Leeway. A novel

Book I. Hettie

CHAPTER PAGE I. One Man profits ... ... ... ... _ II. In One Moment ... ... ... ... 9 III. Environment ... ... ... ... 18 IV. The Trouble of the Dawn ... ... 30

Book II. Aileen

V. The Bush ... ... ... ... ... 4_ VI. A Child of the Bush ... ... ... 53 VII. An Idvll of the Bush ... ... ... 63 VIII. Auf Wiedersehn ! ... ... ... 74

Book III

NAR1TA. IX. Noch einmal Auf Wiedersehn ... ... 86 X. I have no Appetite for Fatted Calf ... 97 XI. An Evening in Soho ... ... ... CONTENTS. VI CHAPTER PAGE XII. An Opportunity for Stone-throwing ... 116 XIII. Deeds beginning in Goodness ... ... 127 XIV. Weakness and Hunger ... ... ... H1 XV. A Wedding-day in Springtime ... ... 153

Book IV. Drift

XVI.- "Let us go away" ... ... ... 162 XVII. Mother Earth, the Healer ... ... 173 XVIII. " If you must" ... ... ... ... 185 XIX. TOO LATE ... ... ... ... ... I99 XX. Going away ... ... ... ... 216 XXI. Closer to Mother Earth, the Healer ... 229

Book V. Sa Dr

A. XXII. Down the Coast ... ... ... 242 XXIII. Two Beautiful Barbarians ... ... ... 255 XXIV. In Kareuta Town ... ... ... 269 XXV. Sacrifice ... ... ... ... ... 2S2 XXVI. "An Island Night's Entertainment" ... 296 XXVII. Poor Little Girl ! ... ... ... ... 305

Book VI. Revelations

XXVIII. Man Talk and Tobacco... ... ... 3,5 XXIX. A Postal Accident ... ... ... ... ,2o XXX. "Now I know" ... ... ,,. LEEWAY.

Chapter I. One Man Profits

" Why I deliver this horrible verse ? As the text of a sermon which now I preach ; Evil or good may be better or worse In the human heart, but the mixture of each Is a marvel and a curse." Cold Hair : a Story of Pomic. DOVER has its advantages as a first point at which to strike one's motherland, after a sojourn in the South, or in the great, many-coloured, wandering place across Channel. One misses, for instance, in landing at Dover, the stuccoed and uncompromising rigidity of Southampton ; the line upon line, terraced solidity of Plymouth ; and the generally awe-inspiring out-standingness of Britain's historical respectability, B LEEWA Y. 2 as seen and felt along the Channel, from the Lizards to the Nore. " It's a dear old place, after all, when there's no rain to add to its solemnity. Tickets?

Yes, certainly. H'm ! As rendered, the request might, I should have thought, constitute technically an aggra vated assault." A portion of his remark was spoken — it is a sure sign of weakness, but there are men who talk to themselves — and the balance was an inarticulate address to Dick Farley's inner self; that essentially dramatic personality which he made always sub servient to the environments of his outer, public self. Dick Farley occupied, on this spring of the year morning, a corner seat in a first-class smoking carriage, of the tidal train. And the tidal train was about to leave its temporary abode by the sea for its head-quarters in the Metropolis. Farley had for six months been wandering' up and down the highways of the Continent, and so the business-like challenge of the English railway official rather startled him.

He obediently presented his ticket, however, and the two men who occupied the far-side corners of the carriage did the same. The old gentleman who wore white spats and carried a cabinet minister's walking stick, did not produce his pasteboard voucher of first-class respectability, be cause, owing to an unfortunate train of circumstances, unknown to the collector, he did not possess one. The official's education, at a superior Board School in Peckham Rye, had not included instruction in any ONE MAN PROFITS. 3 method of identifying members of the Carlton Club ; and, in his mind, his line of duty was direct and very clearly defined. On the other hand, the old gentleman's position in the matter was to him, if somewhat annoying, still simplicity itself. No ! He was emphatically certain that he would not get out of the carriage ; and he could not pay, because he had not the requisite amount of coin of the realm.

