In justice to old Iden let it be known that he was most careful not to obtrude himself; he hid himself under the fig trees.

Hardly credible is it? that a man of ninety years—a man of no common intelligence—a man of books, and coins, and antiquities, should, in this nineteenth century, bend his aged knees in such a worship. Incredible as it may seem it is certainly true.

Such loyalty in others of old time, remember, seems very beautiful when we read of the devotion that was shown towards Charles Stuart.

With all his heart and soul he worshipped the very ground the Pamments trod on. He loved to see them in the Abbey church; when they were at home he never failed to attend service, rain, snow, thunder, ninety years notwithstanding, he always attended that he might bow his venerable head to them as they swept up the aisle, receiving the faintest, yet most gracious, smile of recognition in return.

He was quite happy in his pew if he could see them at their carved desks in the chancel; the organ sounded very beautiful then; the light came sweetly through the painted windows; a sanctity and heavenly presence was diffused around.

Rebellious Amaryllis knew all this, and hated it. Her Flamma foot tapped the sacred sward.

Grandfather Iden, after mopping his mouth with his silk handkerchief, began to point with his cudgel—a big hockey stick—at the various parts of the building. This was Elizabethan, that dated from James II., that went back to Henry VII., there were walls and foundations far more ancient still, out of sight.

Really, it was a very interesting place archaeologically, if only you could have got rid of the Pamments.

Amaryllis made no remark during this mumbling history. Iden thought she was listening intently. At the conclusion he was just moving her—for she was passive now, like a piece of furniture—when he spied some one at a window.

Off came the great white hat, and down it swept till the top brushed the grass in the depth of his homage. It was a bow that would have delighted a lady, so evidently real in its intent, so full of the gentleman, so thoroughly courtier-like, and yet honest. There was nothing to smile at in that bow; there was not a young gentleman in Belgravia who could bow in that way, for, in truth, we have forgotten how to bow in this generation.

A writing and talking is always going on about the high place woman occupies in modern society, but the fact is, we have lost our reverence for woman as woman; it is after-dinner speech, nothing more, mere sham. We don't venerate woman, and therefore we don't bow.

Grandfather Iden's bow would have won any woman's heart had it been addressed to her, for there was veneration and courtesy, breeding, and desire to please in it.



CHAPTER XVI.

THE man he had seen at the window was young Raleigh Pamment, the son and heir.

He had been sitting in an easy chair, one leg over the arm, busy with a memorandum book, a stump of pencil, and a disordered heap of telegrams, letters, and newspapers.

Everybody writes to Mr. Gladstone, a sort of human lion's mouth for post-cards, but Raleigh junior had not got to manage the House of Commons, the revenue, the nation, the Turks, South Africa, the Nile, Ganges, Indus, Afghanistan, sugar, shipping, and Homer.

Yet Raleigh junior had an occasional table beside him, from which the letters, telegrams, newspapers, and scraps of paper had overflowed on to the floor. In a company's offices it would have taken sixteen clerks to answer that correspondence; this idle young aristocrat answered it himself, entered it in his day book, "totted" it up, and balanced the—the residue.

Nothing at all businesslike, either, about him—nothing in the least like those gentlemen who consider that to go in to the "office" every morning is the sum total of life. A most unbusinesslike young fellow.

A clay pipe in his mouth, a jar of tobacco on another chair beside him, a glass of whiskey for a paper-weight on his telegrams. An idle, lounging, "bad lot;" late hours, tobacco, whiskey, and ballet-dancers writ very large indeed on his broad face. In short, a young "gent" of the latter half of the nineteenth century.

Not the slightest sign of "blue blood" anywhere; not even in the cut of his coat, no Brummel-like elegance; hardly a Bond Street coat at all—rough, large, coarse cloth. If he had stood at the door of a shop he would have done very well indeed for a shopkeeper, the sort that drives about in a cart for orders.

Of his character nothing could be learned from his features. His face was broad, rather flat, with a short but prominent nose; in spite of indulgence, he kept a good, healthy, country colour. His neck was thick, his figure stout, his hands big—a jovial, good-tempered looking man.

