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Title: Gallybird
Date of first publication: 1934
Place and date of edition used as base for this ebook:
  New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1934 (First Edition)
Author: Sheila Kaye-Smith (1887-1956)
Date first posted: 1 July 2007
Date last updated: 1 July 2007
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #9

This ebook was produced by: Andrew Templeton




                              GALLYBIRD

                             A NOVEL BY
                          Sheila Kaye-Smith


                    HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
                        New York _and_ London
                                1934



                              Gallybird

                             CHAPTER ONE

                                  1


Old Gervase Alard was walking through Leasan. He did not strictly
deserve to be called old, for he was no more than fifty-six; but lately
old age seemed to have come down on him like a September frost, showing
itself less in any whitening and withering than in a queer twisting, a
subtle turning of his mind and body toward winter.

He walked with his cassock and gown bundled up round his haunches, so
that his long legs could stride their way over the ruts. In his right
hand he clutched a holly stick, which was less a help to his legs than
an accent to his thoughts, for it was more often in the air than on the
ground--waving and twirling and beating about, as his thoughts took him
here and there and up and down, in and out of the little houses and far
away across the water.

"Good evenun', Parson"--"Evenun', Parson."

Respectful forelocks were pulled and aprons bobbed, while less
respectful voices followed him, as he strode on without noticing either
the forelocks or the aprons.

"Up in the clouds as ever."

"Or over the sea."

"Maybe un's thinking how to bring the King back."

"Such an old wagpasty 'ud never do it."

The voices came after him down the April wind, blowing with the cry of
lambs and the rumble of a cart behind him, and meaning as little to him
as either.

He thought: I do well to go. All the best men are going--the
Archbishop's going. Soon they'll find there won't be a manjack of them
to take the oath. And if we all go out, we take the Church of England
with us. Anyway, we're the Church, and what's left's the schism. I'm
wise to go. And I'll be glad . . . twenty years in a parish is too long.
I'd like a change before I'm older--and a Bishopric, maybe . . . why
not? I've never had a chance, buried in this hole. I was a fool ever to
come into it. But now I go out. . . . Besides, it's against my
conscience to take the oath. I swore faith to King James, and I'll never
have William of Orange save as Regent. . . . My girls 'ull cackle like a
yard of hens, but they'll be well enough at my brother's--for my brother
must take us. And he must take my books. I pray he have room for my
books, for I won't go without 'em. I do well to go. Now at last I've a
chance to study, to prove myself a learned man. I shall have hours and
days to read in, with none to call for the Parson. . . . But since I'm
still the Parson I must look where I'm walking, for it seems I've passed
the road. . . . La! La! I'm through the horns and along to Colespore
. . . . Eh well, it won't be more than a yard or two to turn back.

He swung round on the road, waving his stick and cracking his fingers.
He had been so busily considering his state and the state of the realm
that he had walked past the cross-ways without thinking. He must take
the southward road from Superstition Corner--the road to Conster, though
he would not go so far. He was on his way to Newhouse to visit the sick,
a clerkly duty that he must perform, though the fellow was a sad,
sour-faced, round-headed scrub who deserved nothing.

Newhouse stood about half a mile from Superstition Corner. Unlike the
cross-ways, which was so called because it had once been the turning for
a Mass-house, it had got its name in no especial manner, merely through
having been a new house a hundred years ago. It was still called new,
though it looked old, with its leaning, lime-washed walls, and its
sprawl of weathered roof. It had been built for the present owner's
grandfather, a Harman who had married a Douce when first they came over
from France--before their name was Dows on the local tongue or they had
built their hump-roofed house on Starvencrow hill. They had been bad
friends to the Alards, the Harmans and Douces, for when King Charles's
star went down they had held by the parliament, and the Protector had
given them Conster Manor--Harman the house and farmlands, Douce the
furnace. It had been hard work getting them out of it when the King came
back; but they had gone at last, to save their skins and their own
lawful properties at Newhouse and La Petite Douce--though it was
certainly a piece of luck that Accepted Harman had died when he did,
leaving no heir but his brother Exalted, who was a poor psalm-singing,
low-spirited man, too gutless to cling even to an ill-gotten estate. . . .

"Good evening, Mrs. Harman--and how's your goodman to-day?"

"Reckon he's the same, Parson. His affliction never changes."

"Eh well, I'll step up and see him. Is he in his bedroom?"

"Aye--he's in his chair. I haven't had time yet to wash his wound and
put him to bed. We're hard at the lambing now, and short-handed for
shepherds."

"Short-handed with such a family as yours--five boys and girls, all bred
to farming?"

"Maybe, Parson, but they're lumperdee louts for all that, and I've eight
lambs in the kitchen crying for their dams' milk. If you'll pardon me
I'll go to 'em now, for my pan's on the fire and only that fool
Condemnation to watch it."

She whisked off, leaving him to find his own way upstairs. Gervase did
not like her and grimaced at her ample backside. The next moment he
heard her voice raised loud in anger.

"Aye, to it, scold!" he muttered, fumbling up the dark staircase. "Scold
the poor little foundling, since you dare not scold the Parson. I'd give
much to have the poor child out of her hand."




                                  2

He knocked at the door.

"Come in."

The room was dark, for the window was hung over with a cloth to keep out
the sunset. Blocked against the smothered light was the figure of a man
in a chair.

"Ah, so it's Parson. Welcome, and pray sit down, Sir."

Gervase groped for a stool.

"Pox on you, Harman, for your love of darkness. It ill becomes the
regenerate son of light that you would be."

"My eyes are feeble, and run in the light. You must learn to pardon my
infirmity."

He spoke in a trailing voice that made Gervase snort and blow his nose,
as a Christian substitute for more violent expression. It always took
him a few minutes to accustom himself to Exalted Harman, who was almost
alone in the parish for his Roundhead manners. Everybody save he had
long forgotten the Protector and the last revolution but one. No doubt
it was his consciousness of wrong-doing, this lapse of his that was
always under his nose, that made him prate like an Anabaptist rattler,
for all that he was a sober member of a sober church. (Gervase prided
himself that there was not a single conventicle in his parish.)

"Hum ha. And how fares your leg? Your good wife says there's no change."

Exalted was a little roused by this.

"Aye, but there's great change since you came last. I had an issue of
putrid humours for an hour on Tuesday. Michal and Condemnation were for
ever upon the stairs with clean linen, and now there's a darkness
gathering round the sore which I take to be a gangrene."

He spoke cheerfully, even hopefully, and to Gervase's disgust, pulled
down the linen bandage that wrapped his leg, showing him the wound and
its sullen edges. It had been caused three months ago by his fall from a
tree when he was cutting off a rotten branch, and it certainly looked
worse to-day than it had looked at the start, but Gervase could not pity
the man, because of his evident pleasure.

"See, there's broken bits of bone in it: My wife brought one out last
week as big as a walnut."

"Cover it now," said Gervase shortly.

Plague on the fellow! he thought to himself. He loves sickness and sores
both of body and of soul. He's as proud of his broken, rotting leg as
I'll warrant he's proud of his bastard.

"Has the physician called of late?" he asked.

"He came a' Thursday as usual. He says there is nun he can do, save
take the leg off."

"And you won't have him do that?"

"No, surely--not even if I was at the point of death. What should I do
at the Resurrection of the just with only one leg?"

"As well as the man who plucks out his offending eye in obedience to the
Gospels. You are too exact, my friend. There's a natural body and a
spiritual body."

"The Scripture says--'It is better for thee to enter into life with one
eye than having two eyes be cast into everlasting fire,' And since it's
evident from Scripture that the man who has sacrificed his eye for
spiritual reasons never has it again, but enters into life with one eye,
how could I think to find my leg again when I had cast it from me for
reasons of carnal health?"

"Nay, you err altogether. Our bodies shall rise again in their
integrity, and the aged shall enjoy eternal youth."

"But the Scripture says----"

"Quote no more Scripture to me. Who, think you, knows more of
Scripture--you or I?"

"I am never without the Word of God."

"And I read it daily in the Parish Church as by law commanded . . ."

He broke off suddenly, then said in a different voice:

"Let's not reason and wrangle, for I came here to tell some news that I
hope will sadden you. I can't take the oath, so I'm leaving Leasan
Parsonage."

"Leaving? . . . What oath?"

"The oath of allegiance--the same that I took to King Charles when first
I was made Vicar of Leasan and that when he died I took to King James."

"What! You're never a Jacobite."

"Jacobite forsooth! I'm no Jacobite, as they say in their new impudent,
fleering fashion. I'm no Jacobite and I welcome a Protestant hero to
save the liberties of England. But I believe in the divine right of
kings and the high doctrine of the Lord's anointed. I've sworn
allegiance to King James and I can't swear to any other king."

"You would have had the King stay?"

"No--I was all for their sending for the Prince of Orange, but as
Regent, not as King. I'm for the Protestant religion at any cost, but
not for two kings."

"Nay, there's but one King William."

"You say well that there's only one king, but he's King James."

"And you tell me you're no Jacobite?"

"Aye, and I tell you again. I wouldn't have King James back in London
for the whole world: but he's King for all that, made a King for ever
when the holy oil touched his head and he became the Lord's Anointed."

"I understand not your High Church disputations."

"High Church hobbyhorse! 'Tis the plain word of God." Gervase sprang to
his feet and began to stride the room. "What says the Scripture? That
the young man David would not lift up his hand against King Saul, though
the King was hot upon his life and he lived in danger of him every hour.
And what said David to the Amalekite who had slain Saul? 'Wast thou not
afraid to stretch forth thine hand against the Lord's anointed?' And he
smote him that he died."

Carried away by the power of his own oratory he wedded action to word,
and smote the head of a young woman who had just come into the room.




                                  3

There was a crash of falling crocks, and a platter rolled on the ground,
as she stumbled to her knees. Gervase was horrified.

"What have I done? I've hurt thee, pigsnie. Why, I wouldn't have hurt
thee for the world, child. I was but quoting Scripture and forgot
myself."

He slipped his hands under her armpits and tried to raise her.

"Forgive me, bud. It was all a forgetting on my part. I knew not thou
wast there behind me, creeping mouse . . ."

"Condemnation!"

A voice cried from below, and the girl started up at once. She was a
small creature, less than five feet high, with a secret little face,
which with its great black starting eyes gave her the look of some
animal--no creeping mouse, but rather some coney or hare crouching
before a spring for safety.

"Condemnation! What hast thou broken now?"

"She has broken naught. It's I who've broken your platter, smiting her
as David smote the Amalekite who had slain the King. Had not this
happened," he continued, turning to Exalted Harman, "I should have
quoted further how David said unto him 'thy blood be upon thy head, for
thy mouth hath testified against thee saying I have slain the Lord's
anointed.' So if David could thus avenge Saul who had sought his blood
for many years and whose place he himself was anointed to take, how much
less dare I forswear myself against a King who has done me no harm but
only a general injustice through being a Papist."

Exalted always felt enraged when the Parson quoted Scripture. He was the
only man in the district who could beat him with a text, and somehow it
seemed all wrong for a Royalist Alard, bred in France, to know more of
Holy Writ than a godly Harman whose father and brother had both fought
for the Parliament. He searched his mind to cap him now, but could find
nothing at the moment. His hand reached out for the Bible that was
always at his side, when suddenly Gervase recalled himself.

"Where's the poor little bud?"

"Run away, during your argument."

"But I would know if I've hurt the poor rogue."

"Nay, she an't hurt--only scared to have broken another platter. And she
an't so little and young as you would make her. She was eighteen at
Christmas."

"What, a woman already. I'd no idea of it."

"I thought as much by your address," said Exalted primly. "But she is a
woman, and will most likely be married before her next birthday, to my
ploughman, Lambert Relph."

"Why, it seems only a few years ago that I held her in my arms at the
font and called her by the outlandish name you would give her, adding
but the name Ruth for the dignity of the Church, and the integrity of
the Sacrament."

"'For I remember my fault, and my sin is ever before me,'" murmured
Exalted.

"And you would have called her Sin had I not restrained you."

"Would you have me forget the sin of which she is the fruit?"

"Nay, forget it not, but confess it and be forgiven, and there let it
rest. Why visit it upon an innocent babe who had no part in your
iniquity?"

"No part! But she is my iniquity. She is my everlasting condemnation."

"Nay, in your soul is your iniquity. What says the Book of Enoch? 'And
say not to thyself: I have Adam to my transgression, for I say unto thee
that each one of us hath been the Adam of his own soul.'"

For a moment Exalted looked angry and baffled. Then he realized that the
Parson had not quoted from Holy Writ.

"What is this Book of Enoch that you speak of? It an't in Scripture, of
that I'm certain sure."

Gervase seemed confused.

"So. I was forgetting. I quote from a book I studied when I was in
France--a learned book of the Jews."

"Is it the same Enoch that is in Scripture, who was not found because
God had translated him?"

"The same, but the book concerns rather the fallen angels . . ." he
stopped and stammered a little: "I had forgotten such things."

"The Church of England is much to be blamed," said Harman, "in that she
encourages reading outside the Word of God, such as the fabulous books
of Wisdom and Sirach, which are only tales."

"Nay, rather they are for example of life and instruction of manners, as
the Article says. But Enoch is not among those."

"A Papist book?"

"Nay--nay, I told you--a book of the Jews. But let's have no more of it.
. . . And here comes my little bud again, or rather my young woman; for
I hear thou art a woman grown now, Condemnation."

The girl did not speak. She came in with a fresh platter of soup for her
father, carrying under her arm a besom and a mop, with which she swept
up the broken pieces and mopped the spilled soup from the floor. All the
while she did not speak, though Gervase joked and teased her on being
grown so old. Her air was both frightened and sullen. She seemed afraid
to speak: though her fear was not so much a fear of blows--since neither
Gervase nor Exalted would have struck her--as a sort of general fear of
mankind. She was afraid as a bird is afraid in a man's hand; stroke her
or strike her, she would fly away if she could.

At last she had picked up her pieces, and turned to go.

"Nay, not so fast," said the Parson, "I see thee so seldom that when I
see thee I must examine thee. Art so old that thou hast forgotten thy
Catechism?"

She shook her head.

"Come then, let's hear some of it. What is thy duty towards thy
neighbour?"

"My duty to'rds my neighbour is to love 'un as myself and do t'all men
as I would they do me to love honest and sucker my father and mother
honest and obey the King and all or-orthumbrity under 'un . . ."

"La! La! La!" cried Gervase--"that isn't the English tongue. Where hast
thou lost the good English tongue and learned to speak like a hob?"

"She can speak well enough," said Exalted, "but now she's sullen."

"Nay, she isn't sullen. Begin again, child--'my duty towards my
neighbour' . . ."

But she would say no more, and when he pressed her, she turned from him
and ran out of the room.

"Already reprobate," said Exalted calmly.

"Say rather, timid. She's timid as a jenny-wren. I sometimes wonder,
friend, if your good wife isn't over-shrewd with her."

"Maybe she is. But what would you have? She must hate the girl."

"Why should she hate her?"

"You know well, sir."

"I know naught that she should hate her for, though enough that she
should have hated you for once had she been so minded. But all that's
very long ago, and had she felt bound to hate a poor innocent child for
being born to her husband out of wedlock she shouldn't have taken her
into her house."

"I commanded her to take her in. She was forced to obey me."

The Parson struggled a smile into a grimace. "You shouldn't have
commanded. The child would be happier on the Parish than in a home where
she's tormented."

"She an't tormented. She has been brought up under a godly discipline,
as beseems a child of rebuke----"

"Nay, have done with that. I'm weary of your rebukes and sins and
condemnations. You do but glory in them."

"I will glory in my infirmities, as the Apostle saith."

Gervase sighed stormily.

"Aye, your running sores of body and soul--whereas both could most
likely be cured at once with a good plaster."

"You injure me."

"No, I injure you not. But all these years I've been offering you a
plaster for your soul, at least, and you'll have none of it."

"If you would again persuade to absolution, I must again remind you of
the Apostle's word--'confess your sins one to another,' which means no
sacerdotal monopoly but a brotherly exchange. You tell me your
transgressions and I will tell you mine."

"You've told me yours till I'm sick of hearing 'em, and mine are for no
man's ears. So there's an end on't. But, come now, we won't quarrel. I
must be going. I came only to tell you my news, which I lay has made you
more glad than sorry."

"No, indeed. I am truly sorry; though I shan't be long in the world to
mourn your loss, and your reasons for going don't seem to me plain in
Scripture."

Gervase opened his mouth to quote again from the Book of Samuel, but
thought better of it.

"You will most likely live longer than any of us," he said, "and I trust
my successor may persuade you where I've been unable. Now I must go, and
I shall tell my man to make you the famous plaster he made for my horse
and cured him of a running sore in thirty-six hours. Good day to 'ee."

And he marched out, priding himself that he had got the better of Harman
both in theology and in medicine.



                                  4

A little farther on the road home, it struck him that this was not the
right way for a Pastor to feel toward a sick member of his flock. But he
could not help it. He could not like Exalted Harman, who, after all, was
a Churchman in name only. He had for his own comfort urged his not too
difficult conscience to conformity--hence, no doubt, his failure to
understand his Vicar's renunciation--but his mind was still full of
Anabaptist rubbish and his heart of a secret enmity toward the Church of
Laud and Ken and Sancroft, restored and re-established.

The man was a humbug. Gervase had vastly preferred his elder brother
Accepted, though he and his family had often cursed him for an arrant,
rank, iron-sided Bible thumper, but for whose timely death they would
have been kept still longer out of their estates. He had refused to
budge from where Cromwell had placed him, and he had thought John Douce
a poor washy scoundrel for so readily coming to an agreement and
surrendering an ownership for a mere mastership. He would have held
Conster against the Philistines another ten years had he lived. But he
had died.

Marching home between the hawthorn towers of the hedgerow, Gervase's
mind went back to an evening eighteen years ago, soon after the Alards'
return to Conster. He had been Vicar of Leasan only a few months, and he
saw himself standing in his new gown upon a sunlit lawn, smelling as he
smelt now the scents of the warm reviving earth. His father had given a
feast to celebrate the family's restoration, nine years after the
King's, and a summer-tree had been set up, for all the villagers and
country folk who had not seen one since the Rebellion.

They had waited a year after the death of Accepted Harman, so there was
nothing unseemly in the festival or likely to upset those families who
had always been friendly with the dispossessed Harmans and Douces. But
Exalted, he remembered, had watched the proceedings with a sour face,
and would not let his wife or children dance--not because he still
mourned his brother or resented the loss of Conster to his family, but
because he held dancing to be lascivious and a maypole but little less
idolatrous than a cross. Gervase remembered how the poor little children
had wanted to dance, and how when he had pleaded with their father they
had had their first Scripture-quoting contest, bringing the daughter of
Herodias and her impious prancing against the godly measure that King
David trod before the Ark.

Exalted had beaten him then, he remembered darkly, for he had been
ordained no more than a year, and as his pre-Restoration life in France
had not been particularly godly, he was as yet untrained to withstand
the onslaught of woes and prophets and daughters of Sion, all brought
forward to prove how easily the feet can trip the soul. Since then his
daily reading of the Book of Common Prayer had given him as extensive an
armoury as his antagonist, but on that day he had been defeated and had
retired in dudgeon: and then . . . old Gervase gave a sudden hop and
skip to the astonishment of some children driving a cow along the road
. . . and then the mountebank woman had come.

She had come in at the low gate, he remembered, carrying her bundle high
against her shoulder. Her long shadow had run ahead of her over the
grass, and her shape had been mere rags and darkness. He had felt
surprised when she stopped and asked him for Exalted Harman; but he had
pointed him out, and then felt curious enough to follow her. She had
gone straight up to where Exalted stood with his wife and children, some
twenty yards from the dancers, and had straightway thrust her bundle
into his arms--"There, take your brat."

Gervase laughed out loud at his memories, and the passing cow swung her
head at him. It had been a famous sight--that sour black stick of a man
gaping there with the child in his arms, and the mountebank running away
. . . she had got to the fence before anyone thought of stopping her. Of
course at first they had all believed it a joke--that she had been paid
by some wag to plant her brat on the Puritan. But it was the man himself
who had stuck for the truth of her words. He would have it that this was
his own child, his own sin, the Lord's rebuke for a wantonness, twelve
months old. Nay, he would tell them all how he had met a tinker woman at
a fair and been tempted to his undoing.

"For twelve months I've borne the secret smart of my sin. Now the Lord
has discovered my shame and visited his condemnation upon me."

All the time his wife was railing at him; for she believed him. It
appeared that his manners to her a year ago had agreed with such a
story.

"I knew well you'd been up to some wickedness. You were hang-dog and
shamefaced and scrambling for a week or more. Nay, filthy! I know thee
now."

For a while it was all a hubbub--he proclaiming his fault and she rating
him for it; till the Squire walked down from the terrace to see what had
happened, and the dancers came crowding and questioning from the
summer-tree. There had been a great gabble and rattle of tongues, in the
midst of which the poor infant had lifted up her voice and cried
lustily. The merrymakers laughed and hullooed and dug one another in the
sides. They had drunk some good ale and their spirits were high, and it
seemed to them the best thing in the world that Exalted Harman, who had
condemned their sport, should stand before them confessing himself the
father of a bastard.

In the end they had all joined hands and danced round him as if he were
a maypole. Old Gervase laughed aloud and capered, as he remembered
Exalted Harman, dressed in black, with a steeple-crowned hat on his head
and a squalling brat in his arms, standing there with his eyes rolled up
to heaven, while the boys and girls danced round him singing: "Pinch
him, pinch him, black and blue . . ." He! He! He! It had been a famous
sight, and he felt better for remembering it so well.

                "Pinch him blue and pinch him black,
                     Let him not lack
                 Sharp nails to pinch him blue and red
                 Till sleep has rocked his addle head."

Those nails had certainly done their work when he was home, to judge by
his appearance during the next day or two. But for all that Mistress
Harman had had to keep the child. She might pinch her husband, but she
must obey him and breed up his bastard--if so be it really was his,
since none could tell whose child the mountebank might have fathered on
him. Possibly she didn't know herself whose it was, but her luck had
sent her a mighty fine chance to get rid of it. Sir Charles Alard had
had her searched for, but she had gone from the district.

Exalted Harman would never hear a word against the child being his. You
might have thought he gloried in it, though for the matter of that
Gervase guessed well enough that his faith in Providence was at stake
with his paternity. The Lord would never have condemned him with another
man's child, so the child must be his and he would bring her up in his
family as a perpetual memorial of his sin, its punishment, and its
forgiveness. He had drunk strong waters at a fair, and gone with a
vagabond woman, and hidden his sin for a year. But there is nothing
secret that shall not be revealed, and that which ye shall speak in your
closets--or rather in the hollow by the hedge of Dodyland Shaw--shall be
proclaimed on the housetops--or on the lawn of Conster Manor at a
May-day feast. To that end he had had the poor wretch christened
Condemnation, so that he might say when he saw her: my rebuke is ever
before me. The old fool! Gervase switched off a head of fennel in the
ditch.

They had better have sent her to the workhouse, for she had had a hard
life under her father's roof. It was not to be expected that her
stepmother should love her, and the young Harmans--solid, healthy,
witless boys and girls--were so unlike her that it seemed natural she
should be their butt and sport. He'd lay his life she was no Harman; she
came of a darker, wilder breed, belike of those Egyptians that were
coming into the country. . . . She'd be happier in the hedge than in the
house. . . .

But she was growing up now and would soon be married. He did not like
the thought of her marrying Lambert Relph, who was nothing but a
labourer. Harman had no right to mate her so low--most likely it was all
a part of his psalm-singing and sin-snivelling and general
Roundheadedness. She ought to have a good husband, the poor little
bud--not a yokel or a Puritan, but some tight merry lad. Perhaps he
could find one for her--who would do for her, now? He went over a list
of names. There was Nick Lord of Peryman's Garden, and young Ned Martin
of Cobbeach who soon would be looking for a wife. Or what of William
Douce, John Douce's son, when he came back from France? He was a roving
lad and might suit a wild, brown girl like Condemnation, though it was
more likely he aimed higher. That was the trouble with most of 'em. They
wouldn't stoop to a wife born out of wedlock. He'd better mate her with
one of the Tuktons of Colespore--being Papists, they couldn't look high,
and they too were dark and wild. . . . Thus his thoughts rambled on
while his stick smote the tall weeds in the hedgerow.



                                  5

When he came to Leasan the sun was already low, a reddish ball above the
little houses and the darkness of Lordine Wood. The church steeple rose
in a black tapering shaft against the glow, and from it came the plaint
of its ancient bell. He must hurry, or there would not be light enough
to read Evening Prayers.

He went in, and the sunset followed him, painting the whitewashed walls
of the little bare place with fiery colours, and lighting up into
another sun the great brass alms dish that stood upon the altar. He
loved his church, with its dim smell of devotion, and suffered his first
renunciatory pang when he thought that he must leave it, that perhaps it
would be many weeks before a stranger should stand reading prayers to
Tom Synden the clerk and old Goody Munskull. . . . No doubt there were
many things more glorious than that, but he would miss the godly order
of his days, and his honourable position as Parson of the parish, free
to stand up in his pulpit and say what he liked, even to his brother the
Squire. . . . King of his own little kingdom. His heart sank, heavy with
the thought of his sacrifice for conscience's sake.

What should he do in his brother's house? He would feel no better than a
layman. Study? What for? He would have no sermons to preach and collect
into a goodly volume for issue with a Lewes bookseller, as he had done
already and had meant to do again. . . . La! he had too much conscience.
Why couldn't he be like his predecessor whose tomb lay under his feet as
he reached for his surplice on its nail behind the pulpit? Nicholas
Pecksall had been made Vicar of Leasan in 1556 under Queen Mary and had
held his living till King Jamie came to the throne in 1603. Like most of
the neighbouring clergy at that period he changed from Catholic to
Protestant with, apparently, no more trouble than a man changes from his
summer to his winter coat. Why couldn't Gervase Alard be like him?
Because maybe he was a better man--a man of his oath, a man of his
conscience, though with a sound, sensible, theological conscience,
unlike some. . . .

"To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses though we have
rebelled against him, neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our
God, to walk in his laws which he set before us. Dearly beloved brethren
. . ."

He had begun to read prayers, though the goody had not yet come. Perhaps
her rheumatism was troubling her--he had seen rain in the sky, lying in
tremulous pools and sheets of green and yellow beside the fine-weather
flush. She must have her rheumatism again and would not come at all.
There was no use waiting for anybody else. His girls would not come, the
flighty wretches--no doubt they were sporting with some young fellow or
other in the house; they never came to prayers except on Sundays. Their
mother would have come: their mother had always done as she was bid. How
was it that his commands had bred out of her obedience so many
disobedient children?

But his church was full on Sundays, and next Sunday he would preach 'em
a fine rating sermon about coming in the week. His successor must not
find the place slack and neglected. He frowned at the cool empty shadows
in the nave, and on the empty benches near the door. He was reading the
Psalms now and his thoughts could no longer roam freely while his tongue
moved between the fences of habit. His thoughts must follow his tongue
in his godly duet with Tom Synden. Tom was as good a clerk as you'd find
within fifty miles, and spoke the English language instead of some
outlandish jargon of his own. Whosoever came to Leasan would marvel at
it; but there was no marvel, since his Parish Priest himself had trained
him, moulding his speech to gentleness. . . . La! Tom spake better than
his own daughters.

_Gervase:_ "Lord, I am not high minded: I have no proud looks."

_Tom:_ "I do not exercise myself in great matters: which are too high
for me."

_Gervase:_ "But I refrain my soul and keep it low, like as a child that
is weaned from his mother: yea, my soul is even as a weaned child."

_Tom:_ "O Israel, trust in the Lord: from this time forth for ever
more."

Gervase opened his Bible and turned over the pages for the Lesson. He
generally kept a marker in the place, but it must have fallen out, for
he could not find it. The stiff pages crackled as he swung them over. He
loved turning the pages of his Bible, which was as fine a Bible as any
in the kingdom--one of the first to be printed of King James's version.
The Lesson was in the First Book of Samuel--a mighty fine book for those
who would assert and prove the divine right of kings--but he was in no
great hurry to find it; he enjoyed turning the pages, and there was no
one to wait for him but Tom. . . . "And the angels which kept not their
first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in
everlasting chains under darkness . . . Enoch also, the seventh from
Adam prophesied . . ." Strange that he should light upon that passage
after what he had said to Exalted Harman. . . . It was many years now
since he had thought of the fallen angels and their powers among men.
Once he had even known their names. Could he remember them now? . . .
Ramuel, Taniel, Araziel. . . . Perhaps when he was at Conster he would
be able to revive some of that lost knowledge. No, better not--it
savoured of magic, touched the corners of it . . . a Parson should not
meddle with such things, and he would still be a priest even when he
left Leasan, and maybe some day the Archbishop would give him another
benefice in the new free church which the dispossessed hierarchy would
doubtless set up . . . he might rise high in that . . .

"The lesson's First Samuel fifteen, Sir," said Tom Synden, and craned
his head over the reading-desk, where the Parson was muttering to
himself as he turned the pages.



                                  6

Evening Prayers had been duly, if somewhat absently, read. The Parson
and the Clerk exchanged good nights, and Gervase walked through the
churchyard to Leasan Vicarage. His father had rebuilt the house for him
soon after his appointment to the living, and it was now handsome and
commodious, less like a Vicarage than the house of a small country
gentleman. It used to be a little thatched place, snug enough, but too
small for a man just married and meaning to breed a family.

Gervase, as Vicar of Leasan, was the first of a long line of Alard's
younger sons. On their return with the King, the family had found in
occupation an Anabaptist crony of Accepted Harman's. Unable to change
his religion as easily as Nicholas Pecksall, he had gone out with the
rest of Cromwell's men on Black Bartholomew's day, and soon afterwards
Sir Stephen Alard (baroneted by King Charles on Newbury field) had
conceived the notion of presenting the living to Gervase. His elder
son's boy was alive then and naturally regarded as the heir: he was only
doing the best he could for the dissatisfied and rather strange young
man who had returned with them from France. Gervase was more than thirty
years old, and up till then, like the rest of them, had lived chiefly by
his wits, knowing dire poverty as well as dissipation. He had been bred
up to nothing, but he had always been fond of books and liable to
serious fits, and his father discredited the rumour which accused him of
going with the necromancers and magicians of Tours. Gervase would settle
down into a good sort of country parson, he had not a doubt, and such an
establishment would encourage him to marry and become more like other
people.

The young fellow himself did not hesitate long before accepting the
offer. He was already tired of living in the country without occupation
or interest or very much money, and he believed--erroneously--that the
living of Leasan would lead to promotion in the Church of England. He
was impressed by that Church itself, by its discreet and godly order, by
the solemn cadences of its liturgy, to which he came almost as a
stranger after twenty years' exile. At one time he had thought of
joining the Romish Church, but had been dissuaded by his family and the
sudden turn of affairs toward the King's restoration. Now he was glad
that he had not done so; though for several years after their return the
Alards had to bear the suspicion of Popery, Charles Alard having brought
back with him a young French wife who never came to church, but, it was
rumoured, received the ministrations of wandering Jesuits.

Gervase himself had married soon after his ordination--Mary Ann Pye, the
daughter of a Kentish Squire who had returned to his estates at much the
same time as the Alards. She had been a good wife to him in all save her
failure to bear a son. This had not mattered at first, but when
Charles's boy died soon after his father's succession to the title and
estates, he had grown anxious about it. "Let it be a boy this time,
child," he would say to his wife on intimate occasions, and she would
answer solemnly, "I'll do my best, dear heart," and give him a girl as
sure as clockwork.

Folk said she'd died of her disappointment after the fifth girl was
born, though Gervase had never reproached her for what he must believe
was the will of God and the course of Nature rather than her fault. He
had, however, often been distressed, first by the thought of Louise
cutting him out with another son, and then, when he saw this was not
going to happen, by the thought of the family's extinction at his death.
Once before the chain had been nearly broken, when an earlier Gervase,
Peter Alard's son, had become a seminary priest; but the gap had been
filled by Peter's brother Tom, Sir Stephen's grandfather. Now there was
no brother to inherit: the property without the title would go to the
Oxenbrigges of Iden, on the Kentish border, who were the family's next
of kin. Gervase's death would mean the end of the house of Alard--that
ancient, honourable house of Squires and Crusaders, which would then
become mere dead history, as musty as de Icklesham and de Etchingham and
other names on tombs.

For a while he played with the idea of marrying again, but nothing came
of it and in time he gave up the notion. He had always been of solitary,
eccentric habit, and his marriage to poor Mary Ann had alternately bored
and exasperated him. He would sooner be free--and as for the
inheritance; that must go to the Oxenbrigges. They were no doubt as good
as Alard in the eyes of heaven and soon would be as good in the eyes of
Leasan. And his daughter Bess was to marry one of them.

Was that Ned Oxenbrigge with them now in the garden? He could see the
gaily coloured dresses standing out of the twilight among the tall
bushes he had planted. Laughter came to him, and somehow both laughter
and colour seemed strangely out of place in that encroaching dusk, which
was swallowing up the garden, beginning with the groves and shrubberies
and finishing with the grey lawns where the colours moved.

"Hey!" he called. "Hey! Wretches--come in: the dew's falling."

A titter of laughter answered him and one or two colours detached
themselves and came floating toward him.

"It'll gather on your gowns and draggle 'em. That ought to move you if
obedience won't. Eh, Bess--hast thy gallant here?"

"No, Father. Ned has ridden over to Ashford to see the fighting cocks.
The gentlemen here are Monsieur de Champfort and Monsieur de Prigault."

"What, the old fellows?"

"No--Monsieur Eustache and Monsieur Gilles."

"And have they taught thee any French?"

"They've been teaching us all French. That's why we were laughing so."

"Aye, hussy--laugh at the language of thy father's exile; and learn it
from thy gallants since thou wouldst never learn it from thine aunt."

"I'd have willingly learned it from my aunt if she hadn't mocked me."

"So it was she who laughed instead of thee and thou'dst sooner do the
laughing thyself. Well, well. And here come the young fellows. Bon soir,
messieurs."

"Bon soir, Monsieur le Pasteur . . . Bon soir."

The young French gentlemen bowed low and swept the ground with their
plumed hats. They were very different from the common run of Huguenot
immigrants, from the families, mostly of the trading class--cloth-workers,
weavers and iron smelters--that had been dribbling into the country for
the last hundred and fifty years. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes
had brought a new type of refugee--ancient families from the south and
south-west of France, impoverished but noble, not bred to any trade save
war. One or two of these had settled in the neighbourhood of Leasan,
living frugally in small houses, but none the less maintaining a
civilization that the English-born gentry had never known.

Gervase liked them for their elegance and their panache, and would have
asked them in to supper, so that he might discourse with them all the
evening in a language his daughters could not understand. But they made
their excuses: they had already stayed too long and their families
expected them home. Model young men indeed! Gervase pointed and stressed
their excellence as he marched in front of his daughters into the
house--a tall black prancing shepherd leading a flock of many-coloured
sheep.



                                  7

His daughters were a pretty pack, for the Alards were a handsome family,
and Mary Ann Pye's face, though luckily not all her fortune, was just as
enviable a dowry. She had given her youngest girls, Bridget and Madge,
her ruddy, chestnut hair, her skin of honey and roses; the rest were
Alards, brown-haired, blue-eyed and white-skinned where they were not
tanned. Bess, the eldest, took care of her complexion and kept it white
with cucumber and milk and a strange mess of ashes and almond oil which
she plastered on at night, to the derision of her sisters, who
conjectured freely as to its effect on her bridegroom. After Bess came
Ann, then Henrietta; Gervase was sometimes as much bored by them as he
had been by their mother, though on the whole he enjoyed their chatter
round his table, and always found pleasure in teasing them and in
censuring their country manners.

"And how many times have these young sparks been here in your father's
absence? Nay, Biddy child, keep thy fingers out of the dish and use thy
fork."

"This is the first time they've come, but we met them both last week at
my aunt's."

"I'll warrant she's glad to speak her own tongue again, though she must
hate their reason for leaving France. Eh well, they're pretty fellows,
and you can sort 'em out amongst ye, so long as Bess keeps to
Oxenbrigge."

"They'll never marry one of us. Their fathers have lost everything, so
they must marry women of fortune."

"And none of ye's penniless. I'll wager that neither the Sieur de
Champfort nor the Sieur de Prigault will find four thousand pounds come
amiss just now. And when I die there's the furnace, though you can't
have the estate."

"Maybe the furnace won't be blowing then. John Douce says the timber
will be all used up in another fifty years."

"Well, that's thy life as well as mine, child; and John Douce is an old
croaker--maybe he'd sing another tune if the furnace was still his.
Henny, hast forgotten what I read 'ee out of Lady Rich's book? 'Throwing
your liquor as into a funnel is an action fitter for a juggler than a
gentlewoman.'"

"Father, you're as teasing as my aunt."

"I've your good at heart in the same way, child. You've been brought up
without a mother's care, and have some sad country manners in consequence.
You must behave better at table if you want to marry a fine French
gentleman."

"I'd sooner marry an Englishman," said Ann. "The French are for ever
mocking and mincing."

"Nay, they're civilized. We're louts beside 'em. I trust your aunt to
make some improvement in your manners when you live at Conster."

"Then is it settled that we're to live at Conster?"

"Aye, it's settled. Your uncle must take us since we've nowhere else to
go, and there'll be plenty of room for us all."

The girls groaned and made faces.

"I don't like Conster," cried Ann, "it's a great gloomy place, all
planted round with trees, and they say Galloping Kate's ghost rides down
the hill at nights."

"For shame to believe such a tale! Conster Manor's a fine, cheerful
house, with twice as many windows as this."

"If we live at Conster," said Bridget, "our aunt will be for ever
scolding us."

"And laughing at us."

"And reading to us out of the 'Closet of Rarities.'"

"Nay, Bess, it an't for you to grumble--you'll soon be away from it all
at Iden."

"When shall we go to Conster?" asked Bess.

"I don't know, child. But it must be before August."

"Father, why must we go? We're all happy here."

"We'll all be happy there."

"Shall we have our horses?"

"You shall indeed. I lose four hundred pounds a year, but it needn't
trouble you. Your uncle will take your horses into his stable."

"I'd sooner stay here--away from my uncle and aunt. I can't see why we
need go."

"Because, as I've told you a hundred times, you thoughtless rogue, I
will not take the oath to the new King and they will not let me stay
without it."

"I can't see why they won't let you stay nor why you can't take the
oath."

Gervase rolled up the whites of his eyes.

"What a litter, what a brood, have I begotten! All ignorant hussies
without grace or sense. As if it weren't bad enough my being without a
son to inherit the estates, I must have daughters brained no better than
conies."

He was half laughing as he spoke, but in his heart was an angry feeling
of loneliness. He felt lonely in the midst of their chattering
ignorance; their pretty, smiling faces were mere masks--there was no
human brain behind them to understand him. He was alone among masks.



                                  8

The next day he went over to Conster as soon as he had read Morning
Prayers. He went as usual on foot, for unless the way were very long he
would always rather walk than ride, and Conster was barely two miles
from Leasan. He walked at a great pace and his mind moved faster than
his legs. Striding along with his holly stick in his hand and his
cassock bunched round his middle, his thoughts were on horseback,
galloping ahead of him; whereas when he rode a horse his thoughts
crawled only at a foot pace.

To-day his thoughts were cavalry, charging the future. He saw the Church
of England in disruption--what could they do when they found that only a
fraction of the clergy would take the oath? They couldn't deprive them
all. And no power on earth could deprive them of their orders; Bishops
and Priests would remain Bishops and Priests, the ministry of the new
church--the bones of the Phoenix. . . . Schism? Nay, the schism lay with
those who intruded their swearing nominees into sees and cures already
occupied by men too loyal and logical to swear . . . the men who
followed Canterbury would be the ministers of the true Church of
England, the others but usurpers and schismatics. . . . He was to be
turned out of his living, but he would soon have something better--a
bishopric maybe. He was a man of ripe age and experience--they would
surely give him an important place in any new administration, all the
more because he was not a Jacobite . . . he was all for William of
Orange and against the Pope. . . . But he would not swear sacrilegious,
unscriptural oaths . . . and he was weary of Leasan--his galloping
thoughts swept down the fences that yesterday had been set about his
mind--weary of a Parson's daily round, of reading prayers to old women
and breathing the foul air of sickrooms. He was king of his castle--but
it was only a toy castle, and his crown a paper crown. How ran the
Psalm? "I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord" . . .
or John Milton: "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven" . . .
nay, that was not his meaning; but he was well rid of Leasan. He saw
himself a Bishop of some newly created see, resigning at last for an
honourable retirement to Conster Manor on his brother's death. . . .

"Good day, brother."

Charles's voice came coolly, unaware that he greeted a retired Bishop
who had supplanted him.

Gervase pulled up, a little dazed by the spread of his thoughts and
surprised to find that his legs, at an almost equal speed, had taken him
all unwittingly over the footbridge that crossed the River Tillingham,
and into the lower groves of Conster's garden.

"Good day, Charles. Good day, Master Douce."

Charles was standing on a green lawn-slope beside the river, in
conference with his furnace master, John Douce, great-grandson of Robert
Douce, the melancholy Frenchman who had come as a refugee from Beauface
more than a hundred years ago. The Douces and the Harmans were
connected, for a daughter of Robert Douce had married the young Harman
of her day, and for a time, as no Alard could ever forget, the Conster
estate had been parcelled out between them. But their power had ended
with the Commonwealth and the Douces had returned to their former state
more philosophically than the Harmans. Perhaps John Douce, as owner of
Conster Furnace, had seen the shadow creeping down on it, and thought it
as well to put himself in a less responsible position. The shadow came
from the high hill behind Conster, where the forest of Mardersham met
the forest of Wagenmary. The furnace had blown for a hundred years and
already the trees were growing thin. New plantations had been made, but
the young stock was not thriving--and anyway it is impossible to grow a
tree in the time it takes to cut one down.

Charles had been discussing timber with John Douce when Gervase charged
in on them.

"In ten years' time we'll be forced to buy our fuel, and that will sink
our profits yet lower. The new plantation at Farthingland won't be up
before the rest of the forest is down."

"How's that?" said Gervase. "Your trees look well enough?"

He gazed round him at the tall oaks standing about the lawn, and then up
at the tree-covered slope of Wagenmary, where the young foliage of oak
and ash and beech burned in a yellowish fire against the sky. All about
Conster stood the trees, shutting it away from the countryside into the
leafy prison of its wealth. The shadows lay dark against the sunlight in
the clear heat of spring.

Gervase repeated: "Your trees look well enough."

"Hark!" said Charles.

Through the silence came the rocketing laugh of a woodpecker.
Ha-ha-ha-hi!

"The place is infested with gallybirds," said Douce. "What harm can they
do?"

"None to a sound tree; but a gallybird never goes to a sound tree. Our
trees are rotting, so the gallybirds are in most of 'em."

"But your wood is wanted mainly for burning, so I can't see that a
little unsoundness can affect you much." Charles laughed.

"A rotten tree burns twice--thrice--as fast as a sound one. That's why
we shall have burned all our old trees before the new ones are up. I'll
lay, brother, that when Conster's yours, the furnace will be blowing at
a loss."

"Then it shall blow no more--I'll have no loss on it."

Gervase's inheritance was in the way of being a joke between them--a
better joke for the elder than for the younger--because Charles was
scarcely two years older than his brother. In point of fact he looked
younger; his skin was almost unlined and his forehead was pale and
smooth under the eaves of his monstrous periwig. Beside him Gervase
looked gnarled, and there was grey in the hard, stubbly thatch of his
hair. Only his smile was younger than his brother's, for he had a wide
grin showing sound, white teeth, while Charles's teeth were minced
together like a rabbit's and his smile was languid.

"And how fares your controversy at Leasan? I see by my 'Newsletter' that
those who won't swear are to go."

"I shall go--and so will two-thirds of the clergy on the Establishment."

"Two-thirds?" Charles raised his eyebrows. "I shouldn't have thought
two-tenths. But whether you go with the majority or the minority I'm
glad that you go. You've been Parson of a parish long enough."

"Eh, how's that?" Gervase was surprised and a little annoyed to find his
brother so accurately expressing his recent thoughts.

"You've been Vicar of Leasan more than twenty years. It was a bad scheme
of my father's to put you in; but doubtless he thought it would lead to
something better."

"And what better am I to have now?"

"You will be able to lead the life of a scholar and a gentleman. Both my
wife and I will be glad for you to settle here--our family's too small
for such a place."

Gervase was pleased to find his brother proposing what he himself had
meant to ask at a more favourable opportunity.

"But, remember, I'm not alone. If your family's small, mine's large--too
large, since there's no variety in it."

"No, but there's good room for your daughters, and we shall enjoy having
so much young company. Come up to the house and let my wife tell you
what we've been talking of."

They had already started to walk, Gervase's long legs setting a pace
that gave his brother hard work to keep up with him and made John Douce
fall behind.

"We shall all agree together well enough," continued Charles.

"And you will take my books?"

"I wouldn't take you without 'em, and you shall have the east room to
study in--it's quiet and away from the rest. You'll be a happier man
when you can sit among your books instead of having to go forth into
stinking cottages to look at sores and boils or into a cold church to
read prayers to witches."

"I read no prayers to witches."

"What! Has no one told you that Goody Munskull is a witch----"

"Nay, I'd never listen to such rank talk."

"But our neighbour Austen was telling me only last night at dinner that
the goody's a witch and keeps a little cow no bigger than a cat."

"Foh! there speaks our learned magistrate, our English Squire, with a
nose as good for a witch as for a fox."

"Aye indeed. But you mustn't be solemn over it. When you live at the
Manor you will laugh at such things. Brother, you and I are still
suffering from our seventeen years in France, where we learned to be
civilized, and perversely to speak the English tongue. If we had never
been away, we should be like any other Squire round here, with no
thought save to guzzle ale and hunt the fox, and no speech save the
'uums' and 'aahs' of a yokel at a fair."

"You'll soon see plain that my girls have never been in France."

"Madame shall teach them how to behave _ la franaise_; though I'll lay
you don't want 'em trained up as wives for the French exiles."

"I've no objection if she makes them polite enough. Two pretty, prancing
young fellows were at my house last night and I told the girls they
could do as they pleased with 'em so long as they remembered that Bess
marries the heir. They'll have money of their own, so can afford to pay
for blood."

"We've some fine ancient families exiled now among us, much as we once
were exiled among them. Louise was mightily pleased with one or two that
she saw, though she doesn't like their religion . . . there she is, on
the terrace."

Gervase could see the vivid colours of his sister's gown and petticoat
standing against the dim, rosy wall of the manor. The ground floor of
Conster was built of old, mellow bricks, above which the upper story
hung, three beamed and lime-washed gables.

"Who's that with her?" he asked.

"Mr. Parsons."

Gervase made a grimace.



                                  9

"Ah, Gerr-r-vase," said Louise Alard, coming forward.

She spoke English with charming fluency and some equally charming
hesitations. She had been no more than sixteen when Charles Alard
married her at the end of his exile, and now she looked far less than
her thirty-eight years, for her shape was trim and delicate and her face
was like a little pointed heart.

Gervase kissed her hand, which had a mysterious scent upon it, and
turned from her to answer her companion's greeting. Mr. Parsons was
about forty years old, dark, short, and dressed in a neat, old-fashioned
style. Gervase had met him already once or twice, for he was a fairly
frequent visitor at the Manor. Rumour held him to be a Jacobite spy, and
though Gervase was convinced of his brother's political integrity he had
a pretty strong suspicion that the stranger was a Romish priest. Louise,
he knew, was periodically visited by such, who ministered to her and to
the one or two Papist families that still survived in the neighbourhood.
The tolerance of the times allowed it, and he personally was glad that
his sister should still be pious in her adopted country and have
opportunities to practise her religion. But he respected the silence
that Charles always maintained on the subject, reading in it a desire
not to embarrass him as Parson of the parish. . . . Apart from his pride
in keeping out conventicles (and he was not sure if Mr. Parsons' visits
constituted a conventicle) he had no strong feelings against the Romish
Church; he had indeed at one time thought of joining it.

"My love, I've told my brother of his coming to us--" Charles's voice
broke into his thoughts.

"And he's corning?"

"I trust that he is, with all our pretty nieces."

"We shall be a large family," said Louise, laughing. "But I am pleased.
This house often seems lonely, as if more people should be in it."

"And I've promised Gervase that you shall train up his daughters to
marry the very best of the French exiles--that they shall wear their
caps and mantos and petticoats and trains in such a fashion that no man
can resist 'em, and dress their heads in so artful a manner that each
hair shall be a chain to lead a beau . . ."

"Nay, I am not a milliner or a hairdresser, and they are more like to
take a Frenchman's heart with their pretty English barbarities than with
graces learned from a Frenchwoman."

"I don't want my daughters turned into fine ladies," said Gervase, "all
I ask you, sister, is to teach 'em gentle manners. They've lacked a
mother's care too long."

"My friend," laughed Louise, "I can teach them nothing--they will not
learn from me. But I shall be very pleased to have them in the house and
listen to them laughing so loud--so loud . . . and I think that the
young _rfugis_ will like it too."

"They are anxious to know if they may bring their horses. Brother, is
there room in your stables for my daughters' horses?"

"Yes, we have room--let them bring what they like. And you shall bring
your books . . . My joy, I've promised him the east room for his own
that he may study there as he pleases."

"Mr. Alard is a great scholar," said Mr. Parsons with a little formal
bow--"the clergy of England are known for their learning."

"Aye, _stupor mundi_ is the saying, and I understand there's envy of our
learned clerks in countries where the clergy are less learned"--his
bright blue eyes, curiously innocent and child-like in a face so marked
by experience, raked Parsons' countenance to see the effect of this
random shot; but he only bowed again. "But I was never at an English
University," continued Gervase--"I spent my youth in Paris, exiled for
King Charles, and my studies were under French masters."

"You were perhaps a student of Paris University?"

"Aye, for a time--and in the country."

"The truth is," said Charles, "that in those days we were devilish short
of money. My brother's studies were often interrupted. But he was always
a great student--would go without his dinner for a book, and sooner
spend an evening in reading than in dancing. That's why my father made
him Vicar of Leasan--he thought it would give him still further
opportunities; and now he's coming to us here it will be better still.
I've told you, brother, that you'll be a happier man when you can sit
among your books without interruption from your parishioners."

It seemed to Gervase that too rosy a view was being taken of his
situation. In the eyes of his brother and sister he was no martyr to a
sacred cause but a man who has chosen decidedly for the better.

"Nay, I was happy enough at Leasan. It's sad to leave it now when I
should be reaping the fruit of twenty years' labour."

"Then why do you leave? Nay, never tell me it's because of the oath. I'd
take that from some, but not from you. Your conscience was never
tender."

Gervase resented such talk in front of Mr. Parsons. A dull flush mounted
his cheeks and he cracked his finger joints in anger.

"Brother, if you talk more in this style I shall understand that you
know nothing of religion or politics."

"You will then understand correctly, and I care even less than I know.
But you must allow me to know my brother and feel surprised that he
should divide his issues by a hair."

"You call the doctrine of the King's supremacy a hair. My conscience
would be tough indeed could I swear allegiance in two places."

"Logic and reason support you as well as conscience," said Mr.
Parsons--in his calm, precise voice. "If it's true that the King's
supremacy is of divine appointment, then to put him aside and swear
allegiance to another is to presume to dictate to Almighty God."

"True, Sir--quite true--you speak well," said Gervase--then was not
quite sure if the other had spoken so well. There had been too great a
stress upon the _if_; and why was everyone determined to get rid of his
conscience?



                                  10

He sometimes wondered how and why it was that in certain happy moments
his heart should fail him suddenly, sinking under some panic of
loneliness, disappointment or even despair. Yesterday, among his
chattering daughters, he had felt lonely--utterly lonely and forsaken;
and to-day, talking to his kind brother and sister and their courteous
friend, planning his future among them, he suddenly felt hopeless,
frustrated, a man whose life is useless and undone. On the way home the
feeling persisted. His thoughts no longer galloped ahead of him, and his
bodily pace was slower too. He smote at the hedges with his stick, and
scowled as he walked, staring at the dust on his shoes. It was well
enough to plan for his life at Conster, but he could not see it now as a
life worth living. He would not be independent. His father had left him
a small personal fortune, but had always meant it to be supplemented by
the tithes and revenues of the Vicarage of Leasan, amounting in all to
some four hundred pounds a year--indeed, no doubt he had thought in time
of a richer living than Leasan . . . he had not thought of Gervase being
stuck there twenty years. At Conster he would feel the want of his
fees--that is if he meant to live as an independent gentleman and not on
his brother's hospitality. But he would have to accept Charles's
hospitality in part . . . his brother would not hear of his paying rent
for his rooms or for food that came off the estate--though doubtless
Louise would soon find the difference that five healthy young women as
hungry as carp would make to her housekeeping. Still, they would
doubtless soon be all married and gone. Only he would be left--living on
in his brother's house, useless and obscure--he who had once thought to
make the world his ball.

As he walked up Starvencrow Hill from Conster, the slope was alight with
golden broom and with the green and yellow tops of the young trees that
John Douce had planted round his steading. They rose up the hill in a
wall of broken fire, pale, gleaming coloured balls round the thatched
hump of La Petite Douce standing among them. Over them the blue of the
May-day sky ached cloudlessly. . . . Gervase's eyes stared past them to
a darker landscape, and saw instead of their bright colours and soft
shapes the dark outline of the Chteau le Thisay under the stars, with
the shadow which was the Clos de l'Eternel--in the Pays du Nant. . . .
Strange names, that had rung hollowly to him then--they were dead echoes
now--the Field of Eternity, the Land of Nothingness. He saw himself
slipping through the darkness from the farm, along the rutted track,
past the tall ghosts of the agrimony, toward the light that hung in the
castle tower.

That seemed another man from the disillusioned clerk now plodding his
way home. What would have happened if the King had not enjoyed his own
again? He had almost refused to return with his father to England, for
he had felt himself on the verge of discovering some tremendous secret
of power. But he had not been sure . . . he had hesitated . . . memories
had called him--memories of green slopes and buttercups and sun-dappled
brooks, queer intrusions into the darkness of his new quest. Besides,
his father had been so sure that they would all make their fortunes out
of Conster Furnace and the King's gratitude--enticing him back with the
bait of riches and honour and then poking him into the Vicarage of
Leasan. He should have gone back to France--he could have gone, but he
had not. He had not felt quite sure . . . and there had been that night
when the Abb had warned him, and that dreadful experiment in the
kitchen under the tower. . . .

He seldom looked back on those times, and yet he never looked back on
them without seeing them as days of youth and hope as well as of
darkness. There was a glamour about them: he saw them lit up like a city
at night, and turned to them almost with longing from the milk-and-water
landscape of his present existence--whether at the Parsonage or at the
Manor mattered nothing. Even this new adventure of the oath was but a
poor, dry, desiccated affair, a crusade of pedants, leading nowhere. . . .
He would end his days as Charles's pensioner--he saw that now.

He wondered what had happened to those others who had been with him--le
Thisay himself and de la Sourmaise, and the two brothers from
Chteneau. Were they all now as old and disappointed and obscure as he?
He was never likely to know. These Frenchmen who were now pouring into
the district would never have heard of them. They came from a different
part of France--they would never have heard. . . . But surely so much
learning and so much experiment could not have been without fruit. For
all the years he had been with them he seemed to have been hanging on
the verge of some tremendous discovery--powers hitherto unrealized. Yet,
if such powers had been discovered, by this time the world must have
known it . . . the Abb had told him it was all useless and worse, all
darkness, a mere blind alley of science. But then the Abb had been
prejudiced by his refusal to accept the Romish faith and by the
suspicion that this science had dissuaded him . . . as doubtless it had
at the moment, though he had better reasons now. He had had the choice
between submission and power, and he had chosen power. Yet where was his
power? That too was gone--he had let it slip from him while his hand
grasped at riches--riches and honour, and he had lost those too . . .

. . . It was queer how he would sometimes come to himself out of a daze
of thought, and find himself in some place without knowing how he had
got there. Just as two hours ago he had found himself upon the lawn at
Conster, now he found himself in his study at Leasan Parsonage. He could
not tell how. He had come in through the house and garden. Yet here he
was appropriately gazing at his books, his old companions, his only
treasure, all that he had saved out of the withering of his years . . .
the sun burned low upon them through the little leaded window, waking up
their dim colours and filling the air with the warm, musty smell of
their ancient leather bindings.

A queer smile twisted and lit up his face. He walked over to them and
fingered the brownish rows. He remembered well how some of them had come
to him. This copy of Bacon's "Novum Organum" had come from a little shop
in the Rue du Bac and had cost him his dinner for a week. Charles was
right when he said he would go without food to buy a book. And his
hunger seemed delicious to him now. He had gone hungry too for "Several
Treatises of Jacob Boehme" . . . how that book had intoxicated him!--it
had sung in his head like summer and wine. He took it from the shelf,
turning the musty pages. Would it sing to him now that his stomach was
full, or was its music only for hungry boys? "So Mars clothes all his
servants which love him and Saturn with his cloak, that they find only
the copper of Venus, and not the gold which is in the copper; the spirit
of the seeker enters into Sol, that is into pride, and supposes that he
has Venus, when he has Saturn, which is covetousness. If he went forth
in the dark water, that is in the resigned humility of Venus, the stone
of the wise men would be revealed to him. . . ."