" I haven't the money about me. Confound it, sir! Do you want to search me? My servant will meet me in London, and I will pay you there. Here, you may have my card ! " The official, inclined to humour this refractory passenger, glanced tolerantly at his card, and mildly insisted that the gentleman must pay or "get out." The old gentleman forgot his gout, and stamped on the floor of the carriage. Then he remembered his gout, and swore in a thoroughly gentlemanly manner. Then Dick Farley, looking over the top of his Figaro, smiled languidly, and said — " These things are very awkward. Here is my card. Will you allow me " Two or three minutes later the official had found change for a five-pound note, and had indulged in a little explanatory apology as he closed the carriage door ; Farley had accepted his fellow-traveller's card and begged him not to " mention it ; " and the tidal train was speeding away from the downs upon which the immortal Janet once waged war against donkey. riders, all and sundry.

The two men who sat at the far end of Dick > LEEWAY. 4 Farley's carriage had been the more interested in the little ticket comedy, for that one of them had recognized Farley as a man to whom he had been perfectly well known at Oxford, and whom he had since then several times encountered. Their eyes had not met, however, upon this occasion, and Farley had evidently not recognized the man in whose rooms at John's he had more than once supped. Now, as the train rolled Londonwards through the hop country, Dick dallied with a paper and his cigarette, the gentleman with the cabinet minister's stick fumed over the leading columns of his Times, and Forsyth talked in an undertone to his American friend Aldred about Dick Farley. Said the American — " Very decent of the man with brown eyes, wasn't it ?

The Nabob with the spats would have put a head , on that unfortunate conductor in another minute or two. Where do you suppose he's duke of when he's at home ? " " Don't know the man at all. He does look rather ducal, doesn't he ? The other man's name is Farley, — Dick Farley. And what he did just now is exactly typical of his character and life." " You know him, then ? " " About as well, I should fancy, as he knows him self. He was a fresher at John's in my last year." " Ah ! you people on this side are like one big family, and you're almost as unfriendly to each other as though you were all related. He's a very decent sort of fellow, I suppose ? " ONE MAN PROFITS. 5 " Oh, certainly — a very decent sort indeed ! People always like Dick Farley. He's the kind of man you could not possibly imagine refusing you anything, or— well, refusing it to some one else when he owed it to you.

Good-natured to his very finger tips, is Dick." "H'm! Workable, eh ? " " Exactly — as wax. But, mind you, a very good fellow." " Ye — es ! I always reckon, you know, that your really weak men do pretty nearly as much harm in the world as the fools. I reckon they just about divide honours with fools." " My dear fellow, Farley's a man who wouldn't harm a fly. I've seen him get into a fearful sweat over the flogging of a horse, and things like that. No, I should say he was too easily touched to ever do much harm to any one." " Yes. That's just where it is with weak men ; that's what gives them their pull on the fools. Your mere fool does the wrong thing more often, but your weak man does it more thoroughly, because he's so infernally easily touched. He's so plaguey well-meaning. He goes in for retrieving, and cussed ness of that sort.

He gets into a big sweat over a London cabby's flogging of a Mexican pony, and forgets his sister who's dying, and for whom he's been sent to fetch a doctor. He gets even on the fools with his tender susceptibilities, your first-class weak man. No offence to your friend, you know. I don't suppose he's that sort." LEEWAY. 6 "Oh, you needn't apologize. We have never been more than acquaintances ; and I think there s a lot of truth in what you say. Whether or no it's that kind of weakness that Farley has, of course, I could not say ; but to me he's always seemed a good fellow enough. And he's certainly popular. His people are big landholders in Hampshire, and since he came down from Oxford he has always had a little house in Richmond. I think he is sort of engaged to a cousin of his, a Miss Mordan.

