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CHAPTER PAGE

INTRODUCTORY : ABOUT THE LITTLE HOUSE ON

THE ROOF ..... I

Chapter I

Along a windy passage trotted a small boy, sniffing at a door numbered four, whining at number three, scratching at number two; and at number one, which made the end of the passage, he put up his head and howled the house down. By the manner of his conversation he proclaimed himself a dog, by his appearance he was a fox-terrier and a gentleman, and the name of Tobias was marked upon his collar. He was a little watchman going his rounds, saying after his own manner, " Seven o'clock, and time for children to come out and play."

Number one door opened and a rather nice-looking girl peeped out. She wore a dressing-gown, her dark hair was tumbling, her hands and face were tanned a fine red clay colour; and the name upon her collar was Berenice Calladine.

"Hello, my lovely!" said she, while little dog Tobias lifted up his voice and grinned tumultuously. " Want a game, do you? Come along, only don't make a noise, or I shall be sacked. I've had such a day, my pet," she laughed, shutting the door and rolling Tobias upon her bed. " I've broken all the laws. Late getting up this morning, which meant one black mark, and went too far, was found out, and got a lecture. This afternoon I left unwalked that walk I ought to have done, and climbed that tor I was distinctly told I was not to climb, consequently there is supposed to be no health in me. When I got back I had a temperature, and was sentenced to remain in my own cell and repent in solitude and cigaretteashes. And there's a new boy, Tobias. I want to see what he's like."

io Heather

Tobias was understood to say that he had witnessed the arrival of the new boy and entertained no very high opinion of him, as he had taken his ball and placed it with great precision at the stranger's feet, in order to test his throwing powers, and the new boy had ignored it and him altogether.

" I expect he wants his mummy/' said the young lady. " He's feeling blue, Tobias. Every one feels awful at first. I cried lots, swamped my bed, and it was dreadful cold and my tears froze, and I thought I was going to die every minute. I've been told to go to bed and I don't seem to be doing it. Such a beautiful evening, and I feel quite well. I think I'll stay up a little longer. Little stupid, you were nearly out of the window. Oh, I see," she murmured. " That's your ball on the grass."

The expression window was something of an euphemism, as there wasn't one. The entire house was in the same unfinished condition, and fresh heather-scented air careered freely through passages and rooms. It was pleasant enough at that time of year, but somewhat brutal in winter when the temperature was below freezing-point and snow came drifting upon the floor. The girl's bed was close beside the open space which, in a less savage abode, would have been occupied by a window with its usual accompaniments of blinds and curtains, and a piece of wire was stretched across to prevent her from rolling out into the garden while she slept. Below was a rough lawn dotted over with lounge chairs which were then unoccupied ; and upon the lawn reposed a golf -ball gnawed into an elliptical shape by the dog's sharp teeth.

" I wonder if I should be caught," murmured Berenice, longing for the ball which Tobias flatly declined to go for unless she came too. " I shan't be happy till I get it, and I've been so bad all day I may as well end badly and start fresh and good to-morrow. We'll chance it. Come along, Tobias."

She slipped out, tiptoed down the stairs, reached the grass safely and picked up the ball, an act which caused Tobias to jump and squeak. A cough reached her ears, and she looked up to see at one of the open spaces above a fat and comic head nodding furiously and making danger signals with its eyes and lips.

About Patients n

" It's all right, Mr. Gumrn. He's been and gone," said she; but at that moment the gate clicked, and she saw to her horror the tyrant of that little state strolling up the path slapping the palm of his left hand with the rubber tubes of a stethoscope. " Heaven save me," Berenice murmured. "I'm caught again."

" I told you to remain in your room, Miss CaJladine," said a cold voice.

" It's such a lovely evening. We don't get too many of them," protested the culprit, standing in a graceful posture of resignation, pushing the hair from her eyes.

' ' And I told you to go to bed. ' '

" I was going, but I looked out and saw this ball lying on the grass, and it worried me so I had to come down and pick it up. I did try to resist temptation, but it wouldn't be resisted. I'll be good to-morrow," she promised, with a smile which meant she would behave in exactly the same way.