The voice came thinly like the pipe of a reed--he could barely remember
how once he had shouted for alchemy . . . not the base alchemy of the
chemists, but the spiritual alchemy of the Magi and Paracelsians . . .
"Hunting the Green Lion" . . . "The Rosy Cross." . . . His studies had
not all been dark. Jacob Boehme is an excellent Protestant philosopher,
worthy reading for an English divine. He had once been full of zeal for
Jacob Boehme and for Theophrastus Bombast his master, though he never
read either of them now. Perhaps he might resume his study of their
works--it might cure him of certain hankerings after a lore that had
superseded theirs.

For he had dabbled in strange learnings, he had ridden off the straight
path of his University course down dark alleyways, which had been like
the _ruelles_ of Paris--tall houses, full of secrets, nodding their
dangerous heads over the tiny figure that creeps between the gutters.
Now a light is seen behind a casement--a voice is heard--a door is half
opened and shut again.

These books upon his shelves were not those that had taken him out of
Paris--that he had taken out of Paris when he had gone into the country.
He kept those hidden away in a cupboard. It was not fit that they should
lie to hand and be read by his daughters, though that danger was not
great since they were most of them written in French. Still, they were
better hidden--perhaps better burned. A voice lifted itself out of his
memories and he saw the Abb's face, aglow with exhortation, while the
candle-light shone upon the jewelled ring he wore--Gervase could
remember now how he had turned and turned his hand, staring at it while
he spoke . . . folk said it was a favour granted him by Madame le Thisay
with other favours . . . but his voice had been the voice of the Church,
rebuking, warning. . . .

Well, no good had come of taking his warning. Here he was, his life all
behind him and nothing done--nothing but his books left . . . his books
and his daughters. His daughters would marry and go from him, only his
books would be there to remind him with dim colours and musty smells of
ardours that were cold, and dreams that had fallen into dust.

"O God," he prayed--and he seldom prayed outside his public
ministrations--"O God, surely it would be a little thing for thee to let
me live again before I die."



                             CHAPTER TWO

                                  1

June was nearly over when Gervase and his daughters removed to Conster
Manor. They could have stayed till August, for the suspension of the
non-swearing clergy did not take effect till the first of that month,
nor would they be deprived of their livings till the February of next
year. But his fundamental vanity had resented the notion of being kicked
out, as he called it, and he had tendered his resignation in a letter of
six closely-written pages, a copy of which he sent to his Bishop.

Bishop Lake of Chichester, himself a non-juror, knew Parson Alard well
enough to feel relieved that he was not to have his company in the noble
army of martyrs. For this long-winded resignation, with its appeals to
law and Scripture and its crowding quotations from Boehme, Paracelsus,
Cirvelius, Alanus and other strange philosophers, struck him as no more
than the decoration of a natural desire for retirement and leisure. He
failed to understand that the writer regarded himself as a martyr and
was preparing for an earthly as well as a heavenly reward.

When the actual day came for him to go Gervase felt sorry enough. The
roses in the Parsonage garden were all in flower, and he trod sadly
between them to where his brother's coach stood waiting. He was sorry to
leave the brightness and independence of his little house. At Conster,
instead of roses there were trees--great, solemn trees, nodding and
scraping against the windows, giving shadow and shelter instead of
colour and perfume. The Alard who had rebuilt Conster in 1571 had
planted it handsomely with evergreen-pines and yews and cedars of
Libanus, to stand inside its outer ring of oaks. He had planted them as
so many plant trees, without ever thinking of their growing or realizing
how much longer they would live than he. In his day they had been
saplings, maintaining summer in winter with their green foliage: now
they had grown higher than the roof and some leaned nodding over it,
while others laced their boughs into a dense green wall. In front of the
house a space had been cleared, but round the back and sides was
darkness--heavy crests, branches thrust forward against windows, trunks
pale and gnarled among bushy shadows. . . . Gervase was glad to hear the
gallybird at work in them and to remember that it never attacks a sound
tree. Some day he would persuade Charles to have them all cleared away.

His brother and sister received him warmly. Charles had always been
sorry for Gervase, who he felt had suffered through his eccentricity and
had never had a fair deal from life. It was difficult to say exactly
where the difference between him and his brother lay. They had both
grown to adolescence through the alarms and disruptions of the Civil
War, they had both spent a racketing, penniless youth in France, they
had both returned to England and re-established themselves in ways that
had grown foreign to them from disuse. But Charles had fitted himself
smoothly into these changes and had been mainly happy in them, while
Gervase had been twisted into a suffering shape. It was not merely the
difference between the Manor and the Parsonage, between the lots of the
elder and the younger son, nor even the difference between Louise
d'Aurey and Mary Ann Pye . . . it was a difference of fibre: Charles
knew that Gervase was the stronger fibre--strong, but not strong enough;
always struggling and resisting and finally warped.

He himself had invariably yielded, adapting himself with very little
trouble to conditions that had violently swung between wealth and
poverty, country and town, quiet and dissipation. He was now completely
happy as a country Squire. He enjoyed hunting and hawking and managing
his estate: he took pride and pleasure in his furnace, in the forging of
balls and ordnance, gates, bars, bolts and palings. He was always
quietly busy, and his domestic happiness was less a relaxation or a
background than a glow suffusing the rest.

His only real grief had been the death of his heir. Charles Stephen
Alard, his only child, had died of smallpox at the age of seven. Apart
from his love for the boy, he sorrowed for the coming end of the family,
the loss of the Alard name. He was sorry that Gervase had not had a son.
It would have been better for him--better for them all.

Not that he didn't love his nieces. He had been sincere when he spoke of
his pleasure in having them at Conster. On the day they arrived it had
been a joy to see them tripping one after another up the terrace steps,
having tumbled with squeals of laughter out of the coach--first Bess in
blue, then Henny in yellow, Bride in green, Ann in crimson, and Madge in
blue again. They had been like a procession of pretty birds marching up
the steps.

"Welcome, my birds," he cried. "What a twitter! What a chatter! Here you
all are."

"Nay, jackdaws," said their father--"jackdaws and pies."

They were not afraid of their uncle as they were of their aunt, and
clustered round him, teasing and laughing till she appeared. Then their
laughter stopped, and they picked up their skirts to bob curtseys.

"Good day, Aunt . . ." "Good day, Aunt."

"Bon jour, chres enfants."

She took each one by the hand and kissed her, for she wanted them to
feel at home. She too had been sincere when she spoke of her joy in
having them, though she had more reservations than her husband. She
wanted them because he wanted them and his brother under his roof; also
it was true that Conster Manor seemed to her sometimes very large and
empty. But they were creatures apart from her--beings she could not
understand. Their noise, their ignorance, their carelessness of good
living--in the sense that she understood good living, as an affair of
eating and drinking and dressing and thinking and reading and playing
and singing--made them a constant threat to her patience. And though the
threat never materialized into more than an occasional sharpness, she
was afraid for her husband's sake. She would not humiliate him with a
shrewd wife. Also, even while she greeted them, she knew that in spite
of their talk and laughter Conster would still sometimes feel empty.



                                  2

She need never have been afraid of their not feeling at home. They were
soon as much at their ease as at Leasan Parsonage, with their horses in
the stables and their gallants in the drawing-room. Louise was glad for
Charles's sake, for he took pleasure in the young life with its noisy
intrigues and careless adventures. Besides, she sometimes found
entertainment as a spectator. Her nieces' suitors both amused and amazed
her. She liked young men, and of late years necessarily few had come her
way. Charles had not many friends, for the neighbouring Squirearchy was
gross and ignorant in comparison with the post-exile Alards. As for
their French neighbours, till her nieces came to the house she had met
them but little.

When Louise Alard, as a bride of sixteen, had first come to the
district, she had been surprised to find so much of France in it. Her
windows looked out across the valley to the homestead of La Petite
Douce, and in places with more English-sounding names were the
descendants of Poiles, Mouats and Espinettes that had crossed the
Channel some eighty years ago. There were fewer of them than there used
to be, said Charles, for the signing of the Edict of Nantes had ended
the exile of several families, to the relief of the weavers,
woolcarders, cloth-workers and iron-smelters of south-east Sussex, who
had seen their livelihood being sneaked from them by better tradesmen.
Many, however, were too long established to return--like the Douces,
their French roots were torn up and they had married into the country of
their adoption. They stayed and prospered, marking the district with
their type, and even with their language, which gave some quaint
corruptions to the local speech and some strange music to the local
place-names.

But scarcely had these families become English and been absorbed than a
fresh tide flowed in. The Revocation of the Edict brought a new set of
exiles, and once more the French tongue was heard in the streets of Rye
and the lanes round Vinehall and Leasan. These settlers were more
interesting to Louise than those she had found on her arrival. They were
from the France that she knew, and they were of her own class.

She viewed them, however, with mixed feelings. Socially and nationally
they were her people, all she had of her people now that both her
parents were dead and a distant cousin had inherited the Aurey estate.
But they were of the Protestant religion, and to her a French Protestant
was a low fellow, a traitor and an apostate. The religion of her husband
and her husband's family she accepted as a natural growth. England one
knew as a Protestant country. But France was Catholic, and Protestantism
a disease of that fair body. In her heart she approved of the politics
that had driven out the Huguenots and yet she lived in the country that
had received them with open arms. She was in an ambiguous position,
especially since her own religion was treasonable in strict law, and but
for her husband's protection and the recent growth of tolerance in the
country, would have involved her in penalties not unlike theirs. She
felt that she could not meet them with the warmth and candour that their
common blood demanded, so had avoided them as far as her situation
allowed.

Now she could no longer avoid them, for two at least were frequent
visitors to the house. Eustache de Champfort and Gilles de Prigault
belonged to families that had lately settled at Eslede and Silvericke.
They were handsome, well-born, well-mannered and well endowed with
everything but money. De Champfort was a swarthy, dark-browed Southerner
from the Condamine country near Nmes. De Prigault was of a different
type. Save that the modern fashion had shaved his chin he might have
been one of the Protestant heroes of La Rochelle--those great, fair,
blue-eyed, curly-bearded men that had sailed with Coligny. He wore his
own hair in thick yellow curls and his eyes were blue and farseeing as a
sailor's. They always looked beyond Gervase Alard's daughters, not one
of whom could say he was looking at her, so that there were always
teasings and squabblings about him.

With de Prigault and de Champfort sometimes came the latter's brother
Etienne, also a changing group from Rye--Gasson, du Bois, Guiver, Mouat
and others, less well-born than the young noblemen but more prosperous.
As foils to these good-mannered, civilized foreigners came also at
whiles the loutish son of the Squire of Redlonde and Bess's betrothed,
Ned Oxenbrigge, with his old-fashioned doublet and breeches and his
ceaseless talk of cock-fighting.

"We must beware, my friend," said Louise one day to Gervase, "lest the
English visitors be given too poor a chance with my nieces. Already I
think that Bess's eyes are wandering."

"Eh well, so long as it's but her eyes. Her hand is promised, and she
can't deny it. Though, for that, I care not which of my troop he takes
so long as he takes one of 'em."

"If I'm not mistaken, he would find it difficult to change to one of her
sisters. They are all mad in the same way."

"I'm not sure that it's madness. Your countrymen make a better show than
mine. All I'm surprised at is that my wenches have enough grace to see
the difference."

"But from your view it is madness. None of these _rfugis_ has any
money, whereas Oxenbrigge is rich, and that poor clumsy Deeck Austen's
father has much land and much money."

"But if they marry a Frenchman they marry blood-noble blood."

"_La petite noblesse_. . . . I am not sure it is worth marrying, at
least out of its own country. Even so, my friend, with Austen and
Oxenbrigge having their rights, you still have three daughters left----"

"Aye, what a crowd of 'em!"

"It gives you a chance now. Three, if you will, shall marry French
blood, and two shall marry English money. But I warn you that your
English marriages must be made quickly or they will not be made at all."

"Who is Austen to marry?"

"Why, Henrietta. He sits by her and sighs and twists himself about while
his spurs tear the _gallons_ from her petticoat. And when they ride out
he is always in her company though he speaks only to his horse. I tell
you he is very much in love--_ l'Angloise_. Henrietta had better take
him: and let her and Bess be married as soon as possible. The others can
wait. They are younger and in less danger of throwing themselves away;
besides, I do not think that my compatriots have yet all made up their
minds."

It had occurred to her sometimes that de Prigault looked at her more
than at her nieces.



                                  3

Gervase was not at ease in his brother's house, though he might well
have been so. His uneasiness was not due to his position, since that had
always been one of equality, nor to the mere shifting of his quarters,
nor to his establishment in a household considerably more luxurious and
imposing than he had known at Leasan. After all, he had been born and
had lived the first fifteen years of his life in Conster Manor, he had
returned to it after his exile, and on Charles's death it would be his.
He was far from being a poor relation, even though his personal fortune
at the moment was small. Charles gave him every consideration, every
privacy, seemed anxious, too, to consult him on the working of the
furnace and the Manor estate as if he already had his rights in them
. . . . He might have started a new life as a student and a country
gentleman. But he could not do it.

He could not settle down to write and study in the handsome room Charles
had allotted him for his books. Indeed his books were mostly not yet on
the shelves that the carpenter had set up, but were piled upon the floor
and furniture. He paced among them, picked them up and set them down,
tearing out scraps of knowledge which his mind seemed at once to cast
off. He felt restless, unable to begin any course . . . sometimes he
thought it was the breaking up of his habit that had done the harm. He
no longer had to set out morning and evening for Leasan Church, to read
prayers, nor were there any appointments with his clerk anent registers
or fees or gravestones, nor meetings with his churchwardens to discuss
repairs and boundaries. His days were mapped out only by meals, and he
had always been indifferent to eating.

He spent most of his time out of doors, wandering over what had once
been his parish and visiting those who had once been his parishioners.
His successor, an amiable, pompous man, would have liked to be on good
terms with him, but Gervase chose to regard him with contempt. Dr.
Braceley was a fool and a pedant; he made mock of his Whiggish
principles and formal learning. The parishioners, he declared, liked
their old Parson best, and still considered him the rightful Vicar of
the parish--in which he erred, for the majority of Leasan folk much
preferred the kindly, bustling Doctor to the erratic shepherd who had
not so much led them as wandered among them for the last twenty years.
If only he had known it, his connexion with the Manor had been his chief
recommendation; when they forgot it he was a "wagpasty," a "strutting
old dawcock," a "Tory jack o'lantern." But he had no idea of this.

Yet with it all he knew that he did not want to be back again, as Vicar
of Leasan. That part of his life was done with. After all, he had been
nearly as long in France as he had been in Leasan, and no one had
thought it strange that he should drop France behind him and forget all
he had learned there, which was more than he had learned in Leasan. He
still wore his gown, but that was partly because as a High Churchman he
wished to proclaim that he was still in Holy Orders though he no longer
exercised them, partly because he disliked the new fashions that had
come into being he gave up wearing lay dress--the surcoats and cravats
and ruffles and buckles that had supplanted the doublets, collars, cuffs
and boots of the earlier mode.

He spent much of his time writing letters to other non-Jurors among the
clergy. . . . That was, he told himself, one reason why he felt so much
at a loss--the movement which he had trusted to provide for his
activities was making a poor, lame start. Only four hundred parish
priests had refused to swear--a sorry number, when he had promised
Charles that two-thirds of the Establishment would go out. The vacancies
would be as quickly and easily filled as the vacancy at Leasan, and the
nine Bishoprics as well. Instead of facing a disruption that would bring
it to terms and treaty, the Church of England would go on exactly as
before. . . . There had been a far bigger stirabout at the Reformation,
when most of the clergy and all the Bishops, save one, had refused to
swear; he could no longer tread contemptuously over Nicholas Pecksall's
grave.

Also, he soon became aware that the movement was largely going Jacobite.
If any new Church were built up--and it was difficult to think of this
small, scattered handful as the true Phoenix Church he had once dreamed
of--it would be a political Church, a Jacobite Church, bound to recall
King James. Gervase had no fancy for King James, though he knew that all
the village took him for a Jacobite, and he thought that his fellow
clergy lost what small hope they had of capturing the nation by thus
dallying with the Irish menace--against which Conster Furnace worked by
day as well as by night, forging pike and ordnance. He wrote long,
illegible letters to a Mr. Wagstaffe at Oxford--the only prominent
non-Juror that he knew--and once even travelled as far as London to meet
him: but the meeting was not a success. Wagstaffe thought Alard merely
obstinate because he would not see the difference between Jacobitism as
a religious principle and as a political force, and Gervase thought
Wagstaffe a hair-splitting enthusiast for insisting on what was, after
all, not very unlike his own attitude to the movement before he grew
disgusted with its small beginnings. He returned to Conster feeling sure
that the day would be lost for want of his generalship, and
almost--though not for long--wishing himself back at Leasan.

Charles had been at first surprised to find that his brother had so few
personal links with the movement that had cost him his living, but on
reflection he realized that it was like Gervase to enter alone, to work
himself with the aid of a few books and pamphlets and many lonely
thoughts, into a state of belief and action that most men achieve only
in consultation and combination. No doubt, at the bottom of it all, his
brother had grown weary of Leasan and had found an escape more exciting
and vainglorious than a common resignation. But he was sorry for the way
it had all turned out.

"Shouldn't you like to go to London again for a few weeks?" he asked him
once, "or to Oxford? I understand that's where most of your
fellow-thinkers are."

"Nay; I hate towns."

"You are no country bumpkin, and I should think would be glad to mix
with scholars for a while."

"They're all Jacobites--I am no Jacobite, nor yet a Williamite."

"You're in a delicate position," said Charles, concealing a smile.

"I'm in no position at all," said Gervase. "I'm waiting to see which way
affairs will go. I cannot believe that such men as Canterbury or
Chichester will let 'em all run to politics and high treason."

"No, surely not."

"But we've yet to see what the hot-heads will do. I'm waiting here--and
in weekly communication with Oxford," he added sonorously. "Brother, I
tell you there may still be great things happening. If we can but drop
these cursed politics and turn our eyes from other kings and countries
to other Churches. There's a suggestion that we, the true clergy of the
Church of England under our Bishops, may unite with the ancient Church
of Greece and Thyratira, called by some the Orthodox Churches of the
East."

"And that would be a fine thing for you?"

"I think it would. There are some who say that the East is as corrupt as
the West, Thyratira as Rome . . . but I think not. If we could but
converse with them we should doubtless find an uncorrupted primitive
theology under later growths of superstition. Wagstaffe tells me there
are some learned men in Cyprus and in Athens. He speaks of a work called
'Eironikon' . . . but I haven't much Greek."

"It's a lack you can supply now you've leisure here for study."

Charles was anxious to encourage Gervase along harmless paths of
erudition.

"I've leisure indeed. Though I had meant to give the greater part of it
to writing rather than reading. Brother" and his lean, black form
towered importantly over Charles--"I've decided to write a treatise."

"For publication?"

"For what else? You remember my 'Sermons and Addresses on the Nature of
God' that were published at Lewes, by Holt the bookseller?"

"I do not forget." Charles found himself automatically checking a yawn.
"Did they bring you much money?"

"Money! Money! Why should they bring me money?" And Gervase cracked his
fingers angrily. "I don't preach for money, nor write for money. I
preach for fame, or rather for the praise of learned men."

"Which you've had, I trust."

"Aye, indeed. I had a letter from every Bishop, Dean and Doctor to whom
I sent a copy. Even Canterbury wrote me through his chaplain that he was
indebted to me--indebted, mind ye. I shall certainly, now I've the
leisure, write another learned work. I shall write on the union of the
English and Eastern Churches. But, brother"--his tone suddenly
changing--"I like not my present room for writing in. It will do well
enough to keep my books, but for writing and studying I would be more
private--away from the trees."

"Away from the trees?" repeated Charles in some bewilderment.

"Aye," said Gervase, "I like not the trees looking in through the window
at me whiles I work."

They had been walking in the Park, and had now come out on the
Tillingham marshes. The trees stood in a wide belt between them and the
house, but the valley itself was clear save for a small scrub of thorn.
The river ran between steep banks through clumps of reeds and sedges. At
one spot the windings of the stream brought forward a cape or promontory
rising steeply above it.

"This is where I should like to be," said Gervase. "If I might have some
arbour here away from the house, facing clear to the river. Some day we
might build one--some stone _belvedere_ or _templum_."

"You would be troubled with the noise of the furnace."

"Nay, that wouldn't trouble me. But I like not the trees--not when I
write. Some day, maybe, we can build such a house."

"Yes, surely, some day," said Charles, thinking that his brother had
grown more rather than less eccentric during his few months at Conster.



                                  4

Summer passed over in a warm breath. From the trees hung heavy, listless
leaves, that held the brown threat of autumn in their darkness. Under
their shadow round Conster the dusk fell earlier than in the fields, but
it was a dusk full of flickering, wandering colours--gay colours of
gowns and coats and cloaks that touched and swam together, while sounds
of speech and laughter passed up from under the trees into the lighted
house. It was many years since the place had known such youth and mirth,
such singing and laughing and lute-playing. The rose arbours and
summerhouses became bowers for courting lovers, and the long alleys of
the woods were sped with the running feet of shepherds pursuing nymphs
in a chase as dim as any lingering in faded wools on Conster's
tapestries. By the end of the summer Bess was married to Oxenbrigge,
Madge was betrothed to Eustache de Champfort, and Henrietta to Dick
Austen, who had somehow at last contrived to catch more than the
trimmings of her petticoat.

Old Gervase watched October come with a sinking heart. It was not that
he felt sorry to see his daughters go, but he knew that youth was
going--going like summer from the house. When Henny and Madge were
married as well as Bess, then Bride and Ann would be mostly away too,
for they would always be staying with one sister or another. No one
would be in the house save those with their lives behind them, those
who, like the woods, looked back on summer, but unlike the woods could
not look forward to another spring.

His daughters, foolish, ignorant, noisy girls, had all that quality of
youth which seemed as necessary to him now as Charles's kindness of
heart, or Louise's elegance of mind. It was new for him to feel this
hunger for spring-time. He wondered what had come over him. Was it only
that his girls were leaving him, that the house would at last be quiet,
that conversation at table would be rational, that he would no longer be
put to shame by bad manners and barbarous talk, nor hear screechings and
hullooings for ever under his windows? . . . Or was there something in
him that was new--something old that was new? . . . Looking up to the
boughs of oak and sallow and wild cherry lacing their colours over the
lane, he saw himself touched like the trees, he felt the hand of winter
upon him, though less tenderly than on the trees. In him were no soft
burnishings, no glowing, mingling colours of decadence. Man was not as
the trees in his decay. He did not go down glowing, but groaning, into
his grave. And yet religion and the Scriptures said that in his body,
even as in the bodies of the trees, were the new buds and promises of
another life, the signs of another spring.

He could see no such signs; the buddings of immortality were for him
invisible . . . a wild protest against death filled his heart. He did
not feel old. Yet he was old, or if not old, growing old. Fifty-six was
only fourteen years from the allotted span, and how many men had he seen
live beyond that or even to it? If they were so fortunate as to escape
the poxes, plagues and fevers of youth, there were the agues, palsies
and rheums of age awaiting them. He hurried his pace along the lane, as
if his vigorous striding legs would show the dead leaves he walked on
how far he was yet from being as they.

He came to a bend and beyond it saw a figure moving. It was a strange
figure, for in the golden tricky light of the autumn noon, it looked
like a large bundle of wood crawling along on human feet. Between the
faggots and the feet was just visible the hem of a russet petticoat. It
was a woman who went so laden--doubtless some thrifty wise old woman
carrying home her fuel for the winter. His pace naturally gained on
hers, and he was curious to see who she was--he enjoyed a crack with a
goody, and maybe she was one of those old folk who wished him back at
Leasan.

But as he drew even with her he saw that he had mistaken May for
November. The bundle of wood, which he now saw to be bigger even than he
had first thought, was on the shoulders of Harman's foundling, young
Condemnation. Her face was nearly lost in the penthouse of it that
reached far over her head, but he saw the white gleam of her skin and
the dark gleam of her eyes between the paleness of her bare arms lifted
on each side of the load.

Gervase greeted her kindly.

"Good day, child. Where art thou for, so laden?"

"Hame," she said, and he saw that she stopped short on the word because
she was breathless. She could scarcely breathe under the weight of the
faggots.

A gust of anger seized him. This was how she was treated by the
Harmans--made a beast of burden. He had not seen her for some time, and
it seemed to him that her looks were fading. Her face was strangely
white for a country girl's and her eyes seemed too big for it, and they
smouldered as if they were eating it away like hot coals in snow.

"Come," he said shortly--"this burden is too heavy for 'ee. Let me take
some of it."

"Nay, say, Sir."

But he would not be denied. He clutched at the ends of the faggots,
striving to lift them from her shoulders to his own. The result was
that, suddenly tilting, her load forced her down on her knees in the
lane.

"La! La! Forgive me. There, I've hurt thee, pigsnie--once again"--he
remembered how he had buffeted her at Newhouse six months ago--"I'm a
clumsy friend, and I must remember besides that you're a woman grown and
not to be thee'd and thou'd any more. There, stand up and let me brush
your gown. You're not much hurt?"

While he was speaking he had helped her to her feet, and she stood
before him, not looking so pale as she had seemed in the shadows, but
ripely tanned, her arms and face the same colour as the leaves on the
sallows that bordered the lane.

"You're not hurt?" he repeated anxiously.

"Nay, Sir."

"Eh well, dust thy gown--your gown, Mrs. Condemnation."

He tried to make her smile, but her little face was scared and grim.
While she was brushing the mud off her skirt, he tried to lift the
bundle of wood to his shoulders, but to his surprise and secret
humiliation and open indignation he found that he could not do so.

"It's a rank iniquitous load. Surely thy father doesn't know thou'rt
carrying anything so heavy?"

"Pray let me take it, Sir?"

"No, that I will not. We must carry it together if I can't carry it
all."

With her help he managed to hoist it from the lane, and though she would
have taken it from him entirely he insisted that the heavier part should
lie on his shoulders. But she must be strong as a Flanders mare, he
thought, for all she looked so slight and small.

They walked on together for a half a mile, he going first and she
following. It was not a good position for talking, since not only were
they in single file but they were bent almost double, with their heads
half lost among twigs and branches. None the less Gervase tried to make
her talk to him. He had always liked her and pitied her, and now he felt
a little guilty about her, for since his retirement from the Parsonage
he had not once been to Newhouse. He disliked Exalted Harman and he
suspected that the feeling was mutual, so he preferred to visit those
who, he thought, regretted his departure. The pleasure of capping texts
would easily be outweighed by any hypocritical praise of Dr. Braceley
. . . . But he ought to have gone, if only to keep an eye on the poor
little bud. . . . Not that she had any claims on him . . . but she was
helpless and abused, and that should be claim enough for any man. Now
they were putting disgraceful burdens upon her and working her to death.
He must go to see Exalted Harman and rate him for it. He might no longer
seem to have any pastoral authority, but he came from the Manor, he was
heir of Conster--that should carry weight with a mere yeoman of two
hundred acres.

Meanwhile he tried in vain to talk to Condemnation. She would scarcely
open her lips except to answer: "Aye, Sir," or "Nay, Sir." Sometimes she
would not answer at all. But all the time he could hear her quick, short
breath behind him, and the shuffle of her feet on the dry leaves. A
great pity and tenderness welled up for her in his heart. He would break
down her shyness, which was no doubt a part of her general fear of life;
his kindness at last should make her his friend, and she should be to
him as the daughters he had lost--as the youth that was departing from
the house. . . . He felt her suddenly as youth, moving with him down the
autumn lane, bearing on her strong young shoulders the burden that was
too much for his. At that moment it seemed as if it were she who helped
him with his burden instead of he who helped her. Then he remembered how
she had staggered under it alone and his indignation came swinging back.

"Courage, bud," he comforted, "we're nearly home." They passed a pair of
cottages at Farthingland, and the woman outside them gaped and giggled
to see the old Parson--as they called him to distinguish him from Dr.
Braceley--go by with Harman's bastard, carrying a load of wood together.
They could see it was the Parson, though his face was hidden, because of
his cassock trailing in the mud from his bent knees. Now and then he
trod on it and stumbled, and they laughed louder. A waggoner laughed too
as he drew his horses to the side of the road to let the strange couple
go by.

Gervase did not notice the laughter. It was a hard plod up the hill and
his shoulders were sore and aching under his unaccustomed load. The more
they ached the more furious he felt with Exalted Harman. His heart sank
with a sense of angry disappointment when, at last reaching Newhouse he
heard from sundry loafing and sniggering young Harmans that their mother
was abroad and Dr. Braceley closeted with their father upstairs.

"Eh well, I shall call again to-morrow, and then we shall see . . . so
Saul, so Sam, so David, you stand by and watch your sister carry a
double load of firewood to the barn? Pick it up and carry it there, you
mannerless hobs."

The boys obeyed him, grimacing and guffawing among themselves. They were
inordinately amused to see the old Parson squiring their sister in so
grotesque a fashion.



                                  5

As soon as he was gone, their merriment broke out. "Eh, what a gallant
thou'st gotten, Con. I reckon thou'dst a valiant walk wud 'un's backside
stuck in thy face."

"He helped me along well enough. He's a kind-feeling man."

"Kinder than thy sweetheart?"

"Who's my sweetheart? I've no sweetheart."

"Aye, but thou'st Lambert Relph. He'd never carry wood for thee."

"'At that he wouldn't; but he an't my sweetheart."

"My father says thou art to marry 'un."

"And I say I never will. And if he wur my sweetheart, why didn't he come
wud me to fetch yon wood? The Parson said rightly 'twas too much for me.
One o' you should ha' come along to help me carry 'un."

Condemnation was no longer the silent little mouse who had crept behind
Gervase Alard down the lane. He would have been surprised could he have
come back and heard her voice, which ran on swift and husky as a brook.

"So I should have come wud 'ee?" said Sam. "Nay, shouldn't I have brung
a pack horse and set 'ee on it wud the wood?"

"Na, but I say the old Parson's been kinder than any of you."

"Why should we be kind?"

"One of you should ha' come along of me to Udgeham. My mother meant it."

"Thy mother! Nay, my mother. Thy mother was a harlot at a fair."

"'T'an't true. Thou durstn't say it."

"At that I durst, and I'll say it agun. Thy mother was a harlot at a
fair and thou'rt but a bastard bred of my mother's charity, so's my
father can savour and smack his sins."

At that Condemnation ran at him with her nails uplifted, but before she
could reach his face he had seized her and pushed her head under his
arm.

"Filthy cat, I'll larn 'ee," and he began to beat her with the flat of
his hand.

She screamed like a cat, while the other two boys standing by laughed
loudly.

At the noise the Harman girls, Naomi and Michal, came running up, with
Relph the ploughman and Nanny Stook the milkmaid.

"Woa, then--woa, then, Sam," cried Relph. "Why shud'ee wallop my doxy?"

"She would have scratched my face. I'll larn her."

"And she says she an't your doxy," said Saul.

"She's my doxy for sure, and to marry me in the spring. The goodman said
so."

"I'll let her go," grinned Sam, "if she'll kiss thee now."

But Condemnation only kicked and screamed more frantically.

"Nay, let her go," said Naomi, "or Mr. Braceley 'ull hear her screeching
in my father's chamber."

"Let 'un hear. She shan't take on airs and talk of her mother when she
means mine."

"So she's been talking of her mother, hath she? The filthy trot! How
dare she talk of her mother? I'll scratch her face for't when thou'st
done."

"Nay," bellowed Relph as loud as one of his own oxen, "'a done wud your
towzing, all of 'ee. I'm the man to towze her."

They tumbled round Condemnation like steers. She fought them, kicking
and scratching and spitting, but they were too many for her, and she was
flung from one to another. Even Nanny Stook joined in the game, cackling
like a hen, and tumbling into the arms of Relph whenever she had the
chance. Then suddenly the whole air crashed and roared.

For a moment they all stood still. Then Relph cried. "'Tis the ordnance!
Hooray! They mun be testing cannon at Petty Dows."

He had been holding Condemnation, the moment's victor in their game of
grab, but in his excitement he let her go. David seized her, just as she
would have run away from this new terror.

"Come--off we go!" cried Saul, "to watch the firing. Leave hold of her,
Dave."

"Nay, take her along of us. She's scared of ordnance."

"Nay, let her be," said Relph, but he was in too great a hurry to be in
john Douce's field to see what they did about her. He and Saul ran off
together down the hill. The others decided to bring Condemnation with
them--it seemed a fine, comical idea to them, much better than pinching
or beating. She was so much afraid of the big guns that her eyes were
bolting out of her head, and instead of screaming she only choked and
gasped. So Sam and Dave each seized her round the waist, and hauled her
along between them; she would not or could not walk, but hung on their
arms with her legs trailing out behind her. The boys dragged her along,
while the girls followed with squeals and hulloos; her head had fallen
back and they laughed loudly to see it rolling and bobbing between her
shoulders. Every now and then she would suddenly stiffen and stick her
heels into the ground, and they would all have some fine sport getting
her on again.



                                  6

Charles Alard stood with John Douce in his field. Close to them were
Jack Pyper and other artificers and craftsmen from the furnace, cleaning
out the demy-cannon that had just been fired. Over them hung a cloud and
reek of gunpowder and all their eyes were smarting. Conster Forge had
just turned out six pieces of ordnance which were to go to Ireland for
the wars. Two teams had dragged them up the hill to the field by La
Petite Douce where the testing was usually done.

They were fine-looking pieces, florid and important with their scrolled
hoops--two demy-cannon, a maske, two culverin and a great basiliske.
They were mounted on iron carriages embellished with more scroll work
and calculated to withstand the violence of their discharge. Already
little knots of people were beginning to collect, straying from the
farms: soon all the village would be there, for the sound of the first
gun would tell them that ordnance was being tried, and everyone would
flock to that.

Charles saw the Harmans arrive, but he was too busy to notice the
struggle among them, and as for their whooping it was, he knew, part of
the fun. He went up to the demy-cannon that had been fired and looked at
it closely. The iron was almost red-hot.

"Come here, John Douce."

The two men inspected and consulted together.

"She takes her firing too hard."

"Aye . . . 'tis in the bore . . . Simeon Parnell was the artificer here.
Sim, come up."

They parleyed round the gun. Charles Alard knew as much about the
casting of ordnance as any of his men. Twenty-five years ago he had
known nothing. He had come over from France quite ignorant of
iron-smelting and iron-casting, and if John Douce had resented the loss
of his proprietorship and taken himself off, he would probably know
nothing still. But Douce loved iron as some men love gold, and rather
than leave Conster Furnace he would stay as an underling, an
indispensable underling. At first he had not meant to show anything to
his employer, but he was won over by Alard's interest in the work. Here
was another man who loved iron; and between them they had kept the
furnace in prosperity, with the help of the Dutch wars. Now prosperity
was threatened by the failure of the timber supply; but they worked on,
knowing that though the end was certain, they themselves would not live
to see it.

"Now fire the maske. Have you gotten her charged?"

"Aye, Master, she's ready."

A long gun, with a bore as slim as an ash-pole, was fired next. She made
a great bark, and at the same time loud screams went up from the
spectators. There was a crowd watching now. The slope of Starvencrow
Hill was dark with folk, run up from the cottages of Farthingland and
Udgeham, while all the household of La Petite Douce stood at the orchard
gate.

Another demy-cannon was fired and then a culverin, and soon the Leasan
villagers were there, for a test of ordnance was almost as good to watch
as a hanging. Every now and then either Douce or Alard had to drive the
people back; they came pressing round, to their own danger and that of
the gunners. The young Harmans who still had hold of Condemnation tried
to bring her right up to the gun-carriage.

"Nay, stand back there!" cried Charles, suddenly catching sight of a
girl's face shrivelled with terror. He knew who she was, though he saw
less of the Harman family than his brother Gervase; and he saw that she
was in an extremity of fear. Those louts were holding her and making
sport of her.

"Stand back there!" he cried, "and let your sister go. For shame to hold
her."

All his quiet, fastidious nature recoiled in disgust from their stupid
cruelty, their bumpkin violence, and at the same time an indignant pity
for their victim filled his heart.

That pity was his last earthly emotion. His heart had scarcely begun to
beat faster with it than his head was torn from his body by a great,
flying shard of iron. The basiliske, while being rammed with the charge,
had burst and flown asunder with a roar like an earthquake. Another
great splinter tore the head off a tree and sent it whirling with all
its branches among the onlookers. The noise seemed to hold the earth
imprisoned, rocking fields and woods together in a dungeon of sound. The
windows of La Petite Douce shivered apart like notes of music.



                            CHAPTER THREE

                                  1

"Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live and is full
of misery. He cometh up and is cut down like a flower; he fleeth as it
were a shadow, and never continueth in one long stay.

"In the midst of life we are in death; of whom may we seek for succour,
but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased?

"Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord God most mighty, O holy and most
merciful Saviour, deliver us not unto the bitter pains of eternal death.

"Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts; shut not thy merciful
ears to our prayer; but spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O
holy and merciful Saviour, thou most worthy Judge eternal, suffer us
not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from thee."

Gervase stood beside his brother's grave and read the funeral service
over him. His surplice waved wildly in the autumn wind and his scarf
flapped like a scourge upon his shoulders. He felt stunned and exalted
and despairing.

He was stunned by the suddenness of the blow--"in the midst of life we
are in death"--by the loss of his brother. Charles had been his only
friend--he knew that now; he knew that now Charles was gone he had no
friend. He was too contemptuous of his daughters, though he loved their
youth, too uncertain of his sister, though he admired her intelligence;
and as for the parish folk they were but parish folk and beneath his
notice. With Charles alone had he ever had any kinship of mind; and now
Charles was gone, so suddenly and horribly, slain by the work that had
been his pride--"of whom may we seek for succour, but of thee, O Lord."

Yet mixed with his sense of loss was a sense of gain, and between them
his soul was shaken. He had lost his brother, but he had gained Conster.
He was now Sir Gervase Alard, Lord of the Manor and owner of the
furnace. He inherited his brother's fortune, which, owing to his care
and energy, was not small. None of these things should have happened for
another twenty years. He had never expected to inherit Conster except as
a mere stub and heel, held in the loose grasp of his old age. But now he
had the time and the power to use it, to make of it what he would. In
spite of his love for his brother he could not suppress a feeling of
exaltation at this unexpected triumph over life. Who would have thought
that Charles, only two years his senior, would die so long before him?
Who could have hoped for such a thing? "Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets
of our hearts."

Yet what could he do with Conster now he had it? He knew nothing of
agriculture nor of iron-smelting, and cared nothing; and the money was
all tied up in the estate. He would live now pretty much as he had lived
before except that he would be quite alone . . . and, after all, how
much before him had Charles died? "In the midst of life we are in death"
might be true for him as well as for his brother. He might not live
another month--another hour . . . and if he lived how many years of
health could he count on? Even so early, his promotion came too late--a
Martin's summer half in winter, and likely at any time to be swept by
snow. "O Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and merciful Saviour,
thou most worthy judge eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour, for any
pains of death to fall from thee."

"Then while the earth shall be cast upon the body by some standing by,
the Priest shall say . . ."

The funeral service rolled on to its end. Gervase hunched his shoulders
against the wind, which suddenly seized and whirled the pages of his
book. A great crowd filled the churchyard--yeomen and cottagers and
villagers who had come out of respect for their dead Squire. Sir Charles
Alard was being buried apart from the other victims of the explosion--not
only to do him honour, but because Gervase would not officiate with Dr.
Braceley. He had no right to officiate at all, but he took it for granted
that he should bury his brother and no one had the heart to forbid him or
point out that his intolerance of the Doctor amounted to ingratitude. So
John Douce was to be buried the next day, with Lot Martin and Samuel
Boorman, the other two dead.

It was a marvel, thought everyone, that only four had been killed in
such a terrible catastrophe. But though only four were dead--the masters
of the furnace and the men who were loading the cannon--a great many had
been injured. The village was full of broken heads, though some had
recovered enough to be present at the funeral. One of these was Sam
Harman, and Gervase spoke to him as he walked out of the churchyard.

"How's thy poor sister?"

"She's well enough."

Sam spoke grumpily, for he held himself too old at two and twenty to be
"thee'd," and he disliked Condemnation being called his sister, when at
the worst she was only half blood and quite likely of no blood at all.

"Is she still a-bed?"

"Aye."

"Tell her I'll visit her."

"Maybe it'll be some time before she's up again."

"I can visit her while she's a-bed. I'm a minister, who can visit the
sick in their beds, for all that I'm Squire too, as I'd have 'ee mind,
Master Mannerless," and he strutted away like a crow in his black gown.



                                  2

Gervase would have liked to walk home, but the dignity of the Alards
must be maintained on such a solemn occasion and he was obliged to enter
the vast family coach with its gilding and glazing and endure the
company of his son-in-law, Oxenbrigge. Not that he disliked the young
man, but he found him a bore, and his talk no proper exchange for the
joyous misery of thinking. To solace himself, he lit his pipe, a
formidable weapon which he insisted that he used only for medicinal
purposes. And what occasion so medical as a funeral, with its atmosphere
of corruption? all out in the cold air, too, since the Alard vault was
in the churchyard instead of under the church itself. He had better
smoke away the rheums and fevers that had lurked for him in the wind and
in the charnel earth. Soon the atmosphere of the coach had become a
reeking fog, and Alard and Oxenbrigge, seen through it, had the air of
two creatures sitting in a muddy pond. It pleased Gervase, who disliked
the family coach, to think that it would be almost a week before the
ladies could use it.

Conster looked even more funereal than the churchyard, with the November
trees dripping round it and the grim black hatchment of the Alards
mounted over the door. For a year that hatchment must be up, as for a
year Louise must sleep in a mourning bed with black sheets and
pillows. . . . It had arrived only yesterday from the Oxenbrigge family
who shared its use with the Alards.

The women were assembled in the parlour. All the girls were there, Bess
having come over from Oxenbrigge Manor with her husband. They wore black
ribbons on their gowns, and their sobered air suited and refined them.
They looked sad enough, for apart from their loss of a kind uncle, the
weddings of Madge and Henrietta must now be postponed until the spring
and tears had been shed for that. Louise was not with them: she had
gone, so they said, to her parlour. She wished to be alone--a thing they
thought surprising and unnatural.

Gervase did not think it unnatural; but he determined to seek her when
he had given her the liberty of a few hours. They must talk about the
future, which he felt to be upon them. Until the funeral was over he
would not have discussed it, but now he must find out what she meant to
do. He wondered if she wanted to go back to France. It was many years
since she had been in touch with her family; after all, only distant
relations were now at the Chteau d'Aurey. But in her widowhood she
might wish to return to her own country and her own religion--he did not
know how much she loved Conster.

So when they had solaced themselves with a good dinner, he went up to
her private parlour, a small room she had chosen because it faced
eastward. She was an early riser and loved to watch the sunrise and here
the house lay open to the east, looking down the Tillingham Valley, so
that she could see the river flowing like a golden lane under the first
light of the sun. She was looking out of the window now, but the light
was on the other side of the house and all she could see in the east was
a gathering darkness.

She turned when she heard Gervase come into the room. She was all in
black and looked sallow--her eyes too were faintly reddened, as if she
had been weeping; but her hair was as smoothly and elaborately dressed
as ever under her widow's cap of lawn. She held something in her hand,
which she immediately slipped into her pocket. It gleamed as she did so,
and he thought it must be a crucifix or _Agnus Dei_ or some such
forbidden religious gawd.

"Welcome, brother," she said sadly.

Moved by a sudden pity, he kissed her hand, and her fingers gripped his
a little. It struck him then that she must love him more than he had
thought, perhaps because he was all she had left of Charles; whereat his
pity grew.

"My poor sister."

She bowed her head, but when he would have laid his hand in blessing
upon it, she drew away from him.

"You would rather be alone?"

"No, I have been alone long enough. I should have sent for you, brother,
if you had not come, for I have many things to say to you."

"Maybe it's too early to say them now?"

After all, the future was not so close upon them that he need trouble
her in her grief.

"No, let it be now. You as well as I will have your plans to make.
Perhaps you have wondered if I would return to France."

"Aye, I've wondered. But if you would stay, sister, this house is your
home for as long as you wish--for your life if you choose."

Her expression changed. The sallowness left her cheeks in a grateful
flush and a smile lifted the sad corners of her mouth.

"You are good, Gervase. It is what I would have asked, but I hesitated
. . ."

"Why should you hesitate? The Alards have built no dower house, thinking
that Conster Manor would always be big enough for our family. It isn't
as if I had a wife . . . and soon all my daughters will be married and
gone. I'll lay that we shall go on famously together. All that surprises
me is that you don't return to France."

"Because I am French no longer. My husband's death has been my
denization; I am an Englishwoman now. My heart belongs to this dear
country where I have been happy for more than twenty years. I have lived
longer in England than I have lived in France, and I was not happy in
France--no, I did not love my parents as I loved my husband; and now
even they are gone and only my cousins remain. My cousin Louis has
Aurey, and I have seen him only once in my life. If I go back to France
I shall be lonely, but if I stay here I shall have you, my brother, and
my nieces, and I shall have this dear house which my husband loved and
where I can feel close to him still."

"You're a good soul," said Gervase, too much moved to say more. He had
not thought that Louise had such feeling for Alard and Conster. He had
been deceived by her manner, often so critical, by her weapons of
reserve and mockery. Now he saw that she was more one of themselves than
he had imagined--he need not feel afraid of her, as he had sometimes
felt.

"You're a good soul," he repeated--then fell into a new train of
thought, suggested by the last word.

"I promise I shall not trouble you much. This house is very large, and I
will keep my rooms if you will let me. They are away from the rest, and
I need seldom come out of them."

"I hope you'll often come out, if only to talk to the housekeeper, since
none of my wretches is fit to keep house. Heaven help their husbands
when they get 'em. But, sister, I've a thought that's troubling me. Here
in England you're cut off from your religion."

She looked at him intently.

"Yes. That was one of the matters I wished to discuss."

It was the first time that he had ever talked to her of her religion,
nor had he ever talked of it to Charles. He knew that it was a matter
agreed for silence, and though he had sometimes resented the supposed
doubt of his tolerance, he had never broken the pact. Now he was no
longer Parson of a parish, so perhaps Louise would be open with him.

"You an't thinking of becoming a Protestant?"

He threw it partly as a challenge, partly as a vindication. After all,
why shouldn't he reconcile converts as well as any Popish priest?

"No," she shook her head, smiling. "Never that. You may find it hard to
believe me, but I am pious."

"And are Protestants never pious? And do Catholics never become
Protestants?"

"Yes, in answer to both questions. But while a good Protestant may
become a good Catholic, I have never known a good Catholic become a good
Protestant. Anyway, I shall not change. And that is what I would speak
of. If I am to be pious I must practise my religion, and perhaps you
knew that ever since my coming here I have practised it."

"I've certainly guessed as much."

"I had my husband's full knowledge and consent. But now if I am to
continue here I must have yours."

"And do you expect me to deny it?"

"No, I do not, knowing your kindness. But I hesitate to ask you, for it
is asking you to take a risk."

"It's a risk my brother took, and I reckon a very slight one."

"It was slighter before King James went. Maybe soon they will be saying
that we Papists want the King back again. And you, having refused the
oath, are already taken for a Jacobite."

"I'm no Jacobite--nor yet a Williamite," he paused for her challenge and
astonishment, but Louise would not be led into a political issue.

"I shall not stay here," she continued, "unless you are willing for me
to be visited as before, knowing the risks we both run. If you refuse, I
shall understand you as well as--nay, better than if you consent."

"Dear sister, I shall not refuse. I haven't the smallest objection to
Parsons coming here so long as he uses discretion--and I take it that
discretion is second nature with a Jesuit."

"Mr. Parsons is not a Jesuit."

"Eh well, he's some sort of seminary priest, I know."

"You know nothing, brother, and that's all you should know. For all you
know, Mr. Parsons is a friend of my husband's who still comes to visit
me, and whoever comes as priest, comes secretly at dead of night, so
that you never see him."

"How now, sister? I thought you were to be open with me."

"Open as to the risk you run, but as to nothing else. If a priest should
ever be taken here you had far better plead ignorance of him. I know you
so well, _mon frre_," affectionately taking his hand--"that I would not
have you plead from a feigned heart. You could not do it--you would not
do it."

"Nay, that I would not."

"Then do not ask to know. It is possible that the law will be made
tighter against Catholics. Should it ever be so, I must leave here, for
I will not lead you into any real danger. But I do not think it will
come to that. Nevertheless, we must be careful, and those that are
honest had better be ignorant."

"But I'm not ignorant. I'd be a fool if I didn't know Parsons is a
priest of some sort."

"Why should you know? No one has told you and you have not seen him
perform one priestly function."

"That's mere quibbling."

"Quibbling is a word I do not understand--there are still some English
words that I do not know."

She smiled as she spoke, and he was uncertain how to answer her. If only
he were convinced that she trusted him! But though she might trust his
tolerance she evidently did not trust his discretion. Why would she not
be open about Parsons? For a moment he felt inclined to insist that he
should be told all, that complete frankness should be a condition of his
agreement. But as he saw the smile die from her face and in its place
come that empty look that she had worn ever since her husband's death,
his heart melted toward her. She must have her comfort, and have it on
terms that would not rob it of its efficacy. Neither her conscience nor
her fears must spoil her blessing.

"Eh well," he said, "have it your own way. Maybe a day will come when
you can be more open."

And maybe before that a day when I shall have found out everything for
myself, so shall not need her to tell me.



                                  3

The next morning Gervase walked over to Newhouse. He meant to inquire
for Condemnation and find out how she was being treated. He had the
gravest suspicions of the Harmans, male and female, trusting none of
them to care properly for the child, who, he heard, had had her poor
little head broken by a flying bolt of iron. He would have called before
had not the business of his brother's death and burial detained him
elsewhere. Now he took his first opportunity.

He found Alice Harman busy making beer with her daughters and Nanny
Stook. They did not seem over-pleased to see him, and no doubt it was an
inconvenient moment, as they stood with their sleeves rolled to their
armpits round the great tub into which they were straining the warm brew
through a cloth.

"Naomi," said Alice, "dry thy hands and take Sir Gervase up to see thy
father."

"Nay, I came to inquire for Condemnation. I hear she was badly hurt by
the explosure."

"She does very well, and will be about again to-morrow. Take Sir Gervase
up to thy father, Naomi. You will excuse me, Sir, but I've more on my
hands than I can manage."

"There's no need for anyone to accompany me," said Gervase loftily. "I
know the way."

It struck him that if he went alone he might search for Condemnation in
the bedrooms; but though they let him go, he changed his mind on the
stairs. Better see Harman first and find out where she lay. The
Roundhead could not stop his going to her. Bless his corrupting leg for
that!

Exalted sat as usual in the window with his Bible on his knee. He
greeted Gervase somewhat wryly, for he did not see why he should endure
his visits now that he was no longer Parson of the parish. Dr. Braceley
came and was much more acceptable.

"Morrow," said Gervase, briefly.

"Morrow, friend."

"I came to ask for your daughter Condemnation. Downstairs they're too
busy to tell me."

"She does well enough. The surgeon dressed her wounds when he came to
see my leg. He tells me now that the putrefaction has spread into the
thigh, and talks of opening the flesh just here above the knee."

"Nay, cover it up. I didn't come to see your sores, but to inquire after
your daughter, and to see her if you will tell me where she lies."

"I've said that she's well enough," replied Exalted, very much annoyed,
"and as for your seeing her, it an't seemly for you to go into her
chamber--I've told you she's a woman now."

"And I'm a priest."

"Not since you were turned out of Leasan."

Gervase began to wave his arms and crack his fingers. Harman had hit him
in two places.

"I wasn't turned out. I resigned my living rather than take an
iniquitous oath. And I'm still a priest be I a hundred times turned
out."

"I can't follow your High Church theology. All I know is that you're no
longer the Parson here and have no right to enter my daughter's
chamber."

"Pish!" cried Gervase.

Harman lost his temper too.

"So you've come to harry a sick man. Begone, Sir."

"Impudence!--and sick of naught but your own laziness and bad humours.
Such as you deserve to be harried, and only by harrying will you ever be
cured. I visit those that are sick indeed."

"And I am visited by those that are ministers indeed, not retired to
plot against the King."

"You dare to say it."

Gervase strode up to him and for a moment stood threatening over his
chair.

"Nay, it an't I who say it, but the whole country. Why else should you
give up your cure?"

"Because I'm not so impious as to lift my hand against the Lord's
anointed."

"And hath not King William been anointed too in Westminster Abbey?"

"Nay, there can never be two Kings anointed."

"David and Saul were both anointed," said Exalted smugly. "Read the
sixteenth chapter of the First Book of Samuel."

"But David would not be crowned King till Saul was dead. Read Samuel too
for that. But we waste the air with such argument. I will go to see your
daughter, or rather the infant that the mountebank woman fathered upon
you."

And Gervase marched out of the room, feeling he had made a very witty
retort. Exalted Harman rapped loudly on the floor with his stick. But
his wife and daughters were either making too much noise to hear him, or
too busy to come to him if they did.



                                  4

Outside the room Gervase paused a moment. He still did not know where
Condemnation lay, and had moreover lost the means of finding out except
by exploration. Still that would not be difficult--the house was not
large, and they would most likely have put her in the attics. That was a
clever thought--the attics for sure. All he had to do was to find the
stair.

There was no stair, but a steep and awkward ladder, which he found at
last and climbed with some inconvenience and much dust. At the top was a
trap-door, which he pushed up, expecting to find himself in some passage
way. Instead of which his head rose through the floor of the very room
he was looking for--if room it could be called, for the attic at
Newhouse was not divided into separate chambers, but lay open the whole
length of the roof. There were no windows, but plenty of sunlight poured
in through cracks and chinks, with here and there the larger inlet of a
missing tile, so that he could see the great supporting beams that ran
across it three feet from the floor, holding up the gable and the slope
of the main roof, also the trays of apples that were stored there. The
whole place smelt sweetly of apples.

There was no furniture except a pallet bed where the sick girl lay,
which was close to the trap-door, so that Gervase's face rose up only a
foot or two from hers. She was asleep, but as he looked at her, she
opened her eyes and for a moment they stared at each other.

"Nay, be not afraid," said Gervase, as her little face stiffened
suddenly into a mask. "I'm come only to inquire for 'ee."

He saw that her head was bound with a bloody cloth, and as his eyes grew
more used to the light he saw further that the hair above it was an
untidy mass, with leaves and sticks in it. He was struck by the pitiful
thought that it had not been combed since the day of the accident, since
that day he remembered noticing that it was full of twigs from the
faggots he had helped her carry.

"Poor little bud, has no one tended thee or combed thee? Tell me, art
thou quite neglected here?"

But Condemnation would tell him nothing. The fear had gone from her
eyes, and in her heart was a passionate feeling of gratitude for this
further instance of his kindness to her. But she could not show it in
more than her looks, and those he could not read.

"Nay, something must be done----"

Which it was--quicker than he had bargained for. Though Harman's wife
and daughters might not hear or might choose to ignore the angry rapping
of his stick, his faithful dog Towser heard it and came bounding
upstairs. There what should he see but two strange male legs,
barbarously hung about with an unknown sort of petticoat, perched on the
attic ladder. With a whoop the good hound was after them and had torn
off a yard of Gervase's cassock, before a burly kick sent him down to
the floor.

"Towser, Towser--quiet 'ee, quiet 'ee," called Condemnation through the
trap, and Gervase hastily scrambled up into the attic.

Towser barked frenziedly.

"Quiet 'ee--quiet 'ee," cried Condemnation--"'at's a good dog. Come
upstairs, then--'at's a good dog."

But Towser could not climb the ladder. He could only scrabble at the
rungs and bark louder than ever. "Nay, quiet 'ee--quiet 'ee," cried the
girl--"oh, my head--my poor head."

Gervase was at his wits' end. He looked round for water, for cloths, for
a comb. There was nothing. Condemnation's gown hung by the sleeve from a
nail on the wall. Otherwise there was nothing in her bedroom but the bed
and several bushels of apples. She was beginning to moan and roll her
head on the pillow. The dog would not go away, but continued to bark,
though now more in excitement and goodwill than in fury. Gervase had
almost decided to go down and lead him away, when Mrs. Harman and Naomi
suddenly appeared from below, unable to ignore the din any longer.

"What's happened? Who's there? Quiet, Towser. Why, 'tis Parson--Sir
Gervase. What's he doing here?"

They came clambering up the ladder, smelling of malt. Mrs. Harman was in
a great rage, but Naomi was more inclined to laugh.

"What are you doing here, Sir? I thought you were with my husband."

"I came to visit the sick, and I'm shocked at what I find."

"You've no business here, Sir, but with my husband."

"Nay, I've business with this poor little bud, who has suffered your
neglect for many days I can plainly see. It was Providential that I
came."

"'Twas most unseemly, now that you're no longer Parson of the parish."

"I'm still a priest. See--I wear my cassock--" and he spread it out,
displaying its adversities at the teeth of Towser. Naomi sniggered
aloud.

"You're the Squire now, should you wear a hundred cassocks, and have no
business save with my husband."

"I tell you I have business here, since it's evidently no one else's to
care for this poor child."

"She can care for herself. She's well enough. 'Tis but laziness that
makes her lie here when she should be about. She has no mind for the
brewing--that's why she lies upstairs and feigns to be ill, knowing that
I want her down below."

"You call it feigning when her head's all bloody?"

His anger was rising and his finger shook as he pointed to Condemnation.

"That's dry blood. Her head is mended now."

"Dry blood!--if you say that, you say that her head has never been
dressed."

"It was dressed by Mr. Homer himself."

"When he came to see your husband on the day of the explosure, and
hasn't been touched since. I know well, and I----"

"Nay, but she won't have it," broke in Naomi. "I've brought up cloths
and water to dress her head, but she won't have it."

"She's a forward, rank, obstinate, lazy, filthy thing," cried Mrs.
Harman, "and I take it ill that you should make such a coil about her.
Come away, Sir, and leave her now, for you're encouraging her in
wickedness."

