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 L161— O-1096
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 POEMS. 
 
 5/- 
 
 ELIrlOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW.
 
 LEICESTEE 
 
 Jin Jlittobiogvaphs 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCIS WILLIAM L. ADAMS 
 
 ' A rimirar lo passo 
 Che non lascio giamuiai persona viva * 
 Dante 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 VOL. I 
 
 LONDON 
 
 GEORGE RED WAY 
 
 YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN 
 
 1885
 
 Empedokles.
 
 83.3 
 
 «7 
 
 i 
 
 -J 
 
 ^0 
 
 A. L. A. 
 
 
 -■5
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 I. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. ----- 1 
 
 II. 35 
 
 III. 63 
 
 IV. 87 
 
 II. 
 
 I. 106 
 
 II. - - - - - 133 
 
 III. 169 
 
 VI. 208 
 
 III. 
 
 I. 249 
 
 II. 279 
 
 III. 314
 
 LEICESTER. 
 I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 At some time in my earliest childhood I 
 must, I think, have lived near a wind-mill : 
 for I have, at times, ever since I can re- 
 member, seen one in the middle of a tender 
 yellowy-golden band of sunset on a sandy 
 elevation. Somewhere, perhaps below in 
 the house in which I am, a canary, cage- 
 less, with upward -throbbing throat, sings. 
 And then I know a darker vision than that 
 of the wind-mill in the middle of a tender 
 yellowy-golden band of sunset on a sandy 
 elevation : a darker vision of a slanting 
 planked floor, with an uncertain atmo- 
 VOL. I. 1
 
 2 Leicester. 
 
 sphere and a sound therein, and perhaps from 
 thereout, as of on the sea. A dim-light- 
 rayed lamp oscillates in the middle. A 
 woman is up in one of the berths giving 
 suck to and soothing a child half-fractious 
 with sleep and misery. In the far corner 
 is a huddled tartan - petticoated lump 
 rounded, with two protruding hare knees — 
 a boy unkempt, dirty, miserable, afraid of 
 some heavy coming footstep. I know in 
 some way that I am the boy. 
 
 And then comes another lighter vision 
 in a broader scene. A red-cheeked woman 
 rolls a perambulator and a quiet boy down 
 a cindery path in the shine of a moist sun- 
 set. They stop by a grey-sweating-barred 
 gate (there are four or five bars : not less). 
 When, in a little, the boy struggles out 
 from the tarpaulin of the perambulator on 
 to the moist earth, crosses the tall wet rank 
 grasses and climbs on to the gate, to look 
 at a band of tender yellowy-gold down by 
 the horizon, which is to him a revelation of 
 heaven. And on that day that tender
 
 Leicester. 3 
 
 yellowy-gold band and far sky of light seemed 
 to him to contain faint outlines of great- 
 winged angels : beyond, a chasm of clearer 
 purer light : and beyond, God. 
 
 Now everj'thing changes. My next re- 
 collection of a certain fixed occasion brings 
 with it an acquaintance, often strangely 
 minute and distinct, of mj'self and of the 
 life that was around me. Thus : — 
 
 From standing with some wistfulness in 
 the twilight road I turn slowly away; 
 shoulders rounded, collar awry, hands deep 
 in pockets : slouch to the right, along the 
 second side (at right angles to the road) of 
 the wall, and there stop — thinking about 
 things. 
 
 A white duck hurries waddling, filled 
 wdth anxiousness, across the grass further 
 on : to paddle her beak in the edge of the 
 stream. And I walk with big strides till I 
 am parallel to her : reach the wooden bridge 
 (duck the while paddling her beak in the 
 border of watery mud of the stream) : 
 give one glance at a hole in the bank from 
 
 1—2
 
 4 Leicester. 
 
 which trickles the thick inky sluggish fluid : 
 and enter the porch. 
 
 No one in the kitchen. The clock tick- 
 tacking with big silent swing : the plates, 
 with their ruddy flickering fire-light, in 
 rows. The lamp not lit yet. 
 
 Then I hear a motion as of some one 
 shoving a jar on to a shelf in the pantry : 
 cross quickly through the kitchen : down 
 the red-tiled passage (up come two or three 
 loose tiles with a collapsed fall), catching a 
 semi-earthy smell from under the cellar 
 door (some one's in the pantry : Anne, I 
 think) : run upstairs two steps at a time : 
 turn down the dark passage : reach my 
 ladder foot : climb up : shove open the 
 door : enter the dim garret : go on to the 
 window : look out over the graveyard : 
 and then turn and begin to take in, half- 
 unconsciously, the red-painted lines on the 
 card over the washing-stand : ' I love them 
 that love Me, and those that seek Me earhj 
 shall find Me.' 
 
 I turn again : go back to . the window,
 
 Leicester. 5 
 
 and, with a knee on the white-painted 
 window-sill, look out into the twihght sky, 
 in which are vaguely the tall dark wild 
 rook-trees with their black broad tops, the 
 many gravestones, and the small church to 
 the right — all vague, semi-existent to me. 
 
 Then : 
 
 ' Ber-tie I' 
 
 The word, rising a note, startles me, 
 half- thrills me. Anne is at the foot of the 
 ladder. 
 
 Up she steps : shoves the door open al- 
 together : and at once begins : 
 
 ' Lor', Master Bertie, why you look as if 
 you'd bin seein' a ghost out in the grave- 
 yard, you do. Gracious alive, the eyes of 
 him ! Did you ever now ? Master 
 Bertie ' 
 
 ' Don't be a fool. What do you want ?' 
 I ask. * If you want me for tea, I'm not 
 coming. Tell Mother Purchis so.' 
 
 Anne urges that Mrs. Purchis is in ever 
 such a bad temper this evening : and it 
 being his last night too, eh ? And it isn't
 
 6 Leicester. 
 
 good for him to drop o£f his victuals hke 
 that ; and he going away to school to- 
 morrow, and hasn't eat anything to speak 
 of this week, considerin'. 
 
 I, remaining obdurate, take to my old 
 attitude, with my knee upon the white- 
 painted window-sill, now faint and dim, and 
 look through the dark rook-trees into the 
 dimmer fields. Anne continues : Which she 
 does hope he doesn't bear any malice. Master 
 Bertie, and him going away to-morrow, to 
 school, and might never see her again, but 
 they both be dead and buried before then, 
 and if it wasn't that . . . (Then, sharply) : 
 But she always did say, and we'd see 
 who was right or not, that that boy would 
 come to no 
 
 I leap to her. 
 
 ' I will throw you down the ladder,' I 
 say, catching her by the arm, ' if you 
 don't . . . Got' 
 
 She, rather frightened, goes. 
 
 All that evening I sat on the sill look-
 
 Leicester. 7 
 
 ing out across the churchyard to the hedge 
 and the rook-trees. The black shadows 
 grew broader and deeper. There was no 
 moon. Only a light wind in the evening : 
 singing through a crack in the lead-work, 
 close by my ear : till Timothy Goodwin, the 
 sexton, came limping along the London 
 Eoad with a lantern : to unlock the gates. 
 Then he locked them agaia, carefully, after 
 him: limped to old Mr. Atkin's grave and 
 began cutting the grass on it with a clink- 
 ing shears, having put down the lantern by 
 him. 
 
 I watched him and thought about things. 
 
 Presently he lifted up his light, put it 
 down again and began on another patch : 
 I still watching him and thinking about 
 things. Then he took up his light and 
 stood for a moment, brushing the knees of 
 his corduroys with his hand : then turned 
 and limped towards the gates. I smiled 
 through the tears that were in my eyes 
 and on my cheeks. If I had been there 
 with old Timothy I would have put
 
 8 Leicester. 
 
 my arms round his neck and kissed 
 him. 
 
 On he Hmped over the grass, through the 
 tombs, over the sanded walk, the lantern- 
 hght passing before him ; till now he 
 reached the gates : unlocked them : went 
 out : re-locked them. — And there he goes, 
 jogging over furrows and hollows like a 
 Will-'o-the-wisp, up the London road. 
 
 When I had lost sight of the small light 
 behind the hedge, I returned to my think- 
 ing somewhere about where I had left it 
 off, but brokenly. 
 
 ... They were not kind to me. I was 
 going away to school to-morrow morning ; 
 at seven. To a boarding-school. P'r'aps 
 they'd love me there. . . . But I didn't 
 know. I thought I should die some day 
 soon. I shouldn't mind dying so much — 
 no one knew what sort of things I wanted 
 to do. I didn't think anyone ever would. 
 That was it — no one. . . . Yes : one. God. 
 He knows ! God knows ! God can see 
 cvcrytMng I
 
 Leicester. 9 
 
 An impulse came in me. I went to the 
 bed and slipped down onto my knees to tell 
 Him about it ; but then, remembering that 
 He was up in the sky, I clasped my two 
 hands together and looked up to Him ; and 
 said : 
 
 ' Dear God, You are a long, long way 
 away from me : right up in the deep, blue 
 sky, farther away than even the sun, and 
 the moon, and the stars. — But I love You ! 
 oh, I love You ! because You know every- 
 thing I think about, and everything that I 
 want to do. And I pray that You won't let 
 me die till I am very old and have done all 
 the things I want to do. But please help 
 me to be a great man. Through Jesus 
 Christ our blessed Lord, Amen.' 
 
 Then I got up, and undressed, and got 
 into bed. And was soon asleep. 
 
 The morning after my prayer up in my 
 little evening room at Purchis's farm, Mr. 
 Purchis and I came up by train to some 
 large station, where we got out and crossed
 
 10 Leicester. 
 
 to another platform. As we were going, he 
 having me by the hand, he told me to tie a 
 white comforter round my arm, so that 'the 
 Colonel's man ' might know me at the 
 other end. Then I was put into a third- 
 class compartment : Mr. Purchis gave me 
 a shake by the hand, lingered purposelessly a 
 moment looking into the carriage, and then 
 turned and went away down the platform. 
 I did not care to watch him more than ten 
 yards or so. I did not care to look at the 
 other passengers. It all seemed like a sort 
 of half- dream, and I did not think I was 
 going anywhere in particular. 
 
 There were a good many other people in 
 the carriage. Some got in : some got out : 
 I didn't notice them much. I sat thinking 
 about things. 
 
 After a long time (it was growing darker 
 now) an old lady next me, who'd been 
 asleep, awoke and took a basket from 
 under the seat and put it upon her knees, 
 and, in a little, said to me that we were 
 * close to London now, my dear.' I said :
 
 Leicester. 1 1 
 
 ' Thank you !' and looked out of the 
 window. 
 
 Then the train stopped by a long planked 
 platform, and the people (three now) all 
 rose up. A clergyman got out first and 
 pulled a glazed bag along the floor down to 
 him. Then the old lady got out, and her 
 daughter (as I thought) handed her down 
 the basket and got out too. 
 
 After a little I went up to the other win- 
 dow and pressed my nose against the pane 
 and looked out for ' the Colonel's man.' 
 Then I thought that he mightn't be able to 
 know me without the white-comfortered 
 arm, so I put it out through the door, and 
 waited. 
 
 All at once a man with thin legs in 
 brown trousers (they looked thin : perhaps 
 it was only because the trousers were tight) 
 came out from between two old ladies with 
 band-boxes and right up to me. He touched 
 his hat. This was ' the Colonel's man.' 
 
 We took a cab and went across London, 
 and stopped in a square before another large
 
 12 Leicester. 
 
 station, but not so large a one as the first. 
 A porter undid the door, and we got out, 
 and the box was taken down, and put onto 
 a trolly, and we followed it into the station. 
 There it was tilted beside two others onto 
 its head (the trolly I mean), and we had ten 
 minutes to wait before the gate was open. 
 
 ' The Colonel's man ' began talking to 
 the porter about something. I went on a 
 little and stood and looked at some pictures 
 hung up by a newspaper stall. One was of 
 a great ship in the docks, going to be 
 launched. As I was looking — 
 
 ' Come along,' said ' the Colonel's man,' 
 taking me by the hand. ' The gate's 
 open.' 
 
 We went up the platform together and 
 got into a carriage pretty far up. I sat 
 down, and sat silent : and every now and 
 then my eyelids came down, and my head 
 moved forward, and I nearly fell. I should 
 very much like to have lain down and gone 
 to sleep in a cool white bed. 
 
 At last we came, after many stops, to a
 
 Leicester. 13 
 
 dead stop, and ' the Colonel's man ' j)ut his 
 hand on my arm : and then I was lifted 
 down : and we went out, I just behind him 
 and a porter carrying the box. At the door 
 in the cool evening wind ' the Colonel's 
 man ' agreed with a boy to take the box up 
 to Park Eoad for sixpence. And then we 
 all set off. 
 
 After a little ' the Colonel's man ' and I 
 were ahead. It was rather a steep hill, 
 and I felt rather tired but not so sleepy 
 now. We went on slowly : till he stopped 
 and said : 
 
 ' Give us a hand. It is a bit of a pull 
 up this hill, young 'un, ain't it — eh ?' 
 
 I gave him my hand and we went on 
 again silently till, passing through the 
 lamplight from a tall lamp -post and through 
 an open gate, we stood on the flagstone 
 before a low doorway. ' The Colonel's man ' 
 pulled at the bell-handle. A bell rang. 
 Then, in a little, we heard steps and the 
 door was opened by a maid with a white 
 apron and cap.
 
 14 Leicester. 
 
 'Well, good-bye, mi lad,' said 'the 
 Colonel's man/ tm-ning to me, ' I'm about 
 at the end of my part o' the business, I 
 suppose. Good luck to ye, sir : good luck 
 to ye.' 
 
 He put his hand on my shoulder : and 
 then was out through the gate and into the 
 darkness. I looked after him, slowly. 
 The maid stamped her feet on the ground. 
 Then : 
 
 ' Where's your box ?' said she. 
 
 At that moment the boy with the wheel- 
 barrow and the box appeared under the 
 lamp-post at the corner, some little way 
 off. She must have seen him. 
 
 ' Oh, that's it,' said she. ' I suppose 
 he's paid all right ?' 
 
 'Yes: "the Colonel's man" paid him,' 
 I said. 
 
 ' Then you'd better go into the dining- 
 room. Give us your keys first.' (I found 
 and gave her the key of my box) — ' That's 
 it.' She pointed to the door in the left 
 side of the hall.
 
 Leicester. ].5 
 
 I crossed the glazed carpet, opened the 
 door, and went in. 
 
 A large fire was burning with a flicker- 
 ing light. It flickered on the black glazy 
 table-cloth of a long thin table in the 
 middle of the I'oom ; on another running 
 at right angles to it across the right side 
 of the room, in a broad half-bay window. 
 Outside there ^\as a veranda, and the 
 dark evening. 
 
 At last I went to the bench and, half 
 upon it, leant my face in my arms on the 
 cool table-cloth. The things around me 
 were all in a sort of noise above my ears. 
 I could not weep soft tears : the tears 
 were dried behind my eyes. But, after a 
 little, I seemed to grow dreary : and could 
 have wished to sleep. 
 
 I took to no one. One or two fellows 
 made up to me a little at first ; but I just 
 answered them and turned away, neither 
 caring to talk to them or let them talk 
 to me. It was not that I was homesick : I 
 had no home. I don't know what it was.
 
 16 Leicester. 
 
 ' I like Wallace better than any of the 
 others. Neither of us ever have jam or 
 cake : he not even 3d. a week like 
 me. He loves his little belly. He'll 
 always go to Harris's, the grub shop, for 
 anyone who'll give him a good big bit 
 of the stuff they're getting (of course 
 you're licked if you're caught going, ex- 
 cept on Saturdays and Wednesdays from two 
 to three). And I have often told him that 
 I think it is beastly of him to do it ; but he 
 doesn't care, so long as he gets the grub. 
 That's one reason why I don't care to talk 
 to him about some things I know of. I tell 
 him tales, and all that; but that's different. 
 
 ' Whittaker is an old beast. He's fond 
 of caning us I'm sure. When you go into 
 the library on Saturdays after school, to 
 get three strokes if you've had more than 
 twelve mistakes in dictation, he won't let 
 you kneel down loose, as if you were pray- 
 ing, but he makes you bend up over till 
 you're quite tight. It's very nasty going 
 tight again after the first one.
 
 Leicester. 1 7 
 
 * Mrs. Whittaker is a humbug. She 
 says '''umble" and '"otcr'aud " 'ospital," 
 and says it's right to say them that way. 
 She listens to what the fellows say, and 
 then tells the Eeverend, and thej^ catch it. 
 She reads fellow's' letters. She corrects 
 fellows' letters home, and makes them say 
 that Mr. and Mrs. Whittaker are very kind 
 to them, and other things. Besides, she 
 tells lies. She has two babies, little brats 
 that squawl. On the whole, I hate her. 
 
 ' I don't mind the work much, especially 
 the history. Latin's rather rot, and so is 
 geography and arithmetic. I like poetry 
 best : we have a book full of it. The first 
 poem is called The Universal Prayer, by 
 A. Pope. The one I like best is called 
 A Psalm of Life by Longfellow.' 
 
 One Saturday night w^hen Cookie was 
 washing me. — You see, that particular 
 night I was rather funny : having been 
 out on the heath alone, (of course I 
 should have been punished, perhaps licked, 
 if I'd been caught. We were never allowed 
 
 VOL. I. 2
 
 1 8 Leicester. 
 
 out except we got leave, in twos), and 
 thinking about all sorts of things, and 
 particularly that I should die before I was 
 twenty. So, as Cookie was washing me, I 
 asked her if she knew what, 
 
 For the soul is dead that sluTiihers 
 and, things are not what they seem, 
 
 meant ? She didn't. — Then I asked her 
 about the other things in it, one by one ; 
 but she didn't seem to understand them 
 much either. 
 
 Well ; after I'd gone up to the dormi- 
 tory (I was first that night), while the 
 others were up at prayers, she came in 
 quite quietly as I was lying thinking and 
 looking at the white ceiling, and sat down 
 on the bed by me and took out a little 
 round hot pasty, and said I was to eat it 
 while she was cutting my nails. So she 
 drew back the curtain, and I got out of 
 the clothes, and she began to cut my nails. 
 And while I was sitting in that way, eating 
 the hot pasty and thinking, I thought I'd
 
 Leicester. 1 
 
 like to tell her the Fsalm of Life : so I 
 asked her if she'd care to hear it. She 
 said ' Yes.' So I began to tell it her. 
 She'd finished cutting by the time I'd got 
 past half through : and sat with my foot in 
 her lap, looking at me, till I'd done it. 
 Then we heard them coming down from 
 praj^ers : so she told me to jump into bed, 
 and tucked me up and gave me a kiss, and 
 said : 
 
 ' I hope it won't make you conceited. 
 Master Leicester, but you're the best-look- 
 ing of the boarders. And I hope you'll be 
 happy.' 
 
 I didn't think of all this till Wallace told 
 me on Monday night that Cookie had left. 
 And afterwards Mrs. Whittaker told me 
 Cookie was a thief and had stolen a lot of 
 her things, but I didn't believe it. 
 
 At the end of the term we w^ere examined 
 by a gentleman who came from Colchester 
 School, w^here Whittaker was when he was 
 a kid. Blake was his name. I liked him; 
 We were all examined together in English 
 
 2—2
 
 20 Leicester. 
 
 and Scripture : and he said that I was the 
 brightest boy of the lot, and to the 
 Keverend too, when he came in at one 
 o'clock and they were standing talking 
 together at the door. 
 
 The next day was Speech-day. We 
 most of us had pieces of poetry, Shak- 
 spere or out of the poetry-book, to say. 
 We were supposed to choose our own 
 pieces. I was just head of my form by 
 the term marks, (there were only five in it, 
 Black, Campbell, Morris, Wallace, and I), 
 and I chose the Psalm of Life. Currie 
 (the undermaster) didn't mind ; and so I 
 learnt it again, a little excited : I mean, 
 read it over with the book, and repeated it 
 again and again, to make sure I hadn't for- 
 gotten any of it. 
 
 I remember how I sat in my place, wait- 
 ing for my turn, with my lips rather dry, 
 and every now and then I shivered as if a 
 draught came upon me through an opened 
 door ; but I wasn't really afraid. I was a 
 little excited, I say; and yet it seemed
 
 Leicester. 2 1 
 
 somehow like a dream and I couldn't notice 
 anyone's face. 
 
 ' At last my turn came. It was after 
 Whitman's. I got up shivering, and I 
 thought I shouldn't have breath to say it 
 all with. But when I got up onto the 
 green-baize platform, and stood in the 
 middle, and looked down over them, the 
 ladies in their white and coloured dresses, 
 and the men, and the boys — all at once the 
 shivering went away from me altogether : 
 and I turned my head straight to Mr. 
 Blake at the table at the side, and smiled 
 to him. He smiled too, but only in his 
 eyes. And I began : — 
 
 Tell me not in mournful numhers, 
 'Life is hut an empty dream !' 
 
 For the soul is dead that slumbers, 
 and things are not what they seem. 
 
 And my voice rose, growing stronger 
 and clearer, and at last I did not see any- 
 thing there at all, not even the coloured 
 mass of the dresses, but only a warm gold 
 air all round me, and something singing
 
 22 Leicester. 
 
 softly all round me like far off sunshiny 
 water. 
 
 Then all at once I laughed : and though 
 tne tears were quite full in my eyes, I could 
 have shouted out, I felt so hold and 
 brave and ready for it all, even for when I 
 should have to die and be buried in the 
 cold dark earth. And my voice rang as I 
 said : 
 
 Lives of great men all remiiul us 
 ive can make our lives sublime, 
 
 and, deioarting, leave behind us 
 foot]jrints in the sands of time ; 
 
 Footprints that x)erha2os another, 
 sailing o'er life's solemn main, 
 
 some forlorn and shipivrecked brother, 
 seeing shall take heart again. 
 
 — Let us, then, be up and doing, 
 
 luith a heart for any fats ; 
 still achieving, still pursuing, 
 
 learn to labour and to ivait. 
 
 Towards the end I had grown sadder a 
 little : and, now it was all said and over, I 
 stood there for a moment with my head 
 bent down looking at the ground of the 
 room below the green-baize platform. It
 
 Leicester. 23 
 
 seemed some time, but I dare say it was 
 only a moment. But when they all began 
 to clap, and I looked up quickly and saw 
 them all round me — I hated them all in 
 my heart and could have seen them die and 
 not stirred. — Not all ! All but one : Mr. 
 Blake. I seemed to love him a little. 
 
 And he nodded and smiled to me again 
 with his eyes, and I smiled back to him as 
 I went down. And after that I did not 
 hate the others any more ; for I did not 
 think of them — I forget what came then. 
 
 Then next thing I remember was that 
 I heard the Keverend saying : 
 
 ' This Prize is adjudged by Mr. Blake to 
 Leicester but, as he is only a new boy this 
 term, he retires in favour of Whitman 
 (whose recitation of Marc Antony's speech 
 over the body of Caesar is highly creditable 
 to him) and he receives the certificate.' 
 
 I cared neither for the prize nor for the 
 certificate now. I do not quite know what 
 I was thinking about : but it was about 
 something very far away, by the tops of
 
 24 Leicester. 
 
 blue misty mountains, and down the middle 
 trickled a black stream from bowl to bowl. 
 It was very sweet. So that when the 
 prize-giving Vs^as over, and they went out 
 crowding, I still sat in my place for a little, 
 puzzled because the mountain and the 
 black stream had gone away with a trail of 
 sort of mist. 
 
 Then, as I sat like that, thinking about 
 the trail of sort of mist that went away 
 with the mountain and the stream, Mr. 
 Blake came, bending his head, in through 
 the far doorway. I looked at him. 
 
 Seeing me, he stepped down the passage 
 between the chairs, and to me on the form, 
 and put his hand onto my shoulder lightly, 
 and smiled, wdth his lips. But I couldn't 
 smile back again ; for the mountain and the 
 stream had gone away from me. 
 
 'You did very well, my little man,' he 
 said at last ; ' where did you learn to recite 
 poetry like that ?' 
 
 ' Yes, but I did not understand it all,' I 
 said ; ' the two first verses, I mean : and I
 
 Leicester. 25 
 
 don't care for the rest, till the last bit. 
 
 But that is grand.' And I looked up into 
 
 his eyes. 
 
 He patted my shoulder, twice, gently : 
 ' You go too quick : you go too quick, 
 
 child. What can't you understand in the 
 
 first two verses ?' 
 
 ' " And the soul is dead that slumbers." ' 
 
 ' Well ?' 
 
 ' What does it mean ?' 
 
 ' And that the soul, which only slumbers, 
 is dead.' 
 
 ' But what does that mean ?' 
 
 ' Dead : that is, that there is an end of 
 it. Some people (such foolish people!) say 
 that when you die, there is an end of you. 
 That is, that you have no soul — no such 
 place as heaven ! No such person as God ! 
 Longfellow says : Do not tell me that that 
 man's soul, which when we die only slum- 
 bers and will awake, perhaps soon, perhaps 
 late, perhaps never at all, in a perfected 
 state of beauty in heaven — is dead, finished,
 
 26 Leicester. 
 
 ended, over, when a man dies and his body 
 corrupts and turns into dust. . . . Do 
 you see ?' 
 
 * Yes,' I said, ' I see.' 
 
 There was a pause for a moment. 
 Then : 
 
 'Would you like to go to Colchester 
 when you are older ?' he said. 
 
 ' Is Colchester a big school ? How 
 many fellows are there there ?' I asked. 
 
 ' Not so big as many others : m\j old 
 school, for instance, Winchester. But 
 there are quite enough : two hundred. 
 What do-you think ?' 
 
 ' Would you be there ?' I asked. 
 
 ' Yes,' he said. ' / should be there.* 
 He did not seem to be thinking about me 
 then. 
 
 I looked at him. My look seemed to 
 recall him from somewhere. He looked at 
 me. 
 
 'Listen!' he said suddenly, brightening 
 and bending down. ' Don't brood so much, 
 my little man. You hear me, don't you ?
 
 Leicester. 27 
 
 Don't go thinking about things till they 
 grow hateful to you. Try to be bright and 
 merry. Be with the other fellows more — 
 I was right, there, hey ? You arn't much, 
 hey? "Theifre such fools!" hey?' (He 
 laughed.) ' Well, you mustn't mind that. 
 You've not always wise, are you ? . . . You 
 don't think I'm sermoning you ?' 
 
 ' No,' I said, ' I see.' But I was think- 
 ing of some things. 
 
 A pause. 
 
 He smiled again. 
 
 ' At any rate,' he said, and pinched my 
 cheek gently, ' Mr. Whittaker has given me 
 permission to write to yoar guardian, as 
 well as promised to write himself, about 
 your going to Colchester soon. You luould 
 like to go ?' 
 
 ' Yes,' said I ' I should — if you would 
 be there.' 
 
 ' In all probability, I should,' he said. 
 
 * I,' I began, ' I . . . ' but did not go on. 
 
 And it was somehow with this that we 
 parted.
 
 28 Leicester, 
 
 I watched him go up along the passage 
 between the chairs and, bending, through 
 the far door. And then I felt that I wished 
 I had said something to him, but I did not 
 know what. 
 
 In the holidays we (Wallace and I) had 
 breakfast and dinner with the Eeverend and 
 Mrs. W., but had our tea alone. I liked 
 that : only Wallace talked too much. And 
 we might go out as we liked onto the heath 
 or into Greenwich Park, but not down into 
 the town. Three or four times I chanced 
 it, and went to the Painted Chamber, which 
 Campbell had told me of, saying that there 
 were fine pictures of sea-fights there and 
 some of Nelson. I liked to be there : 
 I liked most of all to look at the picture of 
 Nelson being taken up into heaven, for I 
 thought I too should be taken up into 
 heaven some day, when I had done great 
 things and was dead. Then there was the 
 picture of him all bloody and wounded, as 
 he ran up on deck in the middle of the
 
 Leicester. 29 
 
 fight : and the relics. I liked the 
 holidays. 
 
 Next term wasn't much different from 
 last ; except that some of the fellows were 
 allowed, in June and July to go down to 
 the Greenwich baths early on two mornings 
 in the week to bathe. I tried to get the 
 Eeverend to let me go, but he wouldn't. 
 
 In the next holidays he, and Mrs. W., 
 and the brats, and Jane (the new cook) 
 went to the sea-side, leaving Alice (the 
 maid) to look after us two. (Thomas, the 
 l^age-boy, didn't stay in the house then. I 
 don't know why.) I liked that better still. 
 I w'as out almost all day long, on the heath, 
 in the Park, down by the river. Once I 
 went up the river as far as Westminster in 
 a boat. That w^as rare sport. Some men 
 played on a harp and a clarionet, and the 
 music almost made me cry. Wallace hadn't 
 the pluck to come : though Alice offered to 
 lend him the money. 
 
 The next term was very bad. I had 
 chilblains : only on the feet though. Wal-
 
 30 Leicester. 
 
 lace had them on his hands and ears. And 
 it was so cold and dull in the Christmas 
 holidays, that I was almost glad when the 
 term began again i 
 
 A week after it had begun, I had a letter 
 from Colonel James, and Mrs. W. said I 
 must answer it. So I had to write an 
 answer in prep, one night and show it to 
 Mrs. W. after prayers in the drawing-room. 
 She said it was ' so ijeculiar,' and scratched 
 out most of it, and told me what else to 
 write. So next day I made a fair copy and, 
 having shown it her, it was put in an en- 
 velope which I directed as she read out and 
 spelled to me : and then she put a stamp 
 on it, and I went out and posted it. 
 
 Mr. Blake didn't come to examine us 
 this term : another gentleman did, Mr, 
 Saunders, a friend of the Reverend's, who'd 
 been at Oxford with him. But the first daj^ 
 of the holidays I had a letter from Mr. 
 Blake : and he said that he was sorry he 
 hadn't written to me before ; he had often 
 thought about it, but he had such a great
 
 Leicester. 31 
 
 deal to do that he found it very hard to 
 write to anyone. Perhaps when I had 
 grown lip, and had a great deal to do, I 
 should find it the same. But what he was 
 sorriest about was, that he was going awaj' 
 from Colchester to another school, Pen- 
 hurst, and so we should not see one another 
 there as he had hoped and, he hoped, I had 
 hoped we should ; but I would perhaps 
 find when I got there that I was not quite 
 a stranger, but that there was at least one 
 fellow who would take an interest in me 
 and help me, as much as it was good that 
 I should be helped. And I was to be sure 
 and write to him whenever I liked, for he 
 would always be glad to hear from me. I 
 thought it was a \evj kind letter, and it 
 almost made me cry, that about being sure 
 to write to him whenever I liked for he 
 would always be glad to hear from me. I 
 hadn't known till then that I was going to 
 Colchester, but, when I asked the Reverend 
 if I was, he said, Yes : in another two 
 years or so, perhaps. — But I didn't write
 
 32 Leicester. 
 
 to Mr. Blake : I didu't like to, some- 
 how. 
 
 In the midsummer term I was allowed to 
 go to the Greenwich baths in the early 
 mornings twice a week with the fellows 
 that went. Langham, a big fellow of 
 eighteen who'd been at a public school, 
 promised the Keverend he'd look after me 
 and teach me to swim. So he did. And 
 I soon learnt. And he said I was the 
 pluckiest little devil he ever saw in his 
 life. I liked him to say that. 
 
 So passed by two years. 
 
 In the middle of that midsummer term I 
 had a letter from Colonel James. (He 
 used only to write to me once a year, about 
 Christmas.) He told me that I was going 
 to Colchester next term, and a lot of stuff 
 about industriously pursuing my studies, 
 and that ' a good knowledge of the classics, 
 more especially of Cicero, was the founda- 
 tion of all that was worth knowing in the 
 humaniora :' which I didn't understand, and
 
 Leicester. 33 
 
 didn't want to. On the whole, Cicero was 
 rather a fool, I think. — Mrs. Whittaker, he 
 said, would see that my clothes, etc., were 
 in a fit condition, and she had also been 
 informed that I might have two shillings 
 over and above my usual pocket-money. I 
 felt rather older after that. I didn't tell 
 anyone about it though. Wallace's father 
 had come back from India, and so Wallace 
 was going away for the holidays. 
 
 The Whittakers went away to the sea- 
 side, as usual, leaving me with Margaret 
 (the new maid. We were always having 
 new maids, and cooks too ; but only one 
 new page-boy, John). I enjoyed these 
 holidays. I bought a pipe and some to- 
 bacco, and smoked it one day in Greenwich 
 Park, but I was very nearly ill and very 
 dizzy, and thought I would never do it 
 again. I did though, not liking to be 
 beaten by it; but at last I found the 
 tobacco and matches came expensive, and 
 so left off. 
 
 The Whittakers came back early in 
 VOL. I. 3
 
 34 Leicester. 
 
 September, and then I had a new suit 
 bought, and a lot of shirts and drawers 
 and things, so as to be ready to go to 
 Colchester,
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 At Colchester I first kept a diary. Here 
 is an extract from it : 
 
 ' I don't like any of the fellows. The 
 fellows in my study are fools, all in the 
 third ' (form), ' and so of course we are 
 always having our study windows cata- 
 pulted, and then get it stopped out of 
 allowance.' (Pocket-money.) * I haven't 
 had a penny since I came, and that's a 
 month ! Then look at the big fellows. 
 . . . They none of them care a bit about 
 fairness ! — I was sitting on the table in the 
 hall yesterday evening after call-over when 
 Leslie, a big bully in the Piemove, shoved 
 me off as he was going by, for nothing at 
 all ! I fell onto the form, and the form 
 went over and I hit my head against one 
 
 3—2
 
 36 Leicester. 
 
 of the iron posts there. I got up and ran 
 after him up the stairs and caught him up 
 in the passage just before the door of his 
 bedroom. Then I said to him, " I beg 
 your pardon, LesKe ; but why did you 
 shove me off the table ? I did nothing to 
 you." In a moment he said, " What damned 
 cheek!"' (A.11 the fellows say 'damn' 
 here. No one thinks anything of it.) 
 ' And caught me a kick would have 
 sent me over, if it hadn't been for the 
 wall. As it was, I got my coat all whited 
 and bumped my head.' 
 
 I kept this diary for the first month I 
 w^as at Colchester with great volubility. 
 After that, repetitions become more fre- 
 quent, and at last one half-holiday late in 
 October, more than a week behind, I in 
 a pet gave it up, and the book containing it 
 was consigned to the back of my locker in 
 the hall. 
 
 The term dragged on wearily. 
 
 It grew colder and colder. I got chil- 
 blains, first on my feet and then on my
 
 Leicester, 37 
 
 hands, at last suffering torments with them. 
 They were with me everywhere and almost 
 always. I see myself on one occasion up 
 in the bedroom, learning Greek grammar 
 for ' first lesson ' next day, and at last 
 jumping up half frenzied and plunging 
 my tingling hands into the icy water-jug 
 to get some relief. I had a weariless 
 cough too : twicb costing me my vomited 
 breakfast. And the bread was often 
 quite uneatable, and what else was there 
 to live on ? 
 
 It was a somewhat strange feeling that 
 which came over me after I had eaten my 
 first dinner in the holidays in the house of 
 Mr. Jones, the lawyer : a feeling as of un- 
 known fulness not unconnected with dreami- 
 ness. I suppose Colonel James paid for 
 me. I didn't care for them much. Mr. 
 Jones was only at home in the evenings, 
 and didn't speak to me much then. But I 
 was happy enough ; for I could just go 
 where I liked and Mrs. Jones didn't bother 
 if I didn't come into lunch in the middle of
 
 38 Leicester. 
 
 the day so long as I told her I wasn't going 
 to. At first I felt rather odd going ' out of 
 bounds '; but that wore off, Mrs. Jones is 
 a fat lady, good-humoured and, altogether, 
 not bad ; but she's always asking me ques- 
 tions about myself and Craven and Mrs. 
 Craven and the other masters and the ladies 
 they're married to. As if I knew anything 
 about them ! 
 
 The snow was down then everywhere : it 
 was cold too ; but I had some new thick 
 red woolly gloves, and my chilblains were 
 much better, and I didn't mind it. One 
 day I asked Eliza the cook (I liked her 
 pretty well. Of course she was rather a 
 fool. All women are fools, at least ser- 
 vants. But then she reminded me of 
 Cookie !) to give me some bread and butter 
 and an apple ; for the sun was shining and 
 I wanted to go out for a long walk into the 
 country. I like walking along the roads 
 like that, looking at the snow all glistening, 
 and now and then a little bird hopping 
 about or, out by Raymond wood, even a
 
 Leicester. ■ 39 
 
 rabbit loppetting along over the white 
 under the trees. Well, after I'd been walk- 
 ing some way, a big man cracking a whip 
 in front of a horse and a manure-cart caught 
 me up : and I walked beside him a little, 
 for he had a nise face, till he spoke to me. 
 And then we got on so well together that I 
 told him a great many things that I had read 
 in books about lions, and tigers, and rhino- 
 ceroses, and boa-constrictors and many 
 other animals ; and, at last, that I myself 
 was writing a book, in which a good many 
 of these things I had been telling him were 
 to be introduced, but more especially about 
 the snakes, some of whom were to try to 
 stop Jugurtha in a secret passage as he was 
 coming to kill his brother. For Jugurtha 
 was the name of the hero. He was an 
 illegitimate son of Mastanabal, king of 
 Numidia : that meant that his father and 
 mother weren't married ; but in those days 
 (many many hundreds of years before Our 
 Blessed Lord came) people sometimes did 
 have children without being married. I
 
 40 ' Leicester. 
 
 had read about some others like that, in a 
 Classical Dictionary. 
 
 But the carter kept silence and I, fearing 
 from this and a look I had taken at his 
 solemn face, that some weakness was im- 
 plied as existing in this early stage of my 
 book, hastened to add that I knew it was a 
 little funny, that part, but as it happened 
 hundreds of years before Our Blessed Lord 
 came or any of us were born, perhaps it 
 wouldn't matter so much, after all ? The 
 carter agreed that ' it was odd, too ; — at 
 they early times !' Which rather relieved me. 
 
 It couldn't have been much further on 
 than that, that I said good-bye to him and 
 turned back to get home again. But I 
 lost my way. 
 
 It was colder now, and darker. The 
 sunlight had gone away from everything 
 but a few clouds behind overhead and, 
 after a little, when I turned to look, it had 
 gone away from all of them but two. I 
 trudged on again. After another little, I 
 began to feel my legs tired, and turned back
 
 Leicester. 41 
 
 again to see about the sunlight. It was 
 all gone now. Then I wished I was at 
 home. But the shadows were all coming 
 down thicker and thicker, and the road was 
 so slippery, and my legs more tired and 
 more tired, and I couldn't hold my 
 shoulders up. Then I saw a man coming 
 along on the left side of the road under the 
 trees and was afraid : then forgot that and 
 went on to him but, when I saw him nearer 
 and, at last, what an old man he was with 
 bleared eyes and a red neck-cloth tied round 
 his throat, although I was almost sure I'd 
 lost the way, I was afraid he was going to 
 catch hold of me : so how dare I stop and 
 say to him : ' Can you tell me, please, 
 which is the road to Colchester ?' He went 
 on by me, and I went on by him, and 
 under the trees, the many-branched manj'- 
 twigged boughs just moving above me, 
 and on along the road : and he did 
 nothing. 
 
 It was almost dark, black I mean, when 
 I came to a farm. I had met no one else
 
 42 Leicester. 
 
 but the old man with the bleared eyes 
 and the red neck-cloth. I was very 
 tired. 
 
 I stopped at a gate and looked into the 
 farm-yard, where the pond was frozen over 
 and a light in one of the small farm win- 
 dows. I did not like to go in and ask any- 
 one to tell me the way : besides, I had 
 begun to think about some of the fellows 
 and what they had done to me till I hated 
 almost everybody, and could have lain 
 down in the snow and gone to sleep and 
 died and been carried up by angels past the 
 moon into heaven. 
 
 All at once a girl ran out with a flutter 
 in her dress, across the yard into a dark 
 outhouse. I did not stir : I stood thinking 
 about dying and being buried. — And so, in 
 a little coming back more slowly^ she saw 
 me standing there with bent head looking 
 throught he second gate-bar. 
 