His neck was very thick, tree-like; a drover's neck, no refinement or special intelligence indicated there; great power to eat, drink, and sleep—belly energy.

But let no one, therefore, suppose that the members of the upper ten thousand are any thicker in the neck, or more abdominal in their proclivities, or beneath the culture of the day. Take five hundred "blue bloods," and you will find among them a certain proportion of thick-necked people; take five hundred very common commoners, and you may count exactly the same number interspersed.

The Pamments were simply Englishmen, and liable to be born big, with broad faces, thick necks, and ultimate livers. It was no disgrace to Raleigh, that jolly neck of his.

Unless you are given to aesthetic crockery, or Francesco de Rimini, I think you would rather have liked him; a sort of fellow who would lend you his dogs, or his gun, or his horse, or his ballet-dancer, or his credit—humph!—at a moment's notice. But he was a very "bad lot;" they whispered it even in dutiful Woolhorton.

He got rid of money in a most surprising way, and naturally had nothing to show for it. The wonderful manner in which coin will disappear in London, like water into deep sand, surpasses the mysteries of the skies. It slips, it slides, it glides, it sinks, it flies, it runs out of the pocket. The nimble squirrel is nothing to the way in which a sovereign will leap forth in town.

Raleigh had a good allowance, often supplemented by soft aunts, yet he frequently walked for lack of a cab fare. I can't blame him; I should be just as bad, if fortune favoured me. How delicious now to walk down Regent Street, along Piccadilly, up Bond Street, and so on, in a widening circle, with a thousand pounds in one's pocket, just to spend, all your own, and no need to worry when it was gone. To look in at all the shops and pick up something here and something yonder, to say, "I'll have that picture I admired ten years ago; I'll have a bit of real old oak furniture; I'll go to Paris—" but Paris is not a patch on London. To take a lady—the lady—to St. Peter Robinson's, and spread the silks of the earth before her feet, and see the awakening delight in her eyes and the glow on her cheek; to buy a pony for the "kids" and a diamond brooch for the kind, middle-aged matron who befriended you years since in time of financial need; to get a new gun, and inquire about the price of a deer-stalk in Scotland; whetting the road now and then with a sip of Moet—but only one sip, for your liver's sake—just to brighten up the imagination. And so onwards in a widening circle, as sun-lit fancy led: could Xerxes, could great Pompey, could Caesar with all his legions, could Lucullus with all his oysters, ever have enjoyed such pleasure as this—just to spend money freely, with a jolly chuckle, in the streets of London? What is Mahomet's Paradise to that?

The exquisite delight of utterly abandoned extravagance, no counting—anathemas on counting and calculation! If life be not a dream, what is the use of living?

Say what you will, the truth is, we all struggle on in hope of living in a dream some day. This is my dream. Dreadfully, horribly wicked, is it not, in an age that preaches thrift and—twaddle? No joy like waste in London streets; happy waste, imaginative extravagance; to and fro like a butterfly!

Besides, there's no entertainment in the world like the streets of London on a sunny day or a gas-lit night. The shops, the carriages, the people, the odds and ends of life one sees, the drifting to and fro of folk, the "bits" of existence, glimpses into shadowy corners, the dresses, the women; dear me, where shall we get to? At all events, the fact remains that to anyone with an eye the best entertainment in the world is a lounge in London streets. Theatres, concerts, seances, Albert Halls, museums, galleries, are but set and formal shows; a great weariness, for the most part, and who the deuce would care to go and gaze at them again who could lounge in Piccadilly?

It is well worth a ten-pound note any day in May; fifty pounds sometimes at 1 p.m., merely to look on, I mean, it is worth it; but you can see this living show for nothing. Let the grandees go to the opera; for me, the streets.