The Mordans have a really fine place close to the New Forest, and old Mr. Farley's property runs half way round it, I think. I expect Dick Farley has always been a bit of a spoiled boy, you know. He's an only son, and if I remember rightly, Hettie Mordan is an only daughter." " As I said before, you people are all relations. Lord ! it is funny, the way you arrange your family affairs. If that girl were an American, your friend would have just one chance less with her, than her father's coachman. But if your man's what you think he is, I reckon he'll marry her, she being part of all this" — the American waved one long thin hand in the direction of the trimly cut hedges, and the well-ordered gardens, through which the express was running — " and I dare say he will make her fairly happy, so long as she keeps him within eye-shot."

" Oh yes ; I expect so. Dick is thoroughly right at bottom, you know, though he is so sublimely workable. He left a very good record at Eton, they tell me, because he just followed the line of least ONE MAN PROFITS. 7 resistance. I suppose he found it required much less effort to do a certain amount of work when told to, than to shirk it then, and do it later, plus punishment. He certainly did all that is expected of an average man at Oxford, including a final ploughing. Hullo ! he's going to recognize me. Now look here, I'll ask him to come down to Eastbourne with us for the carnival ; and I'll bet you a box of cigars he comes, no matter where he's bound for." "Well, I'd a lot sooner gamble on the other side ; but go ahead." Forsyth leaned along the arm-rests of his seat towards Dick Farley's corner.

"Ah— surely " "By Jove! it is. How are you, Forsyth? Do you know, I looked up five minutes ago, and fancied it must be you." " Yes. I recognized you some time back, and wondered if you would know me. I suppose it's two years since we met." " I suppose it is. I have been on the Continent for eight or nine months, and I am never so much in town as most fellows — er " " Let me introduce my friend Aldred, from across the water — the Atlantic, that is." The three men talked, and Farley asked where Forsyth and his friend were making for. "Well," said Forsyth, "we are going down to East bourne for a few days before settling in town. There's to be some sort of a spring carnival, and Aldred has some friends in the place. Look here, join us, Farley, LEEWAY. 8 will you? We shall have an ever so much better time, and Will you ?

" "Well, the fact is, I have only come back to England just now, because I believe I am due in Hampshire. There are some festivities at my uncle's place — you know the Mordans, I think — and I am supposed to attend. My cousin's first appearance, and a spread for the rustics, you know. I'm afraid Oh, well, I don't know. To-day is Tuesday, is it not ? " "Yes. Come if you can manage it, there's a good fellow." And when the train steamed into St. Paul's station, a few minutes later, Dick Farley had agreed to run down to Eastbourne with Forsyth and Aldred. " After all," he murmured to himself, " Hettie's ball is the main thing, and that's not till Friday. I expect I can manage to get down there by then. Anyhow Yes ! there's a couple of bags of mine in the van." It seemed that some one always interrupted the outer Farley's conversation with the inner Farley. "You may send them to my club, old chap," whispered Forsyth to the American; "and my weakness is a light Henry Clay."

Chapter II. In One Moment

' ' Here was I with my arm and heart And brain, all yours for a word, a want Put into a look — just a look, your part — While mine to repay it. ..." Too Late. Ralston was tired. He was not languid or bored, or merely out of tune, but tired. Tired mentally, and weary too, in every fibre of his clean-limbed, loose knit body. And this being the result of sustained work, of accomplishment, he was, of course, happy. So he filled his pipe, and lit it, allowed his long legs to cross at the ankle, and leaned far back in his shabby old saddle-bag chair, giving vent to the modern man's psalm of victory and content, " Ah ! " and again " Um — m ! " When, under such circumstances, a man breathes out these sounds, then he may with safety be approached by one seeking to borrow the very apple of his eye. He was in his working den — his littered, dusty, paper-strewn den — that place, of all others, in which a man's rest is restful.

