hush of the beechwood which 
 divided the Rectory garden from the southern 
 extremity of the park. 
 
 Having climbed the railing again she sat 
 on a mossy mound at the foot of a huge 
 beech tree. Her manner of doing so subtly 
 indicated that she not only knew the spot, 
 but was in the habit of sitting there, possibly 
 to think. A youthful privilege of doubtful 
 value, for, as we get busier in life we have to 
 do the thinking as we go along. 
 
 ' Oh ! ' she muttered, ' oh, how awful ! ' 
 A new expression had come over her 
 face. She looked older, and all the vivacity 
 had suddenly left her lips.
 
 78 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 While she was still sitting there the crisp 
 sound of footsteps on the fallen leaves ap- 
 proached through the wood. Looking up 
 she saw her father, following the winding 
 path through the spinney towards his home. 
 
 A grave man was the Rector of Stag- 
 holme in his declining years ; hopelessly, 
 wisely pessimistic, with sudden youthful re- 
 turns of interest in matters literary and theo- 
 logical. As he came he read a book. 
 
 Instantly the expression of Dora's face 
 changed. She rose and went towards him, 
 smiling contemptuously towards his lowering 
 gravity. He looked up, gave a little grunt 
 of recognition, and closed his book. 
 
 ' Father,' she said, ' I have just heard a 
 piece of news.' 
 
 ' Bad, I suppose.' 
 
 She laughed.
 
 AFTER NINETEEN YEARS 79 
 
 'Well,' she answered, *I suppose we 
 shall survive It. Jem has got his commission, 
 in a Goorkha regiment.' 
 
 ' Goorkha regiment, nonsense ! ' 
 
 'Aunt Anna has just told me so. She is 
 very pleased, and seems prepared for the — 
 best.' 
 
 ' That Is the custom of fools, to be pre- 
 pared for the best — only.' 
 
 The Rector gave a despairing shrug of 
 the shoulders. He was a man who allowed 
 himself, after the manner of the ancients 
 with whom he lived mentally, a few gestures. 
 He smoked a very expressive cigarette. He 
 was smoking one at this moment, and threw 
 it away, half consumed. This Divine was 
 possessed of a rooted conviction that the 
 Almighty made a great mistake whenever 
 He invested temporal power in a woman,
 
 8o FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 whom he was ungalkntly inclined to classify 
 under a celebrated dictum of Mr. Carlyle's 
 respecting the population of these happy 
 Isles, who, truth to tell, care not one jot what 
 Mr. Carlyle may think of them. 
 
 The Reverend Thomas Glynde and his 
 daughter walked all the way home without 
 exchanging another word. In the Rectory 
 drawing-room they found Mrs. Glynde, small, 
 nervous, worried. She had evidently de- 
 voted considerable thought and attention to 
 the preservation of the hot buttered toast. 
 Poor humble little soul, she was quite con- 
 tent to minister to the bodily requirements 
 of her spouse, havmg long ago been convinced 
 of the inferiority of her own sex in every 
 respect except a certain limited knowledge 
 of housekeeping matters. 
 
 She was vaguely conscious of inferiority
 
 AFTER NINETEEN YEARS 51 
 
 to Dora from a literary point of view, and 
 talked with abject humility to her own 
 daughter of all things appertaining to books. 
 But on all other points connected with the 
 child of her old age this quiet little woman 
 was absolute mistress. Years before the 
 Rector had made a great mistake ; he had, 
 as the plain-spoken East Burgen doctor put 
 it, made an ass of himself on the matter of a 
 childish illness, thereby imperilling Dora's 
 half-fledged^ little life. Mrs. Glynde had 
 then, like a diminutive tigress, stood up 
 boldly before her awesome lord and master, 
 saying such things to him that the remem- 
 brance of them made her catch her breath 
 even now. From that time forth the Rector 
 was allowed to hold forth on symptoms to 
 his heart's content, to take down from his 
 library shelf a stout misguided book of 
 VOL. I G
 
 82 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 medical short-cuts to the grave, but nothing 
 more. 
 
 He never referred to the asinine business, 
 and in the course of years he forgave the 
 doctor (having in view the fact that that 
 practitioner had been carried away by a right 
 and proper sense of the importance of the 
 case), but he tacitly acknowledged that in 
 the practice of home-administered medical 
 assistance, his knowledge was second to a 
 mother's instinct. 
 
 ' It appears,' he said sharply, while he 
 was stirring his tea, ' that Jem Agar has got 
 his commission in a Goorkha regiment.' 
 
 Now Mrs. Glynde knew more about the 
 organisation of the heavenly bands than of 
 the administration of the Indian army. She 
 did not know whether to rejoice or lament, 
 and having been sharply pulled up — any
 
 AFTER NINETEEN YEARS S^ 
 
 time during the last twenty years — for doing 
 one or the other in the wrong place, she 
 meekly took soundings. 
 
 * What is that, dear ? ' she inquired. 
 'The Goorkhas are native Indian 
 
 soldiers,' explained the Rector. ' Very good 
 fellows, no doubt. They get all the hard 
 knocks in small frontier wars and none of the 
 half-pence. What the woman can have 
 been thinking of, I don't know.' 
 
 Mrs. Glynde was anxiously glancing 
 towards Dora, who was flicking the nose of a 
 sportive kitten with the tassel of the tea- 
 cosy. 
 
 'And will he go to India?' she asked, 
 with laudable mental grovellings in the mire 
 of her own ignorance. 
 
 * Course he will.' 
 
 * And added Dora cheerfully, ' he will 
 
 G 2
 
 84 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 come home covered with glory and medals, 
 with a weakness for strong pickles and hot 
 language, I mean hot pickles and strong 
 language.' 
 
 ' But,' said Mrs. Glynde rather breath- 
 lessly, ' are they never stationed in England?' 
 
 ' No — never,' replied her husband snap- 
 pishly. 
 
 Mrs. Glynde had a pink patch on each 
 cheek — precisely on the spot where two such 
 patches had appeared years ago when the 
 doctor spoke so strongly. Those patches 
 were maternal, and only appeared when 
 Dora's affairs, spiritual or temporal, were 
 concerned. 
 
 * I don't know,' put in Dora again, ' but I 
 have a sort of lurking conviction that Jem 
 will have to wear a turban and red morocco 
 boots.'
 
 AFTER NINETEEN YEARS 85 
 
 * But,' pursued Mrs. Glynde, with that 
 courage which cometh with a red patch on 
 either cheek, ' I always thought these Indian 
 regiments were meant for people who are 
 badly off.' 
 
 The Rector gave a short laugh. 
 
 * You are not so very far wrong, my dear,' 
 he admitted. 
 
 ' And no one can say that Jem is badly 
 off. He will be very rich some day.' 
 
 The Rector assumed an air of superior 
 discretion, to which he usually treated his 
 women-folk when he thought fit to consider 
 that they were touching on matters beyond 
 their jurisdiction. 
 
 * Some more tea please, mother,' put in 
 Dora appropriately. ' Excuse my appetite. 
 I suppose it is the autumn air.' 
 
 There was a short silence, during which
 
 S6 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 Mrs. Glynde sought to propitiate her angered 
 spouse with sodden toast and a second brew 
 of tea. 
 
 ' I always said,' observed the Rector at 
 last, * that your cousin was a fool.' 
 
 And in some indefinite way Mrs. Glynde 
 felt that she was once more responsible.
 
 S7 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 FOR HIS COUNTRY 
 
 Shall I forget on this side of the grave ? 
 I promise nothing ; you must wait and see. 
 
 From the train arriving at East Burgen 
 station at eight o'clock that same evening 
 there aHghted a youth who seemed suddenly 
 to have taken manhood upon his shoulders. 
 He stood on the platform and pointed out to 
 a porter, who called him Master James, a 
 large Gladstone bag and a new sword-case. 
 
 Although he could have carried the 
 luggage under one arm and the porter under 
 the other, he carefully refrained from offering 
 to convey anything except his own walking-
 
 88 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 5tick. Such is the force of education. This 
 boy had been brought up to expect service. 
 He was to be served all his life,, and so the 
 sword-case had to be left to the porter whom 
 he envied. 
 
 During the journey down — between the 
 farthest removed stations — the sword had 
 Hashed more than once in the dim light of 
 the carriage lamp. Ah ! those first swords ! 
 Not Toledo nor Damascus can produce their 
 equal in after years. 
 
 The porter, honest father of two private 
 soldiers of the line himself, saw it all — at 
 once. He carried the sword-case with an 
 exaggerated reverence and forbore from 
 remark just then. Afterwards beneath the 
 station-lamp, he looked at the shilling — the 
 first of its kind from that quarter — with a 
 pathetic, meaning smile.
 
 FOR HIS COUNTRY 89 
 
 It was Saturday night. The streets of 
 East Burgen were rather crowded, and Jem 
 Agar — with elbows well in and the whip at 
 the regulation angle across old Lasher's face, 
 who could not help squinting at the pendant 
 thong — shouted to the country-folk in a new 
 voice of mighty deep register. 
 
 He carried his boyish head stiffly, and 
 had for ever discarded a turn-down collar. 
 At first he kept old Lasher at a respectful 
 distance, asking in a somewhat curt and busi- 
 ness-like manner after the stables. Then 
 gradually, as they bowled along the country 
 road in the familiar hush of an April evening, 
 he thawed, and proceeded to vouchsafe to that 
 steady coachman a series of very interesting 
 details of military matters In general and the 
 Indian army in particular. 
 
 'Well, I'm sure, Mas — sir,' opined Mr,
 
 90 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 Lasher at length ; ' if there's anyone as has 
 got into his right rut, so to speak, in this 
 world, it's you. I always said you was a 
 born soldier.' 
 
 *Ah — then you've heard that I've got 
 my commission ? ' inquired Jem airily, as if 
 he had had many such in by-gone years. 
 
 ' Oh, yes, sir ! Miss Dora it was that 
 told me.' 
 
 Somehow this caused a little silence. 
 
 Truth to tell, Dora had lost her rank as 
 the most beautiful and accomplished maiden 
 in Christendom. This situation was at that 
 moment occupied by a young person hight 
 Evelina Louisa Barmond, sister to Billy 
 Barmond of the hundred and second, a 
 veteran fellow-soldier and comrade who had 
 jumped five feet six at the Sandhurst sports
 
 FOR HIS COUNTRY 9 1 
 
 a year before. Miss Evelina Louisa was 
 twenty-four, five years Dora's senior, and 
 only three years and two months older than 
 Jem Agar himself. He had spoken to her 
 twice, and thought about her in the intervals 
 allowed by such w^eighty matters as uniform 
 and the new sword, which, however, required 
 almost constant consideration at that time. 
 
 'Well,' said Jem, with exaggerated non- 
 chalance, ' I am afraid I should never be fit 
 for anything else.' 
 
 Whereat Lasher laughed and touched his 
 hat. He made it a rule to salute a joke in 
 that manner, either from a general respect 
 for humour, or looking at it in the light of a 
 mental gratuity offered by his betters. 
 
 * There's one thing you can do, Master 
 Jem, sir — leastwise, which you can do as well
 
 92 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 as any man in the British army,' he said with 
 pardonable pride, ' and that is sit a 'orse.' 
 
 'Thanks to you, Lasher,' Jem was kind 
 enough to say with a flourish of his whip. 
 
 The dignity was now ebbing fast, and by 
 the time that the clever little cob swung 
 round the gate-post into the avenue of 
 Stagholme, Jem and Lasher were fully re- 
 established on the old familiar footing. 
 
 There was a bright moon overhead, and 
 at the end of the avenue beyond the dip 
 where the lake gleamed mysteriously, the 
 gables and solid towers of Stagholme stood 
 peacefully confessed. 
 
 Jem Agar was firmly convinced that 
 England only contained one Stagholme, and 
 perhaps he was right. Six miles from the 
 nearest station, the great house stands self- 
 sufflcient, self-contained. The moat, now
 
 FOR HIS COUNTRY Q 
 
 o 
 
 dry and cultivated, Is still traceable, and re- 
 quires bridging in two places. Surrounded 
 by vast park-like meadowland, where huge 
 trees guard against cutting wind or prying 
 modern journalistic Instinct, the house is only 
 approached by a private road. 
 
 Inside the gates of this road there is 
 something ancient and feudal In the very 
 scent of the air. The tones of the big bell 
 striking the hour over the wide portico die 
 away over lands that still belong to Stag- 
 holme, despite the vicissitudes through which 
 all ancient families run. 
 
 Jem, however, whose childhood and youth 
 had been passed amidst companions with 
 names as good as his had learnt long ago to 
 keep his pride to himself. He was Jem Agar, 
 and the family name seemed somehow to 
 belong exclusively to his father still, although
 
 94 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 that thorough old sportsman had lain for 
 three years and more beneath the quiet turf 
 of the little churchyard within his own park 
 gates. 
 
 As he pulled up at the door this was 
 thrown open, and within its frame of light he 
 saw the gracious form of his step-mother 
 waiting to welcome him. Behind her, in the 
 shadow and amidst the decoration of stag- 
 horns, ancient pike and hanger, loomed a 
 tall dark figure startlingly in keeping with 
 the semi-monastic architecture of the house. 
 This was ' Sister ' Cecilia. She was always 
 thus — behind Mrs. Agar, with clasped hands 
 and a vaguely approving smile, as if Mrs. 
 Agar conferred a benefit upon suffering 
 humanity by the mere act of existing. 
 
 A slightly bored expression came into 
 Jem's patient eyes. It was not that he had
 
 FOR HIS COUNTRY 95 
 
 very much in common with his step-mother, 
 although he had an honest affection for her ; 
 but he instinctively disliked ' Sister ' Cecilia 
 and all her works. These latter were of the 
 class termed 'good.' That is to say, this 
 lady, the spinster daughter of a former rector 
 in the neighbourhood, considered that the 
 earthly livery of a marvellous black bonnet 
 which was almost a cap, and quite hideous, 
 justified a shameless interference in the most 
 intimate affairs of her neighbours, rich and 
 poor. 
 
 Under the cover of charity she committed 
 a thousand social sins. She constituted her- 
 self mother-confessor to all who were weak 
 enough to confide in her or seek her advice, 
 and in soul she was the most arrant time- 
 server who ever flattered a rich woman. 
 
 Jem distrusted her soft and * holy ' ways,
 
 96 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 more especially her speech, which had the 
 lofty condescension of the saved towards the 
 damned In prospective. In his calmly com- 
 manding way he had, months before, for- 
 bidden Dora Glynde to kiss ' Sister ' Cecilia, 
 because that ostentatiously virtuous person 
 was in the habit of kissing the maids when 
 she met them ; and he maintained that this 
 Christian practice, if very estimable theoreti- 
 cally, was socially an insult either to the 
 mistress or the maid. 
 
 In view of the important changes In his 
 own life which were about to supervene, that 
 is to say, firstly, his departure for India, and 
 secondly, his coming of age before he could 
 hope to return from that land of promise, 
 he had counted on a quiet evening with his 
 mother. Moreover, he was vaguely conscious 
 of the fact that a right-minded person would
 
 FOR HIS COUNTRY 97 
 
 have carefully abstained from accepting the 
 most pressing invitation to form a third that 
 evening. 
 
 In view of this Jem Agar had recourse to 
 the last refuge of the simple. He retired 
 within himself, and, so to speak, shut the 
 door. He had dined with these women 
 before, and knew that the conversation would 
 follow its usual mazy course through a forest 
 of cross-questions upon all subjects, and 
 notably upon those intimate matters which 
 were essentially his own business. 
 
 'Sister' Cecilia, good mistaken soul that 
 she was, tried her best. She was lively in a 
 Sunday school tea-fight style. She was by 
 turns tender and warlike as occasion seemed 
 to demand ; but no scrap or tittle of personal 
 information did she extract from Jem, stiffiy 
 on guard behind his high collar. ^Irs. Agar
 
 98 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 was excited and failed utterly to follow the 
 wiser footsteps of her bosom friends. She 
 talked such arrant nonsense about India, the 
 Goorkhas, and matters military, that more 
 than once Jem glanced at the imperturbable 
 servants with misgiving. 
 
 The next day was Sunday, and after 
 morning service Jem eagerly accepted an in- 
 vitation to have supper at the Rectory after 
 evening church. 'Sister' Cecilia was stay- 
 ing from Saturday till Monday, which alone 
 was sufficient reason for this young soldier 
 to pass his last evening in Stagholme under 
 another than his own historic roof. With 
 her in the house he knew that the chances of 
 serious conversation were small ; for she en- 
 couraged such topics as the possibility of 
 sending fresh eggs packed in lime to the 
 Goorkhas of his prospective half-company.
 
 FOR HIS COUNTRY 99 
 
 So Jem retired within himself, and finally left 
 England without having said many things 
 which should have been said between step- 
 mother and son. 
 
 At the Rectory he found a very different 
 atmosphere ; that air of cheerful Intellectuality 
 which comes from the presence of cultivated 
 men and women. 
 
 The Rector held strong views on the 
 rare virtue of minding one's own business, 
 and in loyalty to such, deemed it right to 
 refrain from mentioning his opinion as to the 
 wisdom of selecting a native branch of 
 the military service for the heir to Stag- 
 holme. 
 
 The supper passed pleasantly enough In 
 the discussion of general topics all bordering 
 on the great question they had at heart. 
 They were like people seeking for each 
 
 H 2
 
 lOO FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 Other in the dark around the edge of a pit — 
 the pit being India. Dora, and Dora alone, 
 laughed and treated matters Hghtly, Mrs. 
 Glynde blundered several times, and stepping 
 backwards over an abyss of years, called the 
 new soldier darling more than once. Twice 
 she required helping out by Dora, and on 
 the second occasion something was said 
 which Jem remembered afterwards with a 
 stolid British memory. 
 