"I shan't leave," said Gervase furiously, "till I've seen her head
bandaged and combed. Don't you see that her hair is full of leaves and
sticks."

"But she won't have that neither," cried Naomi, "I would have combed her
three days ago, but she pushed me and scratched me. See, I've the
scratch here upon my arm."

"Aye, she's a wicked trot," said Mrs. Harman, "and you do ill to stand
by her."

"I'll stand by her none the less. I don't believe she refuses to be
tended. Fetch some water at once and a clean cloth for her head."

"I tell you, Sir," began Naomi.

"Fetch 'em!" roared Gervase--"fetch 'em, or you'll rue it, since I'm
Squire of Conster and a Magistrate."

This was better than telling them he was a Parson. Naomi disappeared
through the floor like the ghost in a play, and in a few moments came
back with a clean white rag and a bowl of water. Gervase held out his
hand.

"What! you'll do it yourself?"

"Aye, since she's scared to have you touch her."

Naomi laughed loudly, but handed him the bowl and cloth. Gervase had not
the least idea what to do with them. He turned angrily on the two women
and ordered them away; he could not bear their mocking, indignant eyes
upon him.

"Come then, child," said her mother. "We've our work to do and no time
to dawdle here. Leave the Squire, since he's also the Parson and the
Physician, and not much harm can come if we take the trap with us."

With this last shot she sank solemnly away, followed by Naomi, bearing
the wooden lid of the trap-door. Gervase was shaking with anger. A large
hole gaped by Condemnation's bed, so that anyone on the landing would
have a good view of it; but this provision for decency made things
extremely awkward, and they had already been awkward enough, heaven
knew. On one side of the bed he had scarcely two feet of floor to kneel
upon, on the other there was little more than a foot between it, and the
wall which sloped steeply forward into the roof. However, he chose the
wall side, as any little error or forgetfulness here would mean only a
crack on the head, whereas on the other side it might mean his sudden
descent to the landing. He did not think of asking Condemnation to leave
the bed. She lay there with her great eyes fixed upon him, following his
movements as an animal might, half in hope, and half in fear.

He had a little trouble as he tried to take off the bandage, for the
blood had clotted it to her head and she began to cry and moan.

"Nay, take it off thyself, my dear. It must come off."

To his great relief she did so, and he was able to bathe her forehead
and tie on a clean bandage without much trouble. Certainly the wound
seemed to be healing, though there was a great bruise round it that
would make her head ache for a long time. His heart welled up with pity
for her. Poor little bud . . . it seemed an outrage that her youth
should suffer, that age should ill-treat her, that age should ill-treat
the young.

It was good that age should care for her now . . . though he did not
feel so old. A strange lightness and happiness came to him in the midst
of all his awkwardness; then suddenly and surprisingly she smiled at
him, and he knew that her smile was an answer to his, for when he would
have smiled back he found that he was already smiling.

But the smiles were soon over. When Gervase had successfully bound up
her head, he found that he had still to comb her hair. He should have
done that first, but he had forgotten it, and now he was at a
disadvantage, with the bandage already set. However, he carried a comb
in his pocket and with that made an effort to tease out the worst
tangles. He found it an impossible task. Blood and sweat had caked the
girl's hair into a sort of mat woven with leaves and sticks and grass.
He could scarcely get the comb into it, and if he tugged, she cried and
caught at his hands.

"Nay, do it thyself, then."

He hoped for the same luck as with the bandage. But Condemnation could
not comb her hair--no one could.

"But it must be done."

"Nay, nay," and both her hands came down over it.

"It must be combed or cut."

"Cut it, then."

"What! cut thy pretty hair?"

"It an't pretty, and it hurts me."

"But let me try again."

"Nay, nay--cut 'un, or leave 'un as 'tis."

"If I leave it 'twill grow all lousy for want o' cleanliness and air."

"Cut 'un, then, I care not."

"But I've no shears."

"There's shears in the pocket of my gown."

He found the shears, and reluctantly and desperately cut the tangled
mass from her head. He was horrified while he worked at it, but when he
had finished he saw that the free ends were already curling. . . . He
rap the comb through them and they curled up into many little dark
tendrils.

"Eh well, then, it an't so bad. Thou'st a pretty curly head. How goes
the rhyme?

           "Curly locks, curly locks, wilt thou be mine?
            Thou shalt not wash dishes nor yet feed the swine,
            But sit upon cushions and sew a fine seam,
            And feed upon strawberries, sugar and cream."

He was singing in his relief, and her great eyes stared at him with a
new glow in their depths.

"Art better now?"

"Surelye."

"And hast made up thy mind to get well?"

She nodded.

"Then I must leave thee, or thy mother will be frantic. I'll come again
to see thee if she'll let me."

He was kneeling beside her, but as he would have risen, Condemnation
seized his hand and kissed it. At first he was too surprised to move,
for never before had she shown gratitude or pleasure in his society;
indeed it had been a novelty to find her answering him. Then too,
surprise succeeded tenderness; poor little bud, poor little rogue. . . .
As he rose from his knees he stroked her soft cropped head; it was like
a chick's feathers--poor little chick . . . he felt a tightening of his
throat and could not speak till he was halfway through the trap.

"Good-bye, then," he said huskily, "and be a good girl and read thy
Bible and thy Catechism, and soon thou'lt be well and about again."

His head disappeared, but Condemnation still watched the trap with her
hungry eyes. In her heart was a passion of excitement and gratitude.
Gervase had become her king. Never had she met anyone so kind or so
great. She would never forget his care and gentleness, his furious
defiance of Naomi and Alice Harman. All had pleased her alike. How his
eyes had blazed as he stood there cracking his fingers and roaring at
them. Crack . . . crack. . . . Condemnation cracked her little hard
brown fingers in the same way. Crack . . . crack. . . . If only he were
her father instead of that poor old daw-cock below. . . . "Curly locks,
curly locks, wilt thou be mine?" . . . She ran her fingers through the
free little curling locks on her head. . . . "And feed upon
strawberries, sugar and cream." . . . Maybe when he came again he would
bring her something good to eat--not strawberries, since now there was
none, but maybe purple grapes from the Manor vine or mirabiles or
lollipops or a tart. . . .



                                  5

But Gervase did not come again. For one thing, Exalted Harman gave
orders that he was not to be allowed inside the yard gate. Be he seven
times the Squire, he said, he wouldn't have him roaming over the house
and meddling with his maidens. Gervase might have been more insistent
had he not heard on his abortive visit that Condemnation was once more
up and about. The fever had left her, he was told by the cowman who held
the gate and did not see why he should cross the Squire for the sake of
a cantankerous master; the fever had left her and she was at her work
with the others, clearing stones from the Knabspot field. Gervase's
wrath was calmed by a comfortable sense of his skill as a physician--he
had not done so badly by the poor little wretch.

He was also too much occupied with his own affairs to brood long over
those of others. Even at that moment Jack Pyper was waiting for him at
the house, and he had but run over because he had promised the child,
and was anxious about her. Now his promise was fulfilled, though
ineffectually, and his anxiety allayed. He could go back to Conster and
talk with Jack about the furnace.

Ever since his brother's death he had somehow been convinced that Jack
Pyper would succeed John Douce as master and clerk of the works. He had
worked at Conster since he was a boy, and knew more of the matter than
anyone. Gervase himself knew nothing. That side of his inheritance had
never particularly interested him. The furnace was the only part of his
estate that he was free to leave as he chose; it constituted his private
fortune, and he had taken that fortune for granted, without thinking of
the labour and skill that must go every week to its earning.

Now he was being made to realize how ticklish, how delicate a business
was this iron-smelting, which till then he had thought a plain affair of
spade and bellows. Charles Alard and John Douce had been like
experienced mariners steering their ship through a storm, and now they
were both suddenly taken from the helm and there was no one to fill
their place. Jack Pyper was all very well, but he was only a plain
artificer and could never be clerk because he could neither read nor
write. Gervase's ignorance would have promoted him, but he was too
honest to accept such a promotion. He would willingly make himself
responsible for the practical side of the works, he said, but there must
also be a clerk, and that clerk must also have practical knowledge of
smelting and forging. It was a difficult matter.

Gervase found him waiting in his study, where the books were still only
half shelved. He stood among them respectfully, for they had not left
him a chair to sit on--not that he would have presumed to sit in the
Squire's house.

"Sit down then, sit down!" cried Gervase. "So, I will clear thee a
place."

"Thank 'ee, Squire, but I'd sooner stand. I can talk better standing."

"And what will thou talk of? This valiant clerk of thine--hast found
him?"

"I've heard, Sir, as Master William Dows is coming back. Mistress Dows
wur a-telling me that only yesterday."

"John Douce's son--I had forgotten him."

"He went away as a lad to foreign parts. When your family cum back,
Squire, and Master John Dows wur made to give up the furnace, he said
then as he'd send 'un's son back to France where 'un's gaffer cum from,
the very sum place, where seemingly they blow furnaces sum as here.
Mistress Dows told me as they'd heard nun of 'un this two year, but
when Master John died they sent a letter over to whur he used to be, and
now they've heard from 'un that he's coming home."

"And what good will that be to us?"

"I dunno, Squire, till I've seen 'un. But Mistress Dows wur saying as
how all these years he's bin clerk of the works to a French gentleman,
and that there's nun to do wud iron as he dan't know. And he's a
scholar too."

"Eh well, he might suit us. I'd sooner have him than a stranger."

"So wud I, Squire. I remember 'un here as a lad--not much 'e wur, but
maybe he's grown to better."

"Thou didst not think well of him?"

"Nay, not so badly--'e wur but a franion. He mun be thirty years old by
now."

"I'd like to have him for the sake of his mother. I think well of Mrs.
Douce, and it might be hard for her now John's gone, for the younger
sons are only children, and her daughters are still unwed."

"There's allus bin a Dows at the furnace since fust it blowed."

"I know. Robert Douce from Beauface started it for Squire Peter Alard a
hundred years ago, and his son was the first clerk. I'll have a look at
William. I take it we can go on as we are for a while longer."

"Surelye, Squire--I can manage all save the writing and reckoning."

"When did his mother expect him back?"

"She said he wur on his way hame."

"Then he'll be here before long. Carry on, honest Jack, with thy bumping
and bellowsing, and soon we'll get thee a clerk for thine orders and
accounts."

"'Twould be fitting to have William Dows, Squire, an you find 'un to
your liking. The men 'ud sooner have 'un than a stranger, so long as
he's steady."

"Be of good cheer, if he's but a railleur and a rattle we'll send him
back to France. I surely can find a clerk in this country."

"Not a clerk as knows all about iron and ordnance."

"Eh well, maybe not. We must wait till we see the young man. I'll take
him if I can. And now give me your report. Is all well at the forge?"

"We finished yesterday a dozen falconets and five demy-culverin for the
King's Amy, and there's come now an order for a hundred yard of railings
for a church in London town."

"We prosper then?"

"We'll prosper, Squire, so long as we've timber to burn."

"And we've that for the next fifty years."

"Maybe, maybe."

"And after fifty years we'll all be in our graves, so 'twill mean
nothing to us if the bellows are silent and the fire is cold. In fifty
years we'll all be gone--we and the woods together."

"'Tis sad to think on."

"Nay, not so sad, so long as we don't go with the woods into the fire."

"There's nun burns so quick as an old tree, I'm thinking."

"A pox on thy thinking, Jack. Thou'st lost thy Roundhead minister long
ago."

"I wur thinking of the woods, Squire. Maybe they'll be gone before fifty
years--they mightn't last out thirty."

"There's no difference. We'll be gone just the same. I've no mind to
live past eighty, and you'd be past a hundred."

"And there'll be none to come after us. 'Tis a pity."

"How a pity, since there'll be no furnace to live on?"

"There'll be the land. Anyone might do well out o' that, if Alard wur
still at Conster."

"There'll be Oxenbrigge at Conster."

"Aye, and a pity."

"Come, come, Jack. Have done with thy pities. Oxenbrigge will do as well
as Alard."

"Maybe, and maybe not so. 'Twill be a sad day for this countryside when
Alard's gone, and I doubt if Conster will stay much longer. When Sir
Charles wur buried, Squire, the folk wur saying as you'd be sure now to
marry agun."

"Why should I marry now any more than if Charles was alive?--and whom
should I marry?"

"There's some fine ladies around here, Squire."

"I know of none, and anyway I don't want to marry a fine lady."

"Many a Squire's done well wud a good yeoman's darter."

"Nor do I want a yeoman's daughter. I've been a widower now for fifteen
years and my freedom suits me. As for begetting an heir, my son-in-law
will do that--has done it already belike.

                "'Oxenbrigge, Oxenbrigge,
                  Lay with a lady, and got her big.'"

"'Tis an old rhyme we have around hereabouts, and many times Alard and
Oxenbrigge have crossed, but Oxenbrigge never yet had Conster.

"Oxenbrigge first mated with Alard at the time of the Crusades, and at
the time of the Armada an Oxenbrigge slew Peter Alard and married his
widow. We're doubly mated in blood and arms--and trebly mated now. Let
Oxenbrigge come to Conster."

"Nay, Squire--get an Alard to keep him out."

"Get me a wife and I'll get thee an Alard. Ho! Ho!" and Gervase rubbed
his hands in high good humour. Though he had not thought for years of
marrying again, he felt flattered by all this talk of marrying and
begetting.



                                  6

A week later Mr. Parsons arrived at Conster. Louise told Gervase a few
hours before he came. He thought that she looked conscious, but she
turned aside his questions very calmly. No, she did not know how long he
would stay, but it would be only for a short time. No, she did not know
where he came from or where he was going. Yes, he was certainly an
Englishman, and she had known him about five years. Charles had liked
him very much. Yes, maybe other people in the Vinehall and Leasan
district would be coming to see him.

The next day he met some of those people and was confirmed by the sight
in his idea of Parsons. They were a rough, wild family named Tukton,
yeomen farmers of Colespore, though local history showed them as Squires
a hundred years ago and Lords of the Manor of Fuggesbroke. They were
Papists, and had been despoiled of their estate under Queen Elizabeth;
indeed theirs was the Mass House that had given its name to Superstition
Corner. Fuggesbroke had been burned down by soldiers at the time of the
Armada, since when the family had lived at Colespore. They were now very
rough and uncivilized, more so than most yeomen, for their religion
separated them from their neighbours, and though the law had slackened
of late against Popery, it was still proscribed, and the Tuktons seemed
to have inherited a terror of persecution that kept them secret and
apart even from those, such as Louise Alard, who would have been their
friends.

To-day they all shied off Gervase like steers--the father and mother and
their four children trampling aside into the grass as he met them
halfway up the drive.

He waved his stick at them and shouted good-day. They mumbled something
in reply, and when he had gone on he felt sorry he had not stopped them
and asked them if they had had a comfortable shriving. He felt in a mood
for baiting someone, and neither Louise nor Mr. Parsons would rise to
his bait. Still, he need not now trouble about conventicles--let there
be a score in Dr. Braceley's parish!

What he troubled about most was the impression he made on Parsons, and
to that end he at last attempted to reduce the disorder in his study. He
would get his books in order on the shelves, and then invite the
hedge-priest up to drink wine with him and be stupefied by the Church of
England's learning. If he could not bait him he would at least impress
him; he really had a very fine library, and once it was sorted out could
display rare books and learned titles. But the sorting of it would be
hard labour, especially as Gervase could not by nature pick up a book
without opening and reading it. He started work on the day of Mr.
Parsons' arrival, but it looked as if he might not get all straight
before he departed.

Still, let him come and find some heaps on the floor--it would look all
the more studious . . . books in action instead of merely passive on the
shelves. What a mountain there was! Well, he had a fine place here to
house them. It had been kind of Charles to give him such a good room.
Poor Charles--God rest him. A coldness and a sadness came down on
Gervase as he moved the books to the shelves. What was the use of all
this learning, since by none of it could a man put off his death one
hour? . . . though that wasn't quite true, since the learning of
physicians and surgeons can cure diseases. But it's only a matter of
mending and patching, and off we go to death, with or without our right
hand or our right eye. If Harman's right in his idea of the Resurrection
some of us will look like old soldiers back from the wars. . . . And
what do we gain by the loss of our limbs?--not life, as the Scripture
says, but a mere sniff of it--a pinch--a few grains. An extra twenty
years would make no more difference in eternity than the tick of a
clock. All these learned tomes, the fruit of long years of labour and
study, were no more than the ticks of a clock--a great clock with the
sun and moon upon its face and the circle of the zodiac set round it,
like the new clock Charles had put at the foot of the stairs--but
immense, stupendous, filling all space, the clock of the universe. How
dared man think he mattered at all in such a creation? . . . Dickory,
dickory, dock; the mouse ran up the clock. . . . A mouse may stop a
clock, and a man can hold up the universe if he knows the right formula.
. . . Once upon a time he had thought he might find that formula. Shall
man by searching find out God? . . . Nay, such things are not of God.

With a shudder he pulled himself out of his reverie. He must work hard
if all was to be in order by to-morrow. There were still many books on
the floor, and Gervase began to wonder if he would have room on the
shelves for all. This chamber must be smaller than his study at Leasan
. . . no, that could not be, but at Leasan many of his books had been
stowed behind others. The shelves were smaller here . . . eh well, he
would have to build that _templum_ he had spoken of to Charles--down by
the river, away from the trees. He could keep his rarest books
there--under lock and key--those he might wish to study privately, such
as this "Amphitheatrum Sapienti" which he held in his hand . . . how he
remembered coming by it in Paris . . . de Rouvigny had lent it to him
. . . de Rouvigny . . . the night before he met de la Sourmaise . . . and
he had never given it back.

He held the musty pages up to his nose, and the smell that came from
them spoke to him of many things. How strange that a smell can change
the world. . . . Till that moment he had been in his study, sorting and
arranging his books, with a dozen candles burning and a log fire hissing
on the hearth. Now he was in darkness, without light save for the
occasional gleam of the river, his cloak huddled round him, his hat
pulled forward so as to keep the rain from dripping on his face as he
rode beside the river. He could hear the clop and suck of the horses'
feet in the mud, and once he had asked de Rouvigny, "Is it far?" He
could smell the night, soft and wet, embalmed with vegetation . . . now
he was smelling must again and was back in his study at Conster Manor.
But he felt shaken. For a moment he had--yes, he really had--been riding
on that road six hundred miles away through that night of thirty years
ago. Time and space had contracted into a smell. That was a wisdom he
had studied once. . . .

He put the book down and picked up another. It was of the same sort as
the first--he must have come to a heap of his old books, the books he
had had in France, that he had read long before he had ever heard of
Hooker's "Ecclesiastical Polity" or Donne's "Sermons" or "Eikon
Basilik." These were the books that he would keep apart and study down
in his temple by the river. It would be best to hide them away--or
perhaps he should destroy them; some were not good books. . . . Nay, not
so bad. They were mostly written against the evil--"Malleus
Maleficarum," "Sadueismus Triumphatus," "De Secretis Mulierum," "La
Haine de Sathan," no harm in those, but rather good. Yet there were
others which he should destroy--he should not have kept them; they
belonged to a part of his life that was better forgotten.

But why should he forget it? Why should he forget the times when he was
young and lusty and ardent, full of a zeal and curiosity, full of hope
and power? Now he was growing old--an old man dying among dying
woods--helplessly watching death come down on him before he had ever
lived. If a musty smell could take him back to those days, why should he
not go back? O Lord, O Lord . . . O Lord Astaroth. . . . A sudden shiver
went down him. He could not--he must not--not here. It was foul and
damnable--he had known it at the time, and had but tricked with it in
the hope of passing through it to cleaner waters. And he would have done
so had not everything been overthrown by his return to England. After
all, magic had for years been an honourable science, and learned and
devout men had studied the "Magia Philosophica" and the works of
Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim. He had them openly upon his shelves
and need not be ashamed of anyone seeing them. But these _grimoires_,
these _traicts_, they were of another order. . . . What would happen,
he wondered, if he were to tell some of these beef-eating English
Squires the things he had seen? To them magic was an affair of
witchcraft, of an old woman with a tame ferret and an evil eye. Little
they knew. . . . How strange it was that at this moment of the night all
long-forgotten knowledge should rise up in him, and at the conjuration
of a little dust he should be back in the tower room at Chteau le
Thisay, with de Rouvigny and de la Sourmaise and le Bettue and Madelon
and Catherine and all those others watching that figure with the broken
cross upon its back. . . . "Asmode, je voas conjure d'accepter le
sacrifice que je vous prsente!" . . .

His breath seemed to go from him in a suffocation of excitement and
fear, and then most terribly and summoningly came a knock at the door.

He could not speak, but without waiting for his voice the door opened
and Mr. Parsons walked in.



                                  7

The shock was almost as much of disappointment as of relief.

"Good evening," said Mr. Parsons.

"Good evening," said Gervase.

"I hope I don't intrude, but your sister has been telling me of your
books. Before she retired she said that you might be kind enough to let
me see them, as you never go to bed before midnight."

"I'd meant to ask you up to-morrow, when I had my shelves in order. I'm
sorting them now."

"To-morrow I shan't be here."

"You go so soon?"

"Aye, before breakfast."

"You've far to travel then?"

"Far enough."

Gervase felt annoyed with him for his short answers.

"To your next Mass house," he rumbled.

"Nay, I go to my brother's house near Gloucester. I'm a solitary man
without home of my own and I travel from friend to friend."

"You've long known my sister?"

"Some five years--your sister and your brother. He was a good soul."

"God rest him," said Gervase.

"God rest him," said Mr. Parsons.

"You believe, then, in prayers for the dead?"

"Certainly; as you do, I understand."

"Aye, our Church does not condemn it, though some are opposed. It is the
Mass that is condemned."

Mr. Parsons bowed.

Gervase, considering that he had fenced with him pretty cleverly, was
now hesitating whether or not he should charge him direct, when the
other suddenly as it were stepped aside.

"While we've been talking," he said, "I've been considering the titles
on your shelves, and I notice that though you are a Minister of the
Established Church, you read more French than English and very little of
your own Church's theology."

"Nay, judge me not by these few shelves I've set in order. I've the
whole of Sancroft and Hooker waiting to go up. This room's too small for
all my books, and I'm proposing to build a summer-house in the garden
where I can keep the rest."

"Surely it would be better to keep them here with you in the house."

"No, I would be more private than in the house. I would have a place
where I can read, write, eat or sleep apart from everyone."

"You like to be alone."

"Aye, I like it."

"And yet the author of our being said 'it is not good for man to be
alone.'"

"I must be alone if I'm to write and study. When I've put everything in
order, I've planned to write a treatise on reunion with the Eastern
Church. It's a matter that the fraternity of non-Jurors to which I
belong have much at heart."

"I know of no Eastern Church, but of many Eastern Churches. With which
of them will you unite?"

"We're now in correspondence with the Patriarch of Alexandria, and all
the Churches, though independent--or as they would say autokephalos--are
in league together. Since we're but a small body in England it would be
well to unite ourselves with other communions which can claim antiquity
with ourselves, and yet are free from those superstitious accretions
that other communions have absorbed in their course."

"Aye," said Parsons blandly, "it is not good to be alone, for Churches
as for men. Still; I'm not come to talk of Churches but of books. I see
here you have Paracelsus in French."

"I spent my young book-buying age in Paris, but I've also Master
Pinnell's translation of his 'Philosophy Reformed and Improved.' It's
waiting to go up with my English Philosophical and Theological works."

Mr. Parsons picked up a book from the floor.

"Livre des Charmes, Sorcelages ou Enchantements," he read from the
title-page.

"Nay, that's but another of my youthful curiosities."

"You were interested in magic?"

Gervase hummed and ha'd. He was not sure if he wished to talk of magic
to Mr. Parsons. Popish priests were known to be frenzied against it, and
anyway he was done with it now, though not done with his books.

"I was interested, when I was young in France."

The words "young in France" seemed to come smiting back to him from
somewhere like an echo. His hands trembled as he picked up one of the
books. Mr. Parsons looked at him curiously.

"There was--I believe is still--much magical study in France. Sorcery
there has run a headier course than in England, and more malevolent."

"All magic is not malevolent."

"Nay, some is what is called natural or white magic, and much, most of
it, is sheer human folly. But some is demonology--you must know that."

"Aye, I know it."

"You have maybe seen some of it--in Paris, or in the country by Tours."

"Nay, how can you know?" cried Gervase.

"I was in France for a part of my education, and heard many rumours and
tales of Sabbats. I understand that there's a system of lodges come down
from the societies of masons and adorers of the Rosy Cross, which now
meet for purely Satanic worship."

Gervase began to walk up and down the room.

"Aye, I've seen it; I've been to their meetings, though not to many."

"You've seen their Mystery of Iniquity."

"Nay, but once."

"And given the _osculum infame_."

"Nay, nay--never."

"By the light of the Hand of Glory?"

"Nay, nay--have done, Sir."

He stopped in his walk, and swung round to face Parsons, who continued
smoothly:

"Was the blood from an infant or a cock?"

"Foh! talk not of such abominations. I never went with the Abb Gibourg
and his sorcerers. . . . But how do you know so much? You must have gone
yourself."

"No, no. But as I've told you, I heard the matter talked of when I was
in France. The abomination was all over the country."

"Aye, and the French priests were in it too, many of 'em."

"Renegade and unfrocked priests are, I understand, as necessary for
those obscene rites as a true priest is necessary for the Mass. For the
most part the French clergy fought the evil as doctors fight the
plague."

Gervase nodded.

"Aye, I know well. There was an Abb Fournier at Tours . . . did you
know him?"

"No, I was never at Tours. Maybe he warned you?"

"He warned me--and he would have made a Papist of me."

Gervase grinned and looked shrewdly at Parsons, who, however, ignored
his challenge.

"You did not take his warning."

"No, for I felt sure that this matter was not so unconditionally evil as
he made out. Doubtless there were abominations done, but that was at the
Sabbats . . . I went not to the Sabbats more than twice or thrice, and I
never belonged to their order."

"What did you practice then?"

"Certain friends of mine practiced divination by the Tarot and talked
with the dead. Also we attempted more than once to call up a
Magistellum."

"With any good success?"

"Only in part."

"And then you wearied of it all?"

"Nay, but I returned to England and my whole life was changed. For many
years I never thought more of it."

"But you kept your books."

Gervase nodded.

"You see them there at your feet."

"Would that they were in the fire," cried Parsons with a sudden,
unexpected vehemence.

"But what harm can they do? They're only books."

"Books which, an I mistake not, advance theories that may be put in
practice. See--'Veritable dragon Rouge, o il est trait de l'Art de
commander les esprits infernaux, et faire apparatre les Morts.' Do you
study that?"

"Nay, I've studied none of them for years."

"Then why keep them?"

"Because they've interested me--they still interest me . . . I may study
them again."

"I hope not. I know I've no right to counsel you, but I'm a man of some
experience, and from that experience I beg you to have no traffic with
those mysteries which are either foolish or abominable."

Gervase was offended.

"And I too am a man of experience--more experience than you, Sir, since
I've done and seen with my own eyes what you've only heard talked of."

"Why rush back into a danger from which by the mercy of God you've
escaped?"

"I'm not rushing back. My good friend, do you expect me to form Sabbats
here and call the rustics of Vinehall and Leasan to ride on brooms to
Conster on Midsummer Night? Nay, but there's that white, natural magic
you yourself have talked of, and if once a man might command it, surely
his life and the lives of those around him would be the better--aye, the
better. You can't condemn all the books I've here. Would you have me
burn good Jacob Boehme and his 'Mysterium Magnum'?"

"Nay, Boehme is harmless enough--that is if we except certain heresies
he teaches. He's no magician but a philosopher, and you may study him
with advantage. But these others are different--'The Kabalah': what
should a Christian do with that? 'De Incantationibus': whom will you
summon with your incantations?"

"Good nature spirits--or the dead, maybe."

"Anim justorum in manu Dei sunt. Leave the dead in their graves; and be
sure that much of necromancy is only the tricks our own minds play us,
rising up at us and deceiving us with lies."

"Then there an't much harm in it."

"Surely there's harm, since every lie is from the Father of lies, and
Satan in our minds and hearts is even more to be feared than Satan in
the pulpit of a Sabbat."

"You think then there's no such thing as benevolent magic."

Parsons shook his head.

"I'm sure on't. Satan is in it all, either working transcendentally and
openly, or--as I believe happens as often--immanently and secretly, in
the folly of our own minds."

Gervase looked uneasy. In spite of himself, the other had disquieted
him. Various horrible memories took him and shook him for a moment.
Parsons began to walk up and down; he too seemed stirred.

"Sir Gervase," he said suddenly, stopping and turning round. "There's
one thing I know and understand, and that is loneliness."

"Loneliness? . . . and you go so much to friends?"

"I go to them and I go from them, but always alone. I spend only a very
small part of my days in company. But that's not all my lonelessness;
it's my life that is apart, cut off from the lives of others. I can't
live as one of them any more than I can live with them. I must always be
alone. So I understand particularly the perils of lonely men."

"And you would call me a lonely man--here in this house, with my sister
and my daughters?"

"Yes, for you're apart from them: though your body's in their house,
your mind has never walked with theirs or held communion with them.
You've always been lonely, and like me you must beware. For lonely men
are apt to wander into strange ways, to face temptations that don't
appear to other men--and delusions, too, delusions of mind rather than
delusions of sense, though one may become the other. Take my advice,
which I give in all humility, knowing my own temptations, and walk not
in strange or doubtful paths, but keep where other men are near and
where God is always within call."

Gervase could not help being affected. This man though he might never
have gone to a Sabbat, spoke like a trump from another side of
experience. But though he was moved he still stood his ground, for
something in him revolted from being admonished by one he knew to be a
Popish priest.

"A lonely man," he said, "may well seek his comfort in science. What can
he do better than acquire knowledge?"

"You're right in so far as the knowledge is not of things forbidden nor
the science a superstition."

Gervase fastened on the last word.

"There are many forms of superstition. The crossways here is called
Superstition Corner because it was once the turning to a Mass-house. . . .
Maybe it is still . . ."

A clock struck twelve.

"I must leave you now, Sir," said Parsons, "I trust I haven't wearied
you."

"Nay, stay and have a glass of wine. You haven't seen half my books."

"Thank you, but I mustn't stay; and doubtless by your courtesy I shall
some day be here again and then you will perhaps let me see what I've
missed to-night."

"Certainly, Sir, certainly. I'll by then have everything in order."

"Good-bye, then, since you mayn't be about when I depart to-morrow. And
may I leave this word with you as one Christian to another--if you would
rise, rise not by the steps of the Kabalah, but rather by Jacob's
Ladder."

"Why should I rise by either?"

"You wish to rise. You wish for change and power--you've told me. The
Kabalah rises between Malkuth, the earth, and Kepher, the throne, but
you know not which throne you may reach, whereas Jacob's ladder goes up
straight to God."

He was gone, leaving Gervase to a conflict of sensations. He felt
bewildered and excited--how did this man know? He was also touched, for
there had been days when he himself had thought of climbing Jacob's
ladder. But mostly he was angry. It seemed to him an outrageous thing
that he, Lord of the Manor and a learned Minister of the Church of
England who had renounced his living for conscience's sake, should be
expected to burn his books at the bidding of a vagrant Popish priest.



                                  8

They were still there a week later when William Douce, John Douce's son,
was shown into his study.

He came into the room as a surprise, a young man dressed in green, with
a crimson waistcoat and a foppish cravat. Gervase was a little shocked
to see such gay clothes and colours--he did not honour his father with
so much as a black ribbon. And a report said he had not come straight
from France, but had ridden from Dover to Milkhouse Street, twelve miles
from Leasan, to visit friends there, unmindful of his mother. Alard was
not disposed by rumour to approve of him . . . and yet there was
something strangely attractive about him, an air of youth and grace, and
an air of deference, too, mixed with a certain dignity.

He stood in front of him in a respectful attitude, his hat in his hand,
his head slightly bent, but with his eyes lifted to the older man's
face. They were the characteristic eyes of the Douces, dark and
prominent, less solemn than his father's but more sad. The only thing
Gervase did not like about his face was that it lacked expression; it
was smooth and set like a mask--and there were too many masks about.
Most people's faces, he thought to himself as he watched him, were comic
masks--mouthing and grinning without a thought behind them; others, less
frequently, were tragic masks, stiffened into a mould of sorrow. But
this mask had no expression at all; it was merely a face worn to hide
the man behind it--an actor's mask, a robber's mask. . . .

"Good day, Sir Gervase."

Gervase realized that it was the second time he had said it, and felt a
little ashamed and confused.

"Good day to 'ee, Sir. Pray sit down."

William Douce sat down in a shaft of sunlight. He looked younger than he
could possibly be, for his figure had still the sapling lightness of a
boy's. Once more Alard felt that irresistible call of youth. . . .

"How old are you?" he asked abruptly.

"I'm thirty-one, Sir."

"Married or single?"

"Single."

If Douce felt any surprise at such questioning he did not show it.

"And how much do you remember of this place?"

"Much--very much indeed. I was more than eighteen years old when I went
away."

"True--I'd forgotten. But I saw very little of you in those days."

"I worked at the furnace under my father, and though I frequently met
Sir Charles Alard, I don't think that you yourself, Sir, often came that
way."

"No, that I didn't--I've never taken much interest in iron and its
working, nor did I think the place would so soon be mine. I'm forced to
take an interest in it now."

He sighed deeply.

"That's why," he continued, "I want an experienced man as clerk and
master. Jack Pyper tells me you were wild and careless as a lad. I trust
you've sobered down, for this is sober work."

"None should know that better than I, Sir, for besides learning the
rudiments of the trade under my father at your own furnace, I've worked
in no less than three bloomeries in France--one near Beauface, one near
Dunkirk, and one near Artois, where I was for four years clerk of the
works to the Comte de la Prouse."

Gervase nodded silently. His thoughts had gone off on another track, for
he had noticed that while William Douce was speaking his eyes were fixed
on one of the bookshelves, where the same shaft of sunlight that held
him in its slant across the room burned on the horny covers of the
_grimoires_ and traicts and other curiosities of his foreign
collection. He felt embarrassed by that glance, and blamed himself for
placing the books in such a prominent position. . . . It had all been
against Parsons' next visit. . . . Still, he might have hidden them away
till he came. And now Douce would probably guess their nature, coming as
he did from France; at least he would be able to read the titles. While
Gervase wondered, the young man spoke.

"I see that you're a student of magical philosophy."

"Nay, nay--I was once; but I've other things to think of now."

"Doubtless you studied it when you were in France. France is still full
of magic, as perhaps you know."

"Still full?"

"Full as an egg."

"Maybe you yourself have studied magic, coming from there?"

"No, no, why should I? But it's a curiosity that takes as all."

His bright, dark eyes moved from the bookshelves to Alard's face, then
shifted at once, as if one glance had told him all he wanted to know.

"But now you've spoken of magic," he continued, "I must confess that
I've occasionally attended the meetings of a small lodge in
France--nothing blasphemous or Satanical, but a mere study of such things
as the Bohemian cards."

"Was that all you used--the Tarot?"

"We sometimes talked with spirits--friendly spirits of nature, or
sometimes the dead."

"And how did you that?"

Again Douce's eyes lighted upon him arid darted away.

"Some of us had powers--and the spirits used our voices."

"Had you yourself the power?"

"Yes, I had the power. But don't ask me of it, for I can remember
nothing. When these things happen the man is taken away, and the spirit
uses his body as a tent."

"I know--I know--I know," cried Gervase, "but it's all wickedness, and
forbidden by the laws of God and man."

"I'm not talking of witchcraft, but of scientific experiment."

"Nay, nay, it's all the same. Haven't you heard? Haven't you read the
Book of Miracles? Popish priests have exorcised such spirits with bell,
book and candle."

"I've heard that Popish priests have scared and tormented poor maids
with the falling sickness or suffocation of the mother, but that need
trouble none but servant girls and others like them who take their
orders from Rome."

Gervase could not help feeling pleased to hear Popish priests so well
sneered at.

"You were not drawn to Popery in France?"

"No, I was not."

"I was so--but only for a while. Now I'm thankful to be in the Church of
Hooker and Andrews and Laud and Cosin and Ken. That Church is rent apart
in these days, and I no longer hope so much for it as I did; but a
phoenix may still rise from the scattered fire, and meanwhile I have in
my mind a portentous treatise on the relations of the Church of England
with the Orthodox Churches of the East, with the autokephalous Churches
of Greece and Russia and Antioch and Constantinople and Alexandria and
Thyratia . . ." and he delivered Douce a long harangue, to which the
young man listened patiently.

After that he remembered the purpose of the interview.

"So you wish to come to me as clerk of the works in your father's
place?"

"That is my humble request, Sir."

Gervase looked at him shrewdly. He felt a sudden doubt.

"Come now, tell me why a flashing young man like you should come from
France to take over a dying furnace, when you'd work a-plenty where you
were. You must have heard some swollen tale about the place."

"I've heard nothing, but I've remembered all. I loved Conster Furnace
when I was a lad, and all the years I've lived in France I've been
hoping and planning to return."

Gervase could not quarrel with that, since it was his own
memories--obscure, trivial, yet compelling--which had brought him back
to Conster from a land of higher hopes. But he was still uneasy.

"You didn't come straight home," he continued after a pause. "I hear
that you arrived from Kent."

"Yes, I landed at Dover, and went for a few nights to some friends I
have near by."

"It's strange that you shouldn't have come straight home."

He eyed him severely, for his conduct seemed heartless, and
heartlessness is the darker side of youth. Douce answered readily
enough.

"I was passing close to my friend's house--I didn't ride five miles out
of my way. I had a message to deliver, and he's a dear friend--a very
dear friend. He was with me in France for three years, and we studied
the magical sciences together."

"So! you were students, then. You told me you'd never studied."

"We were members of the lodge I told you of--that's all."

"And shall you continue your studies now you're home?"

Douce shrugged and smiled.

"How can we study such things here? In England there's no magic--only
witchcraft."

"Aye, you're right. In England the devil himself's no more than a
hobgoblin. A poor lonely old woman who nurses a half-starved cat is
brought before the Magistrate for suckling Beelzebub. Ha! ha! did you
ever hear of such a thing? I sometimes wonder what my neighbours Squire
Austen and Squire Broomfield would think could they be present at a
_Grand Mystre_ . . ."

He broke off. His tongue had kept pace with his thoughts and had run him
beyond his intentions. He had a moment of real panic as he saw himself
confronted with the past as a present and practical temptation. What if
Douce should help him revive more than the memory of those days? He
might well do so, with his evident knowledge and recent experience.
Gervase shuddered. If he was wise he would get rid of him, tell him he
was not suitable for the position of clerk of the works. Yet whom could
he get instead of him that would do as well? He must find out more about
his qualities.

"What wood did you burn in France?" he asked abruptly.

"We burned chestnut and pine."

"And here we burn oak and ash."

Douce smiled.

"They grow slowly, but for the Englishman there are no other trees."

"Would you plant others here?"

"I would plant trees that grow quickly, so that the new timber will be
up before all the old is down."

"But chestnut and pine are not so good for burning."

"Pine is good, and as for chestnut, any wood's better than no wood at
all. I'll lay that old Jack Pyper would sit down and be content for all
to come to an end in fifty years."

"And why should he care? In fifty years we'll all be dead--even you,
young fellow, most likely. Why should any of us care for what happens
after fifty years?"

"There are those who follow us," said Douce primly.

"There's none!" cried Gervase. "There's none that follows me. I'm the
last of the Alards, and Oxenbrigge doesn't get the Furnace. It's mine to
do as I like with, and all I ask is for it to keep me in decent comfort
till I die. My daughters have their mother's fortune, so I needn't
trouble to leave 'em rich."

"But shouldn't you like to be rich yourself, Sir?" asked Douce in a
diffident voice.

"La! you needn't trouble about that--all men would be rich, just as all
men would be young, but for most of us it an't worth thinking on."

"Believe me, it's in your power."

"How so?"

"If you'll make me furnace master I promise to make you rich."

"You're more like to ruin me with your notions."

"They're not so much notions, Sir, as the fruits of experience. At the
Comte de la Prouse's furnace we had many hundred _hectaires_ of young
wood waiting to take the place of the old as it was burnt."

"And d'ye think I haven't young plantations? But you'll be a magician
indeed if you can make a young tree grow as fast as an old tree burns.
And my old trees burn quickly, too. For they're rotting--all of
'em--rotting. And I haven't the land for all the plantings I need."

"I would respectfully suggest, Sir, that you buy standing timber till
your new plantings are ready."

"So you wouldn't make me rich by selling, but by buying?"

"By buying to sell again more profitably. I'm convinced, Sir, that the
future of iron in this country is only a question of fuel. The land is
rich, and can still be worked for hundreds of years to come. The only
need is a proper supply of timber, and that can be gotten by proper
enterprise. My father knew this well, but he lacked ambition. He was
content with things as they were."

"And maybe I am too."

"Nay, Sir. I know you're not content."

His eyes were fixed fully upon Gervase now, and this time he let them
rest. Their round, bright, expressionless darkness reminded him of a
bird's, and yet they pierced him as no bird's eyes would pierce. He
moved his own uneasily. He felt that Douce read his heart, but the
thought of what he saw there did not disquiet him so much as the thought
of what he himself saw in Douce. For he knew now that he saw in him his
own lost youth, surviving in a body too old for it, and offering him
again his lost ambitions, lost temptations. . . . That was why the man
had such power--yes, power, for he knew that in spite of his better
wisdom he must have him at the furnace as master and clerk. He was his
own youth--dark, mocking and secret as his own youth had been--and the
voice that came from him was his own voice, calling him back to lost
hopes and forbidden sciences.

"Nay," he said slowly--"you're right. I'm not content--maybe I shall
never be content."

"Not when you're rich?"

"Perhaps then least of all."

"Indeed, Sir, I can scarcely believe you."

"Why not? What good will my riches do me when I'm dead? And why should I
labour to keep my furnace alive when I myself must die?"

"You wouldn't be so sorrowful at the thought of dying if you'd been rich
and happy first. You think so much of dying, not because you fear to
leave your possessions, but because you've nothing to leave. A man who's
fully alive need never fear death. It's the man who has never lived that
fears him."

Gervase stood up and began to crack his fingers.

"Nay, young man, you've no business to talk so to a Parson. 'In the
midst of life we are in death.' Our riches shall profit us nothing, nor
shall our knowledge--only a virtuous life. 'The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom.' Get you gone now, for you smack of wickedness. I
will spend the last years of my life in theological studies and the
writing of learned treatises, in the honest administration of my estate
and the equitable performance of my duties as a justice of the peace.
Good day to 'ee."

"Am I to understand that you don't require my services?"

"Nay, nay, I require 'em--but only to blow my furnace as your father did
before you. I want neither to be rich nor to be learned in forbidden
wisdom. Good day, and I will see you shortly at the furnace."

William Douce respectfully took his leave.



                             CHAPTER FOUR

                                  1

It was spring, but a spring fallen back into winter. A fine scum of
half-frozen rain lay upon the new grass, and over the ponds and pools
was a green skin of ice. The sheep, fleeing foolishly before the storm,
stood huddled with their lambs in the high corners of the field, while
the rods of the sleet smote their fleeces. The wiser cattle sheltered in
the valley below, close to the brook. The air was December, but the
earth was April, with primroses in the woods and blackthorn in the
hedges, The buds of the oak were bursting, but the ash buds were still
hard and black upon the bough.

Condemnation pulled an ash twig down to her as she stood sheltering
against the spinney. The buds were shaped like cows' feet, and here was
the flower--purple and shining like a mulberry. This would be a wet
summer with the ash in flower so early. It was queer that folk thought
so much of the flowers in the gardens and the flowers in the woods, and
yet thought nothing of the flowers on the trees, which were just as
pretty. Maybe they didn't care for them being such quiet colours--green
and brown and blackish purple; but she would like to wear a garland of
purple ash flowers.

She could not wear a garland now. Over her head was a large piece of
sacking, worn like a shawl to keep out the sleet; but in spite of it wet
curls straggled and ringed upon her face. She had kept her hair short
ever since the Squire had cut it--it was cleaner that way, and less
troublesome, and no one seemed to want to scold her for it. She had
hoped that her cropped head might scare away Lambert Relph, but it had
made no difference--indeed; of late he had been more troublesome than
ever. And now they were all in league with him, saying she should marry
him. . . . Her hand clenched upon the ash twig. She would have to marry
him if the Squire couldn't save her. But he would save her--of that she
felt certain--for he was all power, being a Magistrate, and all
kindness, being himself.

She had made up her mind to go to him if her folk pressed her really
hard. For she was resolved not to marry Lambert Relph. She could not
bear the touch of him or the smell of him, and she would be scared to
live with him in his little black cottage away behind Dodyland Shaw. But
she knew that her father and stepmother were anxious for her to marry
him, because then she could still work for them for nothing when they
needed her at hay-making or harvest or hop-picking time. Her father
would think it right that she should marry a farm-labourer and live in a
hovel, he would think it was what she deserved for having been born; and
her stepmother would be glad to get rid of her to someone who did not
want a dowry. For they would not give her a dowry as they were giving
Naomi when she married in June, and no one but a labourer would marry
her without one. They had told her that, and that she was lucky. But she
knew there was no luck in it, only toil and sorrow--the same life as she
led now, but with the added miseries of housekeeping and child-bearing,
and no chance to run away at nights and be in the fields alone, sleeping
under a hedge or under a tree, as she had done so often.

The rods of the sleet were beating less mercilessly, and she came out of
her shelter to search the sky for the time of day. The westering,
dipping gleam told her that the cows would be ready for milking. She
must go home. If she hurried now and finished her milking in time,
Lambert would still be away cutting osiers by the Pipingclay Stream. She
would see no more of him that day. She had learned how to dodge him
neatly, ever since he had started following her. At first it had been a
game, and she had half enjoyed crouching in the straw to watch him pass,
or skimming round the barn door as he drew near, or hiding with the
wood-mice in the great tent made by the leaning hop-poles. But all that
had changed since she had been told she was to marry him. She had feared
him then as the bird on the limed twig fears the fowler. Her escapes had
ceased to be a game, but an urge of necessity; and sometimes with a
growing sense of hopelessness she would see them as a mere frantic,
useless flapping of her wings.

Nanny Stook usually helped her with the milking, but to-day she was not
there. Condemnation found herself alone in the cow lodge, and in mortal
need to hurry if she would not be caught by her returning swain.
Certainly none of the cows was likely to be milked dry, for the milkmaid
sat with her eye on the gap of the door, where the fading April day
streamed past in rain, and moved her stool so quickly down the row that
she might almost have been playing hot cockles instead of milking cows.

At last she was through, and up on her legs, and running across the yard
as fast as a heavy pail on each arm would let her. The milk slopped in
the pails and would have run over had they been as full as they ought to
have been; but as things were, she managed to reach the dairy without
more than a splash or two on the stones. In the dairy she found her
stepmother and Naomi skimming cream.

"Here, set down those pails," said Alice Harman, "and go into the
kitchen."

"Into the kitchen?"

"Aye; don't stare at me, moon-face, but do as thou'rt bid."

"But wot d'ye bid me do in the kitchen?"

"I bid 'ee go into it, that's all. Be gone."

A sudden mistrust seized Condemnation, and she still stood hesitating;
then before she knew what was happening Alice Harman had seized her by
the shoulders and was running her through the door.

"Nay, be not such a fool. Thou'st more luck than thou deservest."

The door shut behind her, and as she had feared she found herself face
to face with Lambert. He stood there grinning at her, and as she stood
trembling he moved forward and held out his arms. The hands at the ends
of them looked enormous.

"I thought 'ee wur picking osiers," she murmured, foolish with fear.

"Nay, A went not 'to de osier beds. A went to Leasan. Ha! Ha! Ha!"

"Leasan."

"Aye, to get us cried. We're to be cried a Sunday."

She understood the plot that had been against her, and desperation made
her suddenly calm.

"My father and mother sent 'ee."

"Aye. We're handfasted now, A reckon."

"'At that we're not. I'd die sooner."

"Nay, nay, liddle coney. A'll make a praper husband to 'ee."

"But I'll make no wife to you; be sure of it, Lambert Relph."

"Nay, wait 'ee till A've tumbled 'ee a bit. Mistress said A can start
tumbling 'ee now we're handfasted: 'tis all right and praper and 'ee'll
larn to lik me better that way."

Without a word Condemnation swooped for the latch behind her, but found
that the bolt on the other side of it had been run through the stays.
Her stepmother had made sure that she should not escape into the dairy.
But there were two other doors in the room--one by the fireplace and one
by the dresser. She ran for the first, but immediately he was in front
of it, his arms spread out, his face gaping nearly in half with his
grin.

"Ha! Ha! liddle rabbit-sucker, wouldst run away?"

She turned on her heels and rushed for the other door, but again he was
in front of it, capering and guffawing with his arms outstretched. She
doubled again for the fireplace, but he was too quick for her, or rather
his position gave him an advantage. Twice again she doubled and darted
while he pranced before her, hugely enjoying the fun.

"Ha! Ha! liddle sucker, liddle peeper! Wouldst have a game o' fox and
geese. Nay, nay, wait till a' smother 'ee"--and he suddenly ran forward,
catching her unawares.

His arms came round her, hugging and pawing, and at the same time his
hot, laughing face crushed down on hers. His mouth seemed to swallow
her, and her terror became the terror of a cat in a snare. Like a cat's
her limbs contracted in his hold, and then suddenly expanded in an
unnatural strength. She was out of his grasp. She was out of the window.
The crash of the falling glass seemed to follow rather than come before
her bolting through it.



                                  2

"Please you, Squire, there's a young woman asks to see you."

Gervase started; for the moment he had forgotten he was in his library,
supposed to be busy with the apparently endless task of sorting his
books. He put down "Magia Philosophica" and stared at the servant.

"She seems in great distress, Sir."

"I'm no refuge for distressed females--send her away."

"I reckon she comes to see the Magistrate. There's blood on her
clothes."

"Blood, is there? Her husband's been beating her and she richly deserves
it, and the Magistrate's sentence is that she go home to bed. Ho! Ho!
Ho!" and Gervase chuckled as he dipped his head once more to the pages.

But the servant was either more or less stupid than he thought, and in
five minutes he was back with the message that the young woman said she
was not married and her name was Condemnation and she begged and prayed
the Squire to see her.

Gervase's manner changed at once. Condemnation, was it? And she was in
distress, was she? With blood on her clothes--and he'd very nearly sent
the poor little rogue away. He was horrified and ashamed.

"Bring her up at once."

So Condemnation came into the long room that streamed with the curious,
smoky sunset that had suddenly broken through the rain. She picked her
way among the heaps of books and fell on her knees at his feet, catching
at his hand and pouring out a torrent of words of which it was
impossible for him to catch more than a few drops.

For him, who had scarcely ever heard her speak more than two words at a
time, the situation was surprising. All he could make out was that she
did not want to be married to someone or other, but that her father
would have it so and her mother had locked the dairy door. He tried to
soothe her and persuade her to speak calmly, but the torrent flowed on
till at last it choked her in sobs.

"Nay, tell me then, pigsnie--what is it, love? Who's hurt thee? La! La!
La! There's blood on thy hands--thou'rt all cut about. Who's dared to
hurt thee so?"

"I jumped through the window. I was that tur'ble scared. . . . Oh, kind
Sir, good Sir, save me I beg you and don't send me back."

"But who's scared you?--who's made you run off like this?"

"Lambert Relph--I've told you, Sir; him they want me to marry. But I'd
sooner die . . ." and once more her voice was lost.

"Thou shalt marry no one thou doesn't fancy. I'll see to that. Why are
they forcing 'ee?"

She tried to tell him and at last succeeded. By the time she had told
her story three or four times he had gathered enough of it to make him
stamp about the room and abuse Exalted Harman.

"Rot him for a low, canting, rascally, roundheaded hob! 'Tis all his
doing I'll be bound. He'll exalt his own sin by debasing thee, the mean
lecher! But I'll not have thee so ill done by. I'm a magistrate and I'll
protect thee, poor little pug. Thou didst well to come to me. I'll see
thee righted."

Condemnation watched him as he strode and cursed, with the fairy sunset
burning round him and throwing crimson patches on the wall. He was a
dark figure among flames. He reminded her of a picture she had once seen
of Jehovah riding the whirlwind, a terrible, dark, yet kindly figure,
girdled with fire. The whole room seemed to turn red; then suddenly it
went black. She fell to the floor.



                                  3

Gervase stopped in his stride, gave one look at her fallen, motionless
body, then running out to the stair-head, roared for the women. They
came in a moment--Louise, Ann, Bridget and a maid--and found him trying
to lift her into a chair.

"No, let her lie," cried Louise, "she has fainted. But who is she?"

"Don't you know her? Harman's foundling, 'Od rot him. I'll warrant she's
dead."

"No, she's not dead, only swooned. But she's bleeding--there are great
cuts on her arms. _Mon Dieu!_ She must have fainted from loss of blood.
Ann, run and fetch me water and some clean linen. What can she have done
to herself?"

"She broke through a window to escape from some lout he would have her
marry. Poor child, she came to me to help her. I've been a friend to her
before this."

"I remember her now, but I have not seen her for many years. Then she
was only a child; now she is a beautiful young woman."

Gervase had never noticed whether Condemnation were beautiful or not.
Till that moment she had been to him nothing but a child; in spite of
all that Harman had said to him and in spite of her present plight he
had never truly realized she was grown up. But now he suddenly saw her
with the eyes of the world around him. The red light had gone from the
room, and in its place a cold, vivid beam lit up her face, washing out
the sunburn and leaving it marble white. Her features, which he had
scarcely noticed before, were carved with a marble delicacy. Her nose
was slightly Roman and the outline of her lips was clear, though they
were drained of blood; her eyelashes lay like little clouds upon her
cheeks, which curved as slightly from her throat as the folded wings of
a dove. The whole face wore a curiously aristocratic air now
consciousness with all its fears and ignorances had left it. One might
now indeed give credence to the tale that she was no child of Harman's.

Louise attended to her deftly, helped by the maid, and hindered by Ann
and Bridget, who blundered round with Las and Jiminies, staring
curiously at her coarse clothes and sturdy body. She revived a little
when her forehead had been bathed with water, and her eyes wandered in
bewilderment and alarm from one woman's face to another's, then came to
rest on Gervase's with a changed expression. Louise was surprised to see
them express utter peace and content, with a faint accompanying motion
of the lips.

"There, that's better!" she said kindly. "Do not try to speak. Lie
still."

Condemnation closed her eyes and moaned a little.

"Nay, then," began Gervase, but with his changed vision of her found it
difficult to finish what he had begun. Louise's bandaging had checked
the flow of blood from cuts upon her arms and forehead. They were none
of them really serious--indeed, it was surprising how little harm she
had done to herself by bursting through a window--but she had lost a
great deal of blood, and she ought certainly to have several days in
bed. Moreover, her clothes were soaked through with rain and clung to
her limbs like the draperies of a Grecian statue. She looked like
catching her death of cold.

"We must send her home in the coach," said Louise.

"Nay," cried Gervase, "she shan't go home. I've sworn to protect her.
She stays here."

"But, brother, she should go to bed at once and see a physician."

"She can go to bed here, and a physician may come here as well as to
Newhouse."

Louise's lips trembled with another But, which she did not, however, let
pass.

"She shan't go home," her brother-in-law continued, "to be treated like
a rat--sent up to lie with the rats under the roof, where I found her
last time she was sick. At Newhouse there's none will nurse her, and as
for a physician he'd never get past the room where her father sits
making a peepshow of his putrid leg. Let a chamber be prepared for her
here."

"Very well, then. Run, Sally," to the maid, "and warm the bed in the
room next yours."

But she had not reckoned fully with her brother yet. Pity and
indignation had heated him beyond the mere folly of keeping the girl in
his house.

"Nay, nay, she shall not go with the maids. She shall lie in a
gentlewoman's bed far once, poor child. It's how she should lie, seeing
she's a yeoman's daughter, even if on the wrong side. And maybe she's
better than that. The more I look at her the more I doubt if that
hobball can have begotten her."

Louise found it difficult not to protest. Her Latin aristocracy revolted
from the idea of a sudden promotion from a garret at the farm to a
bedchamber at the Manor. And it was quite unnecessary too, for any warm,
clean bed would seem good to this poor little wretch. Gervase really was
being absurd. But a moment's reflection told her that he was master of
the house, and she in it only by sufferance; also that he had been kind
and forbearing to the stranger she had brought in. He must be allowed to
have his stranger too, as a bargain for hers--after all, he was asking
less of her than she had asked of him. So she changed her order to one
for the preparation of the peacock room, sent down for a glass of
cordial, and despatched one of the grooms for a physician.

All the while Condemnation lay with closed eyes and a little smile upon
her face. The loss of blood had made her drowsy, and as in a dream she
had felt the tempest rage about her, and the Squire's protection spread
over her like an almighty wing. She had known he would save her. He was
her friend, he was her father. Though he had not come back to see her as
he had promised when she was ill before, that had not been his fault. Of
his own accord he would never fail her. She had been wise to come to
him--for now she was safe. She would always be safe. He would never let
her marry Lambert Relph. Condemnation had not been taught to think in
terms of knights and ladies; her imagery was rather of the farmyard. She
saw Gervase as a big, black, benevolent bird, protecting some poor chick
from the cattle that would trample on it. A peacock, maybe . . . no,
peacocks were not black but all glorious colours. She had never seen
one, but she was to lie in the peacock room--would there be peacocks in
it as there were rats in the attic at Newhouse? She did not think so.
But the Squire had put his wing over her like a great bird--a
turkey-cock . . . she had once seen a turkey-cock defend his pullets
from a butting ram. No, the Squire was not a turkey-cock-he was all
black and grey; but his valour was the valour of a turkey-cock, and his
wings were as strong. "I shall be safe under his feathers. . . ." She
had heard that in church. He was Parson as well as Squire. That was why
she thought of him as black. His wings were black and made a darkness in
which she could safely fall asleep.