 She stopped. Then came and asked me 
 what I wanted. And then, somehow, she 
 had the gate open, and was trying to get
 
 Leicester, 43 
 
 me in by the hand and I pulling back a 
 little. 
 
 Well, the end of it was that we went to- 
 gether up the yard to the door by the small 
 window with the light in it, and in, into 
 the light warm kitchen : and she sat me 
 dowTi in a chair by the fire, and, when I 
 wouldn't answer anything to her but turned 
 away my head, I don't know quite why (but 
 I wished I were dead and buried and no one 
 knew anything about me), she got up again, 
 and cut a thick piece of bread, and put a 
 lot of butter upon it and then sugar, and 
 went with a glass and brought it back full 
 of milk, and came and knelt down by me 
 again and began to coax me. There was a 
 big lump in my throat by that, and I kept 
 swallowing it, but it kept coming back 
 again. And at last, when I wouldn't look 
 at her, she put down the bread and butter 
 and sugar and the milk on the piece of car- 
 pet, and lifted up my face with her hand 
 under my chin, and laughed into my face 
 with hers, her lips and her eyes, and then
 
 44 Leicester. 
 
 called me ' A saucy boy ' and gave me a kiss 
 (and how fresh and red and soft her lips 
 were !), why, I just threw my arms round 
 her neck and began crying and laughing and 
 laughing and crying and wondering where 
 I'd been to all this time, and in the end 
 gave her a kiss on the lips, and we were 
 great friends. I don't know how it came 
 about, but somehow or other I told her all 
 about Robinson Crusoe, and ever so many 
 other things besides. And then her husband, 
 John, came in. — And, when I was going 
 away with John, she put two great apples, 
 one into each of my trouser pockets, and 
 said I must be sure and come and see her 
 again and tell her some more about all they 
 fine things in the pictur' books. And so 
 John and I set off together, turning every 
 now and then to wave our hands to Mary 
 at the door in the middle of the light and 
 she waving hers ; till the road wound round 
 and we went by it and couldn't see her any 
 more. Then I began to be tired again and, 
 in a little, John lifted me up onto his back.
 
 Leicester. 45 
 
 and I fell asleep, I suppose, and didn't wake 
 up till he put me down on Mr. Jones' door- 
 step. 
 
 And so we parted. For the term began 
 two days after that and, as they were both 
 snow-stormy, Mrs. Jones wouldn't let me 
 go out to see Mary and John. And I did 
 not know how to write to them, for they 
 hadn't told me where to. You see I'd quite 
 forgotten about its being so near the end of 
 the holidays. 
 
 We had a new monitor in the bedroom, 
 Bruce. (Martin had left.) Everyone 
 called him a surly devil, but I didn't mind 
 him so much. This was how my liking for 
 him began : one day, early in the term, he 
 was taking Lower Eound (football is com- 
 pulsory at Colchester. There are three 
 Eounds, Upper, Lower and Middle. One 
 or two fellows in the Team, or pretty high 
 up in the Second Fifteen, always ' take ' 
 Middle and Lower Eound, that is, they see 
 the small boys play up, kicking them, etc.) 
 — Well, one day he was ' taking ' Lower
 
 46 Leicester. 
 
 Eound, when Leslie, who's in the Team too, 
 took to playing back on the other side, so 
 as to show off. Then I thought I'd like to 
 see if I couldn't charge him or something 
 and, when a chance came and Leslie had the 
 ball and was dribbling past a lot of us small 
 fellows, I ran at him with all my might, 
 and we both went over. But I got the 
 cramp. He was up and off again pretty 
 quickly, but, of course, I couldn't do much 
 but sprawl about. But Bruce, who must 
 have been close behind, came up and put 
 his hands under my armpits and lifted me 
 me up like a child (I remember how I 
 somehow liked to be lifted up in that way 
 by Mm) and asked, was I hurt ? The game 
 had swept off to the other side of the field. 
 
 ' No,' I said, looking up into his face, 'it's 
 only the cramp in my calf. It'll go in a 
 moment. I've had it before like that.' 
 
 He made me play three-quarters back 
 for the rest of the game and, once or twice, 
 as he passed me asked if I was all right 
 now ? To which I answered, ' Thank you,
 
 Leicester. 47 
 
 yes.' I liked him after that in a diflferent 
 way to what I had before. 
 
 Sometimes, if we were alone in the room 
 together, as before dinner washing our 
 hands and brushing our hair, he would talk 
 to me, about nice things. But the moment 
 any of the other fellows came up, he always 
 stopped and went on doing what he was 
 doing in silence. ' I don't mind that either,' 
 I wrote, ' I believe he thinks the other 
 fellows are fools like I do. At night he 
 never speaks without some one speaking to 
 him, and then he won't make a conversa- 
 tion. Everyone hates him, even the small 
 boys. (I forgot to say I got second remove 
 into the Lower Fourth from last term.)' 
 
 The last few days of that term were very 
 warm. There was even a talk of beginning 
 cricket and river-bathing : at any rate 
 rackets began and, I think, some boating 
 was done. Football of course had stopped 
 a few weeks before the sports, so as to get 
 the field ready : I mean the Piounds had 
 stopped ; but there was always ' little game '
 
 48 Leicester. 
 
 in the Circus Field for anyone who cared to 
 go up. I liked better going walks by the 
 river or about the fields. I liked to whistle 
 as I went along : sometimes even I hummed 
 old tunes. The spring makes one feel so 
 glad somehow. 
 
 One half, I remember, I go as far up the 
 river as Morley Mill. 
 
 Just past there the bank is very high and 
 thickly wooded. I began to go up, intend- 
 ing to sit there and look around a bit : there 
 was not time to go into the mill. Up I 
 went by the narrow path : and all at once 
 came upon Bruce, lying at full length on a 
 piece of grass with a bundle of flowers and 
 a small microscope-sort- of-thing in his 
 hand, through which he was looking at 
 something. He did not notice me. — Then 
 some earth rolled away from under my foot 
 and went down rustling, and he looked up 
 slowly with a frown, and saw me, and said : 
 
 ' Hullo, Leicester. Is that you ?' 
 
 I could think of nothing to say but, 
 Yes : and stood still.
 
 Leicester. 49 
 
 A pause. 
 
 ' What brought you out so far as this ?' 
 he asked. 
 
 ' I don't know. I'm very fond of walk- 
 ing, especially by the river.' 
 
 ' Ah ! So am I. . . . Are you fond of 
 flowers ?' 
 
 ' Yes. — You mean looking at them under 
 microscopes and things ? I have never done 
 that ; but I like flowers. They are so . . s 
 so nice somehow.' 
 
 Another pause. His chin flattened on 
 his coat as he looked down, holding a grass 
 in the fingers of the arm he leant on. 
 
 At last I said : 
 
 ' You have polished that stone very 
 beautifully, Bruce.' 
 
 He looked up. 
 
 ' I didn't polish it. It is a piece of 
 limestone. Would you like to look at 
 it?' 
 
 ' Thank you,' I said. ' I would.' 
 
 He held the piece of stone and the micro- 
 scope for me to look. I expressed surprise 
 
 VOL. I. 4
 
 50 Leicester. 
 
 at the beautiful shapes inlaid on it. He ex- 
 plained that they were shells. 
 
 I asked if I might look at some of the 
 flowers through the microscope. Certainly, 
 said he : had I never looked through a 
 microscope before ? 
 
 * Never, Bruce,' I said, looking up and 
 into his eyes. He turned his on to the dried 
 grass. 
 
 Then somehow we began to talk about 
 birds : and he told me about how they paired 
 in the spring. 
 
 He was sure birds had a good sense of 
 the beautiful. Darwin thinks so. 
 
 He paused, and ended, looking up over 
 the tops of the trees below us. 
 
 After a little : 
 
 * Who is Darwin ?' I said. 
 
 He looked round, and then to me : 
 
 ' The biggest man, maybe, that has ever 
 lived,' he said. 
 
 * Do you mean he's the greatest man 
 who ever lived ?' I asked. 
 
 'Maybe.— Yes.'
 
 Leicester. 51 
 
 * I don't think he's as great a man as 
 Sir Walter Scott,' I said. 
 
 He smiled. Then : 
 
 ' What do you know of Sir Walter 
 Scott ?' he asked. 
 
 ' I have read two of his novels, " Ivan- 
 hoe " and " The Talisman," and I am going 
 to read them all. There are thirty-one. I 
 counted them yesterday.' 
 
 'Yesr 
 
 A pause. 
 
 Then, after a little, I asked him if 
 he was not leaving this term. He said, Yes. 
 
 ' Are you going to Oxford or Cam- 
 bridge ?' 
 
 * To neither. I am going to London to 
 work.' 
 
 ' Why don't you go up to Oxford ?' 
 
 ' Because I don't want to. I don't see 
 the good of it.' 
 
 Another pause. I sat with my hands 
 clasped round my knees, looking over the 
 river. Suddenly I thought I would ask 
 him something. So I said : 
 
 4—2 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
 
 52 Leicester, 
 
 ' Bruce/ 
 
 ' —Yes.' 
 
 ' Would you ever like . . . to be a great 
 man ?' 
 
 He looked at me oddly with a gather in 
 his brows : 
 
 'Well,' he said, 'I suppose I might. 
 Most people would like to be great — 
 would be, if it wasn't such a trouble. . : . 
 Why ?' • * 
 
 ' Oh, I only wondered,' I said. ' I shall 
 be a great man some day, before I die. 
 And I like to think about it when I'm low, 
 low in my spirits I mean. Now yesterday, 
 as I was standing by my locker, I got hit 
 in the eye with a board ' (crust of bread) 
 ' by a fellow, and it hurt me very much 
 and almost made me cry : besides, it seemed 
 so unfair. But, when I got up into my room 
 and thought about it a little, I didn't care 
 much. For, when Leslie dies, no one will 
 ever speak about him again or be sorry for 
 him but, when I am dead, people will 
 often speak about me and be sorry for me
 
 Leicester. 53 
 
 and like me. It's very nice to think of 
 people liking you when you're dead, I 
 think. . . .' 
 
 I sat looking into the lower sky, not 
 remembering Bruce. But all at once I 
 heard him talking in a strange voice, and 
 started and looked at him. 
 
 He saw me looking at him and jumped 
 up, before I noticed what his face was 
 like. 
 
 ' You're an odd child !' he said. Then 
 sat down again, and went on : 
 
 ' Aren't you very lonely here ?' 
 
 After a bit : 
 
 ' Well I don't know,' I answered. ' Not 
 worse than I was at Whittaker's — now the 
 winter's over. I only wish I was bigger. 
 I should like to fight one or two fellows I 
 hate; but you see I'm just like a baby 
 when they begin to knock me about : it's 
 no good doing anything. Last Monday I 
 hit Leslie a one on the bridge of his nose 
 for bullying me, and I tried to give him 
 another ; but he knocked me over every
 
 54 Leicester. 
 
 time I tried to get up again : and wliat's 
 tlie good of that ? I'm not strong enough 
 for him. I don't mind him at football you 
 know, or running : don't hate him I mean. 
 He's not a funk. But when he teases me, 
 I want to . . . You know. — I wish I was 
 bigger.' 
 
 A pause. 
 
 At last, suddenly : 
 
 ' Do you tell everyone all this sort of 
 thing ?' he said. 
 
 ' No,' I said. ' I've never told any- 
 one of it before I don't think. Why 
 should I r 
 
 He blew softly through his lips : 
 
 * Ph-o-o . . . Fellows do.' (Then sud- 
 denly again.) * Do you know Clayton ?' 
 
 ' No.' — I shook my head. 
 *0r . . . Gildea?' 
 
 * Well ... a few days ago I was 
 writing lines in my study after second 
 lesson, and he came round for some ink, 
 and we talked a little then. That's all I 
 know of him.'
 
 Leicester. 55 
 
 A pause. 
 Then he : 
 
 * Take my advice, Leicester, and have 
 nothing to do w^ith Gildea ' 
 
 Another pause. 
 
 ' Why ?' askod I. ' He's rather a nice 
 fellow, isn't he ?' 
 
 ' Because . . . He'll do you no good, 
 that's why !' 
 
 ' How ?' I asked astonished. 
 
 ' By — talking nonsense to you and 
 making you conceited.' (Adding with a 
 little irritation) — ' You knew quite well 
 what I meant.' 
 
 I looked at him archly : 
 
 * How could he make me conceited ? — 
 I've nothing to be conceited about,' said I. 
 
 ' That's true,' he said, and paused. 
 After a little he continued : 
 
 * Take my advice and have as little to 
 do with him as possible. You must know 
 what I mean. — Have you no friends ?' 
 
 ' They are such fools !' I said. 
 *Ah?'
 
 56 Leicester. 
 
 I looked at him as before : 
 
 * Have ijou many friends, Bruce ?' 
 He smiled and looked away, saying : 
 
 * One. — But she's more than enough.' 
 'Oh, it's a woman!' I said. 'Well, 
 
 that must be nice. I've had some women 
 for friends : Cookie at the last school : and 
 Mary, one I knew last holidays — a little. 
 I'm going to see her again this holidays. I 
 like women. They're rather fools too, 
 but . . .' I stopped on the brink of an 
 allusion to their embracing habits and 
 kisses. Then became a little curious about 
 Bruce's woman friend, and said : 
 
 ' Will you tell me the name of your 
 friend, please ?' 
 
 ' Ge is her name,' he said, looking away 
 as before. 
 
 'Ge?' said I. . . . 'Why, Ge is ^ the 
 Greek for earth. What a funny name for 
 a woman !' 
 
 ' The very person,' he said. ' My mother, 
 the Earth : and the more I see of her, the 
 more I — like her.'
 
 Leicester. 57 
 
 ' I don't twig that quite.' 
 
 * It's no matter,' he said. ' You'll find 
 plenty of things you can't twig, I expect, 
 before you are a great man. — Now you 
 had better be starting back,' said he, 
 getting up, ' or you'll be late for call- 
 over.' 
 
 He took out his watch and stood looking 
 at the face for a little. 
 
 I got up, turned away, and began to 
 descend the hill. 
 
 He passed me a few fields further ou 
 without even a nod. 
 
 I never talked with him any more. A 
 week or so after, the term ended and then, 
 of course, he left. 
 
 Those holidays began badly. I went out 
 to Brerby to see Mary the first Monday. 
 When I got to the farm I found it shut up, 
 and, after I had tried at every door to see 
 if there was anyone inside, went away 
 rather sadty, feeling lonely. I only walked 
 out that way once again in the holidays.
 
 58 Leicester. 
 
 It was still shut up. I did not try to see 
 if there was anyone inside. 
 
 But I was happy enough those holidays, 
 wandering ahout in the fields and especially 
 by the river, or walking along tlie roads, 
 thinking, or whistling, or dreaming. 
 
 In the midsummer term I rowed bow in 
 the 2nd School House boat, but we were 
 bottom of the river. Some of the fellows 
 said it was my fault. I don't see how one 
 out of eight, and he the least important, 
 could make all that difference : and I 
 didn't care in the least what they said. I 
 was in the Upper Fourth now. I knew no 
 one, and didn't much want to ; but now 
 and then came hours when I longed to 
 speak to some one about a great many 
 things. What Bruce had said to me about 
 the Earth being his one friend set me think- 
 ing how to make a friend for myself: and 
 at last I made one. A woman : and I 
 thought she had clear fearless eyes and a 
 sad mouth, and her shoulders held back and 
 of a clear outline. She had no name for a
 
 Leicester. 59 
 
 long time but, one day that term, diving 
 into a black pool I got caught in a bough 
 of a sunken tree and could not get loose. 
 And I thought I must soon drown : but was 
 more afraid of being eaten by cold thin 
 black snakes when I was dead. It was 
 very fearful. All at once the bough broke 
 above my back and I shot up. Coming up 
 I saw her face in the darkness by mine and 
 called her Nike. Nike is the Greek for 
 * victory,' but I don't think that had so very 
 much to do with it. 
 
 The midsummer holidays were by far the 
 happiest time I had ever spent. I was on 
 the river almost every moment that I could 
 be, sculling about in a whiff procured by a 
 contract with one of the boat -owners of the 
 town, thanks to a j£5 note sent to me 
 by Colonel James at the end of July. I 
 bathed a great deal. I see myself swim- 
 ming down the brown river between the 
 thickly-wooded banks on either side : down 
 past ' the snag,' the sunken tree in a bough 
 of which I had been caught on a certain
 
 60 Leicester. 
 
 occasion : to where the river grows shal- 
 lower and the sunlight filters down. Can 
 see myself dive, and go with large arm- 
 strides over the pebbly weedy bottom : 
 now rolling over a luxuriant wavy head of 
 soft green, now turning to face the current ; 
 and all in the fairy light of flowing water 
 that is sun- shone upon. Again, can see 
 myself driving my light boat down the 
 twilight stream, or, resting on my oars, 
 drifting slowly with soft harmonious-moving 
 thoughts. Nike, in some shape or other, 
 was nearly always with me. On the last 
 day of tiie holidays I learnt that my friend 
 Mary was dead, and that John had gone 
 away with her little baby. I sorrowed for 
 her. 
 
 The next term opened with heavenly 
 weather, lasting on far into October. Then 
 came gales and the earth was strewn with 
 vegetable decay. 
 
 It was a dreary term. My hands got 
 bad again, but not so bad, I thought, as 
 last year, which was comforting. We had
 
 Leicester. 61 
 
 no snow, or only a little, but a great deal 
 of rain and frost. There was some skating. 
 I liked skating fairly w^ell. 
 
 In the Christmas holidays I first took to 
 writing much. I had before done little bits 
 of things : as, for instance, Jugurtha,: but 
 they were all put away verj^ soon and for- 
 gotten. Now I set upon a story of the 
 Indian Mutiny, and wrote till I had finished 
 it : there were over a hundred pages of 
 exercise paper in it. After that, I had a 
 series of nightmares, of a woman with great 
 owl's wings and the skull of an owl, who 
 came from a long way off to wrap me up 
 and smother me : and I could never escape, 
 but stood stone-still till, just as her shadow 
 touched my feet, I shrieked and awoke 
 breathless. The feelings these nightmares 
 aroused made me write several poems, all 
 about strange creatures who embraced me 
 close and smothered me. But, the last 
 week of the holidays being fine and bright, 
 I was out a great deal, and this strange 
 creature forgotten, and my girl- comrade
 
 62 Leicester, 
 
 came back again (although I had never 
 noticed her absence) and I was happy again 
 with songs or cheerful whistlings as I went 
 along alone.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The next midsummer holidays, to which I 
 had looked forward somewhat eagerly, were 
 a disappointment. The weather was bad : 
 chill, windy, rainy : perhaps that had a 
 good deal to do with it. I forsook my 
 boating at last : took to long walks over 
 the, generally, w^t fields, with sometimes 
 sadness through all my thoughts. In the 
 end, dreams became almost nightly occur- 
 rences, fantastic dreams, never quite night- 
 mares although the shadow of nightmare 
 was often in them like a polyp in a dim 
 submarine water. I wrote odd things about 
 this, fragments, half-understood by myself, 
 almost always torn up after a few lines had
 
 64 Leicester. 
 
 been put down, and then I sat bent over the 
 table, the end of pen or pencil in mouth and 
 eyes staring at nothing, till the fit passed. 
 The dull or rainy weather held on almost 
 uninterruptedly. I was somewhat relieved 
 when the holidays were over. 
 
 With the new term came finer weather. 
 September, the end of it, and half October 
 were soft and beautiful. Then two or three 
 wind gales blew, whirling all the leaves and 
 many twigs and some boughs off the roaring 
 trees : nay, pulling some trees, and not small 
 ones, to the earth. These gales past, the 
 challenge matches began. I got my School 
 House colours all right, as ' three-quarters 
 back/ I enjoyed those games. The ex- 
 citement of the fellows over the stiff tussles 
 we, School House, had with Gough's and 
 Mason's thrilled me every now and then. 
 A certain viciousness and devilry came into 
 me. I remember well how once, when 
 Harper, after a splendid run down the left 
 side of the Mere field (we had the wall 
 goal), got past first one back and then the
 
 Leicester. 65 
 
 other and was, at full speed, the ball not 
 two yards before him, hurrjdng to pass me — • 
 the short run I took, so as to poise myself, 
 and then how I went straight as an arrow 
 for the ball and him. We met violently. I, 
 half spun round, tottered : recovered myself: 
 saw the ball, just turning, a yard or so to 
 the right : was to it : kicked : saw it go, 
 round, through the air, on over the heads 
 of the yelling crowd of fellows a quarter way 
 up the field : and then turned, to see 
 Harper get up off his knee and move away. 
 I could have given a shout of delight. 
 That swift rush and violent meeting had 
 gone into my heart and head like strong 
 wine. 
 
 Just for the two weeks we wanted fine 
 cold diy weather, for the challenge matches 
 I mean, w^e had it. Then it broke up : 
 rain took the place of the sun-air, warm 
 damp the place of the cold diy. The effect 
 upon me was evil. The sometimes sad- 
 ness through all my thoughts was through 
 me again. 
 
 VOL. I. 5
 
 GQ Leicester. 
 
 One evening after tea, during which I 
 had felt very hot-cheeked with now and 
 then shivers, as I was walking along the 
 passage that led to the second building, 
 all at once I felt something hot and watery- 
 distilling in my mouth and, in a moment, 
 had vomited. I went on as if nothing had 
 happened, not being quite sure that any- 
 thing had happened : till I reached the 
 door when, considering, I turned back and, 
 seeing in the almost darkness something 
 whitey on the earth, concluded that I had 
 indeed been sick ; and continued my course 
 into the hall again, where I rang the bell 
 and waited till John came, and told him 
 what had occurred and, saying I was sorry, 
 asked him to clean away the mess some- 
 how, if he pleased. 
 
 In preparation that night, hot, feverish 
 even, unable to work, I could not get the 
 incident nor myself and present doings out 
 of dream-land. My throat was sore too, as 
 if I had an inflammation there. Preparation 
 and prayers over, I went up to the bedroom,
 
 Leicester. 67 
 
 undressed, and lay in the cool sheets think- 
 ing in a vague way about death coming to 
 me sometime soon ; for it was apparent 
 that such incidents as vomiting up my tea 
 did indeed arrive even at mine, like at most, 
 nay I supposed all, existences. The thought 
 was, like everything this evening, of and in 
 dream-land. I spent a hot sleepless night 
 that night. 
 
 Next morning I went from bad to worse. 
 It was a Saturday. I felt like what I 
 thought a melancholy bird felt, moping 
 with a malady. I went up to my room 
 and lay on my bed till, after about an hour, 
 being thirsty and getting up for some water, 
 I saw my face in the glass over the wash- 
 ing-stand, a scarlet patch upon my right 
 forehead; so bright a scarlet that I won- 
 dered a little. I had scarcely lain down 
 again when there was a knock at the door, 
 'Come in,' and entered — Clayton. I 
 made a dissatisfied noise half to myself. 
 
 Then he began to ask if I didn't feel 
 well ? could he do anything for me ? would 
 
 5—2
 
 68 Leicester. 
 
 I like any books from the library ? (He 
 could easily get the key from Monitor's 
 room, you know), and the rest of it. In the 
 end he went off, and I thought that that 
 was the end of him. 
 
 I was dozing when there came a knock 
 again, * Come in ' angrily from me, and 
 there was Clayton with a pile of books in 
 one hand and a bulging paper-bag in the 
 other. 
 
 ' I thought you might like some oranges,' 
 he said, putting the books down on the 
 next bed and opening the bag's mouth. I 
 wished him at the devil. — Why can't people 
 leave you alone when you're moping ? 
 
 After a little : 
 
 'You'd better skip first lesson to-morrow,' 
 he said. ' And go seger. You look as 
 though you were sickening for something or 
 other. There's a lot of measles about in 
 the town.' 
 
 Another pause : Then up he got, and say- 
 ing : ' Well I see you're tired, I won't 
 stay any longer ' —
 
 Leicester, 69 
 
 was past the second bed going for the 
 door, before I got out : 
 
 ' Thank you for the oranges, but I don't 
 want them, thank you ; and for the books 
 too.' I forget the rest of it. Somehow he 
 came back for the bag, and took it away, 
 and the door shut, and 1 turned round to 
 the wall and fell into a doze. 
 
 The next morning I felt I wanted to lie 
 still : and so lay still. When Mother 
 McCarthy came her rounds at about half- 
 past eight to see who'd skipped 'first lesson'; 
 she recognised the fact that I had scarlet 
 fever. I didn't care much. 
 
 I was put into hospital, and the days 
 passed dimly. But, on the seventh or 
 eighth morning, when the rash was all but 
 gone. Mother McCarthy told me as she 
 brought in my breakfast that ' Mr. Clayton 
 had taken it.' That set me off laughing : 
 not that I wanted him to have it, I did 
 not care a jot about him one way or the 
 other, but it struck me as not bad sport 
 in the abstract, that Clayton should
 
 70 Leicester. 
 
 have it and be cooped up here with 
 me. 
 
 They soon had him into bed, wrapped up 
 in flannels and the rest of it. I couldn't 
 help laughing to see his face, so elongated, 
 as solemn as if at the celebration of a 
 mystery. The idea of what he would look 
 like later on, red all over and his tongue 
 like a white strawberry, fairly overcame me. 
 I think he thought he was not far removed 
 from death just then. He closed his ej^es 
 with a resignation that was not without 
 sweetness and his lips moved, in prayer I 
 thought. Such a fit of laughter came into 
 me that I had to stuff a piece of the sheet 
 into my mouth. I ended by being rather 
 ashamed of mj^self. 
 
 But later on he cleared up amazingly. 
 His attack was a very slight one. Despite 
 my eight days' start he was convalescent 
 before me ; for one night I, impatient at my 
 itching hide, got out of bed and took to 
 stalking up and down the length of the 
 room in my nightshirt, despite his as-
 
 Leicester. 71 
 
 surances that I should catch cold and have 
 dropsy and inflammation of the kidneys 
 and the brain, with convulsions, and God 
 knows what besides. Sure enough I did 
 get something rheumatic in my joints and 
 I was assured by the Doctor that some in- 
 flammation of the eyes I had had not been 
 improved by a chill I had somehow taken. 
 I preserved silence, and made the best of it. 
 
 Later on, one day when my eyes were 
 still too weak to see to read well, Clayton 
 insisted on reading aloud to me : and a 
 half week's insisting turned it almost into 
 a habit. The fact was I had rather begun 
 to like the fellow. 
 
 At last he was well enough to bear the 
 journey home. I remember that last even- 
 ing, or rather afternoon, we spent together, 
 well. 
 
 We had been playing draughts by the 
 window, while the sun set in veins of gold 
 and red-hued light, visible to us as we 
 looked out in the pauses of the game. 
 Then it had become too dark for my weak
 
 72 Leicester. 
 
 eyes to see well, and we did not care to 
 have the gas lit. We went to by the fire, 
 I sitting back in the large easy chair, he 
 beside me bent forward with his hand 
 twirling a little piece of paper in the fingers 
 •resting on the wicker arm. We had been 
 talking about different things that had taken 
 place in the school : had gradually dropped 
 into silence. 
 
 All at once : 
 
 ' Leicester,' he said, making a move- 
 ment. 
 
 ' Well.' 
 
 * Why are you such an odd sort of 
 fellow ?' 
 
 I answered nothing. 
 
 ' Now don't scowl. You are, you know. 
 ... Do you know I think you're very un- 
 just to yourself ? almost as unjust to your- 
 self, ... as you are to other people.' 
 
 ' Yes ?' I said. 
 
 ' You're such a porcupine. You're al- 
 ways putting up your quills at people. 
 Why do you do it ?'
 
 Leicester. 73 
 
 'Do I?' I said. 
 
 * Now you know quite well you do.' 
 
 I answered nothing. 
 
 He went on : 
 
 ' If I w^ere j^ou, I'd give it up : I would 
 indeed. Where's the fun in living day and 
 night with your own sulky self ? Don't you 
 •ever feel as if you'd give a great deal to 
 
 laugh and and amuse yourself (you 
 
 know what I mean) like other fellows ? . . . 
 Instead of brooding over your wrongs in a 
 corner . . . Eh ?' 
 
 I kept silence. 
 
 ' Now answer me, do. Come, now don't 
 you often feel as if you'd very much like to 
 have friends like other fellows have ?' 
 
 ' No,' I said : ' not like other fellows have.' 
 
 Another pause : 
 
 Then he, with a sigh : 
 
 * Friends, then ? You'd like to have 
 friends, wouldn't you ?' 
 
 ' One 'ud be enough,' I said. 
 
 Another pause : and another sigh as he 
 said :
 
 74 Leicester. 
 
 * You're in one of your bad humours to- 
 night.' 
 
 Then he burst out : 
 
 ' Upon my word, Leicester, you're a 
 most confounded fool ! There you sit like 
 a miserable old cynic hugging his conceit, 
 as full of morbid nonsense as you can well 
 hold, a fool . . . a . . . a . . .' He stam- 
 mered. 
 
 ' Go on,' I said. ' What else ?' 
 
 He came to a full stop : made another 
 movement in his chair : and began again, 
 with some resolution : 
 
 ' Now look here. There you are : a 
 fellow who might be as liked as any one in 
 the school, if you only cared. — Instead of 
 that you're the most cZzoliked in the school : 
 And all on account of your confounded 
 conceit ! You think everyone else is a 
 fool but yourself : and you think you think 
 it doesn't matter in the least what tlieij 
 think, about you or anything else either. 
 Now that's rot !' 
 
 * I don't quite see it,' I said. ' In two
 
 Leicester. 75 
 
 years, who will know whether I was liked 
 or disliked at a school called Colchester ? 
 Of course I don't care about it ! Who 
 ivoulcl V 
 
 ' You do care : You care a great deal.', 
 
 ' You think so, Clayton ?' 
 
 ' I know so. If you didnt care, would 
 you take the trouble to tell yourself so a 
 hundred times a day like you do, and make 
 yourself miserable about it ? ... Pooh-h ! 
 You do care, right enough.' 
 
 I kept silence. 
 
 He proceeded : 
 
 ' Leicester, you're a fool. And it's all 
 the worse because you needn't be one with- 
 out you liked. You might be a very nice 
 fellow. You can be — when you like.' 
 
 A pause. 
 
 ' Well ?' asked he. 
 
 ' Well,' I said. 
 
 ' Then I hope it may do you good then !' 
 he cried. * I am only saying it in that 
 hope. I think too well of you to believe 
 that you're blind to your own faults : And
 
 76 Leicester, 
 
 it may do you some good to see yourself as 
 others see you. — And that's all I've got to 
 say.' 
 
 A pause. 
 
 At last he, slowly and not unsoftly : 
 
 ' I'm going away this evening. . . . 
 Mother McCarthy told you p'r'aps ? . . . 
 For good. ... I shall be sorry to go. . . . 
 My father is a silk merchant, and he wants 
 me to enter his office. He's come up here 
 to take me home. . . . The dear old dad ! 
 . . . Well ' (He gave his shoulders a little 
 shrug) * ... I suppose I shall be going 
 abroad soon. There's a branch out in 
 China he wants me to go to . . . or some- 
 thing like that.' 
 
 Another pause. 
 
 Then : 
 
 * Do you want to go ?' I said. 
 
 'No,' he said. 'No. I don't.' (He 
 made a movement in his chair.) ' It's 
 the last thing I should chose myself. But 
 only one man in a thousand in this world 
 can chose the profession he likes. . . .
 
 Leicester. 77 
 
 I'm my father's only son, jom see/ he 
 added. 
 
 * Well ?' I said, not unsoftly. 
 
 ' Well, the long and the short of it is 
 . . . that I wish you wouldn't . . . You 
 know what I mean, Leicester. I don't 
 want to preach to you : But I somehow 
 think you really might . . . might do so 
 much better, if jotx liked. You'll be a 
 great man some day ... if you live, that 
 is, and God wills it.' 
 
 ' Eh r said I. * What ?' 
 
 * Did you ever know a man called 
 
 Blake ?' he asked. 
 
 'Yes,' I said, 'I did. Wliy ?' 
 
 ' Did you know he was dead ?' 
 
 I was startled. I looked at him sharply, 
 
 ' Dead ?' I said. 
 "' Yes. He died a little while ago.' 
 
 ' How ?' 
 
 ' It was an accident. He fell off a 
 ladder somehow, and his head struck upon 
 a stone, and it gashed a great hole into 
 the brain. A piece of the brain was hang-
 
 78 Leicester. 
 
 ing out over his eye when they found him. 
 It was in his garden. He had been train- 
 ing up a rose-tree that had been blown 
 down by the wind. That about the piece 
 of the brain hanging out over his eye has 
 haunted me ever since I heard it. . . 
 Those clear steadfast eyes ! It is horrible!' 
 
 I kept silence, scarcely thinking. 
 
 He, in a low voice : 
 
 * . . . The night before he went I was 
 in his rooms, talking with him. He was 
 heavy about leaving the old place. He 
 said he felt somehow as if he were going 
 away from the grave of some one he loved. 
 I remembered that — afterwards. Well, 
 among other things he spoke about you. 
 He had seen you at some school he had 
 been to examine, I forget the name now. 
 You had recited a poem of Longfellow's, 
 " The Psalm of Life " I think. He seemed 
 very much struck with you. He said he 
 thought you would be a great man some- 
 day. He said some other things about 
 you : and asked me to look after yon
 
 Leicester. 79 
 
 when you came here. He told me you 
 were coming here soon. . . Well, so I 
 did as much as I thought I ought to for, 
 don't you see, it's not good for a fellow 
 high up in the school to do much for a 
 small boy. It's not good for the small 
 boy. It's better for him to fight out his 
 battles alone. And I didn't think I was 
 likely to leave — for some time at any rate. 
 But my brother died : and my father, 
 whose whole heart's in his business, asked 
 me to — to give up my plan, and help him 
 with it. So— I did.' 
 
 ' What did you want to be, Clayton ?' 
 I said. 
 
 ' Oh I'd a foolish idea of my own ' 
 (with a smile), ' about going up to the 
 'Varsity and studying Hebrew and Science 
 and all sorts of things and then going out 
 to Palestine. You see I should have liked 
 to have helped Blake if I could and, when 
 he died — Why, the idea came into my head 
 of trying to do what he hadn't been able 
 to do. You know he was very poor. . .
 
 80 Leicester. 
 
 And he gave such a lot of what he had 
 away. I beheve he kept his mother and 
 sister, too. I always thought so. Any 
 how ' (with another smile), ' there's au 
 end to all those ideas of mine !' 
 
 ' Will you tell me what you wanted to 
 do ?' I said. 
 
 *0h!' he said. * It wasn't so much 
 me : It was Blake. He put the idea into 
 my head. He thought, and thought rightly 
 of course, that the great need that the 
 Church has at this present moment is some 
 man who would devote his life to a real 
 patient study of the origins of Christianity ; 
 so that it might be shown forth, once and 
 for all, that Christianity has for its founda- 
 tion no vain legend, but events as histori- 
 cally true, and as capable of being shown 
 to be historically true, as anything that 
 has happened within the boasted ages of 
 Science. That this might be done, could 
 be done, and would be done, he felt sure, 
 and so do I. But you see, at present, 
 they all seem so taken up with themselves.
 
 Leicester. 81 
 
 with their miserable grains of sectarian 
 sand I mean, that such a man is not to 
 be found, or if he is to be found. . . Well, 
 God only understands these things ! It 
 docs seem hard, at times, that all should 
 be so against us ! They all seem to think 
 it's not worth the trouble ! or it can't be 
 done ! or that there's no need for it ! 
 fools ! fools ! fools ! Can't you see by 
 the shore of what flood we are standing ? 
 Can't you read the signs of the times ? 
 Can't you see an Art that becomes day by 
 day more and more of a drug, less and 
 less of a food for men's souls ? A misty 
 dream floating around it, a faint reek of 
 the east and strange unnatural scents 
 breathing from it ; but underneath mud, 
 filth, the abomination of desolation, the 
 horror of sin and of death ! my God, 
 sometimes, thinking of it, my brain turns 
 and I fear I shall go mad. And to be able 
 to do nothing ! To see these devils in 
 
 human shape ' 
 
 Suddenly he stopped short : swallowed : 
 VOL. I. 6
 
 82 Leicester. 
 
 put the back of his fingers to his lips. 
 Then with a smile went on not unsoftly : 
 
 ' Nay, he was right. There is no need 
 for me or God would let me go, in such a 
 crisis as this is. Yet there come these 
 moments when I seem to hear His voice as 
 from behind, down through the thick clouds, 
 saying to me : " Go forth." It may be 
 delusion. I'm not sure. I don't know. 
 It is terrible to be so tossed in opinion/ 
 (He was beginning to grow troubled : 
 paused a little : and then with the same 
 smile, his eyes all the while looking brightly 
 before him, went on.) ' Nay, he ivas right. 
 And what should I have learnt from him if 
 I could not ... To leave my post ! . . .* 
 (Smiling again : And after a moment's 
 rest.) ' . . . I remember it so well ! I 
 can hear his voice now. '* Wherever any man 
 shall tahc Ids place, either because he has 
 thought it better that he should be there, or 
 because his captain has put him there — there, 
 as it seems to me, should he remain to face the 
 danger, and take no account of death or of any-
 
 Leicester. 83 
 
 thing else in comparison with disgrace." — ■ 
 And my captain is God,' he said : and with 
 that bent forward a little and, with a faint 
 light in his face and round his lips as of a 
 bright smile, seemed to grow deeper and 
 deeper in a dimmer dream that lacked not 
 sweetness. So I sat for a time watching 
 him ; till I too grew into a dream, a dim 
 one, but it had no forms or shapes nor any 
 sweetness. 
 
 Suddenly I started up and out of it. 
 Looking at him, and perceiving no gap in 
 our talk : 
 
 ' Who says that ?' I said. 
 
 He answered slowly as if unaware of 
 me : 
 
 ' Plato makes Socrates say it. . . . 
 But I was thinking of a particular occa- 
 sion.' 
 
 — The door was unlatched, opened, and 
 Mother McCarthy put in her head, to say 
 that the Doctor had come up to say good- 
 bye and shake hands with Mr. Clayton. 
 
 ' It's very good of him !' cried Clayton, 
 
 6—2
 
 84 Leicester, 
 
 jumping up. ' Isn't he afraid ? Although,' 
 he added, turning back a httle to me from 
 half-way down the room, ' there's not 
 much fear of us two . . . Eh ? I'll be 
 back in a see.' 
 
 He nodded, turned, and went out. The 
 door closed ; up went the latch ; fell ; steps 
 crossed the planks ; another door opened 
 and closed. Silence. 
 
 I sat thinking vaguely about what he 
 had been saying : vaguely, till my eyelids 
 began to come blinkingly downwards, and 
 head to nod, and at last must have fallen 
 fast asleep. 
 
 I woke up with a start. The fire was 
 almost out. I was full of sleep : got off 
 my things somehow : dropped into bed, 
 the cool clean sheets : into sleep again : 
 And slept like a top till morning. 
 
 Mother McCarthy woke me bringing in 
 breakfast. The gold sunshine was through 
 the window. Her tongue was stirring 
 already. — Mr. Clayton came in last night 
 but found I was asleep and wouldn't have
 
 Leicester. 85 
 
 me awoken. But he'd left a note for me. — 
 I got it and opened it at once : 
 
 * 8.30. P.M. 
 
 ' Good-bye, my dear fellow. I am sorry 
 our conversation was interrupted, or rather, 
 I should say my monologue ; your part of 
 it would have come in later p'r'aps ! Write 
 to me at 21, Norfolk Square, London, 
 whenever you care to. I shall always be 
 glad to hear from you. Indeed I do hope 
 we shan't lose sight of one another alto- 
 gether. But at present my plans are vague 
 in the extreme. But I'll write again soon. 
 I'm afraid I must have seemed rather a fool 
 to you an hour ago ? at any rate, very con- 
 fused and peculiar ? I was stirred you see. 
 I feel strongly about those things. And be- 
 lieve me, my dear fellow, those things are 
 the only things in the world worth feeling 
 strongly about. You'll think so too some 
 day. — But I must dry up now. Excuse 
 paper, also almost illegible pencil, also this
 
 8 6 Leicester, 
 
 final scribble into a corner. And believe 
 me that I am now, as always, truly 
 yours, 
 
 *Aechibald Clayton. 
 