The doctor came forward, took the ball from her in a paternal way, and threw it among the rhododendrons, while Tobias plunged merrily after it.

" I shall have to take the dog away if the patients throw things for him," he said.

' ' Take Tobias away ! ' ' cried the girl indignantly. " Then I should go, and the others would go, and you would be left weeping for your children — — "

" Now run away to bed. I can't have you about with a temperature. ' '

" It was only climbing up the mountains, and doing those things which I ought not to have done," she said.

"Which you are rather addicted to. Don't get up to-morrow until I have been, as I want to run over you."

" Not in those big boots, I hope," said the girl; and then ran off and watched the tyrant's departure from an up-stairs passage. " Now he's gone to his dinner, and can't bother me again. I'll go to bed presently, but I must pay some calls first."

She knocked at a door numbered five, entered, and discovered a small and pretty maiden propped up in bed, nibbling' dejectedly at a large slice of bread and butter.

" Well, Miss Shazell, how are we this evening?" said Berenice, mimicking the doctor's voice and manner.

"Miserable," came the answer. "But you mustn't come in. There will be such a row if you're caught.''

" Doctor has lectured me and gone. The matron is in the kitchen eating bread and honey, so we are quite safe. I've been in rows all day, and now I'm supposed to be slapped and put to bed. I'm going to be thumped to-morrow. ' '

" I was done this morning."

"What did he say?"

"I'm better, ever so much — if he really means it. But he's going to walk me soon, and I've stuck on four pounds this week."

" Then what are you miserable about, if you're getting better and plastering on fat in such a piggish fashion?"

" I want my mother," cried the poor little girl.

"That's because you are a silly baby," said Berenice severely. " If your mother was allowed here she would only kill you. She would never have the heart to see her girl all wet with the dews of heaven, like the man who did open-air treatment in the Bible. If they hadn't kept you at home, and coddled you so long, you wouldn't be in bed now. ' '

" I hate the place and the people," moaned Winnie.

" That's silly too. You haven't seen the people, and you mustn't hate a place which is saving your life. It's jolly good fun when you get a bit fit. And you must expect mixed biscuits in a sanatorium. How splendid and fat you're getting, Winnie ! You're nearly ready for market. What meal are you devouring now?"

" Tea," said tearful Winnie. " I finished breakfast just before doctor came at noon, and I got through lunch by four, and now it's dinner-time and I shan't finish that till two o'clock to-morrow morning. I'm always stuffing, but the milk is the worst. It's awful to lie here and pour milk into myself all day."

" Just put your head back and let it run down," laughed Berenice.

" But it makes me so sick."

" Don't let it. When I feel that stage approaching I clench my hands and teeth and declare I won't give way, and I don't. I haven't been sick since the first two weeks. Some people don't try to fight against it. Old Budge is always going out to admire the flowers, but she is a pig, and loads herself like a coal- van. "

"Don't," pleaded Winnie. "You mustn't stay, Berenice. I do like seeing you, but I am supposed not to speak to any one. Look at all this bread and butter ! My meals run into each other so, and I can't heave the lot out of the window or they'd see it."

"Poor little girl," said Berenice. "They give you rather a rough time, and you deserve a rest if you have put on four pounds." She picked up the plate of bread and butter. " I'll hide the stuff in my room and throw it away to-morrow," she said.

" That's so wicked," said Winnie.