                                  4

The peacock room at Conster was so named from the peacocks in the
tapestry on the walls. Tapestry, of course, had gone out of fashion, and
the colours of this had worn dim in the course of a hundred years; but
both Louise and Charles had refused to have it changed for more modern
panelling or for the painted wallpaper that was beginning to be used in
some places. The peacocks strutted and posed all round the room,
spreading their fading tails before dim terraces, where the flirtations
of ladies and their gallants were only a background to their proud,
ghostly loveliness.

Condemnation was to learn to know those peacocks well before she left
the room. She lay in bed and watched them, through many long and idle
days. Louise had offered her books, but though she could read, reading
was a great toil and labour to her, and she would sooner lie still and
gaze at the peacocks.

The doctor had said she was not to go home for many days yet, and the
Squire had sworn to her that she should not go home at all, though
Madame thought differently and said she must go as soon as she was well
enough. But Condemnation trusted the Squire. She felt sure that he would
not fail her, though what he should do with her if she did not go back
was a mystery she did not trouble to explore.

Gervase was forced to explore it, to his great dissatisfaction. He had
indeed promised rashly. That very same night of her coming he had gone
over to Newhouse and spent an hour arguing with Mrs. Harman, whom he
found a more formidable antagonist than her husband. She was not to be
dazzled with Scripture, nor with his proposed treatise on the Eastern
Churches, to which he resorted in his desperation when the other
arguments failed. She was plainly indignant that he should not have sent
Condemnation home when she had so madly run over to him, and would
barely consent to her staying where she was till the physician gave
leave for her to be moved.

As for the marriage, she declared it was an excellent thing and should
certainly take place. She must be married soon, for she was nearly
twenty and her father could not afford to give her a portion--his true,
lawful children must come before his bastard. Lambert Relph was willing
to take her without money. He was an honest man, and had savings of his
own. The girl was in luck. They might have had to give her to the
looker, who was a widower sixty years old.

"But can't some likely young man be found for her? Some farmer's son?"

"No farmer's son 'ud marry bad blood."

"Eh, eh--so you an't sure there's Harman's blood in it?"

"I'm only too sure of that. But who was the woman?--a quean, a giglot at
a fair. There's not a farmer's son I know would marry her daughter, even
had she been born in wedlock and come with a dowry."

"Have you tried one of the young Tuktons? Being Papists, they haven't
much choice as to whom they marry."

"Why should I try 'em, seeing as I've found as good a husband for her on
this place as she's ever likely to get off it?"

"But she doesn't like him."

"That an't my affair. And a slut like her's no call to spoil my good
plans with being nice. Who is she I'd like to know, to be nice about a
stout fellow like Relph. He has more call to be nice about her."

Gervase, who for long had been struggling to keep his temper, found
these words too much for him, and lost temper and tact together.

"Aye, woman--so it's your plans, your plans for your own good and
advantage, that are at the bottom of this marriage. If she marries,
you'll get her out of the house, which will please you mightily, since
you hate the sight of the poor innocent thing; but you'll still have her
there to work for you and save you paying for other labour, and your
husband will still have her near that he may boast of his sin with his
sore leg."

At this Mrs. Harman abused him roundly for a meddling old devil, and
told him to keep his long nose out of other folks' puddings, and stop at
home and mind his own affairs, which in all conscience needed minding if
he didn't want to be hanged for a Jacobite.

"Woman, I am no Jacobite," cried Gervase, "nor yet a Williamite."

But, being a woman, she would not be diverted by any political paradox
and ordered him out of her house very summarily, telling him that if
Condemnation were not home within a week she would have the law on him.

He could not pretend even to himself that it had been a successful
interview.



                                  5

The days passed, and the week, and still Condemnation lay and watched
the peacocks strutting on the walls against their human background. She
had names for them all by now--not very high-sounding names, but rather
the kind they gave to animals at the farm: Robin and Tom and Hob and
Rutterkin and such like. There was a live peacock in the garden: once
she had seen him under the window, spreading his spring tail like a
fountain of gems upon the grass. But more often she heard his cry,
hoarse and absurdly dreadful, coming from some far corner that she could
not see.

She was contented enough to lie there and play in her thoughts with the
peacocks. She was at ease in the great bed, which at first had terrified
her with its height from the floor and the darkness of its canopy, but
which she found friendly now. After the first two or three days she had
felt no pain; till then there had been soreness and bruising in all her
limbs, but now it had all passed away. Indeed she felt well enough to
rise and go out, but they would not let her; they all said that she must
lie there a few days longer till the doctor gave her leave to rise, and
she obeyed them--though she did not know that Gervase had roundly
ordered the physician to keep her in bed for at least a fortnight.

One of the young gentlewomen had lent her a shift that she wore in
continual surprise at its softness. She liked to finger the stuff and
the fine linen of the sheets. At first the young gentlewomen had often
come to see her, and stood at the foot of the bed, staring at her and
giggling and asking her foolish questions that she knew better than to
answer. After a day or two they gave up coming, and her only visitors
besides the doctor and the maid who swept her room--whom she found to be
a cousin of Lambert Relph's, but with no very high opinion of him--were
Madame Alard and the Squire.

Madame Alard, when she found she did not care for books, brought her
needlework and showed her how to do fine stitching, such as she had not
learned at Newhouse. Condemnation was at first very much, and always a
little, afraid of her ladyship, but she liked her too, because she was
kind and did not seem to despise her, even though at first she had
wanted to put her into a servant's room. She showed her how to dress her
hair in a _taure_ so as to hide the scar upon her forehead. Condemnation
liked the look of her face in the glass; with that curly fringe above
her eyes and her cheeks pale for want of air and sunlight, and the
shirrings of fine linen on her breast, she too seemed to look a lady.

As it happened, Louise Alard was surprised at the effect she had
created.

"Truly," she said to Gervase, "she is a neater, nicer thing than I
thought. Maintenant que je l'ai coiff, elle a l'air tout  fait
lgante. You will notice when you see her next."

"Well, there's many a lord will go with a gipsy when he's drunk."

"But a gipsy would never so miss her chances as to father a lord's son
on a farmer."

"It might be the easier way--and she might have attempted the true
father and failed. She could never be caught, so there was no reckoning
with her. The more I see of the child the less I see her as Harman's."

"Harman comes of a fine old yeoman family, and if she has his blood she
has good blood indeed. I confess, brother, that I've changed my opinion
of her in these last few days. She is so quick to learn too, and already
her speech is softer--more like that which she hears in this house. It
is sad to think that she must marry a yokel, for marry him she must, as
far as I can see."

"And I can see nothing of the kind."

"But what is she to do if she does not go back?"

"Stay here. Why not? I've a daughter married, and two more are to be
married soon. There's room enough for the poor little bud."

"Brother, you must be mad. We could never do with her here."

"Why not? I say, why not? It'll be well for Bride and Ann to have a new
sister, and I'll warrant that after a month or two of your teaching
she'll be more of a gentlewoman than either of 'em. Besides"--warming to
the idea "--I shall like having her by me. The girls will be away
staying with their sisters, and I shall be lost without a young thing in
the house. I've always been fond of the child--aye, I love the poor
little thing, and it would please me mightily to give her some happiness
after all the years she's had of sorrow."

"But the Harmans will never allow you to do such a thing."

"Again I ask you: why not? I take her off their hands--they're rid of
her. What more can they want?"

"Much more, or rather something quite different. They do not want to be
rid of her; she is useful to them. You yourself have told me, and she
has told me, that one reason why they are marrying her to this man is
that it will keep her with them to work for them when she is required.
If they had wanted merely to be rid of her, they could have sent her to
the poorhouse long ago. They must be fond of her, even if sometimes they
treat her roughly; or at least she must be very useful to them."

"They haven't sent her to the poorhouse because had she been there that
old mountebank would have lost the chief part of his boasting. He likes
to say 'my sin is ever before me,' which he could not were she at the
poorhouse."

"Nor if she were here. No, no, brother; they will not let her go.
Whatever their reasons, they will have her back. Besides, her banns have
been cried two Sundays."

"It will be a sin before God if she marries that clown."

"I agree. But I do not know how it is to be prevented."

"Well, we shall see. She has been with us nine days now and not a word
from Newhouse."

"You will have one soon, depend on it."

"We shall see, we shall see."



                                  6

Every day he went to visit Condemnation. Like a tall black crow in his
cassock and gown he stood by the window and asked her how she did. He
was the parson visiting the sick, and to emphasize his office and
preserve the proprieties of her chamber he always read a portion of The
Order for the Visitation.

"Remember not, Lord, our iniquities nor the iniquities of our
forefathers: Spare us, good Lord, spare thy people whom thou hast
redeemed with thy most precious blood, and be not angry with us for
ever."

It was the same as he had read so often at the grave--the bed and the
grave were united in one solemn doom. No opening here for bedside
wantonnesses, since he must proclaim that the bed and the grave are one.
Now, child, thine answer.

"Spare us, good Lord."

When he had read as much or as little of the Order as suited him, he
then turned back to the Catechism and examined her on it. He instructed
her carefully on her answers, not only in doctrine but in speech. It was
perhaps his influence rather than Louise's which removed the
rusticalness from her voice, for she was desperately anxious to please
him. Careful and imitative, she made rapid progress and enjoyed these
solemn occasions out of all proportion to the entertainment provided.
When both the Order and the Catechism were done with he would lay down
his book, and talk to her for a while on common matters, but not so
freely as he used, though she answered a great deal more freely.

Somehow she had become a woman to him now. She had been a woman ever
since that day when he had seen her lying on his study floor, with
wisdom carved on her unconscious face; and he could not talk to the
woman quite as he had talked to the child. She gave him a feeling of
shyness as she sat there with her hair elegantly trimmed upon her
forehead, and her mouth like a rose above her rounded chin, smiling at
him out of the grave of her bed. He often took leave of her with a
certain awkwardness, wondering if he had acquitted himself well.

The days dragged by into a fortnight, and still there was no sign from
Newhouse. Then, on the last day of the fortnight, Saul Harman came over.
He was the eldest son, twenty-five years old, and the best-looking and
best-mannered of all the family. The Harmans had evidently decided that
after all a spoonful of honey was more likely than a barrel of vinegar
to stop the buzzing of this old fly. Saul listened respectfully to
Gervase's arguments and denunciations. He agreed that it was a pity that
a better-born husband could not be found for his sister, but that it was
quite impossible, and that he believed his parents were doing their best
for her. Relph was the head man at Newhouse, and would probably end by
farming his own bit of land. Indeed, Saul himself had been surprised to
find he would accept a girl who was penniless and illegitimate.

"Don't tell me your father couldn't have given a few pounds with her, or
a field or two."

"Maybe he might if my sister Naomi weren't also to be married this
summer; but he can't spare a portion for the two of 'em."

"Then the child could well have waited till another year. She's barely
seventeen."

"She was nineteen last Christmas, and anyway Relph won't wait. He's been
after her a year or more."

Gervase was not so angry with Saul as he would have been with either of
his parents, for the young man spoke respectfully and seemed fond of
Condemnation, even though he had doubtless been brought up, like his
other brothers and sisters, to despise and tease her. But if polite, he
was firm. She must be sent home at once. The doctor had told his father
that she was to be kept in bed a fortnight, but now that fortnight was
over. Her banns were to be cried for the last time next Sunday, and by
then both Master and Mrs. Harman respectfully required that she should
be back in the care of her lawful guardians.

"And when is the marriage to be?"

"They were talking of Saturday se'nnight."

Gervase groaned.

"It's a rank, monstrous sin. If you could see her now she is washed and
combed, sitting up in bed like a lady with her fine needlework . . . and
such as she is to marry a boor and scrub his dishes. Foh! . . . and all
for want of a dowry. . . . I tell you I'll pay her a dowry myself rather
than see her do it."

"'T'an't only that she has no money. You must reckon that her birth's
against her too."

"Are then our Leasan farmers' sons so nice as to whom they marry?"

"They are indeed," said the farmer's son of Newhouse.

"But she may be a Peer's daughter."

Saul managed to hide a grin.

Finally it was settled that Gervase should call the next day at
Newhouse, and he was promised that he should see both the Harman
parents, for he could not face another solitary interview with Mrs.
Harman. In his heart he knew well enough that he could not forcibly
retain Condemnation in his house. He had no legal rights over her
whatever, and if Harman proceeded against him would be forced to give
her up; if indeed she were not taken from him by more summary
measures--for he was unable to pretend, in his clearer moments, that the
neighbourhood would not resent this abuse of his authority as Squire and
Magistrate. He would have to give her up, if he could not think of some
scheme between now and to-morrow. . . . And he had promised her, poor
little wretch--he had promised her . . . so much--too much.

He walked sorrowfully back to the house, for his interview with Saul had
taken place down at the furnace, where the young man had been sent to
find him. April now had swung from December to June, and the path by the
Tillingham was bright with sunshine, and gay with the first tidings of
the yellow flags beside the water. The sunshine poured over Conster too
from the open west, and the house, as Gervase came to it, had a flushed,
rosy look, that made it seem warm and welcoming. Even the trees no
longer looked sinister, with the light threading among them and kindling
their secret places: he forgot that he had wanted them cleared away. The
falling scale of the gallybird's cry ran through them suddenly like a
splash of water.

The interior of the house was also alight, as the sunshine poured
through the blazoned windows of the stairway, and spilled itself in a
fiery shower upon the stairs and wall. Looking upwards, he saw a lady
come into the light, lifting her skirts before her to descend. They were
gay with colours which might have been in their tissues or in the
painted sunshine. They swam toward him like a peacock's tail. At first
he thought she was Louise. Then he saw her face, so much rounder, and so
much younger; then last of all, as she descended and the sunshine left
her head, he saw a mass of little short, tight curls, clustering above
the elegant _taure_ or fringe upon her brows.

"Why! It's little Condemnation! Why----"

His breath was almost gone with the surprise of her. Then he ran forward
and took her by the hand. "Come, my lady, come, and let your humble
slave escort you."

And lifting her hand high he minced beside her into the drawing-room.



                                  7

Here, out of the sunshine, her colours faded and her dress was seen to
be but an old gown of Bridget's. Louise, who was sitting at her
embroidery frame, looked up in some surprise as she saw Gervase come
strutting in beside the girl, handing her grotesquely across the room.

"Why, brother----"

"Why, sister, you never told me we had a fine lady staying in the
house."

"'Tis but an old gown of Bridget's," said Louise coolly. "I wished her
to rise and have the use of her legs for a few hours, seeing that she
must soon go home."

"Nay, never!" cried Gervase, and shouted "Never!" in a louder tone as he
saw the look of fear and anguish that came into Condemnation's eyes.

"But I hear that this very afternoon Saul Harman came over to fetch her
back."

"And has gone home again without her. Ho! ho! I wouldn't let him have
thee, bud. I told him he must go home and that I'd see thy parents
to-morrow."

"That will do no one any good. How can you possibly hope to persuade
them to let her stay? Condemnation knows very well that she must go
home. Is that not so, my dear?"

Condemnation said nothing. She picked up the corner of her gown and
twisted it. Louise purposely left the loutish gesture unrebuked.

"Condemnation must face her life like the rest of us," she continued.
"It may not be what she has chosen, but which of us has that? I did not
choose my husband--he was chosen for me by my father, who wished me to
marry an Englishman. But I have been very, very happy."

"And I shall never be happy," cried Condemnation, suddenly bursting into
tears.

"Nay, but thou shalt be!" roared Gervase. "I swear thou shalt not go
back to marry that dirty jolthead. I spoke a long while with Saul,
sister, and I understand it's only an affair of having no portion for
her and being able to find only just that one fellow to take her
without. Well, then, sweetheart--I will give you a portion, and offer
you to some brave farmer's son with two hundred pounds. What would you
say to Ned Masters or Nick Tukton? Or what of young William Douce? He's
a fine spark and would make you a good husband, I'll be bound. I think
much of that young man."

"Brother, don't talk so wildly or put useless notions into the child's
head. This is not a question that can be settled with money, and none of
the men you have talked of would take her, no matter what you offered.
Her birth is against her. It is hard to have to say so, and the poor
child herself is not to blame, but she must face the truth, for only by
doing so can she be happy."

"Her birth! But I tell 'ee she's a lady born. Haven't I seen it for
certain to-day? She came down that staircase like a queen. A yeoman
should be proud to get her. I promise thee, bud, I'll give 'ee a fine
yeoman. Thou shalt not wed a clown. But take thy choice--which shall it
be? Ned, Nick or Will? Shalt have thy choice."

Condemnation said nothing. Her head hung like a sunflower's.

"Come, take thy choice."

Then she burst out----

"I dan't want no choice. I dan't want none of 'em. I dan't want to
marry. I want to stay here. Oh, pray Sir, kip me here--dan't send me
away."

She fell on her knees before him, clutching his hand and weeping. Louise
picked up her embroidery frame and went out of the room.



                                  8

None of them felt happy the next morning. Condemnation was terrified and
resentful at the thought of going home, and though a part of her still
passionately believed that the Squire would keep his promise, a more
reasonable part could not fail to be influenced by Louise's arguments.
Louise herself, though she did not see how they could possibly keep her,
was sorry that she had to go back. During the past fortnight she had
grown fond of the child, and was pleased with the improvement she had
made in her manners and looks, though she did not share her brother's
extravagant view of what was to her a mere natural quickness. Still, it
was a pity that she should marry so much below her station; for after
all, she was a yeoman's daughter. By bringing her up in his household,
Harman had, in Louise's opinion, contracted almost the same obligations
to her as to his lawful children. If he had wanted her to live as a
nameless foundling he should have sent her to the poorhouse. It was not
right to have bred her up with his family and then condemned her to such
a different lot from theirs.

All this Louise held to be wrong; but she did not think that her brother
had any right to meddle. It was none of his business. Neither as Parson
nor as Magistrate could he interfere, save by reasonable persuasion. She
thought he was very much to blame for having promised the child so much,
and she told her firmly that she must expect nothing from this last
interview.

Condemnation had certainly no cause to believe in the Squire as a
peacemaker; nevertheless, hope was her dominant emotion as from her
window she watched him walk away, following him with her eyes till he
was lost to sight among the trees. That very morning he had been up to
tell her not to fret, to promise her again that she should not marry
against her will.

Indeed Gervase's determination increased in proportion to his anxiety.
He was now really anxious, and dreaded his interview with the two
Harmans. How should he persuade them? Should he offer them money? But
even his distracted mind realized the unlikelihood of anyone in Harman's
position being bought. He might be a hypocrite and a Roundhead, but he
was no moneygrubber: he came of a fine stock, as proud and as upright in
its way as the Alards were in theirs. He would never accept
money--rather he would regard the offering of it as an insult, even in
the form of a dowry. He must be careful how he made such a suggestion.

But something must be done, and it had already occurred to him that the
best thing would be to take with him to Newhouse a definite offer of
marriage for her, such a one as could be refused only by a perverse
desire on Harman's part to tread her into the mud (the claims of Lambert
Relph, twice cried at Leasan he never thought of once). It was with this
end in view that he went to the furnace before setting out, for in the
course of a restless and unhappy night he had confirmed himself in the
idea that William Douce would make her a good husband. He was at the
moment excessively pleased with the young man, who had blown his furnace
all the winter without involving Conster in any dangerous enterprises,
and had moreover set certain of his other fears at rest. He had found
him unexpectedly hardworking and reliable, less of a popinjay than he
had thought, and with a righteous horror of any science that was not
altogether white and natural.

If the girl was to be married out of hand, William Douce would be the
most suitable husband for her. He was of proper age and pleasant
appearance, of good though not noble family, and in a thriving position.
He certainly ought to marry, and so far local gossip hadn't linked him
with any name. And the matter of the dowry could be settled privately
between them, so as not to offend the Harmans.

The furnace was working day and night this spring. There had been some
quiet times during the winter, but continued threats of invasion and war
had brought more orders for cannon. At present Gervase had an order for
ten falconets, ten minions, ten culverins, six demy-cannon, six cannon
and four basiliskes. The boom of the hammers came as far as his
newly-built temple beside the river, and as he drew nearer, the noise
was deafening. Outside the forge a great wheel was churning the water of
the hammer pond, while from inside came the thud and clang of the iron
and the roar of the twenty-foot bellows that blew the fire. Naked to the
waist, a dozen men danced like demons in the red cave of the bloomery.
Douce was also half naked, but when Gervase beckoned to him from the
door he slipped a coat over his shoulders and came out.

"Phew!"

He wiped off the sweat that was running down his face.

"How d'ye fare?"

"We're behindhand with the culverins--two of them had to be recast. But
we've finished off the falconets and minions--all but the testing."

"You've done well. And I hear we're to be asked for a paling for Odimere
churchyard."

"That will be a mouse to follow a lion. But we do well to keep our
peaceful trade. Wars and invasions will not last for ever."

Gervase nodded absently. He was thinking how best to introduce his main
subject.

"They say that King William will go over to Ireland to raise the Siege
of Londonderry."

"Aye, maybe."

He changed the subject abruptly.

"Are you comfortable at home?"

Douce stared at him, but was not taken by surprise. The old fellow had
often doubled on him before like this.

"Aye, surely."

"You've no thought of marrying?"

"No, not at the moment."

"When you have, I've a pretty little bride for you and a pretty little
dowry."

At this Douce really was surprised--and a little agitated, for marriage
brings regret and confusion into the house of Uranus.

"Who is she, Sir?"

"Harman's daughter--his youngest."

"Michal?"

"Nay, Condemnation."

"What! His bastard."

"Never his, my boy, I'll warrant, but a nobleman's daughter whom the
gipsy fathered on him."

"How do you know that?"

"Know it? By her air, her voice, her looks, all about her. Besides, it's
a common guess that the mountebank woman but used his association with
her to father on him, another man's child."

"Another man's maybe, but more likely a man of lowlier position than
his. It were no wisdom otherwise."

"But have you seen her of late?"

"No, I haven't."

"Well, I have then. As you know she's at my house, and a finer, nobler
lady than she's come to be I've never dropped eyes on."

"But who says I'm to marry her? These last two Sundays she's been cried
with a labourer. Who says I'm to take such stuff?"

Gervase humm'd and ha'd. With any other man he would have been angry,
but already Douce had reached a point with him when he could do little
wrong. He did not like to say outright that it was he and he only who
had made a plan which the young man evidently felt to be insulting.

"Her marriage to Relph was thought of only because Harman couldn't give
her a dowry. But now I myself have promised to endow her with four
hundred pounds."

The angry gleam in Douce's prominent eyes made him double his first
thought.

"You, Sir," the young man was startled. "Why should you endow her?"

"Because I think well and highly of her, and because I'm right sorry for
the poor little thing who's being forced into a marriage she loathes,
and fears. You might do worse than take her, Will."

"I don't wish to marry, Sir."

'Od rot the old mountebank! he thought to himself. What does he think I
am that he should offer me a foundling with four hundred pounds. If he'd
offered her to me with the furnace . . . but most likely he thinks he's
being generous and putting a good thing in my way. I must teach him
better.

"The money may not be much," continued Gervase, "but it's all I can
spare at the moment, and I tell 'ee for certain--I'd swear it in the
courts--that you'll be having the veriest bargain in rank and blood. If
you like she can stop at the Manor for another six months and see if
Madame Alard by then hasn't trained her into a princess."

William Douce nearly laughed.

"No, no. I'm not a marrying man. I don't think to marry at all--not now
for certain."

"But every man should marry, and you're past thirty."

"Well then, I may marry someday, but not now. Now I must work if this
furnace is to profit us. There are some men whose disposition is not for
marriage, and it's but waste of time to try to harry them into it."

"I don't harry you: I only offer you."

"And I, Sir, with all respect and gratitude decline your offer. Let me
tell you now about those culverins that were flawed in the casting. . . ."

Gervase scarcely listened to him. At first he felt sullen and
disappointed and did not care if his whole artillery failed. But after a
while disappointment changed into a more surprising feeling of relief.
Yes, on the whole he was glad that Douce would not have the little bud,
though it still left him in a coil as to what he should do with her. She
had said she did not want to marry, that she wanted to stay at Conster,
and though of course at La Petite Douce she would be near Conster, that
was very different from actually living in the house. It was strange
that she should want so much to live there . . . yet not so strange if
you thought who she probably was. . . . No doubt her ancestors had
trodden rooms as fine and her spirit was at home in them. And he would
be sorry if she were to go. . . . Her youth had come to the house just
as his daughters' youth was leaving it. In two months' time Madge and
Henny would be married, and he had promised Bride and Ann that they
should visit their sister at Oxenbrigge Manor. . . . He and Louise would
be alone if Condemnation did not stay. All the music would be gone.
Conster would be like a broken viol, waiting in vain for fingers to
pluck it. . . . Not that he had ever till then thought of his daughters'
noise as music, but now as he stood there knowing how surely youth must
leave his house, the whole of youth's noise was music to him, the band
of a retreating army. . . .

"Ten falconets," he found himself repeating after William Douce.

The young man had explained the matter to his own satisfaction, though
he had soon become aware that his employer was not listening. Well, that
made him all the easier to persuade, and he could blame nobody if one
day he found himself persuaded into something he hadn't bargained for.
Yet on occasion he could be amazingly acute . . . he was a queer old
fellow and it would be some time before even William Douce would feel
sure of him. Still, it was a comfort to find that he evidently did not
resent the failure of his outrageous offer. He seemed, indeed, to have
forgotten all about it, and the interview ended in quite another style.

"Shall we meet again to-night, Sir?"

"To-night?"

"Yes, it's the first night of the new moon? Had you forgotten?"

Gervase had had enough in his head to excuse any forgetfulness of the
moon's phases, but memory returned with a pleasant titillation.

"Aye, and so it is. I will come. Maybe we shall learn something to help
us in this coil."

Douce did not ask which coil. He answered encouragingly.

"Maybe we shall. Either the cards or the _magistellum_."

"The _magistellum_?"

"Yes--you remember there was a voice last time."

"Aye, there was a voice."

Gervase shuddered at the memory of that flat, dead, toneless voice.



                                  9

He shuddered again on his way to Newhouse, as he passed the little
riverside temple, for it was there that the voice had spoken. The temple
was a neat little business of brick and stone, though its classicism had
been a trifle spoilt by the rusticity of the builders. They had given it
rather a kiln-like-air; its tubby walls were round and rosy as an
oast's, and the cupola he had planned to crown it looked like the head
of a toadstool. But it was a useful place, and he was glad to have it
here in this lonely, sheltered corner by the Tillingham. Not only did he
feel more important, withdrawn there to write his Treatise on the
Orthodox Churches of the East--when he should have brought himself to
face its beginning--but it was useful to have such a place for his
experiments with William Douce. In his library at the house he was in
constant fear of surprise. Though he had a perfect right to experiment
as he chose, his studies might provoke opposition from Louise--or, who
knows? her derision. He had been fortunate in finding this young man so
learned in natural magic, and the new-built belvedere provided just the
right setting for their joint investigations.

But he was a little in doubt as to this matter of the voice. The
_magistellum_ or spirit that had taken control of Douce at their last
meeting might be a harmless nature spirit or might be some dmon. It was
almost impossible to tell from the few words that had been uttered.
Perhaps he would learn more to-night, and if he suspected evil the
experiments must be brought to an end at once. He had as good a
conscience on the matter of sorcery as any Jesuit priest.

These thoughts were able to distract him from the purpose of his walk up
Starvencrow Hill. It was not till he had come in sight of Newhouse among
its barns that he felt again the full wretchedness of his position. He
was advancing weaponless upon his foes; he had hoped to pick up a weapon
at the furnace, but he had not been able, and now what was he to do?

Mrs. Harman saw him from the bedroom window.

"Here comes that stalking old huff-snuff," she said to her husband. "We
should be wiser to send a gang of our men to Conster than waste our time
with him."

"Nay, we must forbear," said Exalted Harman. "Newhouse has always been
on good terms with Conster Manor, and I would sooner not have a breach."

"If you were to inherit the property that's yours by right, I should
understand it; but now I think it a waste of patience--especially since
we've had one good quarrel at least this year."

Michal Harman showed in Gervase with a smirk.

"Good morning, Squire."

"Good morning," said Gervase lifelessly.

He sat down, and thought it might be wise to inquire after Exalted's
leg, much as he hated to pander to its display. The farmer replied with
an elaborate production--after a six months' interval it looked and
smelt certainly worse--Mrs. Harman talked of physicians and for a while
they were all stalking round one another like cats.

Then Mrs. Harman mentioned that Mr. Horner had said that Condemnation
was now in a fit state to come home, and they would like to have her
back before the last crying of her banns on Sunday.

"And I'm sure we're both grateful to the Squire for having cared for
her, though what the wicked slut was about to run off like that, I can't
imagine."

"She was in terror, ma'am," said Gervase, rousing at such words, "if not
for her life then for her honour. The beast would have abused her, and
in her virgin delicacy she burst through a window, cutting her tender
flesh, and ran to the friends she had nearest."

"Nay," said Exalted, "her nature misled her. Relph only wanted to pay
his court. He's an honest fellow."

"He will make her a good husband," said Mrs. Harman, "and he has his own
cottage by Dodyland Shaw; she will not have to live at old Holly Crouch
with the other men and their wives. It will do her good to marry and
settle, for she's growing altogether too wild."

"But there's no need to marry her to a yokel. Let her wait a year or two
till you can afford her a portion and then let some yeoman's son marry
her as is fitting."

"I shall give her no portion," said Harman, "it would be glorifying sin
to send her out with one."

"Besides, you have no money to spare away from your lawful family," said
his wife, "why should my children go short for a beggar-woman's brat?
She's lucky to have found so good a man as Relph. Certainly no better
man would take her with or without a portion, being what she is."

"You know not what she is," said Gervase solemnly.

"I know indeed. She's our disgrace--the punishment of an honest woman
for her husband's wickedness. I'm sick and tired of her, and must have
her away. Whenever I see her I see that beggar-woman handing up her
child to him in the midst of all the people."

"Has it never seemed to you that the beggar-woman was a deceiver, and
that Condemnation is not your husband's child?"

"'At that it hasn't, after all he's told me."

"Seeing that I took the woman down under the hedge," droned Exalted,
"and to my everlasting shame and condemnation, lay with her there----"

"And did she lie with no one after--even the very next night? Nay, man,
how can we tell the father of a child with such a mother? All we can go
by is her face, and she doesn't favour you. I've been observing her
these last two weeks, and I can tell you she has a Roman nose----"

"You needn't tell us that. We've had her with us longer than two weeks,
and for the last twelve months I've watched her growing dark and ugly as
a gipsy--soon no man will look at her."

"Nay, how can you say so? She's every day growing finer and lovelier.
Her Roman nose puts me in mind of La Belle Stuart, her Grace the Duchess
of Richmond. . . . I shouldn't be surprised if she weren't connected
with the noblest family in the land."

Mrs. Harman knew scarcely how to answer such folly, and her silence gave
her husband the chance to start a long harangue on the Divine justice
which would never have allowed him to be imposed upon in so vital a
matter.

"Why should He condemn me with another man's sin? To each man his own
condemnation. If another man had fathered her, on him should the vials
of wrath have been outpoured."

"Nay, but you had sinned whether or not you had fathered her, and why
should He not confound you with the fruit of another man's sinning,
seeing that it was no fault of yours there'd been no such fruit of your
own?" Then realizing that he was on the brink of a roaring argument that
might spoil all his chances, he continued more mildly: "I go by the
common observation of all my family. Yesterday she was wearing my
daughter's gown, and I tell 'ee, looked more of a lady than my daughter
in it. Dressing and hairdressing have altogether changed her appearance.
For a mountebank to have borne her a nobleman must have begotten her."

Gervase's belief in Condemnation's noble blood had in the last few
minutes become a conviction. The more he looked at Harman, sitting there
with his pasty, pious face and drooping mouth, the more he hated him,
and the more he hated him, the more he would have none of him for his
little bud. He loved Condemnation far too much to let her be fathered by
such a rat; indeed the rising of her dignity was in proportion to the
rising of his tenderness. Neither of the Harmans, however, would
tolerate such an idea. Mrs. Harman lost a stick to beat her husband
with, and he lost the visible sign and token of his sin.

"You'll be saying next that King Charles himself begot her," sneered
Mrs. Harman.

"Eh, well, I've told you she looks a Stuart--and the King would go with
wenches. Maybe he met her mother at Newmarket----"

"And she fathered his child on Harman--a likely story. No, Sir, the
child's my husband's right and sure enough, and so filthily misbegotten
that no decent farmer's son will have her. 'Twould be a waste to give
her a portion, and we're lucky to find a man like Relph, who for love of
her will take her off us for nothing."

"Love of her, indeed! How dare he talk of love when all he has shown is
lust and violence? Maybe he's shrewd enough to tell she is of blood, and
seeks her for that in his bumpkin vanity, pleased to have caught a prize
his betters have missed."

Mrs. Harman lost her temper.

"Well, Squire, if you think her so fine and so noble and so much above
us all, why don't you marry her yourself?"

"Woman," roared Gervase, "you've said it! and I will."



                                  10

At first they thought he was joking. He had shown before a perverse and
tricky humour at their expense. But when a few minutes' argument had
proved that he was in earnest, their attitude changed. They were amazed,
but not altogether contemptuous.

Certainly he could not be right in his head, and would make the girl a
very strange sort of husband, but that would not matter to anybody but
herself. Harman made a certain amount of talk about sin being encouraged
by such an alliance, and Mrs. Harman was secretly jealous for her own
girls, who had never had anything like this offer. But the former was
consoled by the thought that Condemnation would certainly object to the
marriage as much as or more than she had objected to her marriage with
Relph, and that her existence as Lady Alard could not fail to be
penitential for herself and for her husband; while Mrs. Harman could
count on a certain advantage to her own children accruing from such an
arrangement--her three sons and her daughter Michal might now hope to
marry into the Squirearchy or into the French refugee nobility, who had
hitherto been beyond their reach. If she could bring herself to endure
the sight of the slut as Lady Alard, she might one day see Michal as
Lady Broomfield or Saul or Samuel stepping into the inheritance of
Brokesland or Lordine Court. She, as well as her husband, also had the
consoling thought that Condemnation herself would obtain no
gratification from the marriage, but was bound to be unhappy with such a
man and to disgrace herself and him daily with her uncouthness.

As for Gervase, having once conceived the idea, he could not imagine why
he had never thought of it before--indeed he would have it now that it
had always been in some dim form at the back of his mind. Condemnation
had wanted, had asked, had begged, to stay at Conster, and now she would
stay there for ever; she would be happy, and he would see that she had
all that she needed to make her so. He would have her with him when his
daughters were all married . . . she would for years to come be a
fountain of youth playing up in the house, in whose waters he could
bathe and be young again. Not that he was so very old--only fifty-seven.
That age has married with nineteen before this. He might still beget an
heir for Conster . . . but of this he would not allow himself to think.
The marriage was not made for any such motive, but rather in a spirit of
fatherly protection. She would be pleased, his little bud, to know that
she was to stay at Conster with him always. That others at Conster would
not be so pleased was a thought that would intrude itself, but he
banished it firmly with the thought of the heir.

It was not till the discussion had nearly ended that anyone spoke of
Lambert Relph, who might be expected to make some clamour at his bride
being snatched from him on the eve of his wedding. But here Gervase felt
he might safely bring forward his reserve of four hundred pounds, and
both the Harmans agreed that Relph could not consider himself ill-used
with his claims so nobly settled. Four hundred pounds would enable him
to buy his cottage and the land around it, and as a landowner he might
court some farmer's daughter who would bring him more money or more
land. He would certainly have no cause to regret a penniless brat like
Condemnation, and even the smart of being twice cried without being
married, might be healed with such a balm.



                                  11

Condemnation sat waiting alone in the drawing-room, bending over an
embroidery frame and pricking her fingers. She could not fix her
thoughts on her work, for they were astray after the Squire, following
him to Newhouse, trying to tell her all he would have said. He had been
gone a long while--she had expected him back an hour ago. Why didn't he
come? She wondered if his delay meant success or failure; surely if he
had failed he would not have stayed so long. Yet he might be arguing and
quoting Scripture with her father as she had so often heard him in the
old days before he was the Squire--when he was only the Parson. . . .

Now he was the Squire, a great and powerful man, and he had given up
preaching sermons and conducting prayers, though possibly not quoting
Scripture. But to her his black gown would always be a part of his
dignity. And was he not so learned that he had a whole room full of
books, and had built besides a kiln to study in, where he read and wrote
all day and half the night? And did he not come every day to hear her
Catechism and read the Order for the Sick? Oh, what would she do when he
came no more?

A tear fell into the heart of the crimson flower she was embroidering,
and at the same time she heard his footsteps--his heavy, stalking
footsteps that she knew without mistake--coming across the hall. She
began to tremble violently and had not the strength to rise when he came
in.

He stood in the doorway for a moment watching her. The same shaft of
sunlight that came through the oriel window and hung across the room,
dusty with motes, held them both, lighting up the sheen of her curls and
the tear upon her cheek, and more cruelly his lined and eager face and
wiry hair. It would mock him with another ten years of age, and her it
would smudge into a child. . . . But he could not know how it had
ravaged him, though he saw the tears.

"Art weeping, sweetheart? Weep not; thou art to stay."

She gave a cry, sprang to her feet, upsetting her frame, and then began
to dance about the room, jumping wildly and clapping her hands like a
child. He was moved and astonished.

"There, there, pigsnie," he said at last, "sit down and listen to me,
and I'll tell you all there is to tell. For I have some more," and he
nodded and chuckled mysteriously.

Condemnation sat down; she felt dizzy and her heart was fluttering and
singing. It sang louder when he sat beside her and took her hand.

"Thou'rt but a child, pretty one, and I shall never rebuke thy
frolicking. Thou shalt skip and caper to thy heart's delight even when
I've wed thee. For that's what I've settled with thy guardians--I take
thee from Relph, who has four hundred pounds to soothe his smart, and
marry thee myself. Is it not well done?"

The song in Condemnation's heart turned suddenly into a cry of surprise
and fear, and Gervase might have known as much from her eyes as they
gazed at him, but he was too full of his own delight to notice any
change in hers.

"That was what I settled with 'em," he continued, "they're glad enough
for me to wed you, for it will exalt their family, or so they think. But
you shan't be plagued with 'em--we'll show 'em the door if they trouble
us. They've no rights of kin, seeing they're not of your blood. But you
should have seen how they changed their tune when I spoke of our
wedding. Your father--or who calls himself your father--had a deal to
say about it being a reward of sin, but I soon silenced him, and after a
while he began to see what a fine thing it would be to have me for a
son. Ho! Ho! Not that I'll take any notice of that. As soon as we're
married I shall make it plain that you were never sired by such a
hobbyhorse. Ho! Ho! As for the woman, she'll be fawning on you now, mark
my words, and setting you to catch favours for her children. You'll have
your hour of triumph now, my little bud; you'll be as Joseph at the
court of Egypt with his brethren bowing down before him. I tell 'ee it's
well done! well done!"

"But, Sir--can't I stay here without being married?"

He stared at her.

"Nay, nay, you can't. And why should you? It's the best plan in the
world, and what astounds me is that I never thought of it before. Think
how happy you will be, the mistress of a fine house, with servants at
your command and a fine coach and horses to ride out in. My girls will
all be married soon, and then you and I will be here alone
together--save for my sister Alard, who has her own apartments. We shall
be as happy as kings, and the chief part of my happiness will be to make
yours."

"But I should be scared. . . ."

The voice came faintly as she drooped her head.

"Scared! Nay, scared of what? or whom? Not scared of me? Tell me,
sweetheart, you'd never be scared of me."

"I . . . nay, not as you are; but as my husband, I might be scared . . ."

"Nay, you might not; and as your husband I shall be no different from
what I am now. Have no fear, pretty one; you shan't find me as some
husbands--I shall be a father to you still."

"But I should be scared to keep house--to be called Ladyship. I could
never live so fine."

"You will live as you're living now, and never did I see a finer lady
than I saw coming downstairs yesterday. And as for keeping house, Louise
shall see to that for you, as she does now for my daughters. She will
teach you all that you still don't know, and you shall have beautiful
gowns to wear, satins and silks, and paddisoys and petticoats and
caps----"

He stopped breathless.

"But I should never learn. Oh, must I be married now?"

Gervase had been totally unprepared for any reluctance on her part; but
though he was disappointed, he was not in any way shaken. He looked at
her a little sternly.

"Come, child," he said, "why all this fuss? If you don't marry me you
must marry Relph. Would you rather have that?"

"Oh no, Sir."

"Then say no more about it, for you've no other choice. I'd thought you
would be pleased."

"So I should be--to stay. 'Tis only--oh, Sir, believe that I'm
grateful."

"I want thee glad, not grateful. Art not glad?"

"Aye, I am glad to stay."

"Then be a good girl and make no more to do, for you can't help
yourself."

She babbled something.

"Nay, sweetheart, it is to be."

And as a sign of their betrothal he leaned forward in his seat and
kissed her solemnly between the eyes.



                             CHAPTER FIVE

                                  1

Though Gervase had been surprised to find that Condemnation had any
objections, however ineffectual, to his plan, he was well prepared for
the objections of his family. He had not expected them to approve of his
marriage to Harman's foundling, and they did not. In vain he raved of
his bride's noble birth, in which he now implicitly believed, in vain he
offered a presentation of himself that wavered between a knight pledged
by his honour to rescue a distressed maiden and a practical man of the
world who was doing a very fine thing for everyone; for the next
fortnight he was subjected to an assault of argument, persuasion,
entreaty, threats and tears, that might have shaken the resolve of
another man, but only served to root him more steadily in his.

Louise's opposition was the most formidable because the most rational,
and because his affection for his sister-in-law included a sincere
respect for her intelligence. She was genuinely concerned for her
brother-in-law's judgment, if not for his integrity. Her experience of
life and realistic temperament inclined her to think that in spite of
all his talk his motive was a sensual one. She saw him a prey to those
passions which after years of quiescence will often flare up
devastatingly before old age extinguishes them. The pity was that he
should give them permanence in an utterly unsuitable marriage; if he was
not honest and brave enough to recognize and subdue them, he had better
have satisfied them in a manner less socially destructive.

Not that she objected in theory to his marrying again; indeed she had
thought for some time that he ought to do so and provide his house with
an heir. But her views on marriage were those of the French aristocracy,
and in her eyes a misalliance of this kind was an act of social and
family treachery as morally reprehensible as the more common forms of
incontinence. She did not in the least believe in Condemnation's exalted
birth, and looked upon the argument only as further evidence of the
subjection of her brother-in-law's reason to his passions.

Of course if the girl had been Harman's lawful child, and properly
brought up according to her condition, the situation would not have been
so desperate. A farmer's daughter will often make a very good wife for a
Squire, and though Gervase could and should have looked higher, the
match would not have been degrading. But now she saw everywhere hands
lifted to hide sniggering mouths--the common verdict was bound to be
that the Squire was out of his wits . . . for not only was Condemnation
illegitimate, but her illegitimacy was a jest and byword, owing to the
ludicrous circumstances of her first appearance, which were still very
much alive in the local memory, and to her father's canting glory in his
shame.

At first Louise thought she would have to leave Conster, but Gervase was
so deeply distressed at the prospect--though she failed to find any
efficacy in it as threat--that she agreed after all to stay.

"I was looking to you to show her proper ways. I'd promised her that you
should teach her."

"Oh, but you had no right to promise such a thing."

"You've already been so kind . . . and she has changed so much since she
came here. Her folk would scarcely know her if they saw her now."

"Oh yes, she is quick enough, but it is mostly on the outside. In her
heart she is still a gypsy--her mother's daughter."

"But she's a mere child yet, and brought up by hate and jealousy to be
savage. . . . Why, in a fortnight she's learned more from you than my
daughters in their lifetimes. You'll soon teach her to behave like the
fine lady that she is."

Louise smiled wearily.

"I would to God I'd never curled her hair."

"Nay, it was I curled her hair, by cutting it close that day she was so
ill. It was all matted up with leaves and sticks and blood . . . poor
little maid, I sometimes feel I shall never in my life repay her for all
she has suffered."

"Why should you repay her? It is not your business."

"Surely, sister, you have a heart?"

"Yes, I have a heart. But it is first for you, my friend."

"If it is for me, you will stay here and help me with her. I can't do
all for her that I should, and the girls will plague and tease her
abominably without you to restrain 'em. This an't a common marriage, and
the poor child has need of a father and mother as well as of a husband.
I can be the father, but I can't be mother too. I look to you for that."

Louise hid a grimace. Gervase's appeal seemed to her a part of his
aberration--he was losing his mental balance, which, she reflected
sadly, had always been a little uncertain. Yet how fond of him Charles
had been! For Charles's sake she must not forsake him. Perhaps at least
sometimes she would be able to make him hear a little wisdom.

Besides, her heart still clung to the place. . . . She did not wish to
leave it and return to France--at least not yet. This marriage would not
make her position intolerable; in fact it would probably be more
tolerable than if Gervase had married a more suitable bride. For
Condemnation was a gentle, fearful little thing, who would not want to
assert herself against her sister-in-law; there would be probably none
of those jealousies and rivalries that are so common in a house where
the dowager remains. From that point of view, she was probably more
fortunate than if her brother had married a young Broomfield or Austen.
Also, she was fond of the child; she could not deny that, though at the
moment she wished her dead.



                                  2

The opposition of the rest of the family was more violent, but not so
distressing. Of course Bess and Oxenbrigge were the most concerned, for
Bess was now six, months' gone with her first child, who but for this
sudden craziness of her father's, might have been Alard's heir as well
as Oxenbrigge's. Her husband took the matter to heart, and Gervase had
to listen to some of the longest speeches he had ever heard from him.
But his argument lacked impressiveness, wavering as it did between the
unsuitability of his father-in-law's marrying again and the treachery to
an Oxenbrigge involved by the production of an heir at this stage of
their alliances. Anyway, Gervase, regarding him as a mere brainless
lump, worked by cupidity into a pretence of reasoning, laughed at him
outrageously.

As for the other girls, Henny and Madge were chiefly concerned for the
effect of the situation on their prospective bridegrooms. In their first
horror they imagined that neither Austen nor de Champfort could face a
union with a family so disgraced. But their swains were easier than they
had expected. Squire Austen had always regarded Gervase as half a
madman, and received the news of his latest folly with a loud laugh and
a declaration that he'd always known he'd do something like it. Having
ascertained that his daughter-in-law's fortune would be the same, he
made no difficulties; if crazy Alard chose to tie himself for life to a
wench he need have done no more than go to bed with, that was his own
concern, since the property was entailed on heirs male--and he wished
him a fine boy nine months from his wedding day.

The de Champforts suffered more in their sense of rank and decorum. But
they were not in a position to be exacting, and a little eccentricity is
sometimes allowable in a second marriage, when the first has been
unexceptional. They contented themselves with the undoubted facts that
their daughter-in-law was well-born and well-endowed, and that the
marriage would enable them to buy land and settle themselves in the
country.

Bridget and Ann, the unattached girls, took the matter more casually
than their sisters. They regarded it as a fine, merry jest on the part
of their father, and laughed so immoderately that he threatened to have
them locked up if they couldn't be quiet. They had no suitors to lose,
and if in the end they found their stepmother more tiresome and less
mirth-provoking than they supposed, they could always go to stay with
their sisters. Madge and Henny were to be married in May, and their
homes would be a refuge as well as Oxenbrigge Manor. It really mattered
to them very little whom their father married so long as they did not
have to stay at home.

Meanwhile they had the greatest sport in teasing Condemnation. Indeed
their teasing and pinching and horseplay were such as to keep her in
constant remembrance of the home she had left. True, she knew that she
had only to complain to Gervase to have the whole thing stopped at once;
but she shrank from speaking to him on such a matter, and also did not
wish to make permanent foes of these young ladies, who in their elegant
gowns and caps and curls were capable of inflicting the same vulgar
torments that the young Harmans had once taken pleasure in. So she
submitted with a good grace to what after all she was well used to.

Indeed, the attacks of Ann and Bridget formed one of the least alarming
aspects of her life at Conster. During the days that followed her
betrothal to the master of the house, she was bound in the fetters of a
growing fear. Even the peacocks on the wall seemed terrifying now that
she was to be their mistress. Their dim graces were a part of Conster's
contempt--of the sneering dignity of the servants, the kind disapproval
of Madame Alard, the new strangeness of the Squire. It had all been so
different when she had been merely one of the many small things in the
house. Now she felt that everything and everyone had turned against her,
and had done so rightly, for it must be wrong that she should ever be
mistress of a place like Conster. It was altogether too great and grand
for her. The servants would surely never obey her orders, even if she
dared to give any, and Madame would despise her uncouthness and weary of
her company, and as for the Squire--she could not picture him at all as
her husband, nor imagine how he would find her as a wife.

She had never been afraid of him till now; but now she was afraid--there
seemed to be a barrier between them. Perhaps it was partly due to his
different treatment of her, for he no longer asked her to repeat her
Catechism; in fact he never came to her room at all. He treated her as
if she were a grand, grown-up lady, handed her in to meals, and asked
for her to be taught all the finer stitches. She knew that he had
ordered new clothes for her, and he would have had her taught how to
sing and play, had she not been so terrified at the prospect. She felt
afraid of him, because of all the changes in him and of the further
changes that there must be. Yet if ever he asked her if she was
afraid--for her manner toward him was often that of a cony at the feet
of a hound--she would always say: "Nay--Nay--Nay, Sir"; till the
conversation would be changed by his asking her not to call him Sir.

"For I'm to be thy husband now, and thou must learn to call me 'dear,'
and 'joy,' and 'jewel,' and 'love.' And as for me I won't any more have
thee called Condemnation, for it's a canting, barbarous Roundhead name
and unworthy of 'ee. I christened thee Ruth, and Ruth thou shalt be
called from henceforth."

So he said; but he very seldonp remembered to do so.



                                  3

Henrietta and Margery were married in May; it was a double wedding, and
solemnized with all the pomp that the family's position demanded and
their release from mourning allowed. Louise Alard still wore her weeds
and kept the house, but she was present at the marriage feast, where
there was a great attendance of all the neighbourhood, both the old and
the new families--the Broomfields, Laycocks and Austens, of
long-established residence and the refugee aristocracy of de Champfort,
de Prigault, le Jolie, de Blogue, du Bois. Besides these there was the
older contrast of Harman and Douce . . . all down the table England sat
side by side with France.

After dinner the brides departed to their homes--Henrietta Austen to the
ramshackle manor of Redeland by Wilsham's Cross, Margery de Champfort to
Eslede, the small neat house near Rye, which, with its surrounding land,
had been bestowed with her on her husband's family. Bridget and Ann went
back with their eldest sister to Iden, and Conster was left to
quietness.

The wedding of Condemnation and the Squire followed a week later, a week
which the bride, for decorum's sake, spent in her father's house. She no
longer had her old bed in the attic, but was comfortably chambered with
one of her half-sisters. Nor was she set to scrub floors or to milk cows
or to scare birds from the corn. Nor was Lambert Relph allowed so much
as a sight of her--and there was little fear of him now, as with the
four hundred pounds that had bought her from him he had stocked a
holding of fifteen acres over by Croffeham with pigs and goats.

Condemnation hardly cared if she saw him or not. She lived among her
fears as among a herd of horned cattle--it made little difference which
set of horns impaled her. If Lambert Relph did not pursue her with his
slobbering kisses, if Michal Harman did not run pins into her in the
night, or her stepmother throw a pail of water over her in the kitchen,
there was still the Squire to be married next week.

Her father was not able to attend her to the church, but the day before
the wedding he sent for her to his room and read her a long, melancholy
discourse on the miseries of her position. If she had any hope from it,
he said, any idea that she would be happy as Lady Alard and mistress of
Conster Manor, let her be rid of it at once. Divine justice would not
allow her to be exalted, unless with a view to her further humiliation.
She would find the Squire a crazy, violent-tempered man, his sister a
sour, superstitious Papist, and his daughters tormenting hoydens who
would make her life a misery. As for their wealth, they would lose it
all in the furnace under William Douce's management; her husband was
bound to die before very long, and she would doubtless spend her old age
far more wretchedly than if she had married Lambert Relph. In all this
he saw at work the Providence that for one moment he had almost doubted.

Her stepmother gave her much the same advice, but with the counsel that
her chief hope lay in her father's family, and she would do well to help
and advance them in every way she could.

"After all, you owe us a debt, for we could have sent you to the
poorhouse. But your father saw he had a duty by you, though many men
wouldn't have seen it; and as for me I've always been the biddable,
fawning, virtuous wife that I advise you to be but doubt you never
will."

She was given away at the alter by Saul Harman, the eldest and kindest
of her half-brothers, and wore a plain white gown, for though Gervase
would have brazened out his madness with a fine wedding, Louise Alard
was firm in insisting that it must be quietly done. She was able to
convince him that the extreme fearfulness of the bride would make any
display a torment to her; though it cost something to her pride to
persuade him with a slight reason, when she had so many important ones.

Gervase had hesitated whether or not he should wear his cassock and gown
to be married in, and came to the conclusion that he should not. He
should be married as the Squire, and he doubted if a Parson's robes were
seemly on such an occasion. The trouble was that he had nothing else to
wear and was as firmly set against the new fashions as ever. If he must
have new clothes, they should be the doublet and cloak he had worn as a
young man, and his hat should carry a feather. To put on a waistcoat and
surcoat was to put on two bags, and a hat with a bow was womanish. So he
summoned a tailor out of Hastings and had him make him a doublet and
breeches of sky-blue velvet, with a crimson sash and bands of Flanders
lace. For a hat he chose the widest brim that he could find, with a
buckle and two feathers, one crimson and one blue. Since it was right
that he should wear colours as a bridegroom, he would wear the
gayest--he would be a young man again.

Louise, who knew no more than that he had ordered a new coat from
Hastings, was horrified when she saw him come down to the coach wearing
the fashions of thirty years ago. His face, under the drooping feathers
of the hat, had a new kind of sinister beauty, a dark mock of youth that
was strange and terrible. She saw the coachman and postilion stare, and
everywhere she knew there would be those sniggering mouths again. A
sharp pity and a sharp anger went out of her together.

As for Condemnation, she scarcely recognized her bridegroom. Here was no
black, protecting wing, but a peacock's tail spread out for her in the
church--a peacock's tail very much less dim than the peacocks on the
wall or even than the peacock in the garden. In her white gown she
looked like a dove beside him; and when the ceremony was over and Dr.
Braceley had declared them man and wife, as a peacock and a dove they
left the church together.



                                  4

It was not till they were shut into the coach that Gervase saw that she
was trembling. Till then he had been too busy observing who had come to
see him married (which was all the neighbourhood) and criticizing Dr.
Braceley's reading of the service and showing him the proper manner by
the delivery of his own part, to take notice of his bride. But now he
saw that she was shaking all over as she sat beside him on the great
cushioned seat--so lost in it that her feet were right off the ground,
thrust up in front of her in unaccustomed kid slippers. She looked more
than ever like a child, with her straight knees and white gown, in spite
of the lace cap she had been made to wear--which had indeed completed
the childish picture by falling over one ear.

"Eh, what is it, little bird? Why art thou trembling? There's
nothing to affright thee any more."

And spreading out his arms he would have folded her in them had he not
seen her shrink away. Then he understood.

"So, thou art afraid of _me_. . ."

His voice dragged on a deep note of disappointment.

"Nay, nay, Sir."

It was her accustomed pipe; but this time he did not believe her, nor
did he remember to scold her for having called him Sir.

"Eh well, you're afraid, I can see--in spite of my having made myself
more of an ordinary man to wed you. I'm not a Parson to-day, for all I
could have torn the book out of that gabbling Doctor's hand and shown
him how a service should be read. To-day I'm dressed as the Squire,
though it seems you're as scared of the Squire as of the Parson. Eh
well, never fear, poor little bird. I shan't hurt thee."

And he put his elbows on his knees, resting his chin on his hands, and
sighed deeply.

Condemnation was sorry, and wished she had not upset him, but she did
not know what to say. After a while he grew more cheerful and told her
that she had spoken her part of the service very prettily. It was not
long before they arrived at Conster.

There was to be no solemn wedding feast, but one or two must be asked to
sit down with them to dinner. Louise had insisted on inviting the
Harmans. She saw the affair looking best as the marriage of the Squire
to a yeoman's daughter, whereas Gervase thought it improved if the
Harmans were got rid of altogether, in favour of some unknown sire of
noble birth. However, she found him usually to be persuaded in small
matters, and he gave way to her in this, enduring the sight of Mrs.
Harman and her family at his table with little more than an occasional
grimace.

Besides the Harmans there were only his daughters and sons-in-law, and
William Douce. This last he had invited on an impulse; he had properly
no right to be in such a small, family party, but he had spoken as if he
wished to come, and lately he and his master had been drifting into a
familiarity that on one side touched affection. Gervase was growing fond
of the young man; apart from their common interests, licit and illicit,
he still felt the attraction of his youth which was so like his own--of
his handsome face and modish accomplished manner, of his rare, sudden
laugh, which seemed to start in mirth and end in sorrow. He also found
in himself a growing respect for his judgment, in spite of the unfailing
deference with which it was expressed. At one time he had thought that
William Douce, like everybody else, disapproved of his marriage, but if
so his disapproval had been respectful and discreet--he had not
clamoured and scolded like the rest. Nor had he made any comment on the
evil luck foretold by the Bohemian cards when last they laid them out;
it was Gervase himself who had read disaster to his house in the Arcanum
of the Falling Tower. . . . But he only half believed these things.