So I can't throw dirt at Raleigh, who often had a hatful of money, and could and did just what seemed pleasant in his sight. But the money went like water, and in order to get further supplies, the idle, good-for-nothing, lazy dog worked like a prime minister with telegrams, letters, newspapers, and so on, worked like a prime minister—at betting. Horse-racing, in short, was the explanation of the memorandum-book, the load of correspondence, and the telegrams, kept flat with a glass of whiskey as a paper-weight.

While he wrote, and thought, and reckoned up his chances, a loud refrain of snoring arose from the sofa. It was almost as loud as the boom of the fair, but Raleigh had no nerves. His friend Freddie, becoming oppressed with so much labour, had dropped asleep, leaving his whiskey beside him on the sofa, so that the first time he moved over it went on the carpet. With one long leg stretched out, the other knee up, lying on his back, and his mouth wide open to the ceiling, Freddie was very happy.

Raleigh puffed his clay pipe, sipped, and puffed again. Freddie boomed away on the sofa. The family was in London; Raleigh and Freddie got down here in this way: it happened one night there was a row at a superb bar, Haymarket trail. The "chuckers-out" began their coarse horse-play, and in the general melee Raleigh distinguished himself. Rolled about by the crowd, he chanced to find himself for a moment in a favourable position, and punished one of these gigantic brutes pretty severely.

Though stout and short of breath, Raleigh was strong in the arm, he was "up," and he hit hard. The fellow's face was a "picture," coloured in cardinal. Such an opportunity does not occur twice in a lifetime; Raleigh's genius seized the opportunity, and he became great. Actium was a trifle to it.

There were mighty men before Agamemnon, and there are mighty men who do not figure in the papers.

Raleigh became at once an anaxandron—a King of Men. The history of his feat spread in ten minutes from one end of midnight London to the other: from the policeman in Waterloo Place to—everywhere. Never was such a stir; the fall of Sebastopol—dear me! I can remember it, look at the flight of time—was nothing to it. They would have chaired him, feted him, got a band to play him about the place, literally crowned him with laurel. Ave, Caesar! Evoe! Bacchus! But they could not find him.

Raleigh was off with Freddie, who had been in at the death, and was well "blooded." Hansom to Paddington in the small hours; creep, creep, creep, through the raw morning mist, puff, whistle, broad gauge, and they had vanished.

Raleigh was a man of his age; he lost not a moment; having got the glory, the next thing was to elude the responsibility; and, in short, he slipped out of sight till the hue-and-cry was over, and the excitement of the campaign had subsided.

In case anyone should suppose I approve of midnight battle, I may as well label the account at once: "This is a goak."

I do not approve of brawls at the bar, but I have set myself the task to describe a bit of human life exactly as it really is, and I can assure you as a honest fact that Raleigh by that lucky knock became a very great man indeed among people as they really are. People as they really are, are not all Greek scholars.

As I don't wish you to look down upon poor Raleigh too much because he smoked a cutty, and hit a fellow twice as big as himself, and lent his money, and made bets, and drank whiskey, and was altogether wicked, I may as well tell you something in his favour: He was a hero to his valet.

"No man is a hero to his valet," says the proverb, not even Napoleon, Disraeli, or Solomon.

But Raleigh was a hero to his valet.