" My dear, we can't always be good, not even in a sanatorium. Besides, tea is not a compulsory meal for most of us. Bye-bye, baby. Don't cough to-night, or I'll come in and smack you. ' '

Berenice went off, concealed the bread and butter, then banged at another door, and was received this time with enthusiasm. Number six was another maiden, on the wrong side of forty, although she couldn't remember it. Arabella Budge was not beautiful though she said she was good, but people doubted it. She was fond of telling, small selfish untruths, such as that her name was Ella — the surname didn't matter, as she intended to change that when the man with a higher aim than her bank-account came along — and she couldn't remember anything that had happened twenty years back, and she denied using a razor, although Berenice had caught her once with a lathered face, which, Miss Budge declared, was for the sake of her complexion. The lady also affirmed she was mortally afflicted, which was obviously untrue, as serious cases were not admitted to the sanatorium, and she explained her condition by the usual statement that people of sanctity could hardly expect to attain longevity. Miss Budge had excited some interest in the medical world, as she had gained twenty-one pounds during the first week under treatment. " Not bad for a girl," she expressed it. " Pigs simply nowhere," according to Berenice.

" My dear, I've had such a lovely dream," cried Miss Budge. " It's not often I go to sleep in the rest hour, but I did this evening, and I thought three men came in, and each claimed to be my long-lost husband. Wasn't that queer?"

" If you call bigamy a joke I suppose it was. Now I know the sort of life you have been leading," said Berenice.

" And then in came the real rude doctor without knocking as usual, with his, ' What's your temperature?' I shall throw my boot at his head one of these days."

" I should think your temperature was pretty high with such a lot of husbands," said Berenice. " Have you seen the new boy ? I heard the carriage drive up. ' '

" Just a glimpse as he walked up the path. Tall, thin, dark, and he turns his toes in. I coughed, but he didn't look up."

" A gentleman?"

" Must be. Doctor says he's a Balliol scholar. I suppose the first thing he will do is to fall in love with you, and I shall have to play gooseberry until you throw him down and trample on him, and then I can use the remains,1' said Miss Budge.

" Wait till Winnie Shazell gets about. I shall have to play gooseberry then."

" Is she really pretty? I can't see her as she's always in bed, and I don't dare go into other rooms like you do. I submit to discipline," said Miss Budge, with the air of a Christian martyr.

" She is a sweet, blue-eyed, flaxen-haired thing, with dimples and a most delicious nose. I expect I admire her because she is so unlike me," said Berenice.

' ' There go the Twins ! ' ' exclaimed Miss Budge, as a noise came from the stairs suggestive of furniture shifting. " It must be stuffing-time. Let's go down and bully the new boy."

" I can't. I'm supposed to be in bed getting a temperature down. ' '

" And here's the tyrant," sniggered Miss Budge, who was gazing out of the window.

Berenice rushed to her room and began to tear off her clothes. Hearing the dreaded step on the stairs she flung Tobias off the bed, jumped in half-dressed, pulled the sheets over her, and wondered if the explanation that she had felt so faint she couldn't finish undressing would be of any use. However, the doctor did not come in. He merely asked, " Are you in bed, Miss Calladine?" as he passed ; and Berenice answered in an exceedingly surprised and .injured voice, " Oh yes, doctor."

The irrepressible girl could not remain quiet for long. She finished disrobing, then tumbled into bed, and leaned out of the window with a light wrapper about her shoulders for the sake of propriety, watching the Twins who were disporting themselves in elephantine fashion upon the lawn. They were middle-aged men, humorous in their way, which was always vulgar, generally grotesque, and usually quarrelling like a couple of children. One was James Gumm, the other Alfred Mudd ; each was father of a family; Gumm was a commercial traveller, while Mudd was interested in the liquor trade. Berenice was right when she said that all sorts met in a sanatorium.

" Mr. Gumm," called the girl. " Please throw me up that ball." She saw it upon the grass where Tobias had left it after reclaiming it from the rhododendrons.

The Twins ceased their preposterous gambols when they heard the voice, and raised their big, bladder-like heads towards the window.

" 'Ullo ! are you in bed, my pretty?" cried Gumm, though it was obvious enough, as Berenice, bed and all, were visible from the lawn.

"Silly blight," howled Mudd. "Can't you see she's cooking pork-chops for your supper?"

" I want that ball, please," said the girl sternly.

" Have you said your prayers, my dear? Have you prayed for James Gumm and other sick persons?" asked that gentleman, with much solicitude.