 ' Jem,' said the girl, buttering a biscuit 
 with a light hand, ' you should write a 
 diary. All great men write diaries which 
 their friends publish afterwards.' 
 
 ' I do not think,' replied Jem, with that 
 contempt for the pen which the possession 
 of a new sword ever justifies, ' that writing a 
 diary is much in my line.' 
 
 ' Ah — you can never tell till you try. Of
 
 FOR HIS COUNTRY 10 1 
 
 course It would not be published straight off. 
 Some literary person would be hired to 
 cross the t's and dot the I's.' 
 
 There was a little pause. Dora glanced 
 at Jem Agar, and something made him 
 say : 
 
 'All right. I'll try.' 
 
 'Who knows?' said the Rector, with a 
 smile of Indulgent affection. ' There may 
 be great literary capacity lying dormant In 
 Jim. The worst of a diary Is that one may 
 come to look at It In after years when one 
 finds a very different story has been written 
 from what one Intended to write.' 
 
 ' Oh,' said Dora, lightly skipping over 
 the chasm of gravity, ' that Is Providence. 
 We must blame Providence for these little 
 contretemps. Someone must be blamed, and 
 Providence obviously does not mind.*
 
 I02 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 Jem laughed — somewhat lamely. But 
 still it was a laugh. Supper was despatched 
 somehow — as last meals are. Some of us 
 never forget the flavour of those cups of tea 
 gulped down in the gorgeous steamer-saloon 
 while the stewards get the hand luggage on 
 board. It was a late meal on Sunday- 
 evening at the Rectory, and the servants 
 soon follow^ed their betters into the drawing- 
 room for prayers. 
 
 Then the Rector lighted his last 
 cigarette, and Mrs. Glynde began to show 
 symptoms of a patch of pink in either 
 cheek. 
 
 At last Jem rose — awkwardly — in the 
 midst of a sally from Dora, who seemed 
 afraid to stop speaking. 
 
 * Must be going,' he said ; and he shook 
 hands with the Rector.
 
 FOR HIS COUNTRY I03 
 
 Mrs. Glynde, with nervous deliberation, 
 kissed him and squeezed his hand jerkily. 
 
 ' Dora — will open the door for you/ she 
 said with an apprehensive glance towards 
 her husband, who, however, showed no in- 
 clination to move from his chair. 
 
 Dora not only opened the door, but she 
 left it open, and walked with him across the 
 lawn towards the stile. When they reached 
 it there was a little pause. He vaulted over 
 and she quietly followed — without his 
 proffered assistance. 
 
 Then at last Jem spoke. 
 
 ' You don't seem to care ! * he said gruffly 
 — with his new voice. 
 
 'Oh, doiit !' she whispered imploringly. 
 
 And they walked on beneath the mur- 
 muring trees where the yellow moonlight 
 stole in and out between the trunks. It was
 
 I04 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 not cheerful. For when Nature joins her 
 sadness to the sad libretto of life she usually 
 breaks a heart or two. Fortunately for us we 
 mostly act our tragedies In the wrong scenery 
 — the scenery that was painted for a comedy. 
 
 * I don't understand It,' said the girl at 
 length. ' I suppose it is in order to save 
 money for Arthur.' 
 
 ' If I don't go,' replied Jem, ' it will be a 
 question of letting Stagholme.' 
 
 Dora knew of the ancient horror of 
 such a necessity, handed down from one 
 Agar to another, like a family tradition. 
 Moreover, women seem to respect men who 
 have some simple creed and hold to It simply. 
 Are they not one of our creeds themselves, 
 though by seeking for rights instead of con- 
 tenting themselves with privileges, some of 
 them try to make atheists of us ? '
 
 FOR HIS COUNTRY IO5 
 
 ' So,' she said nevertheless, ' you are 
 being sacrificed to Arthur ! ' 
 
 He answered nothing, but he had for- 
 gotten for ever Miss EveHna Louisa Bar- 
 mond. 
 
 ' When do you go ? ' asked Dora sud- 
 denly, with something in her voice which 
 no one had ever heard before. She was 
 startled at it herself. 
 
 He waited until the soft old church bell 
 finished striking ten, then he answered : 
 
 * To-morrow ! ' 
 
 They had reached the farthest limit of 
 the wood and stood at the park railing. 
 
 ' Then — ,' she paused, and seemed to 
 collect herself as if for a leap ; ' then good- 
 bye, Jem ! ' 
 
 He took the outstretched hand ; his large 
 grasp seemed to swallow it up.
 
 I06 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 ' Good-bye ! ' he said. 
 
 He climbed the rail without agility, paused 
 for a moment, and the moonlight happened 
 to gleam on his face through the gently waving 
 branches as he looked down at her in dumb 
 distress. 
 
 Then he turned and walked away across 
 the shimmering grass. 
 
 A few minutes later Dora re-entered the 
 drawinof-room. Her father and mother were 
 seated close together, closer than she had 
 seen them for years. Mrs. Glynde was pale, 
 with two scarlet patches. 
 
 Dora collected her belongings, prepara- 
 tory to going to bed. 
 
 ' Jem,' she said quietly, 'is absurdly proud 
 of his new honours. It affects his chin, 
 which has gone up exactly one inch.' 
 
 Then she went to bed.
 
 I07 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD 
 
 The more a man has in himself, the less he will want 
 from other people. 
 
 ' Here — hi !' 
 
 As no one replied to this summons either 
 by voice or approach, the young man sub- 
 sided into occupied silence. 
 
 He was a very large young man, with a 
 fair moustache which looked almost flaxen 
 against the deep tan of his face. This last, 
 like the rest of him, was ludicrously typical 
 of that race which has wandered farther than 
 the Jews, and has hitherto managed, like 
 them, to retain a few of its characteristics.
 
 I08 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 The Anglo-Saxonism of this youth was 
 almost aggressive. It lurked In the neat 
 droop of moustache, which was devoid of 
 that untidy suggestion of a beer-mug charac- 
 terising the labial adornment of a northern 
 flaxen nation of which we wot. It shone 
 calmly in the glance of a pair of reflectively 
 deep blue eyes — It threw Itself at one from 
 the pockets of an old tweed jacket worn In 
 conjunction with regulation top-boots and 
 khahkl breeches. 
 
 Moreover It gave birth to a quiet sense 
 of being as good as anyone else, and possibly 
 better, which sat without conceit on his brow. 
 
 It would seem that he really did not 
 want to be answered just then, for he did 
 not raise a voice accustomed to dominate the 
 clatter of horses' feet, nor did he pass any 
 comment on the carelessness or criminal
 
 ox THE ROOF OF THE WORLD IO9 
 
 absence of some person or persons un- 
 known. 
 
 He merely took up his pen again, and 
 proceeded to handle that mighty weapon 
 with an awkwardness suggestive of a greater 
 skill with another instrument only less 
 powerful. He was seated on two reversed 
 buckets, pyramidally balanced, at a small 
 table which had the air of wide capabilities 
 in some other sphere of usefulness. There 
 was a weird cunning in the legs of this table 
 indicative of subtle change into a camp-bed 
 or possibly a canoe. 
 
 The writin<2f materials consisted of a 
 vaseline bottle (fourpenny size) full of ink, 
 and two weary pieces of blotting paper. 
 The paper upon which he was writing had a 
 travelled and somewhat jaundiced air, the 
 penholder was of gold. In the furniture of
 
 no FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 the tent, as in the canvas thereof, there was 
 that mournful suggestion of better days 
 which is held to be a virtue in furnished 
 apartments. But over all there hovered that 
 sense of well-scrubbed cleanliness which 
 comes from the touch of a native military 
 servant. An indulgence in this habit of 
 rubbing and scrubbing was indeed account- 
 able for much dilapidation ; for that silent 
 little Goorkha man, Ben Abdi, had rubbed 
 and scrubbed many things not intended by an 
 ingenious camp-furnisher for such treatment. 
 James Edward Makerstone Agar w^as en- 
 gaged in the compilation of a diary, which 
 volume there is reason to believe is still 
 preserved — in a woman's jewel drawer. 
 
 It has not run through any editions — 
 indeed, no compositors finger has up to this 
 rime defiled its pages. This, in fact, was one
 
 ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD I I I 
 
 of those literan^ works, ground slowly out 
 from the millstones of the brain, of which the 
 style fails to please the taste of the present 
 day. To catch the fancy of a slang-loving 
 and thoughtless generation the writer must 
 throw off his works. This is an age ot 
 ' throwing off,' and it is to be presumed that 
 future ao^es will throw the result awav. One 
 must be brilliant, shallow, slightly unpleasant 
 and very unwholesome, to acquire nowadays 
 that best of all literary reputations which 
 leaveth a balance at one's bank. 
 
 J. E. iNI. Agar — or 'Jem' as his friends 
 call him to his face and his servants behind 
 his back — Jem Sahib to wit — was no Pepys. 
 His literary style was disjointed, heavy, and 
 occasionally illiterate. This last peculiarity, 
 by the way, is of no consequence nowadays, 
 but it is mentioned here for ulterior motives.
 
 112 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 In the pages o( this Httle black-bound 
 volume there were no scintillating thoughts 
 scribbled there with suspicious neat- 
 ness of diction, such as one finds in the 
 diaries of great men who, it would seem, are 
 not above post-mortem vanity. The diary 
 was a chronicle of solid facts — Jem being 
 essentially solid and a man of the very 
 plainest facts. 
 
 Speaking as an impartial critic, one would 
 incline to the opinion that Agar devoted too 
 much thought to his work — in strong con- 
 trast, perhaps, to the literary tendency of his 
 day. He nibbled the leisure end of his 
 penholder too much, and allowed the business 
 extremity thereof to dry in inky conglome- 
 ration. The result was a distinct sense of 
 labour in the style of the work. After 
 having called in vain, perhaps for assistance,
 
 ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD I 1 3 
 
 the scribe returned to the contemplation of 
 his latest effort. The book was one of 
 Letts's diaries, three days in a page, which 
 are in themselves fatal to a finished style of 
 literature. There is always too much to say 
 or too little. One's thoughts never fit the 
 rhomboid apportioned by Mr. Letts for their 
 accommodation. Great men who have 
 thoughts when the diary is handy do not, of 
 course, patronise Letts, because he could not 
 be expected to know when there would be a 
 sunset likely to stir up poetic reflections, or a 
 moonrise comparable with the cold light cast 
 by some unsympathetic young woman's eyes 
 upon the poet's life. 
 
 For such men, however, as Agar, Mr. 
 Letts is a guardian angel. The space is there, 
 and facts must be forthcoming to fill it. Agar 
 was, and is still — thank heaven — a con- 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 scientlous man. He had promised to keep 
 this diary, and keep It he did. And surely 
 he hath his reward — remembering the jewel 
 drawer. 
 
 At the moment under consideration he 
 was filling in yesterday's rhomboid, and 
 paused at the conclusion of the following 
 remarks : 
 
 'Seven a.m. Turned out, and shot a 
 Ghilzai. Saw him sneaking up the valley. 
 Long shot — should put It down at a hundred 
 and seventy-five yards. Hit him in the 
 stom — abd — chest. Looked like rain until 
 two o'clock. Then cleared up. Walter caught 
 a mongoose and brought him in with much 
 triumph. He got conceited afterwards . and 
 slept on my bed till kicked ofi" by Ben Abdi. 
 I see it's Sunday. Church four hundred odd 
 miles away.*
 
 ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD II5 
 
 This, my masters, is not the stuff to 
 quote in extenso, and yet in its day this diary 
 was cried over — before it was put away in 
 the jewel drawer. Truly women are 
 strange — one can never tell how a thing will 
 present itself to them. Honest Jem Agar, 
 nibbling his penholder and jerking these 
 lucid observations out of his military brain 
 by mere force of discipline, never suspected 
 the heart that was in it all — that minute 
 particle of himself that lay in the blot in the 
 corner carefully absorbed by the exhausted 
 blotting paper. 
 
 * Sunday, egad ! ' he muttered, leaning 
 his arms on the cunning table, and gazing 
 out across the pineclad valley that lay below 
 him in a deep blue haze. 
 
 He stared into the haze, and there he saw 
 those whom he called ' his people ' walking 
 
 I 2
 
 Il6 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 across a neat English park towards a peace- 
 ful little English church. To them came 
 presently a young person ; a young person 
 clad in pink cotton, who walked wuth a 
 certain demure sureness of tread, as if she 
 knew her own mind and other things 
 besides. Her path came into the park from 
 the left, and among the trees into w^hich it 
 disappeared behind her there stood the red 
 chimneys of a long low house. 
 
 Suddenly these visions vanished before 
 something more tangible in the haze of the 
 valley. This was the flutter of a dirty white 
 rag which seemed to come and go among 
 the fir trees. 
 
 Jem Agar rose from his temporary seat 
 and walked to the door of the tent — exactly 
 two strides. A rifle lay against the canvas, 
 and this he took up, slowly cocking it with-
 
 ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD II7 
 
 out taking his eyes from the belt of fir trees 
 across the valley. 
 
 Presently he threw the rifle up and fired 
 instantaneously. He had been musketry in- 
 structor in his time and held views upon quick 
 firing. The smoke rose lazily in the ambient 
 air, and he saw a figure all fluttering rags and 
 flying turban running down the slope away 
 from him. At the same moment there was 
 a crashing volley, followed by two straggling 
 reports. The figure stopped, seemed to 
 hesitate, and then slowly subsided into the 
 grass. 
 
 Agar put his head out of the tent and 
 saw half a company of Goorkhas, keen little 
 sportsmen all, standing in line at the edge of 
 the plateau, reloading. 
 
 This was the force at the disposal of 
 Major J. E. M. Agar, at that time occupying
 
 Il8 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 and holding for Her Majesty the Queen of 
 England and Empress of India a very ad- 
 vanced position on the northern frontier of 
 India. And in this manner he spent most of 
 his days and some of his nights. In addition 
 to the plain Major he had several other titles 
 attached to his name at that time, indicative of 
 duties real and imaginary. He was ' deputy 
 assistant ' several things and ' acting ' one or 
 two ; for in military titles one begins in in- 
 verse ratio in a large way, and ends in some- 
 thing short. 
 
 Jem Agar was thought very highly of by 
 almost all concerned ; except himself, and it 
 had not occurred to him to devote much 
 thought to this matter. He was one of the 
 very few men to whom a senior officer or a 
 pretty girl could say, ' You are a nice man 
 and a clever fellow,' without doing the least
 
 ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD I 1 9 
 
 harm. Men who thought such things of 
 themselves laughed at him behind his back, 
 and wondered vaguely why he got promotion. 
 It never occurred to them to reflect that ' old 
 Jem ' invariably acquitted himself well in each 
 new position thrust upon him by a per- 
 sistently kind fortune ; they contented them- 
 selves with an indefinite conviction that each 
 severally could have done better, as is the 
 way of clever young men. One of the many 
 mysteries, by the way, which will have to 
 be cleared up in a busy hereafter is that 
 appertaining to brilliant boys, clever under- 
 graduates, and gifted young men. What 
 becomes of them ? There are hundreds at 
 school at this moment — w^e have it from their 
 own parents ; hundreds more at Oxford and 
 Cambridge — we have It from themselves. 
 In a few years they will be absorbed into a
 
 I20 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 world of men very much Inferior to them- 
 selves (by their own showing) and will be no 
 more seen. 
 
 Jem Agar had never been a clever boy. 
 He was not a clever man. But — and mark 
 ye this — he knew It. The result of this 
 knowledge was that he did what he could In 
 the present with the present, and did not 
 indefinitely postpone astonishing the uni- 
 verse, as most of us do, until some future 
 date. 
 
 At this time he was banished, as some 
 would take It. Banished to the top of a pass 
 which was nought else than a footway be- 
 tween two empires. Forty miles from men of 
 his own race, this man was one of those who 
 either have no thoughts or no wish to Impart 
 them ; for this racial solitude, which is an 
 emotion fully explored by many in India, In
 
 ox THE ROOF OF THE WORLD 121 
 
 no way affected his nerves. Some say that 
 they get jumpy, others aver that they begin 
 to lose their national characteristics and 
 develop barbarous proclivities, while one 
 Woods-and-Forests man known to some of 
 us resigned because he had a buzzing in the 
 head during the long solitary, silent even- 
 ings. 
 
 Major Agar made no statements on this 
 point, though he listened with sympathy 
 to the assertions of others. If the sympathy 
 was subtly mingled with non-comprehensive 
 wonder, the seeker after a purer form of 
 commiseration attributed the alloy to natural 
 density, and turned elsewhere. 
 
 Accompanied by a handful of Goorkhas, 
 Major J. E. M. Agar had occupied the key 
 to this narrow pass for more than a week, 
 vaguely admiring the scenery. Illustrating
 
 122 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 upon living * running deer ' in turbans his 
 views upon quick firing to his diminutive 
 soldiers, who worshipped him as second only 
 to the gods, and possessing his soul with that 
 trustful patience w^hich is rapidly becoming 
 old-fashioned and effete. 
 
 During that same week the newspapers 
 at home had been very busy with his name. 
 Some had gone so far as to lay before a 
 greedy public a short and succinct account of 
 his life, compiled from the Army List and a 
 journalistic imagination, finishing the record 
 on the Monday, six days previously, with the 
 usual three-line regret that England should 
 in future be compelled to limp along the 
 path to glory without the assistance of so 
 brilliant a young officer. 
 
 Such a word as brilliant had never been 
 coupled with the name of Jem even by his
 
 ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD 1 23 
 
 best friend in earnest or his worst enemy in 
 irony. Such sarcasm were too shallow to be 
 worth sounding even in disparagement. 
 But we never know what an obituary notice 
 may bring. Not only had he been endowed 
 with many virtues, manly qualities, and the 
 record of noble deeds, but more substantial 
 honours had been heaped upon his fallen crest 
 or pinned upon his breathless bosom. To 
 some of his distant countrymen he was 
 the proud possessor of the Victoria Cross, 
 awarded him post-mortem in the heat of 
 obituary enthusiasm by more than one local 
 paper. To others he was held up by what is 
 called a Representative Press as a second 
 Crichton. And all this because he was dead. 
 Such is glory. 
 