To the eye of the stranger LEEWAY. 10 from without its walls, this room was littered and paper-strewn ; to the man whose personality filled its every corner, the room was ordered, holding nothing out of place, and the places for many things. The shabby old chair in which Ralston now reclined suggested rest, well-earned. All else in the room suggested work, and close, uncompromising method. When Ralston, having taken chemistry as his principal subject, got his first in the natural science tripos of his year at Cambridge, no one had felt sur prised, unless it was Ralston himself. Then, with clear, keen enthusiasm, he had settled down to the labours — love labours — of original research. A pro fessorship had been held out to him, and he had passed it by in the hot exhilaration of the work which had been summed up in his well-received treatise on the Atomicity of the Opium Alkaloids.

Now, there were several professors in England who would have gladly given their chairs to have achieved what he had placed behind him on the shelves of accomplishment. James Ralston, this young man's father, and once the bosom friend of Hettie Mordan's father, had died, leaving a small life annuity to his son Edward, and a slightly larger income to his Calvinistic, kindly wife. So, having sufficient for his small needs, the young man had chosen for research, with science as his master, science his ambition, science the plane from which he viewed the world, its glories and awards. And now he lay back in his chair contemplating luxuriously the prospect of a few days' rest, after a few weeks of luxuriously tense work. Never were heart and mind more united in their devotions than were Edward Ralston's in the pursuit of exact truths.

So both were exact, direct, and harmonious. " Come in ! " There came a knock at the door of the miniature laboratory, through which one had to pass to reach Ralston's den ; and, knowing that only his mother would come there, the man said " Come in ! " without a movement of his eyebrows. Then, stately, white haired Mrs. Ralston, whose wide, kindly eyes had all her life been contradicting the stern edicts of her thin lips, walked into her son's room, and stood before him, forbidding him to rise from his chair. "You are tired, my son. I wish you would not work quite such long, weary hours. In the autumn, you know, you used to say that when the treatise was finished " " Yes, I know, Mother mine ; but I must work off my superfluous energy somehow, you see. You take such wonderful care of me, and I am so strong.

There will be another treatise on the stocks before summer's over, Mother." " Ah ! " The intonation suggested reluctantly acknowledged pride. "But I have finished now for nearly a week. You have arranged to leave here early to-morrow for Hampshire, have you not ? " " It is about that that I came to see you, since you are not dining at home this evening. I have been packing your bag ; and — you must let your old LEEWAY. 12 mother change her mind, Ned — I have decided not to go to the Mordans' this time. No ! I know what you are going to say, but it will make no difference. You will go, of course, Ned. And perhaps they will understand why, for once, I would rather be here to welcome you home again, than be there with you." " But, Mother, this time of all others ! Hettie will be very disappointed.

And I wanted to have my first congratulations from you." " I will give you them here, my son." The kindly eyes were full of anxiety as she watched her son's strong face. "Ned, I wish you would not be quite so certain in this thing. I am no prophet of evil ; but she is not a problem in science, my son, nor yet a marvel of wisdom and learning, but just an English girl, whose eyes as yet can only see in certain pretty, narrow ways. Nothing is assured, Ned, where a girl's heart is your end and aim. There is that cousin of hers. The Farleys have always said that Dick should marry Hettie Mordan." " And we say Hettie Mordan shall marry me. Why, Mother, when did you begin to lose your faith in your own son ? Dick Farley, from what I've seen of him, is the best of good fellows, but — well, he is a very butterfly ; a man whom I cannot fancy winning anything.

If I know Hettie, as I think I do, she looks for more in a man than a pretty habit of con versation. You know what has spurred me on since I left Cambridge. The treatise would be little enough to me but as part of something to give Hettie, when I — when I tell her to-morrow." While her son spoke, Mrs. Ralston's bright eyes showed only proud belief in his ability. Then questioning severity came from her lips. "And, Ned, if I thought the child's prospects influenced you in " " My dear Mother, whatever possesses you to-day, to think such things ? You must have known this year and more that I love Hettie, and that I am going to make her my wife. Now, put all these fancies away, and say you will come with me to morrow, if only to see your future daughter's debut in the evening. If you insisted, I would bring you back next day."