" Shut your stoke-hole, and give the poor girl her toy. Give it here, fathead," cried Mudd. " You can't chuck."

They rolled together on the ball like a couple of fat babies, Gumm screaming, " If you chuck it you'll bust your tin lungs;" while the other's reply was so uncomplimentary that Berenice decided she had not heard it.

The ball reached the girl's bed at last, and she and Tobias began to play, which was against the rules, but she didn't mind that; while Mudd placed himself in what he imagined was a devotional attitude, and with uplifted eyes declaimed —

" I wish I wasn't married, Jim."

"So does your wife," replied Gumm ; and then lumbered off, pursued by Mudd, until they nearly tumbled over Miss Budge, who was sitting on the other side of the rhododendrons extracting romance out of a Dartmoor sunset.

A bell rang and the patients took their places at the dinner-table. It was not a depressed party by any means ; on the contrary, a more cheerful lot of beings could not easily have been found. They were as irresponsible as so many school-children, and nobody looking in upon them would have guessed they were afflicted with a disease which yields readily enough to Nature and its wind. They were there to imitate as far as possible animals in the matter of feeding and savages in the way of living. The mind had to be forgotten, the intellect was the only thing to be starved ; everything was to be sacrificed to the gross requirements of the body.

The sanatorium was a small one, not accommodating more than eight patients at a time. In addition to those already mentioned, and the new-comer who brought the total up to seven, was a silent young curate named Sill, who had to suffer a good deal, partly from an inability to retain large quantities of food, partly from the irreverence of the others. At the commencement of the meal two chairs were unoccupied, and Gumm, who had long ago acquired the art of eating and conversing at the same time, was soon commenting upon this fact.

" The queen of my 'eart is put to bed," he said, while sucking a hot potato. " She's been bringing this respectable establishment into discredit again."

" How do you know? You weren't with her," said Mudd. The Twins generally had the conversation to themselves, none of the others having much chance.

" Doctor told me, Bristol bloater," replied Gumm in his courtly style. " She was seen out with a carroty- 'eaded soldier, behaving shameful, his arm round her half-guinea seventeen-and-a-quarter inch lace-me-tight "

" She doesn't wear one," Miss Budge interrupted. " I don't either. It's not allowed. And I'm sure her waist is twenty-five inches."

"That shows my innocence," went on Gumm.

" Respectable married men don't understand ladies' clothes like soldiers and parsons. ' '

" If you are referring to me, Mr. Gumm " began the

young clergyman, but he was given no mercy by the booming commercial.

" Don't you make excuses, Mr. Sill. Soldiers and parsons are in the same bag when it comes to women, only soldiers go for the pretty ones and parsons for the' rich ones. That's where their superior education comes ip. If I had my time over again I 'd start as a soldier, and then I'd turn parson. If you're going to be ill, Alfred Mudd, I hope you'll go into the garden and get it over like a gentleman. Do you fancy yourself an inebriate, Mr. Sill?"

" A celibate," corrected the shocked young curate. "Well, I am."

" Then you're not going to do your duty to the country," said Mudd.

" Just what I tell him," cried Miss Budge.

" You'll grow out of it," prophesied Gumm. " Wait till some pretty little girl helps you to decorate the font on Christmas Eve, and invites you to play a game of I touched last. ' '

" I told him that too," said the lady. " At least something like it."

The curate smiled and Said nothing. He was a very young man and the bacillus of medisevalism had bitten him.