 ' P.S. — Don't be a porcupine !'
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Early in the next term I received another 
 letter from Clayton. There wasn't much 
 in it, I thought. ' He was really about to 
 leave old England, going to learn his occu- 
 pation in life, where every man should learn 
 it, under fire, and in the smoke of the 
 battle.' 
 
 I put the letter into my pocket intending 
 to answer it that evening at preparation : 
 indeed, did begin upon it, but, after the 
 first seven lines or so, tore the sheet up a 
 little petulantly and went on with my work. 
 I didn't care about the fellow now enough 
 to write to him any of my thoughts, and if 
 I couldn't write them I didn't want to write 
 anything.
 
 88 Leicester. 
 
 I believe he said or wrote things about 
 me to one or two of his friends ; especially 
 Scott ; for Scott is every now and then 
 polite to me, when the chance occurs, as 
 Clayton himself used to be ; but that sort of 
 politeness has no relish. 
 
 The midsummer term I remember well 
 enough — by its general dreariness. Dull 
 skies and rain, and our wretched School 
 House crew, pulling up the river, and down 
 again, and on home mostly sulky. Once or 
 twice I almost gave it up ; but the thought 
 of the good the exercise did me restrained 
 me. Then the Bumping Kaces came. 
 On the fourth night we bumped Gough's ; 
 and kept our place as head of the river for 
 the remaining four nights. 
 
 As I w^as passing through the hall after 
 the last night's races I saw two or three 
 letters on the end table and, stopping, I 
 don't know quite why, to glance at them, 
 saw one was for me. I recognised Colonel 
 James' handwriting at once. He wrote to 
 me usually in the first week of August
 
 Leicester. 89 
 
 enclosing a £5 note (to which allusion 
 has already been made, in Chapter III.), 
 for which I as usually thanked him, in a 
 jerked letter which invariably caused me 
 not a little impatience ; for, as I have 
 already said, when I didn't care about 
 people enough to write to them any of my 
 thoughts, I didn't care about writing to 
 them at all. The letter was somewhat 
 after this fashion : 
 
 * Junior United Service Chib, 
 'July 21st, 18—. 
 
 ' Dear Leicestee, 
 
 ' A communication has been for- 
 warded to me from my lawj^er's, purporting 
 to come from Mr. Robert Cholmeley, of 
 the Myrtles, Seabay, Isle of Wight : who I 
 am thereby informed is the only brother of 
 the late Mrs. Leicester your mother. He 
 has I believe been residing for some time 
 abroad, owing to the weak state of his 
 health, and is, as he is good enough to
 
 90 Leicester. 
 
 inform me, by birth an American. He has 
 received from me what information I thought 
 fit to give him about your affairs, and you 
 may shortly expect to receive a direct com- 
 munication from him yourself. He desires 
 that you should be allowed to pass the first 
 fortnight of your Midsummer Vacation with 
 him at the Myrtles, Seabay, Isle of Wight, 
 and I at present see no objection to your 
 accepting his invitation ; but you are, as 
 far as I am concerned, at liberty to please 
 yourself in the matter. He is, I under- 
 stand, likely to go abroad again very 
 shortly, having only come to England, as 
 he informs me, in order to transact some 
 urgent business which requires his absolute 
 presence in England ; so that, as there need 
 be no further acquaintance between you, 
 beyond perhaps some small correspondence, 
 I have not, as I have said, seen any objec- 
 tion to your accepting his invitation to pass 
 the first fortnight of your Midsummer Va- 
 cation with him : At the same time I 
 desire you to understand, that, as long as
 
 Leicester. 91 
 
 you are under my care, I must insist that 
 your acquaintance with any of the late 
 Mrs. Leicester's, your mother's, relations 
 be nothing beyond what ordinary courtesy 
 to them shall require. Any intimacy with 
 them was strongly deprecated by the late 
 Major Leicester, your father, during his 
 lifetime, and both as his friend and as your 
 guardian I feel myself bound to follow out 
 his wishes on the subject, even if my own 
 did not coincide with them, as, I may add, 
 they do most completely. 
 
 ' I enclose my accustomary allowance of 
 £5 to you for the year's pocket-money. 
 You can apply to the Revd. Dr. Craven for 
 the necessary funds for your travelling ex- 
 penses, an account of which I shall expect 
 you to forward to me. 
 
 ' I remain, 
 
 ' Truly yours, 
 'Thos. E. James. 
 ' Bertram Leicester.' 
 
 As I stripped myself, ran down to the
 
 92 Leicester. 
 
 wash-room, took my place behind the last 
 fellow on the stairs, and as I was washing 
 in the wash-room before I went under the 
 tap, I thought in a half-dreamy way about 
 this uncle of mine and then about my 
 mother and Colonel James, and then about 
 my father but, going under the tap and 
 standing there with the cool water gushing 
 all over my chest and down my body, 
 thoughts arrested took another turn, and it 
 was not till I was in bed that night that 
 they reverted to the matter. Who was my 
 mother ? My father was in the army, a 
 ' friend ' of Colonel James : something like 
 Colonel James seems to me, perhaps : a 
 stiff-bodied, stiff-kneed, steel-grey headed 
 old gentleman modelled upon Major Pen- 
 dennis. . . . Was my mother the woman 
 up in one of the berths of that second 
 darker vision, the woman up in one of the 
 berths giving suck to and soothing the half- 
 fractious child, the child half- fractious with 
 sleep and misery ? The baby-boy, then, was 
 my brother or sister ? Had I a brother or
 
 Leicester. 93 
 
 sister ? I felt that I had not. Had I a 
 mother ? I felt that, on the other side of a 
 broad, shelved and dim atmosphere, I had. 
 Sometimes she stood still, turned towards 
 me ; but neither of us made any great effort 
 to see the other. ' My father lies dead in 
 the close dark in the ground with a frown 
 on his face. . . . And my thoughts of 
 them,' I said to myself, ' are this much 
 worth : that my mother is dead, " the late 
 Mrs. Leicester," and my father's face probably 
 past all frowning now : Nay, they probably 
 are semi-dissolved bodies together.' On 
 which thought I fell asleep, and had a hor- 
 rible dream of propping up the body of my 
 father, great, naked, flabby, which would 
 come upon me, and the skin depended a 
 little on the only part I could see of him, 
 the thighs and belly and upper portion of 
 one broad leg. This dream disturbed me 
 for the whole of the next day with a feeling 
 of flabby death near and not near me, by 
 and not by me, my father and not my 
 father, just as that shadowy woman with
 
 94 Leicester. 
 
 great owl -wings and the skull of an owl, of 
 which I have already spoken. 
 
 The morning after that, at breakfast, 
 Armstrong, who sat next me, getting up to 
 look at the letters when they were brought 
 in, returned and threw one into my plate. 
 It was addressed to B. Leicester, Esq., in a 
 thin scratchy hand, and the envelope was 
 large and oblong and of glazed white paper. 
 In a little I opened it, supposing it to be 
 from Mr. Cholmeley, and rightly. 
 
 ' The Myrtles, Seabay, Isle of Wight, 
 ' 22nd July, 18—. 
 
 * Dear Mr. Leicester, 
 
 ' I dare say that by this time my 
 name, Cholmeley, will convey some impres- 
 sion to your mind ; for I must suppose that 
 your guardian, Colonel James, has not left 
 you in complete ignorance of the corres- 
 pondence that has been passing between us. 
 
 ' I prefer coming at once to the point, or 
 rather one of the points ; for there are two. 
 The first is, some explanation of what you
 
 Leicester. 95 
 
 must suppose to have been nothing short of 
 absohite neglect of yourself on my part ; 
 the second is, as you are probably aware, 
 to ask you to confer upon me the pleasure 
 of your society here for the first fortnight 
 in August. I should, indeed, have been 
 happy to have given you a somewhat larger 
 invitation ; but, as my health requires me 
 to hasten south again to those parts 'which 
 alone seem able to make my wretched old 
 body an endurable habitation, you will see 
 that this is impossible. 
 
 ' I now return to the first point. I saw 
 but very little of my sister, Isabel, your 
 mother ; for having very early shown a 
 decided inclination for the study of the 
 classics, that chiefest lahorum dulce leni- 
 men, and my father's father having himself 
 been a scholar of no despicable pretensions, 
 although of a somewhat more artificial, if 
 sounder, character, than those at present in 
 vogue, and moreover money not being a 
 want to us, I naturally desired, and at last 
 gained, my father's permission to return to
 
 96 Leicester. 
 
 England, ultimately proceeding to Cam- 
 bridge, where I obtained the distinction of 
 Chancellor's Medallist and Second Classic, 
 terms doubtless familiar to you a member 
 of a school in which, I believe, the old 
 classical tradition is still handed down un- 
 sullied by the barbaric bar-sinister of either 
 science or, what they call, a ' Modern Side!' 
 Shortly after my matriculation I had heard 
 that my father's health was a little shaTien 
 by a severe chill caught at some festal 
 gathering, but the evil effects were, aj^- 
 parently, rooted out by care and a good 
 doctor, and I had given up any anxious 
 thought about the matter. Indeed, the 
 account I had of him for the next few years 
 was encouraging in the extreme. You may, 
 then, imagine my consternation and grief 
 when, shortly after my last University suc- 
 cess, I received intelligence of his sudden 
 death and of my sister's desire to come to 
 England as soon as possible, in order that 
 she might take up her residence with an 
 aunt of ours at that time residing near Man-
 
 Leicester. 97 
 
 Chester. This voyage was actually per- 
 formed, and I myself stayed for a few days 
 at my aunt's house, from the experience of 
 which few days I formed that estimate of, 
 what appeared to me to be, your mother's 
 natural disposition, which, despite all sub- 
 sequent events, I have seen no proper 
 reason to cease to hold as being, in the 
 main, a correct one. I can say with the 
 most absolute sincerity, that I believe that 
 the greatest of her faults was thoughtless- 
 ness, and that I have so far considered, and 
 shall in all probability continue to consider 
 to the end of my life, that all attempts to 
 make her out as either naturally or by her 
 early training depraved are as unfounded 
 as they are ungenerous and unjust. I 
 make no doubt that you already know at 
 any rate the general outline of your un- 
 happy mother's subsequent career, and I 
 shall, therefore, make no further allusion 
 to it than that which I have already 
 made. 
 
 * You will I think easily perceive, that her 
 
 VOL. I. 7
 
 98 Leicester. 
 
 marriage with your father and their almost 
 instantaneous departure for Cork where his 
 regiment was then quartered, and my 
 scholastic labours and ultimately my own 
 marriage, to say nothing of our most op- 
 posed spheres of life, made any close inti- 
 macy between the two families all but im- 
 possible. After a short, too short ! period 
 of happiness I was left to face life with the 
 motherless pledge of mutual affection and a 
 frame shattered by an, alas useless, attend- 
 ance on the sick bed of my beloved wife 
 and companion. I felt that change of 
 scene and change of climate were absolutely 
 necessary to me. I left England therefore ; 
 and so it came about that, unhonoured by the 
 confidence of my sister, your mother, I re- 
 mained for long in ignorance of anything 
 more than the general facts of her history. 
 It was only through inquiries, instituted by 
 me shortly after I had received intelligence 
 of her death, that I learnt of your existence 
 at all and then, being informed that you 
 were well cared for, and being myself at the
 
 Leicester. 99 
 
 time engaged upon a most laborious and 
 absorbing undertaking, I thought it no 
 great neglect of you to wait till, that under- 
 taking completed, however unworthily, 
 and my presence in England being from the 
 nature of the thing (I need not scruple to 
 inform you that I refer to my forth-coming 
 edition of the plays of Sophocles) an abso- 
 lute necessity, at any rate for a short 
 season, I could make your acquaintance 
 personally instead of being compelled 
 to know you and be known of you 
 through nothing more intimate than the 
 post ! 
 
 * There are other things which I desired 
 to say to you but, for the present, I must 
 forbear, for my exertions of the last few days 
 have so worn out these wretchedly shattered 
 nerves of mine, that I find both energy and 
 acumen to be pitiably lacking in me. Let 
 this, I pray you, be some excuse for the 
 paltriness of this letter : and more especially 
 for the abrupt ending which I am now about 
 to give to it. I hope to hear from you 
 
 7—2
 
 100 Leicester. 
 
 shortly, and, in the meantime, ask you to 
 believe me, clQar Mr. Leicester, 
 
 * To be yours very sincerely, 
 
 ' Chaeles K. Cholmeley/ 
 
 The letter made no impression upon me at 
 the time ; for it did not seem to have much, 
 if any, concern with me. I had read it with 
 half-absent thoughts : then I put it into my 
 breast-coat pocket : finished my breakfast : got 
 up to my locker : took out one or two books : 
 and went up to my study to look through 
 some Cicero, the Pro Milonc, which we had 
 for exam, at second lesson. It was not till, 
 the exam, over, I stood at my locker in the 
 hall again, putting away my pen and blot- 
 ting-paper, that my mind recurred to Mr. 
 Cholmeley and his invitation. I shut to 
 the locker door : took my hat off one of the 
 pegs : and went out into the quad, with my 
 hands in my pockets, thinking. — ' I suppose 
 I may as well go down there. . . And 
 yet I don't know. There's the boating, 
 and I reckoned on a . . . Well, it's only
 
 Leicester. 101 
 
 for three weeks at the worst : And I sup- 
 pose as he's my uncle I . . . And he 
 might tell me something about my mother ' 
 (I lifted up my head) ; ' I have just enough 
 care about her, or her history, or whatever 
 it is, to call it curiosity.' It was on some 
 doubt consequent on this thought that I 
 went in to Craven. 
 
 I found him in the study taking off his 
 gown. He received me affably. Yes, he 
 
 had received a latter from Mr. Mr. 
 
 Cholmeley, yes Mr. Cholmeley — my uncle ? 
 Ah yes : my uncle — asking permission from 
 him to allow me to spend the first fortnight 
 of my midsummer vacation with him at 
 Seabay in the Isle of Wight. Colonel 
 James had been good enough to make his 
 (Craven's) permission a requisite ? Well 
 (looking up from his inspection of the letter) 
 he had no objection to my going : no objec- 
 tion : No. Mr. Cholmeley was my uncle ? 
 Did I know if he was any relation of . . . 
 Ah, it must be the same, he saw : Charles K. 
 Cholmeley. — He had not noticed the initials.
 
 102 Leicester. 
 
 'Are you aware, Leicester,' he said with 
 a blink and a blinking smile, ' that Mr. 
 Cholmeley is one of the greatest authorities 
 on the Greek tragedians that we have ? 
 What ? What ? You iverent aware of it ? 
 . . . Now I hope you'll be careful not 
 to. . .' And so on : The end of it being 
 that he informed me, after a pause, that he 
 thought a fortnight at Seabay would do me 
 good. I was not to forget to warn Mrs. 
 Jones of the change in my plans. There 
 were some charming pieces of scenery in 
 the neighbourhood of Seabay : 
 
 ' That is,' he said with another 
 
 smile, ' if you care for charming pieces of 
 scenery, Leicester ? What ? What ?' 
 
 I thought that it would be purposeless 
 to say to him that I did and how much I 
 did : so kept silence with my eyes on the 
 ground, waiting for the old fool to finish. 
 
 ' Well, well ;' he said, ' perhaps that 
 will come later on. — You may go, Leicester/ 
 
 I went out and up into my study, and 
 sat down in a chair, tilting it back and
 
 Leicester. 103 
 
 putting my feet against the table by the 
 window looking out onto the quad., and 
 began to think whether I really wanted to 
 go and see my uncle, or wasn't it foolish to 
 give up the pleasure of an extra fortnight 
 alone on the river ? ' Well/ I said, getting 
 up, ' I must go now I suppose.' 
 
 'And yet,' continued I in thought, ' why 
 should I trouble myself with a journey 
 down there, and he most probably a dry 
 old stick who'll correct my pronunciation 
 and make quotations I don't understand ? 
 I really don't know. . . I suppose I'd 
 better go. Craven '11 think it odd now if 
 
 I Confound it ! let him ! What do 
 
 I care ? I ivont go ! — Just to show I 
 don't care ? No, that's foolery. And my 
 mother ? . . I'd better go after all. — What 
 a fool I am !' 
 
 The remaining week passed, to me, with 
 imperceptible fleetness. I read a good 
 deal : stalked out and over the fields to 
 the bathing-place twice or three times : 
 sculled a little up the river.
 
 104 Leicester. 
 
 I remember, the last night, going in to 
 Mother McCarthy to get my hat from the 
 cupboard : how I came along the dark 
 passage : opened the door, with Gordon 
 (the monitor) under the gas, leaning against 
 the iron-work of Armstrong's bed, reading 
 a book and biting his nails : went on to by 
 my bed, threw the hat onto it, turned to 
 the opened window and looked out — through 
 the branches of two of the dark deep trees, 
 into the quad, all there in the moonlight 
 with the shadowed houses and, beyond, the 
 opened heaven paley blue, lit with some 
 self- containing radiance : 
 
 And a feeling of soft peace grew in me, 
 something which was unspeakable and 
 which could not be left, to turn round to 
 the bright gas-light, and the bedded jugged 
 room and the fellows ; so that the thought 
 of them left me, trailing and fading away 
 as some half-pulsing sort of tentacle in a 
 dream, and I remained with the fulness of 
 that soft peace unspeakable : until there 
 was a start, my attention taken backward,
 
 Leicester. 105 
 
 a book snapped up, and I knew the butler 
 had been in and put out the gas. 
 
 I went from the window in the space 
 between the beds^ and undressed in silence, 
 thinking.
 
 II. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Armstrong lived in London. As we were 
 getting up in the early morning he found 
 out that I had to go to London, and asked 
 me to have breakfast with him at Miller's, 
 where they give you a decent tuck-in for 
 1/6, and besides Knight's is so dirty, and 
 he hadn't paid his tick there yet for last 
 term. I agreed to go with him : though 
 in a glum sort of a way ; for I was in an 
 irresolute humour, half dissatisfied with 
 everything and everybody, particularly my- 
 self. Well, into Miller's we went together : 
 through the shop into a small poky gaslit 
 room where, round a table, sat some four
 
 Leicester. 107 
 
 or five fellows ' tucking in ' at cofifee, 
 bread, eggs and bacon, and jam. In a 
 little, I got a seat next Tolby-Jenkins, a 
 fat monitorial beast, of ignoble sort. 
 
 Armstrong and T were coming down the 
 grey-morning hill to the station before I 
 returned to myself agam. And then there 
 was an entry into a tobacconist's just 
 opened and a purchase by Armstrong of 
 bird's-eye and some cigarettes. 
 
 ' Arn't you going to get anything ?' 
 asked Armstrong, half-turning to look at 
 me looking out of the door across the 
 station yard to the station steps and door- 
 way. I ha]f turned and met his look. 
 
 ' Very well,' I said. ' Give me a box 
 of cigarettes.' And took out a shilling 
 and ' lifted ' it from where I was onto the 
 counter. 
 
 We crossed into the station. A good 
 many fellows were about. Armstrong had 
 talk with some, and, in the end, I got 
 into one of the London carriages after him 
 and sat down next the fellow at the far
 
 108 Leicester. 
 
 end facing the engine. Directly opposite 
 me was Norris our stroke, of the School 
 House I mean ; and in the corner David- 
 son. In the other corner of that side, 
 friend Leslie on his last journey home 
 from Colchester School. Armstrong next 
 Leslie. Jones junior on my right : and 
 Jacobson next him in the corner. 
 
 For the first hour we had a loud time 
 of it. Norris sang solos of popular or 
 * smutty ' songs and the rest joined in 
 deafening choruses, enlivened by occasional 
 horse-play. I was set off smiling more 
 than once at the thought of my solemn 
 self sitting there ' drawing ' every now and 
 then from a desultory cigarette, and send- 
 ing out a faint whiff of smoke into the 
 rush of air that passed through one window 
 rollingly out of the other. It wasn't that I 
 didn't care for mirth, I thought ; for there 
 have been times when I have felt ready for 
 a witch's sabbath over the hills, or any 
 laughter-devilry you please ; not to recall 
 other times, when the readiness for a gibe
 
 Leicester. 109 
 
 at some young woman of the Beatrice 
 stamp was all but irresistible and prompted 
 shouting and mirthfulness only ended by 
 sheer exhaustion. But what was there in 
 these * earthy ' fools (I mean, as if they 
 were not unlike fat, half-lousy Flemish 
 revellers among the barrels of a cellar : 
 And yet not quite that !) to inspire mirth, 
 or even laughter ? — So I sat thinking, till, 
 all at once, Norris set up a ringing sea- 
 song that, after a little listening, made a 
 cold shiver go down my back, and my eyes 
 light up, and the necessity for a loud shout 
 in the chorus a simple half-conscious satis- 
 faction. 
 
 The rest of the journey was a quietness, 
 by comparison perhaps. Norris and Leslie 
 left us at Bridgetown : Davidson got out 
 soon after. We could hear the other 
 London fellows in the next carriage sing- 
 ing for a little after that ; but the fellows 
 here grew quieter, reading or talking : 
 while I sat still thinking. And so the 
 time went.
 
 110 Leicester. 
 
 At London there was a general shaking 
 of hands and quick parting. And I changed 
 to my second train. 
 
 At Portsmouth I went on board the 
 hoat. It was a heavenly afternoon ; that 
 is, with a mild sky streamed with tender 
 colours, and the air mild, not hot or cool. 
 I stood leaning against the side forward, 
 while the gentle scene went by. Faint 
 unreality was with me and something not 
 undreamy. 
 
 ' Altogether,' I thought (at Ryde), sit- 
 ting in the engine-side corner of the wait- 
 ing train with my hand in my cheek and 
 my elbow in the window-ledge, ' to-day 
 has been a day of dreamy changes : one 
 unlike any one I know, save perhaps three 
 or four of my fever days.' When forth- 
 with the faint unreality was with me once 
 more and something not undreamy ; and 
 was with me till I, looking not undreamily 
 forth, saw Scahaij on a long board as we 
 passed it on : Then stopped. I put my 
 hand out of the door, turned the handle.
 
 Leicester. Ill 
 
 shoved open the door with my knee and 
 got out. It was not a hot late-afternoon : 
 a gentle breeze was blowing. The sky- 
 was full of rare colours. A porter pulled 
 my box out of the luggage -van and landed 
 it, over the stone border, on the brick-red 
 gravel. 
 
 I stood by the box and the train went 
 out, and away : stood for some little, re- 
 flecting that I had forgotten Mr. Chol- 
 meley's address and had neither Colonel 
 James's nor his letter to refer to. It didn't 
 trouble me. I still stood thinking, about 
 things, in a half vague way. Then took 
 to looking at the station and a tall grass 
 bank opposite. There seemed no one in 
 the station now. A hen fluttered out of 
 some farze a little farther on into the 
 line. Some ducks came paddling their 
 bills along in a broad rut on the other side 
 of the line : I could hear a telegraph clock 
 tick-tick-tick-ticking. 
 
 As my slow gaze went to by the door- 
 way and a small book-stall towards the
 
 112 Leicester. 
 
 other end of my side of the station, an old 
 gentlemen's head, bent shoulders, and black - 
 clothed body came from just past the book- 
 stall ; He had a white stock round his 
 neck. And then, between him and the 
 bookstall, stepped a fair girl. — They came 
 on slowly along the brick-red gravel. 
 
 I half observed them with a new feeling : 
 them, neither the old gentleman particularly 
 nor the girl. Till, all at once, he stopped. 
 She stopped. 
 
 He said : 
 
 ' My dear. I don't see him.' 
 
 The girl raised her head, looked towards, 
 to me. Our eyes met. Everything in me 
 stood still, effortlessly though. Then she 
 looked down to him : lifted her hand to his 
 arm, on it, and said with a lower tone : 
 
 ' I expect that is Mr. Leicester there, 
 father.' Up went his head, out came two 
 horned glasses onto his nose, and he had a 
 look at me. I smiled. 
 
 ' God bless my soul,' he said, ' of course, 
 of course ! My dear, I'm as blind as a bat.'
 
 Leicester. 113 
 
 And on that we all were together, and he 
 had shaken my hand with his two, and 
 then ; with ' This is my daughter Eayne/ 
 she and I had shaken hands. And we had 
 all turned together and were on our way 
 over the gravel to the other end of the 
 station. 
 
 He was saying : 
 
 ' You see, it was my fault that we weren't 
 up here to meet the train. — Yes, my dear,' 
 he proceeded, ' it was luy fault, I acknow-: 
 ledge it.' 
 
 ' But Where's j^our luggage ?' said the 
 girl, staying. 
 
 Mr. Cholmeley was seized with a sudden 
 and violent fit of coughing, and in the end 
 spat out a patch of yellowy stuff not unlike 
 matter into the hollow by the near rail. 
 The sight I took of that patch of yellowy 
 stuff not unlike matter introduced a new 
 feeling in me. 
 
 ' There is my box,' I said, turning and 
 looking towards it : And, at that moment 
 seeing a porter come out of a small room 
 
 VOL. I. b
 
 114 Leicester. 
 
 v/e had just passed, called to him ; and 
 turning back to them : ' Shall I tell him to 
 . . . How ? Are there cabs ... or . . .' 
 ' Well,' said Eayne, with a light of laugh- 
 ter in her eyes, ' there's the pony carriage 
 outside, but . . . I'm afraid your box will 
 be — rather too much for it,' she said. 
 I half laughed. 
 
 ' Eh ?' said Mr. Cholmeley. ' What ? 
 Eh ? The box, my dear ; you said it was 
 too big ?' He turned also, adjusted the 
 two horned glasses, and took a look at it. 
 The porter was waiting by us. 
 
 ' Well,' I said, turning and speaking to 
 him, ' will you manage to bring it up 
 
 to ' 
 
 ' Yes, sir. Ill see its brought up. 
 Where to, sir ?' 
 
 I paused : looked at Kayne : half laughed : 
 and said : 
 
 ' Upon my word I don't know. You see, 
 sir,' I went on to Mr. Cholmeley, ' I forgot 
 the address of the house I was going to, 
 and I hadn't either your letter or Colonel
 
 Leicester. 115 
 
 James' in my pocket to prompt my memory 
 with.' 
 
 ' The Myrtles,' said Eayne to the porter : 
 And then (he gone with a queer look and a 
 ' Yes, miss,') to me : ' It v/as lucky we came 
 to meet you then.' 
 
 ' Very,' I said. Mr. Cholmeley had 
 started slowly on in the original direc- 
 tion. We were up to him in a few steps, 
 one on each side. 
 
 ' I can't make out,' I went on, ' what 
 could have made me so forgetful.' 
 
 * In the over-wrought condition of our 
 nerves nowadays,' said Mr. Cholmeley, * the 
 wonder is that we remember anything.' 
 
 And with such talk we were out of the 
 station and by a small pony- carriage and a 
 small brown fat pony. Eayne drew back. 
 Mr. Cholmeley got in, and made a motion 
 to sit down in the front seat. I ran round 
 to the other side to stop him, and succeeded. 
 Then Eayne was in, had taken up the reins, 
 touched up the pony, and we were off at a 
 smart trot. 
 
 8—2
 
 116 Leicester. 
 
 Mr. Cholmeley was leaning back with 
 his eyes closed. 
 
 Then Eayne asked something about my 
 jom'ney. And I answered in sort : till Mr. 
 Cholmeley came into the conversation, and 
 it drifted to Colchester. Mr. Cholmeley 
 asked me a good many questions about 
 Colchester : the system of teaching the 
 classics in use, the subjects taught in each 
 form, the amount taught, and other things : 
 I answering as I best could. 
 
 All at once : 
 
 ' I do not care for Latin,' said Eayne. 
 ' It ia dry.' 
 
 Mr. Cholmeley lay back again with his 
 eyes closed, smiling peacefully. 
 
 ' Nor do I, Miss Cholmeley,' I said, ' I 
 must confess. I can't understand Latin 
 properly, I do think. It seems all so life- 
 less to me, as if they had all sat down and 
 written it to pass away the wet afternoons. 
 But Greek now ! — Homer, or even Xeno- 
 phon. You remember that bit in the seventh 
 book, I think, where they see the sea *
 
 Leicester, 117 
 
 Mr. Cholmeley murmured : 
 
 * Kai rd'xa 8r] aKovovat /3ocovtcov toov arpan- 
 ooTcov, OaXaTTa, OaXarTa, Kai irapeyyvcovTcov. 
 
 — a beautiful little toucli, that Trapey- 
 
 yvutVTCOv.' 
 
 ' What does it mean ?' she asked. 
 
 I, looking at Mr. Cholmeley and perceiv- 
 ing his eyes still closed, answered rather 
 diffidently : 
 
 ' It means, passing it on to one another 
 like the watchword, I think. We did 
 it the term before last, the seventh 
 book.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Eayne, * but I never got as 
 far as that. I did read some Xenophon 
 last January :' she added to me. ' But it 
 was rather uninteresting, I thought. No- 
 thing but : Thence lie marches nineteen stages^ 
 twenty-seven imrasangs to — some place or 
 other : a city 'populous, prosperous and great. 
 And the river Scamander (or Menander, or 
 whatever it is), Jfoivs close to it, and there is 
 a park and a palace in the middle of the 
 city." '
 
 118 Leicester. 
 
 • My dear r said Mr. Cholmeley, smiling 
 with still closed eyes. " Menander !" ' 
 
 ' I don't think I shall ever want to read 
 any other Greek than Homer/ she went on, 
 flicking with the whip-lash. 
 
 In a little : 
 
 ' Perhaps, Miss Cholmeley,' I said, 
 ' you'll like to read Plato some day : like 
 Lady Jane Grey did. I have only read 
 part of the Apology and the Crito ; but it 
 seemed to me that it was very beau- 
 tiful.' 
 
 ' Eh ? hey ?' said Mr. Cholmeley, opening 
 his eyes and erecting his head and body, 
 ' why, here we are.' 
 
 I gave a glance at the house. It was a 
 small house at the other end of a garden 
 pretty with bright flowers. There was a 
 not unfaint noise heard, like the wind in a 
 row of tree-tops. Looking on, as I got 
 down, I saw a line, about a quarter way up 
 the house, with a pale blue band : the sea ! 
 The breeze came up softly. There was a 
 boy waiting just by the gate for the pony,
 
 Leicester. 119 
 
 whose rein close by the mouth he now 
 held. 
 
 I stretched my hand for Mr. Cholmeley. 
 He rested on it, and getting down : 
 
 'It's a beautiful day for August — in Sea- 
 bay,' he said. * That is to say if I may 
 believe what they tell me about it. An 
 antiquarian friend of mine at Newport 
 described the place as a bed in a cucum- 
 ber-frame, in summer. Myself I am in- 
 clined to doubt it — for reasons.' 
 
 Eayne was already down and on to open 
 the gate ; but I was there before, unlatched 
 and threw it inwards wide. Mr. Cholme- 
 ley passed in slowly, Eayne followed 
 with a look at me like that of when she 
 said : * Well : There's the pony-carriage 
 outside, but . . . I'm afraid your box will 
 be rather too much for it.' I followed, 
 with an arriving thought that I had seen 
 her eyes somewhere before, and perhaps her 
 face. 
 
 We went in, through a small green- 
 covered porch, to a small hall, then to the
 
 120 Leicester. 
 
 right, down a passage that met the little 
 hall at right-angles, down a staircase, along 
 a little hall again with an open door at the 
 end and green garden and bluey sea-view, 
 then to the right into a large light room, in 
 the middle of which was a laid table and, 
 for the far -side, a large half-bay window 
 with the two central flaps opened out- 
 ward. ' 
 
 Mr. Cholmeley sank down sighing in an 
 armchair that Eayne turned a little to the 
 window. 
 
 ' Ah-h,' he said. ' I'm very soon tired 
 out now.' 
 
 Then, in a little, recovering himself, 
 looking up at me standing by the window 
 to his left : 
 
 ' — But perhaps Mr. Leicester is hungry ' 
 (turning his look up to Eayne above the 
 right arm of the armchair). ' We forget 
 that. — And dinner is not till half-past 
 seven.' 
 
 * No,' I said. ' I am not hungry at all, 
 thank you.'
 
 Leicester. 121 
 
 ' Are you sure ?' 
 
 * Certain,' I said. ' I had some things 
 on the way. I am not at all hungry, really, 
 thank you.' 
 
 A pause. 
 
 ' Then I think,' he said, ' that the best 
 thing to be done, will be for Eayne and you 
 to go for a ramble along the shore together, 
 and leave me hero. I'm afraid I should be 
 but poor company just at present. In fact: 
 I confess that I should like a little nap 
 before dinner. You remember, my dear, I 
 had no siesta this afternoon, and I'm tired.' 
 His voice fell. 
 
 We left him rather lingeringlj', more 
 particularly Eayne. And went down over 
 the first plot of grass, the gravelled walk, 
 and the lawn in silence. Then she led me 
 round a clump of bushes, and we were on a 
 path whose front was a low sea-wall. There 
 was a break of a yard therein a little further 
 on. Arrived there, I saw a ladder, like 
 those from bathing-machines, that touched 
 the sand.
 
 122 Leicester. 
 
 We stayed a moment. Then I jumped 
 down and held my hand up for her. She 
 jumped past it down, and stepped seawards, 
 I following. 
 
 ' I hope you didn't mind my father going 
 to sleep,' she said as we moved off together 
 through the loose tuneful sand. ' He usually 
 takes his nap after lunch, but to-day your 
 coming disturbed him so, that he couldn't 
 take it, and he is so easily exhausted . . . 
 now.' 
 
 ' I am sorry,' I said. 
 
 * Why should you be sorry ?' 
 
 * To have disturbed him.' 
 
 ' I didn't mean that ! I meant that it 
 had excited him thinking you were coming, 
 and so he couldn't get to sleep then, after 
 lunch. But that wasn't your fault.' 
 
 We moved on in silence for a little. Then 
 she said : 
 
 ' How beautiful the sea is now, and the 
 sky.' 
 
 We stopped a moment to look at them. 
 And looking at them, the pale yellow sky,
 
 Leicester, 123 
 
 the smooth sea, the liquid wave, dreami- 
 ness came to me : absorbed all my inner 
 self with a dimness, even as the pale j^ellow 
 light may have absorbed the middle heaven. 
 A double word, that was almost one word, 
 was, came, went through, I cannot say 
 
 what in the dimness : QaXarra, OaXarTa. I 
 
 knew only the dimness : it, the pale yellow 
 sky, the smooth sea, the liquid wave, were 
 outside. Then a deadened pain came in 
 my left brow, and a deadened sound in my 
 ears ; and I saw ; and saw her by me, and 
 her face with the shadow of a frown on her 
 brow. 
 
 ' I am sorry,' I said in a low voice. ' I 
 had forgotten you.' 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 ' You said something, in Greek I think it 
 was, and then you shook your head a little, 
 and then you threw out your arms to the 
 sea. — Will you tell me what that Greek 
 meant ?' 
 
 * I am sorry,' I said. 
 
 * What for ? For forgetting me ?'
 
 124 Leicester. 
 
 ' Yes. I was not thinking.' 
 
 ' Surely it was just the opposite. — You 
 were thinking. When you think you for- 
 get, very often, everything but what you 
 are thinking about. There is no need to be 
 sorry for that.' 
 
 ' I am very foolish to-day. — But I have 
 never seen the sea before that I can remem- 
 ber : and, I cannot tell you why, but it 
 seems to make me wish now to laugh and 
 then to cry. I am foolish.' 
 
 We walked on in silence for some twenty 
 steps : 
 
 ' It is not so,' she said. ' Sometimes, 
 early in the morning, when I have come 
 out, and the sun was shining, and every- 
 thing seemed so happy, I have run down to 
 the sea dancing and singing. But when I 
 saw how it lifted itself up, and threw out 
 its arms once — twice — over and over again 
 — into the sand, and it seemed so tired, 
 so tired . . . I have stood and pitied it : 
 till I felt the tears all coming out of 
 my eyes. — I do not call that foolish.
 
 Leicester. 125 
 
 It is Gocl who makes you pity the 
 sea.' 
 
 I laughed, and we moved ou together 
 again : 
 
 * These ridiculous dreamy states,' I said, 
 ' come upon me at times : ever since I had 
 the scarlet fever, more than a year ago 
 now. — The Greek I called out was, I think 
 so at least, only what the Greeks cried, 
 ''The sea! the sea!" — You remember 
 Mr. Cholmeley quoted it. P'r'aps it was, 
 that I remembered it in the middle : and 
 that made me call it out. I dare say !' 
 
 Then v^^e talked of Greek, and how we 
 both loved it ; and then of Homer. And I 
 could have cried out when she said straight 
 off the line : 
 
 y8;; 8' uKeoov irapa 6i,va ttoXv^Xoio- jBoto 6aXaa(7r}<;, 
 
 which I had thought one of the most beau- 
 tiful 'ideas' that I knew: the old man 
 going in silence down by the loudr resound - 
 ing sea. And then we traced the words
 
 126 Leicester. 
 
 with a stick on the clean smooth sand, and 
 she said that she wished she knew how to 
 put the accents on the words, for they 
 didn't look quite right without them, and I 
 said that the general rules for marking the 
 accents were very simple, and explained 
 about oxyton, paroxyton, proparoxyton, 
 perispomen, and properispomen, and other 
 matters connected therewith. 
 
 From that, in some way or other, we 
 went to French, of which I knew next to 
 nothing ; but, when I asked her and she 
 spoke some of it, it pleased me to listen to 
 it as it came from her lips, some poetry she 
 had learnt, and lastly a little song. I was 
 sorry when the song was over, and went on 
 by her without a word for a little, as if the 
 song would continue, and yet not quite that. 
 Then I remembered, and said that I liked 
 to hear her sing. This led us to Italian, 
 and she repeated some Italian for me. 
 
 ' It must give you pleasure,' I said, 
 looking at her, ' to know these soft beauti- 
 ful languages.'
 
 Leicester. 127 
 
 ' Well,' she answered, ' it docs please me 
 sometimes ; but I've known them ever since 
 I was quite small, and so they seem some- 
 how natural to me.' 
 
 ' I have never been out of England,' I 
 said. ' I should like to see Italy, I think 
 I should like to die in Italy, where the sun 
 shines always, and there is no cold wind 
 and rain, and the fields are full of flowers.' 
 
 * But the wind docs blow,' she said, 
 • horribly sometimes : the sirocco in the 
 autumn is terrible, and so are the spring 
 winds in Florence.' 
 
 ' Ah but,' I said, looking at her, ' that's 
 not the time I was thinking of.' 
 
 Then she began to tell me about Italy 
 and their life there. I asked particularly 
 about the pictures and statues, telling her 
 that the only pictures I had ever seen were 
 in the Painted Chamber at Greenwich, and 
 described the one of Nelson rushing 
 wounded on deck, and the other of him 
 being taken up, a pale dead body, into 
 heaven.
 
 128 ' Leicester. 
 
 At that point we stopped ; for walking 
 on the bank of stone on which we were 
 was toilsome : and she looked aside and up 
 at under the cliff, and I also. It was a sort 
 of plateau a few yards higher than the 
 stony shingle, covered with thick grass, and 
 having small trees here and there. She 
 was looking at one part of it. — Two small 
 streams, but the one larger a little than the 
 other, made two small cascades flowing 
 down from a higher elevation through the 
 grass, gathered tufts of which and weeds 
 guided the flow into the round earth basin 
 below. There was a gentle murmur : and 
 by the right side a tree, with a faint shadow 
 against the earthen wall behind. 
 
 We climbed up. 
 
 It was a pretty place. Clear streaks of 
 colour on the earthen wall that was 
 sheeted with the ruffled water : then, from 
 an arched break up above, came the main 
 stream, dividing, to cross and flow down 
 the swaying grass and weeds into the round 
 earthen basin.
 
 Leicester. 129 
 
 Kayne sat down on a thick clump of grass 
 under the tree ; and I leant against the 
 earthen wall with the line of water just by 
 me. 
 
 All at once she jumped up, looking along 
 the shore to the brown cliff that ended the 
 bay. I looked also. 
 
 ' We're caught !' she said. 
 