 All unconscious of these honours, honest 
 Jem Agar sat in his little tent, nibbling the
 
 124 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 end of his penholder — the gift, by the way, 
 of his father — and wishing that he had 
 bought a Letts's diary with six days in a page 
 instead of three.
 
 12 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 RELIEVED 
 Well waited is well done. 
 
 ' Here — hi !' 
 
 This time someone heard him, and that 
 small, silent man. Ben Abdi, stood in the 
 doorway of the tent at attention. 
 
 ' Are you keeping a good look-out down 
 the valley ? ' asked Major Agar, 
 
 ' Ee yess, sar.' 
 
 ' No signs of anyone ? ' 
 
 ' No, sar.' 
 
 Agar shut up the diary, which book Ben 
 Abdi had been taught to regard as strictly
 
 126 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 official, laid it aside and passed out of the 
 tent, the little Goorkha following close upon 
 his heels with a quick intelligent interest in 
 his every movement which somehow sug- 
 gested a dusky and faithful little dog. 
 
 For some moments they stood thus on 
 the edge of the small plateau, the big man 
 in front, the little one behind — alert with 
 twinkling, beady eyes. Behind them towered 
 a bleak grey slope of bare rock, like a cliff 
 set back at a slight angle, so treeless, so 
 smooth was the face of it. In front the 
 great blue-shadowed valley lay beneath them, 
 stretching away to the south, until in a 
 distant haze the sharp hills seemed to close in 
 and cut it short. 
 
 Perched thus, as it were, upon the roof of 
 the world, these two men looked down upon 
 It all with a calm sense of possession, and to
 
 RELIEVED 127 
 
 him of the dominant race standing there 
 some thousands of miles from his native 
 land — alone — master of this great stretch of 
 an ahen shore, there must have come 
 some passing thought of the strangeness of 
 it all. 
 
 There was something wrong — he knew 
 that. His orders had been to press forward 
 and occupy this little ridge, which was 
 vaguely marked on the service maps as 
 MIstley's Plateau, named after an adven- 
 turous soul, its discoverer. He had been in- 
 structed to hold this against all comers, and 
 if possible to prevent communication between 
 the two valleys, connected only by this 
 narrow pass. All this Agar had carried out 
 to the letter ; but someone else had failed 
 somewhere. 
 
 ' It will be three days at the most,' his
 
 128 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 chief had said, ' and the main body of the 
 advance guard will join you ! * 
 
 Jem Agar had been in occupation a 
 week, and it seemed that he and his little 
 band of men were forgotten of the world. 
 Still this soldier held on, saying nothing to 
 his men, writing his intensely practical diary, 
 and trusting as a soldier should to the Deus 
 ex machina who finally allows discipline to 
 triumph. He looked down into the valley, 
 piercing the shimmer of its hazes with his 
 gentle blue eyes, looking to his chief, 
 who had said, ' In three days I will join 
 you.' 
 
 It was not the first time that Agar and 
 the little non-commissioned native officer, 
 Ben Abdi, had stood thus together. They 
 had taken their stand in this same spot in 
 the keen air of the early morning, with the
 
 RELIEVED 129 
 
 white frost crystallising the stones around 
 them ; in the glow of midday, and when the 
 moon, hanging over the sharp-pointed hills, 
 cast the valley into an opaque shade dark 
 and fathomless as the valley of death. 
 
 Scanning the distant hills, Agar presently 
 raised his eyes, noting the position of the 
 sun in the heavens. 
 
 ' Have you tried the heliograph a second 
 time this morning ? ' he asked without 
 looking round, which informality of manner 
 warmed the little soldier's heart. 
 
 * Yes, sar. Three times since break- 
 fast' 
 
 It was the first time that Ben Abdi had 
 found himself in a position of some responsi- 
 bility, in immediate touch with one of the white- 
 skinned warriors from over seas whose methods 
 of making war had for him all the mystery 
 
 VOL. L K
 
 ] 30 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 and the Infinite possibilities of a religion. 
 This silent looking out for relief partook in 
 some small degree of the nature of a council 
 of war. Jem Sahib and himself were un- 
 doubtedly the chiefs of this expeditionary 
 force, and to whom else than himself, Ben 
 Abdi, should the Major turn for counsel and 
 assistance ? The little Goorkha preferred, 
 however, that it should be thus ; that Agar 
 Sahib should say nothing, merely allowing 
 him to stand silent three paces behind. He 
 was a modest little man, this Goorkha, and 
 knew the limit of his own capabilities, which 
 knowledge, by the way, is not always to be 
 found in the hearts of some of us boasting a 
 fairer skin. He knew that for hard fighting, 
 snugly concealed behind a rock at two 
 hundred yards, or in the open, with cunning 
 bayonet or swinging kookery, he was as good
 
 RELIEVED 131 
 
 as his fellows ; but for strategy, for the 
 larger responsibilities of warfare, he was well 
 pleased that his superior officer should 
 manage these affairs in his quiet way un- 
 aided. 
 
 During a luncheon more remarkable for 
 heartiness of despatch than delicacy of viand, 
 James Edward ]\Iakerstone Agar devoted 
 much thought to the affairs of Her Imperial 
 Majesty the Empress of India. After 
 luncheon he lighted a cheroot, threw him- 
 self on his bed, and there reflected further. 
 Then he called to him Ben Abdi. 
 
 * No more promiscuous shooting,' he said 
 to him. * No more volley firing at a single 
 Ghilzai or a stray Bhutari. It seems that 
 they do not know we are here, as we are left 
 undisturbed. I do not want them to know 
 — understand ? If you see anyone going 
 
 K 3
 
 132 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 along the valley, send two men after him ; no 
 shooting, Ben AbdI.' 
 
 And he pointed with his cheroot towards 
 the evil-looking curved knife which hung at 
 the Goorkha's side. 
 
 Ben Abdi grinned. He understood that 
 sort of business thoroughly. 
 
 Then followed many technical instructions 
 — not only technical in good honest English, 
 but interlarded with words from a language 
 which cannot be written with our alphabet 
 for the benefit of such as love detail of a 
 realistic nature. 
 
 The result of this council was that 
 sundry little dusky warriors were busy 
 clambering about the rocky slope all that 
 day and well into the short hill-country 
 evening, working In twos and threes with 
 the alacrity of ants.
 
 RELIEVED 133 
 
 Jem Agar, In his own good time, was pro- 
 ceeding to fortify, as well as circumstances 
 allowed, the position he had been told to 
 hold until relief should come. In addition 
 to the magic of the master's eye he lent the 
 assistance of his strong right arm, laying 
 his lithe weight against many a rock which 
 his men could not move unaided. By the 
 evening the position was in a fairly fortified 
 state, and, after a copious dinner In the chill 
 breeze that rushed from the mountain down 
 to the valley after sunset, he walked placidly 
 up and down at the edge of the plateau, 
 watching, ever watching, but with calmness 
 and no sign of anxiety. 
 
 Such It Is to be an Englishman — the 
 product of an English public school and 
 country life. Thick-limbed, very quiet ; 
 thick-headed if you will ! — That is as may
 
 134 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 be — but with a nerve of iron, ready to face 
 the last foe of all — Death, without so much 
 as a w^ink. 
 
 To his ear came at times the low 
 cautious cry of some night-bird sailing with 
 heavy wing down to the haunt of mouse or 
 mole ; otherwise the night was still as only 
 mountain night-seasons are. Far down 
 below^ him, the jungle and forest were rustling 
 with game and beasts of prey seeking their 
 meat from God, but the larger beasts of 
 India, unlike their African brethren, move in 
 silence, stealthy yet courageous ; and the 
 distance was too great for the quickly stifled 
 cry of the victim of panther or tiger to reach 
 him. 
 
 When the moon rose he made the round 
 of his pickets — a matter of ten minutes — and 
 then to bed.
 
 RELIEVED 135 
 
 On the morning of the ninth day he 
 thought he detected signs of uneasiness in 
 the faces of the men. He found their keen 
 httle visages ever turned towards him, 
 watching his every movement, noting the 
 play of every feature. So in his simpHcity 
 he practised a simple diplomacy. He 
 hummed to himself as he went his rounds 
 and while he sat over his diary. He only 
 knew one song — ' I fear no foe ' — which 
 every mess in India associated with old Jem 
 Agar, for no evening was considered com- 
 plete without the Major's one ditty if he 
 were present. He had stood up and roared 
 it in many strange places, quite without 
 sentiment, without self-consciousness, with- 
 out afterthought. He never thought it a 
 matter of apology that he should have failed 
 to learn another song. The smile with
 
 136 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 which many ladies of his acquaintance sat 
 down to play the accompaniment by hea7't 
 conveyed nothing to him. He did not pre- 
 tend to be a singer — he knew that one song, 
 and if they liked it he would sing it. More- 
 over, they did like it, and that was w^hy they 
 asked for it. It did some of them good to 
 see honest Jem get on his legs and shout out, 
 in a very musical voice, w^ith perfect truth to 
 air, what seemed to be a plain statement of 
 his creed of life. 
 
 So, far up on Mistley Plateau, nine 
 thousand feet above the level of the sea, Jem 
 Agar advised his little dark-visaged fighters 
 sotto voce, while he puzzled over his diary, 
 that his love had golden hair, with eyes so 
 blue and heart so true, that none with her 
 compared ; moreover, that he didn't care if
 
 RELIEVED 137 
 
 death were nigh, because he had fought for 
 love, and for love would die. 
 
 It was not very deep or very subtle, but 
 it served the purpose. It kept up the hearts 
 of his handful of warriors, who, in common 
 with their chief, had something child-like 
 and simple in their honest, sporting souls. 
 
 Shortly after tiffin Ben Abdi came to 
 the Majors tent, speaking hurriedly in his 
 own tongue. 
 
 One of the men had seen the sunlight 
 gleam on white steel far down in the valley. 
 He had seen it several times — a long spiral 
 flash, such as the sun would make on a 
 fixed bayonet carried over the shoulder. 
 Such a flash as this will carry twenty miles 
 through a clear atmosphere ; the spot 
 pointed out by the sharp-eyed Goorkha was
 
 138 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 not more than ten miles distant. They 
 stood in a group, this isolated little band, 
 and gazed down into the depth below them. 
 They gazed in vain for some time, then 
 a little murmur of excitement told that the 
 sun had glinted again on burnished steel. 
 This time there were several flashes close 
 together. These were men marching with 
 fixed bayonets through an enemy's country. 
 
 ' Heliograph,' said Agar quietly, without 
 taking his eyes from the spot far down in 
 the valley ; and soon the little mirror was 
 flashing out its question over the vale. After 
 a few anxious moments the answering gleam 
 sprang to life among the trees far below. 
 Agar gave a quick little sigh of relief — that 
 was all. 
 
 Then followed a short conversation 
 flickered over ten miles of space.
 
 RELIEVED 139 
 
 ' Are you beset ? ' asked the Valley. 
 
 ' No,' replied the Hill. 
 
 ' Is the enemy in sight ? ' 
 
 * No,' replied the Mountain again with a 
 sharp click. 
 
 ' Are you all well ? ' flashed from below. 
 
 ' Yes,' from above. 
 
 Then the ' Good-bye,' and the glimmer 
 of the bayonets began again. 
 
 Two hours later Major Agar drew his 
 absurd little force in line, and thus they 
 received the relieving column, grimly con- 
 scious of dangers past but not forgotten. 
 
 At the head of the new-comers rode a 
 lltde man with a prominent chin and a long 
 drooping nose ; such a remarkable-looking 
 little man that the veriest tyro at physiog- 
 nomy would have turned to look at him 
 again. His black eyes, beaming with
 
 140 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 intelligence, moved so quickly beneath the 
 steady lashes that it was next to an impossi- 
 bility to state what he saw and what he failed 
 to see. 
 
 He returned Agar's salute hurriedly, 
 with a preoccupied air. He wore a quiet 
 uniform tunic almost hidden by black braid- 
 ing, a pith helmet which had seen brighter 
 days and likewise fouler, and the leg he 
 threw over his horse's head was cased in 
 riding trousers and a neat little top-boot of 
 brown leather. 
 
 He slipped from the saddle with a litheness 
 which contrasted strangely with his closely 
 cropped grey hair and white moustache and 
 imperial. He walked towards Agar's tent 
 after the manner of one who had sat in the 
 saddle for many hours. His spurs clanked 
 with a sharp, business-like ring, and his every
 
 RELIEVED 141 
 
 movement had that neat finish which indicates 
 the soldier born and bred. 
 
 Wheeling round he faced Agar, who had 
 followed him with a more leisurely gait based 
 on longer legs, looking up keenly into the 
 quiet fair face. Turning, he shot his sword 
 home into its scabbard with a click. 
 
 ' Thank God, ' he said, ' you're safe ! ' 
 
 Agar waited for further observations. 
 This was not the man whom he had expected, 
 but another, far greater, far higher up in the 
 military scale — a man whom he had only 
 met once before, and that at an official recep- 
 tion. 
 
 Seeing that his guest was unbuckling his 
 sword, he presumed that the task of continu- 
 ing this conversation lay with himself 
 
 ' M' yes ! ' he replied, rubbing his pannikin 
 out clean with the corner of a towel, and
 
 142 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 proceeding to mix some brandy and water. 
 ' Why ? ' 
 
 ' Why ! ' answered the Httle man scorn- 
 fully, 'why! damn It, sir, Stevenoi's com- 
 mand has been cut off by the enemy In 
 force — massacred to a man. That Is why I 
 say "Thank God! you're safe." It Is more 
 than I expected.'
 
 143 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 RE-CAST 
 
 Our deeds still travel with us from afar, 
 
 And what we have been makes us what we are. 
 
 There was a momentary pause ; then 
 Major Agar spoke. 
 
 * In that case,' he observed, ' the British 
 force occupying this countr)' for the last 
 week has consisted of myself and thirty 
 Goorkhas.' 
 
 ' Precisely so ! And it was by the merest 
 chance that I found out that you were 
 here. It was only guesswork at the best. 
 A bazaar-report reached me that poor old 
 Stevenor had been cut to pieces. I hate
 
 144 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 blaming a dead man, but I really don't know 
 what he can have been about. He made 
 some hideous mistake somewhere. We buried 
 him yesterday. On hearing the report, I 
 thought it better to come up myself, having 
 a little knowledge of the country. Brought 
 two companies, and half a squadron to act 
 as scouts. We reached Barkoola yesterday, 
 and found the poor chaps as they had fallen. 
 And some of those carpet-warriors at home 
 say that a black man can't fight ! Can't he ! 
 Not so much brandy this time, please. Yes, 
 fill it up.' 
 
 Agar sat the regulation water-bottle down 
 on his gifted table. 
 
 ' I've got the Devil's own luck ! ' he 
 murmured. 
 
 ' While they were burying I missed you 
 from among the officers ; and then it struck
 
 RE-CAST 145 
 
 me that you might have got away before the 
 disaster. We counted the men, and found 
 thirty-four short, so we came on here. By 
 God ! what a chap Mistley was ! We came 
 here without a check. His maps are perfect!' 
 
 ' Yes,' admitted Agar, ' that man knew 
 his business ! ' 
 
 There was something in his tone that 
 might have been envy or perhaps mere 
 admiration ; for this man knew himself to be 
 inferior in many ways to him who had first 
 crossed the mountain pass on which he stood. 
 
 ' The worst of it is,' went on the great 
 officer, ' that you are telegraphed home as 
 killed; 
 
 He paused on the last word, watching its 
 effect. It would seem that, behind the busy 
 black eyes, there was the beginning of a 
 thought hatched within the grey close-cut 
 
 VOL. I L
 
 146 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 head which, en fait de tetes, was without its 
 rival in the Empire. 
 
 ' That is soon remedied,' opined the 
 Major with a cheerful laugh. 
 
 ' Ye— es ! ' 
 
 The great man was thoughtfully rubbing 
 his chin with the tips of his first and second 
 fingers, drawing in his under lip at the same 
 time, and apparently taking pleasure in the 
 rasping sound caused by the friction over the 
 shaven chin. 
 
 There is usually something written in the 
 human countenance — some single virtue, vice, 
 or quality which dominates all petty character- 
 istics. Most faces express weakness — the 
 faces that pass one in the streets. Some are 
 the incarnation of meanness, some pleasanter 
 types verge on sensuality. The face of the man 
 who sat watching Agar expressed indomitable,
 
 RE-CAST 147 
 
 Invincible determination, and nothing else. 
 It was the face of one who was ready to 
 sacrifice any one, even himself, to a single all- 
 pervading purpose. In this respect he was 
 a splendid commander, for he was as nearly 
 heartless as men are made. 
 
 The big fair Englishman who had occu- 
 pied Mistley's Plateau for a week, exactly 
 one hundred and seventy miles from as 
 sistance of any description, and in the heart 
 of the enemy's country, smiled down at his 
 companion with a simple wonder. 
 
 ' Got something up your sleeve, sir } ' he 
 inquired softly, for he knew somewhat of 
 his superior officer's ways. 
 
 ' Yes ! ' replied the other curdy. ' A 
 trump card ! ' 
 
 He continued to look at Jem Agar with 
 a cold and calculating scrutiny, as a jockey 
 
 L 2
 
 148 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 may look at his horse or a butcher at living 
 meat. 
 
 'It's like this,' he said. 'You're dead. 
 I want you to stay dead for a little while — 
 say six months to a year ! ' 
 
 Agar seated himself on the corner of the 
 table, which creaked under the weight of 
 his spare muscular person, and then, true to 
 his cloth, he waited further orders ; true to 
 his nature, he waited in silence. 
 