To the old lady the morrow meant that crisis in her son's life at which his want would be declared. To her son it meant the occasion upon which his need would become a want supplied. Mrs. Ralston could not say that she was too nervous to accompany her son through the crisis, but she knew her own mind and heart ; and when the morning arrived, Edward Ralston drove alone from the quiet little house in Chelsea to Waterloo station, on his way to Hampshire and to Hettie. He had made his arrangements with a view to reaching the Hall before the lunch hour ; and when the meal was over he wandered out on to the great lawn before the house, because he had seen Hettie there with her spaniels. "Queen Hettie," Dick Farley had laughingly dubbed her, years ago, when both had been little more than children; and "Queen," or "Queen LEEWAY. 14 Hettie," she had since remained to most of those who knew her best.

Slight she was, petite and very dainty in her form and every movement, and gracious and graceful withal — a veritable Watteau queen, despite the occasional pretty tyranny of her tones and gestures ; and her eyes, large and instinct with feeling, were twin mirrors, in which one saw clearly the tender, loving heart, which made her subjects, for the most part, very serfs in their allegiance. And now Hettie wandered idly over her father's lawn — the great, springy, billowy lawn which, studded by old elms and kingly chestnuts, rolled clear away for almost a mile from the Hall, to the park rails beside the New Forest Road. Ralston had seen her from the open windows of a small conservatory, and so he walked across the grey old terrace and on to the grass beyond to meet her. He walked as a young king might walk to his coronation.

He went to claim the chosen of his heart, proud of all that was to be his, humble with all that he had to give. And as he approached her, Queen Hettie crumpled into a fold of her gown the tissue of a telegram form. Most people who knew him liked and respected Ralston, but Hettie was so fond of him that she had possibly never, until this afternoon, been other than glad to see him. " Hettie," he said at once, too proud to endeavour to pave his way before treading it, " I want to talk to you, if I may." In such things, a confident man's strength sometimes weakens his hand. " Why, of course you may ; only " Shall we walk this way ? These chestnuts are glorious. Everything is glorious to-day." " For a professor of everything exact, that's surely a rash statement. Do you include poor little me in your sweeping inventory of the chestnuts and — things ?

" " Queen ! It is you who make everything else glorious." " Really, your frivolity is most unbecoming in a scientist of such tremendous learning. ' Everything else ! ' It is just as I thought. You include me amongst the ' things ' " " Of beauty. Why not ? Hettie, to-day you are all things, animate and inanimate, to me." For weeks he had been buried in his work, one aim always before him. Now, it seemed to him that what was so strong and all-absorbing in him, must be known to, and felt by, Hettie. " If your science teaches you to pay such com pliments as these, I think all courtiers should begin by studying chemistry. It's awfully nice of you, but I hope I'm not earth and trees and sky to you, because I have to go down to see the lodge-keeper's wife ; and you — will miss so much." " Hettie !

I really do want to tell you something — something that has filled my mind this long while. Hettie dear, I love you ! I Yes, I know you did not expect me to say so now, but why should I wait any longer ? Everything I have done for the last two years has been for your sake, Queen. I LEEWAY. have thought of you always as queen to me in a different sense from that in which you are Queen to others. I determined, when I left Cambridge, to have some things accomplished to lay at your feet. Hettie, I— I have done more than some men, but it is all because of you, dear, and for you — all because I love you ; because I want you to say you will be my wife. Hettie, I " "Oh, Ned, don't! You don't know. I am not a bit worthy of all this, and — and I have always been so fond of you. Ned, I never thought of you like that."