" Our little bit of youth and beauty was fair copped with the red-'eaded sergeant," Gumm went on, sprawling, over the table to reach a tomato which Mudd grabbed for at the same time and just lost. " When she got back; doctor gave her the choice between the sack and a spanking. ' Must keep the place respectable,' he told her, ' I 've got little Jimmy Gumm to think of . ' "

"Listen to him," cried the publican. "Travels in whisky, and drinking milk now like a baby at his mother's knee. ' '

"Mammy's what?" asked Gumm. "We all know

about mother's knee and slipper, but "

"That will do, Mr. Gumm," nervously interrupted the matron who was carving meat at a side-table. " Please go on with your food. ' '

" Right-o, Auntie. I was only impressing upon the company that we can't be too careful about our morals, when the gentleman opposite puts his word in. Pretty youth he is at home. Stands all day between a beerengine and a pile o' glasses, and sells arsenic and water at twopence a time. Ain't it true now about our pretty one? Speak the truth, Auntie. Didn't she choose the spanking, and didn't you hold her down while doctor used the strap off her box?"

" Do be quiet," cried the worried matron, while at the same moment Sill rose from the table with abruptness and hurried out into the garden.

" For what he's been and received he's going to be truly wasteful," observed Mudd.

"Take Miss Shazell's dinner up to her room before it gets cold," called the matron to the ever-bustling servant.

" With her little Jimmy's love," added Gumm.

" If she wants feeding with a spoon I'll be there," shouted Mudd.

" Gentlemen, you must behave if you please," begged the matron, shaking her carving-knife at them, which caused the publican to sing "Three blind mice," while Gumm's husky voice remarked, " No need for the plural, Auntie dear. There's only one gentleman here, now parson has gone to play among the buttercups. ' '

"Well, here's another," said Miss Budge in her most amiable voice, as a new figure crept awkwardly into the room and produced the silence which is usual when a stranger enters. He was quite young, timid, and a trifle uncouth. His rather long hair seemed to have been left unbrushed, his clothes had a curious appearance of being disarranged ; he looked indeed, as Mudd subsequently expressed it, as if he had been dragged through a furze-bush. He stood for the moment near the table and made a singularly awkward bow to his future companions.

"This is Mr. Half acre," said the matron by way of formal introduction. " Will you sit here, please, next to Miss Budge?"

" Delighted," exclaimed, not the new-comer, but the lady; while the Twins nodded their distended cheeks and champing jaws at him, and then made outward and visible grimaces at each other to signify that the latest arrival was not of their kind.

' ' I expect you are tired ? ' ' remarked Miss Budge, contracting her space at the table with much detail.

" Not unreasonably, considering I have made a long journey in a weak state of health," came the answer, which made the lady stare and the Twins choke. The new boy's voice was harsh and grating, and his manners were atrocious. He ought to have known that it was not etiquette to refer publicly to his health, because nobody there had really come for their health. They were simply serving a sort of imprisonment for having lived carelessly in the past. Then his pedantic manner was discouraging. Miss Budge found herself examining him with much interest. Being a scholar, the young man was presumably a gentleman in spite of his very earthy name. Miss Budge was an ordinary middle-class lady of a foolish kind, half-educated merely because she had forgotten all that she had been taught and had fed her mind for years upon nothing better than stories with a strong love-interest. Yet as a lady she discovered a sort of harsh inflection in the stranger's voice which suggested that his fellow-scholars might not have mixed with him for reasons apart from his pedantry. " Berenice will take the starch out of him," she thought; but at that moment young Halfacre turned and gazed along the table in a helpless way. He was only looking for salt, which Miss Budge did not pass at once, partly because she was annoyed at what seemed to her his want of courtesy, chiefly because she saw his eyes and they reminded her of that curious something which makes the rabbit nerveless when it sees the stoat.

" We're all of us in an interesting condition," remarked Gumm. " Brought on in my case by long hours of unremitted labour. In his case," pointing to Mudd with a fork whereon a large piece of bull's flesh was impaled, " by a life of ease and luxury. More meat, please, Auntie. Where's Tobias to eat the gristle?"

" He never leaves Miss Calladine unless he has to," answered Miss Budge, not sorry to turn her attention from the silent Halfacre.

" In the little matter of running after every pretty girl, that dog very much resembles my respected friend Alfred Mudd."

" And in the little matter of scratching himself "

began the publican.