 After a pause the other proceeded to 
 explain. 
 
 * You frontier men,' he said, ' are closely 
 watched ; we know that. There will be 
 great rejoicing over there, in Northern 
 Hurope, over this mishap to Stevenor, 
 although. God knows, he was not a very 
 dangerous man. Not so dangerous as you. 
 Agar. They will be delighted to hear that
 
 RE-CAST 149 
 
 you are out of the way. Stay out of the 
 way for a year, and duruig that twelve 
 months you will be able to do more than 
 you could get done in twelve years when 
 you were being watched by them,' 
 
 ' I see,' answered Agar quietly. ' Not 
 dead, but gone — up country.' 
 
 * Precisely so ; where they certainly will 
 not be on the look-out for you.' 
 
 The bright black eyes were shining with 
 suppressed excitement. The great man was 
 afraid that his tool would refuse to work 
 under this exacting touch. 
 
 ' But what about my people ? ' asked 
 Agar. 
 
 ' Oh, I will put that right. You see, 
 they have got over the worst of it by this 
 time. It is wonderful how soon people do 
 get over it. They have known it for a week
 
 150 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 now, and have bought their mourning and all 
 that.' 
 
 There came a look into Agar's face which 
 the little officer did not understand. We 
 never do understand what we could never feel 
 ourselves, and it is not a matter of wonder 
 that the lesser intelligence should foil the 
 greater in this instance. There was a depth 
 in Jem Agar which was beyond the fathom 
 of his keen-witted companion. 
 
 ' I am going home,' continued General 
 Michael, * almost at once. The first thing I 
 do on landing is to go straight to your people 
 and tell them. We cannot afford to tele- 
 graph it. Telegraph clerks are only human, 
 and it is worth the while of the newspapers 
 in these days of large circulation to pay 
 a heavy price for their news. We all 
 know that some items published can only
 
 RE-CAST 151 
 
 have been bought from the telegraph 
 clerks.' 
 
 Agar was making a mental calculation. 
 
 ' That means,' he said, * two months 
 before they hear.' 
 
 The expression on the face of the little 
 man was scarcely human in its heartless 
 cunning. 
 
 ' Hardly,' he answered carelessly. ' And 
 when they hear the reason they will admit 
 that the result is worth the sacrifice. It will 
 be the making of you ! — and of me ! ' added 
 the black eyes with a secretive gleam. 
 
 'It is,' went on the General, 'such a 
 chance as only comes once to a man in 
 his lifetime. I wish I had had it at your 
 age.' 
 
 The voice was a pleasant one, with that 
 ring of friendliness and familiarity which is
 
 152 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 usually heard In the tones of an educated Jew ; 
 for General Michael was that rare combina- 
 tion, a Jew and a soldier. 
 
 ' I don't like leaving them so long under 
 the mistake/ answered Agar, half yielding to 
 authoritative persuasion, half tempted by 
 ambition and a love of adventure. ' I don't 
 like It, General. The straight thing would 
 be to telegraph home at once.' 
 
 In the wavering smile that crossed the 
 dark face there was suggested a fine con- 
 tempt for the straight thing unaccompanied 
 by some tangible advantage. 
 
 ' Who are they ? ' Inquired the General 
 almost affectionately. ' Who are your 
 people ? ' 
 
 Agar walked to the tent door, and looked 
 out. There was some clatter of swords going 
 on outside, and as commander of this post It
 
 RE-CAST > 153 
 
 was his duty to know all that was "passing. 
 He turned, and standing in the doorway 
 quite filling it with his bulk, he answered : 
 
 ' My father died three years ago. I have 
 a stepmother and a stepbrother, that is all, 
 — besides friends.' 
 
 The General stooped to loosen the strap 
 of his spur. 
 
 ' Of course,' he said in that attitude, ' I 
 know you are not a married man.' 
 
 ' No.' 
 
 Beneath the brim of the helmet, which 
 he had not laid aside, the Jew's keen black 
 eyes were watching, watching. But they 
 saw nothing ; for there is no one so impene- 
 trable as a man with a clear conscience and 
 a large faith. 
 
 * My idea was,' continued General 
 Michael, ' that two, or at the most three.
 
 154 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 people besides you and I be let into the 
 secret.' 
 
 ' Three,' said Agar with quiet decision. 
 
 ' Three ? ' 
 
 'Yes.' 
 
 The General tacitly allowed this point 
 and passed on with characteristic promptitude 
 to another. 
 
 * Are you a man of property ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, I inherit my father's place down in 
 Hertfordshire.' 
 
 * I'll tell you why I ask. There are 
 those beastly lawyers to think of. At your 
 death it is to be presumed that the estate 
 comes to your brother. The legal operations 
 must be delayed somehow. I will see to 
 it,' he added in a concise, almost snappish 
 way. 
 
 Agar smiled, although he was conscious
 
 RE-CAST 155 
 
 of a vague feeling of discomfort. He was 
 not a highly sensitive or a nervous man, and 
 this feeling was more than might have been 
 expected to arise from an attendance, as it 
 were, at one's own obituary arrangements. 
 The General seemed to be remarkably well 
 informed on these smaller points, and some- 
 thing prompted Jem Agar to ask him if the 
 idea he had just propounded was a suddenly 
 conceived one. 
 
 ' No,' replied the General with a singular 
 pause. ' No, I once knew a man who did 
 the same thing for a different purpose, but 
 the Idea was Identical. I do not claim to be 
 the originator.' 
 
 * And there was no hitch? It was suc- 
 cessful ? ' Inquired Agar. 
 
 ' Yes,' replied the older soldier in a far- 
 away voice, as If he had mentally gone back
 
 156 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 to the results of that man's deception. 
 * Yes, it was successful. By the way, you 
 say your people live down in Hertfordshire.' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' I once knew a girl — long ago, in my 
 younger days — who married a man called 
 Agar, and went to live in Hertfordshire. 
 The name did not strike me until you men- 
 tioned the county. I wonder if the lady is 
 now your stepmother.' 
 
 ' My stepmother's name was Hethbridge,' 
 replied Jem Agar. 
 
 'The same. How strange!' said the 
 General indifferently. * Well, she has pro- 
 bably forgotten my existence this thirty 
 years. She has one son, you say ? ' 
 
 'Yes, Arthur. He is twenty- three — five 
 years younger than myself.' 
 
 The shifty black eyes excelled them-
 
 RE-CAST 157 
 
 selves at this moment in rapidity of obser- 
 vation. They seemed to be full of question, 
 of many questions, but none were forth- 
 coming. 
 
 ' Ah ! ' said General Michael indifferently. 
 
 ' He is,' pursued Jem Agar, * a delicate 
 fellow ; does nothing ; though I believe he 
 is going to be called to the bar.' 
 
 The General, having passed most of his 
 life in India, where men work or else go home, 
 did not take in the full meaning of this ; 
 but he was keen as a ferret, and he saw- 
 easily that Jem Agar despised his step- 
 brother with that cruel contempt which strong 
 men feel for weak. 
 
 ' Mother's darling } ' he suggested. 
 
 'Yes, that is about it,' replied Agar. He 
 was too simple, too innately upright and 
 honest to perceive the infinite possibilities
 
 158 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 opened up by the fact upon which General 
 Michael had pounced. 
 
 ' In case you decide to accept my offer,' 
 the older man went on, ' you would wish 
 your stepmother and stepbrother to be told.' 
 
 ' Yes, and one other person.' 
 
 ' Ah, and another person. You could 
 not limit it to two ? ' urged the General. 
 
 ' No ! ' replied Agar with a decision 
 which the other was wise enough to con- 
 sider final. Moreover, the General omitted 
 to ask the name of this third person, urged 
 thereto by one of those strokes of instinct 
 which indicate the genius of the commander 
 of men. 
 
 General Michael, moreover, deemed it 
 prudent to carry the matter no further at that 
 moment. He rose from his seat on the bed, 
 stretched his lithe limbs, and said :
 
 RE-CAST 159 
 
 ' Well, this won't do ! We must get 
 to work. I propose retreating to-morrow 
 morning at daylight.' 
 
 They passed out of the tent together 
 and proceeded to give their orders, moving 
 in and out among the busy men. There 
 was a subtle difference in their reception 
 which was perhaps patent to both, though 
 neither deemed it necessary to make any 
 comment. Wherever Agar went the eager 
 little black faces of his Goorkhas met him 
 with a smile or a grin of delight ; when 
 General Michael passed by, the dusky 
 features hardened suddenly to a marble 
 stillness, and the beady eyes were all soldier- 
 like attention. 
 
 They feared and loved the one because 
 they felt that there was something in him 
 which they could not understand ; they feared
 
 l60 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 and hated the other because his nature was 
 nearer to their own, and they divined the 
 evil in it. 
 
 Moreover, each had his reputation — that 
 of General Michael dating from the Mutiny ; 
 the other, a younger and a cleaner record. 
 
 It is considered the proper thing to talk 
 in England of the unvoiced millions of 
 India. No greater mistake could be made. 
 These millions have a voice, but it does not 
 reach to us because they do not raise it 
 They talk with it among themselves. 
 
 They had talked of General Michael for 
 thirty years, and all that there was in him 
 had been discussed to its very dregs. Thus 
 their impenetrable faces hardened when he 
 passed, their shadowy secretive eyes looked 
 beyond him with a vacancy which was not 
 the vacancy of dulness.
 
 t6i 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 A LAST THROW 
 
 Get place and wealth; if possible, with grace ; 
 If not, by any means get wealth and place. 
 
 Daylight broke next morning in a snow- 
 storm, and a thin sprinkling lay over all the 
 hills, clothing them in spotless white. 
 
 General Michael was among the first 
 astir, seeing in person to all the details 
 of the retreat. The men looked in vain 
 towards the tent where their late youthful 
 leader had been wont to sit, nibbling the end 
 of his golden pocket-penholder, wrestling 
 manfully in the throes of literary composi 
 tion. 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 1 62 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 When at last the order was given to 
 strike tents the faces of the rank and file 
 fell like the face of one man. 
 
 Major James Edward Makerstone Agar 
 had simply disappeared. His limited bag- 
 gage was attached to the smaller belong- 
 ings of General Michael, and no expla- 
 nation was offered by that dreaded officer. 
 To him the cold seemed to be a matter of 
 indifference ; for he stood about watching 
 every movement of the men with a supreme 
 disregard for the driving snow or the knife- 
 like wind that whistled over the northern 
 scarp. 
 
 Under his calculating eye they worked 
 to such effect that by nine o'clock the little 
 column was on the downward march. Again 
 General Michael rode through that lone, lorn 
 country lying between India and Russia.
 
 A LAST THROW 1 63 
 
 Again his melancholy face with keen but 
 hopeless eyes passed through the darksome 
 valleys where, if legend be true, a race as 
 old as his has lived since the children of 
 Abraham set forth to wander over the earth. 
 
 For twenty years this man had haunted 
 these vales and hills, seeking, ever seeking, 
 his own aggrandisement and nothing else. 
 Accounted a patriot he was nopatiiot; for 
 the homeless blood was mingled in his veins. 
 Held to be a hero by some, he was none; for 
 he hated danger for its own sake, just as 
 some men love it. 
 
 But his lines had been cast in this un- 
 pleasant place, from whence flight or retreat 
 was rendered almost impossible, by the laws 
 of discipline and the freak of circumstance. 
 Despite his titles, in face of his great repu- 
 tation, he knew himself to be a failure, and 
 
 M 2
 
 164 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 as he rode southward through the mountain 
 barrier that frowns down over India he was 
 conscious of the knowledge that in all human 
 probability he would never look upon this 
 drear land again. His time was up, he was 
 about to be set on the shelf, life was over. 
 And he had all his powers yet — all his mar- 
 vellous quickness at the mastery of tongues, 
 all the restless energy which had urged 
 him on to overrun the race, to dodge and 
 bore and break his stride instead of holding 
 steadily on the straight course. 
 
 He it was who had discovered Jem 
 Agar's ta.eiit for this rough, peculiar soldiering 
 of the frontier. H e it was to whom the simple- 
 minded young officer had owed promotion 
 after promotion. General Michael had fixed 
 upon Agar as his last hope — his last chance 
 of doing something brilliant in this deathly
 
 A LAST THROW I 65 
 
 country which moved with a slowness that 
 nearly drove him mad. 
 
 This last attempt was thrown down like 
 a defiance In the face of Fortune ; but still 
 the risk was not his own. It never had been. 
 Men had been sent to their certain death 
 by this sallow-faced commander, for no other 
 object than his own aggrandisement. It 
 would almost seem that a just Providence 
 had ever turned away In loathing from the 
 schemes of this man who would have all 
 and risk nothing. 
 
 Should Jem Agar succeed In the danger- 
 ous secret mission on which he had been sent 
 by a subtle underhand pressure of discipline, 
 the glory would never be his. This, under 
 the grasping fingers of General Michael, 
 would never appear to the world as the 
 wonderful Individual feat of an Intrepid man,
 
 1 66 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 but as a masterly stroke of strategy dealt 
 by a great general. 
 
 Seymour Michael had long ago found out 
 that Jem Agar was the step-son of the 
 woman whom he had wronged in bygone 
 years. But the name failed to touch his 
 conscience, partly because that conscience 
 was not of much account, and partly because 
 time heals all things, even a sore sense of 
 wrong. Truth to tell, he had not thought 
 much of Anna Agar during the last twenty 
 years, and the mere coincidence that this 
 simple tool should be her step-son was 
 insufficient to deter him from making use of 
 Agar. But with that careful attention to 
 detail which in such a man betrayed innate 
 weakness, he took care to make sure that 
 Jem Agar had learnt nothing of the past 
 from the lips of his father's second wife.
 
 A LAST THROW 1 6/ 
 
 General Michael did not disguise from 
 himself the fact that the mission on which 
 he had despatched Jem Agar was what the 
 life insurance companies call hazardous. 
 But he had lived by the sword, and that 
 mode of gaining a livelihood makes men 
 wondrously indifferent to the lives of others. 
 Moreover, this was In a sense a speciality of 
 his. He was getting hardened to the game, 
 and played it with coolness and precision. 
 
 All through that day the little band 
 retreated through an enemy's country, 
 watchful, alert, almost nervous. There 
 were absurdly few of them — a characteristic 
 of that frontier warfare which the sallow, 
 silent leader had waged nearly all his life. 
 And in the evening there was not peace. 
 
 Fortune is a playful soul. She keeps 
 men waiting a lifetime, and then, when it is
 
 l68 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 too late, she suddenly opens both her hands. 
 Seymour Michael had waited twenty years 
 for one of those chances of easy distinction 
 which seemed to fall to the lot of all his com- 
 rades in arms. This chance was vouchsafed 
 to him on the last evening he ever passed in 
 an enemy's country — when it was too late — 
 when that which he did was no more than 
 was to be expected from a man of his ex- 
 perience and fame. 
 
 The little band was attacked at sunset by 
 the victorious savages who had annihilated 
 the advance column three days earlier, 
 and w^ith half the number of men, fatigued 
 and hungry, Seymour Michael beat them 
 back and cut his way to the south. He 
 knew that it was good, and the men knew it. 
 They looked upon this keen-faced little man 
 as something approaching a demi-god ; but
 
 A LAST THROW 1 69 
 
 they had no love for him as they had for Major 
 Agar. The knowledge was theirs that to him 
 their lives were of no account — they were 
 not men, but numbers. He brought them 
 out of a dire strait by sheer skill, by that 
 heartless grip of discipline which a true 
 general exercises over his troops even at 
 that critical moment when a common death 
 seems to reduce all lives to an equal value. 
 
 But in the thick of it the Goorkhas — keen 
 little Highlanders of the Indian army — 
 looked in vain for the fighting light in their 
 leader's eyes. They listened In vain for the 
 encouraging voice — now low and steady In 
 warning, now trumpet-like and maddening 
 with the Infection of excitement. 
 
 In the midst of that wild and apparently 
 disorderly vieUe in the narrow valley, while 
 the hush of mountain sunset settled over the
 
 170 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 battle, the leader sat Imperturbable, cold, 
 and infinitely wise. He was pale, and his lips 
 were quite colourless, but his eyes were 
 vigilant, ready, resourceful. An ideal general 
 but no soldier. He played this game with 
 a skill that never faced the possibility of 
 failure — and won. 
 
 Far overhead, many miles to the north- 
 ward, a solitary wanderer heard the sound of 
 firing and paused to listen. He was a big 
 man, worthy to be accounted such even 
 among the strapping mountaineers of that 
 district, and as he leant on the long barrel of 
 his quaintly ornamental rifle his sheepskin 
 cloak fell back from a long sinewy arm of 
 deep-brown hue. 
 
 As he listened to the far-off rumble of 
 independent firing he muttered to himself 
 broken indications of anxiety. Strange to
 
 A LAST THROW I7I 
 
 say, the eyes that looked out over the hollow 
 of the gorge-like valley were blue. They 
 were, however, hardly visible through the 
 tangle of unkempt hair and raw wool that 
 fell over his forehead. The high sheepskin 
 cap was dragged forward, and the lower part 
 of the face was almost hidden by the in- 
 discriminate folds of hood, cloak, and scarf 
 affected by the shepherds hereabout. 
 
 James Agar was perfectly happy. There 
 must have been somewhere in his sporting 
 soul that love of Nature which drives men 
 into solitude — making gamekeepers and fisher- 
 men and explorers of them. It was in this 
 man's character to wait passive until responsi- 
 bility came to him, when he accepted it readily 
 enough ; but he never went out to meet it. 
 He was not as the sons of Levi, who took too 
 much upon themselves ; but rather was he
 
 172 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 happiest when he had only his own Hfe and 
 his own self to take care of. 
 