As it happened, Douce's presence was the social salvation of the wedding
breakfast. He alone seemed equal to the occasion. It was he who
responded to Louise's courtesies, keeping them spinning like little
balls between him and her, instead of falling flat into the general
blankness of the table. It was he who discussed with the bridegroom the
liturgical inadequacy of Dr. Braceley, a topic which, though it seemed
to prickle Gervase with a restless and recurrent heat, left the rest of
the party cold. It was he who in the end proposed the health of the
silent bride.

The Harmans, cowed by their unaccustomed surroundings, were almost
entirely silent too. The daughters, married and unmarried, giggled.
Oxenbrigge and Austen ate; de Champfort stared at Condemnation and
decided that his father-in-law must be mad. It was a sorry company for a
wedding feast, and all through his own efforts at gaiety and
conversation, William Douce was aware of the general weight of silence.
He thought that the Squire himself was at last uneasy about it all.
Having blustered through all opposition and won his point, he now felt
doubtful of his victory--as well he might.

William Douce had not expected Gervase to stand against the opposition
put up by his family. Therefore he had been careful himself to seem to
agree, throwing only a general hint into their experiments when they
gave him the chance. In the end, when he saw the Squire would have his
way, it was too late to change his deportment. He must merely note for
future reference that it was useless to appeal to reason. He must couch
his influence in a deeper bed.

If he could have stopped the marriage he would for it was as much
against his interests as anyone's. He was an ambitious man, and even as
a child he had despised the meekness with which his father surrendered
the ownership of a promising furnace for a mere mastership. His return
home had been quite genuinely actuated by a wish to succeed him and to
improve on his old-fashioned methods. But it had been painful to have to
defer in everything to an irrational, obstinate old man, who knew
nothing about iron for all his prating. He had soon thought of something
better. The furnace was not entailed with the rest of the estate, and
Alard had no son--only five silly daughters who were already well
provided for. There was nothing to prevent him leaving it to a faithful
servant who had become as a son to him. . . . Thus, before long (since
old Gervase did not look the sort of man to live out his full years)
Conster Furnace would be Douce's again--Douce's Furnace, beside the
River Tillingham, as it had been during the days of the Commonwealth and
as it should be now in strict right.

It had seemed an excellent plan, and not too difficult to carry out; but
now this marriage had upset it all, or at least put it in danger. If
Gervase had a son he would probably want to leave him the furnace with
the rest of the estate, and if he had a daughter he would probably leave
it to her as her private fortune. William Douce lost it anyway, unless
indeed the marriage was childless, which did not seem likely, with a
country wife and a husband who had already sired five children. His only
hope lay in the old man's affection and in such influence over him as he
could maintain, which might, if he played his cards--his Bohemian cards,
in fact--still be considerable. That weakness of Alard's was lucky for
him, and he no longer regretted having made him acquainted with his own
tendencies. If it helped him to wear a magician's hat, let him wear it,
and a feather in it too. Tarver would keep him coached in the latest
necromantic fashions. He had not been pleased when he first visited him
at Milkhouse Street to find him still so deep in his experiments, but
now he saw that it might all turn out to his advantage.

He did not look for any opposition worth considering from Condemnation.
She was not a bride who could be expected to have much influence on her
husband; indeed, when he had satisfied what was probably a passing lust
he would doubtless ignore her entirely. She would be pushed into the
background of his life, leaving the foreground free to anyone who chose
to occupy it. If it were not for her children. . . . The whole thing was
mad and unfortunate, but a master who is mad is in some ways easier to
handle than a master who is reasonable, once his servant has learned the
method of his madness and that method William Douce hoped with care and
assiduity to learn.

After the wedding feast, he added to his social success by playing on
the lute. While the silent company sat round the wall, with the light
slanting down on them through high windows, he played and sang an old
marriage song:

                      To couple is a custom,
                        All things thereto agree;
                      Why should not I, then, love?
                        Since love to all is free.

                      Though virtue be a dowry,
                        Yet I'll choose money store;
                      If my love prove untrue,
                        With that I can get more.

                      The fair is oft inconstant,
                        The black is often proud;
                      I'll choose a lovely brown--
                        Come, fiddler, scrape thy crowd.

There she sat, the lovely brown, stillness itself in her white dress,
her spirit drawn by the music from its own sad contemplation to a look
of lost wonder as she gazed through the window into the light. His eyes
rested on her while he played, and a curious sympathy for her rose in
his heart, almost as if he could feel the pain in the beats of hers. She
was no bride; but a lost girl, sitting there in white. He became curious
to know what she was seeking that she had lost herself in the search. At
that moment he pitied her rather than hated her--it was not her fault,
perhaps not even her wish, that she sat there, lost, between him and his
desires. It was the fault of her prancing old cock of a bridegroom. He
brought the music to an end with a sudden thrum.



                                  5

The party broke up early, for there was no merrymaking beyond a little
lute playing and a few songs. As Douce was about to go, Gervase spoke to
him in a low voice.

"Can you meet me at the temple to-night?"

"To-night!"

"Aye, to-night. Can you meet me to-night?"

"At what time?"

"The usual time--the usual hour."

Douce could not help exclaiming again:

"To-night!"

"Aye, surely. It's a new moon and right for the calling . . . as we
said. Can you do it? You've no other appointment?"

"No, I have none." But what about you? he wanted to add.

"Then we meet at the _templum_. It's understood."

"It's understood," and Douce went out, far from understanding.

Bridget and Ann went off with their de Champfort sister to Eslede, and
Oxenbrigge and Austen had soon departed too. The Harmans were all driven
home in the Alard coach. The darkness came down on Conster with a soft
sighing of the trees.

Condemnation went to bed early, and her sister-in-law accompanied her to
her room. It was still the peacock room, for she had shown such fear of
a more splendid apartment that Louise had persuaded Gervase to let her
stay where she was till she had grown more used to grandeur. Also,
though a woman had been engaged for her, it was understood that her
duties were at first to be merely nominal, and to-night Louise sent her
away. The new Lady Alard must be protected in some degree from those
terrifying splendours that her bridegroom wished to heap upon her and
which fitted so ill with her habits. Louise was acutely sorry for the
poor little thing. Standing there in the midst of the great candle-lit
room, she looked infinitely tired, afraid and pitiful; and it seemed
likely that on her would fall the worst effects of this monstrous
mistake. The Dowager Lady Alard was not a soft-hearted woman, but
to-night she took the little white face between her be-ringed hands and
kissed it.

"Good night, sweetheart. Is there any more you would have me do?"

"No, thank you, Ma'am."

"Do not call me Ma'am. I am your sister now."

Condemnation stared at her mutely, absorbing the elegance of her new
relation with an evident increase of fear. The kindest thing to do was
to leave her alone, and Louise went out.

The bride undressed and climbed into bed, remembering as an afterthought
to put on the fine lawn shift that had been laid out for her. She blew
out the candle, but the room was full of glimmering starlight, and low
in the window she saw the new moon hanging like a shiver of glass. She
closed her eyes to make a darkness for herself, in the shelter of which
she lay with a wildly beating heart.

The minutes passed. At every tick of the clock she expected her
bridegroom. He had gone up to his study when she went to bed, so he
would be coming down to her, not coming up. She waited to hear him
coming down. The clock ticked on and the minutes passed; she opened her
eyes for a moment and saw the peacocks on the wall, and it seemed as if
they too were waiting.

She heard footsteps at last. They creaked along a passage overhead, then
turned to the stairs. She lay quite still in the unfamiliarity of linen
and lawn, and listened, holding her breath. The footsteps came
downstairs to the landing, paused for a moment and then went on. She
heard them go down into the house, then die away--almost as if they had
passed out of it.

She did not know what to think. For a while she lay waiting for him to
return; but as he did not she realized that probably he did not mean to
come to her that night. It was very strange, but then everything was
strange, and she was too tired to wonder where he had gone. She lay for
half an hour in a queer muddle of disappointment and relief. She felt
relieved that she was not yet to suffer the crowning strangeness of her
new life, but in her heart she also felt as if that strangeness might
make the rest less strange. She was too simple to understand a marriage
that was not a common affair of flesh and blood. This new sort of
marriage only added to her feelings of passive bewilderment. But perhaps
he would come another night. She did not understand him at all.



                                  6

But the next night and the next the same thing happened, and by the end
of a week she had come to expect nothing different. He would kiss her
gravely when she went up to bed, and then withdraw to his study, from
where she would hear his footsteps come very much later to go to his own
room. Or sometimes he would not be so late; in which case she was nearly
sure that he went out of the house. It soon occurred to her that he went
to his out-door study, where he kept so many of his books, and after a
while she gave up listening for him.

She accepted with some bewilderment the fact that her marriage was not
to be as other marriages. Hitherto she had taken for granted that her
lot with the Squire would be the same, with certain saving differences,
as it would have been with Lambert Relph--the lot of wife and mother.
She had been terrified, but also perfectly resigned. She was not quite
so resigned to the new conditions, because she could not at all
understand them. Gervase's motives of pity and tenderness in keeping
away from her were quite outside her experience. She remembered certain
things he had once said to her about being her father still, and the
consideration brought her a little nearer to his mind. He was certainly
much older than she, though the decorous waning of desire with age was
again outside her experience; and he quite probably did not love her,
though here once more experience had nothing to tell her of any
inevitable association of desire with love. Of course he was a
scholar--one more thing outside her experience--and she came to the
conclusion that it was that which made him so different from other men.
He spent his nights in study, and doubtless had no time nor inclination
for sleeping with a wife he had married only out of goodness and
charity. . . . Altogether he was a being far above the common human
beings that she knew.

The trouble was that she could not go back to her old happy relationship
of trust and devotion. The mere fact of her marriage, of having lain so
many nights expecting him, had changed all that. If he had never married
her, if he had merely brought her into his house as a daughter or as a
servant, she would have been perfectly at her ease; but now she felt
conscious with him, and unnatural. Sometimes she longed to be back in
the days when he used to sit at the foot of her bed and read the Order
for the Visitation of the Sick or hear her say her Catechism. He had
gone back to wearing his parson's gown--he was no longer a peacock now,
except on occasions when he made himself fine for dinner. But he never
came into her room, by day or by night, and having once heard her answer
the marriage service correctly, he seemed no longer to care whether or
not she knew her Catechism. Sometimes she would try to find some of the
old comfort in repeating the Ten Commandments or her Duty Towards her
Neighbour; but she soon found that the words lost their savour without
his following: "My good child, know this, that thou art not able to do
these things of thyself nor to walk in the commandments of God, and to
serve him, without his special grace . . ." so that in the end it was
easier to forget them entirely.

Apart from the strangeness of her marriage, she was happy enough and
growing steadily happier as daily life lost one by one its terrifying
aspects. Her waiting woman was a cheerful, lazy creature, chosen for her
by Louise on account of her kindly nature rather than for any practical
efficiency, and she and Condemnation soon came to terms which allowed
one all the independence and the other all the idleness that she wanted.
The other servants were too well schooled to be impudent, and that
natural quickness which Gervase took for a sign of noble blood soon
helped her to acquire manners that would not offend even the kitchen. As
she grew accustomed to the ways of the house, she was no longer afraid
of giving offence or doing anything wrong. She even learned in time to
mix something of her own habit with the ways of Conster, and to spend a
part of each day walking by the river or wandering in the woods--freedom
from uncongenial toil and unkind companionship doing much to lift the
weight of good manners and indoor life which she occasionally found
irksome.

Bridget and Ann, returning home in July, found her much improved, and
teased her far less than they had done in May. She would often ride out
with them on horseback, and they were impressed by the wildness and
daring with which she would leap the highest fences and scramble her
horse about the woods. She who had galloped bareback on the unbroken
colts of her father's farm found these well-trained ladies' hacks as
tame as hobbyhorses, and said so. The two girls, who had expected to
find her in every way inferior to themselves, were surprised into
admiration. Also in their company she lost her provoking gentleness, and
talked, shouted and hullooed louder than either of them.

Their return made a certain gaiety for Conster. While they were away
scarcely any visitors had come, except Giles de Prigault, who still
continued to visit the place regularly--to Gervase's surprise, until he
satisfied himself with the explanation that he came to talk French with
Louise. He would like him to choose one of the girls, but he remained
obstinately without a preference, and it almost looked as if Bride would
make a fool of herself with Saul Harman, whom Louise insisted must be
admitted to the house when he came, which was fairly often.

"Since you have married his half-sister, my friend, you cannot say that
he is not fit to marry your daughter, unless you hold that your marriage
makes them of kin."

"Nay, why should it make them of kin, seeing that my wife's no relation
to him whatsoever--none at all? But I'd never have my daughter marry
into that family of crawling toads, nor have that stinking Roundhead for
a father."

Louise, who had of late grown very much more light-hearted, laughed
loudly at him.

"Nay, be serious, sister. Surely you can understand my reluctance to
have my daughters marry ill when they could marry well. My opinion is
that the de Champfort cadet will take Ann, and I don't see why Bride
shouldn't have t'other Frenchman."

"Which Frenchman? We have so many here now."

"The big, fair one--de Prigault. I'm told he has money, that his father
brought away quite a piece of their fortune from France. Anyway I'd
sooner have him for a son than Harman. I'd take it kindly of you,
sister, if you'd say a word to him about it."

"I!--but how could I do so?"

"He often comes here, and talks to you more than anyone."

"But I can't force a bride on him."

"Force? force? Who said force? But you may open the subject, may not
you? You may give him a pretty strong hint that I dislike his hanging
around without intentions."

"But why should he have intentions? Surely, my friend, you can
understand a visit of politeness?"

"I can understand one or two, but not a score. He comes too often."

Louise looked vexed.

"If you wish to question him you can do so, though I hope you will not
be so hasty. But it's no affair of mine."

"You're the girl's aunt."

"And you're her father. It is for you to make matches for her."

"Eh well, you know I can do nothing with her. She's an obstinate wretch
and set on Harman."

"Then why trouble de Prigault? I assure you that he wants her no more
than she wants him. He comes here only out of politeness and to wait
upon a _compatriote_. And as for coming often, he does not come nearly
so often as William Douce."

Gervase was at once diverted, as she had thought he would be.

"Will? Why, what's wrong with poor Will? He comes here as my guest and
to consult me about the furnace."

"His father was clerk of the works before him, but he scarcely ever came
to the house."

"That was Charles's affair. Maybe he wasn't as closely interested as I
am. I choose to be kept in touch with everything that happens in the
bloomery."

He spoke uneasily, for Louise's sharp, brown eyes were upon him, boring
cruelly through his defences.



                                  7

Etienne de Champfort, brother-in-law to Madge, came frequently to
Conster that summer with de Prigault and an occasional Gasson or le
Jolie from Rye; while William Douce chose often to spend his evenings
where he could both practise and display his fluent French. Though the
place was not so gay as it had been the summer before, when Charles
Alard was alive and all the daughters were at home, it was crowded and
merry enough in comparison with its spring forsaking. To Condemnation it
was all very wonderful, and she soon came to enjoy the talk and laughter
and lute-playing. The smooth, soft manners of the young Frenchmen were a
pleasant change from those she had hitherto met, either at Newhouse or
at Conster. It was still more surprising to have Saul Harman paying her
deference and trying to win her favour, even though she knew it was only
that he might pay his court to Bridget. Sometimes, sitting of an evening
in the great drawing-room soft with candlelight and the thrumming of
lutes, while maybe Saul waited on her with comfits on a tray, or a
graceful young man with blue eyes and flowing yellow curls smiled up at
her as he arranged her footstool, she would remember the rhyme that
Gervase had sung to her long ago, the day he had cut her hair:


           "Curly locks, curly locks, wilt thou be mine?
            Thou shalt not wash dishes nor yet feed the swine,
            But sit upon cushions and sew a fine seam,
            And feed upon strawberries, sugar and cream."

Well, it had all happened, and here she was with her cushion and her
fine sewing and all the strawberries, sugar and cream that she could
eat, which was no small quantity. She had begun to fill out and grow
plump, and her voice had lost its timid, childish tones. She almost felt
at home at Conster, though as a daughter of the house rather than as its
mistress. Louise insisted on her wearing a married-woman's headdress--a
little tower of fluted lace that hid the extreme childishness of her
curls--but she was in many ways younger than her years, and still
enjoyed a game of forfeits or stool-ball. She was, however, too timid
and clumsy to dance, and would not be persuaded to join in the dances
that sometimes wound up the evening's pleasure.

Nor did Gervase dance, for the official reason that he held it unseemly
in a Parson, but really because the dances that he knew were danced no
more. The brawl and the coranto had gone out of fashion with doublets
and plumed hats; he looked on at what he considered a dreary pacing,
whilst his daughters attempted the sarabande, or, under the tuition of
the young Frenchmen, the newly-imported minuet. But he was sorry that
his little bud should not dance--he did not like to see her sitting
there demurely beside Louise while the others paced and pirouetted to
William Douce's lute.

One night he asked her why she did not stand up, and she told him she
did not know the steps.

"No, child, and nor do I. . . . These aren't the dances I danced when I
was young. But one of these young sparks shall teach you. You've but to
choose which you will have for dancing master."

"I'd sooner not dance at all. I should be afraid."

"La! Why should you be afraid, sweetheart? You mightn't know the steps,
but you'd soon learn them, and all the while you would look as pretty as
a bird."

"Nay, nay, I shouldn't--and I'd never learn all those turnings and
twiddlings."

"Maybe you're right. They're as abominable as a Dutch puzzle. You should
have danced the country dances--they were merry and plain enough. But
you may dance them still. This is our house, bud, and we may have what
we choose in it. Come, now, I shall ask Will to play us Old Sir Simon.
I'll lay you'll have learned the way of it in a twinkle."

"The others wouldn't like it. They're all for the new French dance."

"But they may dance Old English to please their host and hostess. You
forget your place, my dear. This is your house and these are your
guests. And if none of 'em can teach you a country dance, I'll do it
myself. Aye, that's it. I myself shall stand up with you. Come now,
Will"--clapping his hands--"we've had enough of bowing and bobbing. Play
us a country dance."

Condemnation felt all her old fears coming down on her as the lute
changed its tune. She would have given much to stay seated by Louise,
but she could not, with Gervase risen up and standing before her. He was
wearing his fine new suit and had forgotten all he had ever said about
Parsons dancing.

"Come, hurry durry, child--or they'll be through."

And he led her trembling into the set.

Peacock and dove, they paced together, and after a time, a wonderfully
short time, she found she was enjoying it. Her beating heels sent the
blood to her head--it sang in her ears with the music, and the room
became a bubble of colours as the green and red and blue and yellow
dresses swung upon the polished floor. When she held Gervase's hand to
go up the middle she felt it warm and kind, and the steps were easy
enough, a mere running and jumping. She smiled and laughed and bounded,
feeling as if it were a game. He himself perhaps danced a little too
high, but with a very certain grace, and she was too inexperienced and
for once too gay to notice any difference between his skipping and the
more languid tread of de Champfort or de Prigault.

That night his kiss was less grave than usual--indeed, she had a sudden
feeling of youth and warmth upon her lips that made her uneasy. During
that dance, being taught and encouraged by him, she had returned to the
lost simplicity of their relations, but now she felt awkward and aware
again.

"Art not too tired, pigsnie, with so much dancing?"

"No, no, I'm not tired."

"But you'll fall asleep at once, I'll warrant."

Something newly born in her thought of saying, "I might lie awake." But
the words would not leave her tongue. She nodded, as if she had not
noticed the search in his voice.

"Eh well, then--dream of your husband."

He patted her lightly on the shoulder, dismissing her to the staircase.
But that night she lived her wedding night again--the same waking, the
same waiting, the same approach of footsteps that died away.



                             CHAPTER SIX

                                  1

Gervase leaned forward in his chair, his brows furrowed as he strove to
gaze into the spirit's face under the mask of Douce's face that covered
it. The table was between them, and the only light was a pale shredding
of starlight that crept through the curtain folds. But he could see the
glimmer of William Douce's eyeballs, rolled up into blindness, and the
faint line of his mouth which did not seem to open as a voice came from
it, flat and toneless as the voice of sleep.

"It is the voice of Araziel warning thee to act boldly and without
delay. If thou waitest longer, the planet will have sunk below the
horizon, and Saturn rising will shadow all schemes and hopes and turn
them into bitterness. For Saturn is not as Jupiter, and Jupiter is not
the light of the sun. Thou must act, or all will become bitter in the
Saturnine property."

"Aye, but if I wait longer I tire him and he will sell cheaper."

"He is likelier to sell to another who bargains more swiftly. It is
known in Malkuth that the furnace at Pannyngridge is also failing for
timber and will buy all that stands."

"But Haneholt's is fifteen miles from Pannyngridge."

"What matter? Are there no horses or oxen? I tell thee thou must be
bold, for others are bold, urged by the hunger of the flame."

"I care not so much for the furnace. If it dies when I die, what's that
to me?"

"There are those that come after."

"Nay none, since I have no son."

"But thou art free to leave it to whomsoever thou shalt choose--some
worthy friend, maybe . . . thou hast a duty to those that love thee, and
though thou hast no son in nature thou mayest have a son in alchemy, a
son chosen for thee by the free rulers of the stars according to the
divine principle. Nature is still in the darkness, in the water-source,
but thou mayest beget a son apart from nature, according to the fire and
the light."

"I may also beget a son in nature. I still hope that these things may
change. After all, the marriage is only six months old."

The spirit was silent for a moment, and a shadow seemed to cross its
mask.

"Nay, thou knowest well that Araziel hath naught to say of Venus save:
Touch her not. Touch her not. Touch her not. Venus is the weak
water-source wherein the elements are quenched. If thou art to triumph
thou must keep in the dry lubet of the sun. But I see that thy mind is
ever upon Venus; thy mind heareth Venus when I speak of Mars and
Jupiter. Thou must altogether be separate from Venus if thou art to
carry on thy work."

"You speak of my Treatise on the Eastern Churches?"

"Nay, that is a small part of thy work. Thou shalt do far greater things
than that--thou shalt write greater treatises, wherein men shall find
wisdom that is to be found nowhere else in human learning. I have much
to teach thee still, and thou wilt never learn till thou changest from
the water-source to the fiery principle, till thou art altogether Sol."

"What wouldst thou teach me?"

"I would teach thee the wisdom of the magi, of Mercury, Salt and
Sulphur, of the light and dark principles, of the nine steps from
Malkuth to Kepher. Have I not the lore that was given in the beginning
to the sons of God? But I cannot trust thee with such mysteries if thou
wilt not obey my commands or if thou quenchest my light in the watery
Venus. Learn of me and thou shalt observe the process of the wise men,
thou shalt know the signatures, thou shalt rule over the tinctures,
essences, properties, sources and astringencies, thou shalt be free in
the lubet and have power over all the forms of the spirit's birth."

Gervase was leaning across the table, and it seemed to him as if the
mask of Douce's face changed evilly. He suddenly felt afraid.

"There's one thing I would know," he said, "and I would know it now."

"Ask me now, then."

"I ask you of yourself. Tell me--nay, I conjure you, for I must know. I
conjure you by the living God to tell me if you are good or evil."

Again a shadow seemed to cross the spirit's mask, and the voice came
more sharply.

"I am neither good nor evil."

"But your name is the name of a fallen angel."

"Good and evil are not essences, but appearances; and the fall of the
angels was not a fall into evil, but into knowledge."

"I pray you tell me how that can be."

The spirit's voice lost some of its tonelessness; indeed one might say
there was a ring of impatience in it.

"The Adonai would have kept angels and men in the light principle,
wherein is no difference of forms, so knowledge cannot have its work.
For desiring knowledge the angels were cast into the dark principle,
wherein also there is no difference of forms; but they were able to
maintain themselves in the limbo of the magi which is between light and
darkness, and where therefore is knowledge. Aa-a-ah . . ."

The mask became convulsed, and William Douce's hands shivered and beat
upon the table. This was the normal sign for the departure of the
_magistellum_, and after a few moments of gasping and struggling, the
young man sat up and rubbed his eyes.

Gervase lit the candles, and the little room leapt suddenly into the
dim, brown light, showing the books upon the walls, the shrouded window,
and the pentagram drawn upon the floor, surrounding both the sitters. A
bottle of wine stood with two glasses upon the table. Gervase filled a
glass and pushed it toward Douce, who drank it off.

"The spirit came?"

"Aye, the spirit who calls himself Araziel. I conjured him to tell me
who he is, for I still fear he may be evil. But he told me that the fall
of the angels was not into evil, as I'd hitherto thought, but a fall as
it were into knowledge--had they remained innocent they had remained
ignorant, because in the light there is no difference of forms. Hitherto
I'd always thought that the angels before the fall exceeded in knowledge
as in virtue, but according to him it is not so."

"And was all your talk so learned? Had he nothing to tell you of common
business? No counsel to give?"

"Nay, but he talked much in the style of alchemy and of astrology,
advising me on the rising and setting of planets, fire and essences and
the like. He's plainly not of your opinion that such things are contrary
to science."

There was a note of triumph in Gervase's voice, for William Douce had
more than once spoken disparagingly of the old ways of knowledge,
favouring the new sciences and experiments that his master feared.
Alchemy and astrology had gone out of fashion with cloaks and doubtlets,
the brawl and the coranto, and modern investigations were coming more
and more under French influence, and savoured of demonology. Gervase was
pleased to find the spirit fluent in Boehme and Paracelsus, whom he
considered to be white magicians and reasonable philosophers, rather
than in Vair or de Moura, Villapando or the Kabalists, sorcerers whose
works he had studied in years gone by but whom he held himself to have
forsworn.

William Douce slowly sipped his wine. He looked white and tired, and a
trickle of sweat ran down his forehead. He wiped it away.

"But I thought you had many things, private matters, to consult him on.
Surely all this theology is a waste of time."

"Nay, since it helps me with my work. He tells me that I'm to do even
greater work than my treatise, that he will reveal to me hidden
learning, the wisdom of the magi--such as will astonish Wagstaff and
Nelson and the non-juring scholars and make them repent altogether of
their neglect of me and contempt of my labours."

"But did you not ask him any questions about these things you plan?"

"I plan nothing beyond my treatise."

"Didn't you question him about the furnace?"

"Aye, about the furnace--so I did. And he's all for our buying
Haneholt's wood, even at the price Laycock's asking. So you can wait on
him again about it, Will, though I should try him first with two hundred
pounds."

"But if he won't sell, I may offer his price?"

"Aye, aye. We must have the wood. Seemingly our furnace is to blow for
the good of this world and that. I told him, however, that shall bide.
Thou art a good lad, Will, and I trust not worn away with all this
usage."

Douce was silent. He had gained his point in a small matter, carrying it
past an obstinacy that would have kept them bargaining for years. He had
also prepared the ground for later assaults. He was not altogether
displeased with his labours. . . . But he could have done better if he
had not been stopped by a theological discussion, as had so often
happened before. Gad! he was weary of this nonsense--of having to wrap
up the keen edge of his thought in these old-fashioned clouts. He felt
sorry now that his habits of flattery and conformity had led him to give
the old fellow all the stuffing he asked for. Yet, in a measure he was
right, for it made Alard feel safe to hear the language of the Sciences
he had studied in his youth. He had hoped to get more from him now that
he could maintain the spirit's voice for so much longer. At first he had
not been able to manage more than a few moments and a few disconnected
words, but now he could speak pretty freely without moving his lips,
though it had made him tired as a dog to-night. His throat ached with
weariness--and all for next to nothing.

He stood up.

"Will you of your kindness allow me to go home. Lending one's body to a
spirit is weary work."

"To a fallen angel," said Gervase, looking up at him. As he looked up at
those pale, stern features in the light above him, it seemed to him for
one uneasy moment that Douce's face might indeed be the face of a fallen
angel, with its youth scored and marked by evil knowledge, its power
held in chains of base desire. The vision passed, but left a curious
stamp upon the face the spirit had used. Gervase felt a little shaken.

"Eh well, I must be going too. It's close on two o'clock. I trust you
an't too weary."

"Oh no. It will pass."

"And you can meet me again to-morrow?"

Douce was surprised to find him so eager, and a little annoyed. Why
should he be deprived of his rest so that an old crow might talk
theology?

"Nay, it's too soon. I couldn't give myself again so quickly, and the
meeting would be fruitless."

"The next day, then?"

"The next day will be Sunday, when I propose to visit my friends at
Milkhouse Street. We can meet on my return."

"On the Monday."

"Very well, then."

For a moment he had forgotten his deference, and spoke as a man
conferring favours. He wondered why Gervase was suddenly so eager . . .
then he remembered that lately the intervals between their meetings had
been growing shorter and shorter until they were within sight of meeting
every day. It was Alard who had thus hurried the pace; evidently his
itch was increasing.

"You like to talk theology with spirits," he could not resist saying.
"You would sooner discuss the nature of God with the _magistellum_ than
with our learned Dr. Braceley."

"Dr. Braceley? Foh! It would be no more than talking to a grammar-school
lout. But who knows about the other? He has already promised me much. . . .
Will, if he should ever reveal to me the secrets and signatures of
natural wisdom, I vow that I shan't keep such knowledge to myself, but
will share it with thee as a reward for thy services."

"I pray for a better reward than that," was in the heart of William
Douce, but on his lips was an assenting gratitude as he opened the door.

The night air blew in, clean as spring water. Gervase stood for a moment
in the entrance, watching the sky as it lay over the woods in a dark
refreshment. Behind him the light seemed turgid and defiled--the light
was less pure than the darkness. He gazed with a curious sense of rebuke
at this desert blossoming with night. . . . Above Starvencrow Hill the
stars traced a pattern that was both mysterious and immaculate.



                                  2

William Douce was an uninterested practitioner of magic. By a
perverseness of fate that might be a quality of his ruling planet, he
had been associated all his adult life with a science in which he took
no interest. Even his own special gifts and susceptibilities had no
power to move him or even to occupy his striving, restless mind. When he
was in France his friendship with Tarver had involved him in Tarver's
chief obsession. By his side he had sat unmoved through the ultimate
rites of Satanism; he had given unmoved the Infamous Kiss, and with no
more than a perfunctory shudder of physical disgust had drunk from the
Cup of Damnation. But it was all to him so much play-acting, a childish
impiety, and but for Tarver he would have avoided it as one avoids the
cloacal obscenities of small boys. The minor rites of invocation and
divination he had found more interesting, as they were practised
privately with his friend and had given him a certain vision of his
mind. But when Tarver returned to England, his chief consolation had
been that he was now released from the slavery of the mirrors, the
Bohemian cards, the pentagrams and the toads.

And here he was mixed up in it all again, as a part of his own return.
Not only had he found Tarver as deep as ever in his experiments, but he
himself was involved in feebler, less sinister rites with Gervase Alard.
He had perhaps been a fool to reveal that he knew anything about the
science, but he had seen it as a means to an end, as a part of his
recommendation to his employer; and now it was part of whatever hold he
had on him. Moreover, that queer sense of difference, of inferiority,
that writhed like a serpent at the bottom of his nature, bade him seize
on any advantage, on any quality, which recommended him to others.
Magic and lute-playing were in that sense the same.

He himself felt a certain contempt of those rites practised in the
_temnplum_, and also a contempt of his associate's growing absorption in
them. It was the usual thing, of course. Many times before this he had
seen interest become obsession. The occult pool has only a narrow shore,
and the dabbler is soon in deep waters. But Gervase's obsession seemed
to him of a foolish sort, all overlaid and interlarded with queer
notions of his own--with other obsessions that led out of it like so
many echoing halls where days are wasted and time forgotten.

For some time he had endured the old fellow's disputations, his
arguments, maunderings and harangues, his grotesque preoccupations. He
had hoped that among all the chaff a grain or two of wheat might be
sifted. But lately he had seemed to stifle in a tempest of chaff. He
could almost bear no more; and it was with a sense of escape that he set
out on Sunday for Branden Hall, near Milkhouse Street.

At Branden there would of course be magic, but of a different kind. No
talk there of alchemy or astrology, no invocation of Jacob Boehme or
academic discussions on good and evil. The difference between the temple
and the Hall was the difference between England and France. English
magic was diffuse, unorganized, sporadic, uncertain and superstitious.
It was mostly an affair of witchcraft, and cropped up in diseased old
women who sought cheer in the friendship of animals. Half of it did not
exist, except in the imaginations of a superstitious peasantry and its
ignorant magistrates. Much of what remained was harmless or even
helpful.

But French magic was an organized ritual and a formulated science. In
every large town there were lodges of magicians, at whose meetings or
Sabbats a travesty of religious ceremonial was performed under a
president or "devil," who was generally a disgraced priest. The whole
aim and method was evil and to create evil, and though the victim whose
blood was outpoured, might be, and was in the majority of cases, only a
cock, there was constant rumour and certain evidence that the blood of
infants was in some places used as the ritual prescribed. Every now and
then there would be an outcry and uprising against it, but it was at
present too firmly stablished in high places to be overthrown.

At Branden, naturally, the thing must be modified. But Tarver would have
nothing of English witchcraft. He had contrived to form a small lodge,
consisting of himself, Douce, and one or two friends; but at their
Sabbats there could be no Abomination, for the reason that they had no
unfrocked priest among them; nor, being Protestants, had they the same
urge to travesty the Mass. They contented themselves mostly with the
raising of spirits, and it was from them that Douce had learned much of
his method with Gervase Alard. Characteristically, however, he had
contented himself with merely imitating the phenomena; he had never
attempted to reproduce them. After all, if an old fish can be caught
with a worm, why trouble to bait him with a dragon.

The dragon was at large in the kitchen of Branden that Sunday night,
though his voice was only a feeble mewing, a rattling squeak that came
now from the rafters, now from within the walls, now from the hollows of
the chimney. Douce sat between Tarver and his new friend Elliland, and
hatred and jealousy fed the dragon as a calf is fed with hay. They wore
hairy masks, to which were fixed stags' antlers, and their shadows were
grotesque upon the wall. Sometimes Elliland would throw himself back and
gasp and foam, and speak with the flat, toneless voice that Douce had
learned to use. But he himself did not use it--rather it used him, and
he would awake afterwards as from an evil dream, pawing at an invisible
wall that seemed to be there.

Then they used de Moura's invocation--Tarver officiating, while Douce
and Elliland stood by with the four other friends, crying "Har! Har!
Har! Har!" The spirit that came was like a sugar-loaf, white on the top
and about a foot high. It ran to and fro among the sitters and spoke
with an audible voice, but its words could not be understood. Tarver and
Elliland were excited, and stamped and shouted themselves into a frenzy:
the four other friends were terrified almost out of their lives. William
Douce was neither afraid nor excited, but sat watching the scene with
sad, indifferent eyes, while his heart still fed the dragon.



                                  3

At the end of the evening the four foolish friends were so frightened
that they would not ride home, but had to be given beds in the house.
Douce, who was not frightened and had to be early next day at the
furnace, rode off alone.

It was a still, dark night, windless and starless, with the edges of the
earth and sky woven together by rain. On either side of the road high
hedges towered against a sky that was only faintly lighter than their
darkness. Many a man would have been afraid to undertake such a journey
on such a night, but Douce feared the night and the journey no more than
he had feared the spirits. His eyes were good; their pupils spread to
catch the radiations of the hidden stars, the glimmers of sky and water.
As for his horse, he had many times travelled the road, and could smell
his home through the drizzling October rain.

William Douce felt restored by his visit to Branden Hall. Just as a man
of another stamp might feel renewed by communion with the godly so
Douce's tormented spirit was comforted by those hours with Tarver and
his friends, in the dark kitchen where the dragon scratched and mewed.
It was not the magic which had done it, but the breath of the place--the
turbulent atmosphere of love and hate and jealousy which it was natural
for him to breathe, instead of the flat, stale atmosphere of toil and
pretence which he was forced to breathe at Conster. He felt better, as a
man feels after a return to his native air.

He could now think clearly, with a mind unclouded by the frets and
vexations which had beset him on his morning's journey. He saw that he
had been wrong to despise his experiments with Gervase Alard. They were
undoubtedly, if slowly and exasperatingly, fulfilling a purpose even
beyond that which he had first intended. Not only had they recommended
him to his employer, but they had given him an importance which he might
otherwise never have attained. Alard was a queer old dog, and it was
easy enough to make mistakes about him. He would one day appear
obstinate and another careless, one day shrewd and another
crack-brained: his mind was full of conceits and follies and
enthusiasms. He was warm-hearted and generous, and yet so rotten with
vanity as to be blind to the needs of those he loved best as well as to
his own. It was something to have taken hold of his curiosity . . . and
at their last meeting he had been shown how near that curiosity had
become to craving.

It was a craving which he, William Douce, alone could satisfy; the mere
granting or withholding gave him power. He knew too how such power
increases, as craving becomes obsession. He had seen men of greater
stability than Gervase Alard utterly dominated by their need of the
magical and mysterious. All he had to do was to ladle out the right
quantities of mercury, salt and sulphur, signatures, seethings and
sources, and all the rest of the astro-chemical candle.

It was worth his while to be patient, to subdue his own intellectual
rebellion against the old-fashioned stuff. After all, he was not making
serious investigations--magical science had never been with him more
than a means to an end. He had endured and still endured its darker
implications to maintain his friendship with Tarver; he could as well
endure its follies to maintain and increase his influence over Squire
Alard. Tarver sought power unnaturally--he practised conjurations and
invocations to draw to himself forces otherwise alien or indifferent and
thus obtain a mastery denied him in the course of nature. But for Douce
there was no need to go outside nature to establish his dominion over a
vain, credulous, warm-hearted, mock-learned old man. He required no more
than common deceits. All he had to do was to make himself necessary to
Gervase Alard, as necessary as a son--more necessary than a son.

He saw now that his chances were entirely personal. He could not hope to
inherit Conster Furnace save as Alard's "son in alchemy"--as Araziel had
very neatly put it. At one time he had hoped for some political
assistance. The State that had taken Conster from Alard and given it to
Douce and then from Douce and given it back to Alard, might well take it
from Alard again. But he had soon found that the local legend of the
Squire as a Jacobite was based on no firmer foundation than the
obscurities of his explanation of himself as a non-Juror. If he was
truly a Jacobite he was a stranger one than even he was likely to be,
since cannon forged under his eye in his own bloomery had driven King
James from the Boyne and battered the walls of Limerick. Moreover,
Araziel had sounded him, and been answered in terms of oaths and
bishoprics, phoenixes and the Lord's anointed. . . . It was a pity that
he seemed to have grown suspicious of Araziel. It might be wise at some
future time to change the nature of the _magistellum_ and conjure a
milder spirit. . . . But Araziel had served his purpose well enough.

Had it not been for Araziel, William Douce would have known nothing of
the conditions of his master's marriage, since Alard was not the man to
unbosom himself on such a matter to any human being. He had made his
confidences entirely in the belief that his clerk of the works lay
asleep while a spirit used his voice. If Araziel had done no more than
that he would still be worth the sweat of his production. Once more the
morning's doubts and obscurities were resolved in the clearness of
night. It was wonderful how much more clearly he thought by night than
by day--more clearly and more hopefully. The rain beating on his face
seemed to beat up his blood, to beat up his spirits into a kind of
exaltation. He felt apart from the horse under him, from the creak of
leather and the clop of hoofs. He seemed to float between the hedgerows,
down the black fissure of the lane. The hedges sank as the lane dipped
to the marshes and the wind came over them, wet and blustering. A hidden
moonlight gleamed on the Rother, drawn like a pale string across the
levels. He thought of another river farther south, and of a furnace
standing beside it among cinder-heaps like silvery mountains--a
landscape of the moon. That pale moon-place was Douce's--Douce's Furnace
beside the River Tillingham, as it had been fifty years ago.
Douce--Douce--Douce--the name lived on among the woods and marshes long
after Alard's was gone.

Alard's name would soon be gone. The old man was just the sort to die
suddenly of a fit or an apoplexy; he would leave no son. His marriage
was a wraith, a shadow . . . yet he, William Douce, would be foolish to
minimize its importance. He must not make that mistake. In some ways it
was even more important than when he had thought it an affair of lust in
the control of a parson's conscience. Its significance had then lain
only in the chance of an heir, but now he saw that Alard's love for his
wife was a love to be reckoned with, since it had generated restraint
instead of passion. He saw a self-denying, humble love growing up as a
green core in the heart of a rotten tree. The danger of the heir faded
into the background, but Condemnation herself became a danger, which she
had never been before.

He was already so much aware of this that at times he felt inclined to
use the voice of Araziel to urge Gervase to take by force what he had
hitherto denied himself. That would almost certainly destroy love by
taking from it the glory of virtue and giving it the sickly colours of
lust. Such a love was likely to die of a bad conscience, and there were
moments when love seemed a bigger danger than procreation. But he did
not think that any attempt of this kind could possibly succeed, being in
fact an assault on Alard's strength rather than on his weakness.
Besides, it might only bring the heir. . . . No, it was safer to starve
love than to burn it up. He had been right to do all he could to keep
husband and wife apart; though it might not be a bad thing if he gave
Alard a new motive for continence. Let chastity be for his own sake
rather than his wife's, and in time love would be consumed by the
denials that were now cherishing it. All the _magistellum_ had to do was
to bubble his postulant with the claims of his maggotty Treatise, in a
language approved by his old-fashioned ignorance. . . .

Douce's horse pricked up his ears as his master laughed upon his back,
trying over his phrases. . . . "Beware of the planet that corrupts the
gold; beware of the child in royal colour that shall upset the seven
kingdoms of learning; beware of the weak water-source wherein Sol is
quenched. Let the artist care for the work, nor rest, nor give himself
to any source till he see the vegetative life appear in the dark death.
. . . There it is, old conjuror--there's the sauce for your mutton."

Then his thoughts switched back to Condemnation. Had she any place in
this other than a pawn's place on the board? Poor little brown girl. . . .
Riding in the darkness, through the soft invisible rain, he felt
light-hearted enough to pity her. Pity, pity--that should be her share.
"Pity like a naked, new-born babe." . . . Even her husband must pity her
more than he loved her. It was pity, after all, that had made him take
her and pity that had made him renounce her. He could not have loved her
when he had offered her in marriage to Douce, and if he loved her now it
was only with a love fed on pity--on milk and water. His love was pale
and pure, pale as milk and pure as water. It had no deep, fiery
strength; it could not stand against the storms of his own curiosity, of
the foolish wild desires of his foolish thwarted youth, rumbling in him
like a colic. . . . No, poor little brown girl, you haven't a
chance--only pity, pity like a naked new-born babe. There is the fruit
of your love, and in time you'll grow weary of nursing it, and go to lie
under the hedge with some ploughboy or gipsy lad, as your father lay
with your mother and begot you--poor little naked pity.



                                  4

Condemnation had never liked William Douce since the day Gervase offered
him to her, with the other young men, as a possible husband. She had
indeed taken a dislike to, all those young men, but Douce was the only
one with whom it had persisted. It had soon lost its original base, and
had acquired new foundations, first in fear and then in jealousy.

She did not know why she was afraid of him, even afraid of his loud,
sudden laugh, of his lute-playing and his brightly coloured clothes. At
first she had seen him only at the house, when he came up to play and
sing and entertain them. Later she had seen him at the furnace, stripped
to the waist and standing in the great heat of the bloomery, his body
shining with sweat and ruddy with the fire till it looked like a red-hot
mould. Whether stripped or clad there was something strange and
unpleasant about him--as if he were not real. . . . She could not tell,
and her feelings were almost out of reach of her thoughts, but sometimes
it seemed to her as if he were not a real person, not a real man like
Gervase or Saul or Monsieur de Prigault. . . . She could never feel
easy with him.

Lately she had come to think that he did not like her any more than she
liked him. He was always polite and obliging, but he looked at her as if
he did not like her--sometimes she would catch his big, dark, rather
prominent eyes fixed upon her with a curious intentness. His eyes were
always unhappy, but in them at such moments she would see, or rather
feel, something darker than unhappiness. She wondered why he should
dislike her, but after all if she could dislike him without any reason
he need have no reason for disliking her. Later on, when she found out
that she was jealous of him, she wondered if he too were jealous.

It was not till the end of the winter that she became jealous, when she
had been married almost a year. All through the winter he and her
husband seemed to be more and more together, down at the furnace or
upstairs in Gervase's study. Douce was always coming to the house,
strutting up to the door in his gay green waistcoat, his surcoat with
crimson froggings and a wide brown hat--on Sundays he wore green silk
stockings and a huge waterfall of a cravat. Gervase in his Sunday best
looked like a moulting cock beside him. He would often tease William
Douce for his smartness and neatness. "Here comes our young spark. Here
comes our gallant." But his teasing was affectionate, and he seemed
unhappy if Douce did not come, if for any reason he was away at
Milkhouse Street. He liked Douce to be always at the house, as if he
were a son, and Condemnation, watching them together, would sometimes
feel a pang of loneliness.

Then loneliness would burn quickly into jealousy. If he was as dear as a
son, she was no dearer than a daughter. She had to meet him on his own
ground without any wifely privileges or advantages. She would not have
been jealous of him if she had been in reality Gervase's wife--but her
marriage was no more real than William Douce. When she thought of this,
the tears would dance like knives at the back of her eyes, and her hands
would become hard fists upon her needlework. She would long to lunge
them into Douce's unhappy, gazing eyes, long to smack him and beat him
out of the house.

After a while she was confirmed in these feelings by the discovery that
Louise Alard shared them. Condemnation loved Louise better than anyone
except Gervase. The older woman had again and again proved herself her
friend, and had won the reward of much patience in a devotion which,
though long withheld by timidity, was in the end most gratefully and
passionately given. Louise had done her best to prevent the marriage,
but when she saw that it could not be prevented she had set herself the
task of saving it from disaster. She had been unfailingly kind and
sympathetic to the poor little bride, she had done her best to remove
her fears and win her confidence, also to help her in every way to fill
with credit her difficult position. Without any illusions about her, she
had in the course of a year trained Condemnation into a fairly
presentable young lady. She had taught her to dress herself with
neatness and care, to keep her hair and body clean, to wear her caps
with dignity; and not to go to bed naked. She had taught her to use a
knife and fork at table, to eat and drink without noisy chewing and
gulpings, to play cards and sing simple songs to the lute. She had
certainly taught her more in a year than she had been able to teach her
nieces in their lives; indeed Condemnation's only lapses into barbarism
were in their company, when she was too much their equal in age and
status to be able to resist joining in their horseplay, tumblings,
rompings, whoopings and general wildness.

To Louise, as to William Douce, the discovery of the nature of the
marriage had made a great difference. She had very soon found out that
she was wrong in her first view of it, though Condemnation never
actually confided in her. She was surprised and not altogether
approving. No doubt it had been well to start in this way, but it must
not go on indefinitely. Such a marriage held in itself the seeds of
trouble, and though the bride so far seemed happy enough, she soon came
to feel anxious about her brother.

As the winter passed he seemed to grow more and more eccentric and
remote from them all. She sometimes came upon him talking to himself,
and he was cracking his fingers more and more. . . . He looked older,
too; she was continually having to remind herself that he was not really
an old man. She wondered if he were studying too much, working too hard
on his Treatise . . . but she found it increasingly difficult to take
his studies seriously. He spent much of his time in that ridiculous
temple, going there frequently, she knew, at dead of night; but she
could not imagine that he was always usefully employed there. More
likely he sat brooding and gazing into nothing, as she had often seen
him sit at home--his staring eyes the guardians of an empty house.

Apart from these changes in body and mind, she saw other changes for the
worse. He had almost entirely given up going to church, saying that he
could not endure the way Dr. Braceley read the prayers. There was a
conventicle for non-Jurors at Wadhurst, but he said it was too far away
and would not trouble himself to ride there even once. Louise's own
religious life was not such as to make her stress public worship unduly,
but she deplored the difference in her brother's habit, the loosening of
ties and the dying out of loyalties. There was also a change in his
attitude towards Condemnation; it seemed to lose some of its tenderness.
There was now a distance in his "bud" and "sweetheart," as if he found
her no more than a child about the house.

It was all, she told herself, the result of his unnatural marriage, and
that same marriage she felt convinced was responsible for the increasing
influence of William Douce. Louise was heartily tired of the young man
and of his continual visits to the house. He was entertaining enough,
and his manners were good--French manners, in fact; but she had never
really liked him, and now she liked him less than ever. If Gervase
hankered for a son let him beget one of his own body, instead of
adopting--for such it virtually amounted to--this rather undeserving
young fellow.

Unlike Condemnation, she knew quite well why she disliked William Douce.
In spite of his accomplishments, she held him to be fundamentally
ill-bred, and she could see that his years in France had done him no
good, had brought him into contact with some bad element that was
continually showing itself to her in his words and looks. She disliked
his gaiety, which she thought false--no man should have such a laugh
that had such eyes. She disliked his youth, which was also false. He was
more than thirty years old--old enough to have lost the manners of a
boy.

His influence over Gervase she held to be most unfortunate, for though
she could not point at the moment to any mismanagement of the furnace or
any peculiar dishonesty, she thought it most likely that some day he
would fill his pockets at his employer's expense. Gervase knew nothing
about the furnace and very little about the estate, and would certainly
neither criticize nor inspect very closely the dealings of anyone he
trusted, and Louise knew that he trusted where he loved. But apart from
these considerations such a close friendship with his clerk of the works
was not right or dignified. Gervase and Douce could have nothing
fundamentally in common, and she found it hard to believe that the young
man would endure his obstinacy and aberrations without some strong
self-interest to sustain him.



                                  5

She often wondered what Condemnation thought of it all, but for some
time she never asked her, being unwilling to question her on so personal
a matter. Louise was essentially reserved, and Condemnation had still in
many ways the natural secrecy of a wild thing. Their intercourse had
been limited almost entirely to external matters, though on such things
they had now come to chat very pleasantly together. But as time passed,
the older woman felt that she could not conscientiously remain silent.
Here, much more than in any case of manners or decorum, her advice was
needed; and such a talk might also resolve some of her own perplexities.
It was her duty to break the silence, and she must find her opportunity.

She found it one afternoon when she and the girl were sitting in the
parlour after a long visit from de Prigault. Condemnation was not
usually there when he came, thinking that he and Louise preferred to be
alone, so that they might talk French together. But to-day her
sister-in-law had asked her to stay, and she had been glad to sit and
listen while he talked in the charming, halting English he used out of
courtesy to herself. She liked him better than any of the other young
men who came to the house.

As soon as he was gone, she jumped up to put away her work and run out
into the garden, for she was tired of sitting still; but Louise bade her
wait a moment.

"I have something to ask you."

"What is it, Ma'am?"

"Do you like William Douce?"

Condemnation changed colour in surprise at being asked so close a
question, and for a moment forgot the language of her new life.

"'At that I dan't."

"Why don't you like him, my dear?"

 The girl was silent.

"I don't like him either, so you needn't be afraid to speak."

"He--he don't seem real, somehow--and he laughs like a gallybird."

"Not real? How do you mean?"

Condemnation became confused.

"I couldn't say for certain."

"Do you mean that he is acting a part?"

"Maybe."

"I am not sure if he's acting . . . I don't know. But he's too much with
your husband."

Condemnation thrust her needle so violently into her work that she
pricked her knee.

Louise pressed her: "Do you not think so?"

"Aye, he's for ever at the house--he walks in as if it belonged to him;
and--and"--her words suddenly rushed stammering out--"he treats me as if
it didn't belong to me, as if I wasn't there, and I reckon--reckon Sir
Gervase is beginning to do the same."

Angry tears choked her voice. Louise spoke tenderly.

"My dear child, he must not do that--you must not let him."

"How can I stop him?"

"By taking what's yours."

Condemnation looked as if she did not understand, and Louise continued:

"I do not speak of Douce. I speak of your husband. He is your husband;
he is yours, and you have first claim on him. You must not let this
young man come between you."

"But Sir Gervase would be angry if I bade him keep away."

Louise smiled at her navet.

"No, I shouldn't do that. But you have a power over Sir Gervase that no
one else can have--the power of love. I don't understand his reason for
being so friendly with this young man--it is that which alarms me; but I
do not think he would be so friendly if his wife loved him more."

Her words were designed to cut away the roots of any pretence, and for a
moment she wondered if Condemnation would be hurt by them. But she was
not hurt, neither did she pretend: she answered plainly:

"I do love him."

"I know you do--but does he know it?"

"As much as he wants. But he doesn't want me much."

Her tears were flowing quietly now. Louise rose from her chair, crossed
the room to her and put her arms round her as she sat disconsolate.

"Sweetheart, forgive me--but does he never come to your bed?"

Condemnation shook her head, shaking her tears into Louise's bosom.

"But he is your husband."

"Aye, I know--but he would sooner be my father . . . and--and he would
sooner have a son than a daughter."

"If you gave him a son . . ."

"I can never do that."

"But you must. It is wrong for things to be as they are. I believe you
could change them. I'm sure he loves you, and it may be through a
mistaken idea of your wishes that he never comes to you. You must show
him that you want him."

"I could never do that."

"Why not?"

"I should be afraid."

"Of whom? Of him?"

"Maybe."

"But you love him."

"Aye, I love him, but I'm scared of him too. If he'd come to me that
first night I shouldn't so much have minded, but he went out
instead----"

"Out? Where did he go?"

"I reckon to his temple in the garden. He goes down there and studies
hard o'nights. I've heard him go time upon time . . . at first I thought
he'd be sure to come to me, and I waited, and waited . . . but he always
went out; and now I wouldn't have him come."

She laid her head on Louise's shoulder, sobbing bitterly. The older
woman felt both indignant and compassionate. It was wicked of Gervase to
spend his nights in study instead of with his wife, and it was pitiful
too, considering how little good it was likely to do him. He sat there
reading and scribbling when he might be comforting this child--he
preferred making a son of his clerk to begetting a son of his own. Her
brother was crazy. A brief passion of anger seized her and made her for
a moment vow she would trouble no more about him. But the next she
looked down at Condemnation's dark head upon her bosom, and knew that
she must continue her efforts for her sake. It was shameful that she
should be like this, a mere child in her own house. Of course in a
measure she was to blame. She must have let many chances slip. Yet
perhaps it was unreasonable to look for the wiles of experience in such
a young thing--a young English thing, too. Condemnation had no coquetry,
no practised allure. Well, such things must be added to her
accomplishments, that was all--more lessons for her to learn. . . . But
she would not trouble her any more with them now. She must move surely
and carefully in her preparation of such delicate ground.



                                  6

In a day or two Condemnation was happy again. Her conversation with
Louise had been like the opening of a wound, but now once more the wound
was only a scar. She still had her fears and her distrusts, but it was
comforting to know that the kind and clever lady shared them: her
understanding seemed to hold a measure of protection.

Condemnation now had her own ways in the house, and they were not all
known to Louise. Realizing how much of her time must be spent in the
drawing-room with her lute or her embroidery frame, how little her dear
monitress approved of her lonely roamings in the woods or her horseplay
with the girls, she had reverted to her old habit of wandering out at
night or in the early morning: Spring had come with its freshness of dew
and stars, and the fields and woods she loved were no longer shut away
from her at night in darkness and the howling wind. She could go out
into them in the early morning when colour was first awake, and the
glades were clothed in lightless green, with pale streaks of rose and
yellow piled on the sky behind them.

She would wander up into those failing woods, where the tallest trees
were already gone, and look down over the bare hillside where the stumps
rose like dead wooden Aetnas . . . all the way down to the red eye of
the furnace, gleaming among the slag heaps and cinder heaps that stood
round it now as tall as itself. Some of the oldest cinder heaps had
become covered with dust and soil out of which had budded small plants
and flowers, with here and there a young tree among them, a tiny oak or
apse, seeded by the wind.

Often she would go down to the furnace and wander among these blossoming
slag heaps and fill her hands with little fragile flowers fed on the
fire's leavings. She was always careful to avoid the times when she
thought William Douce would be there; to shun him she would creep and
scramble among the hills, not taking the river path till it had run
beyond the track that came from La Petite Douce. But once she had been
surprised to meet him all the same, to see him coming as if from the
temple. He looked pale and hollow-eyed, and she wondered if he had been
working at the furnace all night and then walked out by the river to
cool himself. A hurried and not very cordial greeting passed between
them. She was both surprised and annoyed to see him, but it did not
occur to her to wonder what he thought of her, roaming about the country
when she was supposed to be in bed.

Once or twice when she passed the temple she looked in, and smelled
respectfully the smell of books. She greatly revered her husband's
studies, even though they had deprived her of his society. Indeed, she
sometimes thought that if she had been a properly married woman she
could not come out like this to wander where she pleased while the rest
of the house was asleep. She wondered how long Gervase studied--she
never heard him come in, but she knew that he came in before she went
out, while she was still asleep, because the little side door they both
used was always fastened on the inside. The servants knew that she
sometimes went out early, but she did not think they knew about Gervase.



                                  7

Sometimes she went out at night instead of in the morning, but not so
often, because she was afraid of Galloping Kate. The people of Leasan
said that on windy nights you could hear and sometimes see Kate Alard,
sister of Simon Alard the Popish priest, galloping up Starvencrow Hill
to Superstition Corner. The legend was that she had set out to warn the
recusant Tuktons of that day that a raid was planned against them, but
had arrived too late, to find the Mass-house already beset and in
flames. Then she had ridden to Chichester and died of the plague . . .
and many of the folk round Superstition Corner had seen her setting out
on her vain quest, on a great black horse whose eyes were balls of fire,
with fiery horns coming out of her hair and lighting up her face.