 There was a play of foam, as she spoke, 
 at the foot of the brown cliff behind which 
 w^as the now almost, or altogether, set sun. 
 She rose, crossed the plateau, jumped down 
 on to the shingle and started off at a i-un. 
 I was up and after her in a moment, close 
 by her. She ran well, for a girl. But the 
 shingle, giving with each footfall, was tiring 
 to the limbs, and then there were her petti- 
 coats. She began to flag a little. We 
 were still quite a hundred yards from the 
 point. 
 
 ' Will you take my hand ?' I said, pass- 
 ing her. ' Let me help you. The stones.' 
 
 She would not. I fell back. 
 
 We ran on as before. 
 
 VOL. I. 9
 
 130 Leicester. 
 
 Looking down as we came onto some 
 smooth half-hard sand, I saw the Br/ SaKewv 
 which we had written ; the rest was washed 
 out. 
 
 At last we came to by the point. The 
 waves were dashing up foamingly all round. 
 She went straight to a boulder, jumped on 
 to it, and with her hand against the brown 
 earthen side was about to step to another, 
 when up had come a swelled sideward wave, 
 swirled over the first ring of rocks, and the 
 next moment she was in a shiver of spray. 
 I stepped to try the boulder on which she 
 was, caught firm hold of her round the hips, 
 and, lifting her up, made straight onward. 
 Up came another wave, but smaller, swept 
 past and through my legs up to the knees, 
 but I held both her and the ground firm. 
 She did not move : one arm held me firmly 
 round the shoulders. I looked aside. 
 There was a large wave just ofi" shore coming 
 in swiftly. ' No2d !' 
 
 The wave went back. I dashed on, 
 stumbled over a stone, recovered- myself, a
 
 Leicester. 131 
 
 small leap, a run — and we were in the 
 light of the setting sun, and she put down 
 on the sand before me. The large wave 
 struck through the first ring of rocks, and 
 burst full upon the cliff, mostly on this 
 side, into a lit cloak-like shower of drops 
 flying through the soft sunny air. Then I 
 looked at her, — both looks, for the bursting 
 of the wave and for her, inexpressibly swift. 
 Laughter was in her eyes at last, and on 
 her lips, and in her face. 
 
 ' I will never forgive you for not letting 
 me get a ducking,' she said. ' I had set 
 my heart on it !' 
 
 Then she turned, and we hurried on in 
 the warmer sunset air, not saying much. 
 I was fully content so. 
 
 At last we reached the garden wall. 
 The tide did not come up to the other end 
 wall. She went up the ladder, and then I : 
 along the path : round the bushes, and on 
 to the lawn. There we saw Mr. Cholmeley 
 looking through a pair of lorgnettes along 
 the other shore. 
 
 9—2
 
 1B2 Leicester. 
 
 Eayne came up to him quietly, I fol- 
 lowing ; and put her left arm round him 
 and said : 
 
 ' Here we are, daddy ; I hope we haven't 
 kept you waiting for dinner.' 
 
 ' Eh ? hey ?' he said, smiling at her, with 
 the lorgnettes lowered, and then, looking at 
 me : ' why, I thought you would be sure to 
 go along the shore towards Gremlin, child.' 
 
 And we went over the grass together and 
 up into the dining-room talking. We all 
 ^eemed content so.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The fortnight I was there with them went 
 like a space of fair weather through a time 
 of duhiess. 
 
 When I awoke one morning and informed 
 myself that this was the last day I should 
 be here in this fair beauty and inner 
 pleasure of life with them, it seemed to 
 me that I thought foolishly. Not even 
 that evening, when we three were in the 
 open air, Mr. Cholmeley in the arm-chair in 
 the middle of the out-flung bay-window, 
 Eayne on a stool at his feet, touching him 
 with loving hand from time to time, and I 
 half lying on and over the edge of the 
 terrace — not even then, wdth the certain
 
 134 Leicester. 
 
 quiet and sadness that was of a last evening 
 together with us, could I realize that I was 
 going away from the beauty and the life 
 here with them, not to see either again for 
 long ; perhaps ever. The even flow of 
 quiet and sadness was too dreamy. 
 
 We began to talk a little, of work, its 
 length and weariness and the final rest 
 when it was over : or rather it was, that 
 Mr. Cholmeley spoke of it softly, and every 
 now and then Eayne or I asked him of 
 things he told or other thoughts thereby. 
 
 Then Eayne left us for a moment to go 
 to speak to Mrs. Jacques about our break- 
 fast, and I came up and sat in her place. 
 
 For a little there was silence, and I knew 
 somehow that he wished to speak to me 
 about my mother. I waited calmly. He 
 was trembling. But at last the words 
 came. 
 
 He had felt that he had not done all he 
 might have done for her. He ought to 
 have remembered that he was the only 
 person she had in the world of whom she
 
 Leicester, 135 
 
 had a right to expect care and affection. 
 But he had not thought of it in that way 
 then. As he had tokl me, they had seen 
 so Httle of one another, that she did not 
 seem to him to be his sister, and ' sister ' 
 meant but a name that was not as near even 
 as ' friend.' He was so full of other things 
 then : his studies, his work ; and she 
 seemed happy and contented with her aunt. 
 And then they both married, and she seemed 
 happy and contented with her husband. 
 He knew that he had done wrong. It was 
 clearly his duty, both as a man and her 
 brother, to have befriended her. Perhaps 
 if he had done so, she miglit never. . . . 
 God only knew ! 
 
 He was so moved, that all I saw good to 
 do was to calm him. 
 
 I said, as I thought, that he had acted 
 for the best, and that he could not be 
 blamed. The questions that 1 would like 
 to have asked, what my mother had done, 
 and when and whj' she had done it, were 
 not, I thought, to be asked then. I was
 
 136 Leicester. 
 
 once almost afraid that he would do himself 
 some harm and, as I tried to soothe him, I 
 felt in some way that the pulse of life beat 
 but faintly here. And thinking of it grew 
 sad. 
 
 And so at last Kayne came back, and we 
 talked of other things. 
 
 The next morning Kayne went with me 
 down to the station to see me off, and, when 
 I had got my ticket and seen that the box 
 was all right, we walked up and down the 
 gravel platform talking a little, of her 
 father and of their going abroad and when 
 we might meet again. She seemed to have 
 no idea ' that he was very ill ; and mine, 
 of the faint-pulsing life, having passed 
 away, there was no certainty in me — no, nor 
 thought, to tell her of what might after all 
 have been no more than fancy. 
 
 She would write to me once every month, 
 she said : that was better than promising to 
 write often and not writing ; for it is so 
 difficult to know what to tell a person if 
 you write often, and it is much nicer
 
 Leicester. 137 
 
 to have the whole month and write to 
 them when you feel inclined to, didn't I 
 think so ? Then I reminded her of her 
 promise to learn hard at Latin, and of mine 
 to learn hard at French, so that we might 
 both know the same languages and compare 
 our thoughts upon them : * And,' I said, 
 * I shall set upon Italian soon, and see what 
 I can make of it.' 
 
 And a little after that the train came up, 
 and we went stepping down it, till we saw 
 an empty carriage. And then I got into it, 
 and put my coat on the seat, and was down 
 again by her ; but we said little, standing 
 together, and I now and then looking at her, 
 and knowing a tremble in me and the lump 
 in my throat, and would have held her and 
 kissed her on the lips and said ' Rayne !* 
 But the last carriage-door banged to, and 
 the porter was by mine, and it was a hurry 
 to go : And in the hurry somehow I touched 
 her hand, and she rose on her toes with her 
 cheek for me to kiss, and I kissed it, and 
 then was up in the moving train and not
 
 138 Leicester. 
 
 able to see her for the tears, till we were 
 past the end of the station, when I saw her 
 standing and waving her hand with a smile 
 on her dear sweet face. ' Oh, Bayne, Rayne, 
 hoiv loiiehj I am, leaving you ! Oh, Eayne, 
 BaTjne !' 
 
 Colchester seemed very dull to me when 
 I first came back from Seabay. I roamed 
 about the fields in search of consolation for 
 something I had lost, but could find little or 
 none. It was a relief when the term began. 
 
 I had determined to work hard. I did, 
 after a fashion, but it seemed that the 
 moments of tastelessness, as Mr. Cholmeley 
 had once said, were more frequent as the 
 autumn grew more damp-decaying and the 
 moments of hopeful delight more rare : and 
 no letter from Eayne. 
 
 At last, late on in September that is, the 
 letter came. She was sorry not to have 
 written to me quite within the month, as she 
 had said she would, but her father (' father ' 
 simply, as she wrote) had been very ill, and 
 she could not settle down to write me a
 
 Leicester. 139 
 
 long letter about some things she had been 
 thinking about, and she did not care to send 
 to me * a scribble/ They had returned to 
 Paris for a few weeks to see a doctor there 
 about her father, and then back again to 
 Switzerland, Tliiin, which he was very fond 
 of. — What she had been thinking about was 
 her neglect of religious study. I can re- 
 member that some one had brought this 
 home to her, and that she was reading the 
 New Testament in the original, and a 
 general idea of mine that she had a fit of 
 religious seriousness upon her that puzzled 
 me in a vague sort of way. I didn't think 
 about religion myself. I never had thought 
 about it, somehow. 
 
 I answered her at some length, giving a 
 summary of the authors I had read and the 
 impressions therefrom formed, with occa- 
 sional allusions to events or things that 
 interested me, afterwards noticing somehow 
 to mj'^elf that I wasn't thinking very much 
 about her in connection with what I had 
 written. I directed the letter, as she told
 
 140 Leicester, 
 
 me, to a Poste Kestante, somewhere in 
 Italy, where they were going shortly. 
 Late in October her second letter came. 
 
 * My dear Bertram, 
 
 ' It is a wet and tempestuous after- 
 noon, and therefore I consider it a fitting 
 occasion to answer your long and with 
 difficulty decipherable epistle. Yesterday 
 was one of the hottest days I remember 
 here, my thermometer goiug up to 105 in 
 the sun, and so I knew we should have 
 thunder and lightning. We did have : of 
 a sort, but utterly disappointing. Of course 
 I went out of doors to see what would 
 happen, but, beyond two livid sickly green 
 flashes, all was thick pitchy darkness. So 
 I returned a sadder and wiser woman, drip- 
 ping wet. We have been enjoying the most 
 glorious weltering simmering heat, and I 
 am out of doors reading or rambling alone 
 through the ' lustrous woodland,' or else 
 lazily boating, the whole day. You would 
 never have got this letter written, if it had
 
 Leicester. 141 
 
 not been for the "uet clay. I don't believe 
 this place can be matched for pure natural 
 beauty anywhere. Yesterday I went out 
 in a boat, with two damsels. It was rough, 
 and they were both sick and very afraid ; 
 but there was a kind of new glory over 
 everything, the air marvellously clear, in 
 preparation for the storm in the night I 
 suppose. The hills all a perfect indigo 
 blue, and masses of cloud entangled in the 
 " misty mountain tops." It was a 
 
 " Glory beyond all glory ever seen 
 By waking sense or by the dreaming soul ;" 
 
 and I stood upright in the boat wdth my 
 head bared, and revelled in it all — much 
 to the disgust of the damsels in question. 
 They shouldn't have plagued me to take 
 them out ! . . . I have got through two 
 volumes of Carlyle's F. Revolution, as you 
 desired, and am much impressed and edified. 
 There is rather a tempest going on outside, 
 and so I am going to try to dodge my 
 dear old daddy and Sir James, and get out
 
 142 Leicester. 
 
 my boat and enjoy it. — By-the-bye, I had 
 forgotten to tell you that an old friend and 
 favourite of ours, Sir James Gwathin, has 
 been staying with us this last week. He 
 is a most amusing mondain en villegiature, 
 with a marvellous French and Italian accent j 
 and altogether a very amusing companion 
 to the father, and myself at times. He 
 knows what seems to me a great deal about 
 Art, the Old Masters particularly. My 
 dear old daddy is far from well. The 
 spitting is very troublesome, and now often 
 tinged with blood. Three days ago he sent 
 ■ my heart into my throat and made me quite 
 restless -for the night, by breaking a blood- 
 vessel ; but he has felt far better since, 
 he says ; more free and relieved. The 
 doctor says too that it has done him good. 
 — But I really imtst go out now ! Excuse 
 this final scrawl. I have hopes of a storm 
 to-night. Love of course from the daddy. 
 In haste, dear Bertram, 
 
 ' Yours truly, 
 
 ' Eayne Cholmeley.
 
 Leicester. 143 
 
 * P.S. — As we're on the move I'll send 
 you an address to send your answer to in a 
 little. 
 
 ' R. c: 
 
 (The part about her standing up bare- 
 headed in the boat thrilled me : the rest 
 ■was almost interestless.) 
 
 One day at the end of second lesson 
 Craven came upon a piece of Italian in one 
 of his books of reference, and could not 
 translate it all. He half- smilingly asked 
 if any of us knew Italian ? No one did. 
 But I recalled some words of mine to Eayno, 
 and determined that I would learn Italian. 
 After second lesson, then, I went down to 
 the school bookseller, and bought of him a 
 little Italian dictionary and grammar. The 
 man knew nothing of Italian literature, nor 
 did I : I could not even remember any of 
 the names Eayne had quoted, except Dante, 
 Petrarch and Boccaccio. But all at once 
 I thought of Macaulay's Essay on Macliia- 
 velli and of some words therein : and asked
 
 144 Leicester. 
 
 the man if he had a Machiavelli. After 
 some search he found a little red-paper- 
 covered edition of the ' Principe.' I said 
 that would do, and bought it. 
 
 I took it up to the school with me and 
 sat at it for the remaining half-hour before 
 dinner. Puzzled out six lines and a half, 
 and came up to wash my hands for dinner, 
 pleased. And after that I gave an hour per 
 day to Italian, at first only to learning the 
 grammar, but, up to the irregular verbs 
 mastered, turned at last joyfully to my 
 book, and found it fairly easy and extremely 
 interesting. It set me about thinking some- 
 what in this fashion : ' Most things are this 
 or that, because they are made this or that, 
 that is to say, there are certain laws by 
 observing which you can bring about certain 
 results.' I proceeded : 'It is surprising 
 that the world, which I had somehow or other 
 always supposed to be one great witness to 
 the justice of God, seems to be after all 
 rather more like a great stage on which the 
 drama of Might over Eight is perpetually
 
 Leicester. 145 
 
 being played. Now does pure right ever 
 come off best ? that is, does pure right ever 
 \\-in by its own unadulterated purity ?' I 
 began to doubt it. For, surely, when right 
 is crowned victor, there are certain laws 
 which having been observed have brought 
 this about, and consequently wrong, if it 
 only knows how to observe these laws, is 
 crowned victor also. Honesty is the best 
 policy : Eogues can be honest. 
 
 But in a little came a certain disgust 
 with the whole matter, and I determined 
 not to think about it any more. But deter- 
 mination was wasted. This brought it 
 about that, on more than one occasion, sud- 
 denly catching myself at the old thoughts I 
 gave vent to a sharp impatient ' Damn !' to 
 the surprise of those who happened to be 
 with and hear me. I remember once in 
 second lesson so losing patience with my- 
 self that, unconscious of the presence of 
 anyone, I let fly with my foot at a form in 
 front of me, which went over with a loud bang 
 onto the boards in a small dust cloud, and as 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 146 Leicester. 
 
 I sat motionless frowning at my book, and 
 answered nothing to the questions Craven 
 asked me about the matter, was given the 
 lesson to write out twice ; and afterwards w^as 
 called up and spoken to on the subject, but 
 preserved complete silence, for what was the 
 good of telling a fool of this sort, who grew 
 furious over a false concord and preached 
 invertebrate sermons the truth ? I would 
 as soon have thought of telling him a lie ! 
 Well, I wrote out the lesson twice, and 
 there that part of the affair ended. 
 
 The Christmas holidays were an evil time. 
 I gave myself up to, as it were, an entirely 
 new consideration of affairs. A week's 
 close thought, out on my walks, in bed at 
 night, often till after twelve or one o'clock, 
 made me give up the Bible as a fairy tale. 
 Then came a fortnight or so of utter con- 
 fusion, inexplicable to myself: excitement 
 of body and soul, wild dreams, visions or 
 half - visions, a purgatory. Finally I 
 emerged with a certain calmness to wonder 
 at that time, wonder that it had belonged to
 
 Leicester. 147 
 
 me. It seemed so dimly far away now, and 
 as to some one else, and yet not to some 
 one else, and yet not to me. 
 
 The opening of the term wrought a 
 strange change. A new form of the thing 
 which had done duty to me as woman came 
 to me, producing an amount of longing for 
 her and her love that frequently found vent in 
 tears over pencilled poetry sheets. Then 
 Christ was introduced, as a sweet tender 
 friend who consoled me for her present 
 absence by telling me of her future coming. 
 But, after a time, this too passed, and I 
 returned to my old doubtful state, deciding 
 that happiness was undoubtedly the end of 
 life, and that happiness to me meant having 
 written certain quietly delightful books, 
 while I stayed alone apart in a dim place 
 that had little to do with life and nothing 
 with death. My old idea of greatness en 
 bloc was childish, absurd. My old trouble 
 about God and the world was useless, 
 absurd. My old ideas about everything were 
 extremely vague ! Happiness and selfishness 
 
 10—2
 
 148 Leicester. 
 
 are synoDymous terms. Everybody is selfish. 
 Good meo are good, because they couldn't 
 be happy bad. Bad men are bad because 
 they couldn't be happy good. Men who 
 are the most unselfish are the most selfish : 
 the very pain that their unselfishness causes 
 them is their pleasure. Therefore when I 
 intend to be happy I am simply intending 
 what everybody intends. It was surpris- 
 ing how calm I grew upon this and . other 
 thoughts ; how quietly assured of my unin- 
 terrupted course towards the cultured hap- 
 piness that I now looked upon as mine. 
 
 Some way on in February, one Saturday 
 afternoon just after dinner, to me, sitting 
 up in the bedroom looking through some 
 of the de Oratore for ' third lesson,' enter 
 Armstrong, who throws me a letter and exit. 
 I pick it up : recognise Colonel James' 
 handwriting : open it : read. He must 
 request my presence in London immediately 
 on important matters. I could apply to 
 Dr. Craven for the necessary funds. There 
 was a train arrived in London to-morrow
 
 Leicester. 140 
 
 about one. (Tlie letter was addressed from 
 a street adjoining Piccadilly. I forget its 
 name.) He hoped I should not be later 
 than that. He had something of the 
 greatest importance to communicate to me. 
 I must excuse a hastj^ letter, but the state 
 of his health at present made every unusual 
 effort very painful to him. 
 
 I, as in a sort of dream, went in to 
 Craven about it. 
 
 I came out from the short interview a 
 little puzzled. He had heard from Colonel 
 James, he said. He gave me enough for 
 my fare second-class to London and a few 
 shillings over. I might start when I liked. 
 I told him (I don't know why I told him. 
 I think it must have been the half dreami- 
 ness of it all that caused me so to break 
 from my usual custom of reserved silence) 
 that I thought I should take the early 
 morning train, as Colonel James had men- 
 tioned it as one that would do. 
 
 As I was dressing for tea, it suddenly 
 occurred to me that I had heard somewhere
 
 150 Leicester. 
 
 about a train which left Colchester about 
 six and got into London pretty late that 
 night. — Why not go by it ? As well as not. 
 
 When I had dressed I went into Mother 
 McCarthy's to see if she had a time-table. 
 She had. I found that there was a train 
 left Colchester at 5.55 or so, and got into 
 London at about eight. I looked at the 
 clock. It was twenty minutes to six now. 
 I would try it ! 
 
 I had bought a glazed black bag last 
 holidays, as being a useful sort of thing for 
 a peripatetic to have. I got a clean night- 
 gown, a clean shirt, a couple of collars, a 
 pair of socks, and some handkerchiefs out of 
 my linen locker : went back into my room : 
 fished the black bag from under my 
 bed : packed in the things I wanted : took 
 my great coat off the peg, and started 
 away. 
 
 I ran into the station at four or five 
 minutes after the train was due to start. I 
 had a sharp cut and run onto and down the 
 platform and got into an empty carriage
 
 Leicester, 151 
 
 just as the train moved off. The liveliness 
 of the whole affair delighted me. I felt 
 something like an excited child. 
 
 The journey did not seem long to me ; 
 for I slowly fell into a dim thought- world, 
 and only came out of it for a moment when 
 (about half way I think) a fat old gentleman 
 got in with a bulged old carpet-bag which 
 he put onto the seat beside him ; and then 
 took a newspaper from his inside breast- 
 pocket ; put on a pair of black horn pince- 
 nez and began to read. Just before London 
 they collected the tickets, and then I be- 
 came aware that I felt empty internally : of 
 course, I had had no tea. But I went back 
 into the old dim thought-world again, and 
 was not out of it when we glided down a 
 long gaslit platform and it was borne in to 
 me that we were in London. 
 
 I got into a hansom and gave Colonel 
 James's address to the driver. We drove 
 through many streets, mostly having little 
 traffic in them, till we drew up suddenly 
 before a house, above the door of which
 
 152 Leicester. 
 
 was an oblong of glass lit by a gas-lamp, 
 and in the middle, in black figures, 15 — 
 Colonel James's number. I got out, paid 
 the driver, and rang at the bell. The door 
 was opened almost immediately by a man 
 in evening dress with a napkin in his hand. 
 I asked did Colonel James live here ? He 
 said, Yes, he did. I said : 
 
 ' Can I see him ?' 
 
 The Curling wasn't very well this even- 
 ing, sir, he said. He was upstairs there 
 with his cawfee just now, sir. He (the 
 man in evening dress with a napkin) didn't 
 think he'd like to be disturbed. But I 
 might give him (the man) my card, sir, and 
 he'd (he, the man) take it up to him. 
 
 ' I have no card,' I said. ' My name is 
 Leicester. Will you tell Colonel James 
 that I came to-night, instead of to-morrow, 
 and want to know if I can see him ?' 
 
 The man_ turned and went slowly up the 
 first few staircase steps : then half-turned 
 and said : 
 
 ' Leicester was the name you said ?'
 
 Leicester. 153 
 
 ' Yes,' I said. ' Leicester.' 
 
 I leant against the glazed-paper wall, look- 
 ing at a large print of Wellington meeting 
 Blucher after Waterloo. A clock ticked in 
 an adjacent room. I heard the man from 
 the top of the stairs say : 
 
 ' Will you stop up, please ?' 
 
 I put bag and hat onto a dark-red maho- 
 gany chair by an umbrella stand, and went 
 up. The man ushered me in through an 
 open door to the right. I entered. 
 
 The first thing I saw was the part of a 
 large low red-clothed table under the light of 
 a red- shaded lamp : then, a rather thin old 
 gentleman standing on the right side of the 
 hearthrug with his back to the fire. He 
 raised his head. There was a light-flash on 
 his glasses. 
 
 He spoke. 
 
 * Mr. Leicester ?' he said. 
 
 * Yes, sir,' I answered. ' I am Bertram 
 Leicester.' 
 
 ' Ah yes — exactly so.' 
 
 He paused, looking aside. Then again
 
 .1 54 Leicester. 
 
 raised his head with the light-flash on his 
 glasses. 
 
 He spoke. 
 
 ' Will you please sit down,' he said. 
 ' Perhaps you would like to take your coat 
 off? It is very warm in here, I dare say — 
 after the street.' 
 
 I slowly took off my great-coat ; and then 
 sat down in a chair by the table facing him : 
 he remaining standing. 
 
 After a little : 
 
 ' You have rather taken me by surprise, 
 Mr. Leicester,' he said. 'I, ah, did not 
 expect you till to-morrow morning : as, ah, 
 you have said, as you have said. Did 
 Dr. Craven give you any information about 
 the, ah, reason for your journey ?' (Looking 
 up at me as before.) ' No ? he did not ? — 
 Very well. He acted wisely. I have 
 every possible reason to believe that Dr. 
 Craven is a man of distinguished, ah, fore- 
 thought.' 
 
 A pause. Then : 
 
 ' I have a very bad piece of news to give
 
 Leicester. 155 
 
 you, Mr. Leicester,' he continued. ' I, ah, 
 am much afraid — But I think that I had 
 better give it you at once, and without, ah, 
 preamble. Your father's small personal 
 fortune, amounting to, ah, from ,£120 to 
 X'130 a year, was invested in — ah, given up 
 to (I am not quite sure about the correct 
 expression ; but it is, ah, immaterial) — to a 
 bank in which he had every confidence. I, 
 ah, constantly, during his later years, did 
 my best to prevail upon him to — ah, make 
 some other investment with his money : as, 
 ah, I had myself seen a very sad — ah, inci- 
 dent in my own family in connection with 
 — banks. You may have heard that the 
 Great Southern Bank has recently, ah, 
 become insolvent, or whatever it is ? No ? 
 Well, ah, it is so ; and, ah, every hour is 
 bringing in worse information on the, ah, 
 matter. It is, you may perhaps see, Mr. 
 Leicester, quite impossible for j'ou to con- 
 tinue your career at — Colchester. Every 
 penny of your father's money has — gone. 
 I, ah, have, I am glad to say, absolutely
 
 156 -Leicester. 
 
 nothing to — to do with it myself personally. 
 , . . Have you any, ah, designs yourself 
 as to a future, ah, career ?' 
 
 I put my hand to my mouth, looking 
 steadily at him. He looked aside and back 
 again, as before : 
 
 ' — I am not to return to Colchester ?' I 
 asked. 
 
 ' Ah, surely not.' 
 
 I spoke rather to myself than to him : 
 
 ' Not to work any more ? Not to be able 
 to read my books ? Not to learn ? — Why, 
 it is ridiculous ! All my books are at Col- 
 chester : with all the notes I have taken 
 such trouble to write out — and I here. . . . 
 What must I do ?' 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 I rose, and said r 
 
 ' I can only think of one thing, sir. I 
 have, I believe, some brains, and, I believe, 
 of that sort which can be turned to some 
 use. I have for long desired to write. If 
 I only had time, I am confident that I could 
 make my livelihood '
 
 Leicester. 157 
 
 * Good heavens, sir!' he exclaimed. ' You 
 are not thinking of becoming a — a writer. — 
 Ah. Why, it is, ah, another word for star- 
 vation.' 
 
 ' Men have made their fortune with 
 nothing but their pens to help them 
 before now, sir,' I said. ' And I am not 
 afraid.' 
 
 I noticed a thick blue vein swelling out 
 on his forehead. He threw up his hands, 
 and exclaimed vehemently : 
 
 ' It is madness, madness, sheer, ah, in- 
 sanity. I will not hear of it. I will give 
 you no help !' (He seemed suddenly to 
 collapse.) ' You must go away. I must 
 ring for Salmon, to show you out. You 
 must go away. You are agitating me — 
 dreadfully. I am not to be agitated. 
 Doctor x\stley says so. I am not to be 
 agitated.' 
 
 At first I was startled : then amused : 
 then saddened : last angered, by this unex- 
 pected outburst. I moved a step nearer to 
 him. He looked at me for a moment, and
 
 168 Leicester. 
 
 then dropped into the arm-chair by him to 
 the right of the fire. 
 
 ' 0, don't touch me !' he cried; ' Don't 
 look at me like that ! I will not have it ! 
 I will not endure it ! Salmon, Salmon, 
 take him away. He agitates me. . . . Please 
 go away, sir. I am dreadfully agitated.' (I 
 was looking at him frowning. He cried out, 
 almost in a scream) — ' For God's sake, don't 
 look at me like that ! My God, my God, 
 my God ! Just the way she used to look.' 
 (Then he suddenly started up, exclaiming) 
 — ' I say I won't endure it ! Do you hear ? 
 I won't endure it. Don't act at me, sir ! I 
 know it's in your blood, but, if you think 
 you're going to browbeat me, you're mis- 
 taken !' (Then he began to fail.) ' Salmon, 
 he is going to act at me. No, no — you're 
 not as careful of me as Edgar used to be. 
 Why did I ever let him go '? Why did I 
 ever let him go ?' (Ending in a wail.) 
 
 I began to grow a little weary of it, and 
 looked aside. He went on maundering 
 about her having killed him, j^es, killed
 
 Leicester. 159 
 
 him ; and other things. At last came a 
 pause. I determined to go : then thought 
 of some questions I would care to ask him. 
 I said : 
 
 * I cannot understand, sir, why you have 
 spoken to me like this. I know nothing of 
 my father or my mother. You say you w^ere 
 my father's friend ' 
 
 ' So I was,' he wailed. ' So I was, till 
 she came between us.' 
 
 I gave my teeth an impatient gnash : 
 then bit my lip and clenched my right 
 hand with all my strength, determined not 
 to say what w^as now on my tongue. 
 "What good could it do ? 
 
 I said : 
 
 * I have nothing left then ? Absolutely 
 nothing ?' 
 
 He stared at me half vacantly . 
 
 * Absolutely nothing,' he repeated. 
 
 A new resolution came to me : to leave 
 the questions unasked and go — go at once. 
 
 * Good-night, sir,' I said. ' I will leave 
 you now.'
 
 160 Leicester. 
 
 He stared at me as before. 
 
 ' You are not, ah, going ?' he said. 
 
 ' Yes, sir, I am going,' I said. ' Good- 
 night.' 
 
 As I was turning away he started up 
 convulsively and burst out : 
 
 ' But it is insanity ! I will not hear of 
 it ! I will not endure it ! I am your guar- 
 dian. Do you hear, sir, that I am your 
 guardian ? Salmon ! Damn the man t 
 Salmon, I say ! ■' 
 
 I was out of the door and closed it to. I 
 could hear his voice now wailing as I went 
 to the head of the stairs. Then it died 
 away. I found my bag and hat in the hall. 
 My coat was over my arm : I do not re- 
 member either having taken it up or put it 
 there. I went on to the hall-door : opened 
 it, after a little trouble with the latch : went 
 out : pulled it to, by its big round brass 
 handle in the middle, once, twice. Then 
 was over the step and onto the pavement. 
 It was raining. 
 
 I walked on into a main street, and then,
 
 Leicester. 161 
 
 turning to the right, walked on clown it. 
 The perpetual movement of people and 
 horses and things about me brought a 
 feeling into me that I had never felt before. 
 I forgot about myself and my own affairs 
 and my hunger in considering them all. So 
 I went on, till 1 came to a corner where the 
 main street ended. There I somewhat me- 
 chanically crossed. As I reached the pave- 
 ment of the other side, I heard a man call 
 out twice : ' Kil-burn ! Kil-burn !' and 
 looked at him standing, keeping on by a 
 strap with one hand and holding out the 
 other, on an omnibus perch : 
 
 ' Kilburn,' I thought, ' is the farthest 
 place he goes to. Probably, then, it's a 
 suburb. I may as well go there as any- 
 where, for what I intend to do. At any rate, 
 we'll see.' 
 
 And with that went straight to the 
 omnibus step and clambered up by the 
 ladder onto the top, where I saw a man 
 sitting on another omnibus that just then 
 passed by. Up, I laid the bag down and 
 
 VOL. I. 11
 
 162 Leicester. 
 
 put on my coat : when the conductor 
 crossed to by my side, and began removing 
 the tarpauhn from the seat. I thanked 
 him and sat down with the bag beside 
 me, and took to half-absently looking at 
 the people passing in and out of the light 
 from the shop windows as we drove on. 
 "VVe drove on for some time. 
 
 At last we turned into a long straight 
 rather dark street. As we were some way 
 up it, I noticed what seemed some torches 
 or something of the sort flaring by the 
 right side, at the top, just above where it 
 bifurcated. I determined to get down 
 there. 
 
 We stopped on the left side just below 
 them. I let myself down with my bag in 
 my teeth, and paid the conductor my fare : 
 2d. or 3d., I forget which. Then I turned 
 from him ; crossed the street : and saun- 
 tered along looking at the stalls. There 
 were not many people along the pavement: 
 the hawkers cried their cries rather plain- 
 tively : one old man, sitting in front of an
 
 Leicester. 163 
 
 oven with a small steam-jet, cried out 
 every now and then sharply : * Ot ! Ot !' 
 
 It was still raining and it seemed colder. 
 I sauntered on. A tall girl, wdth a singu- 
 larly well-made body and well-poised head, 
 moved with a long swinging step in front 
 of me. She stopped in a moment, to buy 
 some nuts, and I saw her face. It was 
 pleasant to look at it : so pure and clear- 
 cut, with crystal eyes and red rarified lips 
 and large row of white teeth. I followed 
 her slowly, thinking of her dear face : I 
 felt sure she would kiss and love me if she 
 knew me. 
 
 She stopped to listen to a man who 
 was addressing a few shivering children 
 whose faces formed a line along the far 
 side of his stall. I went up to close by 
 her and looked at her. She was eating 
 nuts, and every now^ and then let the 
 shell-bits fall out of her mouth down her 
 coat to the ground. At last she turned 
 her eyes to mine : then exclaimed in a 
 half- whisper : 
 
 11—2
 
 164 Leicester. 
 
 ' Oh my ! I hope you'll know me next 
 tmie you see me, young man.' 
 
 I turned away and crossed the road. 
 I faced a pawnbroker's. An idea came to 
 me. I went in, into a dusky clothes- 
 hung place where a man was sprawling 
 under a large gas-jet over the counter, 
 with a cigar in his mouth. I said : 
 
 ' I want to sell this great coat. What 
 will you give me for it ?' 
 
 ' Let's see it, sir,' he said. 
 
 I took it off. 
 
 In the end he gave me fifteen shillings 
 for it. 
 
 I went out and counted my money 
 before the next, a jeweller's, window. I 
 had one shilling and seven pence half- 
 penny in my pocket. That left me four- 
 teen shillings and ninepence for myself; 
 for I owed Colonel James threepence for 
 my omnibus fare. This and the other he 
 should have at once. Some day (I hoped 
 soon) he should have to the last farthing I 
 owed him. I turned away, putting his
 
 Leicester, 165 
 
 money into one trouser pocket and mine 
 into the other, and went on for a little, 
 thinking, till, feeling the rain and the air 
 colder, and under an impulse, turning up 
 my coat-collar, re-crossed the road and 
 Avandered on. I 'did not notice particu- 
 larly where I went (I was deep in thought 
 now), only that I turned down the nar- 
 rowest streets I happened to see. 
 
 All at once my eye was caught by a 
 card in a small window I was passing. 
 I stopped to look at it. The window, or 
 rather, a linen blind, was lit-up from with- 
 in, the card marking a small oblong on 
 the ledge of one of the upper panes. I 
 looked closer, to read the actual letters : 
 Apartments. 
 
 I, not seeing either bell or knocker, 
 knocked at the door with my knuckles. 
 
 An old woman holding up a guttering 
 candle half-opened the door. I said : 
 
 ' Do you let apartments ?' 
 
 ' I've a room. Yes.' 
 
 ' How much is it a week ?'
 
 166 Leicester. 
 
 ' Five shillings a week, sir.' 
 
 ' Oh.' 
 
 A pause. I half turned my body : 
 
 * • — But I think I could take four, sir, 
 perhaps ?' 
 
 ' Will you let me see tt ?' 
 
 ' Please step upstairs, sir. — Mind the 
 wall, sir, it comes off.' 
 
 I followed her upstairs. 
 
 I took the room, and paid for two 
 weeks in advance. 
 
 The furniture was a bed, a washing- 
 stand, a table, a chair, and two ragged 
 scraps of carpet : one under the table, one 
 by tha side of the bed. There was a 
 looking-glass over the chimney-piece, and 
 three photographs in faded violet frames, 
 worn out : Napoleon III., the Empress 
 Eugenie, and the Prince Imperial as a 
 boy. A gas-jet was turned full on. 
 
 I bolted the door, and began pulling off 
 my coat, when I felt emptiness inside me. 
 Then I sat down on the unsteady chair, 
 and began thinking about what had oc-
 
 Leicester. 167 
 
 curred to me to-day ; but I soon gave it 
 up. 
 
 I got up again and, for a moment, 
 stood irresolute whether to go out and 
 get some food, bread, or to ask this woman 
 Smith for some, or to get into bed without 
 any. At last [ thought I would get into 
 bed and fall asleep. Sleep, quiet cool 
 sleep, would calm and refresh me. 
 
 I threw my waistcoat onto the top of 
 the coat, and then stood irresolute again, 
 stretching my arms up and down. Then 
 an impulse came to me. I fell down onto 
 my knees and, leaning my arms on the 
 bed, leant my head on my arms. I began 
 in a half whisper : 
 
 ' If there he a God ' 
 
 After a pause, of thought almost as much 
 as of words, I said : 
 
 ' I ask You, God, if You are, to have pity 
 on me if I am blindly wandering, and to 
 lead me to know You some day before I die, 
 so that Your Truth be the jewel to the 
 setting of the Truth that I would have my
 
 168 Leicester. 
 
 life to be. I don't know how I am going, but 
 I know where I desire to go : and yet I don't 
 know more than that it is somewhere. This 
 earth is a strange earth, by reason of the 
 strangeness of its inhabitants. If there 
 were no living thing in it except myself . . .' 
 (I left the thought). ' But now I am going 
 to strive to make money, in order that I 
 may live the life that I want to live, and I 
 don't see why I shouldn't succeed.' Then 
 the feeling of light and shadow, dream and 
 reality, an eclipsed sun and moon, came to 
 me so strongly that I got up again, slowly, 
 with the intention of saying no more prayers 
 that night. The things around me now 
 were all in a sort of noise above my ears. 
 I stepped to and turned out the gas : and 
 then slowly undressed, in the dark save for 
 the light that came from a gas-lamp in the 
 street, through the far window. 
 
 I pulled down the upper-clothes, got into 
 bed, sank into enclosing coolness, and very 
 soon sleep.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 When I first woke up, I thonght I was 
 back in my room at Colchester : then re- 
 calletl, but slowly, all that had happened 
 the daj^ before. — That next day awakening 
 was a dreary thing : everything that I had 
 done seemed so purposeless ! I was a con- 
 ceited fool : or at best a dim-eyed far-away 
 dreamer. It would be better to marry a 
 red-cheeked woman, with untidy gold hair 
 and a brown homely dress, and smoke a 
 pipe in the sun all day while she brushed 
 out the house. The picture I conjured up 
 made me laugh out loud. I leaped out of 
 bed : an impatient cry killing a yawn. — 
 The sun was shining. 
 
 I went to the other far window, pulled
 
 170 Leicester. 
 
 down the upper part and looked out. The 
 air clear and rather sharp, but not cold : 
 as something almost corporal, to my in- 
 haling lungs. I had no watch. It was 
 about half-past seven or eight, I thought. 
 A man came with sounding steps down the 
 street and passed invisibly below me. I 
 pulled up the window again, stripped, and 
 prepared to wash. Such a little jug and 
 such a little basin ! And no sponge. What 
 •was I to do without a sponge ? 
 
 I made the best of it : dried myself on 
 a flabby towel : and began to dress. 
 Dressed quickly, and then, taking up my 
 hat, went slowly downstairs. 
 
 At the house door, I met Mrs. Smith 
 coming out of the room on the left, where 
 I had seen the card. I said ' Good morn- 
 ing,' and she said ' Good morning, sir,' and 
 I asked if there was a park anywhere near ? 
 She told me that it was about ten minutes' 
 sharp walk to the Kegent's Park, and gave me 
 some directions. I bought a half-pound of 
 dates and a large brown loaf at a shop close
 
 Leicester. 171 
 
 by, and with these under my arm, asked my 
 way, which was a very simple one, to the 
 Regent's Park : passed out of a somewhat 
 dirty road, through the gates, and so over 
 the two bridges into the Park itself. I 
 sauntered along the side of the lake, look- 
 ing at the swpns and ducks. 
 
 It was a glorious morning. The sun 
 breathed a gentle heat upon me, and warmed 
 me gratefully. The dew was still on the 
 grass : a few people hurried across by the 
 pathways ; every now and then a duck 
 whirred through the air. At last I reached 
 another bridge, went onto it, and stood and 
 watched a flight of birds bathing them- 
 selves wantonly in the shallows of a small 
 bay on the far shore : 
 
 ' It is very beautiful,' I said. 
 