 Here he was now an outcast, an Ishmaelite, 
 with every man's hand raised against him. 
 It was not the first time. For this quiet- 
 going man had unobtrusively learnt many 
 tongues, and, while no one heeded him, he 
 had studied the ways of this Eastern land 
 with no mean success. 
 
 He waited there during an hour while 
 the firing still continued, and then, when at 
 last silence reigned again and the wind 
 whispered undisturbed through the dark pines, 
 he turned his w^andering footsteps north- 
 ward to a land where few white men have 
 passed. 
 
 So night fell upon these two men thus 
 hazardously brought together, and every mo- 
 ment stretched longer the distance between
 
 A LAST THROW I 73 
 
 them — James Agar going north, Seymour 
 Michael passing southward. 
 
 Agar wondered vaguely whether his toil- 
 some diary would ever reach home, but he 
 was not anxious as to the result of the fight 
 which had evidently taken place in the valley. 
 He too seemed to share the belief of all who 
 came in contact with him that General 
 Michael could not do wrong in warfare. 
 
 That night the iNIaster of Stagholme laid 
 him down to rest in the shadow of a big 
 rock, strong in himself, strong in his faith. 
 And as he slumbered, those who slumber 
 not nor cease their toil by day or night sat 
 with crooked backs over a little ticking, 
 spitting, restless machine that spelt out his 
 name across half the world. While the moon 
 rose over the mountains and looked placidly 
 down upon this strange man lying there
 
 174 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 peacefully sleeping In a world of his own, two 
 men who had never seen each other talked 
 together with nimble fingers over a thousand 
 miles of wire. And one told the other that 
 James Edward Makerstone Agar was dead. 
 
 The sleeper slept on. He smiled quietly 
 beneath the moon. Perhaps he dreamt of 
 the home-coming, of that time when he could 
 say at last, ' I have fought my fight, and now 
 I come with a clear conscience to enjoy the 
 good things given to me.' He never dreamt 
 of treason. He never knew that for their 
 own gain men will sacrifice the happiness of 
 their neighbours without so much as a pang 
 of self-reproach. There are some people, 
 thank Heaven, who never learn these things, 
 who go on believing that men are good and 
 women better all their lives.
 
 175 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 A CARPET KNIGHT 
 As children gathering pebbles on the shore 
 
 First door on the right after passing Into 
 New Court, Trinity College, Cambridge, 
 by the river door. It Is a small door, 
 leading directly on to a narrow, winding stone 
 staircase. For some reason, known possibly 
 to the architect responsible for New Court 
 (may his bones know no rest ! ), the ground- 
 floor rooms have a door of their own within 
 the archway. 
 
 On the first floor Arthur Agar, to use the
 
 176 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 affected phraseology of an affected generation, 
 ' kept ' in the days with which we have to 
 deal. What he kept transpireth not. There 
 were many things which he did not keep, 
 the first among these being his money. In 
 these rooms he dispensed an open-handed, 
 carefully considered hospitality which earned 
 for him a certain bubble popularity. 
 
 There are, one finds, always plenty of 
 men (and women too) ready to lick the 
 blacking off one's boots provided always that 
 that doubtful fare be varied by champagne 
 or truffles at appropriate intervals. Men 
 came to Arthur Agar's rooms, and brought 
 their friends. Mark well the last item. 
 They brought their friends. There is more 
 in that than meets the eye. There is a 
 subtle difference between the invitation 
 for 'Mr. Jones' and the invitation for 'Mr.
 
 A CARPET KNIGHT 1 77 
 
 Jones and friends ' — a difference which he 
 who runs the social race may read. If Jones 
 is worth his salt he will discern the difference 
 in a week. 
 
 ' Oh, come to Agar's,' one man (save 
 the mark) would say to another. * Ripping 
 coffee, topping cigarettes/ 
 
 So they went ; they drank the ripping 
 coffee, smoked the topping cigarette, and if 
 they happened to be men of stomach ven- 
 tured on a clinking cigar. Moreover, they 
 were made welcome. Agar was like a vain 
 woman who loved to see a full saloon. 
 And he paid for his pleasure in more honour- 
 able coin than many a vain woman has laid 
 down since daughters of Eve commenced 
 drawing fops around them — namely, the 
 adjectived items of hospitality above men- 
 tioned. 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 It did not matter much who the guests 
 were, provided that they filled the diminutive 
 room in those spaces left vacant by bric-a- 
 brac and furniture of the spindle-legged 
 description. So the men came. There 
 were freshmen who fell over the footstools 
 and bumped their heads against the painted 
 sabots on the wall containing ever-fresh 
 flowers, as per florist's bill ; who were rather 
 overpowered by the profusion of painted 
 photograph frames, fans, and fal-lals. There 
 was the man who sang a comic song and 
 dined out on it at least twice a week. There 
 was the calculating son of a poor North- 
 country parson, who liked coffee after dinner 
 and knew the value of sixpence. There 
 was the man who came to play his owm valse, 
 and he who came to hear his own voice, 2i7id 
 so weiter. Do we not know them all ?
 
 A CARPET KNIGHT I 79 
 
 Have we not run against them in after-life, 
 despite many attempts to pass by on the 
 other side ? The habitual acceptors of hos- 
 pitality have no objection to crossing the 
 road through the thickest mud. 
 
 ' By their rooms ye shall know them,' 
 might well, if profanely, be written large 
 over any college gate. Arthur Agar's 
 rooms were worthy of the man. There was, 
 even on the little stone staircase, a faint 
 odour of pastille or scent spray, or something 
 of feminine suggestion. The unwary visitor 
 would as likely as not catch some part of his 
 person against a silk hanging or a lurking 
 portiere on crossing the threshold ; and the 
 impression which struck (as all rooms do 
 strike) from the threshold was one of op- 
 pressive drapery. A man, by the way, 
 should never know anything about drapery
 
 l8o FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 or draping. Such knowledge undermines 
 his virility. This is an age of undermining 
 knowledge. We all, from the lowest to the 
 highest, learn many things of which we were 
 better ignorant. The school-board infant 
 acquires French ; Arthur Agar and his like 
 bring away from Cambridge a pretty knack 
 of draping chair-backs. 
 
 There were little screens In the room, 
 with shelves specially constructed to hold little 
 gimcracks, which in their turn were speci- 
 ally shaped to stand upon the little shelves. 
 There w^as a portentous standing-lamp, six 
 feet hicrh In Its bare feet, with a shade like a 
 crinoline. There were settees and p02tfs and 
 p7'ie-Die2i, and strange things hanging on 
 the wall without rhyme, reason, or beauty. 
 And nowhere a pipe, or a tennis racket, or 
 even a pair of boots — not so much as a
 
 A CARPET KNIGHT iSl 
 
 single manly indiscretion in the way of a 
 cricket-bat in the corner, or a sporting novel 
 on the table. 
 
 In the midst of this the temporary pro- 
 prietor of the rooms sat disconsolately at an 
 inlaid writing-table with his face buried in his 
 arms — weeping. 
 
 The outer door was shut. Arthur Agar 
 had sported his rare oak, not to work but to 
 weep. It sometimes does happen to men, 
 this shedding of the idle tear, even to Eng- 
 lishmen, even to Cambridge men. More- 
 over, it was infinitely to the credit of Arthur 
 Agar that he should bury his face in the 
 sleeve of his perfectly-fitting coat thus and 
 sob, for he was weeping (quietly and to him- 
 self) the advent of three thousand pounds 
 per annum. 
 
 At his elbow lay a telegram — that flimsy
 
 1 82 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 pink paper which, with all our progress, 
 all our knowledge, the bravest of us fear 
 still. 
 
 'Jem killed In India; come home at 
 once. — Agar.' 
 
 Honour to whom honour. Arthur Agar's 
 only thought had been one of sudden horror. 
 He had read the telegram over twice before 
 going out to close his outer door. Then he 
 came back and sat weakly down at the 
 table where he had written more scented 
 notes than noted themes, deliberately, woman- 
 like, to cry. 
 
 To his credit be it noted that he never 
 thought of Stagholme, which w^as now his. 
 He only thought of Jem — his no longer — 
 Jem the open-handed, elder brother who 
 tolerated much and said little. Having had 
 everything that he wanted since childhood,
 
 A CARPET KNIGHT 1 83 
 
 Arthur Agar had never been In the habit of 
 thinking about money matters. His florist's 
 bills (and Cambridge horticulturists seem to 
 water their flowers with Chateau Lafitte), his 
 confectioner's account, and his tailor's little 
 note had always been paid without a murmur. 
 Thus, want of money — the chief Incentive to 
 crime and criminal thought — had never come 
 within measurable distance of this gentle 
 undergraduate. 
 
 Truth to tell, he had never devoted much 
 thought to the future. He had always 
 vaguely concluded that his mother and Jem 
 would ' do something ' ; and in the meantime 
 there were important matters requiring his 
 attention. There was the memc to prepare 
 for an approaching little dinner. There was 
 always an approaching dinner, and always a 
 menu in execrable French on a satin-faced
 
 184 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 card with the college arms In a coat of many 
 colours. There was the florist to be Inter- 
 viewed and the arrangement of the table to 
 be superintended ; the finishing touch to be 
 given to the floral decoration thereof by the 
 master-hand. 
 
 Jem's death seemed to knock away one 
 of the supports of the future, and Arthur 
 Agar even in his grief was conscious of the 
 impending necessity of having to act for 
 himself some day. 
 
 At length he lifted his head, and 
 through the Intricate pattern of the very 
 newest design In art muslins the daylight 
 fell on his face. It was a face which in 
 France Is called chiffonnd ; but the term 
 is never applied to the visage masculine. 
 A diminutive and slightly retroiissd nose, 
 gentle grey eyes of the drowning-fly
 
 A CARPET KNIGHT 185 
 
 description, and a sensitive mouth scarcely- 
 hidden by a fair moustache of downward 
 tendency. 
 
 Here was a man made to be ruled all his 
 life — probably by a woman. With a little 
 more strength it might have been a melan- 
 choly face ; as it stood, it was suggestive of 
 nothing stronger than fretfulness. There was 
 a vague distress in the eyes and in the whole 
 countenance which mistaken and practical 
 souls would probably put down to a defective 
 digestion or a feeble vitality. More than one 
 enthusiastic disciple of ^^sculapius studying 
 at Caius professed to have discovered the 
 evidence of some internal disease in Arthur 
 Agar's distressed eyes; but his complaint 
 was not of the body at all. 
 
 Presently the necessity for action forced 
 itself upon his understanding, and he rose
 
 1 86 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 with a jerk. It is worth noting that his first 
 thought was connected with dress. He 
 passed into the inner room and there ex- 
 changed his elegant morning suit for a black 
 one, replacing a delicate heliotrope necktie 
 by another of sombre hue. He mentally re- 
 viewed his mourning wardrobe while doing 
 so, and gathered much spiritual repose from 
 the diversion. 
 
 In the meantime the Rector of Stag- 
 holme, having breakfasted, proceeded to light 
 a cigarette and open the ' Times ' with the 
 leisurely sense of enjoyment of one who 
 takes an interest in all things without being 
 keenly concerned in any. 
 
 ' God help us ! ' he exclaimed suddenly ; 
 and Mrs. Glynde, who alone happened to be 
 present, dropped a handful of housekeeping 
 money on the floor.
 
 A CARPET KNIGHT 1 87 
 
 ' What Is It, dear ? ' she gasped. 
 
 ' There,' was the answer ; ' read that. 
 "Disaster In Northern India!" Not there — 
 higher up ! ' 
 
 In her eagerness Mrs. Glynde had 
 plunged headlong Into the consumption of 
 Wesleyan missionaries In the Sandwich 
 Islands. Then she had to find her glasses, 
 and considerable delay was Incurred by 
 putting them on upside down. All this 
 while the Rector sat glaring at her as If In 
 some occult way she were responsible for 
 the disaster In Northern India. 
 
 At last she read the short article, and 
 was about to give a sigh of relief when her 
 eyes travelled to a diminutive list of names 
 appended. 
 
 * What ! ' she exclaimed. ' What ! Jem ! 
 Oh, Tom, dear, this can't be true!'
 
 1 88 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 ' I have no reason,' answered the Rector 
 grimly, ' to suppose that it is untrue.' 
 
 Mrs. Glynde was one of those unfortunate 
 persons who seem only to have the power of 
 aggravating at a crisis. In their way they 
 are useful as serving to divert the mind ; but 
 they usually come in for more than their 
 meed of abuse. 
 
 The poor little woman laid the news- 
 paper gently down by her husband's elbow, 
 and looked at him with a certain air of 
 grandeur and strength. The instinct that 
 arouses the mother wren to peck at the school- 
 boy's hand at her nest was strong in this sub- 
 dued little old lady. 
 
 * Something,' she said, * must be done. 
 How are we going to tell Dora ? ' 
 
 The Rector was a man who never went 
 straight at the fence before him. He
 
 A CARPET KNIGHT 1 89 
 
 Invariably pulled up and rode alongside the 
 obstacle before leaping, and when going for 
 it he braced himself mentally with the re- 
 flection that he was an English gentleman, 
 and as such had obligations. But these 
 obligations, like those of many English gen- 
 tlemen, ceased at his own fireside. He, like 
 many of us, was apt to forget that wife, 
 sister, and daughter are nevertheless ladles 
 to whom deference Is due, and women to 
 whom help. 
 
 * Oh— Dora,' he answered ; ' she will have 
 to bear It like the rest of us. But here am I 
 with fresh legal complications laid upon me. 
 I foresee endless trouble with the lawyers and 
 that woman. Why the Squire made me his 
 executor I can't tell. Parsons know nothing 
 of these matters.' 
 
 With a patient sigh Mrs. Glynde turned
 
 I90 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 away and went to the window, where she 
 stood with her back to him. Even to the 
 duller masculine mind the wonder sometimes 
 presents itself that our women-folk take us 
 so patiently as we are. If Mrs. Glynde had 
 turned upon her husband (who was not so 
 selfish as he would appear), presenting him 
 forthwith in the plainest language at her 
 command with a piece of her mind, the 
 treatment would have been surprising at first, 
 and Infinitely beneficial afterwards. 
 
 The Reverend Thomas sat staring into 
 the fire — a luxury which he allowed himself 
 all through the year — with troubled eyes. 
 There was a fence in front of him, but he 
 could not bring himself up to it. In his 
 mistaken contempt for women he had never 
 taken his wife fully into his confidence in 
 those things — great or small, according to
 
 A CARPET KNIGHT 191 
 
 the capacity of the producing machine — which 
 are essentially a personal property — namely, 
 his thouorhts. 
 
 o 
 
 All else he told her openly and at once, 
 as behoved an English gentleman. 
 
 Should he tell all that he had hoped 
 and thought and rethought respecting Jem 
 Agar and Dora ? Should he ; should he not ? 
 And the loving little woman stood there 
 almost daring to break the great silence 
 herself ; but not quite. Strong as was her 
 mother's heart, the habit of submission was 
 stronger. She longed, she yearned to hear 
 the deeper, graver tone of voice which had 
 been used once or twice towards her — once 
 or twice in moments of unusual confidence. 
 The Reverend Thomas Glynde was silent, 
 and the voice that they both heard was 
 Dora's, singing as she came downstairs
 
 192 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 towards them. It was only a matter of 
 moments, and when we have no more than 
 that wherein to act we usually take the wrong 
 turning. 
 
 Mrs. Glynde turned and gave one implor- 
 ing look towards her husband. 
 
 At the same instant the door opened and 
 Dora entered, singing as she came. 
 
 * What is the matter ? ' she exclaimed. 
 ' You both look depressed. Stocks down, or 
 something else has gone up ? I know ! Papa 
 has been made a bishop ! ' 
 
 With a cheery laugh she went to the table 
 and took up the newspaper.
 
 19, 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 BAD NEWS 
 
 Sa maniere de souffrir est le temoignage qu une ame porte 
 sur elle-meme. 
 
 There was a horrid throbbinor silence while 
 Dora read, and her parents calculated the 
 seconds which would necessarily elapse before 
 she reached the bottom line. Such moments 
 as these are scored up as years in the span of 
 life. 
 
 Mrs. Glynde did not know what she was 
 doing. It happened that she was trying to 
 rub away a flaw in the window-glass with her 
 pocket handkerchief — a flaw which must 
 
 VOL. I. o
 
 194 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 have been an old friend, as such things are 
 In quiet lives. At this occupation she found 
 herself when her heart began to beat again. 
 
 ' I suppose,' said Dora, In a terribly calm 
 voice, ' that the " Times " never makes a mis- 
 take — I mean, they never publish anything 
 unless they are quite sure ? ' 
 
 Then the English gentleman of parts who 
 ever and anon peeped out through the veneer 
 of the parson asserted himself — the English 
 gentleman whose sense of fair play and honour 
 told him that it is better to strike at once a 
 blow that must be struck than to keep the 
 victim waiting. 
 
 ' Such is their reputation,' answered Dora's 
 father. 
 
 Mrs. Glynde turned with that pathetic 
 yearning movement of a punished dog which 
 waits to be called. But Dora had some of
 
 BAD NEWS 195 
 
 her father s sternness, her father's good British 
 reserve, and she never called. 
 
 Turning, she walked quietly out of the 
 room. And all the light had gone out of her 
 life. So we write, and so ye read ; but do we 
 realise it? It is not many of us who have 
 suddenly to look at life without so much as a 
 glimmer in its dark recesses to make it worth 
 the living. It is not many of us who come to 
 be told by the doctor : ' For the rest of your 
 existence you must give up eyesight,' or, 
 ' For the remainder of life you must go halt.' 
 But these are trifles. Everything is a trifle, 
 if we would only believe it. Riches and 
 poverty, peace and war, fame and obscurity, 
 town and country, England and the back- 
 woods — all these are trifles compared with 
 that other life which makes our own a 
 
 living completeness. 
 
 o 2
 
 196 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 Silently she went, and left silence behind 
 her. The Rector was abashed. For once 
 a woman had acted in a manner unexpected 
 by him ; for he was ignorant enough of the 
 world to keep up the old fallacy of treating 
 women as a class. True, it was Dora, whom 
 he held apart from the rest of her sex ; but still 
 he was left wondering. He felt as if he had 
 been found walking in a holy place with shoes 
 upon his feet — those gross shoes of Self 
 with which most of us tramp through the 
 world, not heeding where we tread or what 
 we crush. 
 