" No, dear ; but you will now." There was no anxiety and no flash of triumph on Ralston's face as he looked down at Hettie — only strong love and satisfaction. He did not plead ; he claimed. Hettie was looking over Ralston's shoulder, across the lawn, towards the lodge and the forest beyond. Her eyes glistened, and her heart was over flowing with varying emotions. She was very fond of her old friend. When he said " Hettie," she leaned involuntarily towards him, as she did not lean to others ; and yet, as she said, she had not thought of him in this way. But he said she would now. He was very wise and strong. It was all very strange, and it made Queen Hettie tremble. Some how, her voice was not hers. She had no voice. And meantime Ralston's strong arm stole round her waist, and his voice grew deeper, truer.

She had never before heard it swell and vibrate like that. It was beautiful ; and he was saying that he loved her, that she was his queen, that she loved him. Did she ? Was it all true, she thought ? and was this what came to every woman ? Suddenly Hettie's eyes, gazing over Ralston's shoulder, widened. Then their pupils contracted to a pin's point, and she drew herself away from him with a little shiver. Where the broad drive rose sharply, just inside the lodge gates, Hettie had caught a flash glimpse of a dark, high-wheeled dog-cart, in the shafts of which was a bad-tempered roan horse, which Hettie knew well. Ralston, standing facing the girl, looked wonderingly at her. " What is it, Hettie dear ? " "Oh, Ned, what you are saying is wrong. Why did you say it ? I am so sorry. I cannot think of you like that, Ned.

I could not be — I do not love you, Ned Please let us go back. Do not ask me any more." Then they turned and walked slowly towards the Hall. The little white-faced queen's request was a command. On the terrace he left her at her own bidding. The scientist walked away, his head bent in pained surprise — the sudden pain that chills and stiffens. c LEEWAY. 18

Chapter III. Environment

' Out of your whole life give but a moment ! The moment eternal — just that and no more — When ecstasy's utmost we clutch at the core While cheeks burn, arms open, eyes shut, and lips meet." No'.i.'. Hettie was waiting and wondering on the terrace. Edward Ralston was talking to old Mr. Mordan of chemical soil fertilizers, and endeavouring to realize what had happened to him. And less than half a mile away, the man partially responsible for these things, was bitterly bemoaning the hard luck which had led to the laming of his favourite horse. The roan had shied at a startled rabbit, and plunging violently, had stumbled, and wrenched a fetlock. Just then, no earthly consideration was, in the eyes of Dick Farley, of equal importance to the accident which had lamed his horse. He left the animal at last in the hands of his groom, and, having instructed the man to send a messenger for another horse, he walked on alone over the grass towards the Hall.

ENVIRONMENT. 19 Warmly supported in his praiseworthy determination by his friends Forsyth and Aldred, Farley had succeeded in getting away from Eastbourne that morning, and was now on his way from Deepdene station to Forest Lodge, his father's home. He had telegraphed to Forest Lodge as to the time of his arrival, and then, thinking it would be wise to take an early opportunity of making his excuses to Hettie for his late appearance in Hampshire, he had dispatched another telegram — to his cousin this time — to say that he would call at the Hall on his way home from Deepdene. And this telegram Hettie had just received when Ralston had joined her on the lawn. Had she not received it, perhaps But that sup position involves one in the impenetrable mist with which Destiny drapes the great world of the might have-been.

Queen Hettie, standing with her arms resting on the lichen-covered balustrade of the old terrace, was still trembling under the pressure of a variety of conflicting emotions. In her tender heart was no particle of gratified pride to mitigate the pain which the interview with Ralston had caused her. The thing had been so absolutely unexpected, and the idea of causing pain to another was intolerably painful to herself. And then she was so fond of clever, clear-headed, Ned Ralston. But, as she had told him, "not in that way." It seemed to her impossible to think of him in that way. The native single heartedness, which made this thing impossible, was something she could not analyze, and knew not of. LEEWAY. 20 And that morning had been an unusually happy one to this girl, who stood at the threshold of her life's temple, seeing all things as yet mistily.