 I ate my dates and loaf on a seat behind, 
 or rather beside, a tree on an elevation that 
 runs up there and along parallel to the 
 curve of the lake. The loaf was of good 
 thick crummy bread, and satisfied without 
 satiating me ; the dates, a half-pound, 4d.,
 
 172 Leicester. 
 
 gave the bread a flavour. The only thing 
 that seemed lacking was a crystal stream 
 from which I might drink a pure cool 
 draught. But, my breakfast done, I rose 
 almost readily, and went back again to the 
 bridge that leads to the gates. For, the 
 fight is begun and loitering looks like lag- 
 gardness. 
 
 Being, a little doubtful about my way 
 home, however simple, I was pleased to 
 find that I had remembered it aright. 
 Finding myself in the road that led to m.y 
 Maitland Street and opposite a small news- 
 paper-stationer's, I went in and invested in 
 a pen, nibs, ink and paper. These were 
 my weapons. Then proceeded on home : 
 went upstairs : found my bed already made 
 (which was pleasing) : put my weapons ou 
 the table, myself into the chair and, tilted 
 back, began to consider. 
 
 I had seen somewhere or other that 
 Byron received ^500 or so for his shorter 
 pieces, ' The Bride of Abydos,' ' Giaour,' 
 etc. ' There is, then, surely a good chance
 
 Leicester. 173 
 
 of my getting at least ^10, or perliaps ^620 
 if my book sells well, for two pieces each 
 of (say) 600 Hues long !' On that I could 
 subsist for a long time, and a long time 
 means more poems and more money. ' You 
 see, if you only live as economically as I 
 am going to. . . Well, many things may 
 be done.' 
 
 After a little thought, preliminary, round- 
 about, I came to this : I had had these 
 almost two j-ears two tales in my head : 
 that is, connected narratives with a definite 
 beginning and end ; a story, a fact : not 
 the embodiment of a passing humour that, 
 I thought, being exalted, has to be climbed 
 up to, but a narrative, to be clothed in the 
 best clothes I could put on it, and then sent 
 on a journey with the reader to amuse and 
 try to instruct him, if only in a lesson of 
 pathos, on the road. — I at once set upon 
 the first of my ' tales.' 
 
 By the time it grew dusk, I had finished 
 over two hundred lines of it. I was not at 
 all satisfied. I had not, I thought, twined
 
 174 Leicester. 
 
 the melody of the rhythm enough into the 
 sense : that is, had lost some of the scent, 
 in transplanting my flower. I was afraid 
 of becoming a mere painter, and losing the 
 scent altogether. Still, I thought, the less 
 subtle I try to be, the more likely am I to 
 please those who are likely to read this 
 stuff of mine. One must live prose, before 
 one lives poetry ; prose is paying for your 
 cake, and poetry is eating it. Get some- 
 thing to support your body first : the body 
 is the keystone. It is no good having your 
 brain full and jowc belly empty, for at that 
 rate you soon die, and then you look 
 foolish. 
 
 For all such thoughts, I was a little 
 ashamed of what I had done. My muse 
 had not moved me : she dwelt but in the 
 suburbs of my good pleasure. ' Well, well, 
 it cannot be helped.' — So I left her there, 
 and went out into the streets. 
 
 I wandered far that night. At last to the 
 Serpentine, where I stood, some little time, 
 trying to explain the lamp reflections across
 
 Leicester. 175 
 
 the water, two together : large space : two 
 together. Then I must have gone down 
 Piccaclilly, and through Leicester Square : 
 then into the Strand, I think, and so down 
 by Charing Cross station ; for I went under 
 a bridge, and ended on the Embankment. 
 
 I came home with an ' aerial breathless- 
 ness ' upon me : sat down to my poem and 
 finished it. It had indeed moved me this 
 time : two tears had fallen from my eyes. 
 But, what I had heard called ' mysticism ' 
 hj some people (meaning, as I supposed, 
 that it seemed so to them) had run riot ; 
 and I knew that I had not written what 
 I meant to write. — I lost patience. It 
 seemed very hard, that I should not be 
 allowed to try to do my best. I thought, 
 not unbitterly, of the thousands of silly 
 men and women, w^ho squandered on luxury 
 for mere luxury's sake, or hoarded for mere 
 hoarding's sake, that which would enable 
 me . . . Then it struck me that sometimes 
 men starved. — The thought seemed like a 
 being of darkness. I looked up sharply,
 
 176 Leicester. 
 
 almost hearing a sort of clang of the de- 
 parting wings of the being of darkness. 
 There was so much that was dreamy and 
 unreal in all this ! Up arose a circling 
 black cloud, from the outer dark-smokiness 
 of which many many ej^es looked at me, 
 the eyes of the many many men who had 
 struggled and perished. I looked up sharply 
 again, almost hearing my own thought's 
 words, ' Ay, hut great men never struggled and 
 perished: they always struggle and unn.' But 
 still that circling black cloud stayed, with 
 the many many eyes looking at me from the 
 outer dark-smokiness, the eyes of the many 
 many men who had struggled and perished. 
 
 For four days I worked at my ' poems ;' 
 finished them and, sauntering out that night, 
 looked into a newspaper-shop's wdndow by 
 chance, and there noted a publisher's name 
 and address on a board below, and sent him 
 the poems next day. I had said nothing 
 more to him than that I begged to submit 
 them for his inspection, enclosing stamp for
 
 Leicester. 177 
 
 their return in case of rejection. I was 
 sure that he would take them. 
 
 I spent most of my time in my room : 
 either writing more poetry, or reading and 
 studying a Shakspere, which I had bought 
 for a few pence in the Edgware Eoad 
 market one Saturday night from an amusing 
 man who was selHng off a cartload of books 
 to the stolid people as he best could. But, 
 generally in the late afternoon I went out 
 for a walk into the Regent's Park, feeling as 
 if I were away from the streets and the life- 
 worn people there. Many happy hours 
 were spent by me wandering whistling over 
 the middle grass plateau (it seemed to 
 me like a plateau somehow), thinking of 
 my work and, sometimes, of the dear 
 woman to whom some day I should tell all 
 of this ; for she had come back to me now, 
 and not quite what she had ever been before, 
 more real because more gentle, more 
 loving, more true, knowing what was in my 
 heart and soul and having much in her own 
 heart and soul that mine would be glad to 
 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 178 Leicester, 
 
 know of. Often I watched the sun setting 
 in the cloud banks, and once saw him in 
 the dim dapper sky-layer a bloody spider- 
 round, gradually covered with a sort of 
 dusty smokiness and darkened till he was 
 wrapped invisible in clouds of dead slate. 
 
 All the time I lived on bread, with an 
 occasional relish of fruit or a glass of 
 milk. 
 
 I soon learnt my way about, at anj'- rate 
 in one great block that was between 
 Kegent's Park and the Thames by Charing 
 Cross. I was very fond of wandering by 
 night : especially to the top of Primrose 
 Hill, tx) look out over the great city, and 
 the rings of light closer to, as in a vestibule- 
 court of an almost boundless palace build- 
 ing : especially, too, in the populous streets 
 like Oxford Street and the Strand. 
 
 One night I had wandered along Oxford 
 Street past the Circus, and then turned down 
 on the right into the block of buildings that 
 is between Seven Dials and Eegent's Street : 
 had wandered on and on, till I found myself
 
 Leicester. 179 
 
 in dim streets, in which every now and then 
 shadows as of women moved with a certain 
 inspiration to me of fear. I passed close 
 to some of them, drawn as by some latent 
 power of fascination on the ground, and in 
 them, but not looking at their faces : till 
 at last, passing somewhat quickly into an 
 alley, I met one face to face under a pro- 
 truding shadowed lamp. For a moment I 
 stood breathless with my eyes in the 
 wolfishness and glitter of hers, and then, 
 like a lightning flash that fills the whole 
 air, terror of her filled me quite. I leaped 
 aside and then past her, plunged into a 
 dark-covered way that was behind and be- 
 yond her and hurried on, past two silver- 
 ornamented women who stood laughing and 
 talking at a corner shop-door, out into a 
 city street again, not streets of this city of 
 shadowedness ! But the impression of that 
 place, its shadowed air, its shadowed women, 
 and the wolfishness and glitter of their 
 eyes, was upon me all that night, turning 
 even my sleep into a nightmare. It was 
 
 12—2
 
 180 Leicester. 
 
 several days before that impression left 
 me. 
 
 It was about then that a vague fear 
 came to me that I had caught some fever. 
 My hands were so hot at nights, and cheeks 
 and ears. I grew so impatient too. One 
 evening I tilted over the table : and the 
 ink-bottle was in the middle of my scattered 
 blacked sheets on the floor, and I was al- 
 most crying, and had scarcely heart to pick 
 the things up again. 
 
 It was that evening that an idea came 
 over me that I would go down to Norfolk 
 Square and see the house in which Clayton 
 lived. -I rose from the table where I had 
 been reading with the light of a coffin- 
 wicked dip-candle, took up my hat, and set 
 out. It was a long walk. At last I entered 
 Norfolk Square : a long dark oblong, with a 
 long thin-railed garden in the middle. And, 
 when I found out No. 21, I found out a 
 lampless eyeless house, up from the area 
 rails of which protruded a black To Let 
 board. In a few moments, standing, I
 
 Leicester. 181 
 
 realized this : and turned away sad at 
 heart. I was quite alone in this city, this 
 London, and, if I were to lie down there in 
 the hollow under the garden rails, and sleep, 
 and never wake again, there would be no 
 one, not a man, not a woman, not a child 
 who ... I ga^^e up the old thought as I 
 began walking. I had never realized that 
 I was quite alone here before this. The 
 realization seemed to deaden the soul in me. 
 My later weary wandering of that night 
 saw nothing of what was around me : I 
 reached home somehow, and bed, and 
 sleep. 
 
 The next morning I went for a long walk 
 out to Hendon, and when I got there, lying 
 on the grass, felt too languid to move : till 
 at last, summoned enough resolution to set 
 off home again. It was two when I got 
 there, hungry and yet not hungry, thirsty 
 and yet not thirsty, hot and yet not hot. 
 I sat down, lounged over the table, and 
 began to read at the opened Shakspere. 
 I read on till it grew a little dusk. All at
 
 182 Leicester. 
 
 once a few of the letters seemed to disap- 
 pear or to have disappeared. I strained my 
 eyes. More went. I peered closer. Two 
 outer circles almost invisible were out-turn- 
 ing on either side of my sight. In a little I 
 could make out nothing but a blurred mass 
 where the two small printed pages had 
 been. I closed them to. Then leant my 
 face in my arms over the table and closed 
 my eyes ; but the two outer circles almost 
 invisible still were out -turning on either 
 side of my now sightlessness. I felt dimly 
 that I had made that movement somewhere 
 before : perhaps in a dream ? No, it was 
 not in a dream. I remember now. It was 
 once when a poor lonely boy (and that is 
 why it may have seemed at first like a 
 dream to me) went to the bench and, half 
 upon it, leant his face in his arms on the 
 cool table-cover . . . And could not weep 
 tears : the tears were dried behind the eyes. 
 I started up impatiently. I was crying, 
 my hands were all wet with my tears. I 
 stamped my foot. This was all accursed
 
 Leicester. 183 
 
 folly ! Hj^steria : like a woman ! What 
 the devil was the matter with me ? Was I 
 ill ? Or going to be ill ? Or what ? . . . 
 I was tired. That was all. It was nothing 
 more. — But my eyes ! . . . God, if I 
 break down ! ' Nay !' I cried aloud, smiling 
 through my tears. ' I'm the boy who says 
 there is no God. " The fool hath said in 
 
 his heart " Cha ! That's David's 
 
 opinion. If ever I write Psalms, I'll put 
 it the other way on. David was the man 
 who never saw the righteous deserted and 
 the righteous man begging his bread. 
 There's inspiration for you ! You blind old 
 driveller you ! into the ditch, I say ! 
 There'll be plenty of your tribe to follow.' 
 I smiled again, but differently : 
 
 ' Still Kebes : always hunting out some- 
 thing.' 
 
 I had waited for thirteen days now. 
 Would the man never write to me ? 
 
 It happened that, the afternoon after I 
 had the affair with the eyes, coming home
 
 1 84 Leicester. 
 
 from Hamp stead Heath by the Grove End 
 Eoad with my eyes as usual on the ground, 
 I saw what looked like a small part of a 
 large silver coin in a heap of dust by a 
 lamp-post. I stopped, bent, stretched 
 down my hand and found a two-shilling 
 piece. I looked up. I could see no one 
 in the road : no one behind me. I might 
 take it then ; for how could I possibly find 
 its owner ? And to have found it, I, who 
 had never found anything in my life before ! 
 It seemed quite strange. — I had three shil- 
 lings now. That meant another fortnight. 
 On the force of it, I got a glass of milk, 
 as I went down the Edgware Road. 
 
 I. came home almost buoyant, and 
 was up the two first steps when I knew 
 some one was descending. I drew down 
 and back. It was a petticoated being : a 
 girl, I saw, but of what sort, the dark of 
 the place and the duskiness of the hour 
 combined to hide. Anyhow, she said 
 * Thank you,' and went on : and I up and, 
 as I went to my door, I thought that the
 
 Leicester. 185 
 
 one on the left must be hers ; but perhaps 
 she slept up in the attics like a claj^-homed 
 swallow ? Then I remembered to have 
 heard muffled stirring in that room by 
 mine, and concluded it must indeed be 
 hers : and proceeded to forget all about the 
 matter. 
 
 That almost buoyant humour was evan- 
 escent. I had scarcely sat down and begun 
 to think a little, before I grew aware that 
 my foot hurt me, my left foot. Then, in 
 an odd sort of way, I took off my boot and 
 sock and examined the naked foot : a dirty 
 foot, and with the skin rubbed off at the 
 top of the heel, which was rather inflamed. 
 The thought of a sore heel was unpleasant 
 to me. I put on sock and boot again, and 
 took to Shakspere with the coffin-wicked 
 dip, till it came to an end and I, tired 
 enough, into bed, and sleep. But what a 
 sleep ! A submarine place in which all 
 kinds of shadowy cool horrors were done 
 and no one disconcerted but I, who finallj^ 
 swooned in the cold soft embrace of a
 
 186 Leicester. 
 
 ton of some irresponsible jellied thing or 
 other. 
 
 The next day was chilly and rainy. I 
 set out for a walk to Hampstead ; for I 
 must, I felt, take exercise to keep ' break- 
 down' at a fit distance. I had some trouble 
 with my foot till, at last, by the time I was 
 three-quarters there, economical pain-shirk- 
 ing foot positions had made every step pain- 
 ful. None the less I was determined to get 
 as far as the Hampstead Pond. It began 
 to drizzle. I toiled on. I found once 
 that deep thoughts made me forget the pain 
 of movement : so I kept trying this plan, 
 with short-timed success, till (now a quarter 
 way back again, and the rain thicker) a 
 desperate attempt to separate body and soul 
 by resolution proved fruitless. Then an 
 utter despair came upon me. I stood still. 
 It was at a corner in front of the rails of 
 the dingy garden of a lampless house. I 
 could have sunk down upon the shining 
 pavement there, covered my face with my 
 arms, and sobbed myself like a tired child
 
 Leicester. 187 
 
 to sleep, but a sleep that should know no 
 waking, no waking to misery and despair 1 
 At that moment a light leaped up and out 
 from the big window on the left of the door. 
 I saw it, but did not move. Then I leant 
 against the nearer cemented gate-post in 
 that dreary rain of half-darkness, and my 
 body seemed all bloodless. And a girl, 
 with her dress huddled up all round her 
 and an umbrella spread over her, came 
 hurrying to me. I looked at her slowly. 
 Just by me she gave me a quick glance, 
 and hurried more. The devil rose in me. 
 I made a short half-step after her. I would 
 seize her, tear that thing from her hand, 
 rip and rend her laced clothes : rip and 
 rend them off her, till she stood tattered 
 — naked, there in the rain of the half- 
 darkness with me. And all I would desire 
 more, would be to take mud and bespatter 
 and befoul her, and then turn and go on 
 my way with laughter. The thoughts were 
 lightning swift. I gave a cry of fierce - 
 suppressed delight : stepped : and halted.
 
 188 Leicester. 
 
 Was I mad? I turned, and went back, 
 and on. 
 
 When I got back I set upon a poem by 
 the hght of a new dip. If I had had to 
 die for it, alone and in the early grey 
 morning, I could not have kept out my 
 mysticism now. I must speak to some one 
 now ! It could not ahvays be silence ! I 
 had need to speak to some one. I thought 
 my heart was breaking. And I could not 
 fall asleep till I had told my soft death- 
 tale. 
 
 But I was too weary to finish it. I 
 gave it up at last. I was in an evil plight, 
 I knew : burning and shivering and with 
 an empty stomach. I undressed slowly, 
 as usual, in the dark, save for the light 
 that came from the gas-lamp in the street 
 through the far-window. As I got into 
 bed I determined that the next day I would 
 seek some work, even manual ; for I did not, 
 after all, care to die till I had heard about 
 my stuff (It was very ridiculous ! I smiled, 
 but in a strange tearful way), and I should
 
 Leicester. 189 
 
 have to pay four shillings at the end of the 
 week, rent, and I had only three left for 
 food. ' Wherefore, work must be done if 
 money is to be earned : even manual, and 
 why not ?' At last I fell asleep. 
 
 But in the morning I lay in a half- 
 dreamy, half exhausted state of heat, from 
 which I had not will enough for long to 
 rouse myself. This grew into a dull lan- 
 guorous heaty lethargy, not unsweet, and 
 in my veiy bones, making me altogether in- 
 different to everj'thing save a sort of dull 
 hunger, which at last drove me out of bed 
 to the table for the half-pound of dates and 
 the loaf I had bought last afternoon : got 
 them into my hands for me ; and then I 
 was back in bed again, and, I suppose, ate 
 them ; for when I awoke and it was evening, 
 the gas-lamp lighting up a part of the far 
 end of the room, and I flushed, with the 
 dull hunger still in me, I soon became 
 aware of many troublous crumbs in the 
 sheets and some date-stones, but of neither 
 bread nor dates. In a little I got up, and
 
 190 Leicester. 
 
 washed and dressed slowly and listlessly, 
 with the dull hunger ever in me. Now I 
 would go out, I thought. I went to the 
 door, opened it, and heard a voice say : 
 
 'Well, I can't help it, you must go!' 
 It was Mrs. Smith's voice, harder and drier 
 than usual. 
 
 Another answered some soft words. I 
 leant against the door-post, rather exhausted, 
 scarcely knowing why I stayed there. 
 A pause. Then — 
 
 ' You know it's the second week owing,' 
 pursued Mrs. Smith. ' I can't do it any 
 more, and what's more, I won't ! So there ! 
 . . . You must give me something, or you 
 must go, that's all.' 
 
 ' I've only got a shilling,' said the other 
 voice softly. ' I gave it you. Won't you 
 wait till the end of the week, Mrs. Smith ? 
 I shall have my wages then ?' 
 
 ' You said that last week. No, not 
 I ! Tick's not nat'ral to me, I say. I'm a 
 lone widdy woman, I am, but I pays my 
 way, and why don't everyone, I want to
 
 Leicester. 191 
 
 know ? . . . Why didn't you pay me last 
 week, then ?' 
 
 ' I was ill. I had to pay for the me- 
 dicine.' 
 
 * Drat the medicine ! You shouldn't be 
 ill. . . . Come now, what are you going to 
 do ? Look sharp. Don't go and he blub- 
 bering now. It's no go with me, young 
 woman — that.' 
 
 Another pause. 
 
 ' I have never blubbered to you, Mrs. 
 Smith. I asked you to wait a bit, that's 
 all. I'm down on my luck, that's what I 
 am. A lady took a piece of work I did out 
 of hours, a week ago ; but she won't pay 
 me for it till the end of the month, she 
 
 * my eye, that's likely, ain't it now T 
 It's all fudge — that's what it is ! — Either 
 you pay me to-night or you go. So there, 
 plain and straight ! I've got to live like 
 the rest of you, I suppose ? Will you give 
 it me now ? Four shillings I must have, 
 and I ivill have ; what's more, let me tell
 
 192 Leicester. 
 
 you, I'm reg'lar hard up, that's what I 
 am . . . You've given me one shilling of 
 it already, you know. Now come ! give 
 us the rest, and I'll let you go on tick for 
 the other week till Saturday.' 
 
 Another pause. 
 
 ' — You know you can get it, if you like, 
 you know well you can.' Mrs. Smith's 
 voice was soft now, but hoarsely. 
 
 ' I can't ! How can I ? Or else I would 
 give it you.' 
 
 ' you can — if you like.' 
 
 ' HoiD can I ?' 
 
 ' Oh, come ! You know well enough. . . 
 You ain'i so bad looking as all that.' 
 
 I put my hands behind me ; my fingers 
 scraped lightly on the wood and paper. 
 My breath went from me, and I groaned. 
 I was trembling all over. I did not know 
 whether to cry out, or, keeping silence to 
 see what would be the end. 
 
 I waited — the blood pulsing through my 
 head, and whirring in my ears, till I was 
 nigh blinded and deafened.
 
 Leicester. 193 
 
 It seemed to me that it was half an hour 
 before either of them spoke again. 
 
 Then Mrs. Smith said ; 
 
 ' Come along now ! don't stand there 
 staring out of the window like that. Either 
 you will or you won't. — Oh, very well then. 
 You won't. V-e-r-y well ! out — you — go ! 
 out, you, go, I say. I shan't let you take 
 your things, mind. I should think not, you 
 idle hussyyou : that's what you are! a-comin' 
 and cheatin' a lone widy woman, what pa5''S 
 her way, too ; a-cheatin' of her out of her 
 the bread she puts in her mouth. For shame ! 
 . . . Precious fine things they are, too. 
 I shall get a bob for them, I warrant, or for 
 ten lots of them, it's likely.' 
 
 A pause. 
 
 ' do wait, do wait, Mrs. Smith,' pleaded 
 the other. ' I really will pay you on Satur- 
 day night. I will really. I've been ill. I 
 will ' 
 
 Her voice maddened me, I pulled to 
 my door somehow and threw myself on to 
 my bed, shivering and clutching myself, 
 
 VOL. I. 13
 
 J 94 Leicester. 
 
 muttering into the pillow ; '0, there cannot 
 
 be a God in heaven, who is just and good 
 
 and will let such things be/ 
 
 At last I stopped. — What would she do ? 
 
 The thought stayed me all into listening for 
 
 a moment. 
 
 Then I began to mutter again : and again 
 
 stopped and listened. It seemed I was so 
 
 for hours. 
 
 As I listened the fourth or fifth time, I 
 
 heard Mrs. Smith's voice almost at the door: 
 then there came silence : then a door closed : 
 then I heard slow heavy footsteps with 
 clamping heels go down the stairs. My 
 door was ajar. — I got up, and closed and 
 carefully latched it. ' What would she do ?' 
 ' What is the girl to me T I thought. 
 * There are hundreds like — what she will be, 
 in this city. And one more: "What is 
 one among so many ?" All soulless things 
 too ; like me ; and useless things, who will 
 try to do no more than live in the sun, breed 
 
 maggots, and perish. Whereas I What 
 
 will she do ?'
 
 Leicester, 195 
 
 I came to my bed and lay, face down- 
 wards, on it. 
 
 ' . . . That three shilHngs perhaps means 
 life,' I thought again. 'Who knows if I 
 can get any wo]-k ? and how to live in the 
 meantime ? And I so weak. . . . Means 
 life : means hope, and all my dreams ! 
 meftns everything ! That is its meaning. 
 And, if I give it up. . . . Nay, I ivon't 
 give it up ! I icon't give up my life ! It is 
 the only thing here ; the rest is but hope 
 and dreams.' 
 
 I heard a board creak. 
 ' Some one went down the stairs quickly. 
 . . . Who was it ? — Along the passage. 
 The door closed. It was just beneath my 
 head. — I seemed to see it, and her. I 
 leaped to my knees on the bed : pulled up 
 the piece of linen, that hung half across the 
 window, and looked out. — She was hurry- 
 ing across the road, with her head bent 
 down, and her hands hanging beside her. 
 
 ' Only one more,' I thought. 'What is 
 she to me ? Let her go. Let her go. — 
 
 13—2
 
 196 Leicester. 
 
 Why, see : if I had gone out in the morning, 
 as I had intended, I might very well never 
 have known anything about it, I will not 
 do it. Why, now ' I stopped. 
 
 ' You coteard !' I cried. ' You miserable 
 coward !' 
 
 I covered my face with my hands, press- 
 ing my elbows against my body and tighten- 
 ing every muscle in my body. 
 
 At last I moaned : 
 
 ' If I only thought there was a God — 
 who saw us both ! — A good God — who 
 would not leave us die — despairing — I 
 woidd give it her ! — But — as it is — I — 
 I ' 
 
 * Coivard /' I cried, almost choking. 
 ' Coioard! . ; . You cannot let her go !' 
 
 I leaped onto the carpeted plank : dragged 
 open the door ; and went leaping down the 
 steps. At the foot, with my hand on the 
 latch, cried out : 
 
 ' Mrs. Smith ! Mrs. Smith !' 
 
 And when she came from the room on 
 the left just by me, had the three shillings
 
 Leicester. 197 
 
 into her hand, the florin and one shilhng, 
 and said : 
 
 '■ There is the money for her.' 
 
 I had the door open as her fingers closed. 
 She was staring at me blankly enough ; but 
 I saw that she understood what I meant. 
 Then I stepped out quickly, ran across the 
 road, and stopped for a moment : looking 
 ahead to see if I could see her. . . . If she 
 escaped me after all ! 
 
 Three great gas-jets flared some fifty 
 yards down, on the opposite side, in front 
 of a fisli-shop. I saw her pass by it, casting 
 an irresolute shadow : her head bent down 
 as before, her hands evidently holding one 
 another in front. A few people were moving 
 to and fro. 
 
 I walked quickly along the pavement, till 
 I came to opposite her. She hesitated for 
 a moment at the corner of a street. I 
 crossed over, just behind her : as she made 
 her first step forward, touched her arm, and 
 said : 
 
 * Stop.'
 
 198 Leicester. 
 
 She started, turned round sharply, and 
 seemed to recognise me. For a moment we 
 stood facing one another. 
 
 ' You must not go,' I said. ' I have 
 persuaded Mrs. Smith. She will let you — 
 she will wait till the end of the week.' 
 
 She answered nothing. Then I turned 
 from her, and walked away. 
 
 I had gone some ten yards, when I heard 
 her running after me. She laid her hand 
 for a moment on my arm, and said 
 quickly : 
 
 ' You are very good to me, sir : very 
 kind. I cannot ' 
 
 ' I am neither kind, nor good to you. I 
 have done nothing for you,' I said. 
 
 'You have paid Mrs. Smith, sir, for me,' 
 she said. ' I know you have. She would 
 not wait else. — But I will pay you back, sir, 
 for sure, on Saturday . . .' 
 
 ' You need not trouble about it- — ' 
 (Looking at her face, I added :) ' Child.' 
 
 ' Indeed, sir, I am very grateful to you,' 
 she said.
 
 Leicester. 199 
 
 I could not bear to listen to her any 
 more, remembering my late thoughts of her. 
 I said : 
 
 ' It is nothing. I am very glad to have 
 been of any use to you. — Good-night.' 
 
 And left her. 
 
 Near the end of the street I passed a 
 man who stared at me, till I noticed it and 
 stojDped, wondering what was the matter 
 with me, for a moment. I had no hat on : 
 That was it. I proceeded a little : then, 
 almost as if recollecting something, turned 
 back and came home. 
 
 I found my hat up in my room, put it 
 on, and went out again. I felt as if I must 
 go, as if I was going, somewhere. 
 
 Wandered out towards the Park and 
 then, up-skirting it, on to Primrose Hill, 
 up which I climbed slowly. It seemed to 
 me that I would not much care whether 
 I lived or died. I would seek for no work. 
 No : not I. It w^as nothing to me what 
 happened, or to anyone else, or to God. 
 I was glad the girl had not been driven to
 
 200 Leicester. 
 
 prostitute herself in these damned London 
 streets. ' You see, when the barrier of the 
 first time you do a thing is broken through, 
 the second time is easier, and the third 
 easier still. I am only sorry that this vile 
 body of mine should have so conquered me 
 as to give the tyranny of its thoughts to 
 my soul. These last few days have unmade 
 me.' 
 
 I stood by a bench not far from the top, 
 and turned, and looked out over the dark- 
 ness from which came the cool breeze fan- 
 ning my feverish face. All at once I cried 
 out almost passionately : 
 
 ' I ivill know, I will know !' 
 
 Then my head fell down onto my breast, 
 and I said : 
 
 ' Oh fool, fool ! Dost thou think, then, 
 that thou art the first, and will be the last, 
 to cry that cry ? They have not known. 
 They will never know. — Ay, they are all 
 wise,' I said, ' and they none of them find 
 out anything ! They beat the air with 
 heavy flails, proving each other fools and
 
 Leicester. 201 
 
 us slaves and beasts, and then they also 
 die, and rot, and are eaten. Behold, I here, 
 a starving beggar-boy, know all that they 
 know: and that is — Nothing! Ay, you 
 foolish Wisdoms, that spend your days in 
 spinning clothes of air with which to clothe 
 the long procession of humanitj^, behold I 
 here, a starving beggar-boy, laugh at you and 
 say to you what you know : ' ^^hy, you go 
 naked, — naked, as when j^ou came from your 
 mother's womb ! Oh, oh, oh ! we are all 
 fools together. And there's a consolation 
 in that ; but not much, if you happen to 
 be starving. — Starving ? I, starving,' I cried 
 fiercely, ' with a better head on my shoulders 
 than all these damned. . . . Come, come : 
 we mustn't brag — even now.' 
 
 Laughing a sad, short laugh at m}^ help- 
 lessness, I stepped out and down, and began 
 to descend, thinking. 
 
 Half way, or so, down, an impulse made 
 me stop and look up. And I saw what I 
 took for a small woman, coming down also, 
 just above the seat where I had been stand-
 
 202 Leicester. 
 
 ing. Seeing her, I laughed again. — The 
 poor girl ! For, of course, it was my girl, 
 following me. She thought me, me ! a 
 heaven-sent saviour, perhaps ? I burst out 
 into a keen short laugh and went on — went 
 on in home, with the wings of a shadowy 
 bird-thing or moth-thing fluttering in my 
 inner ear. — Up these weary old stairs with 
 an up-pulling arm. — The landing at last. — 
 My door open. — My room, at last ! 
 
 And, as I stood still for a moment, the 
 thought that I had never once used the gas 
 since the first night came in upon me, and 
 I said wearily that I was a fool. I tooji 
 the match-box off its mantelpiece corner, 
 went to by and found the gas-jet, struck a 
 light, turned on the gas, lit it, and looked 
 back over my shoulders. And saw a large 
 envelope lying on the table. I started. 
 
 Then I looked at the gas, one long half- 
 vacant look : and turned and went to the 
 table, and took up the letter and slowly 
 opened it and read:
 
 Leicester. 203 
 
 ' Dear Sir, 
 
 ' Our reader thinks very well of 
 your Poems ; but as there is little sale in 
 poetry now-a-days he does not, on that 
 account, think the work would command a 
 remunerative sale. The following is an 
 extract from the report which we have re- 
 ceived on the MS. " There is evidence of 
 power in his book which, with due care and 
 cultivation, may ripen into ability to achieve 
 real and lasting poetic work." 
 
 ' If it were not for the poor attention 
 
 poetry attracts in these days, we would gladly 
 
 have made you an offer for a little work 
 
 which contains so much beauty and melody. 
 
 ' Yours faithfully, 
 
 ' Baxter, Innes, & Co.' 
 
 ' We are sending the MS. to you per 
 book-post.' 
 
 I put it down with a short laugh, and 
 smiling, shrugged my shoulders. 
 
 ' Very well. There is nothing left for 
 me now, I suppose, but to write my will
 
 204 Leicester. 
 
 after Cliatterton, and invest in arsenic 
 
 and water I think it was ? But I forget ; I 
 have no money ! I must go out into the 
 streets, even at this hour then, and heg 
 a few pence to be able to kill myself ; since 
 in London, too, one can't die for nothing. 
 There is the river — my old river at Col- 
 chester. If I could roll over and over in 
 the long green weeds, why, it wouldn't 
 matter much whether I was able to come in 
 the brown earth again, would it ? And to 
 look up through the dusky, jewelled light- 
 shafts of the currents ! There are flocks 
 down there ! I read about it in a story 
 book once, and a man went down in a sack 
 to find them. But he was drownded. No, 
 drowned. Droivncled is bad grammar ; but 
 what's the odds, I say ? These damnable 
 wordmongers here talk about nothing but 
 grammar ..." For a good knowledge of the 
 classics (especially of Cicero), is the founda- 
 tion of all that is worth knowing in the 
 humani," — You think so, my good fellow ? 
 You think art's growing more and more of
 
 Leicester. 205 
 
 a drug, do you ? Yoiiyq a fool ! and you 
 think I shall be great — some day ? He 
 said so ? — If I was earnest ! Good God ! 
 As if I could ever be anything hut earnest ! 
 But I've no ambition to be great, I tell you. 
 Fools are great. When they die they rot 
 and are eaten. We all shall die some 
 day, and rot, and" be eaten. I wish I were 
 
 a worm Hush ! Hark ! What 
 
 was that ? Who's there ; hi ! who's there ? 
 Eayne ? You, Eayne ! — No, I assure you ! 
 
 I'm not starving ! I'm only But take 
 
 care, or you'll have the boat over. Why 
 are women done up like mummies ? If ever 
 J have a wife, Eayne, she shall wear knicker- 
 bockers, and race up Taygetes. . . . Hush, 
 hush ! Here's Christ come to see me. 
 dear Christ, sweet Christ, give me your soft 
 hand ! I'll tell you all about it. I seem to 
 know you so much better than God. And I 
 
 haven't a friend in the whole world, and 
 
 No, I'm afraid they won't understand them 
 . . . My poor little poems ! Too mystic ; 
 too mystic. I must keep out my mysticism ;
 
 20(i Leicestei\ 
 
 But how can I, when my heart's breaking ? 
 
 breaking, breaking Chut, chut, 
 
 there ! You mustn't sit down on the bed 
 Hke that. Wliy, you're a ivoman! These 
 are clothes ; and here's — your soft breast ? 
 And your face '? and your hair ? you 
 dear woman, why are you hokling me so 
 with your soft arms, and laying my face on 
 your soft breast ? Let's go to sleep like 
 that — together. Will you ? Come close 
 to me, I will tell you something. Do you 
 know, I've been longing for you to come 
 to me . ... to come to me, ever since. . . 
 But let's rest, now you are come, dear. I 
 saw a woman with a sweet face to-night. 
 She passed me on the pavement in the 
 crowd: but not so sweet as yours. Hove to 
 .... Closer, closer ! Let me feel you, 
 I am beginning to be afraid ! Don't let 
 these wasp-waisted waterspouts touch me ! 
 . . . How dark it grows. — The waterspouts! 
 the waterspouts ! Ashtaroth, Ashtaroth, the 
 terrible woman ! A star over her brow, 
 driving in the midst, under the shadows.
 
 Leicester. 207 
 
 — They are on to me ! over me ! — I am 
 siDking ! . . . . — Up ! up ! Hold me up ! 
 . . . Catch me by the hau\ . . . Rayne ! 
 . . . Eayne ! '
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 BERTRAM LEICESTER. 
 
 ' Stirh und werde ! 
 Denn so lang du das nicht hast, 
 Blst du mir ein trilher Gast 
 Auf der dunkeln Erde.' 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 I AWOKE in the dusk. 
 
 Up leaped a core of light at the far end 
 of the room : then grew steady and lived . 
 Some one had lit the gas-lamp at the street- 
 corner below. I turned over in my bed. I 
 thought that it was very lazy of me to be 
 lying warm here : to-day, when I had, I 
 remembered, intended seeking work, even 
 manual. Work ! Work for what ? Well,
 
 Leicester. 209 
 
 it was lazy of me to be lying warm here. 
 Where had I been ? . . . 
 
 Some one came in softly : the door had 
 opened. And why didn't they knock ? 
 
 Turning round with a fro"\vn, I saw a girl 
 on her way to the table with a paper-bag in 
 her hand. 
 
 * Hullo !' I said. 
 
 She dropped the bag onto the floor with 
 a start : sharply picked it up, and, looking 
 with round shadowed eyes at me : 
 
 ' Good gracious, how you did frighten 
 me. — Why, he's better !' she said. 
 
 ' Certainly he is :' I answered, turning 
 aside my eyes. ' There was never any- 
 thing the matter with him that he is 
 aware of.' 
 
 She stood, with her hands joined in front 
 of her, holding the bag, and looked down at 
 me. 
 
 ' You've been very ill, sir,' she said, and 
 gave her head a little shake. 
 
 ' I assure you, madam, that you are mis- 
 taken. I have just woken up. — ^' Ahou 
 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 210 Leicester. 
 
 hen Adhem, may his tribe increase," and 
 so on.' 
 
 ' Yon have been insensible for on two 
 days,' she said. 
 
 I stared at her round shadowed eyes. 
 She nodded her head at me and, I saw, 
 smiled at me. 
 
 ' — Insensible ? . . . Why I have never 
 fainted in my life. I would not let the man 
 give me laughing-gas for my tooth for that 
 reason last term. I . . .' I saw an open 
 letter on the table-cloth in that dusky 
 light. 
 
 I let my head sink onto the pillow with a 
 sigh and shut my eyes. Memory had flowed 
 back everywhere. 
 
 At last : 
 
 'I have brought you some grapes,' she 
 said. ' I thought you might like them.' 
 
 I raised my head again, and opened my 
 eyes in the room, now full of gaslight. I 
 had not noticed that she had lit the 
 gas. 
 
 ' You are very kind ; but '
 
 Leicester. 211 
 
 ' You will not take them ?' 
 
 ' I cannot. Thank you very much.' 
 
 ' Oh very well : I shall throw them out 
 of the window then ! — Why slioiddn't you 
 take a present from me ? . . . I haven't 
 paid you back the four shillings I owed you 
 yet : but I can — now.' 
 
 She took out a purse : unhasped it : 
 opened the leaves, put in two of her fingers ; 
 and then, with a quick lift-up of her head 
 and a bright smile came towards me, holding 
 two florins in her extended palm. 
 
 I smiled. 
 
 ' I only lent you three,' I said. 
 
 ' And I have got no change ! Think of 
 that ! Only gold and silver. Isn't it 
 ri-diculous ?' she added : ' Will you eat 
 some of the grapes ? . . . Please /' 
 
 ' I cannot.' Then I smiled. 
 A pause. 
 
 ' It was very kind of you to bring me 
 them,' I said, ' and I am — afraid I must 
 have been giving you a great deal of trouble 
 . . . Miss . . .' 
 
 14—2
 
 212 Leicester. 
 
 ' Oh no ! None : none ! — You icill eat 
 them then ?' 
 
 I protested : 
 
 * Really, Miss . . .' 
 
 ' Do you want to know my name ?' she 
 said with a drop in her voice. 
 
 ' Only if you care to tell me/ I answered, 
 a little sorry for this my attempt at some 
 sort of formality or other. 
 
 ' 'Owlet is my name : I'm from Norfolk. 
 — But I hope you won't call me Miss 
 'Owlet.' 
 
 ' Why do you hope not, may I ask ?' 
 
 ' Oh, Howlet is such a horrid name !' 
 
 I could not help laughing. Then she 
 laughed. 
 
 ' But what shall I call you ?' I asked. 
 
 ' You called me " child " once. I'm not 
 a child. I'm seventeen.' 
 
 I smiled at her. She at once caught up 
 the bag of grapes, undid the mouth, and had 
 offered it to me. 
 
 ' Then I beg your pardon,' I said. 
 
 She pouted :
 
 Leicester. 213 
 
 ' — But you have not taken any.' 
 
 And our eyes met, and the bag was once 
 more offered, and I dipped two fingers into 
 it and lifted a big bunch half out (she 
 looking at me all the time, and I at the bag- 
 mouth), and stretched out my other hand 
 to break off a portion of the bunch, and had 
 broken off a portion, and was about to drop 
 the remains of the original bunch into the 
 bag again, when she drew back her arm 
 quickly and the bag, and said : 
 
 ' That's not fair !' 
 