 One of the hardest things we have to bear 
 is the helpless standing by while one dear to 
 us must suffer. When Mrs. Glynde turned 
 round and came towards her husband she 
 had become an old woman. Her face 
 had suddenly aged while her frame was
 
 BAD NEWS 197 
 
 yet In its full strength, and such a change is 
 not pleasant to look on, 
 
 ' Tom,' she said, in a dry, commanding 
 voice, 'you must go up to the Holme at once 
 and hear what news they have. There may 
 be some chance — it may please God to spare 
 us yet' 
 
 ' Yes,' answered the Rector meekly ; ' I 
 will go.' 
 
 While he was lacing his boots with all 
 speed Mrs. Glynde took up the newspaper 
 again, and re-read the brief account of the 
 disaster. They were spared comment ; that 
 blow came later, when the warriors of Fleet 
 Street set about explaining why the defeat was 
 sustained and why it should never have hap- 
 pened. In due course these carpet tacticians 
 proved to their own satisfaction that Colonel 
 Stevenor was incompetent for the service on
 
 198 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 which he had been dispatched. But the 
 reek of printing-ink never was good for the 
 better feeHngs. 
 
 In due course the Rector set off across 
 the park ; very grave, and distinctly aware 
 of the importance of his mission. He had 
 somewhere in his composition a strong sense 
 of the dramatic, to which the situation 
 appealed. He felt that had he been a 
 younger man he would have stored up many 
 details during the morning's work worthy 
 of reproduction in the narrative form during 
 years to come. 
 
 Before he reached the great house he 
 was aware that the grim pleasure of im- 
 parting bad news was not to be his, for the 
 blinds were all lowered — a detail likely to re- 
 ceive early attention in a feminine house- 
 hold, for it is only men who can hear of a
 
 BAD NEWS 199 
 
 death without thinking of mourning and the 
 blinds. 
 
 The butler opened the door and took the 
 Rector's hat and stick with a silent savoii^- 
 faire indicative of experience in well-bred 
 grief. His chaste demeanour said as plainly 
 as words that this was right and proper, the 
 Rector being no more than he expected. 
 
 ' Where's your mistress .'^ ' asked Mr. 
 Glynde, who had strong views upon butlers 
 in general and Tims in particular — said Tims 
 being so sure of his place that he did not 
 always trouble to know it. 
 
 ' Library, sir,' replied Tims in an ap- 
 propriately sepulchral voice. 
 
 The Rector went to the library without 
 waiting to be announced. He was a man 
 well versed in human nature, as most parsons 
 are, and it is possible that he had caught a
 
 200 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 glimpse of Mrs. Agar watching his advent 
 from the dining-room window. 
 
 The lady of the house was standing by 
 the writing-table when he entered, and 
 beneath her ill-concealed excitement there 
 was something subtly observant, like the 
 glance of an untruthful child, which he never 
 forgot nor forgave, despite his cloth and the 
 impossibilities popularly expected therefrom. 
 
 * Oh,' she exclaimed, ' it is you. I have 
 telegraphed for Arthur. I have — telegraphed 
 for Arthur.' 
 
 ' Why ? ' 
 
 She gave a nervous, almost a guilty little 
 laugh, and looked at him with puzzled dis- 
 comfort. 
 
 ' Why ? ' he repeated, looking at her with 
 a cold scrutiny much dreaded of the parish 
 ne'er-do-wells.
 
 BAD NEWS 20 1 
 
 ' Oh, well,' she replied, ' it is only natural 
 that I should want him at home in such a 
 time as this — such a terrible affliction. Be- 
 sides ' 
 
 ' Besides,' suggested the Rector im- 
 perturbably, ' he is now master of Stag- 
 holme.' 
 
 ' Yes ! ' she said, with a simulated surprise 
 which would scarcely have deceived the 
 most guileless Sunday-school teacher. ' I 
 had not thought of that. I suppose some- 
 thing must be done at once — those horrid 
 lawyers again.' 
 
 Her eyes were dancing with breathless 
 excitement. To this woman excitement 
 even in the form of a death was better than 
 nothing. The bourgeois mind, with its love 
 of a Crystal Palace, a subscription dance, 
 or even a parochial bazaar, w^as unquench-
 
 202 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 able even after years of practice as the 
 county lady of position. 
 
 The Rector did not answer. He stood 
 squarely in front of her with a persistence 
 that forced her to turn shiftily away with a 
 pretence of looking at the clock. 
 
 ' This is a bad business,' he said. ' That 
 boy ought never to have gone out there.' 
 
 Mrs. Agar had her handkerchief ready 
 and made use of it, with as much effect upon 
 Mr. Glynde as might have been produced 
 upon a granite sphinx. There is no man 
 harder to deceive than the innately good and 
 conscientious man of the world who has 
 tried to find good in human nature. 
 
 ' Poor boy ! ' sobbed the lady. ' Dear Jem ! 
 / could not keep him at home.' Thus 
 proving herself a fool, and w^orse, before 
 those wise eyes.
 
 BAD NEWS 203 
 
 When occasion demanded Mr. Glynde 
 could wield a very strong silence — stronger 
 than he thought. He wielded It now, and Mrs. 
 Agar shuffled before it, her eyes glittering 
 with a suppressed communicativeness. She 
 was obviously bubbling over with talk rele- 
 vant and Irrelevant, but the Rector had the 
 chivalry to check it by his cold silence. 
 
 After a pause It was he who spoke, In a 
 quiet, unemotional voice which aggravated 
 while It cowed her. 
 
 ' When did you hear this news ? ' he 
 asked. 
 
 ' Oh, last night. It was so late that I 
 did not send down. I — It was so sudden. I 
 was terribly upset.' 
 
 ' M — yes.' 
 
 * I telegraphed to Arthur first thing this 
 morning,' the mistress of Stagholme went
 
 204 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 on eagerly, ' and I was just going to write to 
 you when you came in.' 
 
 With that nervous desire for corroborative 
 evidence which arouses the suspicion of the 
 observant whenever it appears, Mrs. Agar 
 indicated the writing-table with open blotter 
 and inkstand Instantly, but too late, she 
 regretted having done so, for a volume play- 
 fully called * Every Man his own Lawyer' 
 lay confessed beside the writing-case, and its 
 home on the bookshelf stared vacantly at 
 them. 
 
 ' And from whom did you hear it ? ' pursued 
 the Rector, heartlessly looking at the book 
 with an air of recognition. 
 
 ' Oh, from a Mr. Johnson — at the War 
 Office, or the India Office, or somewhere. I 
 suppose I ought to write and thank him. 
 Let me see — where is the telerrram ? '
 
 BAD NEWS 205 
 
 She shuffled among the papers on the 
 writing-table, and made the hideous mistake 
 of pushing ' Every Man his own Lawyer,' 
 behind the stationer)^ case. 
 
 * Here it is ! ' she exclaimed at length. 
 
 It was a long document. Mr. Johnson, 
 not having to pay for telegraphic expenses 
 out of his own pocket, had done his task 
 thoroughly. He stated clearly that the 
 advance column under Colonel Stevenor, 
 ]\Iajor Agar, and another British officer had 
 been surprised and annihilated. There were 
 no particulars yet, nor could reliable details 
 be expected, as it was quite certain that not 
 one man of the ill-fated corps had survived. 
 General Seymour, added the official, missing 
 out in his haste the commanding officer's 
 surname, had promptly repaired to the scene 
 of the disaster, to punish the victors and,
 
 206 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 If possible, recover the effects of the 
 slain. 
 
 Mrs. Agar was one of those persons who 
 are Incapable of reading a letter or a tele- 
 gram thoroughly. She was one of those 
 for whose comprehension the wrong end of 
 the story must have been specially created. 
 Had the official put Seymour Michael's 
 name In full, It Is probable that In her Infantile 
 excitement she would have failed to take It 
 in or to connect it with the man who had 
 WTonged her twenty years before. 
 
 She had not thought much about that 
 little affair during late years, her feeling for 
 Seymour Michael having settled down Into 
 a passive hatred. The longing to do him 
 some personal Injury had died away fifteen 
 years before. She was, as a matter of fact, 
 quite Incapable of a lasting feeling of any
 
 BAD NEWS 207 
 
 description. Hers was a life lived for the 
 present only. A tea-party next w^eek was of 
 more importance to her than a change in 
 fortune next year. Some people are thus, 
 and Heaven help those whose lives come 
 under their fickle influence ! 
 
 The one permanent motive of her exist- 
 ence was her son Arthur — the puny little 
 infant who had been prematurely ushered into 
 a world that seemed full of hatred twenty 
 years before — and even his image faded from 
 mind and thought before the short Cam- 
 bridge terms were half expired. 
 
 At this moment she was thinking less of the 
 death of Jem than of the approaching arrival 
 of Arthur. There must have been something 
 wTong with her mental focus, to which trifles 
 presented themselves as of the first import- 
 ance, to the obliteration of larger matters.
 
 208 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 * And this Is all the news you have had ?' 
 Inquired the Rector rather hurriedly. He 
 saw ' Sister ' Cecilia coming up the avenue ; 
 and that lady was for him the embodiment 
 of the combination of those feminine fallings 
 which aggravated him so Intensely. 
 
 'Yes.' 
 
 He moved towards the door, and stand- 
 ing there he turned, holding up a warning 
 finger. 
 
 * You must be very careful,' he said. 
 ' You must not consult any lawyer or take 
 any steps In this matter. So far as you are 
 concerned the state of affairs is unchanged. 
 I, as the Squire's executor, am the only 
 person called upon to act in any way If that 
 poor boy has died without making a will. 
 You must remember that your son is under
 
 BAD NEWS 209 
 
 With that he left her, rather precipitately, 
 or ' Sister ' Cecilia, like all busybodies, was 
 a quick walker. 
 
 In a few moments Miss Cecilia Harbottle 
 entered the library. She glided forward as 
 if afloat on a depth of the milk of human 
 kindness, and folded Mrs. x\gar in an emo- 
 tional embrace. 
 
 'Dear!' she exclaimed. 'Dear Anna, 
 how I feel for you ! * 
 
 In illustration of this sympathy she 
 patted i\Irs. Agar's somewhat flabby hands 
 and looked softly at her. She could hardly 
 have failed to see a glitter in the bereaved 
 one's eyes, which was certainly not that of 
 grief. It was the gleam of pure, heartless 
 excitement and love of change. But 
 ' Sister ' Cecilia probably misread it ; for, like 
 VOL. I. p
 
 2IO FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 all excesses, that of chanty seems to dull the 
 comprehension. 
 
 ' Tell me, dear/ she urged gently, ' all 
 about it.' 
 
 How many of us imagine the satisfaction 
 of our own curiosity to be sympathy ! 
 
 So Mrs. Agar told her all about it, and 
 presently they sat down, with a view to 
 fuller discussion. There was, however, a 
 point beyond which even Mrs. Agar would 
 not go. This point ' Sister ' Cecilia scented 
 with the instinct of the terrier, so keen was 
 her nose in the sniffing of other people's 
 business. When that point was reached a 
 third time she gently led the way over it. 
 
 ' Of course,' she said, with a resigned 
 glance at the curtain poles, ' one cannot help 
 sometimes feeling that a wise Providence 
 does all for the best.'
 
 BAD NEWS 2 I I 
 
 Gratifying as this must have been to the 
 power in question, no miraculous manifes- 
 tation of joy was forthcoming, and Mrs. 
 Agar cunningly confined herself to a non- 
 committing ' Yes.' 
 
 After a sigh, ' Sister ' Cecilia further 
 expatiated. 
 
 ' 1 cannot but think,' she said, ' that Stag- 
 holme will be in better hands now. Of course 
 dear Jem was very nice, and all that — a dear 
 good boy. But do you not think that Arthur 
 is more suited to the position in some ways ? ' 
 
 ' Perhaps he is,' allowed Mrs. Agar, with 
 ill-concealed pleasure. 
 
 ' He is,' continued ' Sister' Cecilia, with a 
 broader brush, ' so refined, so gentlemanly, 
 so ideal a country squire.' 
 
 And after that she had no difficulty In 
 supplying herself with information. 
 
 P 2
 
 2 {2 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 ON THIN ICE 
 
 Treason doth never prosper. What's the reason ? 
 For if it prosper, none dare call it treason. 
 
 Two days later a gentleman, whose clean- 
 shaven face had a habit of beaming suddenly 
 into a professional smile, was seated at a huge 
 writing-table in his office in Gray's Inn, when 
 a clerk announced to him the arrival of Mrs. 
 Agar, who desired to see him at once. 
 
 Mr. Rigg beam^ed instantaneously, and 
 the clerk, who knew his master, waited until 
 the paroxysm had passed. In the meantime 
 Mrs. Agar was fuming in the waiting-room, 
 wherein lay a copy of the ' Times ' and
 
 ON THIN ICE 213 
 
 nothing else. The window looked out upon 
 the neatly-kept but depressing garden, where 
 five antiquated rooks looked in vain for 
 sustenance. Mrs. Agar watched these in- 
 telligent birds, but all her soul was in her 
 ears. She had already set Mr. Rigg down In 
 her own mind as a stupid because, forsooth, 
 he had dared to keep her waiting. 
 
 But the truth is that they are accustomed 
 to ladies in Gray's Inn, especially ladies 
 In deep mourning, with a chastely Important 
 air which seems to demand that advice and 
 sympathy be carefully mingled. Coimzies, 
 these ladies whose deep crape and quite ex- 
 ceptional bereavement plead (not always 
 dumbly) for a special equity, home-made 
 and superior to any law^ and infer that the 
 ordinary fees are in their case more than any 
 gentleman would think of accepting.
 
 2 14 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 The clerk presently passed into an Inner 
 room and fetched therefrom a tin box, upon 
 which were painted in dingy white the letters 
 'J. E. M. A.,' and underneath ' Stagholme 
 Estate.' This the embryo lawyer carefully 
 wiped with a duster, and set it up on some of 
 its fellows immediately behind Mr. Rigg. 
 
 There was no hurry displayed in this 
 scenic arrangement. Mr. Rigg made a 
 practice of keeping ladies, especially those 
 wearing crape, for a few minutes in the 
 waiting-room. It calmed them down w^on- 
 derfully, and introduced into their mental 
 chambers a little cold legal atmosphere. 
 
 * Marks,' he said, w^hen that youth was 
 taking his last look round at the inise e7i 
 scene before, as it were, raising the curtain, 
 'eh — er — just go round to Corbyn's and 
 get them to make up these pills.'
 
 ON THIN ICE 215 
 
 At the mention of the mecilcinal term he 
 beamed, as If to intimate that between them- 
 selves no secret need be observed that he, 
 Mr. Rigg, was subject to the usual anatom- 
 ical laws of mankind. 
 
 * And — er — just call at the fishmonger s 
 as you come back and get a parcel for me, 
 ordered this morning.' 
 
 ' Yes, sir,' answered the faithful Marks, 
 taking the prescription as if it were a will or 
 a transfer. 
 
 He knew his part so well that he moved 
 towards the door and opened it as if Mrs. 
 Agar's existence and attendance in the 
 waiting-room were matters of the utmost in- 
 difference. 
 
 ' Marks ! ' 
 
 The door was open, so that the lawyer's 
 voice carried well down the passage.
 
 2l6 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 ' Yes, sir.' 
 
 ' I will see Mrs. Agar now.' 
 
 And Mrs. Agar was shown in, all bustling 
 with excitement. 
 
 ' Mr. Rigg,' she said, with some dignity, 
 * has Mr. Glynde been here ? ' 
 
 The lawyer beamed again — literally all 
 over his parchment-coloured face, except the 
 eyes, which remained grave. 
 
 ' When, my dear madam ? ' he asked as 
 he brought forward a chair. 
 
 ' Well, lately — since my son's death.' 
 
 The lawyer opened a large diary, and 
 proceeded to trace back each day with his 
 finger. It promised to be a question of time, 
 this ascertaining whether Mr. Glynde had 
 called within the last week. It was marvellous 
 how well this man of deeds knew his clients. 
 Mrs. Agar had never persevered in any
 
 ON THIN ICE 217 
 
 inquiry or project that required time all 
 through her life. Mr. Rigg, behind his dis- 
 arming smile, could see as far into a crape 
 veil as any man. 
 
 ' It must have been quite lately,' said 
 Mrs. Agar, leaning forward and trying 
 visibly to read the diary^ 
 
 Mr. Rigg turned back a few pages, as if 
 to go over the ground a second time. 
 
 ' Let me see ! ' he said leisurely. ' What 
 w^as the precise date of the — er — sad event ? ' 
 
 ' Last Tuesday ; the fourteenth.' 
 
 ' To be sure,' reflected Mr. Rigg, fixing 
 his eyes sadly on an engraving of London 
 Bridge in the seventeenth century — a spot 
 specially reserved for the sadder moments of 
 probate and other testamentary work. * Very 
 sad, very sad.' 
 
 Then he rose with the mental brushinof-
 
 2l8 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 away of unshed tears of a man who has 
 never yet had time In Hfe for idle lamen- 
 tation. He turned towards the tin box, 
 jingling his keys in a most practical and 
 business-like way. 
 