• " That will do, Mr. Mudd," said the poor matron firmly, while Miss Budge tittered, and the new man muttered something inaudible which was possibly classical and presumably uncomplimentary ; but nobody attended to him, for just then Sill entered and made delicately for his seat, to be greeted by the commercial in a concerned fashion,

" I am afraid you must be dreadfully hungry, your reverence. "

" Sitting on the grass counting daisies is appetising. I've tried it," remarked Mudd.

"How you do tease the poor man!" tittered Miss Budge.

" The truth of the matter is he goes out on the lawn to look up and see the girls in bed," went on Gumm.

" The truth of the matter is that Miss Calladine is giving her dinner to Tobias," said the curate pleasantly.

" Oh, you sneak," cried Miss Budge.

" Didn't I say he'd been looking up there?" said Gumm.

" I shall tell doctor about her," threatened the matron, although every one knew she wouldn't. " Let me give you some more meat, Mr. Sill. ' '

" Don't put it like that, Auntie. Give it him, hot and savoury meat such as his soul hateth. We'll see that he eats it, though we won't guarantee he keeps it," said Mudd.

Miss Budge was somewhat astonished to think that her neighbour was laughing at this vulgarity ; but her second and more correct impression was that he was trying to refrain from doing exactly the opposite. Not that it was anything surprising, as he was probably very weak, and the first day in a sanatorium brings tears from men as well as from women. But young Halfacre had looked superior to that sort of thing.

The next morning the doctor came to visit his little colony in a whirling Dartmoor mist. Ha examined the new-comer and sentenced him to a day in bed. He thumped Berenice, found everything satisfactory, and told her to go to St. Michael's Ford, which pleased the girl, -as it was her favourite walk. " And Tobias likes it too," she said. He went on to Miss Budge's room, pushed the door open, found the lady half-dressed, and made Berenice scream with laughter when she overhead his remark, ' ' All right, Miss Budge, I'm not bashful," and the lady's answer, " I dare say you're not, but I am." Miss Budge was told to go to Downacombe, and not stay gossiping with Mr. Leigh the rector. The Twins were visited and sent exactly opposite directions for their perambulation, although they would probably manage to meet, and hide among the rocks to smoke cigarettes like wicked school-boys. Last of all the doctor went to Winnie Shazell, and found her so much brighter and better that he said she might get up, go out for half-an-hour, and walk very slowly half-way along the road towards Wheal Dream. She was to sit down and rest at least twice on that short journey, and she was straitly charged not to speak a word to any one.

So Winnie got out at last and walked very tremulously upon the rough moorland track between the sanatorium and Wheal Dream ; while Berenice at the same time was swinging along the side of the cleave with Tobias at her short skirts, making for the path which leads down to the ford which lies on the east side of St. Michael's chapel of Halstock.

Chapter II

Wherever we go are tales; those that make history and those that make dreams. Some sort of story seems to be connected with every outstanding rock, every path and landmark, every cliff that hangs over the sea, and every cave half under it. Here some fool of a giant had his head hewn off by a small man who made giant-killing a profession ; there some maid jumped into space because her young man was not constant and she hadn't the sense to get somebody else. They are nearly all ghastly stories ; every peak has its own tragedy, each little copse of firtrees its murder. Pretty stories are forgotten somehow, or when they are remembered have to put up with the title of fairy-tale. The tragedies really did happen, but the comedies are pure invention. Folk are not to be thrilled with a tale, unless it be highly coloured, or has a certain amount of wild and bloody complications called a plot. They want the real thing, the impossible story, just because their own lives are colourless ; they crave for a bit of romance between their own dull lines of commonplace, and they prefer it red ; it stimulates them that way, and the horror never touches them because they are not called upon to face it. A very different thing it is when the horrible thing becomes real; when they stand near a lonely cottage on a winter's afternoon, the sea mist around, the sea waves below, sea birds above, and know that if they open that door they will see in the gloom the real red thing of their favourite tales. The hero of romance would kick the door open with a supercilious foot and light a cigarette with unshaken hands. People in real life scream and run away.