 Then she took out a big bunch, squashed 
 up the bag in her hands, threw it onto the 
 floor, and came to me holding the grape - 
 bunch with two fingers in the air. Our eyes 
 met again, and I stretched up my hand and 
 took the bunch. She smiled at me, A small 
 thin black kitten was out and chasing the 
 squashed-up paper-bag. 
 
 She turned, saw it, and cried out : 
 
 ' Minnie, Minnie. — Oh, you silly thing ! 
 Let it alone can't you ?' 
 
 She turned to me again :
 
 214 Leicester. 
 
 ' That's my cat Minnie. Isn't she a 
 beauty ?' 
 
 ' Well . . . Yes. I suppose she is/ I 
 said. 
 
 ' I should think so ! — Now I must go. I 
 oughtn't to have let you talk so much. I'm 
 sure it's not good for you. I hope you're 
 feeling better ? — Here, Minnie, Minnie, 
 Minnie, Min, Min ! Oh, she's after that 
 piece of paper. Silly thing ! . . .' (Turn- 
 ing to me again.) ' I'll let her stop with you 
 ... if you like.' 
 
 ' Thank j^ou,' I said. ' That's very kind 
 of 5^ou. I should like very much.' 
 
 ' Good-bye,' she said. 
 
 ' Good-bye,' I answered to her slowlj'' 
 going. * And thank you for all your 
 goodness to me, Miss' (she stopped) 'Kose- 
 bud.' 
 
 ' I shall see you soon again,' she said ; 
 and, at the door : * If you wouldn't mind 
 going into my room in a little — that's this 
 one ' (opening the door and pointing i6 the 
 right) ' here, we'd get j^our bed done verj^
 
 Leicester. 215 
 
 quickly, and you could come back again. I 
 don't think you ought to dress and go out 
 yet.' 
 
 ' Very well,' I said. ' Thank you. I 
 will.' 
 
 She went out ; but looking in : 
 
 ' Put on your coat or something,' she 
 said. ' For fear you catch cold.' And with- 
 drew her head, and the door closed, and she 
 went down. 
 
 I sat up in bed, and threw out my arms 
 and up : 
 
 * Oh bless you, you dear Eosebud !' I said. 
 ' You are the dearest thing I have ever 
 knoTMi. You Eosebud 1' 
 
 We had a short conversation together 
 that evening as I ate my tea in bed, and 
 then we said Good -night, and she left me. 
 And I set about thinking what I had best do 
 now. The failure of my attempt to earn my 
 livelihood by my pen was a blow to me, and 
 the heavier that it was so unexpected. — But 
 I gave up further consideration of the
 
 216 Leicester. 
 
 matter for the present : I must have some 
 means of support, and at once. And what 
 was the good of thinking about poetry, 
 after what Baxter, Innes, and Co. had said 
 to me ? 
 
 All at once the idea of becoming a 
 school - master flashed upon me. Why 
 not ? I was sure I was quite as capable 
 of teaching as Currie, the under-master 
 at Whittaker's. — Or a private secretary- 
 ship ? I let my thoughts go, and had 
 planned out my life as under-master, or 
 private secretary, or tutor, before I fell 
 into a sweet dreamless sleep. 
 
 The next day, in the morning, although 
 I was, I found, uncommonly weak, I man- 
 aged to get into the Edgware Eoad as far 
 as to a stationer's, where I inquired in a 
 general sort of a way about such things as 
 under-masterships and tutorships, of the 
 genteel middle-aged party who was in the 
 shop. She took a great interest in me, 
 I thought, for a complete stranger ; but 
 could not help me in the least.
 
 Leicester. 217 
 
 In the afternoon I made three more 
 attempts at stationers', and at the last 
 one was so far successful that I learnt 
 the name and address of the people, it 
 seemed, I wanted. 
 
 I set off for Grenvil Street at once 
 (a weary walk of toil to weak me), and 
 interviewed a respectful clerk a good deal 
 better dressed and, doubtless, fed than 
 myself. He thought he might possibly 
 get me an ushership in some small school 
 pretty soon ; but I must observe that it 
 was not the time for such (that is to say, 
 instant) engagements now, half way through 
 the term. I told him the sooner the better; 
 for I was in great straits. He had an 
 equally disencouraging account to give of 
 tutorships and secretaryships : all these 
 things required time. I said that speed 
 was the one necessity. And on this under- 
 standing we parted : I, I cannot say how 
 forlorn, nay, once or twice on my wearier 
 walk home, near to tears : and, worse than 
 all forlorriness, having with me a certain
 
 218 Leicester. 
 
 shame that, owing to the clerk's instigation, 
 I had given Craven as a reference in the paper 
 of acquirements, etc., that I had filled up. 
 Altogether I felt more like drowning vaj- 
 self than making any further fight for 
 existence. 
 
 When I arrived at home I scarcely knew 
 what I had said or done down at the 
 agent's. Everything was a muddle, and 
 a jumhle, and from beginning to end. I 
 cast myself down on my bed, and the tears 
 came. why had I not died in that 
 strange dream after the reading of the 
 letter ? I lay sighing to myself till I 
 dozed. 
 
 > From this half-sleep of despondency the 
 Rosebud roused me in the early evening, 
 and took me out for a short walk. I don't 
 know what we talked about. Everything 
 seemed a muddle and a jumble, and from 
 beginning to end. I was glad to get back, 
 and tumble into bed, and sleep. 
 
 I was better in the morning : inclined, 
 it seemed, to feel cheerful, and began, as
 
 Leicester. 21 D 
 
 I lay with closed eyes thinking, to put the 
 events of yesterday into something like 
 connection and tout ensemble; but with 
 no great success. The one comforting 
 thought seemed to be, that the clerk had 
 said he would send me up anything that 
 came. Surely something must come ! I 
 could not believe I was destined to die 
 here like a rat in a hole. — I played upon 
 my inclination to be cheerful, till it had 
 brought me to cheerfulness : and, getting 
 up briskly, perceived a letter on the chair 
 by my bedside. The agent, of course ! 
 
 * Hurrah !' I said. ' The tide's on the 
 turn. . . . What's in here '?' I hesitated. 
 The sun was shining in through the window 
 upon the envelope. 
 
 I ripped it open, took out the letter and 
 scanned it. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, 
 
 ' Please call early to-morrow on 
 Alexander Brooke, Esq., 
 
 ' 5, Dunraven Place, 
 
 ' Piccadilly, W.,
 
 220 Leicester. 
 
 who wishes to engage at once a secretary 
 to go abroad with him. The engagement 
 would be at least for a year, if not more. 
 
 ' Terms between ^90 and JCIOO per 
 annum. 
 
 ' Please inform us of the result of your 
 interview, 
 
 * And oblige, 
 
 ' Yours faithfully, 
 
 ' LiNKLATER PeMBRIDGE AND BlENKINSOP.' 
 
 I threw the letter onto the table with 
 new life in me, and began to wash, whistling 
 to myself. As I was folding on my necktie 
 I noticed how dirty my collar was, and then 
 my shirt, and more particularly the cuffs. 
 I put on a clean, the last, collar in the bag. 
 And that set me off thinking for a moment 
 about my clothes. ' Well, well !' I said — 
 ' I shall have to tell the man the truth I 
 suppose : and why not ?' For I did not 
 doubt but that he would have me. 
 
 Eosy was of course off to her work these 
 three hours. This, and the thought of
 
 Leicester. 221 
 
 what she would think about the secretary- 
 ship, came to me as I passed her door and 
 went down the dark stuffy old wood stair- 
 case. What would the Kosebud think ? 
 * Well, well !' I said as before, ' it'll be 
 time enough to think about what she thinks 
 when I've got it.' And yet did not doubt 
 for one moment but that I should get it. 
 
 I knew my way to Piccadilly all right. 
 It was a crisp clear morning : the stir of 
 the air and of the life brighter than usual 
 stirred me. I went along down the Edg- 
 ware Eoad, eating my brown bread and 
 dates with some cheerfulness. Then I had 
 a refreshing glass of milk. And, by the 
 time I was half way across the Park by 
 the path that leads up to the gates, I 
 seemed to have regained something of my 
 former self : something of my Colchester 
 character of will and self-reliance. The 
 last three weeks seemed a dream ; almost 
 a bad dream, a nightmare, for a little : 
 then only a dream, save for something of 
 the Rosebud that seemed to reach out half-
 
 222 Leicester. 
 
 weakly into the present light. I asked the 
 policeman at the gates where Dunraven 
 Place was, and he directed me. Then I 
 arrived at No. 5, Dunraven Place, and was 
 shown into a beautifully furnished room. 
 
 Waiting, I began to examine a book-shelf 
 that was full of beautifully bound books 
 that harmonized with the room. They 
 made me think how I should like to be 
 rich and have all the books I wanted. I 
 had my eye particularly on a Gervinus' 
 Shakspere in half-calf, and my fingers 
 began to feel as if they ought to take it 
 down, and run away with it to a convenient 
 arm-chair, and then eyes to begin upon it 
 at once. As I stood so, I heard a step 
 behind me and turned. 
 
 ' You are looking at my books, I see,' he 
 said. 
 
 'Yes, sir,' I answered. ' It was a Ger- 
 vinus' Shakspere. I hope ' 
 
 ' Oh, not in the least ! Please sit down.' 
 
 He motioned me into a large red leather 
 chair on one side of the fire-place.
 
 Leicester. 223 
 
 ' You come from Messrs. . . . The 
 name is rather confusing,' he said. ' I 
 
 want a secretary to help me with to 
 
 make himself generally useful as I may 
 direct. Another young gentleman has been 
 here this morning already : I mean from 
 Messrs. . . .' He smiled. — ' He objected 
 to going out to Africa. Do you ?' 
 
 * Not in the least.' 
 
 ' You see — shortly — I want some one to 
 help me to get together my things, write 
 letters, and so on. — You understand me ?' 
 
 ' I think so, sir.' 
 
 ' The young friend who was going with 
 me has suddenly been taken ill, and, as it 
 is important that I should be out of Eng- 
 land in under a month. — You follow me ?' 
 
 * I think so, sir.' 
 
 ' Good. Now tell me. Can you shoot ? 
 No. Eide ? No. Um. — You are strongly 
 made. Where were you at school ?' 
 
 ' At Colchester.' 
 
 * Ah, so was I. With Craven, I sup- 
 pose ?'
 
 224 Leicester. 
 
 * Yes, sir.' 
 
 ' Did you go iu for sports — much T 
 
 ' I was in the first foot-ball fifteen, and 
 rowed in my house-boat.' 
 
 < School house ?' 
 
 'Yes, sir.' 
 
 ' So did I. It was head of the river iu 
 my year.' 
 
 ' And in mine too.' 
 
 * — Tell me something about yourself ?' 
 
 I paused for a moment : then, looking 
 at him, thought that I should in no case do 
 any harm by at this point simply telling 
 him the truth. He did not look the sort of 
 man who would do ... I smiled to myself : 
 who would do, could do — what ? 
 
 I said : 
 
 ' I have been at Colchester five years. I 
 was in the upper sixth for two terms and a 
 quarter. My father, who is dead, had placed 
 all his fortune in the Southern Bank. My 
 guardian called me up to London about three 
 weeks ago, to inform me of this. I deter- 
 mined then to try to make my livelihood by
 
 Leicester. 225 
 
 my pen and . . . failed. That is, shortly, 
 why I am here, sir.' 
 
 ' Tried to make your livelihood by your 
 pen and failed. Did not yom' guardian 
 help you ? How did you ? . . .' 
 
 * I angered my guardian by refusing to 
 try for a clerkphip. I thought that I 
 
 had something here ' (Lifting my 
 
 finger.) 
 
 ' " Quelque chosc.la " — Yes. Well.' 
 ' I sat down and wrote two poems, which 
 I sent to a publisher, hoping ' 
 
 * Why all, or nearly all, poetry has to be 
 paid for now-a-days, my good boy. — Of 
 course they sent it back again ?' 
 
 * They did,' I said. 
 
 * Well ? And may I ask how j^ou lived 
 in the interim ? You had funds ?' 
 
 ' No : I sold my great coat,' 
 
 ' Excuse me. I am not asking- from 
 mere curiosity. ; . Would you care to tell 
 me more ? I will (looking for a moment 
 in my eyes), 'if you will allow me, write to 
 Dr. Craven about you — Not that I doubt 
 
 VOL, I. 15
 
 226 Leicester. 
 
 what you say ; but you must see. . . . You 
 understand ?' 
 
 ' Perfectly, sir.-^You have absolutely no 
 guarantee that I am not a rogue.' 
 
 * Aha ! I think you are wrong there ; 
 however/ suddenly : • 
 
 ' How much did you get for your 
 coat ?' 
 
 ' Fifteen shillings.' 
 
 ' And you have lived on that for nearly 
 three weeks ?' 
 
 ' Just three weeks.' 
 
 'Impossible! You are joking !' 
 
 'No, sir. — Since I did. My room only 
 cost me four shillings a week, and I ' 
 
 ' Then you must have lived on a shilling 
 a week ?' 
 
 'No. I have not paid my rent for this 
 third week yet.' 
 
 ' And how are you going to ?' 
 
 ' That I cannot quite say. Perhaps, I 
 hope to get an ushership in some school, 
 within the next few days, I should antici- 
 pate my pay.'
 
 Leicester. 227 
 
 He stood up ; we looked for some' little 
 in one another's eyes. Then he stretched 
 out his arm, and let his hand fall on my 
 shoulder. 
 
 * You are a brave fellow/ he said ; ' and 
 I believe you are a true one. I believe 
 what you have told me. There, there, now.' 
 (For my eyes were suddenly full of tears) — 
 ' There, there, there, there, there ! It's all 
 right now.' And he turned away and let 
 his arm drop. 
 
 Then : 
 
 'Ah, stop,' said he.* * Did you know 
 a Mr. Blake at Colchester ?' 
 
 ' He left just before I came ; but I met 
 him once. He came to examine a school 
 at Blackheath, where I was.' 
 
 ' Ah, I am sorry ! He was a very dear, 
 dear friend of mine — an old college chum ; 
 but I had known him before then. He was 
 a Wykamist.' 
 
 ' Yes ; so I remember.' 
 
 ' It would have been enough to me 
 
 15—2
 
 228 Leicester. 
 
 that he had thought well of anyone. He 
 would have liked you, I am sure.' 
 
 He smiled, and added ; 
 
 ' You see that I have let slip how well 
 I believe in you, and what you have said 
 to me.' 
 
 ' Thank you, sir. Some day, perhaps, I 
 may be able to show you that I deserved 
 some of your belief in me. — Mr. Blake was 
 very kind to me when he came to my old 
 school. He was pleased, I think, with 
 some verses I had to recite, and so. . . .' 
 He had snapped* his fingers impatiently, 
 and made a sharp noise with his lips. 
 
 I stopped speaking. He cried out with 
 a smiling mouth : 
 
 ' You are not the boy who recited Long- 
 fellow's ''Psalm of Life"?' 
 
 ' Yes, sir, I am. Mr. Blake ' 
 
 ' Immediately after that visit he came 
 and stopped with me here in London for a 
 few days.' 
 
 His face grew sadder. He went on 
 slowly :
 
 Leicester. 229 
 
 * It was the last time I saw him. You 
 know of his terrible death, not so long after ? 
 All that he said in those few days has been 
 treasm-ed up by me, and lives for ever in 
 my memory. The first night he came here 
 after dinner, as we were sitting here by this 
 very fire over our cigars and wine, he told 
 me about the little boy he had seen that 
 afternoon !' 
 
 He caught himself up : 
 
 ' Well : and how old are you now ?' 
 
 'Eighteen.' 
 
 ' You strange boy ! Eighteen. — Why, it 
 is ridiculous ! (I really must read some of 
 those Rejected Addresses of yours some day.) 
 — You are very tall for your age, and look 
 very old for eighteen.' 
 
 I amiled : 
 
 * This fortnight has made me older by five 
 years, I think. Years are no test of age, 
 sir.' 
 
 We talked together for almost an hour : 
 of many things. Then he looked at his 
 watch and jumped up, saying :
 
 230 Leicester. ■ 
 
 * You have made me forget that I have 
 a very great deal to do this morning, young 
 gentleman.' 
 
 ' I am sorry, sir/ 
 
 * — But very pleasantly.' 
 
 * Then I am glad.' 
 
 I smiled, and so did he. He tapped me 
 on the shoulder. 
 
 As I was going, he spoke of Mr. Blake 
 again : how that he was a truly great and 
 good man : without the cant of the two 
 words, a Christian gentleman. I flushed a 
 little as he said that. 
 
 A pause. — Then I : 
 
 ' I think I ought to tell you something, 
 sir, that I have not told you yet.' 
 
 ' Aha,' he said. 
 
 ' I am not a Christian, and ... I do 
 not say that I do not believe in a God, but I 
 do not tliink that I believe in one.' 
 
 He put his hand on my shoulder again 
 and smiled : 
 
 ' It will pass, it will pass ! We most of 
 us go in a circle now-a-days : most of us, that
 
 Leicester. 231 
 
 is, who are worth anything. Christian, or 
 perhaps nothing at all, till seventeen : 
 Atheist till twenty : Materialist till twenty- 
 one (we soon get tired of that I) : Deist till 
 thirty (though some of the wilder sort go in 
 for a course of that nonsense called Pan- 
 theism) : and then, either the old original 
 Christianity again onto the end, or some 
 slight modification of it. Take my word for 
 it, boy, there is no religion worth calling a 
 religion that does not take Christ and Christ's 
 teaching as its original : and how much 
 better is it to lift up your eyes from con- 
 sidering the shadow on the ground, to con- 
 sider the One that casts the shadow, even 
 Jesus, Who is as the standing figure that 
 watches this our on-rolling earth, yearning 
 for it as a mother for her wandering child, 
 waiting for the hour when He shall take it 
 to His Bosom and for ever ?' He paused. I 
 kept silence. 
 
 We shook hands. I turned to go. 
 
 He called to me : I turned again : 
 
 ' I shall not write to Craven.'
 
 232 Leicester. 
 
 ' Tliank you, sir.' 
 
 We again shook hands : and I had my 
 hand on the door, when he said : 
 
 ' Stay a moment. You are my secre- 
 tary — for a year. It is so agreed ?' 
 
 ' Yes, sir : as far as I am concerned.' 
 
 * Then allow me to give you your first 
 quarter in advance. It is always — I always 
 manage it in that way. You may be in 
 want of a little ready money : for this, that, 
 and the other, you know ... all sorts of 
 things . . . And ... as regards Messrs. 
 ' — Messrs. X. Y. and Z., you will of course 
 allow me to settle that with them myself.' 
 
 I stood irresolute. 
 
 'Come, come!' he said. — 'Now, don't 
 be foolish, Leicester. If you are going 
 to . . .' 
 
 I stepped to him suddenly, saying : 
 
 ' Sir, sir, you are very good to me !' 
 
 He took my hand in his and pressed it. 
 
 'Yes, yes, yes, yes : that's all right now. 
 — Now you really must run away ! You 
 said that you would like to come to me to-
 
 Leicester. 233 
 
 morrow morning, didn't you ? — Very well. 
 I will instruct you about what you will have 
 to do, then. So good-bye, or rather au 
 revoir, or rather (when I think of it) 
 both.' 
 
 I was at the door, when he called : 
 
 ' you dreadful boy, you haven't taken all 
 your belongings away with you ! Here is 
 your first quarter on the table yet. You are 
 inclined to be careless, I see. Look to 
 it. It is au evil, evil vice — carelessness.' 
 
 I found that I could scarcely see the 
 folded piece of paper that he had put down 
 on the edge of the table. 
 
 When I had it safely in my hand, I gave 
 one look at him and a bright smile, and 
 went out as quickly as I could ; for my eyes 
 were full of tears, and I feared some might 
 drop out. 
 
 Riding up on the outside of an omnibus 
 to Praed Street, I felt as I had felt in some 
 of the days at Colchester, when I had longed 
 to leap and give a shout and move onwards 
 towards something. And then I grew a little
 
 234 Leicester. 
 
 sad, if it is possible to call joy sad, and began 
 to say to myself : 
 
 ' bitter time, you are past and gone 
 from me now, as my vision swept from me 
 on the sand and I saw her angel face. Well, 
 pray that there is a God, child ; for you long 
 to thank Him for this ! And see, it is very 
 sweet to you to think, that perhaps, per- 
 haps. He has but afflicted you and chastened 
 you by this your suffering so that, in the 
 end, He might lead you nearer and nearer 
 to Himself. ... It is a sweet, sweet 
 thought !' 
 
 I spent that afternoon happily. First of 
 all I had a good dinner at a restaurant in 
 Oxford Street, and that gave me an insight 
 into what a healthy pleasure in food meant : 
 and then (the day continuing sunny and 
 almost warm) I went for a long walk in 
 Hyde Park, stopping to look at the men and 
 women riding or driving by, and not one of 
 whom I, in this bright day's dawn of a new 
 life, could possibly envy : although their
 
 Leicester. 235 
 
 wealth might give me the chance of leading 
 another life which would not be without its 
 charm, nay, delight ; yet how much nobler 
 this one that I was entering upon now, this 
 one that had work to do, work for others, 
 that is, which would require self-sacrifice — 
 conquest of self ! 
 
 And after that I came up home, buying 
 on the way fruit and cakes and other things, 
 for a tea I had in my mind with the Rose- 
 bud in my room : and then set about 
 making it all ready, so that, by the time she 
 came in, half-past seven, the room, lit up 
 with gas and fire and well-laid table, was 
 most cheerful. 
 
 But the tea was not. For Eosy took my 
 good news most gravely, and did not laugh, 
 properly laugh, once the whole time. 
 
 After tea we went out for a walk together, 
 and, when we had gone a little way, I said, 
 smiling, that I intended to get her a bonnet 
 to wear as a memory of me. But she would 
 not see anything to laugh at in that, and 
 refused the bonnet with dignity. Then
 
 236 Leicester. 
 
 I tried a coat, but she suddenly ex- 
 claimed : 
 
 ' And do you think I would keep it all 
 rags and tatters ?' Dismissing the idea. 
 
 I tried a locket as a last resource. 
 
 After some persuading, she at last agreed, 
 and we went into a jeweller's in the Edg- 
 ware Koad together, and she chose a little 
 round silver locket, and relented a little. 
 
 ' No,' she said, as we were walking 
 slowly away. ' The bonnet and the jacket 
 would wear out, and I couldn't very well 
 keep them then — eh ? And they wouldn't 
 look nice, all in rags and tatters, would 
 they ? But I shall always be able to keep 
 the locket, you know : and when I look at 
 it I shall think of you and give a sigh ; for 
 j^ou've been very nice to me.' 
 
 ' Hey-ho !' I said. ' Who's talking non- 
 sense now ?' And proceeded to demon- 
 strate that, if anybody had been ' nice ' to 
 anybody, it was she to me. To which she 
 answered that she liked to hear me talk so : 
 And I felt rather foolish, and proposed that
 
 Leicester. 237 
 
 we should go up to the top of Primrose 
 Hill, and Eosy agreeing, we set off. 
 
 I began to question her a little about her- 
 self, and she answered readily, nay, entered 
 upon a regular discourse, to which I played 
 the accompaniment with some pleasure of 
 amusement and otherwise, till we were 
 half way up Primrose Hill : when I all at 
 once remembered a certain bench not far 
 from the top, by which I had on a certain 
 night stood and looked out over the dark- 
 ness from which came the cool breeze fan- 
 ning my feverish cheek. Could it have in- 
 deed been me, this living, moving, thinking 
 me here, who lived and moved and thought 
 that certain night as memory silently told 
 me that I had. Poor me ! 
 
 I led her a little round and then up to 
 it. And we sat down upon it together and 
 talked somewhat softly. 
 
 What thousands and thousands of stars 
 were in the sky ! And what millions and 
 millions of people had looked at the thou- 
 sands and thousands of stars, and yet would
 
 238 Leicester. 
 
 look : and when would it all ever come to 
 an end ? 
 
 ' Eosy :' I said again. ' Does it never 
 seem to you, as if you were here alone in 
 the world, quite alone : I mean, as if no- 
 body else belonged to you somehow ; and 
 they are all here, and they live, dimly, and 
 then die, and you can't tell where they go 
 to : and you can't tell where %jou will go to, 
 but you don't think you really ever unll die, 
 although you know you will ; but when you 
 do die, that you will go to somewhere else, 
 where you will be quite alone again and 
 nobody else will belong to you somehow, and 
 they will be all there, and they will all live 
 there, dimly you know, and then will die, 
 and you can't teU. where they go to, and 
 then you will die. . . . And then it goes 
 on like that. — Did you never think of it all 
 in that way?' 
 
 ' I never thought about it at all,' she 
 said. ' But I like to hear you talk like 
 that. Go on.' 
 
 I started and laughed : and then said :
 
 Leicester. 239 
 
 ' Now I'll tell you a little piece of poetry, 
 a merry little piece, and then we must be 
 going home ; for it's getting late.' 
 
 She composed herself to listen. 
 
 ' It's in Greek,' I said. ' yes, you'll 
 be able to understand it. I'll tell you 
 about it, first. It's called a Swallow Song : 
 and the little boys sang it in Greece when 
 the swallows came back after the winter. 
 They used to go round to all the houses 
 and sing it, just like boys sing carols at 
 Christmas. This is the way it begins : 
 
 ' " She comeSj she comes, the swallow, 
 bringing beautiful hours, 
 beautiful seasons. 
 White on the belly, 
 black on the back. 
 
 ' " Do thou roll forth a fruit-cake 
 out of the rich house, 
 and a beaker of wine 
 and a basket of cheeses, 
 and wheat-bread the swallow 
 and the pulse porridge 
 does not reject. Say, shall we go away, or some- 
 thing receive ? 
 If thou givest — well ! But if not, we won^t let 
 
 you off! 
 Shall we bear off the door, or else the lintel ?
 
 240 Leicester. 
 
 Or else the wife that is seated within ? 
 
 She^s a small body, easily shall we carry her off ! — 
 
 But if you give us something, 
 
 something great may you get. 
 
 Open, open the door to the swallow, 
 
 we are not old men, but childerkins here." ' 
 
 Then I proceeded to recite to her the 
 Greek, and she moved her body in some 
 sympathy with the rhythm of the words, so 
 that I, who was somehow pleased with this 
 and it all, gradually grew into the humour 
 in which I had been before when I ex- 
 claimed : ' You are the dearest thing I have 
 ever known. You Kosebud !' till, at the 
 
 words TJ Tav yvvaiKa r-qv fOfo KaBr]j.uv<iv^ 
 
 I gave one look at her, sitting there in- 
 finitely childlike and half-fairy-Hke and 
 dear, and could have caught her up in my 
 arms and then ... I didn't know what I 
 should have done ' then.' 
 
 I sat still looking out into the night. 
 
 After a little : 
 
 ' I wonder,' said her quiet voice. ' I 
 wonder if you would teach me that ? . . . 
 I think I could learn it very soon.'
 
 Leicester. 241 
 
 ' You need not wonder any more,' 
 
 I said slowly, looking on out into the night. 
 ' I will teach it you.' 
 
 And so we began, I to repeat the trans- 
 lated words, she to say them after me, 
 I looking on out into the night, she as I 
 knew looking up at my face. She had a 
 strangely acute memory, as I thought. 
 She had soon learnt the piece, and repeated 
 it alone faultlessly. 
 
 ' You have a good memory,' I said. 
 
 ' Yes,' she said. * I always ivas quick 
 at learning things when I liked them. I 
 like that.' 
 
 A pause. Then : 
 
 ' Now we must be going,' I said, rising. 
 * It is getting late.' 
 
 We went slowly down the dark hill-side 
 together. 
 
 Then something seemed to grow with 
 and about us, and I began to feel somehow 
 as if I were leaving a thing that had to do 
 with me in a low plain, whereas I was 
 going away to mount up into a rich bright 
 
 VOL. I. 16
 
 242 Leicester. 
 
 countiy of gentle sunshine. And once I, 
 in half-forgetfulness of something, would 
 have taken her hand with mine, and we, 
 two children, would have wandered on so 
 over the dim fields together for an ever till 
 we softly faded away. I was moving in a 
 dreaminess, and she in one parallel to it. 
 Then we turned up one of the roads at 
 the hack of St. John's Wood in order to get 
 to Maitland Street ; and the dreaminess 
 began to grow more transparent. I looked 
 at her walking along beside me. 
 
 Then at last : 
 
 ' You're very quiet, Eosy,' I said. 
 
 ' So- are you,' she said, looking in front 
 of her. And then we went on together 
 with the same quietness ; for I had no care 
 to say more, nor she either, it seemed. 
 
 As we stopped opposite the door of No. 3 
 she heaved a sigh. I stretched out my 
 hand and opened the door. She said : 
 ' Thank you,' and went in : I following. 
 
 Up the dark stairs we went together till 
 we reached her door, the handle of which
 
 Leicester. i243 
 
 she had in one hand as she half turned to 
 me. 
 
 ' Good-night,' she said. 
 
 ' Good-night,' I said, finding her other 
 out-held hand, and held it half-loosely for 
 a moment. I could not see her face in 
 the blackness. 
 
 Her door opened in, and a little light 
 came from the tumed-do^^Ti gas — opened 
 wider : she went in — slovdv — closed the 
 door. I unlatched my own door, and went 
 into the room. The gas there was turned 
 doTMi. I went and turned it up. 
 
 ' Heigh, ho !' I said, with supposed 
 half-weariness, and sat down in the chair : 
 and stretched out my legs, and tilted the 
 chair back, and lifted the hands of my 
 stretched arms to my head and thought. 
 All at once I stopped with listening powers 
 Uke a rock balanced on the edge, breathless, 
 motionless. 
 
 A low knock came at the door. 
 
 'Come in,' I said, and was breathless, 
 motionless. 
 
 16—2
 
 244 Leicester. 
 
 The latch was lifted and the door opened 
 a little. 
 
 ' It's me,' said Eosy's low voice. 
 
 Then, the door opening a little, I saw 
 her. ' Bosy,' she said. ' May I come in ?' 
 
 I started : sat up straight. 
 
 'Yes/ I said. . . 'Yes.' 
 
 She came in : her face flushed, eyes 
 bright, hair loosed a little round her head 
 in wavy brown threads. I seemed to in- 
 hale her fairness like a soft sweet air. 
 She said : 
 
 ' I thought — that as — as you were 
 going away in the morning — before I come 
 back you know — and as I get up early — 
 at seven — so as to be dowD at my work 
 by eight you know — I thought ... — 
 that — that perhaps I — that perhaps you 
 . . . wouldn't mind if I was to — if I : . .' 
 She paused, or stopped, with an indrawn 
 breath : and so I was with her, and had 
 taken her hands. 
 
 ' . . . What is it, Eosebud ?' I said, 
 with a trembling in me.
 
 Leicester. 245 
 
 All at once two large tears came out of 
 lier eyes and trickled down her cheeks. 
 
 Then she looked at me steadfastly, try- 
 ing to smile and not wink her eyelids, 
 whose long lashes had crystal drops on 
 them. The trembling passed out of me. 
 I thought on]y of her distress. I put 
 one arm round her, and so, holding her 
 small body, stroked her soft brown hair 
 back softly, saying : 
 
 * Why, little Eosebud. You musn't mind 
 like that, you know. I'll come back again 
 some day. — Quite soon.' 
 
 ' Oh, you were so nice to me,' she said. 
 * But you will come back again to see me 
 . . . some day — Eh V 
 
 ' Surely I will. — And bring you a bonnet 
 with blue ribbons and a flower that. . . 
 What is it ?' 
 
 ' . . . I don't want a bonnet !' 
 
 ' — Not a bonnet T 
 
 ' . . . No ' . . (piteously). '• I want 
 
 %jOU /' 
 
 * Very well then : I'll bring you me,' I
 
 246 Leicester. 
 
 said, ' some day : and some grapes, and 
 bon-bons to make me go down well.' 
 
 Her arms hung listlessly. She seemed 
 very miserable about it. 
 
 I kissed her on the cheek, kissed a tear 
 that was stealing down. — Then the next 
 moment felt her breast heave and shake 
 against mine, and she sobbed out : 
 
 ' Oh I wish — you weren't going away: 
 I wish you weren't going away !' 
 
 I kissed her again : now afraid lest my 
 own tears should fall to join hers soon : 
 and at last found voice to scold her, gently : 
 telling her that this would never do, you 
 know, and that she would be all right soon. 
 — And we should see one another soon 
 again, and have long walks in the evening 
 again : 
 
 ' — And learn more Swallow Songs ?' 
 asked she, looking up. 
 
 ' Yes,' I said. * And all sorts of other 
 things as well.' 
 
 * — That looulcl be nice : wouldn't it ?' 
 she said.
 
 Leicester. 247 
 
 ' Yes. — And climb up to the top of Prim- 
 rose Hill and look at the lights.' 
 
 ' — Yes, and go up the river some day 
 as you said once. That would be nice too, 
 wouldn't it ?' She had stopped crying at 
 last. 
 
 Then, holding her little upturned face 
 in my hands, I kissed her again, first on 
 one cheek and then on the other. And 
 then we said good-night. 
 
 But at the door she suddenly turned 
 back to me with her arms half-raised, and 
 said piteously : 
 
 ' Kiss me again, do. . . I do like you to 
 kiss me so !' 
 
 I took her hands and, smiling a little, 
 went and kissed her on the cheek. 
 
 ' Kiss me on the lips,' she whispered, 
 half giving herself to me. 
 
 I kissed her on the lips and drew back. 
 
 ' . . . Good . . . night,' she said. 
 
 ' Good-night, Kosy, good-night.' 
 
 She withdrew : she was gone. 
 
 Then trembling came into me again,
 
 248 Leicester. 
 
 and I stretched out my arms before me as 
 half-round the air. And threw them up 
 with an unknown word, and turned away. 
 
 I stood for a little thinking ; till, at last, 
 the thought came and grew of her ' alone 
 in the world, quite alone, as if nobody else 
 belonged to her.' And then I seemed to 
 grow further and further away fi^om that 
 her, and the last I had with her was 
 now : 
 
 * Good-night, Eosebud, good -night/
 
 III. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 I BROUGHT a certain amount of enthusiasm 
 to bear upon my new life : and the idea of 
 working in co-operation with ' the friend of 
 Blake ' was a powerful incentive to perse- 
 verance. I wrote in the Journal, which I 
 began to keep at this time : 
 
 ' I have had a great deal to learn and to 
 do in this swift-flown fortnight. And I 
 have found both the learning and the doing 
 very pleasant to me. It would seem that 
 my just-past struggle for existence partook, 
 all along, greatly of the cul-de-sac ; whereas 
 this new life is like an open road that leads 
 to a great city : that city has to be reached ;
 
 250 Leicester. 
 
 certain things have to be done, which 
 things constitute a " cause." There can 
 be no doubt that a definite aim, object, 
 end> is the making of a man.' 
 
 But the next week came a reaction ; I 
 weary of the details of my work, more 
 weary of the people with whom I was 
 thrown, and there was growing in me a deaf 
 unrecognised notion in connection with Mr. 
 Brooke that would have partaken, had I let 
 it, of dis-illusionment. Hear the Journal 
 of three days later, apropos of a dinner at a 
 Mr. Starkie's, a friend of Mr. Brooke's, 
 where I had met some, what I called, 
 travellers : 
 
 ' Travellers are an aggravating tribe. 
 Thej^ seem to expect you to know their 
 books better than they do themselves ; to 
 pretend that no one else ever went where 
 they went or, if some one else undeniably 
 did go, — then that that some one else went 
 the wrong way, came back the wrong way, 
 and made rather a fool than otherwise of 
 himself every bit of the way ! People
 
 Leicester. 251 
 
 have no business to be active monomaniacs : 
 passive ones, as much as you Hke : I see 
 no harm in that. I am a passive mono- 
 maniac myself.' 
 
 The next day : 
 
 ' Imps have been at me to-day. The air 
 has been densely populated with them.' 
 Here is a lugubrious account for you ! — But 
 I begin from the beginning. Thus : 
 
 ' Since the morning I had had a longing 
 to write one particular thing haunting me. 
 In crowded shops : before me as the cab 
 cut through the streets : beside me as I sat 
 at my desk ; wherever I was, whatever I 
 was doing, I saw the same silent figure, 
 with its hand to its brow, standing under a 
 tree in the first evening. I was like an in- 
 veterate smoker, robbed of his pipe and left 
 staring at his full tobacco-jar. Once or 
 twice I very nearly went up to my room 
 with paper and pencil to fill in my imagin- 
 ary picture : having resisted and conquered, 
 I was irritable with everything about me 
 for my own firmness. How cruel it was
 
 252 Leicester. 
 
 that I had no time ! how badly organized 
 was the world, that so many other people 
 had time, and wasted it ! 
 
 ' Driving down New Bond Street, I saw a 
 young lady, with a pince-nez and walking- 
 stick, staring into a jeweller's window. I 
 at once began to revile her as frivolity's 
 foolish wasp : and must have done so aloud, 
 for the coachman opened the trap to inquire 
 if I had said anything ? " j^o," I said. 
 " Drive on." 
 
 ' In the evening (this evening) we had a 
 dinner-party. The two men who are goin^ 
 with us on the Expedition, Clarkson and 
 Starkie, w^ere there — with their wives. 
 Also some other " men of mark" with tlieir 
 wives. But the female element was 
 (thank God !) in the minority. But that 
 didn't save me. I sat between a beetle- 
 browed prude who kept making (bad) eyes 
 at her husband opposite us (a travelling 
 monomaniac, of course !), and a cavalry 
 officer who had cantered through half a 
 continent, and, as soon as he came home,
 
 Leicester. 253 
 
 sat down and wrote a book on all its his- 
 tories, languages and literatures. The 
 beetle-browned prude told me about her 
 husband's travels : the cavalry officer about 
 his own. (The lady he had taken in to 
 dinner was a philanthropist, very distin- 
 guished, very loquacious, but unfortunately 
 deaf. She and the cavalry officer soon gave 
 one another up ; the cavaliy officer, for me, 
 the female philanthropist for a course of 
 lectures to a weak-eyed man on her right : 
 subject, parochial rates, I think.) The 
 officer varied the conversation once, by re- 
 marking that Darwin did not appreciate the 
 spirit of Nature : so leading the prude into 
 a disquisition on Eternal Love, but, in the 
 end disagreeing, they called me from a 
 dream just under the ceiling to give my 
 opinion : found I knew nothing about the 
 points in question : and so repeated them 
 in their entirety for my edification — even 
 to the disagreement. 
 
 ' After dinner, when we joined the ladies, 
 the prude motioned me to her side by a
 
 25-dt Leicester. 
 
 smile. I heard the officer repeating his 
 reraark about Darwin to, I swear, another 
 prnde (square-browned : hfeless combed-back 
 hair : slow eyes : and an altogether sugges- 
 tiveness of "shoulder arms ") ju^ behind 
 us. Then my own particular prude seemed 
 for some time (that is, till I grew dreamy and 
 answered monosyllabic ally) to have eyes, I 
 should like to say a good many tongues, 
 and half one ear, for me only : then she 
 carried me off, tripping over her spasmodic 
 train, to her dear dear friend Mrs. Basing- 
 stoke (to whom she really must introjooce 
 me — a must cul-tivated and highly de-light- 
 ful crea-ture, she assured me !) and I was 
 presented, as (in a whisper) *' a most in- 
 teresting young man, with decidedly marked 
 tastes, my dear Mrs. Basingstoke " (what 
 could I have been saying ?) " and — alas ! — 
 a rare endowment of young men now-a-days 
 — earnest religious convictions." Oh 
 Jupiter ! Oh Jupiter ! 
 
 ' But jam satis ! — After they were all 
 gone, I stood frowning on the hearthrug. —
 
 Leicester. 255 
 
 Mr. Brooke came in from the hall, having 
 seen the last of them off. 
 
 ' " Aha, Leicester," he said — " and how 
 about those things from Taunton's ? I was 
 dressing when you came back. They are 
 all right ?" 
 