Condemnation was very much afraid of her, and never went out at night
unless it were fine and still, for Kate rode only in the wind. The May
of that year was particularly fine, and the moonlight tempted her to the
river. The peacock room seemed shrouded and stuffy in such weather, and
often after a few hours' sleep she would escape into the moonlight and
enjoy an hour or two in the silver world. On these occasions she did not
use the little side door, but her own window, which was only ten feet
from the ground, letting herself down by the stout ivy that covered the
wall. Louise would have been horrified to see her pupil scrambling down
the wall like a cat, but Condemnation was afraid of meeting Gervase if
she used the door, for often at such a time he would still be out.

One night she thought she would go to the temple and watch him at his
studies. It was only just after midnight, and as she had heard him go
out she knew that he must be there. She avoided the path beside the
river in case she met him on it--he would scold her if he found her
wandering at such an hour and perhaps he would tell Louise. So she crept
by the tall reeds that bordered the dyke a hundred yards away, and came
to the _templum_ from the south, across a field of marshland washed
white by the moon.

As she drew near she was surprised to hear a voice--he was not alone,
then. Whom could he be talking to there among his books? Her mind
immediately leapt to William Douce--not that she could think of any
reason for his being there, but she could not imagine who else it could
be. Perhaps he was teaching William Douce, as he had once taught her . . .
at such a thought all her jealousy flared up, filling her with anger
and pain. She did not ask herself why he should teach him in the middle
of the night when they spent a good part of the day together; jealousy
had deprived her of reason and of any further doubt.

She ran stealthily to the temple and leaned against the wall under the
window. She would listen before she looked. But directly she heard the
voice so close she knew that it was not Gervase's or Douce's . . . the
revulsion of feeling almost made her weep. Whose, then, could it be? It
was low-pitched and monotonous and rather sad; it was difficult to
distinguish what it said, but now and then a phrase would reach her,
though, without enlightenment, for it was full of long and strange
words. Then suddenly she caught Gervase's voice--high, cracked and
eager: "But if you tell me that, then you're putting all power into my
hands--you're revealing to me the signature of all natural things." The
voice resumed: "But you must first . . ."

Condemnation was bewildered. Whom could he be meeting here? Why were
they talking together like this at dead of night? She remembered tales
she had heard while she was with the Harmans, about the Squire being
anxious to bring King James back again and concerning himself with
Jacobite plots. Perhaps this was a Jacobite plot . . . she remembered
the words Power and Signature, which might have something to do with the
King. . . . In that case the man who talked with him was most likely Mr.
Parsons, whom everyone said was a Jacobite agent as well as a Popish
priest. . . . She wished she could see them. The window, which was a
simple casement, stood ajar and she was able to put in her finger and
just move the thick curtains. But there was no light inside the room.
They were sitting in the dark. She wondered why.

Then suddenly a strange and surprising thing happened. A blue light
shone between the curtains. She could see through the gap between them
how it was lighting up the room, showing two heavy human shapes sitting
at the table. One of them seemed to be rubbing something under the table
. . . then he seemed to be struggling--rolling his head upon the table
and beating it with his hands. Then he straightened himself with a deep
sigh, and at that moment Gervase struck flint and steel and lit a
candle. Then she saw that the other man was William Douce after all.

She flattened herself against the wall, staring with fixed eyes through
the gap in the curtains. She had no scruples about
eavesdropping--throughout her short, turbulent life she had found it
too useful a form of self-defence to be discarded for any moral reasons.
At Newhouse she had crept about like a cat and listened like a hare. She
was cat and hare to-night.

William Douce spoke in his natural voice.

"Did they come?"

"Aye, Araziel and Batrael. I spoke with both of them. Will, they asked
me if I wished to speak with the dead."

"And you answered?"

"That I should dearly love a word with my brother Charles if such could
be procured without the sin of Endor."

"Which doubtless they told you could be done."

"They said it should be at their pleasure. But it must also be at your
pleasure, Will. When can you sit with me again?"

"I can't come again this week."

"But it's only Tuesday. I pray you, Will . . ."

A conversation followed which Condemnation scarcely listened to, for her
eye had caught the pentagram upon the floor, also something smoking in a
small cup on the table. Gervase and Douce murmured together, and it
seemed to her that her husband's tones were those of supplication. Once
he lifted his voice and she caught a whole sentence: "If you will meet
me Friday, you shall have your way about the culverins--that is, should
the spirits approve, as they doubtless will." What did he mean? She
could not hear Douce's reply, but she saw him put out his foot and wipe
out the sign upon the floor.

Then an unreasonable terror seized her. For a moment she could not move,
but remained cowering, blotted against the wall. Then her limbs found
power, and she leaped like an animal into flight, strangling the screams
that bubbled in her throat as she ran beside the river. She did not know
whom or what she was afraid of, whether of Douce or of Gervase, or of
Galloping Kate. All she knew was that something dreadful had happened
and had plunged her into such fear that even the fire of her jealousy
was quenched in it.



                                  8

When she came to Conster she was in too much of a shiver to climb the
ivy to her room, but went in through the door, which of course was still
open and without danger, since she had left Gervase far behind her in
his temple. She was sweating and her heart beat frantically, but neither
the sweat nor the heartbeat seemed to come from her running. They were
part of this possessing terror which pumped at her heart and crept upon
her skin. She could not shake it off, even now that she was safe home
again--home, that is, but how safe? . . . Ghosts can follow you . . .
and she turned round, fearing to see Galloping Kate behind her in the
hall, staring at her with her horned deer's face. She could see nothing
but the moon, swimming high across the blazoned staircase window; then
suddenly a shivering crack seemed to go all through the house, as if its
ancient timbers were squeezed together in a giant hand. Panic
overmastered her and twisted her nature. It was no longer enough merely
to run somewhere, she must run to someone, to some comforting human
refuge. She forgot to creep, but clattered up the stairs crying for
help.

"Help! Help!"

Her voice went before her into Louise's parlour, where she sat with Mr.
Parsons, who had arrived unexpectedly an hour ago. The next moment they
heard her burst into the adjoining bedroom, and Louise ran in to save
her from the terror of finding it empty.

"My dear, my dear, what has happened? Tell me . . . what is it, then?"

She led her into the parlour and Mr. Parsons poured her out a glass of
cordial, which she drank without appearing to notice him. She then grew
a little calmer, and sat in one of the chairs, staring with huge,
frightened eyes at them both.

"Now, child," said Louise, "cannot you tell us what has happened?"

For one unhappy moment she thought that it was Gervase who had
frightened her, but the next she doubted it.

"Why are you dressed? Have you not been to bed? It is past midnight."

"No-I--I've been out."

"Out of doors?"

"Aye--to the temple."

"What temple? I do not understand."

"Where Sir Gervase works at his studying--I thought I'd watch 'un
there--but then I heard . . . I saw . . ." terrified sobs strangled her
voice.

"What! the Squire isn't hurt? . . ." "Tell me, has any harm come to
Gervase?" cried Parsons and Louise together.

"Nay, I know not . . . but William Douce . . ."

Once more she became hysterical and they had some difficulty in calming
her and still more in finding out what had happened. Though at the time
she had not been frightened at all--not even when the blue light
appeared--she could not now think of the scene without frantic terror.
That last moment of it seemed to have swallowed up the rest. For some
time she could only talk confusedly and they had to make what they could
out of the rags and shreds she gave them. William Douce and Galloping
Kate were mixed up together with lights and stars and tokens. There had
been a Voice and it had said . . . and Sir Gervase had said . . . and
William Douce had rubbed out the signs upon the floor with his foot . . .
and he should have his way about the culverins . . . and William Douce
was in a falling sickness, rolling his head upon the table . . . and Sir
Gervase had begged him to meet him a' Friday . . . and all the house had
cracked. . . .

It was Mr. Parsons who first pieced together anything like what had
really happened. He had his knowledge of an earlier conversation with
Gervase to guide him, also some rumours he had heard in Kent of Douce's
visits to Milkhouse Street.

"It was a magical experiment," he said to Louise, when her eyes turned
to him in perplexity. "Your brother has always been interested in magic
and I believe practised it when he was in France."

"He has never spoken of it."

"He has spoken of it to me. I understood then that he'd left it all
behind him, but had kept his books. I begged him to destroy his books;
it's a pity he hasn't done so."

Louise looked bewildered and disgusted. She had left France too young to
have heard much about the dark tide that was rising over it; but she
knew vaguely from a later hearsay that things had happened in Paris and
in Tours and in other large towns which had caused considerable anxiety
to the ecclesiastical rulers and disquieting rumours among decent
people. She found it impossible to connect her brother-in-law with such
tales as had reached her.

"I cannot believe . . . Gervase--he is strange, I know, but I know too
that he is not wicked."

"He may be deluded."

"And William Douce . . . how can he . . ." Then she remembered. "He is
just come from France."

"I know it; and I've heard that he's on friendly terms with a family in
Kent about whom there are the strangest rumours. He may have revived
your brother's early interest."

"Then he should be thrown into prison. Magic is witchcraft, and
witchcraft is a crime. . . . We should find a Magistrate . . ."

"It would be difficult to punish William Douce without injuring your
brother."

The momentary flare of her disgust died down.

"Yes, I know well, and no good would come of such a scandal. But all
this accounts for his influence over him. He is taking advantage of his
weakness--_c'est infme_. . . . Tell me, child--did the voice you heard
come from William Douce?"

"It came from 'un, but 'tweren't his'n--no, 'twere never his'n."

"But he could have feigned it--he may not actually have led my poor
brother into commerce with devils."

"There are doubtless," said Parsons, "as many devils in such deceit as
could ever be raised by the _De Incantationibus_."

"Aye, I know it--and he is determined to have his way with him--to rule
him. I have often deplored his influence; only the other day I was
lamenting it. But I never thought it would come to this. This is
horrible."

She shuddered. For the moment she was inclined to accept the necromantic
interpretation.

"Tell me what you truly think of it," she said to Parsons.

"I don't know what to think. It may be either way. The invocation of
spirits is a common form of magical art, and it would be easy enough to
feign results. . . . On the other hand, there are some men who yield
themselves more easily than others to demonological uses, and from what
I know I can well imagine Master Douce to be such a one."

"Yes . . . and he is equally the kind to plot all sorts of craft."

"Maybe. I should certainly think so. But if there was no spirit, how do
you account for the terror of this poor young gentlewoman."

"Oh, as to that," said Louise with a glance at Condemnation huddled over
her cordial, which was beginning to put back the colour into her face,
"she has been bred all her life to look for ghosts and goblins, and to
see them in every moving shadow or patch or moonshine. Why, to-night,
she is more full of Galloping Kate than of William Douce--poor Kate
Alard, who died in the true religion and is now in heaven, but whom the
villagers must see galloping round their houses with horns on her head.
This place is well named Superstition Corner."

Parsons sighed.

"How long will it be before men realize that superstition comes of the
defect of religion rather than the excess of it . . . ? Well, be the
facts as they may, William Douce is no true servant to your brother.
Whether he intendingly deceives him or impiously encourages him in
abominable arts, he does evil and devils are about."

"Yes, I know it well, and her ladyship and I have talked of it--of his
influence, that is to say, for till just now we neither of us knew
anything further. But we can do nothing. At least"--with a piercing
glance at Condemnation--"I cannot."

"I will talk to him myself if you wish, but I doubt if he'll hear me."

"I doubt it too. He has always been obstinate--it is almost impossible
to make him hear reason on any subject he has close at heart, though I
have been able sometimes to persuade him in small matters."

"No doubt this is the lady," said Mr. Parsons, with a kind little bow
toward Condemnation, "who will be able to persuade him in a larger
matter."

"Yes," said Louise grimly, "it is she, and she only. Do you hear that,
child?"

Condemnation nodded.

"You must beg him, for your sake," said Parsons, "never to touch such
things again."

"But I dursn't . . . no, I'd never dare tell 'un what I've seen."

"You will have to tell him," said Louise, "unless you are resolved never
to be a wife, but always a child in the house--William Douce's younger
sister."

Her words bit, but Condemnation was too stricken to cry. Louise came
over to her and took the empty glass from her hand.

"Come, my dear, you are better now. You must go to bed."

"You'll come with me, Ma'am?"

"Yes, I will come with you, but I cannot stay, for I have business with
my friend here--important business."

Condemnation rose reluctantly, and Louise drew her arm through hers.
Together they went down the great empty staircase, glassy with
moonlight.



                                  9

Once inside the peacock room, Louise lit all the candles, but still she
could not drive the shadows from the corners nor calm the terrors of
Condemnation's mind.

"Have you never learned to pray, child?--_libera nos a malo_ . . .
deliver us from evil."

But Condemnation could not see much comfort in prayer. She dreaded the
moment when Louise would turn and leave her, and delayed as much as
possible the undoing of her gown. But Louise was in a hurry to go back
to Mr. Parsons; it was not right that she should sit all night with him,
and yet she must not let him go till he had heard all there was to tell
of this important matter which involved the saving of a soul. His
unexpected coming had seemed to her an answer to her prayers--her
prayers for one at present right outside the house, who yet might find a
blessing in it.

"Come, my dear, let me untie that string--you fumble so."

The gown lay in a golden cheese round Condemnation's legs.

"And now your petticoat."

The girl whimpered a little, but could not help herself. Off must come
petticoat, stays, stockings and shift, on must go that fragile
night-rail which made her somehow feel more bare than nakedness. The
tall mirror at the foot of the bed showed her to herself as another
ghost.

"Must you go, Ma'am?"

"As soon as you're in bed."

A door shut far away in the house. Condemnation cried out----

"Oh, what's that? Oh, don't leave me. Stay--I beg you, stay."

Louise felt angry with her.

"Don't be a fool. It was only a door."

"But I hear footsteps."

"It is only your husband coming in."

A resolve came to her--her mind was suddenly full of it. She pushed
Condemnation into the bed and drew the bedclothes over her.

"Call him, child. Call him to come and comfort you."

"Nay, nay----"

"But you must. Here is someone who can stay with you, who ought to stay
with you. Call him."

But the girl remained dumb. Her great eyes stared with mingled fear and
obstinacy, while Gervase's footsteps crossed the hall to the stairs.
Louise lost her temper. "_Si tu le perds maintenant, tu es
infme--infme_."

Condemnation could not understand the words, but she read their import
in the face stooped close to hers, flushed and grimaced with anger. The
next moment Louise spoke in a language she knew well enough.

"If you don't call him, and tell him you're frightened, and ask him to
stay with you, I'll pray Kate Alard comes in at the window and pierces
you with her horns."

Condemnation screamed loudly--not only at the words, but at the sudden
change of her protector into a threatening fury. Gervase's footsteps
halted on the stairs.

"Oh, help! help! save me."

Louise slipped out, and on the landing met her brother.

"Gervase! Praise heaven you're here! the child's in a fit--scared to
death. Go to her and comfort her, for God's sake."

Looking into his eyes she had a moment of fear that he had gone too far
for Condemnation to reach him. But the next she knew that he was still
there. Something seemed to rise to the surface of his lost eyes. He came
to himself.

"What is it? My little bud?--what--who has scared her?"

"Go in to her--I cannot stay."

She pushed him into the room, where shadows and candlelight made a
shuttling _chiaroscuro_ round Condemnation sitting up in bed, the covers
held to her chin, her mouth and eyes three round O's of terror. Sobs
rose and fell in her breast but did not move her lips, which remained
fixed in that frozen O.

"My poor little love--what is it? My sweetheart--my poor little rogue."

Louise shut the door behind him, and as she did so she heard
Condemnation's sobs rise up into a storm of screams and weeping. The
next moment they were still--stifled . . . Gervase must have taken her
in his arms.

She suddenly felt sobs rise in her own breath--anger had made her weak.
But she would not cry. Instead she began to laugh--at first quietly to
herself, then more loudly as she went upstairs. So this was what had
come of all her careful plans and preparations, her resolution to tread
delicately on delicate ground. She had practically forced Condemnation
into her husband's arms. She had behaved like a fury, an insensitive
fury. She had kicked and trampled her way over the delicate ground,
which she saw now was not delicate at all, but common soil, requiring
the plough and the harrow for its good estate.



                            CHAPTER SEVEN

                                  1

If William Douce had not regarded astrology as an exploded science, fit
only to be trotted out when his master took fright at more modern
methods, he might have seen all that followed in terms of declension and
occultation--Uranus declinant, occulted by Venus in the second house,
Sol rising. That lonely planet whose contrary course troubles the Solar
orthodoxies was certainly declinant in the heavens of the next few
months. But though he had concerned himself magically with many men's
futures, he had never sought to read his own except by methods of common
foresight; and nothing that had already happened had prepared him for
what was now to come. One night he had gone home satisfied and confident
of power, to find the very next morning that his power had been made
over to another.

That morning Alard did not come to the furnace, and when he asked for
him at the house he was told that he had gone out walking with his lady.
This in itself was surprising, but Douce did not attach any great
importance to it. He had set out after them, for he had matters that he
wanted to discuss, and the shock of surprise and disgust had been almost
physical when he suddenly came upon them in a grove of the woods walking
with their arms enlaced, their faces murmuring together. They looked
like a pair of lovers, and at first, before he caught them up, he
thought that the man could not be the Squire, that Condemnation had
played into his hands with some paramour. Twenty years seemed to have
fallen from Gervase Alard--his shoulders were upright, his legs stepped
proudly, and the sunshine had washed the sorrows from his hair.

Douce sidled away through the trees, and came as if to meet them down
the grove. They slipped apart with all the consciousness of lovers.

"Good morning, Will," said Gervase in much the same abstraction as
yesterday he would have said "Good morning, pigsnie."

"May I have a word with you?"

"Aye, sure, so it be brief. Pardon me, bud, while I speak to
Will."

His air, as he stepped aside, was of one interrupted in an important
matter; it made Douce lose his head.

"I came to say that I find after all I can meet you at the temple."

"Nay, not to-night. I can't come to-night."

"But there's an uneasiness about me which tells me that the spirits have
something to impart."

"Nay, nay," Gervase looked distressed and irritated. "I can't come
to-night."

"You may be the loser."

"How can that be? I tell you to-night's impossible; I have affairs . . .
and last night it was impossible for you too. You were stiff enough
about Friday last night--let it be Friday, then."

Douce could press him no more, and with an effort assumed his usual
subservience. He raised one or two points about the furnace and took his
leave.

In spite of what Gervase had said he did not expect the meeting to take
place on Friday. A cold sense of fatality oppressed him. By some means,
in the night, without his knowing, the heavens had changed. His master
was no longer his servant. He knew whose servant he was, but he could
not think how it had happened. He could not think why Gervase had so
suddenly fallen into the common ways of nature that were at enmity with
William Douce. Last night he had been in admirable subjection. What had
changed him? Had little Pity snatched him? She must have done so, but he
tried in vain to imagine the circumstances. Unless, perhaps, he had gone
too far and scared the old fellow, driving him for comfort into a
woman's arms. He had always been a little nervous of their experiments,
a little uncertain that the powers they conjured were not evil. Perhaps
it would have been as well to lead him more gently . . . he should not
have delayed so long with Brother Charles. But he had been obliged to
wait till he had perfected his memory and practice; he could not have
introduced a too faulty impersonation, or the old chap, who in spite of
his credulity, was no fool, might have found him out.

Well, there it was, and he would have to wait some time before he could
see what he would do about it. It had happened--what he most dreaded and
when he least dreaded it. He felt wretchedly unhappy, but not hopeless.
He still could not believe that Condemnation was the sort of woman who
would attach a man for ever. Some malignant trick of fate had thrown
Gervase into her arms, but she could not content him, and soon he would
be restless. Maybe there was nothing more in it than lust, and the whole
thing would blow over at once like smoke. If only there was no
child--and there might be no child of such a disparate union. . . . He
would be a fool if he did anything to show his resentment, for he might
still keep his master's trust and affection in spite of little Pity and
her power. She would rob him if she could, but there were things about
him that she could not take if he guarded them well. Let him hold fast
what he still had. He suddenly felt superior to all the world, and very
lonely.



                                  2

Gervase came to that spring out of a winter of mistake, out of a deep,
sorrowful cold that had driven him for warmth to a fire that threatened
to burn him. When Condemnation had called him into her room he had gone
to her trembling with a fear that was hardly less than her own--the
reaction that always followed his meetings with Douce in the temple.
They had been two creatures in fear, clinging and trembling together,
and the fear in each had been extinguished by the fear in the other.

Hours later, with the phantom dawn in the room, he had felt like a
swimmer who has gained a safe shore, while she felt more like a girl who
has slept too long, but is at last awakened. The dawn embodied itself
in, colour and sound, the peacocks on the walls came into the light with
faded blues and greens, and outside on the terrace their living brother
broke the bated silence with his hoarse delight, waking the smaller
voices of the birds into a chatter of fragile song. Gervase and
Condemnation looked into each other's eyes, and saw a changed world.
Time too was changed for them; he was a youth again, while she seemed to
have left her wild girlhood behind her, and held him in her arms with
the warm, sustaining carefulness of a mother.

It was all a little unreal to them, and dreamlike, as if they had passed
into the tapestry on the wall and become a part of its unearthly
gallantries. The change had been so unprepared, so overwhelming, that
they scarcely felt the same people as those who a few hours ago had
faced the world with such different eyes. Or perhaps they were the same
people in another world.

Then life grew real again, as sunshine filled the room, and they rose
and came into contact with common, everyday things. Their happiness was
enormously increased by a sudden sense of ordinariness, a delicious
homeliness that completed rather than removed its wonder. Embraces
settled into companionship, kisses into jokes; passionate vows became
much small business, talk and laughter. Their daily life soaked up their
love as the grass soaks up the rain, and sweetened it into many
surprising flowers.

In such a life there could be no place for the shadows of a false
science. Gervase only gradually came to realize that he could never
again conjure the spirits with William Douce. That first morning he had
genuinely meant to meet him on Friday, but when Friday came the idea was
revolting and impossible. In the first place he did not want to leave
his wife. For the first time since the death of Mary Ann Pye he lay in a
woman's warm bed and felt no urge to wander out into the night for any
purpose whatsoever. In the second place she had begged him not to go,
she had been terrified of the idea. He knew all about her visit to the
temple, and he felt ashamed of having frightened her so much. He would
not frighten her again--he would not leave her trembling at the thought
of him in session with the spirits.

But there was another reason why he did not want to go. He had disobeyed
the spirits, broken from their direction. Every time he slept with his
wife he defied the counsel of two fallen angels. It was a monstrous
notion, and a slow fear crept in him when he thought of going back to
that monotonous voice and its upbraiding. He had done evil to listen to
it so long, he must listen no more, and further, he must warn William
Douce not to listen. The _magistellum_ must be evil or it would not have
urged him against that which his whole being now acknowledged as right
and good. It seemed to him as if it had warped his tender hesitations
into distrusts and antagonisms, turned good into evil--it _must_ be evil
. . . and William Douce had to listen to a long dissertation on the
dangers and wickedness of magic, and an exhortation not to practise even
the more respectable forms of the art.



                                  3

Louise was sorry to find that Condemnation's influence did not extend to
Douce's dismissal. Perhaps she did not care enough about it. Since she
had won all her husband's love, she might not trouble about those scraps
the dog contrived to find under the table. William Douce was
self-effacing and pitiful; it was difficult for a woman to strike him
hard. He had faded out of her emotional life, and no doubt she did not
even imagine him as occupying a place in any other. What cared she about
the furnace? And indeed it was hard to prove that he did any harm there
or had any evil plans in that direction. The business was thriving under
his mastership--they had more orders than they could fulfil, even though
the Irish wars were ended; and owing to some wise purchases of standing
wood it seemed likely that the furnace would blow for some thirty years
beyond the span allotted to it by its former master. Louise was inclined
to think that Douce was the enemy of Gervase's soul rather than of his
estate; which was, indeed, she told herself, infinitely more dreadful,
but as the discovery of the nature of his influence had coincided almost
exactly with its destruction, the effect on her was not the same as her
earlier fears. Douce was even worse than she had thought him--he was a
devil; but a devil with his claws cut and his teeth drawn. She no longer
felt afraid of him.

But she would be glad when he was gone, when there was no chance of
meeting him on the river path or in the woods--his visits to the house
were much fewer, and he no longer brought his lute into the
drawing-room. Later on, she would talk to Condemnation about it, but she
would not trouble her now. She had done enough for her husband at
present, and should be left to enjoy her overdue happiness without
further contrivances.

Then something happened which made Louise almost forget William Douce
altogether. Early in June it became known that Condemnation would have a
child. Before the winter was over Alard's dying tree might have budded
an heir. . . . In that case, William Douce did not count any more. Any
hopes he might ever have had of recovering his influence were destroyed.
The poor dog had lost even his diet of crumbs. Louise in her delight
could almost pity him.

As for Gervase, his pride and rapture knew no bounds. The last of the
shadows that had pursued him out of limbo was now gone. He no longer
heard the moaning of that wind which blew from the Pays du Nant. The
blessing of heaven was set upon his love, and all his doubts and
renunciations had been evil. This was the power he had been craving all
along, the power over life and death which only love brings. He was
quite sure that the coming child would be the heir--no more daughters--a
son at last--Alard continuing at Conster, and Oxenbrigge pulling faces.
. . . Ho! Ho! for Oxenbrigge.

A younger man than William Douce smote him on the shoulders and asked
for his congratulations. Gervase felt twenty years old. He went
swaggering among the men at the furnace, one of themselves, the husband
of a wife and the begetter of a child--no longer a lonely, withered old
man writing dead theology in a temple . . . the temple should become his
wife's summer-house, where she should sit of an afternoon with her
infant on her knee--her foot upon the serpent's head . . . she should
sweeten the air.

He had all his books brought up to the house--to make a new chaos in his
library. Some, however, he did not keep; he said he had not room for
them, so he burned them--"De Incantationibus," "Veritable Dragon Rouge,"
"De Secretis Mulierum," and many a brown, crabbed _traict_ went into
the fire at last. He burned them down on the marsh beside the temple,
and the huge black scar of the dead fire became a part of its new
condition. Other parts were the rosy silk curtains with which he hung
it, the carved and gilt table and tapestried chairs with which he
furnished it. It looked almost too gay and as much a travesty of a
summer-house as it had been a travesty of a temple. But Condemnation
jumped and clapped her hands when she saw it, giving him all the kisses
and thanks he asked for, and hiding deep in her heart the knowledge that
she could never, never feel safe or happy there.



                                  4

Louise urged her nieces to take advantage of the new springtide in their
father's blood, and at about this time Ann won his blessing for her
marriage with Eustache de Champfort's penniless young brother Etienne,
while Bridget was even able to obtain it for herself and Saul Harman. He
grumbled a bit, but his grimaces were soon turned to grins and laughter.
If they wanted to make fools of themselves, let 'em: they were, after
all, only daughters. Etienne could never hope to be more than a
farmer--this new French immigration having, unlike the earlier one of
the sixteenth century, no trade to support it, must perforce turn for
sustenance to the land--but he was a fine young spark and bore a dozen
quarterings on his coat-of-arms. Saul Harman was not fine and carried no
arms, but he was prosperous and firmly established, and one day might
even be rich. No doubt the married sisters would be able to look down on
each other from different points of view.

The closer link with Exalted Harman which would be brought about by
Bridget's marriage troubled her father a little; but Providence at this
point crowned its favours by the old man's sudden pining and death. For
over two years he had taken pride in his rotting leg, but now the
corruption began to spread, with fever, to other parts of his body. Mr.
Horner came and declared that the precious limb must be sawn off, and
after much persuasion the patient agreed, on the express condition that
it should be embalmed and carefully preserved for the rest of his life,
so that it could be finally buried with him and thus secure the
integrity of his resurrection.

But the remedy came too late, and he died a few hours after the leg had
been taken off. It did not even have to be embalmed. Dr. Braceley read
over his mutilated body: "It is sown in corruption; it is raised in
incorruption. It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory. It is sown
in weakness; it is raised in power." Gervase would have liked to read
the Service instead of the man he considered an interloper; but Mrs.
Harman would not have it, and he comforted himself with the thought that
had he done so the neighbours might think he was officiating on account
of his relationship to the dead man. Whereas, of course, they were not
related at all. He refused even to let Condemnation wear black ribbons
for the man who was not her father.

It was the second time that death had overshadowed an approaching
marriage in the Alard family, and Bridget Alard wept more bitterly than
any widow at the thought that her wedding might have to be postponed.
But Louise decided that there was no real need for this. It was not as
if the mourning were in the bride's household, nor was it, she told
herself the same as when the head of a great family dies and his
hatchment is hung out over the door through which the newly married pair
must pass. Harman had been for many months half dead, and she, saw no
objection to his son's marrying quietly and bringing home his wife at
once to share his new life as yeoman of Newhouse. She also felt that it
might be a good thing to have both girls out of the house some time
before Condemnation's child was born. Her sister-in-law, though a little
sobered by events, was still unable to resist their occasional
enticements to fooling and roughness, and Louise was aware of the
unseemliness as well as the danger of such horseplay. Condemnation
should learn to be quiet; she must sit still and grow older--old enough
to be the mother of Alard's son and the future generations of an ancient
family. There were still a few things that Louise must teach her before
she turned to the settlement of her own affairs.



                                  5

Louise had always said that if ever the law should tighten against her
religion she would have to leave Conster. She could not stay there once
she had become a danger to her friends. During the slackness of the last
two reigns she had grown used to a certain measure of toleration, but
ever since the crowning of the Protestant Hero she had prepared herself
for change. And now, a year after the Battle of the Boyne and the
Pacification of Limerick, that change had come. As the new kingdom
steadied itself, it hardened against the religion which it felt to be
chiefly responsible for its recent troubles and which would stir up
those troubles again if it could. The law against Papists was tightened
almost into its Elizabethan severity, and Madame Alard, after more than
twenty easy-going years, found her faith proscribed and her chaplain
with a price on his head.

There were only two things that she could do in fairness to Gervase--one
was to forswear Catholicism, the other to go back to France. The former
was unthinkable, and she must force herself somehow over the brink of
the latter choice. For some weeks she had hesitated, hoping that matters
would improve, but in her heart she knew it was impossible that they
should. A reaction was long overdue and would probably run its full
course of proscription and persecution. Mr. Parsons on his next visit
confirmed her in this belief. He understood, indeed, that fresh laws
were to come before Parliament, and the English mission-field would
doubtless before long bear a new crop of martyrs.

Louise would not have hesitated had she been alone. But she had others
to consider, and now, of all times, she must be tender of Alard's
repute. She knew that even the local Magistrates, who looked back on a
lifelong friendship with the family, could no longer blink at Conster's
ways, and that if Mr. Parsons should ever be caught on the estate, not
even the Squire's own son-in-law, Austen, could save those who had
harboured him. He had been for some years a tolerated figure in the
country round Vinehall and Leasan, but now he must become as a priest in
the times of the Armada, gliding about at dead of night, ministering,
reconciling and absolving at the risk of his life--without even the
advantage of a secret hiding place, such as there had been at
Fuggesbroke Manor before it was burnt down.

She felt convinced that she ought not to involve Gervase in what was
definitely now a dangerous intrigue. It is true that no one would ever
accuse him of Popery, and he was completely ignorant of Parsons'
visits--the priest now coming at dead of night and leaving before dawn.
But there had always been a considerable Jacobite legend about him, due
to the wildness of his utterances on the subject of the non-Jurors, and
if Parsons were caught on his premises he might be involved politically.
As she could not live without her religion and yet must practise it only
at the risk of others, she felt that it was her duty to go back to
France.

But certain considerations withheld her, apart from her own reluctance,
which indeed now was daily growing less. . . . She began to see France
as a fair, free country where she could be happy in her life and her
religion as long as she did not go to it alone. But Gervase and
Condemnation would be bitterly sorry and hurt if she left them before
the child was born; and if she went now she would have to go alone. She
must wait, and finish her work. She had six months to wait for Alard's
heir--six months to work in, to travail for the birth of an heir to
another kingdom. . . . She smiled when she thought of those two births,
so dear and so different.



                                  6

Condemnation had noticed that de Prigault no longer
came to the house. Once she had questioned Louise, who had answered her
with such a firm evasion that she realized the subject was closed. But
her head was too full of other things for her to trouble about the
blue-eyed, curly-headed hero who had once taken up so much of her
thoughts. She no longer needed Gilles de Prigault to make her feel a
great and happy lady. Gervase asked after him once or twice.

"He shuns your Popery, Louise. There's a tide against you, my dear. I
hope you are discreet."

"Surely you are the best judge of that."

"I see nothing in this house to alarm me although I'm a Magistrate. I
shouldn't be suspicious but for the fact that Parsons comes no more. He
was but a common visitor, yet now he stops away as if he were a Popish
priest. Ho! Ho! Ho!"

"Maybe he disapproves of my Popery," said Louise demurely.

"It's likely, forsooth. I'll lay that he and de Prigault stay away for
the same reason. Ho! Ho! Ho! What do you think of it, rogue?"

Condemnation said nothing, not hearing his question in her preoccupation
with the fine work of a baby's coat that she was making.

"Eh well, eh well--I'm sorry our gallants are gone. De Champfort never
comes now, Ann is away with her sister, and since Harman took Bride, le
Jolie and the rest are gone off too. And as for de Prigault--we all say
it's religion, but I've an idea he stopped coming when he found my
little bud and I were so well together."

"I do not think so," said Louise.

"But I think so. What do you think, pigsnie?"

"I think he stops away for religion."

"But Louise is the only Papist here. He can still call on Sir Gervase
and Lady Alard. Nay, nay, I will have it that he cast his wicked French
eyes upon you--all Frenchmen are wicked, an't they, sister?--and would
gobble up a wife as a cat would gobble a mouse. But this little mouse
found a fine buck rat to defend her and Purree Tuzzee went off for fear
of losing his whiskers. Ho! Ho! Ho!"

He chuckled Condemnation under the chin and made her prick her finger.
There was a little spot of blood upon the baby's gown.



                                  7

About a week later, when Condemnation and Louise were sitting together
alone, the latter said:

"The reason de Prigault stops away is because his parents have taken
fright at his coming here."

Condemnation was surprised to have the subject so suddenly revived. She
had not thought at all of de Prigault during the interval.

"Yes," continued Louise, "they are Protestants of a fanatical sort and
they are afraid for him."

"What are they afraid of?"

"Of two things. That he should be reconciled to the Church, and that he
should marry me."

Condemnation dropped her work in surprise. Looking across the window bay
at Louise, she saw that she was holding her fan over her face as if the
sunlight were too bright for her.

Her sister-in-law said:

"I hope that one day he will do both."

"Ma'am . . ."

"My dear soul," continued Louise, still speaking with her fan before her
face, "when you first came here we were as governess and pupil, and then
as aunt and niece; but lately we have been growing more and more into
sisters, so I feel I may make you a sisterly confidence. It is hard for
me to have a secret always in my heart, and there is no one but you to
whom I can talk freely--whom I can trust. . . . Tell me, do you swear
that I can trust you?"

"I swear it."

Louise dropped her fan and smiled.

"Some would say I do wrong to confide in you, for you are a married
woman and have a duty to conceal nothing from your husband. But it is
only for a little while I ask you to hold your tongue."

"I'm not to tell Sir Gervase?"

"Not for a little while, because it would be bad for him to know all
that must be planned in his house. I am more anxious than I can say that
he should not be brought into any Popish plot as he would call it--he
must be able to lift up his hands in innocence, that is to say in
England, ignorance. But when all is finished, then you shall tell him."

"When will all be finished?"

"When I have gone back to France--with or without Monsieur de
Prigault."

"Oh, Madame, you're never going back to France?"

"I must go back. There was a time when I wished never to see France
again, when I hoped I should lay my bones here; but two things have
changed since then--two things which you may not understand. You may not
understand how it is that I who loved my husband so dearly can now,
scarce two years after his death, be thinking of another man; and I do
not believe that you can--that you have been brought up to understand
how strong religion may grow in a woman's heart."

Condemnation said she thought she understood the first better than the
second.

"Yes, child, for you know love; and yet your love, which is fulfilled,
might by its very fullness blind you, to the love that is hungry. If I
had not loved my dear Alard so much I might not now be loving another
man. I might have found comfort in my freedom, in having my heart and my
bed all my own. But because I loved him so much, because my heart is
empty as well as my bed, it is nothing to me to be free--my freedom is a
malaise, and I long again to be bound by love, to feel at ease and
comforted. My Charles has no need to be jealous of de Prigault--it is
only because I miss him so sadly and constantly that I must fill his
place. I cannot bear that empty place to which I stretch out my hands at
night . . . surely, child, you can try to understand."

For the first time in her life Condemnation saw that Louise was weeping.
The tears brimmed her large eyes and fell over the pale roses of her
cheeks, a tragic autumn shower.

"Madame, Madame, don't speak so--don't weep so. I know--I understand.
You're lonely. . . . But do you truly love Monsieur de Prigault?"

She had run across the window bay and thrown herself at Louise's feet,
kneeling with her hands clasped in her lap, her own eyes full of tears
as they looked up at her. The older woman wiped her tears away.

"Yes, child, I love him truly. It is different from my love for
Alard--rather, perhaps, it is more like the love I had for our son who
died; but it is love. I know you would say that he is young enough to be
my son . . . no, he is not that, but he is younger than I--much younger
than Alard . . . he is different--my love is different; but it is love.
And de Prigault and I will have a bond in our religion, such as my dear
Alard and I never had. I would not now at my age and of my free will
marry a man who was not of my faith. When I was young I had to do as my
parents bade me, and I did well; but I could not do the same again. It
is not only that I am free, but throughout these years I have grown more
closely into my religion till it is now a part of myself, and to marry
out of it would be to marry out of myself and against my nature. But
that, my dear, I'm sure you do not understand."

"I was happy when Sir Gervase read to me from the Order for the
Visitation of the Sick. I loved it above all things."

Louise patted her cheek.

"And if Dr. Braceley had read you the same? Nay, sweetheart, if I
thought you were religious I should not be talking to you as I am. If
you were a good religious Protestant you would be in arms against the
idea of another Protestant being reconciled to the Church, whereas now
I'll warrant you do not care one way or t'other."

"Nay, but I want him to be a Papist if you love him and will not marry
him without it."

"As I said, you are quite irreligious. So you may help me."

"How can I help you, Madame?"

"In many ways. There is no one but you, dear sister, whom I can trust,
though it hurts my conscience to bid you conceal anything from your
husband. But it is only for a short while, and what else can I do? He
would still come to the house, but seeing that his parents' fears were
raised I thought it better that he should not. In their eyes Conster
Manor is the den of two demons--a Popish priest who would pervert their
son to error and a Popish widow who would marry him. He is ready to defy
them and continue to visit me, but there are a hundred reasons why we
should have no open scandal over this. For one thing, you doubtless know
that Mr. Parsons' life is forfeit for every soul he reconciles?"

Condemnation nodded. She knew that much law and theology.

"So it would never do if the neighbourhood were to be raised about it.
Let all folk think de Prigault a good son and a good Protestant. But
soon he will be going every day to the furnace, as he plans to learn
something of iron-smelting, with a view to our future in France. He must
train himself to some sort of work, should he remain here or should he
go there, though I shall still have my jointure--my dear Alard saw to
that. . . . On his way to and fro he will pass your summer-house, and no
harm will be thought of your occasionally meeting and speaking. His
family's quarrel is not with you or with Sir Gervase, and such
conversation will seem only neighbourly and natural."

Condemnation made a face, for she did not fancy going to the
summer-house. But all she said was----

"Oh, dear Madame, must you really leave us, then?"

"How can I stay after reconciling a Huguenot to the Church? We depend on
Mr. Parsons' next visit. I do not know how soon it will be, but
certainly I shall not leave before your lying-in. Then you will not care
if I go or stay. Neither you nor my brother will need me when your child
is born. Perhaps you will even feel glad that I should find some new
happiness away from you."



                                  8

Bridget and Ann were married before the summer's end. Gervase gave both
his daughters away and saw them go off with their husbands to Newhouse
and to Eslede without any fatherly regrets. He had no need of any
daughters now, if, indeed, he had ever needed them. He would have a
son--perhaps more sons, perhaps, even, more daughters. Condemnation's
children would not be noisy and foolish like Mary Ann Pye's. They would
inherit the wisdom and dignity of their mother's noble blood.

It was the thought of that same noble blood that swelled his normal care
into anxiety as the summer changed to autumn and the time of her
lying-in drew nearer. He became obsessed with the idea that women of
noble blood bore their children less easily than women of a humbler
class. He was soon as convinced of it as of the fact that his wife's
blood was blue. Louise reasoned with him as vainly on one point as on
the other. She found herself indeed reduced to arguing that since
Condemnation's mother was indisputably a gipsy, the nobility of her sire
might be balanced by a sturdy maternal inheritance. She became a little
concerned for her brother. The improvement in him since the consummation
of his marriage, the better balance and rationality, which his happiness
had brought, seemed too easily disturbed by what was after all but a
common anxiety. She had hoped to find him more established.

She was careful, however, to hide her disappointment from Condemnation.
Indeed she told her that it was natural that he should behave as he
did--that men who loved their wives were prone to fret over their
childbearing. It was a good sign, for on the whole men were inclined to
take these matters too carelessly, and show no more concern for a wife's
health than a calving heifer's.

Condemnation submitted, as she always did, to Louise's judgment, but she
sometimes thought Gervase very tiresome. His anxiety compelled her to
forego her rambles, which she still enjoyed, even when she went heavily.
One day she had twisted her foot in the bracken, and this had filled him
with such alarm that he had dragged from her a promise never to go into
the woods alone again. She was to be a prisoner in the grounds and
gardens, with no further stretch of her legs than the path along the
river's edge to her neglected summer-house. She resented these
restrictions, for she had all the health of a young animal in a natural
situation, and at the same time some of the restlessness which comes
upon such an animal when its time is at hand. She disliked her
summer-house, and would not go there more often than she need; she did
not care for walking sedately in the grounds or for sitting long hours
with her needlework or her lute. It was in vain that she tried to coax
Gervase into letting her roam again, for he was not slow to reinforce
his own fears with the complaisance of his family physician. All he
would offer was to take her out in the coach, an ordeal she endured but
once, as the lurching and bumping and rolling of the clumsy vehicle made
her sick, and she was brought home as limp as any lady of fashion. She
tried more coaxing, she tried a little temper and tears, and once or
twice, when he was not there, she walked boldly out into the woods, only
to hear in a few minutes his footsteps coming after her. He would argue,
entreat and scold, and she would melt to his will, pitying and
resenting.



                                  9

The reason for his anxiety lay partly in the fact that it was now
seventeen years since he had undergone a similar experience, and that
then the temper of his fear had been conditioned by the temper of his
love. His fear for Mary Ann Pye had never endangered or even disturbed
his daily peace, doubtless for the reason that his love had never done
so. The coming of his five daughters had troubled him very little--even
the disappointment of their sex had been mild. "Let it be a son this
time, my dear . . ." but he had not minded very much that it was never a
son.

Now he was quite sure Condemnation's child would be a son. He had the
same conviction of it as he had of her noble birth. He was as anxious
for the son as for the mother; his extravagant carefulness was largely
due to his concern for Alard's heir and for his own life immortal in the
life of the family. All the vague ambitions that had flown about
uncertainly like bats in the darkness of the last years, that had slept
in the dawn of love, were now awake and alert again; no longer flying
like bats, but with the arrow-drive of the wild duck toward a foreseen
end. He would rebuild the house of Alard and live on in its
greatness--his immortal power would lie in those centuries when his
children's children's children should inhabit Conster and be rich with
the gold and silver of its forests and forges.

After all, what was the use of mere learning? He despised the thirst for
knowledge he had had once--the desire to get the wisdom of the magi, to
set the world spinning with the utterance of a hidden Name. He would
spin the world to a new tune, or rather to a tune older than man--the
tune to which it had turned round the sun for nearly six thousand years,
when the Lord said: "Let there be light"--the same Lord who had said "In
sorrow shalt thou bring forth thy seed. . . ."

His mind turned his most substantial hopes to wind; he could not sit
down and be quiet even with a normal anxiety. He swung between a
swollen, dynastic vision and an interior conviction of disaster--a
conviction that because this thing was so great and because he desired
it so much, it could never be. It was too great a thing to depend on
anything so little as his wife's body and the tiny, growing shape within
her--so small, so frail, so vulnerable. His son was there--Condemnation
carried no daughter in her womb--but how disastrously would he be born?
He foresaw death, madness and abortion. His dreams were full of a
terrible unfulfilment.

He found himself doing little, senseless things to avert the evil
threat. He yielded to impulses to touch certain trees, and would not let
any more of the old trees round the house be cut down. He fumed and
fussed about the furnace, fearing on one hand to venture too far, on the
other to cripple it for want of enterprise. He was no longer content to
leave its management to William Douce; too much hung on it now--his
son's future wealth. He must know all that was done there and interfere.
Douce had his fiercest struggles with himself as he forced his manner to
respect. He sometimes felt inclined to let Gervase have his obstinate,
silly way; for, after all, what could it matter to him now if the place
was ruined? But hope, like a strong, bitter root of dandelion or
monkshood, still lived on under the soil after its bravery of leaf and
flower had been torn away.



                                  10

December came, with gales and a great roaring of wind round the house.
Gervase seldom went to bed before two. He had renounced his wife's room,
considering quite rightly that his restless, wakeful fellowship
disturbed her sleep. Nothing must be allowed to tire or disturb her now.
She must be kept like a gem in cotton. He sent her to bed extravagantly
early, going up shortly afterward to see that all was well and to kiss
her good night; and he would not allow her to rise till he himself went
in to wake her in the morning. Condemnation, exhorted by Louise,
submitted with a fair grace. All would be well when the child was born,
and meanwhile she was often tired enough with sitting still all day and
doing nothing.

Gervase spent the first part of the night in his study. To distract and
reassure himself, he had taken up two things he had renounced--his
Treatise on the Greek Church and the Bohemian cards. He had found them
perversely stowed away together in the same drawer. He had hastily
pushed back the cards with their gaudy arcana, and rustled over the
crabbed pages where another man than he seemed to have written lifeless
irrelevancies. He had tried to flog alive a dead interest in _filioque_
and homoiousios, in the new Bishops of Thetford and Norwich, in the
Phoenix which would never rise. But it was all to no purpose--he could
not concentrate, and he no longer cared for learning, magical or clerkly.
The only thing he wanted to know was that his son would be safely and
happily born--the only knowledge worth having was knowledge of the
future: so he had taken out the cards again. And every night he divided
his time between the two. For an hour or so he would ponder the treatise,
struggle and groan, read a few paragraphs of Mr. Nelson's book, jot down
a few notes for a letter of congratulation to Mr. Wagstaffe on his
bishopric--then grow tired of it all, and creep down to watch
Condemnation while she slept and make sure that she slept well; then
creep up again and take up the cards, to read his fate and hers in the
language of wands and pentacles, cups and swords.

His card reading was not successful. The same evil signs seemed always
to pursue him, the good signs to avoid him. Night after night he looked
for a card which showed a man and woman standing together in a flowery
garden, with children playing at their feet, while above them in the sky
hung the benevolent sign that had brought them to such happiness, to
such domestic peace and power. Instead he always seemed to face the
darker threats of the Great Arcana--the Falling Tower foretold the ruin
of his house, a Man sat pierced beneath a tree, a Thief appeared and
grinned at him.

These menaces did not drive him to forsake the cards. On the contrary,
he was always shuffling them. If he had a few solitary moments during
the day he would sit down and throw out the pack, in the queer hope that
a sudden assault would change it. But any improvement was only
temporary; soon he was once more face to face with the dark reflections
of his own mind.



                                  11

One Monday morning Douce found him gloomily busy in this way. He had
spent his Sunday at Milkhouse Street, and came on his way to the furnace
to talk over a matter concerning the buying of woodlands at Odimere. As
was usual after his visits to Tarver he felt revived and strengthened;
all his journey home he had been conscious of that buried hope alive in
his heart, and it had been a leaf on the bitter root of hope to find his
master once more concerned with at least the fringes of the world he had
renounced.

Gervase had not expected him so early, but he made no effort to hide
what he was doing. On the contrary, he turned for encouragement and
advice to the man who he knew understood these things.

"I can't make it, Will. There seemed to be evil all around me. This is
the fourth time I've cast for the Six Cups, and twice I've brought up
the Falling Tower, and once the Hanged Man."

"I thought you had foresworn the cards," Douce could not help saying.

"Aye, in a measure I've foresworn 'em--but only in a measure. It's other
things I've foresworn. The cards are harmless enough, I'll warrant. At
first I did but play with them."

"Then they would but play with you. If you question, you must question
seriously."

"I'm serious enough now, God knows. Will, I'm afraid."

"Of what? Of whom?"

"Of no one, but for someone--for my wife and for her child. I've a
dreadful feeling that some harm is coming to them."

"Why should you? Lady Alard looks well enough. I met her going out as I
came in."

"Going out?--but she shouldn't have gone out. She'll do herself a
mischief, running about as she does. I've forbidden her to go beyond the
grounds. Which way did she go? I'd better go after her."

"She was with the Dowager Lady," said Douce hastily. He had come to talk
business, and did not want to have Gervase running out after his wife.

"Then all's well. Louise will take care of her. But I can't help fearing
for her, Will, when I see the cards. I never turn them out without they
show me some black sign."

Douce looked at him closely.

"Are not the cards superstition?"

"Maybe. Maybe. I can't tell. Sometimes I think these things are real
enough. Perhaps I should leave them alone--I don't know. But I find it
hard to put them down till they've given me a word of hope. If only I
could turn up the Six of Cups and see myself and my wife and my
children. . ."

Douce took the cards into his slim brown hands that flashed with rings.
Once again he felt that angry contempt for his employer that had
formerly threatened to wreck what remained of their relations. But his
better judgment still controlled him, and he said nothing. Instead he
shuffled the cards and slipped them out over the table; the Six of Cups
slid into position, surrounded by a bodyguard of rosy wands and golden
pentacles.

"There!--now, for you it happens."

"Because I've no fear. The cards reflect your fears for the future
rather than the future itself."

Gervase stared at the card, at the little group in its flowery garden,
gazing up at the mysterious kindly heavens. Then suddenly he pushed it
away.

"'Tis all superstition."

"Maybe," said Douce.

He watched Gervase with a queer kind of pity. The man was sunk in his
new life, bound by it; his happiness had become his hell. How good to
stand apart from such things, to know the love of neither woman nor
child, but to stalk like a cat through life, caring only for self. No,
not quite only for self--there were wounds and lacerations in William
Douce's heart which would never have been had he cared only for himself.
But he was glad to walk widdershins round the sun.

"I do wrong to meddle with it," said Gervase.

"Meddle no more."

"But I seek to quiet my anxieties."

"You'll never quiet them with the Bohemian cards, for if you turn up
evil you will still hope, and if you turn good you will still doubt, as
you've done to-day."

"Yea, alas! there's no certain voice."

Douce seized his opportunity. For some time he had thought he saw it
coming, but he would not allow himself to feel sure of it, even to hope.
Now suddenly he found it in his hand.

"Your brother Charles might speak more certainly."

"Charles!"

"Yes. Surely he might help you."

"How can he help me? It's I who should help him if the Papists are
right--aye, if some of our own divines are right. There's a school that
while it does not quite conform to the Romish doctrine of Purgatory,
which the Article justly calls a fond thing vainly invented . . ."

"Nay, I speak not of Purgatory," interrupted Douce, "but of the commerce
between the dead and the living."

"Ah--the sin of Endor."

Douce had expected him to say that, and betrayed no impatience.

"There are occasions on which it would be no sin."

"How so? What occasions?"

"When the dead entreat the living to hear them. The witch of Endor
called the Prophet unwillingly out of the ground. But your brother
Charles is anxious to speak to you."

"How can you know?"

"From my dreams. He has appeared to me more than once, nay three times
in sleep, and begged me to get him speech with you. I'm one whose body
the spirits know they can use."

"The spirits of the dead as well as the spirits of the fallen angels?"

Douce bowed.

"Even so."

Gervase began to stride up and down the room.

"That spirit which spoke to me through you during the winter was an evil
spirit."

"Why should you think that?"

"Because he spoke evil, he counselled evil. He warned me against my
greatest good--he gave me counsel which had I taken I should have been
lost in ruin."

Douce said nothing.

"How do I know that this an't an evil spirit using my brother's voice?"

"You could doubtless tell if you heard him speak. You're not to judge
the manners of an angel, but if you heard him, you could know very well
if this is your brother or not."

Gervase's hands were shaking with agitation. He swung round in his walk
and faced Douce.

"If I heard him--but why should he want to speak to me?"

"He has a message for you."

"Can't you take it?"

"Scarcely so, since he can use only my senseless body. You must be there
to listen."

"But I promised my wife--nay, I will never again go to the temple. It's
her summer-house and shan't be used for such purposes."

"There's no need for us to go to the temple," said Douce wearily. "Any
place where we aren't disturbed will do. If you cared for me to come up
here tonight . . ."

"Nay, it's the sin of Endor."

"As you will. But since you're in such care--since you would hear a
certain voice . . . I feel that he has some message that concerns your
lady--some counsel, perhaps, that might spare you both much sorrow."

Gervase began to tremble violently.

"What makes you think so? How can you tell?"

"Only from the nature of my dreams. I sometimes have strange experiences
in sleep. When I was in France my dreams were often useful to my
friends. Once I dreamed of the father of a certain _sieur_--a man I'd
never seen; he told me that he'd vital news to impart, and as soon as he
was able to use my body, told this gentleman that his wife was untrue to
him and plotting against him with, his servant--a plot which he was thus
able to discover, prove and punish."

Gervase shuddered.

"Nay, but your brother will have kinder news for you," said Douce.

"You think so?"

"Aye, I think it."

"Then, Will, I will hear him speak once. After all, it will be easy
enough for me to tell if it's really he or not. Besides, as you say, the
sin of Endor lies in the compulsion of the dead. I won't conjure my
brother. Samuel said unto Saul 'Why hast thou disquieted me?' But my
brother himself has asked to speak to me. No doubt he has news . . .
comfort, maybe--I hope . . . Charles always loved me."

"No doubt he sees your anxiety, and would cheer you a little."

Douce had no precise message for Charles to give. But that did not
matter now. All that mattered was that he had won back some--perhaps
much--of his lost ground. To-night, if all went as he hoped, master and
servant would sit together as before, Alard the servant, Douce the
master.



                                  12

He had never expected such a quick return. He had looked forward rather
to the inevitable reaction in Gervase after the child's birth, to that
time when Condemnation was bound to be a mother rather than a wife. But
now here he was suddenly with at least the promise of the old ways.

He had not expected it, and he still set his hope in the later period,
though it was good to be making a beginning now. Pray heaven the child
was a girl, then there would be some hope of finding himself again a
son, even though disinherited. . . . Sitting there with the old man,
comforting and cheating him together, Douce felt a sudden queer
affection stirring in his heart. For the first time he found that his
sonship meant more to him than a good inheritance. His youth which had
so unnaturally survived, now suddenly felt naked in his middle age, in
need of a father. After all, it was possible to love where one despised,
and perhaps, for him it was easier. . . . Out of contempt seemed to grow
a queer tenderness, and a perverse respect.

When they had talked over the matter of the Odimere woods, he took his
leave, after definitely fixing a time to come again. The old man now
seemed in good spirits, but Douce found himself doubting what would be
the end of it all. As he walked out of the house and took the path to
the river his uneasy temperament swung him into another reaction.
Nothing might come of to-night's business. He might fail with Brother
Charles and Alard might smell brimstone again. Then the whole thing
would be over--and that might be well. He was perhaps better away from
the old fellow now he was beginning to grow fond of him. It was an evil
and fatal thing to grow fond of anyone, as he knew from experience. Not
that he need cheat him any less, but he himself would suffer in a
hundred ways. Love was the sling in David's hand, smiting through the
forehead of the giant self.

Perhaps he had better give up the struggle and go right away--perhaps to
Tarver, perhaps back to France. Conster Furnace could never be his
whatever happened: it was waste of time to trouble with it any more. He
should go away and make himself rich elsewhere. Yes, he would one day be
rich, though he had already said that often and still was poor. A sense
of oppression and anxiety came to him, but he fought it off. . . . He
was a fool to be so suddenly dejected. After all, if to-night's
experiment failed, he was no worse off than he had been for the last six
months, and if it succeeded, who knew what it might not lead to? Alard's
son was not born yet, and when he was, his brother in alchemy might
still play Jacob to his Esau.

The thud of the forge came to him along the river's bank. The hammers
hit the damp air in a sharp uneasy rumour. It was like the beating of a
heart, the heart of the countryside, fiery and restless under its cold
body of earth, its still garment of woods. He lived in that heart, a
part of its life, its hidden threat. He had the power to devour and
waste all the woods. A sense of power and confidence came to him as he
heard the beating of the hammer--thump, thump, thump. . . . His own
heart beat with it, three pulses to every one of the forge's, a music, a
strong measure.

He drew nearer and could hear more than the hammers, as the smaller
sounds came into play, changing the rhythm--rub-a-dub--rub-a-dub. A
little farther on he would hear the whine and sigh of the bellows--the
lungs as well as the heart--and then the roar and rumble of the fire
itself, the hungry belly rumbling for food, for the meat of Conster's
woods, Mardersham and Wagenmary, Haneholt and Odimere, which must be
shovelled into it to stay its hunger.

He drew near the temple, waking sharply out of his fantasy as the door
opened and Condemnation came out of it. She stood with her back to him,
and he slipped among the willow growth beside the stream. He hoped that
she would walk away without seeing him. He did not want to speak to her,
for he hated her now, knowing that she no longer hated him. Then to his
surprise someone else came out of the summer-house--a man. At first
Douce did not recognize him, then he saw he was de Prigault.