 ' And I presume,' he said, ' that you have 
 come to consult me about the late Captain 
 Agar's will ? ' 
 
 ^Was there a will?' asked Mrs. Agar, 
 with audible alarm. She had not studied 
 ' Every Man his own Lawyer ' quite in vain, 
 although most of the legal technicalities had 
 conveyed nothing whatever to her mind. 
 She did not notice that her question regard- 
 ing Mr. Glynde had never been answered. 
 
 Mr. Rigg turned upon her, beaming, 
 
 ' I have no will,' he answered. * I 
 thought that perhaps you were aware of the 
 existence of one.'
 
 ON THIN ICE 219 
 
 Mrs. Agar's face lighted up. 
 ' No,' she said, with Ill-concealed delight; 
 * I am certain there Is no will.' 
 
 * Indeed ! And why, my dear madam ? ' 
 
 * Well — oh, well, because Jem was just the 
 sort of person to forget such matters. Be- 
 sides, when he left England he was under 
 age.' 
 
 The lawyer was looking at her with his 
 usual sympathetic smile spread over his face 
 like an actor's make-up, but his eyes were 
 very keen and clever. 
 
 ' Of course,' he observed, ' he may have 
 made one out there.' 
 
 ' I do not think that that is likely,' re- 
 plied the lady, whose small thoughts always 
 came into the world in charge of a very 
 obvious father in the shape of a wish. 'There 
 are no facilities out there — no lawyers.'
 
 2 20 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 * There are quite a number of lawyers In 
 India,' said Mr. RIgg, with sudden gravity. 
 His face was only grave when he wished to 
 fend off laughter. 
 
 ' Well,' persisted Mrs. Agar, ' I am sure 
 Jem did not make a will.' 
 
 Mr. RIgg bowed and resumed his seat. 
 He took up a penholder and smiled, pre- 
 sumably at his own sunny thoughts. 
 
 Mrs. Agar was one of those fatuous 
 ladles who think themselves capable of trick- 
 ing a professional man out of his fee. She 
 had a vague notion that If one asks a lawyer 
 a question the price of his answer Is at least 
 six shillings and eightpence. Up to this 
 point In the Interview she was serenely con- 
 scious of having eluded the fee. 
 
 * I presume,' she remarked carelessly, In 
 pursuance of this economical policy, ' that In
 
 ON THIN ICE 22 1 
 
 such a case the property would go uncon- 
 ditionally to the second son.' 
 
 ' There are contingent possibilities,' re- 
 plied the man of subterfuge blandly. He 
 did not mean anything at all, but shrewdly 
 guessed that Mrs. Agar would not credit him 
 with so simple a design. 
 
 The lady smiled in a subtly commise- 
 rating manner, indicative of the fact that on 
 some family matters the ignorance of all 
 except herself was somewhat pitiful. 
 
 * Of course,' she said, * as regards the 
 present case, I know perfectly well that both 
 Jem and his father would wish everything to 
 go to Arthur.' 
 
 She was picking a thread from the 
 corner of her jacket with an air of non- 
 chalance. 
 
 Mr. Rigg was silent. He had some
 
 222 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 thirty years before this period given up attach- 
 ing importance to the wishes of the deceased 
 as interpreted by disinterested survivors. 
 
 ' And / should imagine that the neces- 
 sary transfers — and — and things would be 
 much better put in hand at once. Delay 
 seems to me to be quite unnecessary.' 
 
 She paused for Mr. Rigg's opinion — 
 quite a friendly opinion, of course ; without 
 price. 
 
 ' Pardon me,' said that lawyer, driven 
 into a corner at last, ' but are you consulting 
 me on behalf of the late Squire's executor, 
 Mr. Glynde, or on your own account ? ' 
 
 ' Oh ! ' replied Mrs. Agar, drawing her- 
 self up with a deprecating little laugh, * I 
 did not Intend It to be a consultation at all. 
 I happened to be passing, that was all. 
 You see, Mr. RIgg, Mr. Glynde does not
 
 ON THIN ICE 223 
 
 know anything about these matters. Clergy- 
 men are so stupid.' 
 
 ' Seems to be afraid,' Mr. Rigg was re- 
 flecting behind his pleasant mask, ' of the 
 young man coming alive again.' 
 
 Mrs. Agar was like a child in many ways, 
 more especially in her unbounded belief in 
 her own cunning. She actually imagined 
 herself to be a match for this man, who had 
 been trained in the ways of duplicity all his 
 life. She saw nothing of his mind, and 
 fatuously ignored the fact that from the mo- 
 ment she had entered the room he had begun 
 the interview with a mental hypothesis. 
 
 ' This woman/ he had reflected, ' has 
 always hated her step-son. She got him a 
 commission in an Indian regiment for the 
 primary purpose of getting him out of the 
 way while she saved money on her life-
 
 2 24 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 interest in the estate for her second son. 
 The secondary purpose was little more than 
 a hope. She hoped for the best. The best 
 has come off, and she is not clever enough 
 to let things take their course.' 
 
 Every word Mrs. Agar had uttered, every 
 silence, every glance had gone to confirm the 
 lawyer's opinion, and he sat pleasantly beaming 
 on her. He did not jump up and denounce 
 her, for lawyers are scientists. As a doctor 
 in the pursuit of his science does not hesitate 
 to handle foul things, to probe horrid sores, 
 so the lawyer must needs smirch his hands 
 even to the elbow in those moral tumours 
 from whence emanate' the thousand and 
 one domestic crimes which will ever remain 
 just outside the pale of the law. And In one 
 as in the other the finer susceptibilities grow 
 dull. The doctor almost forgets the pain he
 
 ON THIN ICE 225 
 
 inflicts. The lawyer gradually loses his 
 sense of right and wrong. 
 
 Mr. Rigg was an honest man — as honesty 
 is understood in the law. He was keenly 
 alive to all the motives of this woman, who, 
 in the law of humanity, was a criminal. He 
 had started from a lawyer's standpoint — id est, 
 personal advantage. ' To whose advantage ? ' 
 they ask ; and there they assign the action. 
 But Mr. Rigg was also a good lawyer, and 
 therefore he kept his own counsel. 
 
 ' Things must be allowed,' he said, ' to 
 take their course. You know, Mrs. Agar, 
 we are proverbially slow in moving, but we 
 are sure,' 
 
 Now it happened that this was precisely 
 the position assumed by Mr. Glynde, whose 
 respect for legal routine was enormous. He 
 rarely moved in any matters wherein the law 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 2 26 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 could by hook or crook be introduced with- 
 out consulting Mr. Rigg, whom he vaguely 
 called his 'man.' And it was precisely this 
 delay that Mrs. Agar disliked. She had no 
 definite reason for so doing ; but this stroke 
 of good fortune presented itself to her mind 
 more in the light of an opportunity to be 
 seized than as a just inheritance to be thank- 
 fully received in its due time. 
 
 She was awake to the fact that Arthur 
 was not the man to seize any opportunity, 
 however obviously it might be thrust into his 
 grasp, and her knowledge of the world 
 tended to exaggerate its dishonesty in her 
 mind. 
 
 'Sister' Cecilia and she had talked this 
 matter over with that small modicum of 
 learning which is a dangerous thing, and 
 they had arrived at the conclusion that Mr.
 
 ON THIN ICE 227 
 
 Glynde was not competent to carr)^ out the 
 duties thus suddenly thrust upon him. 
 Wrapped up as was her heart in the welfare 
 of her weakling son, the one lasting motive 
 of her life had been to secure for him the 
 largest possible portion of earthly goods. 
 Now that success seemed to be within 
 measurable distance, she gave way to the 
 baneful panic of the weak conspirator, and 
 fancied that the whole world was allied 
 against her. 
 
 She could not keep her fingers off 
 ' Every Man his own Lawyer,' and consulted 
 that boon to the legal profession to such 
 good effect that she placed a handsome fee 
 in the pocket of one of its brightest orna- 
 ments at the earliest opportunity. Mr. Rigg 
 continued to beam and to keep his own 
 counsel, merely notifying that things must be 
 
 Q 2
 
 2 28 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 allowed to take their own course, and 
 presently he bowed Mrs. Agar out of his 
 office, dissatisfied, and with an uncomfort- 
 able feeling of having been somewhat 
 indiscreet. 
 
 Arthur was waiting for her in a hansom 
 cab in Holborn, and with a sigh of relief they 
 drove westward to a shop in Regent Street 
 ""to order a supply of the newest procurable 
 mode of signifying grief on paper and 
 envelopes. Arthur Agar was an expert in 
 such matters, and indeed both mother and 
 son were more at home in the graceful 
 pastime of spending money than in the 
 technicalities of making or keeping the 
 same. 
 
 Arthur was already beginning to taste 
 the sweetness of his adversity, and being 
 intensely sensitive to the influence of those
 
 ON THIN ICE 229 
 
 with whom he happened to be at the moment, 
 he was already beginning to look back with 
 mild surprise to the first burst of grief to 
 which he had given way on hearing that Jem 
 was killed.
 
 230 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE CURSE OF A GOOD INTENTION 
 There is one that keepeth silence and is found wise. 
 
 ' Sister ' Cecilia received — nay, she almost 
 welcomed — the news of Jem Agar's death In 
 an intensely Christian spirit. She looked 
 upon it in the light of a chastening — a sort 
 of moral cold bath, unpleasant at the time, 
 but cleanly and refreshing In Its effect. 
 Intense goodness and virtue of the jubby- 
 jubby order seem frequently to produce this 
 result. Trouble — provided that it be not 
 personal — is elevated to a position which It 
 was never intended to occupy by an all-
 
 THE CURSE OF A GOOD INTENTION 23 1 
 
 seeing Providence. There are some people 
 who step into the troubles of others as into 
 the chasteninof bath above referred to, and 
 splash about. They pretend to feel deeply 
 bereavements which cannot reasonably be 
 expected to affect them, and go about the 
 world with a well-scrubbed air of con- 
 scious virtue, saying in manner if not in 
 words, ' Look at me ; my troubles compass 
 me about, but my innate goodness enables 
 me to take them in the proper spirit and to 
 be cheerful despite all.' 
 
 This was precisely ' Sister ' Cecilia's 
 attitude towards her small world of Stag- 
 holme, after the news of the young Squire's 
 death had cast a gloom over the whole 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 ' Ah ! ' she would say to some honest 
 cottage mother who had more true feeling in
 
 2 2,2 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 her rough little finger than ' Sister ' Cecilia 
 possessed in her whole heart. ' These trials 
 are sent to us for our good. The ways 
 of Providence are strange, Mrs. Martin — 
 strange to us now.' 
 
 ' Yes, miss ; that they be, ' Mrs. Martin 
 replied, looking at her with the hard and far- 
 seeing gaze of a poor mother who has known 
 trouble in its least romantic form. And 
 ' Sister ' Cecilia, with that blindness which 
 comes from systematically closing the eyes 
 to the earthly side of earthly things, never 
 realised that the small change of sympathy 
 is often slightly aggravating. 
 
 At this period she took to calling Jem 
 Agar her ' poor boy.' The grave seems to 
 have the power of completely altering the 
 past, and with persons of the stamp of 
 ' Sister ' Cecilia death appears not only to wipe
 
 THE CURSE OF A GOOD INTENTION 233 
 
 out all sin, but to impair the memory of the 
 living to such an extent that the individuality 
 of the deceased is no longer recognisable. 
 
 Jem never had in any sense of the word 
 been her boy. His feelings for her had 
 passed from the distrust of childhood to the 
 lofty contempt of a schoolboy for all things 
 preternaturally virtuous, finally settling down 
 into the more tolerant contempt of manhood. 
 The dead, however, have perforce to accept 
 much affection which they scornfully refused 
 in life. 
 
 ' Poor Jem!' said ' Sister' Cecilia to Mrs. 
 Agar the day after that lady's visit to Gray's 
 Inn. 'I always thought that perhaps he 
 and dear Dora would come to — to some 
 understanding.* 
 
 She stirred her tea with patient, suf- 
 fering head inclined at a resigned angle.
 
 2 34 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 ' Do you think there was any under- 
 standing between them ? ' inquired Mrs. 
 Agar. 
 
 'Well — I should not like to say.' 
 
 Which, being translated, meant that she 
 would like to say, but did not know. 
 
 It had always been a pet scheme of Mrs. 
 Agar's that Dora should marry Arthur ; 
 firstly, because she would have nearly two 
 thousand pounds a year on the death of her 
 parents ; and, secondly, because she was a 
 capable person with plenty of common-sense. 
 These two adjuncts — namely, money and 
 common-sense — Mrs. Agar wisely looked 
 for in candidates for the flaccid hand of 
 her son. 
 
 ' I will try and find out,' said Sister 
 Cecilia after a pause. 
 
 Mrs. Agar said nothing. She was medi-
 
 THE CURSE OF A GOOD INTENTION 235 
 
 tating over this last stroke of fate in favour 
 of her scheme, and her thoughts were 
 disturbed by that distrust in the continuance 
 of good fortune which usually spoils the en- 
 joyment of the unscrupulous in those good 
 things v/hich they have obtained for them- 
 selves. 
 
 So ' Sister ' Cecilia took it for granted 
 that she was doing the will of the mistress of 
 Stagholme when she wrote a note that same 
 evening inviting Dora to have tea with her 
 the following afternoon. 
 
 At the hour appointed Dora arrived, and 
 was duly shown into the little cottage 
 drawing-room, of which the decoration 
 hovered between the avowedly devout and 
 the economo-aesthetic. 
 
 ' Sister ' Cecilia swept down upon her 
 with a speechless emotion which, in the
 
 236 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 nature of things (and * Sister' Cecilia), could 
 not well be of long duration. 
 
 * My dear,' she whispered, ' God will give 
 you strength to bear this awful trial.' 
 
 Dora recovered her breath and re- 
 arranged her crushed habiliments before in- 
 quiring, with just sufficient feeling to save 
 her from downright rudeness, ' What is the 
 matter ; has something else happened ? ' 
 
 ' Sister ' Cecilia drew back. She was 
 vaguely conscious of having run mentally 
 against a brick wall. There was something 
 new and unusual about Dora which she could 
 not understand — something, if she could 
 only have seen it, suggestive of the quiet, 
 strong man in whose honour the whole parish 
 wore mourning. But 'Sister' Cecilia was not 
 a subtle woman. She had had so little ex- 
 perience of the world, of men, and of women
 
 THE CURSE OF A GOOD INTENTION 237 
 
 that she fell easily into the error of thinking 
 that they were all to be treated alike and 
 with equal success by little maxims culled 
 from fourpenny-halfpenny devotional books. 
 
 * No, dear,' she exclaimed ; ' I was re- 
 ferring to our terrible loss. My heart has 
 been bleeding for you ' 
 
 * It is very kind, I'm sure,' said Dora, 
 quietly ; ' I forgot that I had not seen you 
 since the news reached us.' 
 
 It is probable that her self-control cost 
 her more than she suspected. Her lips were 
 drawn and dry. She wore a thick veil, which 
 she carefully abstained from lifting above the 
 level of her eyes. 
 
 ' I am sure,' moaned ' Sister ' Cecilia, ' it 
 has been a most trying time for us all. I won- 
 der that Mrs. Agar has borne up so bravely. 
 Her health is wonderful, considering.'
 
 238 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 Dora sat looking straight in front of her. 
 She was withdrawing her gloves slowly. 
 Her face was that of a person whose mind 
 was made up for the endurance of an ope- 
 ration. 
 
 The twaddling voice, the characteristic 
 reference to health, were intensely aggravat- 
 ing. There are some w^omen who talk of 
 their own health before the dead are buried. 
 They do not seem to be able to separate grief 
 from bodily ill. Clad in crape they rush to 
 the seaside, and there, presumably because 
 grief affects their legs, they hire a man to 
 wheel themselves and Sorrow in a bath-chair. 
 Why — oh, w^hy ! does bereavement drive 
 women into bath-chairs on the King's Road, 
 or the Lees, or the Hoe ? 
 
 ' Wonderful ! ' said Dora. 
 
 * Sister ' Cecilia, busying herself with the
 
 THE CURSE OF A GOOD INTENTION 239 
 
 teapot, proceeded to blow her own trumpet 
 with the barefacedness of true virtue. 
 
 ' I have been with her constantly,' she said. 
 ' I think it is better for us all to tell of our 
 grief ; I think that we are given speech for that 
 purpose. For although one may only be able 
 to offer sympathy and perhaps a little advice, 
 it is always a relief to speak of one's sorrow.' 
 
 * I suppose it is,' admitted Dora from her 
 stronghold of reserve, ' for som.e people.' 
 
 ' Oh, yes ! ' exclaimed ' Sister ' Cecilia, all 
 heedless of the sarcasm. For extreme charity 
 is proof against such. It covers other things 
 besides a multitude of sins. Wielded foolishly 
 it runs amuck like a too luxuriant creeper, 
 and often kills common-sense. ' And that is 
 why I asked you to come, dear. I thought 
 that you might want to confide in someone — 
 that you might want to unburden your heart
 
 240 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 to one who feels for you as if this sorrow were 
 
 her own ' 
 
 ' Only one piece of sugar, thank you/ 
 interrupted Dora. ' Thank you. No. Bread 
 and butter, please. It is very kind of you, 
 " Sister" Cecilia. But, you see, when I have 
 any unburthening to do there is always 
 mother, and if I want any advice there is 
 always father.' 
 
 * Yes, dear. But sometimes even one's 
 parents are not quite the persons to whom 
 one would turn in times of grief.' 
 
 * Oh ! ' observed Dora, without much 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 Unconsciously ' Sister' Cecilia was doing 
 the very best thing possible for Dora. She 
 was arousing in her the spirit of antagonism 
 — hardening a stricken heart, as it were, by a 
 fresh challenge. She was teaching Dora to
 
 THE CURSE OF A GOOD INTENTION 24 1 
 
 fight for what we learn to deem most sacred 
 — namely, the right to monopolise our own 
 thoughts and feelings. ' Sister ' Cecilia Is 
 not, one may assume, the only good woman 
 in the world who cannot draw a definite line 
 between sympathy and mere curiosity. With 
 many the display of sympathy Is nothing but 
 a half-conscious bait to attract a shoal of 
 further details. 
 