 ' " Well, no, sir. The tubes had to be 
 made on purpose " 
 
 ' " I ordered them a fortnight ago." 
 
 '"And they came. But one of the 
 people in the shop managed to crack 
 one " 
 
 ' ' ' And the whole thing vAW have to be 
 done again. Bother ! : . . Hoity-toity : 
 I'm very tired. . . . You look tired 
 too." 
 
 * "I am." 
 
 * " I saw 5'ou making yourself very 
 agreeable to Mrs. Napier, and afterwards to 
 Mrs. Basingstoke." 
 
 ' I curled my lip. — Then, feeling that I 
 should say something foolish in a moment if 
 I stayed, and irritated that I should have to 
 save myself by running away, said :
 
 256 Leicester. 
 
 ' I think I will go to bed, sir.' — There 
 is nothing more to be done to-night ?' 
 
 "'Ah-h-h ... no ! That is, I don't 
 think so. — Hamilton and Malmesbury sent 
 up everything ? — They are the rudest 
 and most unpunctual people in all London ; 
 but they have the best . . ." 
 
 ' I made a sharp noise with my lips, ex- 
 pressive of impatience and disgust. I had 
 forgotten altogether about Hamilton and 
 Malmesbury : — What business on earth 
 had I with running about seeing that 
 Hamiltons and Malmesburies sent up 
 things ? Why not send a servant ? Or 
 use the post ? There was not any need 
 for such frantic haste. Whereas there 
 were creatures, like that girl with the 
 pince-nez and walking-stick, who dawdled 
 away their whole lives ! And here was I 
 — going out on an expedition into the 
 wilds of Africa, to be killed by fever and 
 eaten by vultures, or run through with 
 spears and eaten by negroes ! — Oh, it was 
 too hard ! I really must write to some
 
 Leicester. 257 
 
 Croesus, state my cruel case, and ask for 
 JOIOO for three years, offering to refund 
 it out of my first year's earnings. — Nay; 
 a better idea would be, to insert an adver- 
 tisement in the Times agony column : 
 " An unappreciated genius {male), cetat 18, 
 desirous of hcnefiting humanitij bij devoting 
 himself to Himself, woidd he glad to meet 
 ivith some young woman who tvoidd give him the 
 means of pursuing this lofty course of action. 
 Millionairesses iviih a hanhcring after (literary) 
 immortality are strongly advised not to let this 
 opportunity slip, as a similar one may never 
 arise again. Apply for further particulars to 
 B.L., 5, Dunraven Place, Piccadilly, W., 
 who ..." And I burst out into a laugh, 
 rather a bitter laugh. 
 
 ' " What's the matter ?" asked Mr. 
 Brooke. 
 
 ' I shrugged back my shoulders with a 
 half-sigh, half- groan. Then : 
 
 ' "I think I am ill," I said. 
 
 ' He rose from his desk, where he was 
 sitting examining some papers ; came across 
 
 VOL. I. 17
 
 258 Leicester. 
 
 to me and, smiling, put liis hand on to my 
 shoulder. 
 
 ' " Come : come : come ! You must not 
 mind now. — It will soon pass, this malaise. 
 You have lived so much in yourself, that 
 you find it very hard to live in other people? 
 — Ah well, well ! We most of us have 
 that little difficulty to contend with sooner 
 or later," But I was almost bursting out 
 into the soft tears of relief with the cry : 
 " 0, ivill she never, never come ?" But, in- 
 stead, hanging down my head^ bit my under- 
 lip with all my might for a moment. The 
 pain made me master of myself. I looked 
 up in his face, with my eyes hedged about 
 with tears, but ready to listen to what he 
 had to say to me. 
 
 ' He pressed my shoulder with his hand : 
 '"Don't dream so, my boy:" he said. 
 " Don't dream so. You're always at it, you 
 know ; and it's stick a bad habit ! It leads 
 to absorption in one's own world : and 
 that means selfishness. Why, I have 
 known in my time at least three dreamers.
 
 Leicef<ter. 259 
 
 who ruined all their own happiness and 
 their family's as well, simply because they 
 would have their dreams. Such are they 
 whom the world calls ' geniuses ' and their 
 friends ' brutes/ for no sacrifice is too 
 great for these precious empty dreams of 
 theirs — not excluding the dreamer's lives. 
 It angers me to hear people erecting special 
 codes of morality for such men. Because 
 a man is dubbed ' genius,' is he also to be 
 dubbed demi-god, and allow^ed to pick and 
 choose from the laws of the land, Avhich he 
 will be so good as to obey and which he 
 won't ? — Give up thinking that you can do 
 anything, and there is a chance of your 
 doing something. Get out of yourself and 
 into other people. They are, probably, 
 better than you are.— You don't mind me 
 speaking like this to you ? Now do you 
 now ?" 
 
 ' " Oh no," I said. " It's very true what 
 you say, I live too much in myself: and 
 I am impatient of what I think are other 
 
 17—2
 
 260 Leicester. 
 
 people's smallnesses ... I will try to be 
 more patient." 
 
 ' " Very well. Don't let's talk about it 
 any more. — One moment ! Am I to halve 
 the dose ? Is it too strong for you ?" 
 
 ' " No, sir. I would say, double it ; 
 but " 
 
 ' " Your stomach can't stand it yet ? 
 Never mind. I only wonder that it has 
 stood so much. Go on taking your medicine 
 like a man (I don't mind your pulling faces 
 now and then. Perhaps it is rather nasty !) 
 and ..." (with a smile) " well, you shall 
 have some jam aftenvards," 
 
 ' " Will you tell me the sort ?" I asked, 
 but in a purposeless sort of way, for it 
 seemed as if he expected me to ask for an 
 explanation of his ''jam aftenoards.''' 
 
 ' " You will be more contented : less self- 
 conscious, a better member of society 
 generally. I mean, more ready to put 
 yourself out to talk to "fools," less eager 
 to find fault with wiser people than yourself. 
 In a word, more healthy."
 
 Leicester. 261 
 
 ' I kept silence ; for I felt that it would 
 be quite useless to speak.' 
 
 The next day has : 
 
 ' Mr. Brooke with me to Eiding School. 
 Nothing particular.' And, after a space, 
 the following remark : 
 
 ' These ridirg lessons five tim.8S a week 
 are not without their pleasure to me. I 
 am pleased at my complete freedom from 
 fear. Small things, I hope, are here too 
 the father of great. But, can I ever be 
 afraid of anything again ? For have I not 
 realized how small an atom I am of things 
 living and dead : how valueless, as I am, 
 to things as yet uncreated ? I am a 
 spectator of existence in general, and my 
 own in particular. — How can a man who 
 believes in nothing but bare existence and 
 the beauty of Truth, and feels that he is 
 floating along, weak and not far from help- 
 less, have fear ? What are a few more 
 seconds to him ?' 
 
 Here my enthusiasm for a full Journal 
 seems to have given way. The rest is
 
 2G'2 Leicester. 
 
 made up of simple notifications of the 
 general events of each da}^ 
 
 This short period of my life is, strangely 
 or not, one of those about which I remem- 
 ber least. _ It may be that I was too ab- 
 sorbed in what Mr. Brooke dubbed for me 
 my ' dreams ' to notice even what took 
 place to myself. It may be. Perhaps 
 that may account for the long filing trail of 
 society-dressed people that represents my 
 memoiy of this short period of my life, and 
 for a certain lifeless wanness that contains 
 even these conversations between Mr. 
 Brooke and mj^self, although written so 
 shortly after they were spoken. But as 
 the days wore on, I with a little astonish- 
 ment found that I was again beginning to 
 take an interest, and something more 
 than an interest, in my work. At first, as 
 I have said, this astonished me, and I half 
 anticipated that ' It would go off soon :' 
 But, when it did not, rather grew, till it 
 seemed to have achieved some permanent 
 strength, I was led to look upon my early
 
 Leicester. 263 
 
 discontent as the momentary humour and 
 this calmer readiness for the actual indi- 
 viduaht3\ There were no more theological 
 conversations with Mr. Brooke now : no 
 more of his jeremiads against brutal Science 
 or debased Art, and consequently no more 
 rousing of the antagonistical feeling in me. 
 Besides, something of my old adventurous 
 love was rising in me at the near approach 
 of our departur*^, and this helped me to 
 realize that, past denial, there was much in 
 me that was morbid and self-concentrated, 
 and helped me to determine to resist these 
 infirmities. I had began to Ulce Mr. Brooke 
 better : and this although I was far from 
 holding him up to myself as * the ideal 
 friend,' as I had done at starting. No one 
 could help liking the man's earnestness : an 
 earnestness that had something of the 
 tenderness-inspiring in it. It did not 
 matter that the aim of this earnestness was 
 not altogether apparent to you. You saw 
 the effect : the effect was beautiful, earnest- 
 ness and honesty welded together, and you
 
 2G4 Leicester. 
 
 ' liked ' it. What matter about the 
 cause ? 
 
 It was in a humour of this sort that, some 
 days later, I sat with him after dinner in the 
 library, he smoking a cigar, I thinking about 
 things. 
 
 We sat in silence. 
 
 At last, with a slight yawn : 
 
 ' We shall be off,' he said, ' before this 
 time next week. Oh-h-h ! . . . How de- 
 lightful it is to think of it !' 
 
 ' Mr. Clarkson is to meet us at Brindisi, 
 is he not ?' I said. 
 
 ' Yes. He does not want to go through 
 Paris : and it would scarcely do to go 
 through the Continent and he not go with 
 us. I do not think so, at least. . . . He 
 has a perfect monomania about Paris. He 
 caught a tj^hus or typhoid fever when he 
 was there three years ago : and almost died 
 of it : up at the top of an hotel — alone. He 
 declared that he would never put his foot 
 inside the place again. It was a very 
 horrible idea, I must confess : death :
 
 Leicester. 265 
 
 alone in a strange hotel : in a strange 
 city.' 
 
 * But, if he's afraid of fever, surely it is 
 rather a strange thing to go to ' 
 
 ' Yes : yes. It is. But men are made up 
 of such inconsistencies. I, for example, am 
 shudderingly af^-aid of small-pox : yet I have 
 been through a cholera epidemic, nursed 
 diphtheritic cases, known cancer, and what 
 not besides.' 
 
 * King Alfred used to pray that God's will 
 might be done in all things, but that he 
 should prefer not to die of a loathsome 
 disease. I should be afraid of such things 
 too, if it wasn't that . . .' I paused. 
 
 ' Wasn't what T he said. 
 
 ' 0, a silly idea of mine ! — I don't believe 
 that I shall ever catch anj'thing again, some- 
 how !' 
 
 ' Fearlessness is half the battle. ... I 
 too have prayed to God that I may not die 
 of a disease that makes others fearful of me 
 and myself loathe myself.' 
 
 * And I do not see why God should not
 
 '2GG Leicester. 
 
 grant your prayer, if ' I left the rest, 
 
 'If He is and can,' unSciiJ ; for I had seeu 
 his face contract a htile. 
 
 * I beg your pardon,' I said, ' if I have 
 offended you. My thoughtlessness began, 
 and my honesty wanted to end, my sentence.' 
 
 * Oh no I I am foohsh to notice it. I 
 should not have, but that it recalled to me 
 that the same vile bartering thought had, I 
 am ashamed to say, occurred to me too, as 
 it were despite myself, before now. You 
 see I am trembling ' (he held up his hand) 
 ' like a terrified woman. Upon my word I 
 ought to be ashamed of myself ! ' 
 
 He resumed more slowly : 
 
 * I cannot quite account for this hysterical 
 dread of one particular disease. My father 
 died of it just before I was bom, and my 
 mother was nigh losing life, and then reason, 
 in giving birth to me. Perhaps that is 
 enough to excuse my poor nerves. . . . 
 But I've not much beUef in these things. 
 HereditaribiHty, as Spencer would say, has 
 been done to death nowadavs.'
 
 Leicester. 267 
 
 I remembered a somewhat contrary re- 
 mark to this of his : and smiled a little to 
 myself. 
 
 There was a silence for a few moments. 
 
 At last he lifted up his head, looked 
 across at me, and jerked his cigar-end under 
 the grate, saying : 
 
 ' By-the-bye, Leicester, I have something 
 to say to you. . . . It's about my book.' 
 He paused for a moment. Then pro- 
 ceeded : 
 
 ' You know that it is not yet published ? 
 — Indeed, it is not fit to be pubhshed. — It is 
 like Caesar's Commentaries — nudi, recti ct 
 rcnusti (I think that's the expression 
 all right) omni ornatu orationis tamquam veste 
 dctracta — " Unadorned, severe and decent, 
 stripped of all the embellishment of expres- 
 sion, like a garment " — but I was carried 
 away from its actual state, nudus, into its 
 ideal state, rectus et venustus. — Decent, 
 comehj, that is the best attribute for a man, 
 his thoughts and his actions, that there can 
 be. But you see nuj poor book never got
 
 268 LeiceMer. 
 
 beyond starkness ! It was meant to be as 
 a sort of introduction, or prelude, to a future 
 work : my magnum opus ! I did not care to 
 tell the tale of my failure — not, at least, till 
 I could tell with it the tale of my success. 
 But ... If anything happened to me : Who 
 can foresee even a moment here ? — Quid 
 humanitus, as Cicero has it : any of those 
 chances to which humanity is liable^ — ' 
 He paused again. The words seemed perse- 
 veringiy jerky. 
 
 I waited. — He resumed : 
 
 ' I should like it brought out — then : sup- 
 posing, I mean ; supposing aliquid humanitus 
 occurs this time. For, you see, it might be 
 of some use to others : more especially to 
 him following on my track. It contains my 
 attempt from the south, and my last journey 
 ending at lujigi.' 
 
 * Yes ?' I said. 
 
 Another pause. 
 
 Then he : 
 
 ' Ah, but I thought I had the bird in my 
 hand that time ! Only in the bush, only in
 
 Leicester. 269 
 
 the bnsli ! And I with no more twine with 
 which to mend broken nets and snare it. I 
 have not told you before, how bitter that 
 moment was to me : To tm'n back at Mount 
 Nebo, within sight of Canaan, into the sandy 
 desert, so hot and waterless ! — And as I 
 turned, verily my anguish shamed me out 
 of my manliness to play the woman. I did 
 restrain myself till they had pitched the tent 
 there, in the roar and very breath of the 
 mighty waters ; but then I went apart, and 
 sat, and looked at the smoking columns of 
 the fall fading into the purpling sky, and 
 wept. It seemed to me as I sat there alone 
 that evening that I was not turning back, to 
 come again with new victorious face and 
 reach to It ; but it seemed to me — I cannot 
 tell you how, or why. I can only tell you 
 that so it was.— It seemed to me, I say, that 
 a still small voice spoke whispering to my 
 heart : and I knew that I should not see 
 Mount Nebo again, should not even cross 
 the desert again, but die far away in the 
 land of Egypt, in a land of glory and sin.'
 
 270 Leicester. 
 
 Another pause. 
 
 He went on : 
 
 ' Since then, I have tried to persuade my- 
 self that I was mistaken. Life is so ordinary : 
 it is hard to believe always in the faith of 
 one's higher moments. — And you see, my 
 dear boy : in a few days we are off ! What 
 do you say ? — Well, what I want to tell you 
 is this. Supposing aliquid humanitus. — -You 
 follow me ?' 
 
 He looked at me, who was a little mysti- 
 fied by it all. 
 
 ' Yes,' I said. ' To a certain extent.' 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 ' Ah, you've grown deep into my heart, 
 boy ! you cannot know hoio deep. Perhaps 
 there is some selfishness in my love for 
 you : I do not say that there is none : But 
 I do love you ! — I have been rather sharp 
 with you at times : Forget it ! It is, that 
 I cannot bear to see you with the ideas you 
 have, about this beautiful world — and God. 
 It seems to me almost a crime that you 
 . . . Forgive me : Now you do now ?'
 
 Leicester. 271 
 
 He had touched my leg : laid his hand 
 on it, and looked so fondly into my eyes 
 that I was moved, but not quite with an 
 answering feeling to what he called his love. 
 I turned my look aside. 
 
 ' You see that I believe in you,' he said. 
 ' Believe in you even as you are now, a 
 mere boy ! I know that if you only had 
 some great work cut out for you to do — you 
 would do it ; and that there would be no 
 need for it to be done again — something that 
 would require all your heart and soul ! At 
 present ... I am afraid for you, and that 
 is the truth ! And being afraid, I am jealous 
 for you, and so — cross with you ! That is 
 my w^ay. . . Can jou understand me ?' 
 
 ' Yes,' I said. ' I think I can.' 
 
 He went on at last, I was glad, looking 
 away from me. 
 
 ' I have this presentiment upon me, and 
 I cannot shake it off. I shall never reach 
 my heart's desire. God's will be done ! — 
 And it is so strongly upon me that I . . . 
 I am afraid I am very clumsy, beating about
 
 272 Leicester. 
 
 the bush like this ! See now. Here it is 
 out straight for you ! I want you to pro- 
 mise me to go on and finish what I feel I 
 shall never be able to do more than begin. 
 — Every river, every lake of that land shall 
 be mapped out and known !' (His voice 
 rose and rang) ' Why, I tell you I dreamt 
 about it as a boy at school. I have kept it 
 by me all my life. A gvancl idea ! — But not 
 yet! Not yet, you understand. That would 
 be foolish. If we — if they, fail this time, I 
 want you to come back to England and wait 
 here four or five years, preparing for it. 
 You will grow apace. Eead, read, read ! — 
 Then try again : and when you do it !— when 
 you do it ! then. . . Tell them of my poor 
 old dead book : and of me, just a little, to 
 say how I dreamt of that hour all my life ! 
 None of the glory ! — Oh no, I don't want any 
 of that. All that shall be yours ! But — if 
 I could only think that through me, if not hij 
 me, the thing had been done at last ! — If I 
 could only think that, why . . . You must 
 not come out with us this time. You are too
 
 Leicester. 273 
 
 young. Your constitution is just changing. 
 You know the critical periods of a man's 
 life — the twenties and the fifties — wait till 
 your constitution has settled.' (He rubbed 
 his eyebrows.) ' Yes, yes, you might 
 come down as far as Zanzibar with us, 
 if you've set your heart upon it — if you've 
 set your heart upon it. Eh ? You might 
 as well get some knowledge of the life. But 
 remember always that you are the reserve. 
 (When you have been over all the land — 
 crossed and re-crossed and known it — then 
 you'll be able to confute that absurd theory 
 of there being some Central Africans who 
 have no idea of a deity. That's all non- 
 sense ! If I had lived I had intended con- 
 futing it myself. However . . .) Well, as 
 I was saying, you must always remember 
 that you are the reserve : both for our sake, 
 dear boy, and for the sake of the Cause. — 
 I am afraid again that I am very clumsy. I 
 haven't yet told it you in so many words — 
 eh ? Well, this time I will, straight out.' 
 He began deliberately ; 
 
 VOL. I. 18
 
 274 Leicester. 
 
 ' I want you to promise me that, in the 
 event of anything happening to me, you will 
 devote yourself to the Cause.- — You see ?' 
 
 He went on: 
 
 ' Study for it ; toil for it : do for it every- 
 thing ; forget nothing ! On that condition 
 I make you my heir.' 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 Then I said : 
 
 ' I cannot !' 
 
 'Yes, yes,' he cried. ' You can do it, if 
 anj'^one can ; and it is to be done ! I am 
 sure you can do it ! I know you better 
 than you know yourself. You will grow 
 old apace : a man by twenty : a — some- 
 thing more than a man by thirty, if God 
 prolongs your days so far. I pray He 
 may. — No, I say. Don't be afraid of that. 
 I have no relation whom I can wrong by 
 making you my heir : be easy on that 
 point.' 
 
 He stopped suddenly: 
 
 ' You say nothing ?' 
 
 In a little, I, with my eyes downcast, said :
 
 Leicester. 275 
 
 ' You have so completely taken me by 
 surprise, that I scarcely know if I am asleep 
 or awake.' 
 
 ' Yes : yes : yes, I know. It was foolish 
 of me. I had intended working up to it 
 slowly : training you into what I wanted 
 you to become. You must do it ! and . . . 
 all sorts of things. Of course you wilL' 
 
 He began to drift away : 
 
 ' Last night I ... I had a horrible, a 
 horrible dream. . . Strange : strange how 
 we all are troubled by our dreams. . . 
 What accursed shadows I saw ! shadows of 
 sin : shadows of a tormented universe. 
 Oh my God ! . . . My time is short. . . 
 I know it. I shall not get further than 
 Paris. I know it. . . " Blake, old fellow : 
 Allan's dead."— ''Dead?" he said.— " Yes, 
 dead. Renshaw brought me news of it last 
 night. He canied him on his back over a 
 mile through the hot sands. It was eve 
 when they got to the spring. Allan was 
 delirious. I cannot think of his poor 
 parched lips muttering : and his eyes 
 
 18—2
 
 276 Leicester. 
 
 stared so, Kensliaw says. But at the 
 last, he grew quite calm, and asked him 
 to hold him up. ' Arc those the mountains 
 out there?' he asked. ' Yes,' said Ken- 
 shaw. ' How fcaccful they are.' — Then he 
 closed his eyes for a little : but opened 
 them all of a sudden and cried out : ' Bo 
 you see the Cross there?' 'No,' said Ren- 
 shaw. ' Where ?' ' Upon the mountain top, 
 the ridge I mean. Christ is holding it. Hoio 
 sieeet His face is. . . Oh lohat a light, ivhat a 
 light ! It hursts out all round Him. And 
 see, the shadow ! There, there on the sand. 
 The shadow of the Cross. Nearer — nearer — 
 nearer, fleet over the golden, sand. The shadoiv 
 of the Cross !' — And so he died." ' 
 
 I shook him by the arm : 
 
 ' Sir, sir — You are ill,' I said. 
 
 ' No,' he said. ' Not ill, only tired.' 
 
 All at once he started up : 
 
 ' I've been talking quickly. . . . My 
 blood's been boiling. I'm all right now 
 though. — You have understood all that I 
 said ? No. I see that you don't realize
 
 Leicester. "^ll 
 
 it. Well, well. That is nothing. We'll 
 begin again. — No, I assure you, I'm all 
 right now. Sit down. Draw your chair 
 closer. Now I will go through it again.' 
 
 It seemed he had quite forgotten the 
 story he had told me of his friend's death. 
 He began to explain the object of the ex- 
 pedition : what was to be done this time : 
 what was to be done next time : lastly, 
 what he wanted me to do. I listened 
 patiently, although I was, as it were, physi- 
 cally wearied of it all. 
 
 Dawn was breaking as I stood looking 
 from my bedroom-window. I wished that 
 I stood on some Thames bridge, to look at 
 the sleeping town : then turned away sigh- 
 ing, and glad that I was not there — any- 
 w'here but where I was, a few yards off my 
 cool, comfortable bed. 
 
 As I had one knee on it, getting in, I 
 paused, made half-irresolnte by a thought. 
 How long was it since I had prayed ? Had 
 I grown so sure, then, that there was no 
 ' good ' in it ? — None I none ! ' If God is,
 
 278 Leicester. 
 
 He knows what is in my heart without my 
 telling Him. And yet I haven't given 
 much thought to the subject of late : no^ 
 had time to go searching for new material 
 with which to build up my belief in dis- 
 belief, as I used to do at Colchester. Ah, 
 I was a boy then. Now I am ... a 
 fool to be standing here like this.* I 
 was into bed and had the clothes over 
 me. 
 
 ' . . . I wonder what Kosy's doing 
 now ? Asleep, of course, like a good little 
 girl. I wish I was ! I wish this world 
 had never been made. I wish I had never 
 been born : and then I shouldn't have been 
 plagued with all these things. I wish . . . 
 All, this ivorld is not much of a place to be 
 happy in 1'
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 For some time, when I half- awoke next 
 morning, I was aware of a letter with the 
 usual cup of tea by my bedside. At last I 
 roused myself sufficiently to stretch out my 
 hand and lift the letter into the bed by me : 
 and then managed to open it, and began, 
 still half-awake, to read it : 
 
 * Dear Mr. Leicester, 
 
 * I have been informed of your ap- 
 pointment as private secretary to Mr. 
 Brooke, and that you are about to accom- 
 pany him on his expedition to Central 
 Africa, to which I wish all possible success.
 
 280 Leicester. 
 
 I have a profound admiration for Mr. 
 Brooke personally. I once had the honour 
 of meeting him at the house of my distin- 
 guished friend, Professor Strachan, F.K.S. 
 I think that you are to be greatly con- 
 gratulated on the results of your independent 
 course of action in having faced the world 
 so boldly on your own account ' (about this 
 point I woke up completely), ' and I have 
 no doubt that you will always do credit to 
 the name you bear. I have to regret and 
 apologize for any little disagreeableness that 
 may have arisen during our last interview, 
 and to ask you to ascribe it to the very 
 indifferent state of my health at the time. 
 I am still, I believe, in rather a critical 
 state ; but my doctors give me every hope 
 of the ultimate recovery of my accustomed 
 vigour. Thinking that perhaps you might 
 require some small moneys, cash for your 
 outfit, etc., I have directed that the sum of 
 one hundred pounds shall be deposited to 
 your account at my agents', Messrs. Milnes 
 and Co., Axe Street, which you do me a
 
 Leicester. 281 
 
 great pleasure by accepting as a small 
 token of my personal regard for yom*- 
 self. 
 
 'I remain, 
 
 ' Yours truly, 
 
 ' Thos. E. James. 
 ' B. Leicester, Esq.' 
 
 * P.S.— The £100 will be handed over to 
 you on personal application. I have to ask 
 your indulgence for the indifferent composi- 
 tion of this letter, which you must please to 
 ascribe to my present condition. I find 
 any mental effort very painful to me.' 
 
 I lay back, with my head deep in the 
 pillow, staring at the ceiling : ' Either 
 the man is soft-brained,' I thought, ' or 
 flunkey-hearted, or ... I don't under- 
 stand it ! But I certainly shan't waste a 
 quarter of another minute in trying to. 
 What's the old hypochondriac to me ? Of 
 course, I won't take his money, confound 
 him !'
 
 282 Leicester. 
 
 Then a crowd of other thoughts came 
 upon me, till I was in a not far from 
 disgusted state. There was Kosy : and my 
 books still at Colchester : and the general 
 futility of existence, and particularly of my 
 own. I ended by growing sapless, and 
 then half- peevish. 
 
 A barrel-organ began playing some way 
 ofiF. I lay and listened to it in an arid dis- 
 gust. At last it stopped. Then I got up, 
 and proceeded to my toilet. — ' This is what 
 is generally known as getting, or having 
 got, out of the wrong side of your bed this 
 morning,' thought I, going downstairs. 
 
 Mr. Brooke seemed better. He talked to 
 me quite naturally at breakfast about things 
 in general. Then we parted : he to go I 
 do not know where, I to see about some 
 orders that had not been punctually ful- 
 filled, etc. . . . But when we met again at 
 luncheon, I thought he had rather a beaten- 
 out look, a look of extreme weariness. I 
 ascribed it to the amount of conventional 
 thought and worry that he had gone through
 
 Leicester. 283 
 
 of late, and perhaps a little to the unusual 
 excitement of last night. 
 
 The next day was quite ordinary, quite 
 uneventful. And so the day after. Every- 
 thing was done now. We were to start 
 early in the morning from Charing Cross. 
 Consequently, we went to bed earlier than 
 usual : about half-past nine. 
 
 I, out in the hall, lit my candle first: 
 said good-night to him in the library : and 
 was almost up to the top of the first stair- 
 case, where our ways separated, when I 
 heard him call out. I stopped and lis- 
 tened. 
 
 He called again : 
 
 ♦Boy!' 
 
 I answered : 
 
 ' Yes ?' 
 
 ' Good-night.' 
 
 * Good-night.' 
 
 ' No : wait. I will be up in a moment 
 to shake hands with you. The night before 
 the campaign opens : eh ?' 
 
 He came out : lit his candle (I watched
 
 284 Leicester. 
 
 him over the bannisters. I see him now) : 
 and came up slowly. I stepped back, and 
 stood waiting for him in the mouth of the 
 passage. 
 
 Then we shook hajuds : but he did not 
 let mine go after he had pressed it. I 
 turned my eyes from his face generally to 
 his eyes, and looked into them : puckering 
 up my mouth a little to one side. 
 
 He smiled : smiled a second time : and 
 let fall my hand. — He meant something by 
 that smile, and I understood something, 
 but I did not, and do not, quite know what. 
 
 Mine was a dreamless sleep that night. 
 
 Sitting opposite him in the railway- 
 carriage some five minutes before we were 
 to start, he caught me glancing at him in a 
 peculiar way. 
 
 ' I can tell you what you are thinking of,' 
 he said, bending towards me and putting his 
 hand on my knee. ' You are half-puzzled, 
 half-amused at my " delusion." Oh yes, 
 that's your word : " DelusioUo" Very well ! 
 We shall see what we shall see. My dear
 
 Leicester. 285 
 
 boy, I am not given to morbidity, believe 
 me. — By-tlie-bye, you didn't forget to get 
 some papers ?' 
 
 I started up. 
 
 ' Eeally, I am very sorry. I am afraid 
 I have forgotten all about them. I am very 
 sorry. I will go at once. — What papers 
 shall I get ?' 
 
 ' No, I should have got them myself. 
 Let me go. I hp.ve been doing all the talk- 
 ing and you all the work. It was very 
 kind of old Gordon to come down to give 
 me a God-speed and shake o' the hand, 
 wasn't it, Starkie ? — You didn't see him, I 
 thought. He kept me chattering with him. 
 — Stop ! stop ! I'll go. I really insist on 
 going !' 
 
 ' It is only at the end of the platform, 
 sir,' I said. ' Don't think of troubling 
 about it. Let me ' 
 
 ' No : no. I will go myself. You stop 
 here. — Is there any paper jovi particu- 
 larly like, Starkie ? Are you a liberal or a 
 conseiTative i"
 
 286 Leicester. 
 
 Mr. Starkie, with his feet upon the 
 cushions, looked round with his usual 
 beard-twitching smile : 
 
 ' Oh, I'm neither. They're both equally 
 bad. — Get me a society paper.' 
 
 As Mr. Brooke hurried away, Mr. Starkie 
 said something sarcastic about ' society 
 papers.' Then, after a pause (I knew 
 nothing about ' society papers '), I went on 
 to the platform, and began walking up and 
 down before the. carriage. 
 
 All at once I saw Mr. Brooke, with some 
 papers in his hand, coming towards the 
 open gate. A shabbily-dressed man was 
 slouching along at right-angles to him. 
 They met. I saw Mr. Brooke start back : 
 half-loose and then clutch the papers : let 
 the man pass by, and then come towards 
 me, but more slowly. 
 
 I thought nothing of it : re-entered the 
 carriage : and a moment after he was at the 
 door, and threw the papers on to the seat. 
 I was arranging some rugs upon the rac- 
 quet. Then the guard came to the door to
 
 Leicester. 287 
 
 examine our tickets. I had Mr. Brooke's. 
 I gave it up with mine : and then for the 
 first time noticed him. He was sitting staring 
 in front of him, with his hand supporting 
 his head. He was very pale. I stood in 
 doubt, looking at him. 
 
 * Are you ill ?' I asked. 
 
 He started and laughed. 
 
 'Oh, it is nothing. — We are to have a 
 fine day for our journey. See how the sun 
 is shining. It must be quite clear out in 
 tke country. . . . Do you know what time 
 we get to Dover, Starkie ?' 
 
 There was a door between Mr. Brooke's 
 room and mine at the Hotel de Manchester. 
 We had it opened, and talked as we were 
 dressing for dinner. He was instructing 
 me in the programme that had to be gone 
 through here in Paris. I was at my glass, 
 spoiling a white tie. — I heard him come 
 from his room into mine, but did not turn, 
 thinking he was onty continuing the con- 
 versation. All at once I saw his face re-
 
 288 Leicester. 
 
 fleeted beside mine. I cried out : ' Good' 
 God !' and jerked myself round. 
 
 His eyes kept opening and shutting. I 
 caught him by the arm. He smiled at 
 me. 
 
 ' It is as I thought/ he said slowly. ' We 
 must get out of this, boy. . . . That man 
 at the station. I ran against him." 
 
 He shuddered. I heard his teeth click 
 as he closed his jaws. 
 
 ' You are ill ?' 
 
 ' Yes. That man ! It went through 
 me like Weland's sword. Oh, the horrible 
 smell !' 
 
 ' You think you have caught the small- 
 pox ?' I said incredulousty. 
 
 ' I do not think : I know. How weak 
 my eyes are. I could almost fancy I saw 
 motes before. ... I am a fool !' 
 
 * It is the crossing,' I said. ' You will be 
 all right soon.' 
 
 ' The crossing ? An old sailor like me ? 
 Pooh, pooh ! Nothing of the sort. And 
 
 yet—'
 
 Leicester. 289 
 
 He began to consider to himself : 
 
 * And yet . . . How possibly . . / 
 I caught him by the arm : 
 
 * Stop : stop !' I said. ' You will give 
 yourself the small-pox if you go on at that 
 rate. — Have you been vaccinated ?' 
 
 He moved fi*om me, saying, with great 
 calmness : 
 
 ' Not I. Nonsense every bit of it. I 
 never wanted to have all the vile diseases 
 flesh is heir to pumped into my system with 
 bad Ijmph ! See. I will sit down here, 
 on the bed. I don't feel well : that's all — 
 at present : giddy. Go and tell Starkie. 
 Then go and find a room for me some- 
 where. A nice room : and flowers. Mind 
 you tell the people what it's for : a case of 
 small-pox.' He stopped and smiled. ' Vari- 
 ola confluens, if they are particular. That 
 means something like the certainty of a 
 dead body in the house. You may add 
 that: people like to know. Never mind 
 w^hat you have to pay. A nice room, 
 Leicester. Remember, I shall want to be 
 
 VOL. I. 19
 
 290 Leicester. 
 
 in it — probably a fortnight before I die. 
 I used to like Passy : try in Passy. — 
 Now go. No : I am not mad : not in the 
 least.' 
 
 ' Will you let me fetch a doctor ?' I 
 said. 
 
 ' You will anger me in a moment ! — Go 
 and tell Starkie, and find me a nice room. 
 I want to get there while I am quite sure of 
 myself. We must think of other people as 
 well as of ourselves. — Please go at once.' 
 
 I went to Starkie and sent him into my 
 room : then ran downstairs ; found out the 
 maitre de I'hotel, and tried to explain to 
 him that I wanted to know where I should 
 be able to find a house-agent. Seeing that 
 I only confused the man, I came up to my 
 room again. 
 
 Mr. Starkie was sitting beside Mr. 
 Brooke, speaking to him earnestly — I 
 think trying to persuade him that he was 
 mistaken in his idea about the small-pox. 
 He stopped speaking as I came in. 
 . I explained how useless it was for me to
 
 Leicester. 291 
 
 try to get what was wanted : I did not know 
 a street in Paris, and could not speak French. 
 Mr. Starkie had better go, and leave me 
 here with Mr. Brooke. They both seemed 
 to see this. Mr. Starkie jumped up, saying 
 that of course I was quite right. It would 
 be a dreadful waste of time for me to go, and 
 in. the end I might not be successful. Mr. 
 Brooke thanked him. 
 
 As the door closed I sat down beside the 
 bed. 
 
 After a little : 
 
 ' I wish you would let me get a doctor,' I 
 said. 
 
 * Not yet. Not yet. Useless. We shall 
 see, boy, in a little while. I hate doctors. 
 They are a blundering race. . . , But I 
 have one or two things to say to you before 
 you go . . . Bertram.' 
 
 It was the first time he called me by my 
 Christian name. I felt a sort of answering 
 thrill in me. 
 
 ' Before I go ?' I said. 
 
 * Yes. I shall not allow you to stay, 
 
 19—2
 
 292 Leicester, 
 
 and run the chance of catching it. That 
 would never do. Nor must Starkie : he 
 will have to hurry on to Brindisi ; but I'm 
 afraid Clarkson won't care to go on without 
 me. . . . And he wishes to put it off, too. 
 It is very hard : after all these years !' 
 
 A pause. 
 
 ' I have been speaking to him about you,' 
 he went on. ' He knows all my wishes. 
 He is one of my executors ... a brave 
 man : rough and ready : will follow any- 
 where, but can't lead. Clarkson has all 
 the brains of the party. You must have 
 scientific observation to hand, or you can 
 never do any real good. That is the mis- 
 take we have all of us made. Brave men 
 can plod on and, when there is need, shoot 
 straight (but the less shooting, the better) ; 
 but there is something else wanted as well, 
 and that's perception. They don't recog- 
 nise more than half they see. There has 
 only been one naturalist in Africa yet — 
 Klesmer, I mean. Think of that ! And 
 he, poor devil, came to grief on the ubi-
 
 Leicester. 293 
 
 quitous reef of poverty. I have often 
 regretted I didn't know of him in time. 
 But it's the old, old story ! When they 
 had muscle, they hadn't brains : and when 
 they had brains, they hadn't muscle. These 
 exj^lorers (especially the French) are a 
 queer lot. Du Camp's gorillas are . . . 
 w^ell, let's only say exaggerations : and as 
 for Louis . o . But there, there ! Starkie 
 knows all about it. He will tell you some 
 day. I have a thousand things in my head, 
 and can only bring you out one. About 
 yourself. You would not promise that 
 night to give up your life to the Cause. 
 You said that you believed you had other 
 work to do. I want you to promise now. 
 You must leave me to-night, Bertram — 
 very soon.' 
 
 ' Leave you ? That is impossible. Here 
 with strangers ?' 
 
 ' I want no one but the Sisters. I have 
 seen them at work before : have worked 
 with them. They are all I want. With 
 the small-pox, men die in delirium, loath-
 
 294 Leicester. 
 
 some to everyone. You could not stay. 
 ... I am thinking of going into an hos- 
 pital, instead of taking an apartment — if it 
 can be managed as I want it. Starkie has 
 gone to see. . . . That was a foolish idea 
 of mine : I am glad you came back. It is 
 all right. Starkie knows all about it. If 
 the doctors will only leave me alone ! . . . 
 Oh, boy,' he said, ' if you would only pro- 
 mise to try ! Go back and study, say, 
 for three years : only three years ! And 
 learn everything, everything ! And then 
 go down there for another year to learn 
 about the life. And you will pick up 
 experience very quickly. I know you. 
 Starkie says he will do it : he will not be 
 too old : a brave fellow ! Ah dear ! ah 
 dear ! I have so many things that I want 
 to tell you : so many ; so many that they 
 confuse me, and I can scarcely tell you 
 anything. All one jumble, eh ? But I 
 have not been like myself since that dream 
 - — Now, you will promise ?' 
 I answered nothing.
 
 Leicester. 295 
 
 He lifted up his head. 
 
 ' Promise me. I am so sm-e you could 
 do it. If you only had some beacon-light 
 to steer to. At times I have thought that I 
 am infatuated about you. You did not 
 know that I was married once ? . . . And 
 God took away my son from me. Yet I 
 bore it. And then my wife, too. " Tlie 
 Lord gave, and the Lord hath tahen away. 
 Blessed he the name of the Lord." That was 
 what Blake said to me in the evening when 
 my son died. I only saw him dead. It 
 was very sudden. Dear child ! dear child ! 
 . . .You have something of him in you, 
 Bertram, at times. . . . And then Ratcliffe 
 came and fell ill. He was not worth much. 
 Intelligent, and all that ; but had no in- 
 terest in his work, and could not have done 
 much for it if he had had. And then God 
 sent you to me. Your struggle in London. 
 — Oh, you must promise me. . . . Ha ! I 
 am a fond old fool !' 
 
 At last :
 
 296 Leicester. 
 
 ' You have not answered me,' he said. 
 * Will you not promise ?' 
 
 ' I cannot, sir. It is as if you asked me 
 to become a priest — having no vocation.' 
 
 ' But I have determined that you shall 
 promise ! I have made you my heir. I 
 am not very rich. Some eight hundred 
 a-yearnow; much less than I once had. I 
 have spent much in the Cause. You will 
 promise ?' 
 