So little Pity had been meeting a friend in the summer-house. She was
not so exclusively wrapped up in her elderly husband as would appear. He
watched them as they stood and talked together. Then suddenly the
Frenchman stooped, seized both the young woman's hands and kissed them.
He seemed strongly moved . . . oh ho! For a moment he held her hands,
then dropped them and walked quickly away in the direction of the
furnace. Condemnation turned aside into the rough grass beside the
track, and started running heavily toward the house. Douce watched her
disappear before he walked on after de Prigault.



                                  13

Gervase gazed at his brother, and his brother gazed at him out of
William Douce's eyes. It was strange how Will's face had suddenly become
Charles's. The tightly curved lips had relaxed into a pout--indeed, the
shadow of his moustache seemed to hover above them. The eyelids drooped
as Charles's had drooped, half lazily, half humorously--and the voice
was Charles's, grating a little like his own.

"Charles!" he cried.

The wind howled round Conster and roared among the trees. The candle
flames wavered in the draught that swelled the heavy curtains drawn
across the window. Lights shifted in Charles's eyes as they stared at
Gervase from under those lowered lids, and he could not be sure whether
it were a shadow or his mouth that moved.

"Brother."

"Aye, it's I. But is it you, Charles? Tell me, is it you?"

"It's I indeed."

"I'm all a dread lest it should be some evil spirit."

"Nay, the spirits would not be suffered to practice such deceit. I'm
come to speak to you as I used to come o' nights, as you remember, when
you were at your studies in Paris. You remember how I would come up to
you in the night, to find why you were still at your books?"

"I remember."

"And then, when we came here to Conster, I mocked you because you
studied no longer. I said you would be a clerk without learning."

"Aye, you said so, but it was untrue."

"No doubt it was--I tell you only to remind you, to prove myself. You
remember, too, no doubt, that night we spent together star-gazing at the
time of the comet."

"Aye, and I rapped you for believing in portents. Confess, Charles, that
I was never superstitious."

"I confess it willingly. You've studied magic as a science, and science
is opposed to superstition as light is opposed to darkness."

"How do you know that I studied magic? You knew nothing of it when we
were in France."

There was a moment's silence. Then Charles said:

"I know it now."

A queer freezing thrill went through Gervase.

"Brother," he asked, "how is knowledge come by where you are now? Are
all things seen in the Mirror?"

"Aye, in the light--all colours are there in whiteness, even as the
parts are hidden in the whole, and the many in the one. I can see all
diversity in the pure element."

Gervase was glad to find that his brother had learned something of Jacob
Boehme beyond the grave.

"Tell me, Charles, in what part of Creation are you now? The more
reasonable divines of our Church have always held that there is an
intermediate state or paradise between heaven and hell, where the
spirits of the just are in the hand of God until the Judgment Day--which
state is very different from the state of Purgatory, 'a fond thing
vainly invented'----"

"Nay, brother, I've no time for learned discussions. I shall soon have
to return whence I came, and let it suffice you to know that I'm happy
and have knowledge that I had not on earth. It's because of that
knowledge I would speak to you now. I would warn you----"

"Warn me! But Will declared your message would be one of cheer . . ."

"William Douce knows nothing of what I have to say. I use his voice, but
not his brain, and with his voice I would warn you----"

"Not of harm to my bud nor to her babe! Charles, I entreat----"

"You need have no fear for their health or safety. The child will be
safely born. My warning is against someone outside your house--outside
your nation. Beware of Gilles de Prigault."

Charles's voice rose solemnly above the wind. Gervase was startled.

"De Prigault. But how am I to beware? What will he do? Tell me."

"I can't tell you now. My strength is going. I will meet you again."

The resonant voice died slowly down, as if it had exerted its last
strength. Gervase sprang to his feet.

"Charles! stay! tell me more. Nay, don't leave me. You mustn't leave me
now. Brother! Brother!"

He stretched out his hands to Charles across the table, but there was no
response. William Douce's head fell slowly forward, and Charles
disappeared, as if a curtain had come down and shut him out.



                                  14

Gervase found that the tears were streaming down his face. He trembled
violently, and could scarcely wait till Douce struggled out of his
sleep.

"Will, my brother came--Charles! I swear it. I heard his voice--I spoke
with him a moment or so. He warned me against Gilles de Prigault of all
men--against Gilles de Prigault. And now he's gone after so short a
time--before we'd really spoken together. Oh, Will, I pray you bring him
back! bring him back."

"I can't bring him now--at some later time . . ."

"Can't you fall asleep again?"

"No, no; I'm exhausted."

As indeed he was, for this was a much harder trick than conjuring fallen
angels; he could not have kept it up for another half minute.

"Will, I beg you. . ."

Douce was surprised to see him so much moved. He spoke comfortingly.

"I'll sleep again to-morrow. Surely you've had enough for to-night, and
we can watch against de Prigault for four and twenty hours."

"But I would know what it's all about. He said it was not their health
or safety. . . . What can it be? What can de Prigault do to my wife?"

"Maybe the warning is against his morals rather than his malice. Who
knows but that a Frenchman such as he may have designs against your
wife's honour?"

"Against her honour!--the dirty frog. That he should ever dare. . . .
But I'll never believe such a monstrous thing. It an't to be thought
of."

"You yourself once told me that you thought he favoured her, and came to
visit this house for her sake."

"But now he comes no more . . . still, that may be his guile. He may be
scheming from without. I've a distrust of these Calvinised Frenchmen--I
know the French, and it's not in their nature to be Protestants. God
send my daughters may not repent of marrying 'em."

He spoke more calmly. Evidently he was comforted by the idea that de
Prigault plotted against the honour rather than the safety of his wife.

"My bud would never so much as look at him," he continued. "She's a true
and honest wife, besides loving me as I don't deserve. But maybe he
would affront her--scare and insult her with his vile addresses. . . . I
would that Charles had told me more."

"No doubt he'll tell you more to-morrow; and there's this comfort in it
that not much can happen between now and then."

"Aye, that's true. But we must keep a watch on the blackguard."

"That will be easy enough. I see him daily at the furnace, and will
observe him closely."

"Thank 'ee, Will."

Gervase walked over to the window, and drew back the bellying curtain to
stare into a blackness where two reflected candle-flames throbbed like
the lost stars. The wind muttered and sobbed round the window, and
suddenly a gust of rain came rattling against it.

"What time is it, Will?"

"Past one o'clock."

"Then it's already to-morrow. Let's go to bed. I feel tired--strangely
tired. I don't remember to have felt so tired. No doubt it was talking
to Charles. . . . Will, it was his very look and voice. My heart feels
heavy for him now he's gone."

Douce said nothing. He was troubled strangely by a sense of compunction.



                                  15

He had taken care not to be too explicit, not to form too definite a
suspicion in the old fellow's mind. He was not yet sure whether Charles
should further unfold himself to-morrow . . . all he wanted was the
ground to be prepared and ready should Condemnation's child ever have
curly golden hair and blue eyes.

He was himself quite genuinely convinced of some secret understanding
between her and de Prigault. Their behaviour during the brief moment he
had watched them together had been enough to show him that. And what
were they doing in the summerhouse that they should part with such
emotion? The idea that they were secret lovers seemed eminently probable
to William Douce--it fitted better than any other with his general view
of life and his particular view of the Alard household. It had always
been a surprise to him that a young and pretty girl like Condemnation
should be content with a queer old stick like Gervase. Her obvious
contentment and happiness were explained by the presence of a handsome
young Frenchman in the background. It is true that he had never
suspected de Prigault till that moment yesterday morning when he saw
them together, but the discovery was like a missing piece in a
puzzle--it suddenly gave a meaning to what had hitherto been
meaningless.

If there was not actually a guilty intrigue there was certainly a
flirtation, and Condemnation was not the sort of woman to stop short at
that. She was no fine lady, skilled and polished in the art of love,
enjoying the rapier play of ambiguous words and controlled emotions, but
a farm-bred wench of strong passions and simple desires, who would take
little pleasure in prancings and approaches, but set her heart on coming
as quickly as possible to the chief business of love.

He did not go so far as to say in his heart that the coming child was
not Alard's at all; but it might not be, and anyway there was no harm in
the old chap having his doubts about it. Brother Charles might throw out
a hint to-night . . . and meanwhile he would rigorously fulfill his
promise to watch de Prigault. That morning he went later to work than
usual, feeling that there was at least a chance of seeing him and
Condemnation again at the temple.

He congratulated himself when he caught sight of her walking ahead of
him on the riverside path. Doubtless she was on the way to meet her
fancy at the appointed spot. It was simple of them to meet so near the
house, but there was nothing much better they could do, with her husband
in such a state about her, and either forbidding her long walks or else
following her on them. Douce now had some explanation of her wanderings;
he could understand why he had so often met her coming out of the woods
behind the furnace, and why she had seemed on those occasions to avoid
him, sneaking off into the cinder hills or among the thorn bushes
between the forest and the river.

As he walked behind her along the path a kind of indignation seized him
that she should be so sly, that she should thus hunt alone like a fox,
and deceive a doting husband, and imagine that no one else had enough
wit to know what she was doing. As she drew near to the temple he
slipped behind a dogwood bush, his instinct telling him what her next
act would be. He was right. She stopped for a moment and gazed all round
her to see if anyone was about, then, seeing no one, she slipped into
the summer-house.

The next minute she was out again, to his surprise. The young man
evidently was not there, and she was not going to wait for him. Douce
watched her turn back along the path and wondered what he had better do,
as his dogwood bush, now stripped of all its leaves and berries, was not
enough to hide him from anyone passing close by. Luckily for him, she
turned aside before she had come so far, taking her quickest way home
through the trees. Douce waited till she had disappeared, then came out
and went on his way again.

When he came to the temple he went in, for it struck him that she might
have visited it only to leave some note or message which if he were
quick he might read before de Prigault came for it. There was nothing
to be seen, except the changes that had taken place since he and Alard
had sat there in doubtful converse with the _magistellum_. Douce had
never been in it since, and he looked round for the first time on the
curtains and gilt chairs. The books were gone, and the place from being
male had become female, silky and rosy . . . but there was a queer,
mouldy damp smell about it, as if the curtains were already rotting in
the river mists--a poor place, thought he, for lovers to meet in.

Almost the only sign of female occupation was a work-basket on the
table, and he at once began to rummage in it, feeling sure that if
Condemnation had left a note she would have left it here, since
evidently she did not keep it for use: The scissors were rusty, the
cottons damp, the silks discoloured and mouldy--the pins were rusted
into the pincushion. It must be her post-box, he felt sure, and the next
moment under a bobbin of tarnished thread he found what he was seeking.

He unfolded it and read:

"To-night at 1/2 past eleven. I will leave the littel syde door by the
parlor open."

The writing as well as the spelling was Condemnation's--her large,
uncertain letters covered the whole of the paper, sprawling uncouthly.
So she was having him up to the house--that alone could be her meaning
. . . "the little side door by the parlour" . . . he knew it well, he had
slipped out that way himself last night. The bushes grew right up to it.
He agreed that this disused temple-summer-house was a poor place for
love. But it was rash of her all the same . . . her husband sat in his
study till after midnight and then went to his own room, but suppose
that he should think of looking in upon her on his way. . . . No doubt
she had long ago patched up some excuse about being afraid of robbers
and locking her door. She was a cunning piece--but bold, too bold, and
now her boldness had caught her. He was not quite sure what he should do
with her now that she was in his hand--let her run the full length of
her rope before she hanged herself or draw the noose immediately round
her neck. . . . And should he expose her with his own tongue or through
the postmortem utterances of Brother Charles? He must think of all that.

He slipped the note back into the basket under the bobbin, and left the
temple.



                                  16

For a few minutes he hung about within sight of it, strolling to and fro
beside the river, and watching the hillside and the path. He fully
expected de Prigault to come and find the message. But time passed and
there was no sign of his great striding figure and golden head. Douce
walked on and found him already at the furnace.

So either, then, he had not expected Condemnation to come, or he had
grown tired of waiting for her and relied on picking up her message on
his way home. Douce began to feel curiously irritated by the thought of
that scrap of paper lying there. Anyone might come along and read it . . .
though it was not likely that anyone should enter that miserable
little kiln, serving successively as a magician's cave and a lady's
summer-house. It was a ridiculous structure, freak of an old man's
folly--and yet once it had been useful to William Douce, and now was
being useful to Gilles de Prigault. . . . Suppose Alard should go along
and look there for his wife . . . it would be as well if he did, and
found her miserable, wanton little note . . . the whole thing filled
Douce with a sort of angry contempt--contempt and hate for Condemnation,
contempt and love for the old man. It was a shame to have him so tricked
by such a slut. But she should not trick him long. The only question was
how long. Suddenly he decided that it should not be very long.

His own restless impatience may partly have led him to this decision,
and partly the thought of that note lying there in the work-box for
anyone to read. He had clapped his hand on a fine piece of evidence, and
he might not be so lucky again--or Madam might not be so indiscreet. The
chances were, too, that if she continued to be indiscreet someone else
would find her out and rob him of his importance. He did not want to be
either in himself or in the person of Brother Charles the mere
mouthpiece of common gossip. Besides, when the child was born, Alard
would most probably forsake his present habit of studying half the
night; he would return to normal conjugal ways, and even Condemnation
would not think of inviting her paramour to the house.

No, he would strike at once, while he had so good a chance. The lovers
should be exposed to-night, and after that all would be well with the
faithful servant, who would indeed thenceforward be no longer a servant
but a son--the only son. Condemnation's power would be lost for ever,
and he would receive a double measure of it. He scarcely tried to
picture the effect on Alard of his revelation, though he thought it
probable that the besotted old man would begin by doubting him--most
likely he would declare Brother Charles to be an evil spirit. But then
there would be the witness of his eyes . . . the accusation made with
all the mystery and authority of another world would be confirmed with
all the concrete and visual evidence of this.

A surge of happiness went through Douce's heart. Standing there in the
crimson glare of the forge, with the wind of the great bellows roaring
past him, the thunder of the hammers in his ears, he experienced a
strange and rapturous sense of union with his surroundings. He was at
one with the fire and the wind and the hammers; those other folk who had
tried to rob him were just the wood that was burnt and the iron that was
pounded.

It was many months since he had felt happy. Happiness was for him as
unusual a state as despair is for most men. He could not remember
feeling happy except on certain rare and shining occasions which stood
up in his memory like mountain peaks above the common jungle. Now he was
on a peak again, a fiery volcanic peak that thudded and roared under him
. . . the furnace roared like the dreadful Liparen; the hammers and his
heart thudded together. He was one with the furnace--a flame forging
engines of destruction. The furnace was a part of himself; it was his
and would always be his, William Douce's furnace beside the River
Tillingham. One far-off day the woods might fail and the fires die down,
but long before that day its name would be changed from Alard's to
Douce's; and even though he had no son to come after him that name
should remain living on beside the stream and in the folds of the
hills--Douce, Douce, Douce--after the furnace and the woods were gone.



                            CHAPTER EIGHT

                                  1

The night was thick and warm for November. The sun set clearly behind
the tufted ridges of Mardersham, but as he set fogs rose from the
stream, islanding the trees and thorn bushes in queer white pools of
vapour, which flowed together, till in the end the Tillingham Valley was
full of a ghostly sea.

Gervase watched the night come with a troubled eagerness. He longed to
be sitting again with Charles; he both longed and dreaded to hear what
he had to say. He felt, too, a strange thrill of satisfaction that once
more the darkness held this treasure for him. He forgot the other
treasures of darkness that he and Condemnation had counted together, or
if he remembered, it was as a memory of common coin and household stuff.
To-night his treasure glittered in the higher places of the mind; its
enjoyment was a dark adventure, not merely a soft, coddled yielding to
bodily impulses.

It seemed to him now as if a certain high stir had gone from his life
with the abandonment of magic. He had been happy during the last six
months, but grossly, contentedly, commonly so; he had, partly out of
kindness, partly out of fear, turned his back on adventure and sought
comfort instead. This change seemed to him now less a renunciation than
a surrender. The true philosopher and scientist will not be discouraged
by one unfortunate experiment. After all, he had reason to know that
lying spirits exist to deceive even the elect. His encounter with one of
them was no reason for abandoning all contact with that mysterious world
which holds perhaps the only answer there is to the only question that
is worth asking.

He had in this way reasoned himself into justification, and excitement,
hope and fear had done the rest. Condemnation had noticed all day a
change in him. He seemed both more and less anxious about her--less
careful of her physical state, less inclined to fuss over her meals and
rest and garden walks, but inclined to be grandiloquently concerned with
vaguer menaces, talking of wolves in sheep's clothing, the devil
appearing as an angel of light, Calvinised Frenchmen and what not, till
she was alternately alarmed and diverted.

She had always been unconvinced by his fears for her health, and had
obeyed him only out of love and submission; but these other dangers he
hinted at troubled her more--he knew so much more than she did, and in
her respectful ignorance she imagined he might know of enemies, folk
that would ill-treat her as they had ill-treated her before, out of
cruelty, or as she saw they had grounds for now, out of envy. Then when
he talked of Calvinised Frenchmen she had wondered if he could possibly
have found out about de Prigault. At first she had not known what the
word Calvinised meant, but she had asked him and he had told her.

"Protestant of a desperate sort, such as a Frenchman must be if he is
Protestant at all. Beware of all Protestant Frenchmen, my dear."

"But we've so many all around us, Sir, and your daughters are married to
two of them. Are we to beware of them all?"

"Beware of most of them, anyway, 'at's a good girl, and trouble me no
more at present."

So she had not troubled him, though she had been troubled herself. That
night they sat together by the fire and played an old-fashioned game of
noddy. It was his custom to play with her in the evenings now that they
were dark, and she eagerly looked forward to those quiet hours when they
sat opposite each other in the winking firelight, and she could watch
his face while he thought out his play, intent upon the cards. The
shadows seemed to bite his face out of the firelight, black upon red,
and sometimes she thought that he looked haggard and worn, and she would
feel anxious lest his cares for her should make him unhappy and resolve
all the more to do as he bade her and sit quiet and keep close to the
house.

To-night there seemed a suppressed excitement about him; he scarcely
watched his cards, and played at random. They were alone, for Louise had
gone up to her room after supper. Condemnation knew why she had gone so
early, and she too felt uneasy and excited. She wondered again if
Gervase had found out anything about de Prigault and Mr. Parsons, but
comforted herself with the thought that he was too kind to meddle even
if he had--though he might warn her to beware of Protestant Frenchmen.
Indeed, she hoped that such was the reason for his warning, and nothing
worse. A strange fear crept out of her heart and ran with her blood, so
that her hands felt cold and trembled as she dealt the cards.

"What is it, bud? Your hands are shaking."

"I feel cold."

"So close to the fire? Are you sure you're well?"

"Aye, certain sure."

"'Quite sure' or 'sure indeed'," he corrected. "When shall I teach thee
to speak?"

"Am I so backward?"

"Aye, indeed you are. But trouble not, sweetheart. You'll learn soon
enough when some things are out of your head. Are you sure you're well?"

"Aye, sure indeed."

"Then why should you be cold sitting here in the warm?"

"I'm tired, maybe. I'll go to bed when we've finished our game."

"That's right, go to bed, and sleep sweetly. But there's no need to wait
for the end of the game. Better go at once and tire yourself no
further."

"But we're within sight of the end."

"Nay, nay--go at once," and he put out his hand and swept the cards
about the table. "It's all finished now."

She rose obediently, though she did not want to have to go so early. He
kissed her on the forehead, with the grave abstraction of the first
weeks of their marriage.

He was glad to have her away. The game bored him--sitting still bored
him. His whole mind was in the future of the next two hours. He went
across to the window, pulled aside the heavy damask curtains and looked
out. He could see nothing, for the mist was right up to the house,
thickening the spaces of lawns and the shapes of trees into one close
blackness. But as he pressed his burning face against the coolness of
the pane the darkness became suddenly and strangely full of images. He
seemed to see a country he had almost forgotten. Surely, that was the
lane leading to the Chteau le Thisay and himself hurrying along it . . .
it was night, but a curious light hung over the picture, only in part
reflected from the wet surface of the road. He saw himself hunched under
his cloak, he saw the gleam of his sword beneath it, he saw the tall
shapes of the agrimony. . . . So he was back in that lost world again,
in the Pays du N ant, by the Clos de l'Eternel . . . and here was a
sudden cavern of light and the Abb Fournier faced him, sitting very
stiffly and severely, while his lips moved in warning though no sound
came from them. Then it was no longer the Abb Fournier but that other
Abb, standing with his back to them all so that they could see his
hideous black vestment with the broken cross upon his shoulders. . . .
Gervase found himself violently shuddering, and then realized in some
bewilderment that the light he was staring at was only the firelight
reflected in the window pane. There were no images in it now and he
turned quickly away from the window, feeling giddy and faint. What had
happened? Where had he been? Nowhere, of course, but just gazing out of
the window into an exceptionally black night.

He sat down by the fire and poked it, and a little flame rose up and
sang and comforted him.



                                  2

An hour later he sat facing Charles. To-night there was no wind to moan
through their discourse; only the heavy silence hanging with the mist
round the house, a silence of which he was as conscious behind the words
as last night he had been conscious of the wind.

For a few moments after that strange experience in the parlour he had
thought of giving up the experiment, of sending William Douce away and
going to bed. But gradually the sense of fear and confusion had worn
off, and he had realized the necessity of speaking to Charles to-night,
since his brother had a danger to reveal, a danger which might threaten
not only himself but his wife, his little bud. It was his duty for her
sake to speak to Charles again, and he must regard that disturbing
pageant in the window pane as some hallucination or phantasmagoria, a
trick of his tired sense.

So he had gone upstairs and found William Douce lounging by the last of
the fire, his long legs stretched out in their green trunks and hosen,
his green coat opening over a crimson vest. His hat was crimson, too,
and banded with green. He had brought colour and brightness into the
gloomy room where there were not enough candles burning. Gervase would
have lit more, but the young man told him, on the contrary, to snuff
some out, as a dim light was necessary to conjure the spirits.

"I like not that term, 'conjure'," said Gervase, "it smacks of the black
art, and to-night we aren't experimenting with darkness, but rather with
the light, since we beseech a spirit to come to us from the abode of the
blest, the Paradise of admirable souls awaiting judgment."

"Yes, Sir, it's true," said Douce, and asked for a glass of wine, as he
had a heavy task before him.

There was a decanter of Bordeaux wine put out with glasses on the table,
and Gervase poured some out for himself and Will.

"Thou art the spingtime to me, Will," he said fondly, "dressed in
green--thou speakest of the months ahead when we shall all be happy
together."

"I toast the spring!" cried Douce, lifting his glass. "And I--the
spring!" said Gervase.

Their glasses clinked and they drank.

Then Douce took a piece of chalk and drew a circle round the little
table at which they were to sit. In the centre he drew the Seal of
Solomon, and set the circumference with alternate pentacles and crosses.
All the while he muttered prayers in a language which had once been
Latin but was now the mumble-jumble of the magicians. Gervase did not
altogether approve of this, feeling that they ought to begin such
innocent proceedings with some open prayer--say, a godly collect from
the Common Prayer Book or a Psalm in English. But he let the young man
follow what had always been his custom, knowing that he felt himself
protected by it.

When the circle was finished, Douce sat down at the table and muttered
another prayer. Then for some minutes there was silence--the silence of
the two men merging with and losing itself in the silence outside. It
lasted so long, that after a while Gervase began to fear that it might
not be broken. Then Douce began to writhe and twist, struggling in his
chair as if he were bound to it and wanted to escape. This was always a
sign that spirits were present, and sure enough at that moment came a
voice, apparently from one of the corners of the room.

"The Ruler is here. Who desires him?"

"I desire him," said Gervase, repeating the formula. "I desire and I
call."

Douce sat up at the table and his eyes opened, rolled up and tucked
away. The strange voice came from his mouth.

"I am here. I have taken possession. What is your will?"

"That you bring me the spirit of my brother," said Gervase, trembling.

"Your brother is sad," said the Voice, which was not toneless like the
voice of the fallen angel, but thick and heavy. "Your brother is sad and
would sooner I gave you his message than speak himself."

"Nay," cried Gervase, "let him speak himself, for if he brings bad news
I'll need comfort from him. Let him come to me--I pray you send him."

"You have power over me and over him. He shall come."

William Douce's eyes rolled down, and his dead face came to life, tender
and smiling.

"Brother--dear brother."

Gervase stretched out his hands.

"Nay, touch not this body that I use. Dear Gervase. . . ."

"Dear Charles. . . . What have you to say to me?"

"I would speak of the furnace--Douce's Furnace."

"Why Will's? It an't his."

"It was his father's once and it would be justice to make it his again
if you have no son."

"But I shall have a son. You told me, Charles--you promised me last
night--that no harm should come to them."

"Your wife and her child will do well enough. But that's part of my
warning."

"Your warning?"

"The warning I gave you last night. Beware of Gilles de Prigault."

"Nay, Charles, speak not in riddles. Tell me plainly what you mean."

Charles's eyelids drooped and veiled his eyes, and his face seemed to
suffuse as if with shame. He said in a low, clear voice:

"It's hard for me to speak, for I love you, brother. But you've been
betrayed in your own house and your house too is betrayed. My poor
Gervase, if you will go down now at this moment to your wife's chamber
you will find her with Gilles de Prigault, the father of her son."

"Tchah."

A strange, barking sound broke from Gervase. He sprang to his feet, his
face suddenly crimson and swollen.

"Tchah! Tchah!" It was as if for some time rage made any other sound
impossible. "Tchah! Tchah."

Douce found it difficult to continue.

"It's for your good I warn you," he said, knowing that his voice cracked
nervously on its forced pitch, but hoping that in his rage Alard would
not notice the difference, "that you may know who is and who is not your
friend, your son . . ."

"Aye, and one thing I know is that you aren't my brother Charles. Only a
fiend would thus dare to slander the purest soul alive. Be gone, vile
spirit!" and seizing one of the two candles that dimly relieved the
darkness, he threw it with its heavily chased candlestick at William
Douce's head.

Luckily it missed him by some inches, but the young man saw the
advisability of coming out of his trance. He was throwing a preliminary
struggle when Gervase, still barking with rage and taking these
convulsions for a direct manifestation of Satan, rushed upon him and
seized him by the throat, overturning at the same time the other
candlestick and plunging the room in darkness.

"Nay, now I have thee, now I have thee! Miserable Asmodeus! Abominable
Beelzebub! Be gone! Be gone! I'll throttle 'ee out."

They fell about the room together, Douce too nearly strangled to speak,
and able to defend himself only by spasmodic movements that helped
increase Alard's conviction that he wrestled with the Prince of
Darkness. For a moment he thought that he was lost--his powers were
failing--his faculties were growing dim, leaving as the last dregs of
consciousness a picture of cinder-hills like mountains reflected in a
river and a sense of ludicrous frustration. . . . Then as his body,
deprived of its ruler, rose suddenly to automatic frenzy, he was free,
gasping in the merciful air, and able to cry--"Master! Master! it's only
me--spare poor Will."



                                  3

Gervase came to himself. He felt a warm, smooth, pulsing human throat
under his hands and snatched them away. In the darkness he heard Will
gasp.

"Nay, forgive me," he murmured, "in my rage against that invading demon
I forgot he wore thy shape. Have I hurt 'ee, Will?"

"It's but a trifle."

Douce fumbled for the tinder-box, found it and struck a light. He felt
sick with rage and pain. Who would have thought the old mountebank would
behave in such a manner? For a moment it almost seemed to him as if his
well-laid plans were spoiled. The old madman would sooner believe
himself in communication with the devil than that his snow-white blossom
was a whore. The old fool. Having doubted a supernatural revelation
would he next doubt the evidence of his senses? Douce felt injured in
mind as well as in body.

"Forgive me, Will," repeated Gervase, reading his silence, also the wry
look on his face.

"Nay, there's nothing to forgive. I shall recover presently."

"Have a glass of wine."

He poured out some wine for both of them, and again they drank together,
this time without any toast.

"I should have remembered that he wore thy shape," repeated Alard, "but
it was a demon--a demon from the blackest hell that had thee. And yet
last night I vow it was my own brother Charles."

"Remember that I know nothing of what has happened."

"Aye, I'd forgotten that too. A demon came--a foul demon--and took
possession of thee. I would have choked him out."

"Are you sure, Sir, that he was a demon? From past experience in this
art I know that I should now have some inkling--some remaining sense of
corruption--had I been used, even for a moment, by any infernal power.
What name did he call himself?"

"He called himself my brother Charles. But I'll swear it wasn't he; my
brother would never have spoken such foulness . . . such abominable
leasing. . . . Will, I can scarcely bring myself to tell you what he
said."

Douce said nothing. He sat nursing his injured throat, knowing that
Gervase would certainly tell him everything.

"He spoke against my wife," continued Gervase, "against the best and
purest being that ever lived. Oh, Will, I shouldn't have come back to
this, for it has always been the same. The spirits have always warned me
against my little one."

He bowed his head; then an evil question came to him, and he shuddered.

"I thought," said Douce, "that last night they warned you against
Monsieur de Prigault."

"Aye, and to-night. The impious accuser said . . . oh, Will, how shall I
tell you?--he said that de Prigault is the father of my wife's son."

The breath hissed sympathetically between William Douce's teeth.

"Yes, he dared to utter such a lie. And he said more in his blasphemy.
He said that if I went down to her now I should find him with her. I--to
whom she has been as a Vestal virgin for the past three months, I who
have respected her as I would respect a holy temple . . . he asks me to
believe she has this man with her _now_. . . ."

His voice dropped heavily on the last word. He sat with his hands
clenched and trembling between his knees, his eyes staring into the
darkness behind the candle flame.

"Well, you can go down and prove her innocent."

"I have no need of proof," said Gervase loftily.

Douce could have kicked him.

"I tell 'ee, Will, she's been my wife for eighteen months, and I tell
'ee she's like a lamb in her innocence. . . . And yet they're all
against her--the spirits are against her. Oh, tell me, Will, why all
that world of light's against her."

"You yourself have said it's a world of darkness."

"Not entirely--I'll never believe it. But there are evil spirits that
come, and one came to-night. Oh, Charles, that you should fail me . . .
why can't I be sure even of you?"

"Both your brother and to-night's visitor, even if they weren't the
same, gave you the same warning."

"Against Gilles de Prigault. Aye, but Charles said nothing of my wife."

"He lost his power before he could say more."

"What! you'd never tell me that if he could have stayed he'd have
injured her like to-night's fiend? You'd never dare . . . Will, I'd not
take it even from you."

Will forced himself to patience. He saw that he must coax Gervase as he
would a child, and again he felt that peculiar fondness rising in his
heart, that affection with its strong roots in contempt which had made
these days of his revived power so different from its lost beginning.

"Nay, I would never say such a thing," he answered sweetly. "All I wish
is to quiet your mind both in regard to your wife and in regard to the
spirits."

"My mind is quiet in regard to my wife."

But Douce knew that it was not. He saw that in spite of himself, the old
fellow had been upset. He imagined all sorts of things, though probably
he himself did not know what. His protests owed their very violence to
the fears they concealed. There had been a Question.

"I would quiet it in regard to the spirits too."

"Nay, but thou canst never do that. If I believe them, I must doubt her,
and that's impossible."

"You may have misinterpreted their message."

"How can I have done so? They spoke plain enough. The demon said 'If you
go down to her now--at this very moment--you will find her with Gilles
de Prigault.'"

"Maybe no more than playing cards together."

"Why should she play cards with him in the middle of the night? and the
liar says he is the father of her son . . . and he hasn't come to the
house for the last six months--at least not openly. Ah, I remember
teasing her with the very fact . . . ."

He was striding violently up and down the room, almost isappearing in
the deep shadows that piled each end of it, out of reach of the single
candle-flame.

"Nay, it's vain for thee to stand up for thy spirits, Will. They are
liars--they come straight from the father of lies. Though I could swear
Charles spoke to me last night. Aye, it was he. I know it. He spoke of
that time we watched the stars together. . . . Oh, brother. . . . You
vow, Will, that you felt no sense of corruption?"

"None at all."

"I can't account for it. For I'm sure a demon had thee; and I will prove
it to thee. I will now go down to my darling's bed and kiss her as she
sleeps and come up again and tell thee how true and how pure she is. If
I do that, will you believe that it was a demon?"

"I shall indeed. But do not think I doubt your lady now."

"Nay, nay, Will; thou'dst never do such an evil thing, I know. But I
will prove it to 'ee all the same."

Douce was satisfied that he had found a reason for going downstairs and
convincing himself of his wife's innocence. He let him go, perfectly
confident that if, as was more than likely, he found what Brother
Charles had told him, no false pride would make him conceal his error.
There would be another scene, but it would not be as unpleasant as the
first, at least for William Douce.

He sat down in an armchair, still trembling a little. He heard Alard's
footsteps go down the stairs--a trifle too creakily for his
business--then turn along the passage. Douce strained his ears. A door
opened . . . what! had the slut never locked it? Then--silence. Douce
was surprised. Then the footsteps came running up again.

Gervase burst into the room, fear rather than fury written on his face.

"Will, she an't there--she's gone. Her room's empty."



                                  4

Douce's first sensation was of complete foolishness. His plan had
miscarried probably through his own fault. He was a bungler who had left
too many edges loose--a gambler who had left too much to chance. But
immediately a blander, clearer feeling came. Even if he had been wrong
as to the details--as to the actual stage and circumstance of sin--he
might still be right as to the fact of it. Condemnation was not in her
room, where she ought to be at this time, and her lover, he knew, had
been invited to the house. Perhaps she was not so reckless as he
thought, and had preferred to meet him in some locked, secret attic
rather than in her own bed. Or perhaps she had been more reckless, and
had run away with him never to come back. In either case all was well,
for in the first a search would find her, and in the second she was gone
for good.

Then on the heels of satisfaction trod a fresh set of doubts. Perhaps de
Prigault had never found her message in the temple and, as she did not
come when she expected him, she was gone out to look for him. Or perhaps
the whole plan was changed, and she had decided instead to meet him at
the temple or in some hidden thicket of the woods.

"Has her bed been slept in?" he asked. "Has she taken her clothes? Was
she dressed?"

Gervase stared at him blankly. He did not seem to have noticed anything
save that the room was empty.

They went downstairs together, Douce treading as carefully as possible,
for he did not want to rouse anyone till he had found out what was
happening.

Alard had left the door of his wife's room wide open, and as Douce
entered it he noticed that the window was uncurtained. There was a
ghostly light in the room, coming from the stars, for through the
uncurtained window it could now be seen that the mists had withdrawn
from the house, shrinking back to the river side. The pale unearthly
starlight washed the room, showing a faint shadow on the bed, which was
the pressure left by a body that must have lain for some time outside it
on the coverlet. The peacocks on the walls looked out dimly from their
fading castles. A clock struck twelve.

"Where can she have gone?" groaned Gervase. "See, she hasn't been to bed
at all."

"Has she taken anything with her?"

He opened one or two drawers that appeared to be full of clothing. It
was, of course, impossible for him to know what she had taken. Then
suddenly lifting his eyes to the window he saw figures moving at the far
end of the lawn. Yes, undoubtedly there was a man slinking along by the
trees--and a woman following him . . . they were too far off for him to
distinguish faces, but they were certainly there. They appeared to be
going toward the house, but might be meaning to slip past it to the
river and the road. . . .

"Quickly!" he cried to Gervase. "Quickly."

He dashed out of the room. If they were in time they could intercept
them.

"What is it, Will?" cried Alard as he followed him. "In the name of God,
what hast thou seen?"

"Those two--your wife and de Prigault."

"Nay, nay, nay----"

"But it is so. Come and prove it--I saw them go under the beechen tree
by the end of the lawn. They're making for the river and the Hastings
road. No doubt they've horses waiting there."

"My God!" choked Alard, "my merciful God!"

He hurried after Douce down into the hall and then along a passage to
the little side door. It was open. "They must have left this way," he
moaned. "Oh the villain! the abominable fiend--more foul than any
conjured out of hell."

"Sst!" said Douce impatiently. "We're out of doors. They may hear us.
Watch."

He gazed toward the distant thickets of beech and alder sloping to the
stream, but no one was in sight. They were out on the terrace, facing
the cold star-washed lawns beyond which the trees made darkness. Close
on their left was an ornamental shrubbery of laurels, and suddenly
Gervase pointed to them.

"Look!" he cried, seizing Douce's arm in a grip that almost made him
scream.

"Nay, there's nobody--I saw them beyond the lawn."

"But I can see something moving--I can hear . . ."

"Ssst, or they'll hear _you_" . . . you old fool, he added in his heart.

"I swear there's a man in those bushes."

"A cat," began Douce, but at that moment a man darted out and ran away
across the lawn. Gervase was after him at once, and Douce saw to his
intense surprise that he really was Gilles de Prigault.

What had happened? Who then were those other two whom he had seen
skulking by the thickets? The place was full of mystery. He stood for a
few moments utterly bewildered, uncertain what to do next. He could hear
Gervase shout "Stop, you blackguard! Stop, you fiend!" and for an
instant he thought of joining in the chase. But he saw that it would be
useless now--he was too far behind. The young man ran like a deer, and
Alard would not catch him either, for he was wearing his Parson's gown,
which he had put on to give decorum to the night's proceedings. The old
madman would soon be blown and hobbled to a standstill. Already he
seemed to be slackening . . . and de Prigault had disappeared into the
mists that veiled the lower slopes of the garden.

Then he saw that Gervase had stopped running. He stood motionless half
way up the lawn, staring toward the terrace. The light was not clear
enough for Douce to see his face, but there was something so tense and
startled in his attitude, that the young man immediately turned round to
look behind him. Condemnation stood there, close to the house.



                                  5

So all was well. Even if de Prigault escaped the matter was proved and
William Douce established by the mouth of a ghost. Fearing that she
might dart away, he slipped back to cut off her retreat into the house.
Gervase was advancing towards her in great strides, but she did not try
to avoid him; on the contrary she took a few steps forward.

"Husband," she cried, as he came up to her, "what has happened? What are
you doing here?"

"What are _you_ doing here?" and his hand swooped, seizing her wrist
ungently.

She was fully dressed, with a cloak over the gown she had worn
yesterday. She murmured something about not being able to sleep.

"Nay, let me not hear your lies. Know at once that they're useless. I've
seen de Prigault."

She said nothing, but Douce could see clearly that her expression
changed. It became set and blank.

"Yes," he continued, his voice carrying a curious break in it, "as I
came out of the door I saw him run out of the bushes."

"But what--what should he be doing here?" she cried.

"Aye, that's what I want to know. What is he dangling after round the
house? He ran away like a rat when he saw me, and I ran after him, and
would have caught him had I not been hobbled by my gown. Tell me, what
was he doing if he wasn't coming after you?--and what are you doing,
creeping here when you should be in your chamber? Nay, do not lie to me,
do not lie to me! For I can't bear it."

"I an't lying. He an't here on my account. He's here on other business."

"What business?"

All the while Gervase had been blustering at her, Douce had watched her
face and it had seemed to him the face of a woman who searched
desperately, who was calling up all her wits to defend her. Now she
remained silent till Alard had shouted again:

"What business?"

"Nay, how should I know? His coming here has naught to do with me."

"Will you tell me that you knew nothing of it?"

She faltered and was lost before she said: "I knew nothing."

"You're lying!" he cried desperately. "Aye, I can see that you're lying.
Oh, my God, that you should lie to me."

Condemnation burst into tears.

"I'm not lying--oh, Gervase, don't speak so terribly. I swear there's
nothing wrong--I swear it! I swear it! And in a little while you shall
know--I'll tell you all. Only have patience for a while, and you shall
know."

She had flung her arms round his neck and was clinging to him, and the
feel of her there, so soft and so small and yet heavy against him with
the weight of her child, brought him suddenly a terrible sense of
weakness. His heart began to beat violently and his head to swim, she
had reached up her face and was kissing him; their lips met and he felt
his bad angels depart. . . . But she had tricked him and lied to him;
she was false--he could still see that she was false. She had been
unable to prove her innocence and she had not behaved like an innocent
girl; and here she was coaxing him and kissing him because she could not
convince him. Her kisses were nothing but lies--more and more lies. His
bad angels had come back, and he pushed her from him. "Nay, you shan't
bubble me."

He had used more force than he meant or knew, and had sent her
staggering from him, towards the edge of the terrace. She tried to save
herself, clutching at the air, but the next moment she had fallen
backwards down the terrace steps, a flight of seven. She cried out as
she fell, and rolled over on the grass.

So fast did his bad angels hold him that at first he thought her
writhings were part of her tricks, and that she was merely acting pain
instead of love. It was the sight of William Douce running to her that
brought him to himself, and in a moment he was at her side. She began to
scream, and Gervase forgot her wickedness as he tried to raise her.

"No, no--you hurt me. I'm all twisted. No, no--don't touch me. Go away."

A man came running toward them across the lawn. They took for granted
that he was de Prigault, but as he drew nearer they saw that he was
shorter, darker and older. He was a stocky, grey-haired man in a
riding-suit--Parsons, no less. His sudden appearance out of nowhere
seemed to crown the strange happenings of the night.



                                  6

"My bud, my poor little bud."

Gervase knelt beside her helplessly, while her hands beat him off. Then
suddenly she managed to scramble to her feet, but immediately shrieked
with pain and would have fallen if Parsons had not caught her. With a
strength surprising in one of his small build, he lifted her gently and
easily in his arms.

"I will carry you to your room, and call Madame Alard. Will you not come
too, Sir?"

Gervase, who was standing like a block, saw him carry her towards the
house and turned to follow them. He looked back over his shoulder to see
if William Douce were coming too, but he had disappeared.

"Will!" he called--"Will!" He felt lost and forlorn without him. In that
unnatural moment it seemed as if Condemnation and Parsons were his
enemies and only Will of all the world was his friend. He called again,
but there was no answer. The priest did not look back, and they went
into the house.

Parsons carried Condemnation upstairs into her bedroom with its staring,
starlit window, putting her down tenderly on the bed, where the mould of
her form still lay like a shadow.

"I'll fetch Madame," he said, and went out.

Gervase went close to the bed and stooped over it. His wife's breath
stroked his face, coming up to him in little sighs. There were no
candles in the room, but the starlight showed him that she lay with her
eyes closed, and that her face was drawn and smudged with tears--like a
hurt child's, yet with a look upon it that should never be on a child's
face.

"My little bud--my sweetheart. . . ."

There was no answer, and when he touched her she did not move or cry
out. Her face was ghostly and her hands were cold. Her breathing was
silent now--silent and almost invisible. She must have swooned. What
should he do about it?--he felt frightened and incapable. He ran to her
pitcher and fetched water to bathe her face, but his hands trembled so
that he slopped it over the bed.

Then Louise came in. She did not look like a woman suddenly roused from
sleep, for she was fully dressed, her hair was curled and her cap
carefully set. But Gervase did not notice anything of this; he saw only
that she was there.

"Sister! Sister!--look what has happened."

"_Mon pauvre ami_ . . ."

She came over to the bed, and taking the water bowl and cloth from his
fumbling hand, she began to bathe the girl's forehead with tender skill.

"You had better go," she said. "Go to your study and I will fetch you
when the maids and I have put her to bed."

He saw two goggling faces in the doorway and began to protest, but
Louise interrupted him:

"Nay--I beg you to go. This is women's work."

He was so beaten down by all that had happened that he crept away
without another word.



                                  7

His study was as he had suddenly left it, with the wine upon the table
and one candle burning, though he noticed that William Douce had
remembered to wipe the Sign of Solomon off the floor. He lit more
candles and set the room to rights a little in case Louise should come
into it. Then he sat down to wait for her.

Five minutes ticked by in a procession of eternal hours. He could feel
the tears rolling down his cheeks--it must be nearly forty years since
he had wept. They brought him no relief; they seemed to pass down his
face like searing irons and to clog his breath with pain and his heart
with humiliation. Yet he could not stop them--they would fall. He was in
two agonies--one for the thing which had happened, which was also
beginning to look like the thing he had done, and one for all that had
gone before it, the horror that was only half-revealed. He could not
believe that she was innocent, after the spirit's warning that had been
so terribly fulfilled . . . and yet she was his little bud, whom he had
struck in his anger and hurt--perhaps mortally. At this point the agony
became a sword, piercing his heart with a pain so physical that it made
him hold his side. He sprang up hastily and went to the door; he would
go down, he could not endure this waiting any longer. Then, as he opened
the door, he saw Louise's candle coming up the stairs.

He would have gone down at once, but with her white, beringed hand on
his chest, she gently pushed him back into the room.

"No. I will talk to you here."

"But I must go down to her."

"When we have talked. If you go down you must not speak at all--you must
be very quiet."

"Is she roused up, then? Has she recovered?"

"She has come out of her swoon, but she is still in great pain. I am
afraid that she is badly hurt."

"Will she die?" he cried. "Will she die?"

"God forbid. I have sent for Mr. Homer, and he will be here presently.
Mr. Parsons tells me she had a fall. How did that happen?"

"I pushed her."

Louise stared at him.

"Aye, I pushed her from me and she fell backward down the steps."

"She told me something of the kind, but I thought she must be wandering
in her wits. How can you have done it?"

"She lied to me."

"She lied . . ."

Louise was shocked and puzzled. Condemnation had only added to her
perplexity by a few disjointed phrases--Sir Gervase had come out, and he
had been angry, and pushed her--and oh, would this pain soon be gone?
Would Mr. Horner take it away . . .? She could not understand how
Gervase had suddenly appeared on the scene: and with William Douce,
too--for Parsons had told her that he had found them there together.

"Where has he gone?" she asked, thinking aloud.

"Who?"

"William Douce."

"I don't know. Would that I did, for he alone is true to me."

"Brother, for shame! I cannot understand. . . . Then it struck her that
Douce might by some evil chance have come to hear of the priest's visit,
and have brought Gervase to spy on the congregation arriving for Mass.
But it was not like her brother to do such a thing. He had always
guessed the purpose of Parsons' visits and always ignored them. She
remembered earlier conversations they had had. . . . Douce's evil
influence must be deeper and more persistent than she had imagined.

"Tell me," she cried, rounding on him almost angrily, "are you sure that
he is not gone to tell the searchers, and bring a warrant for the
Priest's apprehension?"

Gervase in his turn was puzzled.

"Nay, what are you talking of?"

"I can only believe that you came to spy on Parsons."

"Parsons! I never knew that he was here--his coming was the greatest
surprise of all. It was de Prigault that I came to watch--that vile,
crawling, unclean seducer, that snake, that frog . . ."

He stopped, choking breathlessly. Louise stared at him, all the colour
gone from her face.

"What do you mean?"

"Nay, I will not tell you."

He hid his face in his hands and almost sobbed. Meanwhile she recovered
herself, and came to a ridiculous, terrible understanding. She was a
quick-minded woman, and it had instantly occurred to her that Gervase
was not likely either to suspect or to resent de Prigault's courtship
of herself, still less his becoming a Catholic. No, he must suspect him
of far worse designs, and it was possible--she could not deny that it
was possible--that Condemnation's good offices on her behalf, her
running to and fro with notes and messages, might have resulted in
attaching to herself a certain amount of suspicion from evil-minded
persons . . . the colour ran back into her face; she was crimson with
anger against William Douce.

Now she understood what he had been doing on the terrace. He had brought
Gervase by some means she could not imagine to spy not merely on a
visiting priest but on his own wife. He must have found out that de
Prigault was expected at the house to-night, and entirely misread the
purpose of his visit. She forced herself to calmness and spoke.

"Brother, I think you have made a mistake."

"How can I have done so?"

"Did you come here to-night to watch for de Prigault?"

"Nay, do not question me."

"But I must do so, in justice to _her_--I feel--I fear--that you have
entertained an abominable suspicion--too abominable for either of us to
mention. So I must tell you now and clearly that de Prigault was
expected here to-night by _me_."

"I don't understand."

"If he came here to-night, and I do not know yet if he is come---"

"Aye, he is come--and gone again. He ran away like a cur out of the
bushes, and I ran after him and would have caught him if my gown hadn't
hobbled me."

"He ran away, no doubt, because he feared to be recognized. He feared
William Douce, even if he did not fear you. He knew that his discovery
might mean fines and imprisonment for himself and death for Mr.
Parsons."

"How could that be so?"

"You know that a priest is liable to the death penalty if he reconciles
anyone to the Church."

"You sure don't mean that he would reconcile de Prigault?"

"Yes, that is what I mean. For many months now he has been wanting to
return to the church of his fathers, and I have helped him. . . .
Gervase, I will tell you everything. It is my duty to your wife, and I
trust you entirely not to betray me nor anyone I love. I love Gilles de
Prigault, and I am to marry him one day. You must not be surprised, or
angry, for I have not forgotten your dear brother. But--but--I am not
yet old, and--this young man--he pleases me. I will marry a man of my
own faith and I will be happy . . . yes, happy, though I shall always
love Charles--you must not think that I have ceased to love him. This is
different. I told Condemnation that it was different. And she has helped
me. She has carried notes for me and left them in her summer-house, for
him to find on his way back from the furnace. I may have been foolish to
let her do so, but I never thought that there were spies about, or such
black hearts. . . . I did not want his family to suspect anything--they
have already found out a little; that is why he stopped coming to the
house. Condemnation took a message for me to-day telling him that Mr.
Parsons would be here; and Douce may have found it and read it by the
light of his evil mind. I forgot . . . I never thought of him; I am to
blame. My dear," taking his dry, shaking hand, "you must forgive me."

Gervase did not speak. Her words had passed over him in a cloud. He
could scarcely remember now what she had said; and yet he accepted
them--he knew that Condemnation had not been untrue to him, and that he
had struck her in ignorance as well as in anger. He vaguely felt that
the knowledge ought to comfort him, and in a way it did, but in another
way it filled him with a sense of shame and loss.

"But I can't understand," he mumbled, "Charles told me to beware of
Gilles de Prigault."

"Charles. But he scarcely knew him--and what he knew he liked. He told
me."

Gervase saw that he had blundered.

"Nay, I know not what I'm saying. . . . But why was she there?--what was
she after, if she wasn't after him? I went down to her room and found it
empty, so I called Will and we went out on the terrace . . . then the
Frenchman ran out of the bushes, and she came--I saw her standing . . ."

"He was late, and she had gone to see if he was at the door. It was part
of my folly to let her do it, but she was all eager to help me."

"When I asked her she would tell me nothing."

"She had Mr. Parsons' life in her hand and my suitor's safety. She would
have been wiser to tell you, but it cannot have entered her head that
you would think of her as you did. Gervase! Gervase!" in a sudden
bewilderment of indignation, "what evil spirit can have possessed you to
make you doubt such a wife?"

Gervase turned pale. For a moment he thought she had guessed what had
happened, but the next he knew that her words had another sense. Before
he could say anything she added:

"It was that devil in flesh, William Douce. He is your evil spirit."

"But it wasn't he. Louise, I swear to you that it wasn't he. Poor Will
knew nothing of it. He came with me--that was all."

"Who told you, then?"

"Nay, that's my business."

"Such a liar and slanderer should be brought to justice. If we have such
a person in the house, you should let us know who it is."

She was sure that Gervase was lying to save Douce, and her anger rose
against him too.

"What has come over you?" she cried. "You never used to be so
credulous."

He stood miserably silent, feeling chidden as well as hurt. Then as she
turned from him to go downstairs, his anxious mind suddenly brought him
the vindication for which it had been unconsciously searching ever since
it had heard the truth--not the vindication of Douce, but of Charles's
spirit. Last night's visitor and to-night's were not the same. Charles
himself had spoken to him yesterday, and had bidden him beware of de
Prigault because he did not wish Louise to marry again. He was hurt and
offended by her marrying again so soon, at her age, a man so much
younger than herself. That was the truth of it. Charles had said nothing
at all about Condemnation--all that had been the later work of some
wandering demon taking advantage of his fears. But Charles had spoken to
him yesterday--here, in this very room. Louise herself had proved it. It
was really and truly possible to speak to the dead.

"Oh, Charles!" he cried, suddenly, throwing up his arms. "Oh, brother!
help me, brother! help me now."

Louise felt frightened and sick. Surely he must be mad. Why had he
started talking like this of Charles? Already twice, for no reason, he
had mentioned him. Her husband's name, smiting across her heart just as
she was preparing to give it to another, brought her suddenly a personal
sense of loss and anguish. As she walked downstairs her tears began to
fall, not for Gervase nor even for Condemnation, but for herself. She
forgot her lover, perhaps at that very moment in the house, and thought
only of the past and the man whose place he could never fill.



                             CHAPTER NINE

                                  1

The son of the house was born a seven months' child, small without being
puny, dark as a nut. Gervase felt no stir of joy at his birth; he was
not specially delighted to know that he had an heir, nor did he much
care that the child was likely to thrive. In that dark and terrible hour
it was nothing to him if the house of Alard continued or came to an end.
His hopes seemed all to lie in Condemnation, to rise and fall with her
breath. When he was allowed to come in and sit beside her, he watched
each breath, fearing that she would not draw another.

The doctor had found her suffering from an injury to her head as well as
internal contusions, and for some time hours of pain alternated with
bouts of deep unconsciousness. At first it was hoped that her fall would
not bring on premature labour, but toward dawn certain changes set in,
and an experienced midwife was sent for from the village. The processes
of birth were abnormally prolonged, owing to the poor little mother's
inability to help herself, and Gervase would never forget those hours he
spent pacing and prowling around Conster, afraid to go too far and yet
afraid to stay within sight or hearing.

His only companion had been William Douce. Louise had stayed the whole
time in the sick room, and Parsons had vanished as mysteriously as he
had come. There was only Will to comfort him, to sit with him and drink
with him in his study, or walk with him in the grounds, to occupy him
with the business of the furnace, to distract him with tales of his work
and adventures in France, to reassure him and explain the night's dark
doings. Oh, what should he have done without Will.

Toward evening Bridget Harman arrived with her husband, and after her
came Eustache and Madge de Champfort. But none of them was any comfort
to him. They sat about and tormented him with questions as to
Condemnation's fall, with surmises as to her condition and the state of
the child. The girls ran up and poked their noses into the bedroom, and
came down chattering. He dratted and damned them all.

He was sent for when it was seen that she must die. At first the doctor
and the nurse had relied on her youth and health to bring her through
her troubles; but she had had too much against her, including the doctor
and the nurse. The prolonged bleedings and cuppings which the medicine
of the age required had undermined her strength, already brought low,
while a midwifery based on superstition rather than on science was
unable to cope with conditions outside its normal experience. Gervase
found her lying greenish-white from loss of blood, her voice scarcely
more than a whisper.

His heart thudded like a drum against his side as he bent over her. He
was full of anger, against himself. His anger was a concentrated fire, a
lightning, splitting the dark heavens of his thought with one single
self-reproach. It did not lighten upon Douce or upon that mysterious
outer world which had deceived him, but only upon himself, because he
had struck her, given her a blow . . . his little bud, his little bird.
Even if she had done all that he had thought, he should not have struck
her--he who had been moved to such indignation by her treatment at
Newhouse, to whom she had fled for safety and kindness. That blow was
now like a sword between them, and the hilt was in her hand and the
point was in his heart.

"Sweetheart," he murmured, "my dear little love. Forgive me."

Her lips parted and a word came out. He could only just hear it. "Read."

"What am I to read, my dear?"

"Visit . . . sick."

He gazed at her bewildered, and it was Louise's quicker thought which,
snatching on memory, was able to tell him what she asked for.

"She wants you to read to her from the Visitation of the Sick."

He could not refuse, though he could hardly bear it. A Prayer Book was
brought and he sat by the bedside, to read to her as he had read, before
in this very room.

"Remember not, Lord, our iniquities, nor the iniquities of our
forefathers. Spare us, good Lord, spare thy people whom thou hast
redeemed with thy most precious blood, and be not angry with us for
ever."

Her mouth fluttered like a leaf.

"Spare us, good Lord."

There she lay, as she had lain in those days gone by, smiling up at him
out of the grave of her bed; for her eyes smiled at him, even though her
lips could not. A little later her replies ceased, but when he looked at
her fearfully, he saw that her eyes were still open and smiling. After
that he read the responses for her, until near the end, when she gave a
little choking sound and Louise rushed to her side.

"Quick! the medicine."

He gave it to her, his hand shaking, his head swimming. He seemed to see
Condemnation slipping away, flying out into the dusk as a wild bird
flies out of a thicket, vanishing into the freedom of the night. He saw
his love for her as a thicket of thorns, a trap in which she had been
caught and hurt. . . . "Our soul is escaped even as a bird from the
snare of the fowler. . . ."

"My bird," he called after her, "my little bird. Oh, tell me this an't
my doing."

He saw her come back for a moment, carrying her light into extinguished
eyes; her lips were like shadows moving on her face, and the words came
so faintly that he had to put down his ear to them. Her last breath
stirred his hair.

"Flowers on the ash tree . . . so pretty."



                                  2

They expected him to take comfort in the child; but he would not look at
it. He could not think of it as hers. Buds cannot be fertilized, and it
seemed to him then that she had never flowered, but lay folded in her
sleep like a bud plucked untimely. This child had been fathered by a
doubt out of a dream. It was not real to him, and when Louise and his
daughters saw the House of Alard in it, and Oxenbrigge made mock
sorrowful grimaces, they all seemed so many players strutting on a
stage, and the baby was the pillow that they nursed. He could not look
at them or it; he turned away his face and buried it in his books.

Madge de Champfort came to take charge of Alard's heir. She was glad to
come to Conster with her husband and her own baby. She did not like
living with the de Champfort parents, who had rigid and religious
notions, and expected their sons to work like labourers on the land and
their daughters to toil like maidservants in the house. It seemed to her
and to Eustache an excellent plan that they should go to live with their
father and take care of his household and his child. They had wondered
at first that the Dowager Lady Alard did not make any objection. They
had thought she would want to look after the child, and perhaps make a
Papist of him secretly. But Louise had taken her earliest opportunity to
express her approval of the plan.