 Self-reliance was lurking somewhere in 
 this girl's character, but it had never been 
 developed by the pressure of circumstances. 
 Reserve she had seen practised by her father, 
 but the actual advantages thereof were only 
 now beginning to be apparent to her. The 
 body, we are told, adapts itself to abnormal 
 circumstances ; so Is it with the mind. 
 Already Dora w^as beginning, as they say at 
 sea, to find her feet ; to take that stand amidst 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 her environments which she was forced to 
 hold, practically alone, thereafter. 
 
 And ' Sister' Cecilia, with that blind faith 
 in a good motive which gives almost as much 
 trouble as actual vice, floundered on in the 
 path she had mapped out for herself. 
 
 ' You know, dear,' she said, looking out 
 of the window with a sentimental droop of 
 her thin, inquisitive lips, ' I cannot help feeling 
 that this — this terrible blow means more to 
 you than it does to us.' 
 
 ' Why ? ' inquired Dora, practically. 
 
 ' Sister ' Cecilia was silent, with one of 
 those aggravating silences which do not allow 
 even the satisfaction of a flat contradiction. A 
 meaning silence is a coward's argument. She 
 was beginning to feel slightly nervous before 
 this child, ignorant that childhood is not 
 always a matter of years and calendar months.
 
 THE CURSE OF A GOOD INTENTION 243 
 
 * Why ? ' asked Dora again. 
 
 ' Sister' Cecilia looked rather bewildered. 
 
 ' Well, dear, I thought perhaps — I 
 always thought that my poor boy entertained 
 some feeling — you understand ? ' 
 
 ' No,' replied Dora, borrowing for the 
 moment her father's most crushing delibe- 
 ration of manner, ' I cannot say I do. 
 When you say your " poor boy," are you 
 referring to Jem ? ' 
 
 ' Sister ' Cecilia assented with a resigned 
 nod worthy of the very earliest martyr. 
 
 ' Then, as everyone has discovered so 
 many virtues in him — quite suddenly — we had 
 better emulate one of them, and have at the 
 least the good feeling to hold our tongues 
 about any feelings he may have entertained. 
 Do you not think so, " Sister" Cecilia?' 
 
 * Well, dear, I only thought to act as 
 
 R 2
 
 244 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 might be best for you,' said the v/ell-uiten 
 tioned meddler, with the drawl of the profes- 
 sionally misunderstood. 
 
 ' I have no doubt of that,' returned Dora, 
 with an equanimity which was again strangely 
 suggestive of Jem Agar. ' But In future 
 you will be consulting my welfare much 
 more effectively by refraining from action 
 on my behalf at all.' 
 
 ' As you will, dear ; as you will,' In the 
 hopeless tone of age, experience, and wis- 
 dom forced to stand Idle while youth and 
 folly rush headlong down the hill. 
 
 ' Yes,' returned Dora, calmly ; ' I know 
 that, thank you. And now, I think, we had 
 better change the subject.' 
 
 The subject was therefore changed ; but 
 * Sister ' Cecilia, having, as It were, w^hetted 
 her appetite for details, was not at her ease
 
 THE CURSE OF A GOOD INTENTION 245 
 
 with Other food for the mind, and presently 
 Dora left. 
 
 The girl went back into her small world 
 with a new knowledge gained — the knowledge 
 that in all and through all we are really quite 
 alone. There can be only one companion, and 
 if that one be absent, there are only so many 
 talking-machines left to us. And many of 
 us pass the whole of our lives in conversation 
 with them. So it is ; and we know not why. 
 
 In a subtle way she felt stronger for this 
 little tussle — a fight is always exhilarating. 
 She felt that from thenceforth the memory of 
 Jem was hers, and hers alone, to defend and 
 to cherish. It was not much of a consolation. 
 No. But then this is a world of small 
 mercies, where some of us get an hour or 
 some mean portion of a day when we want 
 a lifetime.
 
 246 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE TOUCH OF NATURE 
 
 A sense, when first I fronted him, 
 Said, ' Trust him not I ' 
 
 After successfully carrying through the 
 purchase of mourning stationery and attend- 
 ing to other important items connected with 
 sorrow in its worldly shape, Arthur Agar 
 went back to Cambridge. There was enough 
 of the woman in his nature to enable him 
 to cherish grief and nurse it lovingly, as 
 some women (not the best of them) do. In 
 his attitude towards the world there was none 
 of that dogged going about his business
 
 THE TOUCH OF NATURE 247 
 
 which characterises the ordinary man from 
 whose life something has slipped away. 
 
 He wandered by the banks of the Cam 
 with mourning in his mien, and his cherished 
 friends took sympathetic coffee with him 
 after Hall. They spoke of Jem with that 
 fervid admiration which University men 
 honestly feel for one a few years their senior 
 who has already 'done som.ething.' 
 
 ' A ripping soldier ' they called him, and 
 some of them entertained serious doubts as 
 to whether they had done wisely in choosing 
 the less glorious paths of peace. And 
 Arthur Agar settled down into the old profit- 
 less life, with this difference — that he could not 
 dine out, that he used black-edged note-paper, 
 and that his delicate heliotrope neckties were 
 folded away in a drawer until such time as 
 his grief should be assuaged into that state of
 
 248 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 resignation technically called half-mourn- 
 ing. 
 
 One afternoon well towards the end of the 
 term Arthur Agar's ' gyp ' crept In with that 
 valet-like confidential air which seems to be 
 bred of too intimate a knowledge of the ex- 
 tent of one's wardrobe. 
 
 ' There is a gentleman, sir,' he said, ' as 
 wants to see you. But In no wise will he 
 give his name, which, he says, you don't 
 know it.' 
 
 ' Is he selling engravings ? ' asked Arthur. 
 
 The ' gyp ' looked mildly offended. As 
 if he didn't know that sort ! 
 
 ' No, sir. Military man, I should take it.' 
 
 Arthur Agar had met the Scotch Bala- 
 clava veteran in his time too. He hesitated, 
 and the ' gyp,' who felt that his reputation 
 was at stake, spoke :
 
 THE TOUCH OF NATURE 249 
 
 * He Is heminently a gentleman, sir,' he 
 said. 
 
 * Well, then, show him up. 
 
 A moment later a m.an who might have 
 been the wandering Jew fin de siecle stood 
 in the doorway. His smart military mous- 
 tache was small and evidently trimmed, his 
 face v/as sunburnt, and in his eyes there 
 gleamed the restlessness of India. 
 
 He bowed, and awaited the exit of the 
 man. Then, coming forward, he was able 
 for the first time to see Arthur Agar's face 
 distinctly, and his glance wavered. 
 
 At that moment Arthur Agar was staring 
 at him with something in his face that was 
 almost strong. When this man had entered 
 the room, Arthur felt his heart give one great 
 bound which almost choked him. There 
 was a strange physical feeling of vacuity in
 
 250 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 his breast which seemed to paralyse his 
 breathing powers, and his temples throbbed 
 painfully. 
 
 Arthur Agar's life had been passed in 
 eminently pleasant places. The seamy side 
 of existence had always been carefully hidden 
 from his eyes. He therefore did not recog- 
 nise this strange sense which had leapt into 
 his being — the sense of superhuman, physical, 
 mortal revulsion. 
 
 He was divided between two instincts. 
 One side of his nature urged him to shriek 
 like a woman. Had he followed the other, 
 he would have rushed at this man, whom 
 he had never seen before, seeking to do 
 him bodily harm. He would not have 
 paused to reason that in anything like a 
 struggle he would stand no chance against 
 the sinewy, dark eyed soldier who stood
 
 THE TOUCH OF NATURE 25 1 
 
 watching him. For there are moments even 
 in this age of self-suppression when we do 
 not pause to think, when he who cannot 
 swim will leap into deep water to save 
 another. 
 
 This sudden unreasoning hatred, so 
 foreign to his gentle nature, seemed to stag- 
 ger Arthur Agar as the sudden intimation of 
 some mortal disease lurking in his own being 
 would have done. He gripped the back of 
 the spindle-legged chair, and could find no 
 word to say. The stranger it was who 
 spoke. 
 
 ' I presume,' he said, with a pleasant smile, 
 in a voice so musical that his hearer breathed 
 suddenly as if his head had been lifted from 
 water, ' I presume that you are Mr. Arthur 
 Agar?' 
 
 While he spoke he looked past Arthur,
 
 252 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 out of the silken-draped window. He did 
 not seem to like the glance of this young 
 man, for even the most practical of us have 
 a conscience at times. 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 The new-comer laid his walking-stick on 
 the table, and turned to make sure that the 
 door was closed. 
 
 ' I knew^ your step-brother,' he explained, 
 * Jem Agar, in India.' 
 
 Then the instinct of the gentleman and 
 the host asserted itself over and above the 
 throbbinof hatred. 
 
 ' Ah ! Will you sit down ? ' 
 
 The stranger took the proffered chair and 
 laid aside his hat. But neither of them was 
 at ease. There was a subtle suggestion 
 that they had met before and quarrelled — 
 vague, unreasoning, quite impossible if you
 
 THE TOUCH OF NATURE 253 
 
 will ; but it was there. They were as men 
 meeting again with a past between theha 
 (too full of strong passions ever to be for-' 
 gotten) which each was trying in vain to 
 ignore. 
 
 ' I have brought home a few belongings 
 of his,' the stranger went on to explain. 
 ' Just a portmanteau with some clothes and 
 things.' 
 
 He paused, and drew a small packet from 
 the pocket of a covert-coat which he carried 
 over his arm. 
 
 ' Here,' he went on, 'are some papers of 
 his — a diary and one or two letters. The 
 rest of the things are at my hotel in town.' 
 
 Arthur took the packet, and, still in the 
 same dreamy, unreal way, opened it. He 
 turned to the last entry — dated six weeks 
 back.
 
 2 54 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 ' Got out of bed at five, but nothing to be 
 seen In the valley. I feel a bit chippy this 
 morning. If nothing turns up to-day shall 
 begin to feel uneasy. The men seem all 
 right. They are plucky little fellows.' 
 
 There was a self-consciousness about Jem 
 Agar's diary, a selection of the right word, 
 which conveyed nothing to Arthur. But It 
 fell into other hands later on, where it was 
 understood better. 
 
 General Michael was watching the under- 
 graduate with the same critical attention 
 which he had brought to bear on the writer 
 of the diary not two months before. 
 
 ' Did you see much of your step-brother ? ' 
 he asked abruptly, feeling his way towards 
 his purpose. 
 
 Arthur looked up. He was getting ac- 
 customed to the loathing that he felt for this
 
 THE TOUCH OF NATURE 255 
 
 man, as one gets accustomed to an evil 
 odour or a physical pain. 
 
 ' I saw enough of him to be very fond of 
 him,' he replied. 
 
 * And your mother — was she attached to 
 him ? Excuse my asking ; I have a reason.' 
 
 The little pause was enough. Seymour 
 Michael had expected as much. 
 
 He had never forgiven Mrs. Agar the 
 insults she heaped upon his head in the 
 drawing-room of Jaggery House. It is 
 very difficult to bring sham.e home to a Jew, 
 and on that occasion this son of the modern 
 Ishmaelites had been thoroughly ashamed of 
 himself. The sting of that past ignominy 
 was with him still, and would remain within 
 his heart until such time as he could revenge 
 himself. 
 
 With that mean, underhand watchfulness
 
 256 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 for an opportunity which is almost excusable 
 in one of the unfortunates against whom every 
 man's hand is raised to-day, he had never 
 parted with his thirst for revenge. The 
 moment seemed propitious. It was within his 
 power to lay for Anna Agar one of those 
 spiteful feminine traps of which a woman can 
 only fully appreciate the sting. 
 
 He determined to leave Mrs. Agar in igno- 
 rance of the real facts respecting her step-son. 
 His vengeance was to allow her to rejoice 
 — almost openly, as she did — in the stroke 
 of fortune by which her own son, Arthur, 
 had become possessed of Stagholme. He 
 knew the woman well enough to foresee 
 that in a hundred ways she would heap up 
 ignominy, meanness, deception, which would 
 crumble in one vast wreck about her head 
 when Jem Agar returned.
 
 THE TOUCH OF NATURE 257 
 
 It was a vengeance worthy of the man, and 
 spiteful enough to be fully comprehended by 
 its victim. But, like others handling petards, 
 Seymour Michael grew somewhat careless, 
 and forgot that the wrong man is sometimes 
 hoist. 
 
 He knew his position well enough to 
 make all safe as regarded Jem Agar on his 
 return. It was absolutely necessary to tell 
 Arthur Agar — necessary for his own safety in 
 the future. The other two persons to whom 
 the secret was to be imparted were Mrs. 
 Agar and Dora Glynde. From Mrs. Agar 
 Seymour Michael determined to withhold 
 the news for his own reasons. Dora was 
 to be kept in the dark because she was a 
 woman, and therefore unsafe. 
 
 This was the plan in its original shape 
 with which Michael sought out Arthur Agar 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 at his rooms In college at Cambridge. It was 
 further assisted and elaborated by a circum- 
 stance which the originator could scarcely 
 have been expected to foresee — the fact of 
 Arthur Agar's love for Dora, which was at 
 this time beoflnnlnof to take to Itself a definite 
 existence. It began, as all love does, with 
 a want more or less elevated according to the 
 nature of the wanter. Arthur Agar required 
 someone for whom to buy those small and 
 feminine luxuries which he could not for 
 manly shame purchase to himself He de- 
 lighted in spending money in those establish- 
 ments tersely called magasins de luxe in 
 the country from whence their contents do 
 emanate. He therefore got into the habit of 
 * picking up little things ' for Dora, with the 
 result that she in her turn picked up that 
 very small object, his heart.
 
 THE TOUCH OF NATURE 259 
 
 Michael had seen enough of Arthur Agar 
 during this short interview to endow him 
 with the same meed of contempt which he 
 had entertained towards Anna Agar, the 
 mother. The strong personal resemblance, 
 the obvious weakness of the boy's face, and, 
 above all, that sense of having the upper 
 hand, which makes brave men out of cowards, 
 gave him confidence. It seemed that he 
 had only to play the cards thrust into his 
 hand. 
 
 * I knew,' he pursued, ' Jem Agar very 
 well. He was a peculiar man • very quiet, 
 very reserved, and just the man to make a 
 difficult position rather more difficult.' 
 
 Arthur's intelligence w^as not keen enough 
 to follow the drift of this remark. 
 
 ' Yes,' he said gently. 
 
 ' He hinted to me once or twice,' went on
 
 260 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 Seymour Michael, 'that things were not very 
 harmonious at home.' 
 
 ' I was not aware of It,' answered Arthur, 
 whose Innate gentlemanHness told him that 
 this should be held sacred ground. 
 
 The General shifted his position. 
 
 * He was a first-rate soldier,' he said 
 warmly. 
 
 It was obvious to both that they were not 
 getting on. Something seemed to hold them 
 both back, paralysing the savoir-faire which 
 both had acquired In their Intercourse with 
 the world. Seymour Michael was puzzled. 
 He was not afraid of this boy. He knew 
 himself to be stronger — capable of over-mas- 
 tering him entirely. But for the first time 
 in his life he felt awkward and ill at ease. 
 
 Arthur Agar only wanted this man to go. 
 He felt that he could forego the news which
 
 THE TOUCH OF NATURE 261 
 
 he must undoubtedly be in a position to give 
 if only he could be rid of this hated presence. 
 At moments the loathing came to him again, 
 like a cold hand laid upon his heart. 
 
 * Were you with him,' inquired the under- 
 graduate, * at the time of his — death ? ' 
 
 * No. I was at head-quarters, forty 
 miles to the rear.' 
 
 There was a little pause, then suddenly 
 Seymour Michael leant forward with his two 
 hands on the table that stood between them. 
 
 * Mr. Agar,' he said, ' are you able to keep 
 a secret ? ' 
 
 * I suppose so,' answered Agar, apprehen- 
 sively. 
 
 ' Then I am going to tell you something 
 which you must swear by all that you hold 
 most sacred to keep a strict secret until such 
 time as I give you leave to reveal it.'
 
 262 FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER 
 
 Arthur looked at him with a vague fear 
 in his face. It seemed suddenly as if this 
 man had always been in his life — as if he 
 would never go out of it again. 
 
 * I am not sure that I care to hear it,' he 
 wavered. 
 
 ' You must hear it. Almost the last 
 words that Jem Agar spoke to me were 
 requesting me to tell you this.' 
 
 ' You promise that that is true ? ' 
 Arthur was surprised at his own suspicions. 
 1 1 was so unlike him, whose nature, too weak 
 to compass vice, had never allowed the sus- 
 picion of vice or deceit in others to trouble 
 him. 
 
 * I promise,' replied Seymour Michael. 
 Arthur gathered himself together for an 
 
 effort. His distrust of this man was almost a 
 panic.
 
 THE TOUCH OF NATURE 263 
 
 ' Then tell me,' he said. 
 
 Michael leant back in his chair, fixing his 
 pleasant eyes on Arthur's pale face. 
 
 ' The estate is not yours,' he said. ' Your 
 step-brother, Jem Agar, is not dead.' 
 
 ' Not dead ! ' repeated Arthur, without any 
 joy in his voice. ' Not dead ! Then who are 
 you ? Tell me who you are ! ' 
 
 ' Ah ! That I cannot tell you.' 
 
 And Seymour Michael sat smiling quietly 
 on Anna Agar's son. 
 
 END OF VOLUME I. 
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODH AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARB 
 
 LONDON