 * I cannot, sir. I thank you none the 
 less ; but you must give it to some one else. 
 — To Mr. Starkie. I cannot promise to 
 give up my life to the pursuit of a thing — I 
 do not care for : I mean care for, enough 
 for that.' 
 
 After a little he ; 
 
 ' You will think better of it when you are 
 older. You are full of dreams now. — Pro- 
 mise me now. In five years . . It is not 
 for five years.' 
 
 * I cannot promise. You must not leave 
 me that money. I could not take it with-
 
 Leicester. 297 
 
 out I did promise, and I will never promise. 
 How could I honestly ?' 
 
 He sighed : 
 
 * My head is very heavj^ I cannot talk 
 any more now. Remember ; I will alter 
 nothing. You will go some day. Wait 
 till you have b'^en out in the world, boy. I 
 have seen bees covered with tiny red spiders 
 innumerable, tickled to death. I will alter 
 nothing.' 
 
 I took his hand gently : 
 
 'I cannot tell you, sir,' I said, 'how 
 sorry I am to seem so ungrateful. It is 
 not that I am so really ; but . . I cannot 
 — do this : I cannot give up my life to such 
 a thing. Do not think that I set great 
 store by my life. . . I do not. I am not 
 far from indifferent whether I live or whether 
 I die — as yet. But, as you have just said, 
 I am full of dreams. I have scarcely dared 
 to whisper to my own heart what they are, 
 but, such as they are, I will either climb up 
 to them or to nothing. Greatness is the 
 only truth. Man's soul is his fresh memory
 
 298 Leicester. 
 
 — and so is death the perfecting of life ; for 
 life is the hero and death the crown with 
 which he is crowned one of the heirs of im- 
 mortality. — And harvest breeds to harvest : 
 and evil daj^s eat not the blades away ; but 
 they ever live till their sheaves' golden 
 heads shall touch the sky and drop.' 
 
 In a little he said : 
 
 *0h greatness, greatness! what greatness, 
 boy ? It is all — vague — visions — dreams.' 
 
 ' No, no, not to me — now.' 
 
 ' I am too weary to talk of it any more. 
 Eest. Eest ! This is not the end ; for the 
 end cannot be with you — yet awhile.' 
 
 I did not say what was upon my tongue. 
 I was foolish to have said so much. I kept 
 silence for a little. Then : 
 
 ' Can I get you nothing ?' I said. ' Are 
 you sure ? ' 
 
 ' Nothing, nothing. . . . Let us wait for 
 Starkie.' 
 
 I rested my elbow on my knee and my 
 chin upon my hand ; and so sat, looking at 
 the floor, and thinking of my dreams. Mr.
 
 Leicester, 299 
 
 Brooke lay motionless on his back with his 
 ejes closed. His breathing seemed to me 
 short and heavj^ 
 
 At last Starkie came. It was all right : 
 Mr. Brooke might go to the hospital. 
 
 Just before he went downstairs, he 
 asked Mr. Starkie to leave us alone for a 
 moment. I stood by the large wardrobe 
 mirror, with a certain feeling of half-shame, 
 making me half wish to avert my eyes from 
 his face. He came to me — put one hand 
 on to my shoulder in his old way, smiUng, 
 and said : 
 
 ' Well. Starkie knows all about the book 
 too. It is to be brought out soon after my 
 death, and you are to be joint editor with 
 him.' 
 
 ' I, sir ? But consider, I am not yet 
 nineteen. I know nothing about Africa ; 
 nothing even of literary matters. How shall 
 I . . ?' 
 
 ' I wish it so. You will not refuse me 
 this ?' 
 
 'But, sir, I am so j^oung.' '
 
 300 Leicester. 
 
 * People will laugh. Is that it ?' 
 
 ' What people do or do not do, is, and 
 I think always will be, as nothing to 
 me.' 
 
 ' You say it with proper and distinct em- 
 phasis. Very well. — Then you accept ?' 
 
 * Yes, sir. — But I hope that neither Mr. 
 Starkie nor I may ever have to touch your 
 book. You will most surely recover.' 
 
 He smiled again ; less sadly than before, 
 it seemed to me. 
 
 ' No, no, that is not to be. God has 
 laid His hand upon me ; and I am to pay 
 the penalty of my sin. It is just. — May 
 His will be done in all things.' 
 
 I answered nothing. 
 
 He sighed ; let fall his hand from my 
 shoulder listlessly ; turned, and was moving 
 to the door. I followed him and touched 
 his arm : 
 
 ' You have not said good-bye to me, sir,' 
 I said. 
 
 I passed to in front of him. He raised a 
 hand to either shoulder, feeling up my right
 
 Leicester. 301 
 
 sleeve, but not the other ; then bent his 
 face forward towards mine, murmuring : 
 
 ' My eyes are a little weak. I too am a 
 little weak — a little feeble. That is tauto- 
 logical — eh ? . . . I did not say good-bye 
 to you ? That was careless of me. You 
 were in my thoughts — in the thoughts 
 behind my thoughts, Bertram. — Good-bye, 
 mj^ boy. . . I have no fear for thee — in 
 the end, child. Thou wilt do it in the end. 
 Keep a brave heart. God is not so far 
 from thee. . .' 
 
 His lips moved after that, but I heard no 
 sound that came from them. Then felt the 
 pressure of his hands moving me aside : 
 caught the door-handle : turned and opened 
 the door ; and he went out. 
 
 I stood watching him. Mr. Starkie w^as 
 at the top of the stairs. He offered Mr. 
 Brooke his arm, who half-absently took it : 
 then started, looked at Mr. Starkie, and 
 smiled. They went down together slowly. 
 
 As they reached the bottom step, I 
 moved back into the room ; stood staring
 
 302 Leicester. 
 
 at the carpet for a moment : looked up : 
 saw my frowning face and then whole bent 
 body in the mirror ; and said to myself : 
 
 ' I do not understand you, heart of mine. 
 Are you selfish to your very inmost core of 
 cores ? That man is going to his death. 
 You are not really moved by his pitiful 
 longing for some one to achieve the object 
 of his life, or by the deep pathos of his 
 silent grief. That man is going to his 
 death : and you have not even a tear for 
 him ! Is there anything in all the earth, 
 think you, that could do more than send 
 your blood raging through its channels for 
 some few instants ? Oh, uneasy, backward- 
 glancing dreamer! " Words, words, words." 
 What of real use are your dreams, even to 
 you ? After him ! after him for your life ! 
 Ask his pardon. Promise him all that he 
 asks. I am alone. — Ay, frown ! Go closer. 
 Look deep into your own eyes : look, till 
 you can see your own black, selfish heart 
 within. — I am not selfish ! Take back the 
 lie into your teeth, accursed Doubt ! What
 
 Leicester. 303 
 
 is that man to me, that I should give him 
 ■my Hfe ? . . . Can you hear me, God ? I 
 have no such duty towards him, I say. No ! 
 no ! And the memory of childish tales shall 
 not cozen me into a fool's belief. Away, 
 away !' 
 
 Mr. Starkie went on to Brindisi next day. 
 I told him that I would not leave Paris until 
 I had heard decisive news of Mr. Brooke : I 
 had still *15 left from my j£25 : and had 
 scarcely spent anything, Mr. Brooke having 
 insisted on paying all my expenses of outfit, 
 etc. 
 
 Mr. Starkie told me of a ' pension ' in 
 the Avenue de Fontenoi. I went there on 
 the same evening that Mr. Brooke went to 
 the hospital. The last thing Mr. Starkie 
 said to me (we were sitting in the court- 
 yard of the hotel : I was about to leave him 
 for the ' pension ') was that he had very 
 little doubt but that Clarkson would agree 
 to give up the expedition, but still, if he 
 wished to go on, there was nothing left but
 
 304 Leicester. 
 
 to go on with him : in which case I should 
 hear at once, either by letter or from Mr. 
 Starkie himself. As for my expenses at 
 Paris, those would, of course, be defrayed by 
 Mr. Brooke ; but of this, and many other 
 matters, more anon. 
 
 It was late in the evening when I arrived 
 at the Avenue de Fontenoi. I went straight 
 up to bed : to sleep heavily, I felt ; and yet 
 I dreamt of a man consumed in a jungle 
 by a small tiger. A horrible dream. 
 
 In the morning no one appeared for cafe 
 au lait and petit pain in the salle-a-manger 
 but Madame Kouff, her child, and myself.. 
 I learnt from her that there was a park 
 quite close to us, the Pare Monceau, 
 
 I went there at once. It is a pretty 
 greenery. I found a sunlit, bubbling spring 
 at the end of a pool in a (I thought) sham 
 ruin. And so, first of all, sitting watching 
 and playing with the stream : then sitting 
 watching the passers and some horses being- 
 tried, I was happy enough for the time. 
 The sense of it all being in an air and place
 
 Leicester. 305 
 
 somewhere between dream and reality was 
 perpetually with me and of me. There 
 were water-jets of pierced hose playing to 
 right and left on the fresh grass : cooings of 
 pigeons : and the flappings of their wings as 
 they took flight : small birds taking baths in 
 the dust : all the morning smiling and soft, 
 fresh-breathed. I thought of my first morn- 
 ing in Regent's Park, and of others : and 
 that by degrees led me to thinking of Rosy. 
 — What was she doing now ? And Minnie 
 — such a dear beast, but then ! 
 
 Later in the day I went to inquire about 
 Mr. Brooke. Nothing new. ' The sj^mp- 
 toms of small-pox, you know, sir, advance 
 with order. This does not hurry itself for 
 anyone. You must keep quiet.' — And so, 
 day after day, I went, and it was always 
 the same answer. This advances, this goes 
 on advancing. 
 
 I tried once to make myself unhappy by 
 thinking about him. I could not. My 
 sorrow for him was of itself hushed and not 
 untender ; but I could not make it into a 
 
 VOL. I. 20
 
 306 Leicester. 
 
 disturbing gnat buzzing in my ears at all 
 hours. After that one attempt, I let my 
 thoughts wander on at pleasure, as I had 
 always done before, and was contented ; for 
 such unceasing misery, produceable, it 
 seemed to me, by continued concentration 
 of the mind on one subject, was not ' true.' 
 I instinctively shrank from it. No, it was 
 not that I was hard-hearted (I had fooled 
 myself with that idea long enough). It was 
 simply that I had nothing more than regret 
 for this man, and that my old, unrooted -out 
 ideas had been doing their best to persuade 
 me that therein lay a sin ! 
 
 My old wandering spirit came back upon 
 me in Paris quickly enough. I had nothing 
 to interest me indoors. Perhaps there were 
 few things that could have taken me out of 
 myself then : I was living for my dreams 
 so much. I saw so many things before 
 me. 
 
 So passed ten or twelve weary days, whose 
 only memory to me is unrecorded weariness. 
 I spent most of my time wandering aboiifc
 
 Leicester. 307 
 
 Paris, reading, and talking with Starkie ; 
 but that last was only as we went down 
 together to the hospital each morning for 
 news, and sometimes an hour or so in the 
 evenings ; he having a good deal of business 
 to do in one shape or another. 
 
 On the, I think, thirteenth day (but all 
 accurate record or memory of these days is 
 gone) I lit upon the Louvre, and fi'om that 
 hour forward was in it continually. It gave 
 me quiet. 
 
 This quiet was broken into by the news of 
 the nineteenth morning. Secondary fever 
 had set in. For the first time, Starkie 
 seemed to give up all hope. The effect on 
 me w^as quite different. I could not realize 
 the fact of Mr. Brooke being in the state I, 
 I almost thought, knew he w^as in. I went 
 into the Pare Monceau, and sat there in a 
 sort of warm, gold dream of wilderment for 
 some time, till, all at once, I caught myself 
 starting up with the exclamation : 
 
 ' No, no ! If I was right in then re- 
 fusing, I am right in now having refused.' 
 
 20—2
 
 308 Leicester. 
 
 — And I was right. For what had I to do 
 with it ? 
 
 I spent the afternoon sculling on the river 
 out at Courbevoi. 
 
 After dinner I went for a walk along the 
 boulevards, softly singing or whistling to 
 myself ; till, in a dim street by the opera, 
 I woke up out of dreamy, sweet thoughts 
 into the perception of something like a 
 breath of fluttering music in me, now melt- 
 ing, now languorous, now fierce, floating up 
 into my brain and pulsing through me, from 
 time to time, a longing and yearning to 
 stretch out arms with a gurgling cry to 
 something. And in this strange, half- 
 ecstatic state I came home, threw off my 
 things, and got into bed as into a white, 
 cool haven. 
 
 In that night I had a strange and vivid 
 dream. I stood below somewhere, and saw 
 a lady I had seen once, in a carriage with a 
 dead child, on a green-lit down by the sea. 
 The carriage had just crossed a bridge. A 
 river rolled down smoothly over golden
 
 Leicester. 309 
 
 sands. A boy on the right shore stood watch- 
 ing a ball that the up-cresting sea-waves 
 kept lifting up to and back from him every 
 moment. I rose, and crossed over the stone 
 bridge : came to behind the carriage, and 
 began climbing over it from the back. The 
 lady turned, and, seeing me, put out her 
 brown-gloved hand to me ; and then, when 
 I would have caught and pressed it into 
 my bosom, touched my chest with her 
 finger-tips, the carriage moved onwards, the 
 child wailed, I fell backwards and down : 
 and awoke trembling and wet with trickling 
 sweat. 
 
 It was the next morning that, when we 
 came together to the hospital, they told us 
 that Mr. Brooke had died last night, at half- 
 past ten, delirious. 
 
 In a long moment Starkie turned away. I 
 followed him. 
 
 We went in silence along the pavement 
 with the on-moving people, till I said to my- 
 self half-aloud : 
 
 ' I cannot believe that it is so.'
 
 310 
 
 Leicester. 
 
 * Nor I,' he said in the same way ; ' nor 
 I : scarcely. . . . He was a good man.' 
 
 Then I said : 
 
 ' It is a deep thought to think that his 
 soul has gone out like a candle, and that 
 that is the end of him.' 
 
 Starkie answered nothing. 
 
 ' I wish,' I said, ' you vrould tell me truly 
 and from the bottom of 3'our soul : do you 
 belieTG that that is the end of him '?' 
 
 In a little : 
 
 ' I believe it,' he said. ' The energy 
 that was in him has undergone some change. 
 We call that change death. It is, I believe, 
 the end of us.' 
 
 ' Do you think that, when that change 
 comes to ijoii, you will end '? that there will 
 be Jio more of you ?' 
 
 ' I do. Death looses that which grips 
 the gathered threads of our individualities : 
 the threads fall away, going to other invisi- 
 ble work, just as the threads of the body 
 which is left slowly fade into the earth and 
 air, croincj for other visible work. What
 
 Leicester. 311 
 
 death is, to use what seems to me its proper 
 name, solution may be, I cannot of course 
 pretend to guess ; but our grandchildren 
 may be able to, and their grandchildren, 
 perhaps, to know. You asked me to tell 
 you my belief: what I truly and from the 
 bottom of my heart belieye. That is my 
 behef.' 
 
 ' I thank you for it,' I said. ' For from 
 to-day I purpose beginning my soul's life 
 anew, and I might go yery far, I think, 
 before I met one who belieyed what you 
 belieye, and would tell it me as you haye 
 told it me. Will you let me ask you one 
 more question '?' 
 
 ' Twenty, if you care to ask them.' 
 
 ' Haye you not in you a feeling, a strange 
 unaccountable, but neyertheless undeniable 
 feeling, that you, ijou — your indiyiduality, 
 as you said, can not possibly be destroyed?' 
 
 ' You mean haye I, what is called the 
 Instinct of Immortality? — No : I haye not, 
 now. When I first began to think about 
 these things, my mind was strongly pre-
 
 312 Leicester. 
 
 possessed in favour of immortality, and con- 
 sequently this instinct soon developed itself 
 from its passive unconsciousness into active 
 consciousness, and I held fast to the idea 
 of immortality when everything else, save 
 belief in a Deity, had gone. It was not 
 till after more than three years of thought- 
 fulness and study, that I learnt that my 
 desire for immortality was only a synonym 
 for my selfishness, and, having learnt this, 
 I began to see, too, the complete needless- 
 ness, though as complete naturalness, of that 
 desire. I determined to devote myself to 
 benefiting, as far as I could, my fellow men. 
 Whether this was a result from, or parallel 
 to, my loss of all belief in immortality, it 
 would be difficult to say. At any rate, 
 there are the two facts contemporaneous.' 
 
 ' And do you not believe in a Deity 
 either ?' 
 
 ' I cannot answer you ; for I do not 
 know. I am content, seeing a world full 
 of ignorance and woe, to strive to lessen 
 however little of that ignorance, knowing
 
 Leicester. 313 
 
 that thereby I shall lessen a corresponding 
 amount of that woe. This seems to me 
 the one undeniable duty of each of us : to 
 make the earth better for our having been 
 in it.' 
 
 I answered nothing, for my thoughts were 
 full. So we walked on together in silence 
 till we came to the hotel door. Then, as 
 he half-turning faced me, I held out my 
 hand for his, and when it was in mine, 
 squeezed it, looking into his eyes that looked 
 into mine : and I said : 
 
 ' Thank you.' 
 
 Then we passed to other matters ; for 
 what more was to be said or done as re- 
 garded this ? 
 
 We bought Brooke's grave in Pere-la- 
 Chaise a perpetuite. Upon the tombstone 
 a plain white marble cross was to be put, 
 his name, the dates of his birth and death, 
 and below, 
 
 ' Thij ivill he done.'
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 On my way to London, I sketched out 
 something like a plan of action for when I 
 got there. The first thing to be done, I 
 thought, was the mastering of Mr. Brooke's 
 business affairs, all, I meant, that was con- 
 nected with his property and money : the 
 next thing, the editing of the Book. I 
 had determined to take as much of the 
 income of one year as would keep me in 
 comfort while I was engaged upon my 
 work for him. Starkie had given me a 
 letter of introduction to Professor Strachan, 
 who would assist me in the editing of the 
 Book, or rather, who would be assisted by 
 me. Doubtless, after the first few weeks, I
 
 Leicester. 315 
 
 should be able to find time to set about the 
 recovery of my books and clothes from 
 Colchester. Also, to see Eosy. Also, to 
 meditate as to what I should do when the 
 time of my work for Mr. Brooke was 
 over. 
 
 I had a certain amount of trouble about 
 the business affairs, despite both the trouble 
 which Starkie had already taken to save me 
 from as much of it as possible, and the 
 courtesy, not to say kindness, of Mr. 
 Brooke's lawyers. Howbeit, at the end of 
 some ten days, I found that it was now 
 time to present the letter of introduction to 
 Professor Strachan. 
 
 He received me with the utmost kind- 
 ness. I had, at a dinner at Mr. Brooke's, 
 seen but not spoken to him, and so he was 
 not altogether a stranger to me : besides 
 which, I had heard a good deal about him 
 from Starkie on our last night together, 
 and he, I could see, was not unacquainted 
 with me. He arranged to come to Dun- 
 raven Place the next morning, and we
 
 316 Leicester. 
 
 would then proceed to examine the work 
 that was before us. 
 
 After we had talked a little on general 
 subjects, he asked me to go up with him 
 and have some tea with Mrs. Strachan in 
 the drawing-room. Up, then, we went and 
 into the drawing-room where were three 
 womenkind, one middle-aged and two young, 
 to whom I was presented : Mrs. and the two 
 Miss Strachans. Mrs. Strachan struck me 
 as an ordinary good-looking middle-aged 
 female, and her two daughters as two 
 ordinary pretty young females, clothed with 
 decorous fashionableness and speaking plati- 
 tudes of the most irreproachable character: 
 or shortly, as three ladies. And, this 
 seeming so, it followed that not even a 
 certain demureness in Miss Connie's face 
 and manner not unsuggestive of a certain 
 experience in the art of flirting, and added 
 to what I subsequently was assured was a 
 ' grave sweetness ' in Miss Isabel, were 
 enough to entice me out of my shell. It 
 was far more amusing, as it seemed to me.
 
 Leicester. 317 
 
 to sit and listen to their irreproachable 
 platitudes, which, it was not hard to see, 
 they took for delightful if not brilliant con- 
 versation, than to enter into the splashing 
 shallows myself, for, if I had been a talker, 
 I must inevitably have missed over half of 
 the nature-strokes which as a listener I 
 caught. The amusement of hearing Mrs. 
 Strachan and her daughters talk about 
 ' Culture,' while the Professor sat drinking 
 his tea and occasionally throwing in a gibe, 
 which they either did not hear or quite 
 misunderstand, seemed to give me some- 
 thing of an insight into the meaning of the 
 word Comedy. Finally, towards the end 
 of an almost irrepressible fit of merriment, 
 I rose and said good-bye to them, and went 
 away down the stairs and out into the 
 street hot and a little exhausted. If I had 
 stayed much longer, I thought, I must have 
 shown some sign that perhaps might have 
 offended them, and that would have been to- 
 be-regretted. And then I was led to think 
 of my last society experiences of three, it
 
 318 Leicester. 
 
 seemed years, but it was only weeks ago, 
 when I came to Dunraven Place. It then 
 occurred to me to write to Mother McCarthy 
 about my things at Colchester. 
 
 Accordingly I wrote : and took out my 
 letter and posted it ; and went for a walk 
 into the Park, Hyde Park, till seven, when 
 it was time for my supper. And after 
 supper came a reading of ' Esmond,' 
 highest Thackerayean art, in the low, red- 
 leathered armchair under the green-shaded 
 lamp ; till eleven, dumb-bells, bed and sleep. 
 
 The next morning Professor Strachan 
 and I began our work. 
 
 My Journal takes out a new lease on 
 that evening. (It seems to have given me 
 pleasure, though no great pleasure I think, 
 to record events or conversations, or to 
 deliver some few of my impressions of 
 present people and things in that way. 
 Perhaps there was some small necessity 
 upon me to write these things. I cannot 
 say.)
 
 Leicester. 319 
 
 Here is from a week later : 
 
 ' We are often almost in despair over the 
 manuscripts. In the first place the writing 
 is fearful. He seems to have thought it 
 quite enough to write the first three or 
 four letters of a word, for the rest is nearly 
 always comprised in a twirl. Now this is 
 aggravating to the son of man. Then, the 
 Journal is broken off by chance notes, and 
 these notes have references to other note- 
 books, and so on. I never was made for 
 editing other people's books. I lack pa- 
 tience ; and the worst of it is, that I don't 
 believe that anyone can do anything worth 
 calling thing icithont patience. The Pro- 
 fessor is Job and Griselda put into one. 
 
 ' After a week's hard work we have 
 arranged the stuff, I should say materials 
 or notes, I suppose, into something like 
 chronological order having separated the 
 whole mass into three almost equal parts : to 
 wit, The Travels in Palestine and parts of 
 Arabia, The Expedition from South Africa 
 upwards; and the last Expedition to lujiji.
 
 320 Leicester. 
 
 ' A sheet was pasted onto the inside of 
 the cover of the first note-hook of the 
 " Journal through Palestine and parts of 
 Arabia," which we are going, we think, to 
 use as an introduction to the two first ex- 
 peditions. It is as follows : 
 
 ' " This Journal through Palestine and 
 parts of Arabia was undertaken by me in 
 18 — , with a view to helping by details, 
 principally geographical, my dear friend the 
 Rev. Charles Blake, in the compilation of 
 his proposed History of the Origins of 
 Christianity. On returning home, however, 
 in , I learnt that he had been com- 
 pelled - to abandon his scheme for certain 
 most satisfactory reasons. I therefore laid 
 aside my MS., hoping that events might 
 some day make it possible for him to 
 utilize it as he had originally intended. 
 With that hope I seal it up now. — In case 
 of my death, this packet is to be given to 
 
 him unopened." 
 
 '"February 15th, 18—. 
 
 * "My Journal through parts of i\.rabia
 
 Leicester. 321 
 
 was connected with the same scheme ; 
 Blake proposing to draw a parallel between 
 the life of the Saviour and that of Mahomet, 
 as illustrating — " [Last two words erased.] 
 
 ' It seems in some way a little strange to 
 be sitting here copying out these words of 
 a dead man. It would perhaps seem really 
 strange if I realized that he was dead. Is 
 he dead I It seems rather as if he had 
 gone a journey into a far land, and now 
 stays there. The thought is so. I wonder 
 if I shall ever read this after many years 
 to come, and what shall I think of it 
 then? 
 
 * I think I should like ta go to Palestine 
 some day. Nazareth must be a very beautiful 
 place from what he says of it, and what so 
 soft and sweet as to wander in that land of 
 
 softness and sweetness, thinking of ' 
 
 [Cetera desunt.] 
 
 A little lower : 
 
 ' That sheet may originally have been 
 
 VOL. I. 21
 
 322 Leicester. 
 
 pasted on the outside of the packet ; at 
 any rate the packet has been broken open; 
 for the note-books are all mingled with 
 those of the other two journies in the 
 drawer/ etc., etc. 
 
 Another entry : 
 
 ' Books and things from Colchester. My 
 Euperti's Juvenal missing, also my Greek 
 Lex., also several note-books. A distinct 
 nuisance. I have divided my day off as 
 follows — Breakfast, 8.30 : Italian, 9 to 10 : 
 The Book with Strachan, 10 to 1 : Walk, 
 2 to 5 : Greek, 5 to 7 : (Supper) : Latin, 
 8 to 10 : English, 10 to 11. I find it is 
 the only way to get any real work done. 
 Now and then I go with the Strachans to 
 the theatre, or spend afternoons or evenings 
 out at people's houses. Mrs. Strachan 
 does her best to drag me into what she 
 calls " society," by introducing me to her 
 women friends (especially those having 
 daughters), who send me invitation cards, 
 and the rest of it. I believe she would
 
 Leicester. 323 
 
 like to see me mavriecl, or at any rate en- 
 gaged, to some young woman or other. 
 She seems to look upon me as lawful prey 
 in the matter of endurance of female 
 agacerie. Sometimes I grow mischievous, 
 and talk " atheism " to the young women 
 she puts me with, or who are put with me, 
 or whatever the real case may be. It is 
 sufficiently amusing. I had great sport 
 with Miss Isabel's " grave sweetness " last 
 Wednesday afternoon in this way. (Miss 
 Isabel would marry me, " atheism " and 
 all, I think, if I, after all proper formalities, 
 asked her to : which is a tribute to my 
 personal charms and her belief in my 
 personal possessions that I fully appreciate.) 
 Miss Connie, however, resolutely refuses to 
 be drawn into discussion of anything deeper 
 than flirting, and I respect her for it. 
 She is a frank little sensualist. Take it 
 all in all, the womenkind I have so far met 
 with have been of a most God-forsaken 
 sort. There is not one that has seemed to 
 me worth more than a mild sort of feeling 
 
 21—2
 
 324 Leicester, 
 
 that might by some be denominated " lust." 
 The idea of having to live with one of these 
 things for your natural life, short though it 
 is ! But the idea is happily out of the 
 question ; for where could you find one 
 that would live with you without being your 
 wife, with bell, book, ring, and the rest of 
 it ? And I simply would not, could not, 
 go through the foolery of the marriage 
 service for any woman (or so it I think) 
 alive. The more I think of Christianity 
 as compared with humanity — I mean, that 
 Christianity is the only divinity and all 
 other than Christians are either damned or 
 at the best deluded, the more I revolt 
 against it as an accursed libel on God, if 
 He is, and His justice.' 
 
 About three weeks later : 
 
 ' The first part of our work was finished 
 to-day. I must say I hope the rest may 
 be a little more interesting. And, indeed, 
 it has at times seemed, perhaps illogieally,
 
 Leicester. 325 
 
 that this Journal through Palestine and 
 parts of Arabia has been as it were extra 
 work ; at any rate, it has at times made me 
 feel a little aggrieved. Strachan doesn't 
 care for it either. I told him that Mr. 
 Starkie had said nothing to me about it, nor 
 yet of Blake's proposed History in connection 
 with which Brooke's journey appeared to 
 have been taken. He said that he had 
 known of it through Clarkson, but had 
 thought that the MS. had been destroyed, 
 he did not quite know why. 
 
 ' We should have liked not to have sup- 
 pressed or added a single word of it, for 
 obvious reasons ; but this was really quite 
 impossible. At times we came upon whole 
 pages of, what I dare say were abbreviations, 
 but which were to us, absolutely meaning- 
 less signs : then there were long extempo- 
 rary prayers, coupled with the most child- 
 like virulent attacks on different scientific 
 men of the day and Christians whose con- 
 ceptions of Christianity were different to 
 Brooke's own. Now all this was neither
 
 326 Leicester. 
 
 beautiful nor to the point, and, besides, we 
 felt sure that he himself would never have 
 wished them to see the light, at any rate, 
 in their present form. Accordingly we 
 eliminated certain passages that seemed to 
 us to offend : and were, I think, quite justi- 
 fied in so doing ; for to whom could they 
 do good ? Certainly not to the future 
 investigator of the origins of Christianity : 
 certainly not to the people who would read 
 this book : certainly not to the memory of 
 Mr. Brooke. None the less, I for my part 
 felt that it was veiy delicate work touching 
 anything, and so I think did Strachan. 
 However, it's done now, and the best we 
 could do it : so what's the good of 
 troubling ?' 
 
 ' It is astonishing how carelessly he put 
 his materials together, considering that the 
 object in view was one apparently so dear 
 to him. I had to copy it nearly all out. 
 The only interesting part was where he 
 debated upon the sincerity of Mahomet.
 
 Leicester. 327 
 
 This we left intact in the form of an 
 excursus.' 
 
 The next day has : 
 
 ' Went to Maitland Street tliis afternoon, 
 after a good horing at Mrs. Cunningham's. 
 Upon my sou] (faeon de parler, that, of 
 course) I don't think I will ever enter a 
 drawing-room again. The sickening foolery 
 we all talked ! And yet : [X. pause ex- 
 pressed on continuing by half a row of dots.] 
 . . . And 3^et, how, if I do not go out into 
 the world and talk with people therein, am 
 I ever likely to meet the woman I am to 
 love, nay love already in my heart ? — " 
 dear woman with soft eyes, standing wait- 
 ing and looking for me while in my light 
 boat on that, the night of my life, I pass 
 from the shadowiness into the silver-purled 
 moon -track ; pass on and on to the grass 
 mingled with the gently-moving wave in 
 which the roses dip. I am there now, and 
 know not of you : see, breathe, only this 
 terrestrial beauty. I step from the boat into
 
 330 Leicester. 
 
 ' " Oh/' I said. 
 
 ' " Miss Martin's a friend of Miss 
 'Owlit's, sir. But I don't know anything 
 about her 'istory — nothing about her 'istory, 
 sir." 
 
 ' "Oh," I said. And then: 
 
 ' " You will give her that when she 
 comes in, Mrs. Smith ?" 
 
 ' " Yes, sir, I'll be sure I will, sir." 
 
 ' " Thank you," I said. " Good-even- 
 ing." 
 
 ' '' Good-evening, sir. I'll be sure to 
 give it her." 
 
 ' The old she-devil !' 
 
 The next entry is five days later : 
 
 ' Kosy, not seeing fit to write to me as I 
 asked her (I don't quite know what I ex- 
 pected her to write), I went to No. 3 again 
 yesterday. She had just gone out — I was 
 a little angered (having a most ridiculous 
 idea that she had done it on purpose) : 
 scrawled her another note, why hadn't she 
 written to me ? If she would only tell me 
 some fixed hour, I would be happy to come
 
 Leicester. 331 
 
 and see lier, etc. : gave it to Mrs. Smith, as 
 servile as usual.: and then went for a long 
 walk. — Half round Eegent's Park, up 
 Primrose Hill once more, and then back to 
 Dunraven Place. It was all strangely dim 
 to me, this walk over the old land. (This 
 was yesterday.) 
 
 ' I found a letter from Eosy waiting me 
 after this afternoon's walk. 
 
 ' " Dear Mr. Leicester, 
 
 " I was very happy to see you 
 had not forgotten me. 
 
 " I was very sorry that I was out when 
 you called on me the two times. I hope 
 you are quite well, and have enjoyed your- 
 self in Paris. 
 
 " Minnie is quite well, and I am quite 
 well. 
 
 " And I have not forgotten the Swallow 
 Song." 
 
 " Yours truly, 
 
 " PiOSY HOWXET.
 
 332 Leicester. 
 
 " P.S. — I shall be in to-morrow night 
 early by eight. If you care to go a walk 
 with me then, I shall be very happy to go 
 a walk with you. I hope you have not 
 forgotten Minnie. 
 
 " Yours truly, 
 
 " EOSY HOWLET. 
 
 " (Rosebud.)" ' 
 
 ' The work is much easier now, though 
 not particularly interesting. Brooke, I 
 must say, seems to have taken a good deal 
 more pains over his own particular mania 
 than over his friend's. Great parts of this 
 second Journal are continuous narrative 
 that (thank God) require nothing on our 
 part. Strachan thinks my old friends 
 Baxter, Innes, and Co., will be the best 
 publishers to send it to when it's done. 
 Here is a copy of my preface. — But I can't 
 trouble to do it now. I only said that all 
 the credit of the editing of the Book was 
 due to Strachan, that I had only, etc.,
 
 Leicester. 333 
 
 etc., etc. There was nothing else to be 
 said. 
 
 ' He calculates finishing it by about the 
 
 middle of July. destiny !' 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
 yow ready at all the Libraries. 
 
 THE VALLEY OF SOREK. 
 
 A NOVEL. 2 vols., 21s. 
 
 By GERTRUDE M. GEORGE. 
 
 ' There is in the book a blgli and pure moral and a distinct conception of 
 character. . . . The clranMtis persome . . . are in reality strongly indi- 
 vidual, and surprise one with their inconsistencies just as real human beings do. 
 . . . There is something powerful in the way in which the reader is made to 
 feel both the reality and the un trust worthiness of bis [the hero's] religious 
 fervom*, and the character of the atheist, Graham, is not less strongly and 
 definitely conceived. . . . It is a work that shows imagination and moral 
 insight, and we shall look with much anticipation for another from the same 
 h.3.nd.' —Contemporary Review. 
 
 ' The characters are clearly defined, the situations are strong, and the interest 
 evoked by them is considerable. The women, in particular, are admirably 
 drawn.' — Atheiuturn. 
 
 ' Henry Westgate, the hero, is a study of no slight psychological interest. 
 . . . It is the development of this character for good and for evil, through the 
 diverse) influence of friends and circumstances . . . that Miss George has 
 portrayed with singular vigour and skilfu! analysis. . . . It is impossible to 
 read this story without wonderment at the maturity and self-restraint of its 
 style, and at the rare beauty and pathos, mingled with strength, which mark 
 every page.' — Literary World. 
 
 ' Literary merit beyond the average. ... A young man arrested in a 
 career of carelessness and extr^.vagance by a reverse of fortune, ref^jrins his life 
 and becomes the subject of strong religious convictions. How these convictions 
 are assailed, and how they are shaken, almost to overthrowing, is told in the 
 story. . . . There is ability in the book, and promise for the future.' — 
 S2)ectator. 
 
 '.Henry Westgate, the hero ... is drawn with skill and power. His lapses 
 from the right path, his weakness when he allows himself to be drawn down by 
 the wife wliom he loves, instead of i-aising her to his own spiritual level, are 
 portrayed in a forcible and natural manner. Graham is also a clever, if unpleasing, 
 character study. . . . The author . . . possesses no inconsiderable talent.' 
 Morning Post. 
 
 ' The present novel stands out with bold and striking originality. For a 
 firat composition it is remarkable alike for its subtle analysis of character and 
 philosophic dei^ths in probing the passions and mysteries of the human heart. 
 . . . It is a story that captivates the imagination. . . . "The Valley of 
 Sorek," as this sentence shows, is a tale with a high pui-pose, and it is told in an 
 eloquent and most impressive mMiner.'— Bail i/C/ironick. 
 
 ' Evident signs of artistic ability in these volumes. Thus, she possesses in no 
 slight degree the power of investing her characters with life ; tliat she has con- 
 siderable insight into human nature is shown in the sul)tle analysis of the phases 
 through which the hero's mind passes during his courtsliip of Hebe. . . . The 
 strong situations which arise out of the conviction of theiunocent \Vestgate serve 
 to show that the author possesses some dramatic power. . . . The story is 
 well and powerfully written.' — Glnhe. 
 
 ' Her power in depicting the fluctuations of character between good and evil 
 influences (' betwixt Urmuzd and Ahriman,' to follow her Orientalism) is by no 
 means small, nor does her choice of Sampson and Delilah, as implied ty^ies of her 
 hero and heroine, seriously impair the natural character-drawing of these 
 personages. . . . The work is praiseworthy and promising, and, if the author 
 should advance as happily as she has begun, her name may yet be famous.' — 
 DoAli/ Teleijraph. 
 
 'An original — indeed, perhaps it is not too much to s.ay a unique— .story. . . . 
 Powerful, eloquent, and only too true. . . . Marked by strong individuality.' 
 — Socii-.ty. 
 
 ' The story of Westgate's infatuation for the imjietuous, beautiful, and 
 pleasure-loving Hebe Mansfield is well told.' — Morninr/ AUc- rtiser. 
 
 LONDON . 
 GEORGE REDWAY, 15, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
 
 Piice Seven Shillings and Sixpence. 
 In crown 8vo., 384 pages, handsomely bound in cloth, gilt. 
 
 THEOSOPHY, 
 
 RELIGION AND OCCULT SCIENCE. 
 
 HENRY S. OLCOTT, 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 *^* Among the matters treated in this important worh are: — 
 
 Adepts — Aryan Philosophy — Astral Self— Atma— The Aura — Madame 
 Blavatsky — Boehmen — Bralmiinical Customs — Lord Buddha — Cosmic 
 Matter — Charms and Sjiells — Chela — Christianity — Clairvoyance — Con- 
 fucius — Crystal-Keading — Demoniac Agency — Dervishes — Divining Rods 
 — The DuaUsts — Ecstatics — Hierophants of Egypt — Electricity — Esoteric 
 Buddhism — Euhemerization — Exorcism — Fire Worship — Folk Lore — Free- 
 masons — Gautama — God — Hebrew Cosmogony — Hermetic Doctiine — 
 Hmduism — Illumiuatiou — LnmortaUty— Incantation — India — Initiates — 
 Islam — Jesuits — Jesus — Jews — Jiv-atma, or Life-priuciiile — Kabala — 
 Kabeu'ac Mysteries — Koran — Krishna — Levitation — Loadstone — Lully — 
 Magic Magnetism — The Mahatmas — Mahomet — Materialism — Medimnism 
 — Mesmerism — Miracles — Moksha — Moses — Moslem Paradise — Muktatma 
 or Soul Universalized — Mysticism— Neo-Platonists of Alexandria — Nirvana 
 — Occult Sciences — Od, or Odyle — Odic Aura — Oriental Philosophy — 
 Palingenesis — Parahrahma — Paracelsus — The Parsi — Plato— The Phono- 
 graph — Plotinus — Porphyry — Prayer — Prognostication — Psychic Phe- 
 nomena — Psychology— Psychometry — The Pundits — The Puranas — The 
 Eeformation — Eeiucarnationists — ReHgion — The Rishis — Story of a Sadhu 
 — Salem Witchcraft Horrors — Sanskrit Literature — The Sastras — Science 
 — Seances— Self — SensuaUty — Somnambules — Sorcery — ' Soul ' — Herbert 
 Spencer — Spirit Rapping — Ancient and Modern Spii'ituahsts — Super- 
 naturahsm — Swedenborg — Table-Moving — Secret of Talismans — The 
 Talmud ^ Theochdaktoi of Greece — Theosophical Society — Theosophy : 
 Its proper definition — Theurgists — Thought-Reading — Transmissibility 
 of Thought — Mystics of Tibet — Training in Occult Science — Trance — 
 The Tripitikas — Universal Brotherhood — The Upanishads — Vatsavana 
 — Vedantism — The Vedas — VedicPhQosophy — Vestal Mysteries — Vital 
 Force— Witchcraft — Science of Yoga — Zoroastrian ReUgion, etc. 
 
 LONDON : 
 GEORGE REDWAY, 15, YORK STREET, CO VENT GARDEN.
 
 ■ 
 
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