Not only was it right that Gervase should receive help and comfort from
his own daughter, that at least one of his five chatterboxes should show
herself dutiful in his adversity, but she was desperately anxious that a
home should be built up round him, a home in which she had no place, so
that when at last she set out on her own way and saw him no more he
would not feel himself bereaved a second time.

She could not look at him without a sinking of her heart and
occasionally wondered if she had any right to a happiness that had
already cost him so much. But she remembered that her life did not
belong to her now; if she sacrificed it to Gervase, she also sacrificed
Gilles de Prigault's. Her lover's life was bound to hers with a double
strand, and the fact that she had fulfilled one part of her duty toward
him only made it the more necessary that she should fulfil the other.
She saw him as a young child, her spiritual child, standing in his white
baptismal robe on the far shore of a river--the deep, sundering river
that now ran between him and his past life, all his kin, all his hopes
of advancement and prosperity in his adopted country.

He had crossed that river with his hand in hers, looking to her for love
and guidance and an everlasting companionship in the promised land. She
could not let him go. She could not leave his new, untried faith in the
desert to be fed by ravens. He was nine years younger than she, and his
white baptismal robe had made him a child. All her heart yearned in love
and pity over him, even more than over the stricken Gervase. She could
not bear to think of him struggling without her either in his spirit or
in his flesh. It hurt her to imagine him in his parents' house at
Sliverick, his secret heavy upon him, his newly-given faith--which she
knew in her heart was still little more than a part of his love for
her--in jeopardy every hour. He must at all costs escape from this life
of duplicity and danger: he must go back to France, and she could endure
the thought of his going without her even less than she could endure the
thought of leaving Gervase. She saw plainly--her mind and her heart both
showed her--that she must go with him and break all lesser ties.

As often as she realized this all her desire was to go quickly--before
his faith was too much tried in isolation and before any rumour of what
had happened could spread to incriminate Parsons. Already Gervase knew
his secret, and though she relied on her brother's honour she could not
equally rely on his discretion. Besides, William Douce must know
something, too, about it all. Gervase would certainly have told him that
his suspicions of Condemnation had been unjustified, and that de
Prigault had come to the house on a very different errand. He might
even have disclosed--or partly disclosed--what that errand was. In which
case they were all in the hands of William Douce--sad hands indeed to be
in. . . . She must be gone.

All that held her back was her affection for Gervase and something
shamefaced that made her think she was serving Charles by staying with
his brother. She told herself that she must wait for the end of the
winter. By then she hoped to have Gervase's new household more firmly
established and to see him better comforted. That was the utmost she
could or ought to do for him: he could ask no more of her--indeed he
scarcely asked as much. He knew that she was going, but he made no
protest and showed no curiosity. Sometimes she told herself that she
might as well go at once, because he did not seem to care whether she
went or stayed; but in her heart she knew that his indifference was
another reason for her staying. It was not due to any comfort he found
in his daughters or in his infant son, but to his growing absorption in
William Douce. Since his wife's death they had scarcely been parted;
either they were together at the furnace or together in the house. The
young man came to Conster more often than he had come before--more
boldly and more openly--and Gervase seemed to grow more and more
dependent on him, less and less able to do without his company.

"Let him stay--he's my son," he said to her once, when she had made
protest at his continual presence.

"How can you say so!" she cried angrily. "You have only one son--Charles
Gervase Alard--and you scarcely look at him."

He stared at her in a mazed, bewildered fashion, and murmured:

"He's too young."

Louise was more than ever uneasy. As time passed she suspected Douce of
having persuaded him back to necromancy. He came to the house almost
every night, and Gervase would take him to his study and lock the door.

"We've matters to discuss," he would say, "he's helping me with my
work," but Louise could not think that the business of Conster Furnace
needed discussion after midnight, or that young, sparkish Douce was
learned enough to help her brother with that everlasting Treatise, which
had been brought out again to lie brown and crabbed and fly-blown on his
table, with every day a few lines added in a hand that reeled and sank
across the page.

Sometimes she would feel an almost superstitious terror of the young
man; she would imagine that all the trouble that had come to them was
his doing, that he was Conster's evil angel. She was certainly convinced
that Alard's sudden, insane suspicion of his wife was due to him and to
him alone--she could not believe anything he said to the contrary. Douce
was at the bottom of that dreadful affair; for some reason he had
suspected Condemnation and had brought Gervase to share his
suspicion--or perhaps he had not even suspected her, but had merely used
her innocence to his own vile ends. And now she was sure that he watched
the house for Parsons, hoping to incriminate and betray him--and perhaps
not him only. . . . When she thought of these things she would feel
suddenly beside herself, torn in two by her fears of what might happen
if she stayed and what might happen if she went.

In her more reasonable moments she knew that she had no good foundation
for many of her suspicions. Perhaps she was a fool to mistrust Douce at
all--and ungracious, too, since Gervase obviously found comfort in his
society. He was still abstracted and self-absorbed, he still refused to
notice his son and seemed bored by the attentions of his daughters, but
she often thought she saw a look of exaltation on his face, as if at
least his dreams were happy. . . .

When she examined her fears they seemed to have no substance, but to be
mere shadows in her mind, perhaps the broken reflections of her own
self-reproach and uneasy state. After all, it was perhaps unreasonable
to expect a man of fifty-eight to delight in a young child, and she had
always herself looked upon his daughters as clattering hoydens without
sense or charm. Marriage had improved them a little, but not enough to
make their society congenial to a dreamer and a scholar, even though he
were their father. Young Douce, on the other hand, if you ignored the
dark streak which she possibly imagined, was both attractive and
intelligent, and his manner to the old man was, she noticed, a model for
sons. He was besides a most efficient master of Conster Furnace, which
prospered under him as it had never done under his father.

As for the necromancy, she had no real evidence of it. Certainly neither
of them ever went near that ill-omened little temple. Every night she
heard the door of Gervase's bedroom shut behind him; and the temple
stood beside the river empty, damp and rotting, smelling of neglect, its
rosy curtains yellowed by the damp and the winter sunshine, and
Condemnation's work-box still on the table, with its faded silks and
tarnished bobbins. She had gone in one day and found it so.



                                  3

Gervase walked up and down his study. The February day was done, reduced
to a few shaking stars above the tops of the trees, which bowed their
heads and roared together as the wind rushed over them. The night was
all sound--looking out of the window he could not see even those few
stars, only the mirrored candle-light upon blackness. He stared
anxiously into the light, waiting for it to change, eager for the images
he both hoped and dreaded to see. They did not belong to his practice
now--they had nothing to do with it. It was vain for the Abb to stare
at him with warning eyes as he had stared last night--out of the round,
gold blob of the candle-flame, which had shown the carved back and arms
of his chair but allowed his feet to slide down into darkness. . . .
Gervase had said to him, "You're wrong. I've no truck with the devil. My
visitor's an angel of light--a woman made sweet by forgiveness, holding
my seven stars in her hands." The Abb's lips had moved--he had mouthed
soundless warnings out of the window-pane. Was he sitting there now? Had
he only just vanished? Or did all this belong to yesterday? Gervase
could hear a movement behind him in the room; a door opened and shut.
"Ay, Will--I'm ready," he mumbled, then with a sudden feeling of
strangeness and alarm, he turned round and saw not Will, but Mr.
Parsons.

His mind flashed back to an earlier occasion when Parsons had surprised
him like this, at midnight in his room; and once more past and future
became curiously linked together . . . merged . . . confused. . . .

"Good evening," said Mr. Parsons.

Gervase recovered himself, and felt very much annoyed.

"What are you doing here, Sir?"

He had not seen the priest since his equally sudden appearance on the
terrace three months ago, and then he had scarcely looked at him--at
least not to remember what he saw. Now he noticed that his head was
quite grey, and his face was seamed and drawn like an old man's. He
looked fifteen years older than in the days when he used to come and
stay openly at Conster as the guest of Louise and Charles. By contrast
his clothes were younger and brighter, as if he had been forced by
persecution into some gesture of laity. His maroon surcoat and crimson
vest pathetically challenged his spare form and stooping shoulders.

"I hope you will forgive my intrusion."

Gervase found his annoyance calming a little.

"I'm honoured, Sir, but I should have preferred the day to the night."

"Indeed, Sir, and so should I. Unfortunately I have no choice."

"You are proscribed."

Parsons bowed. Then he moved forward into the room, and pulled up a
chair to the fire, sitting down and rubbing his hands.

"It's a cold and stormy night."

Gervase still stood by the window. He was vexed to see Parsons make
himself at home, and uneasy too, for he expected William Douce to come
in at any moment.

"I suppose you're here on your usual business."

"I shall be gone to-morrow."

Gervase swung round on him.

"Don't you think, Sir, that you're a little rash to come walking openly
into a Magistrate's room? Let's have no more of our common pretences. I
know who you are, and I could, an I would, commit you."

"Yes, Sir, an you would; but you would not--you would never so treat an
old friend."

"You should wear a periwig."

Parsons looked startled, then followed his leap.

"I wear one now when I'm abroad, but in the house I find it hot and
unaccustomed. Do you mind if I smoke a pipe? I know it's an outlandish
custom, but it cheers a lonely man, and I thought I got the smell of
tobacco in this room."

"Aye, Sir, I sometimes burn a pipeful or two myself; it's better than
taking snuff like a Dutchman. But let me warn you that I'm expecting at
any moment my master and clerk of the works, William Douce. He comes
here to discuss important business with me."

"Your clerk treats you ill if he comes to talk business in the middle of
the night."

"He has been away all day."

"I understand; and I'll go directly he comes if you'll suffer me a few
moments now."

Gervase hesitated, then crossed the room, and sat down opposite him
beside the fire. Parsons leaned forward.

"One reason I came is that I wish to tell you how truly and sincerely I
feel for you in your sorrow."

Gervase said nothing; he stared in front of him and his lips twitched a
little. His eyes became suddenly full of a strange exaltation.

"She was a sweet soul," said the other, "may she rest in peace."

"Away from me?" said Gervase tensely. "Away from me?"

"Nay, close to you, if so be you, like her, are in God's keeping."

"I tell you she's very close to me."

Parsons looked at him silently, and saw the strong emotion that lay
shaking behind his words.

"She's close--and I didn't kill her."

"Nay, but who said such a thing?"

"Everyone. They all said her death is at my door. They didn't say it
with their lips, but they said it in their hearts--that is, all except
Will. It was because I pushed her from me, not knowing the edge was so
near. I shouldn't have done it--I shouldn't have used her so violently,
but the guilt of her death an't upon me. No, she says it was of her own
weakness that she died. She would have died anyway. . . . Her death was
written in her stars for that very month. And she's happy now--a free
spirit, free to come and go as she chooses; she always loved to roam . . .
eh well, now she has all the stars to roam in and never lose her way.
One day I shall go to her, and we'll take hands and roam together. I
pray it be soon."

Parsons let him run on, though he longed to stop him. He now saw that
Louise's fears were justified. The old fellow raved like a madman, and
he was waiting for William Douce. . . . God help him. A sudden choke of
pity rose in the priest's throat.

"My dear friend, can't you think of her as safely hidden in the hand of
God? _Anim justorum in manu Dei sunt_. Isn't your first duty to her a
duty of prayer? I myself have offered the Holy Sacrifice for her soul. I
trust your theology will allow you to take this from me."

"Eh, why not? My theology's broader than yours and will cover the whole
of my way and yours too."

Parsons fell silent again. It was neither in his policy nor in his
temperament to make a direct attack, and yet he knew that to-night his
time was short and uncertain; he must not waste it in approaches. At any
moment now William Douce might come in and his chance would be lost. He
sharply rallied his unwilling forces.

"Surely nothing can be broader than the universal; and the greater must
include the less. But I confess that there's a part of your belief that
must stand eternally outside and opposed to mine."

"What's that?" asked Gervase, and regretted the question as his own mind
immediately answered it.

"I won't call it theology, but rather demonology, such as you've
practised in the past and I believe are now practising again."

Alard turned white.

"Why should you think so?"

"I judge by your own words. From them I gather you've conjured the
spirits."

"Nay, that was long ago. I confess that for some time I held converse
with a fallen angel or _magistellum_, Araziel by name. But his
philosophy wasn't pure, and he misled me. Since then I've conjured no
spirits at all."

"Not even the spirits of the dead?"

"Nay, why should I conjure them, since they've freely offered themselves
to me without conjuring?"

"They've offered themselves?"

"Aye, surely. But why should you question me like this? It's no affair
of yours. You an't my confessor."

"No, friend. But I treat you as I treat my penitents, in that I come to
you at the risk of my life for your soul's good. Why have I intruded
myself into the presence of one of the King's justices, who has power to
have me seized and thrust into prison, aye and hanged at last? Much as I
value your friendship, it isn't only that we may smoke a pipe together.
It's to warn you of a plot against your soul, a plan to seize your soul
and use it far more dreadfully than any man can use my body--to imprison
it in Tartarus and hang it on the gallows that Judas made for those who
betray the light of reason."

Gervase gaped at him, his pipe half way to his mouth.

"Nay, I tell 'ee," he cried. "I'll have none of your Jesuitical
remonstrance. You've no right to it, and no knowledge of what I do."

"Indeed I have knowledge, if I haven't strictly speaking right, for you
yourself have told me. Your mind is losing its alacrity and has betrayed
you. Remember that I warned you once before, and begged you to forsake
practices that would mean your mind's as well as your soul's
destruction."

"Your knowledge is small indeed if you think my practice now is the same
as it was then, nay even as it was two years ago. I tell you that my
practice is blameless--I do but speak to the purest soul that ever
passed into Paradise. Our conversation is all of love and forgiveness,
happiness and goodness. She tells me of God and the angels, she confirms
me in the truths of religion and the blessed hope of everlasting life.
You shan't rob me of my comfort, nor trail your stinking doctrines over
our intercourse, which is pure and elevated and orthodox."

"Nay, friend, be not angry with me," said Parsons mildly, "I do but
question whether a man who casts his line into a bottomless lake can
ever be sure of hooking his fish. There's always the chance that he will
bring up a monster which may devour him. You fish in deep waters."

"Aye, but there's no monster on the line. I know my little one."

"With what voice does she speak?"

"With the voice of William Douce; it's a faculty he has. But it's her
language, her thought, her spirit. . . ."

He bowed his head and a deep sigh went through him, that might have been
a sigh of thankfulness or of longing. Parsons looked at the hands of the
clock, moving towards midnight.

"Nay, but those things can be contrived. The monster you hook may not be
a supernatural fiend but a mere human impostor."

"What! You would speak against poor Will? I tell you, I'll have none of
it. He's the best, truest lad in the world, and all these months has
been a devoted son to me. For shame to miscall an honest man."

"I know nothing of him," said Parsons coolly, "save that he has belonged
to a lodge of magicians, and may belong still."

"Nay, he has utterly foresworn it. He abhors black magic as I do.
Besides, there's no magicians' lodge in England."

"There's one twelve miles from here--at Branden Hall, by Milkhouse
Street."

Gervase stared at him, shocked and unbelieving.

"What, there? It can't be."

"But it is. Already there's been scandal in the district, and the
justices are uneasy. You would do well to warn William Douce not to go
there so often."

"I'll certainly warn him. But it can't be true. He'd never go there if
it was. He's scared of the devil."

"Then he'd better leave things of that sort alone--white as well as
black. Many a man has asked a white question and gotten a black answer."

"Only those who are beginners--tyros . . . Douce faulted with me once,
but never since."

"He faulted with you once?"

"Aye, a lying spirit came in the place of my brother Charles."

"And may not another lying spirit come in the place of your wife? And
may not both be but the lie of William Douce?"

"I tell 'ee, I won't have Will talked against."

"But you're bound as a true philosopher to consider every chance. My
certain knowledge is that such experiments enfeeble the integrity of the
ablest men. Douce may not mean to lie to you, but he may lie, since by
such practices he as well as you puts himself in the power of the father
of lies. I would entreat you, Sir, with all the respect and fervour of
my heart, to flee those demons that lurk in human treachery, greed and
superstition--as black as any that ever came out of the pit. Wherever
man deals untruly or betrays the reason God has given him, there is the
devil--we have no need to conjure him; he is all too ready."

Gervase sprang to his feet.

"You've said enough, Sir. In injuring my friend, you injure me. Pray be
gone."

"I will go at once. I thank you for hearing me so far, and I beg your
pardon for offending you. But to warn you was a burden on my ministry.
Good night."

"Good night," said Gervase, "and to hell with your ministry."



                                  4

He had not quite cooled down when William Douce came in.

"The fellow said you were a liar, Will."

"Which fellow?"

"That prancing Jesuit; he has been talking here for hours, warning me
against you and against my little bud."

"What! against her, too?"

"Aye, he swears it an't her spirit, because it's all against his
doctrine, forsooth. You and I know differently, Will--we have the
evidence of our senses."

"You have, Sir," said Will demurely. "You must remember that I know
nothing of what happens while I'm asleep. But this fellow, Sir--I'm
surprised that he should dare come into your presence, and provoke you,
knowing that you've power to have him gaoled."

"He trusts my good nature, but one day he will trust it too far. And
what else do you think he says? That there's a lodge or sabbat of
magicians over at Milkhouse Street. You come straight from there, so you
can tell me if it's so."

"Indeed it isn't so."

"He says the neighbourhood is all agog and the Magistrates warned."

"He seeks to scare you. My friend Tarver is a good sort of scholarly
man, and though he's interested in magic, it is as you are--as a scholar
and philosopher; his practice is no more than we practise here. If the
neighbours are uneasy, it's that they've been misled. But I've heard
none of it."

"I thought as much. I thought he was lying. Jesuits are brought up to be
liars--it's part of their training given in the seminaries. Their rule
is to do evil that good may come, and he will lie himself to hell in
order to save me from necromancy, as he calls it. Not that I would have
you think, Will, that our Church approves of necromancy. But in her
wisdom and tolerance she knows the difference between white and black,
and she will always allow learned and approved philosophers, such as
myself, to investigate the white science under proper safeguards."

As if in illustration of his last word, Douce drew two intersecting
pentacles upon the floor and swept a circle round them.

He was a little disturbed by what Gervase had said. If it was indeed
true that the doings at Branden were being rumoured abroad, then Tarver,
and possibly he himself, stood in a certain peril, since conjuring and
witchcraft were punishable by death. He must warn Tarver at the first
opportunity . . . he would go over to Milkhouse Street to-morrow . . .
but he must pacify the old man first--he could see that he was greatly
upset. His face was white and his hands were shaking; his head too shook
a little, as if nodding with a palsy. The priest had disturbed the
little store of comfort that was growing in him under the nurture and
supply of William Douce. That damned Jesuit should get his deserts--he'd
prowled about long enough. Young Douce was hot with moral indignation
against Parsons, who he held had behaved cruelly, striking at a
half-healed wound. That was always the way with priests and religious
people--cruel, cruel, cruel, persecuting the old and the poor for their
comforts--the delicate comforts of a false religion . . . it had always
been the way. The Inquisition existed to destroy any comfort that could
be found outside its rigid bands of doctrine. And now here was this
priest, himself forbidden and proscribed, harrying this poor old man out
of his happiness. Douce's heart yearned in indignation over the old man
who had become his child.

"Now, Sir, if you want me, I'm ready to go to sleep."

"Indeed I want you, Will, or rather I want her. But I want you too. . . .
Will, I've told my sister that you are my son."

"You've told Madame Alard . . ."

"That you are more to me than that poor unhappy babe. I feel to you as a
father."

"And I feel as your son, Sir."

He spoke without deceit, for his heart was warm with a queer filial
tenderness. This poor broken old man now seemed to him the only father
he had ever known. Gervase put out his hand and touched his.

"Life is very dark, Will--dark, I sometimes think, for both of us."

"That is true, Sir."

"You hold the only light there is in it, and I bless you for it--my
son."

Will suddenly sank to his knees, and the hot, shaking hand came upon his
bent head.

"God bless you, Will."

Douce murmured something, he scarcely knew what. Alard continued:

"I pray that the light you carry doesn't shine for me alone--that you
get some comfort from it, Will."

"Yes, that I do. You comfort me too."

"But why should you be sorrowful?"

"I know not. I'm so made--unlike and unhappy. . . . But if I make you
happy, Sir, then I'm happier. It's all the happiness I ask now."

"Then bring her to me, Will--I'm ready. I want her more than ever
to-night, after what that fellow said . . . a monster . . . he told me I
might catch a monster."

"Think no more of him, I beg, and come inside the circle."

"Aye, I will come inside the circle, for fear that I should get a
monster--or is it that the monster should get me? Ho! Ho! Ho! I must
take care to-night."

"Princhiporatverbum . . ." said William Douce, beginning his magician's
Latin.

Condemnation should speak with an extra tenderness to-night. She should
confirm her widower in his hope that the priest was lying--she should
indeed give him a redoubtable vision of the Jesuits as seen from the
angle of a better life. But chiefly her speech should be of love and
love's communion, for her mouthpiece and inventor had no thought except
to comfort the old man she had left. Very soon after her death he had
been moved to take this way of assuaging Alard's frantic grief. He had
found himself able to reproduce her voice. After all, once the
difficulty of the pitch was overcome, her speech was easy enough, with
its country accents and childish phrases. Gervase was not critical--all
he wanted from her was her love, her forgiveness and her assurance that
he was not to blame for her death.

Douce had provided all this without afterthought, without any plan to
influence him or to control the future. If later on Condemnation should
ever think that her husband's son in alchemy deserved more of him than
the son of her womb, she had nothing to say about it now. He had raised
her spirit only to comfort Alard's distress, to calm his wild,
self-reproaching sorrow, to make him eat and sleep again. At the moment
the old man's comfort meant more to him than any schemes of his own.
Why, only a few minutes ago he had missed an excellent chance to plead
his claims. . . . But he had not thought of it. He thought of it now and
felt surprised at himself--surprised but not really sorry. He would have
more chances later.

He leaned back in his chair and began to breathe stertorously; the sweat
rose on his forehead. But before he exercised another useful faculty and
rolled up his eyes into blindness, he parted his eyelids to glance
across at Gervase, sitting hunched over the table. The light was
dim--only two candles in the vast room--but something in his attitude
gave Will a sudden alarm. He opened his eyes wide and stared at him. His
face had a queer, empty look. Then suddenly he spoke:

"Will, Will--come back. I an't feeling well."

"I'm here. What is it, Sir?"

"I don't feel well."

He struggled to his feet.

"Pray be seated, Sir, and I'll fetch you a glass of wine."

"No, no, I mun't sit--I mun go to her," and his speech rushed curiously
together. "I see her, Will--she's here over against you. Why can't I
walk? I mun go to her. Why can't I move?"

He made a few steps forward, with a terrible effort as if his feet were
shod with iron. Then suddenly he cried out, and fell forward--lying all
along upon the ground, like Saul before the witch of Endor.



                                  5

Douce rushed to his side and tried to raise him. There was a tremor in
his limbs and his face was crimson and puffy. He felt strangely
heavy--almost the weight of two men; Douce laid him gently back on the
floor, then seeing that his head rolled from side to side on the hard
wood, he picked his own cloak off a chair and folded it for his pillow.
There was water in a decanter beside the wine, and he bathed Alard's
forehead with it, expecting him to revive. But he showed no signs of
recovery; on the contrary, he seemed to sink deeper into
unconsciousness. His breathing became loud and laboured, and after a
while he began to mutter, addressing someone in a strange gabble that
came more and more thickly, and as it thickened grew harsher till it was
at last an animal sort of crying.

Douce felt convinced that he had fallen under a magical influence, into
a trance such as he himself had feigned. This was not the first time he
had seen some practitioner of magic other than the "magician" himself
become as it were infected and carried into a fit. He had seen it in
France and he had seen it at Milkhouse Street. Sometimes the victim
would lie silent and motionless, as if dead, sometimes he would rave and
throw himself about; but always he returned to consciousness without a
single memory of what had happened.

For this reason he did not want to summon help. If only he waited
patiently Alard would recover, and be little or none the worse. He
seated himself beside him on the floor, and continued to bathe his head
and chafe his hands. But as the minutes passed the old man's fit became
more rather than less violent. He rolled from side to side so
frantically that sometimes he rolled right over, and his mutterings and
cries grew louder and more agonized. Then he began suddenly to arch
himself on his heels and head, stiff as a bow, while his face grew dark
and suffused--a bloody froth began to run out of the corner of his
mouth.

William Douce was frightened; he had never seen anything like it. Alard
seemed likely to choke and it struck him that he might be, after all, in
some sort of bodily fit--in which case he ought to summon help at once.
Gervase had rolled his head off the folded cloak and was beating it on
the floor. Douce could not make him lie still--he seemed to have not
only the weight of two men but the strength of them, while his limbs
were astonishingly flexible as well as vigorous, seeming at times to
have an unnatural power of extension . . . it was impossible to hold him
for more than a moment; and all the time from his mouth poured, with the
blood and saliva, a harsh gabbling sound that was like an inhuman
colloquy.

Douce could bear no more of it. He forgot the urgent need for
concealment, he forgot even those enlaced pentagrams upon the floor; he
thought only of the old man whom he loved with all the angry force of
contempt. Whether he was in a bodily fit or in the hold of some demon,
he might die if help did not come; so he rushed to the door, flung it
open and shouted down the passage:

"Help! Help!"

The empty echoes of the house answered him, with the creakings and
strainings of ancient wood and the roar of wind. Far away, as it were in
a tower a door opened.



                                  6

Gervase felt giddy with loneliness. The whole world seemed empty, as if
he were the only creature in it. The two candle flames that had for
countless centuries illuminated Douce's face seemed to recede like the
lights of a procession. Two acolytes marched before the priest on his
way to the altar. This was a holy place, and he felt a little comforted,
but there was still that dreadful pain of loneliness, that feeling of a
void above, around and beneath. The acolytes marched on, and he saw that
their heads were shaggy like the heads of deer, with sprouting antlers.
He began to feel uneasy about them, but continued to follow them, on and
on and on up a great empty nave to where a tiny glimmer proclaimed the
altar. They were suddenly there, and the priest already stood before it,
wearing a black vestment, with a broken column on his back.

Gervase turned to flee, knowing that the uttermost horror was upon him,
but all around him now there was a People--the nave was full, arms were
thrust out to stop him, and he saw a congregation of snouts and antlers.
How could this be? There was no black lodge in England. Yes, there was
one at Branden Hall, near Milkhouse Street. He must be there.

The roof of the church cracked open and fell apart, the walls fell
silently away, and he was in an empty country, dark and hushed, with a
rustle of wind about him and a flow of water. He heard the water of a
little stream plashing and gurgling, and in the darkness he began to
distinguish hedgerows and fields asleep. It was night, and he seemed
bodiless, alone there in a countryside he knew or that was like a
countryside he knew. He wondered how he could go home. He had no idea
which direction to take, nor could he move, having no body. He felt that
he ought to be able to project himself at will, but instead he was as
rooted as if he had been bodied by a tree. And why was the world so
empty? Was nothing alive?

The darkness began to lift, not slowly in a natural manner, but quickly
like a curtain. He could now see fields and hedges and stacks and woods
quite clearly, without the light of sun or moon. Then, away where the
source of the light seemed to be, he saw a house. It was a red house,
flat fronted, with a steep roof and windows that stared; it stood on a
slope above a small valley, with fruit trees at the back of it. It
seemed dead, just as the whole countryside was dead. It was all flat
like a picture, and yet it was not a picture, for he was in it, a part
of it, also dead.

Then he began to feel that the house was sucking him towards it. Though
unable to move he was yet coming nearer. It drew him with a definite
suction, and he seemed to have a body now, a body made of fear,
displaying all fear's degrading incontinences, but without any other
functions. He tried to cry out, but his voice was not there; he tried to
hold himself back, and found that he could do so in a measure, but the
effort was exhausting and only partially successful--his strength
failed, and he was drawn on again.

Just as he came into the valley before the house, he saw William Douce
standing a short way off. His voice rose in him like a fountain.

"Will!" he called. "Will!"

Douce moved toward him, then stood still. He stretched out his arms as
Gervase passed and the tips of his fingers seemed an inch away. His lips
moved, but no sound came from them. Gervase felt himself rising up the
hill, and in a few moments the house sucked him in like a mouth.

He knew that he was lost. Here is Tartarus. He could not cry out nor
pray. But suddenly, he did not know how, there was prayer. It seemed to
split the rafters, and beyond them, as it were in light, he saw a
beautiful picture. At first he was conscious only of its beauty and its
goodness, but in a moment or two he realized that it was a picture of
Isaac about to be sacrificed by Abraham, and that it was a living
picture, just as all that he had seen hitherto had been dead pictures.
But though living it was nevertheless the same picture that he and
Charles had known so well as children in their father's Bible. The
colours were the same, and the crude drawing--yet it was alive.

The rafters closed again and it was gone. He found himself in a large
high-ceiled room with a fire burning in it. He felt shaken and
bewildered, but no longer so much afraid. Then a young man came into the
room with a mincing gait. He wore brightly coloured clothes and an
elaborately curled wig. He spoke to Gervase.

"If you are looking for Will, he isn't here."

Gervase found that he had a voice--or rather that he was a voice--and
asked:

"Where is he, then?"

"Surely you must know, since you've taken him from me."

"I passed him outside the house."

"Nay, that isn't Will, but his image--his image that I keep, having lost
the substance of him."

"I know nothing of him, then, unless he's at Conster."

"He returned there a few hours ago--he was determined to go because he
had a meeting with you, though I would have kept him here for a far more
interesting experiment. I tried to get him back, but it seems that I
have gotten you instead. How did you come?"

"I know not," said Gervase.

He was beginning to feel afraid again. He had a sensation that he and
the young man were not alone. Someone or something was watching them. A
mist rose in a corner of the room, and he saw a sign-post standing at
three went-ways. There had been a fourth, but it had been wiped out for
fear of making a cross. Gervase found himself walking down one of the
roads, through the same country as he had seen a short time earlier--the
dead images of fields and woods. He went on, oppressed and lonely, but
comforted by the thought that he was moving away from the house--till
suddenly he saw it before him again. He realized then that his movement
was not free, but that he was being, as before, sucked toward it. He was
going back, and desperation seized him.

"Will!" he cried. "Will!"

Again he saw Will standing before the house, but this time the image was
malevolent, and Gervase knew that the soundless words that came from it
were curses and reproaches. Once more Douce stretched out his hand, and
once more he could not reach him. Gervase passed within an inch of his
clutching fingers.

He was drawn into the house, and this time there was no prayer, no
parting of the roof above him. Instead he found himself in the same
high-ceiled room as before. The same young man sat by the fire, combing
his periwig. He raised his eyebrows as Gervase came in.

"What! you're back again?"

"I couldn't help myself. I was dragged here--by you, no doubt."

"Nay, certainly not by me. I've no interest in you at all. It's only, as
the saying is, that the dog has returned to his vomit again, and the sow
that was washed to her wallowing in the mire."

"You're insolent, Sir. I know not who you are, but I know you have no
right to talk so to one who is the Squire of a Manor, a Justice of the
Peace and a Clerk in Holy Orders."

"My name's Tarver," said the young fellow, "and you look monstrous like
a Squire and a Justice and a Parson--especially a Parson."

Gervase seemed suddenly to see himself, from outside as it were. He wore
his best suit, the same that he had worn at his wedding; but it was
sprouted all over ridiculously with peacocks' feathers. How had they
come there? Someone must have played a trick on him. But why had he
never found it out till now? He felt a zany and buffoon, and longed to
run away from the other's appraising stare. But he could not move.

Then once more the mist began to form itself in the corner of the room,
and he knew that in another moment he would see the signpost and the
three went ways. All his terrors revived and he cried out--"Nay, nay,
not again."

"Surely," said Tarver, "you wouldn't wish to stay here."

"But I can't for ever be travelling in and out. I know you for who you
are, Sir, a conjuror and a magician; but you've no right to treat me
like this."

"I tell you it's none of my doing. It's you who've chosen to come back
again and again."

"But can't you use your power to save me?"

"Why should I save you? I care nothing for you at all. But if you ask
me, your friends are already in this. They're trying to get you out."

As he spoke a light shone below the chimney, and Gervase saw another
picture there. This time it was of Joseph being sold by his brethren,
and once again he recognized it as a picture in his father's Bible
turned to life. The colours had all the luminous beauty of a childhood's
dream, and he looked closer to see if a figure was there which he
remembered with a special tenderness, the figure of a little
shepherd-boy carrying a lamb. . . . "Fear Him who was sacrificed in
Isaac, who was sold in Joseph, was slain in the Lamb." . . . He could
not tell where the words came from, and leaned forward to see if they
were written underneath the picture. As he did so it faded into the
fire; but the mist in the corner had also disappeared.

"I told you your friends were helping you," said Tarver, "but while
you're here I should like you to meet a friend of mine."

For some reason Gervase was frozen with terror at his words.

"Nay, nay!" he cried desperately. "I will not meet him."

"Why not? I show you a courtesy."

"But I want none of your courtesies. I must go."

"Wait only a moment. He's in the house. You took my friend, but I'm
generous and give you mine."

"Nay, I never took your friend. You do ill to be revenged, Sir. I think
highly of Will, but I've never interfered with his liberties. Why, he
was here only yesterday."

"He was not himself. You can see by his image at the door that he's not
himself. He has no powers, either for good or evil. Come, I will call my
friend."

"I will not see him! I will not speak to him."

"But I will call him, none the less."

Once more Gervase found himself unable to move. His bodily appearance
too was gone. He was just a motionless point in space. He could not hear
Tarver call, but he heard someone approach, someone on the stairs,
coming down them without footsteps but with heavy thumps . . .
thump--thump--thump. . . . His fear seemed to split him into fragments;
he was no longer a single point, but a thousand disrupted atoms,
whirling in chaos. . . .

"_A porta inferi, erue, Domine, animam ejus_."

Again he did not know where the words came from, whether they were
spoken or written, but the thumping noise on the stairs was suddenly
still. Tarver had disappeared. In his chair sat a small black animal,
like a hare and also like a dog. Gervase watched it anxiously, fearing
that it would change suddenly into something malevolent and pursuing.
Then he saw that the mist was forming itself in the corner, and this
time he waited almost eagerly for the sign-post to appear. He would
escape down one of the roads; after all, he had tried only one. There
were three, and they might not all lead back again.

He was just able, by a concentrated effort of his will, to move toward
the vision. The three went-ways shone luminously, and out of their
radiance the sign-post formed itself at last. It bore three directions,
and he approached the first--"To Branden Hall." That must be the way he
had travelled before, which had brought him back. He read the next with
a shudder--"Au Pays du Nant." His only hope was the third, and he just
managed to drag himself to it and read it as the radiance died away. It
ran "Ad portam inferi."

With a wail of terror he fell back, and as he did so he heard the thump
again upon the stairs.

"Ecce Crux Domine."

Once again words seemed to hang mysteriously poised between speech and
writing. He knew that there must be a fourth road at the Cross--he could
just see the traces of the way that had been smudged out. He tried to
force himself along it, but his powers were nearly exhausted. The
thumping grew louder, it rocked the house. The door opened and he saw
clouds rush under the ceiling. The image of William Douce came into the
room, standing up to the waist under the floor, like a man standing in
water. The floor became water, it flowed round him--he and Will were
drowning in it together. He did not know if Will ware trying to help him
or trying to destroy him, but which ever it was he seemed powerless. The
waters carried them apart as they rushed over the fourth went-way,
trying to blot it out. He felt himself being sucked down the road that
led back to Branden Hall, to start again and again on his eternal round
of escape and return. . . .

But he seemed now to have a little power of his own, and the land had
power against the waters. The waters rose against the land, but the land
rose out of the waters. The four went-ways became a Cross. . . . Behold
the Cross of the Lord--flee ye that are of the contrary part . . . he
was gazing at the Cross, which shone and rose above him, filling the
heavens with love and wisdom and power. . . . He was lying on his back,
gazing up at a crucifix held above him by Mr. Parsons. . . .

Then the darkness covered him again, but through it he heard a woman's
voice say:

"He opened his eyes."



                                  7

Parsons stood up, pulling his stole from Gervase's neck. He thrust back
the crucifix into his pocket, but he forgot to remove the stole, which
dangled strangely over the secular smartness of his velvet coat.

Louise still knelt on the floor, a pannikin of water shaking in her
hand. Then she began to cry.

"Oh, mon Dieu . . . mon Dieu! c'tait horrible . . oh, mon Dieu! Faites
que a ne revient plus."

"Be of good cheer," said Parsons, "he's quiet now."

"But will the spirit return?"

"Nay, if it be a spirit, for I have exorcised him by the _Crux Domine_."

"If it be a spirit . . . but how can you doubt it?"

"Indeed there's little room for doubt; but we're commanded to be prudent
and not to insist on a supernatural explanation where a natural one is
possible. That's why, even as I put on my stole, I bade you send for a
physician."

"He should be here in a very short time."

Parsons stooped down and looked closely at Gervase. He remembered and
removed his stole, and as he did so the fringed end swept the old man's
face, but he made no sign. He lay there motionless, stricken and
ravaged, like a fallen tree.

"He's unconscious still. I shall be glad for a doctor to see him. After
all, he hasn't been himself for many weeks, and may well have fallen
into some fit or apoplexy. But at the same time we know that the powers
of evil have been invoked and the devil called up."

His eyes, suddenly bright with anger, glanced round to where William
Douce stood in the shadows behind him. Louise's gaze followed his, and
the two pairs of eyes seemed to hold the young man in a cross-fire of
rebuke.

Then Louise attacked him with her tongue. She looked and spoke as if she
wished her eyes to burn him and her tongue to cut him to pieces.

"How is it that you're still here? How dare you stand and watch your
work?"

Douce spoke calmly and contemptuously, though there was a hectic flush
on his cheeks and his hands were shaking--he held them behind his back.

"Like you, I'm waiting for the physician, having learned nothing from
the exorcist."

"There is no need for you to stay. You have done enough harm."

"I stay not to do harm, but to be informed as to the state of a man I
regard as my friend."

"You have no need for information beyond what your eyes can give you.
You have brought him to this. . . . Nay, you shan't deny it--your
necromancy is plain, with your kabalistic sign upon the floor."

Douce smiled faintly.

"It's but a drawing, made to please an old man."

"Nay, do not lie. You've conjured spirits, and one of them has taken
him."

"Madame, would you send for a sword to cut your sewing-cotton? I use no
sword where scissors will do as well. I myself was all the spirit there
was."

"You pretended to invoke a _magistellum_ or ruler?" inquired Parsons.

"Not even that. I spoke to him as nearly as I could with the voice of
his wife. I tried to comfort him in his distress. You couldn't comfort
him with all your prayers and pieties. But I could comfort him. I knew
what he needed and I gave it to him, and he was comforted."

"And behold him now."

"His state is more like to be due to the rating he had from this Jesuit
gentleman just before I came than to anything I did. For that matter, I
did nothing--we had scarce begun. But I found him here in very great
distress. If anyone is to blame for this fit, it's you, Sir," turning to
Parsons, "and not I."

"I took my life in my hands to warn him against infernal wickedness and
the abuse of his reason, and you, Sir, took your life in your hands in
order to bring help to him in his calamity. So we won't quarrel."

"How's that?" cried Louise. "How did he risk his life?"

"His heart moved him so warmly, if I mistake not, that he forgot his own
danger. He ran out and called for help, leaving the room all set for the
practice of necromancy. He called us, and we came, catching him as it
were red-handed. We could have him condemned for witchcraft."

"Let us do so then!" cried Louise. "The servants are all about. He can't
leave the house if I forbid."

"Nay, you must not forbid. Let his generous act purchase his freedom."

"Why should he be free to do more harm?"

"He will do no more harm--at least not here; and I hope nowhere else,
for he has seen the fruit of his works."

"Come, Sir," said Douce, smiling ironically, "you do ill to raise
Madame's hopes with a tale that has no bottom to it. Not a single
Magistrate would convict me of witchcraft on your evidence or even on my
lady's. I can prove I was but playing."

"But there were times when you weren't playing--is it not so? There's
plenty of evidence against you in connexion with your friend Tarver.
Madame would but see to the apprehending--the evidence would come from
elsewhere."

For the first time Douce's face showed signs of anxiety.

"There's none that can speak of my dealings with Tarver."

"There's many that can speak and are speaking. I believe that in a very
few days a warrant will be out and that your name as well as Tarver's
will be in it."

Douce turned pale. But he still bluffed.

"You can know nothing."

"But I know. And if you take my advice you will leave here at once."

"And for ever," cried Louise. "_Deo gratias!_"

He stared at her boldly with his black, bright eyes.

"I shall take my dismissal from no one but my master."

"He may never be able to give it," said Louise in a strangled voice.

"I shouldn't wait here for that," said Parsons, "it may involve you in
some unpleasantness. Be warned by me again, and leave at once."

"Nay," cried Louise, "why should he leave? You are altogether too kind,
Sir. This man has done enough harm, and, if we let him go, will do more.
I will call the servants."

And before Parsons could restrain her she had run out in the passage,
calling "Sam! Simon! Gregory!"

Douce looked for a moment as if he would run out too and go past her
down the stairs. But he controlled himself with a gesture of some
dignity, and stood where he was, motionless and upright. It was Parsons
who went out, and laying a restraining hand on Louise's arm, called over
her shoulder:

"Sam! Bring two men up to carry down your master to his bedchamber."

Then he led her back into the room.

"Go quickly," he said to Douce, "and they shan't stop you. Go and sin no
more."

"I'll go," said Douce, in a new, slow passion of hate, "but wherever I
go I'll make it hard for you, you damned Jesuit. I'm not the only one of
us that's proscribed, and you needn't think to buy your safety with
mine. I'll set 'em all on your track."

"As you will," said Parsons mildly, "but they'll have some trouble to
catch me."

He walked out of the room as he spoke. Douce hesitated a moment, then
after one last look at Gervase, he picked up his cloak and followed him.
He thought he was behind him on the stairs, but when he came down into
the hall there was no one there but the servants and some bustle round
the door for the doctor, who had just arrived.



                                  8

Gervase stood beside an ash tree--a sapling rather, with the bare,
spring boughs on a level with his hand. He saw the delicate black buds,
shaped like a deer's feet . . . how beautiful it was!--grey and black;
was anything in the world more exquisite? And here were the flowers,
also black upon the bough and tightly curled. He put out his hand and
touched them . . . "Ash flowers . . . so pretty" . . . his hand shook as
he stroked the flowers, and he felt them under it, all soft and nubbly.
He was stroking curls . . . a curly head . . . oh, my love, where have
you been this long time? Look up and let me see your face. . . .

"Remember not, Lord, our iniquities, nor the iniquities of our
forefathers."

He was reading the Order for the Visitation of the Sick--reading it over
her, his little bud, lying there in the grave of her bed. . . . Nay, he
was not reading it--that great booming voice was not his. It was being
read over him by Dr. Braceley, as he lay in his own bed, and the morning
light was in the room.

"Spare us, good Lord, spare thy people, whom thou hast redeemed with thy
most precious blood. . . ."

How ill the fellow reads, thought Gervase. But he ever read ill. He is
the murderer of prayers--I'll frighten him.

And when the Doctor came to the response, he cried out with all the
voice he had----

"Spare us, good Lord."


He had expected a great shout to come, but instead came the merest
whisper. His voice was no more than a sigh. He did not think anyone had
heard it. . . . What did that mean, then? He must be ill--very ill. He
had only a vague, uneasy memory of how his illness had come upon him,
but they wouldn't have sent for Dr. Braceley for a trifle.

Perhaps he was dying. . . . He could not move or speak. He was inside
his body--he no longer wandered a desolate point in space--but he seemed
to have lost his control of it, his power over it. It was no more than a
prison-house, through the darkening windows of which he watched a
receding earth. He felt Louise come up to the bedside. She moistened his
lips with water, and he was sure that she had not even heard his cry.
With a great effort he opened his eyes, and saw her face close to his.
She started, and whispered something, but the Doctor's voice boomed on.

"Dearly beloved, know this, that Almighty God is the Lord of life and
death and of all things to them pertaining, as youth, strength, health,
age, weakness and sickness. Wherefore, whatsoever your sickness is . . ."

The voice was growing fainter, and the light seemed to die with it.
Light and sound died away together, and he was alone. Yet he knew that
he was still lying in the bed and that Braceley was still reading the
Order of Visitation. Also he seemed to know when he shut the book. An
empty age went by: then he began to feel things about him--hands that
touched him, that moved him. They were taking blood from him--he could
feel his life's blood run out. Why didn't Louise stop them? He didn't
want to die.

Yet he knew that he must die. He had already lived too long. His life
had been useless, empty, wasted, lost down strange paths and perilous
streams. To whom shall we turn for mercy but to thee, O Lord, who for
our sins art justly displeased? . . . How shall I turn to him--_now_?
Louise . . . give me the _Crux Domine_.

He had tried to speak, but he knew he had not spoken. He was to all
appearances unconscious, even dead. Perhaps he was already dead. O Lord,
have mercy on me . . . O Lord, suffer me thus far . . . the cross!

He had uttered it--the sound had passed his lips and rang in his head
like thunder dying through empty halls. But it was not the word he had
expected to hear or had striven to say. "Condemnation." He had called
for her instead of for the cross. He wanted her--oh, how he wanted her!
his little bud. . . . She would not have let him die without the cross.
Condemnation! Condemnation! . . . Condemn--condemn . . . neither do I
condemn thee. . . . Oh, my little love, my dear, my dear--can you pray
for me now? Can you help me who loved you so much and treated you so
badly?

He tried again, and once more the sound passed his lips, while his whole
body shook with its last effort. This time he did not think he had said
a word at all. Had they understood? had she understood, rather? . . .
Another age went by, and he felt the cross in his hand. Hearing and
sight and speech were gone, but he knew it was the cross. Louise had
given him the little cross she wore, and as his sense of touch faded
round its outlines, his prayer formed itself in hope out of the
dust--Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.



                                  9

A fortnight later Louise set out from Conster on her way to France.
Though Madge de Champfort had offered her the family coach, she went on
horseback, and two men and a maid rode with her. She ought to have been
light with happiness, thinking of the new life before her, but for the
first hours of her journey her heart lagged heavily with the life she
had left behind. She had no actual anxieties and no actual regrets,
merely attachments that had become habits, a way of life that had ruled
her for twenty-five years. She left the last Alard in good hands--there
was nothing to fear on his account. Madge would look after him well with
her own brood, now promised an increase, and her husband would be a
kind, practical, unsentimental guardian.

Louise sometimes thought that Providence had befriended the child in
removing the strange pair who had given him birth and leaving him to be
brought up by common, sensible folk. He certainly ran a better chance of
growing into a normal citizen than if his father had lived to neglect or
to mislead him; and as for poor little Condemnation, she would probably
have been like a mother of the woods, careful and tender to the child in
the nest, but totally unable to guide or influence him once he had grown
out of it. No, Louise need not reproach herself for leaving a fatherless
and motherless child behind her. Little Charles Gervase would grow up
among good, ordinary people, among children of his own age. The fact
that his birth had robbed one or two of them of their inheritance would
not make any difference at all; she was clear-headed enough to believe
that the generality of people are law-abiding and kind-hearted. Little
Charles Gervase would come of age and step into his inheritance of
decaying forest land--perhaps by then there would be hardly enough
timber to keep the furnace blowing. . . . Certainly he would have been
richer if William Douce had stayed on as clerk of the works; she did not
believe that the homely Englishman whom de Champfort had engaged from
Sir Peter Agate's furnace at Bolney had either the experience or the
ambition of his predecessor.

But she could never think of Douce's going without a thankful prayer.
She could not have endured the thought of him still at Conster, with his
mirthless laugh and rapacious eyes. She saw those eyes now when she shut
her own, sorrowfully staring at some invisible desire. If he had stayed,
Conster might have become a richer place, but she could not believe that
the riches would have prospered anyone but William Douce . . . and with
the gold and the silver he would doubtless, like the harlot of the
Apocalypse, have amassed that other merchandise of slaves and souls of
men.

Her only fear was that he might come back, but she did not think he
would. She had heard from the household of La Petite Douce that he had
gone to France; and he was likely to remain there, as his friend Tarver
had been arrested a week ago an a warrant which also bore his name. If
she met him again she would meet him in France, but she did not think
she would meet him again. He would go to the dark country of the pines
and forges, and she would go to the country of the vineyards and the
sunshine, her own country, which was her husband's country too.

Lifting away her heart from Douce, she looked into the future. _Laus
Deo!_ She had no right to let her mind drag with the past, for she was
more fortunate than most women. At forty years old, when many a woman is
settled in custom and thinks she is happy for no better reason than that
she has grown used to pain, she was beginning life and love anew. Two
years ago she had looked upon herself as a lonely widow, asking no more
than to be allowed to end her days among the ghosts of her lost
happiness, and here she was leaving those ghosts behind, and riding
forward into a future once more substantial and alive.

She had given twenty-five years of her life to Conster, and it was
enough. She would be glad to see no more of it and its ways. She was
tired of stolen love and stolen religion--dangerous kisses and dangerous
prayers. She would be glad to kneel openly by her husband's side in some
great church where the organ pealed and incense smoked to heaven and
both love and faith could lift up their voices. As she rode between the
last seaward hedges of a Protestant land, she felt in her heart a sudden
longing for those French churches she had not seen since her
girlhood--for the dark, gilded ceilings discoloured by the smoke of a
hundred candles swinging on huge candelabra beneath them, for the giant,
crowned statues of Saints rising above the incense fume, for the sombre
glittering vestments of the priests, the dark glow of French religion,
sombre and gilt, as remote from normal English religion, whether
Protestant or Catholic, as the sinister pageantry of French diabolism
was remote from the common English witcheries of maumets and familiars
. . . her thoughts were drawing back to Douce--at present too many ways
led to the remembrance of him. She was glad when de Prigault joined her
at the crossroads before Appledore and they continued their way
together.

He brought a servant with him who rode ahead with one of Louise's, while
the man who carried her maid on his pillion fell behind, leaving her and
Gilles to enjoy each other's public company, for the first time in many
months. She had said nothing about her intended marriage when she left
Conster--it was a surprise to take them later--and he had left his
father's house presumably to visit a friend at Deal. They would be
married as soon as they reached her cousin's house at Aurey, whence
letters would be despatched to their two families--to spread
astonishment, pleasure, grief or indignation, as the case might be.

It was near a week since they had spoken to each other, but now that
they were alone together they had not much to say. The past had sobered
them, or rather it had sobered Louise, and de Prigault pitched his tone
on hers. Glancing at his great, powerful figure beside her, she indulged
in a smile of tender satisfaction at the thought of his gentleness. This
mighty man would always be a little in submission to her small, active
self. He would be in a manner her son as well as her husband--by
marrying him she lost the ache of childlessness as well as of widowhood.
He was her child. She had already done a mother's best part by teaching
him his prayers. She would make him happy too in other ways. She knew
that she could, for his youth was of the leaning rather than of the
questing sort, such as would be glad of her experience and find charm in
her maturity. Apart from this gentleness of mind, he was a fine, brave,
handsome, vigorous man--and she was fortunate . . . no, blessed rather.
God had blessed her with a rich reward. Her smile grew wider, and
turning his head he saw it lighting her face back to youth and beauty.

"_Mon ange_ . . ." he whispered.

After that they rode almost in silence through Appledore, Ruckinge and
Bilsington. As they drew near the cross-ways by Court-at-Street, they
saw a horseman waiting. The servants laid their hands on the pistols
they carried, but Louise and de Prigault had been expecting to meet him
at some point of their road, and now hailed him gladly.

"Good evening, Sir. Good evening, Mr. Parsons."

"May I ride with you as far as Dymchurch Hill? Then I must turn back,
for I've some miles to cover, and anyway I'd better not go into the
town."

"It's kind of you to come and speed us on our journey."

"No kindness at all. I would see the last of you for my own sake. And
there are some things I want to know. Tell me--how did he die?"

"Peacefully," said Louise, "at least quietly. He did not recover
consciousness. At one time I saw his eyes open, and I thought he might
revive; but he never spoke--except once when he cried out her name."

"Whose? His wife's?"

"Yes--he asked for 'Condemnation' and then died."

"Poor soul--his love for her was the best thing he had, and in dying on
her name he died as well as he could. Tell me, was a minister of his
religion with him?"

"Yes. Dr. Braceley came and read prayers. But he can have heard none of
it. Right at the end I slipped my little cross into his hand and he
seemed to take hold of it, but I doubt if he knew what it was."

"He may have known more than you think," said Parsons.

Louise was crying.

"Ne pleur pas, mon amour," whispered de Prigault. Then he said to
Parsons, "She must forget these things."

"I shall never forget them," said Louise. "God forbid that I should,
since I may still help him with my prayers."

"Which is help indeed."

"Yes, I know . . . you must forgive my tears and weakness, but these
past months have tried me. And that dreadful night. . . . Oh, _mon
Dieu!_ even now I can't believe that he died of a bodily disease. Mr.
Homer holds it was a common apoplexy brought on by his habit."

"An apoplexy, maybe; but who is to say how it was brought on? Mr. Homer
did not see him as we first saw him; nor did he know there were devils
about."

"It's monstrous to think of my brother being sucked into such
wickedness. I cannot understand it, for as I've always known him he was
orthodox in his religion and honest, though strange in his ways."

"He was a lonely man," said Parsons, "and there is always a special
devil besetting lonely men--a devil that may take one shape or another."

"I should not have called him lonely. He was twice married and the
father of many children."

"None the less he was alone--in himself, in his heart. Even when he was
happy with his second wife I think he was still alone. His loneliness
may have been his fault--I cannot say . . . I would not say. I am not
here to judge him, only to pray for him. God rest his soul--it was weary
enough."

"Amen," said Louise.

They had come to the edge of the high ground which used to be the coast
of England, and looked down over the marshes, partly inned for pasture,
partly overflowed with great pools and saltings and creeping tideways.
Far away beyond the marshes lay the sea, mysterious with twilight, and
beyond the sea lay France, invisible.

For a while the little company halted in silence. De Prigault's
thoughts crossed the sea to the great country he had left only a few
years ago and had thought never to see again. Louise's thoughts went
back rather in time, to her girlhood, to the life and ways she had
nearly forgotten. The only possessions she had taken from France and
still kept were her language and her religion. The former had grown a
little stiff from want of use, the latter had been strengthened and
deepened by the discipline of persecution. She found herself thanking
God for the fast that prepared her for the feast. Parsons thought rather
sadly that he would probably see her no more, that his ministrations in
the country round Leasan must henceforth be without the comfort of his
welcome and shelter at Conster. The poor old dog must leave his place by
the fire and make what use he could of the dog-kennel.

"I must turn back now," he said.

"It is hard to bid you adieu, my dear, dear friend," cried Louise, the
tears filling her eyes, "for I owe you my soul indeed."

"Nay, you owe that to your own courage and the grace of God. We may meet
again. If I should ever live to be too old for work, the Mission may
recall me to Rheims and we shall at least be in the same country."

"Shall you return to Leasan now I'm gone?"

"Yes, certainly I must return. There are the Tuktons to be visited and
one or two others. But I doubt if I shall be able to see them so often,
having no hiding-place in the district."

"I should have stayed."

"Nay, you've done more than enough; and God will reward you. God bless
you now--God bless you both."

As he held up his hand in blessing, he turned his horse's head, and the
next moment he was trotting briskly back toward Court-at-Street.

The dusk fell quickly round him, and soon the night was dark, but clear
and still, promising a good passage for the travellers. After he had
ridden away he slackened speed and let his reins drop on his horse's
neck while he fumbled in his pocket. "At last," he murmured as he found
his pipe.

He knew that he had almost longed to leave them so that he might get at
the comfort of his pipe again. His pipe was his good friend now that his
other good friends were gone. He filled it carefully, put it in his
mouth, and drew his tinder-box from his pocket. Then suddenly his
thoughts changed--and instead of lighting his pipe he took it out of his
mouth and stared at it wryly. Then he threw it far away into the bushes
by the roadside.

"There you go, old copesmate--better be there, in case you should ever
become a lonely man's temptation. You were growing too dear. 'If thine
eye should offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee,' so lie
there, my right eye. I will enter into life without thee."

He shook the reins and rode on. The country darkened round him and round
the travellers who now must be close on the edges of Hythe. When the
tide turned they would put out to sea and he prayed for their fair
journey and good estate. Then he said a prayer for those they had left,
he prayed for Conster and the young child there, and last of all he
prayed for the child's parents, especially for his father--that
delivered from Tartarus and the thick darkness, he might come at last to
the home of Paradise, that native land.

"O Lord Jesus Christ, king of glory, deliver the souls of all the
faithful departed from the pains of hell and from the deep pit; deliver
them from the lion's mouth, that hell may not swallow them up and they
may not fall into darkness, but may holy Michael the standard-bearer
lead them into the holy light: which thou didst promise to Abraham and
his seed of old."

His hand kept groping for his pipe, so he thrust it into his pocket and
kept it there, secretly telling his beads--a habit he had acquired on
his long, lonely journeys. He had a long way to go to-night, for he was
riding to visit a family near Maidstone, a family which he feared was
now backsliding from the faith. Perhaps they would give him shelter for
the night, but more likely they would not. He would have to risk going
to the inn, or else sleep out under the hedgerow. Sometimes he almost
wished he could be taken, so that all these lonely journeyings and
dodgings and strugglings might cease. But he knew that his life was
needed by the Mission and would profit it more than his death; so when
the thought came to him to-night he dismissed it at once, as another of
those temptations that come to lonely men.

THE END