He was not only a hero to Nobbs the valet; he had perfectly fascinated him. The instant he was off duty Nobbs began to be a Raleigh to himself. He put on a coat cut in the Raleigh careless style; in fact, he dressed himself Raleigh all over. His private hat was exactly like Raleigh's; so was his necktie, the same colour, shape, and bought at the same shop; so were his boots. He kept a sovereign loose in his waistcoat pocket, because that was where Raleigh carried his handy gold. He smoked a cutty-pipe, and drank endless whiskies—just like Raleigh, "the very ticket"—he had his betting-book, and his telegrams, and his money on "hosses," and his sporting paper, and his fine photographs of fine women. He swore in Raleigh's very words, and used to spit like him; Raleigh, if ever he chanced to expectorate, had an odd way of twisting up the corner of his mouth, so did Nobbs. In town Nobbs went to the very same bars (always, of course, discreetly and out of sight), the very same theatres; a most perfect Raleigh to the tiniest detail. Why, Raleigh very rarely wound up his watch—careless Raleigh; accordingly, Nobbs' watch was seldom going. "And you just look here," said Nobbs to a great and confidential friend, after they had done endless whiskies, and smoked handfuls of Raleigh's tobacco, "you look here, if I was he, and had lots of chink, and soft old parties to get money out of as easy as filling yer pipe, by Jove! wouldn't I cut a swell! I'd do it, I would. I'd make that Whitechapel of his spin along, I rather guess I would. I'd liquor up. Wouldn't I put a thou on the Middle Park Plate? Ah! wouldn't I, Tommy, my boy! Just wouldn't I have heaps of wimmen; some in the trap, and some indoors, and some to go to the theatre with—respectable gals, I mean—crowds of 'em would come if Raleigh was to hold up his finger. Guess I'd fill this old shop (the Pamment mansion) choke full of wimmen! If I was only he! Shouldn't I like to fetch one of them waiter chaps a swop on the nose, like he did! Oh, my! Oh, Tommy!" And Nobbs very nearly wept at the happy vision of being "he."

Why, Raleigh was not only a Hero, he was a Demi-god to his valet! Not only Nobbs, but the footmen, and the grooms, and the whole race of servants everywhere who had caught a glimpse of Raleigh looked upon him as the Ideal Man. So did the whole race of "cads" in the bars and at the races, and all over town and country, all of that sort who knew anything of Raleigh sighed to be like "he."

The fellow who said that "No man is a hero to his valet" seemed to suppose that the world worships good and divine qualities only. Nothing of the sort; it is not the heroic, it is the low and coarse and blackguard part the mass of people regard with such deep admiration.

If only Nobbs could have been "he," no doubt whatever he would have "done it" very big indeed. But he would have left out of his copy that part of Raleigh's nature which, in spite of the whiskey and the cutty, and the rest of it, made him still a perfect gentleman at heart. Nobbs didn't want to be a perfect gentleman.



CHAPTER XVII.

GLANCING up from his betting-book, Raleigh caught sight of someone on the lawn, and went to the window to see who it was.

It was then that Grandfather Iden raised his great grey hat, and brought it with so lowly a sweep down to the very ground before this demi-god of his.

"Hullo! Fred, I say! Come, quick!" dragging him off the sofa. "Here's the Behemoth."

"The Behemoth—the Deluge!" said Fred, incoherently, still half asleep.

"Before that," said Raleigh. "I told you I'd show him to you some day. That's the Behemoth."

Some grand folk keep a hump-backed cow, or white wild cattle, or strange creatures of that sort, in their parks as curiosities. The particular preserve of the Pamments was Grandfather Iden—antediluvian Iden—in short, the Behemoth.

It is not everybody who has got a Behemoth on show.

"There's a girl with him," said Fred.

"Have her in," said Raleigh. "Wake us up," ringing the bell. And he ordered the butler to fetch old Iden in.

How thoroughly in character with Human Life it was that a man like Grandfather Iden—aged, experienced, clever, learned, a man of wise old books, should lower his ancient head, and do homage to Raleigh Pamment!

"Wherefore come ye not to court? Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport. Chattering fools and wise men listening."

Accordingly the butler went out bare-headed—his head was as bare as Mont Blanc—and, with many a gracious smile, conveyed his master's wishes. The Behemoth, mopping and mowing, wiping his slobbery old mouth in the excess of his glorification, takes Amaryllis by the arm, and proceeds to draw her towards the mansion.

"But, grandpa—grandpa—really I'd rather not go. Please, don't make me go. No—no—I can't," she cried, in a terror of disgust. She would not willingly have set foot on the Pamment threshold, no, not for a crown of gold, as the old song says unctuously.

"Don't be afraid," said Iden. "Nothing to be afraid of"—mistaking her hesitation for awe.

"Afraid!" repeated Amaryllis, in utter bewilderment. "Afraid! I don't want to go."

"There's nothing to be afraid of, I'm sure," said the butler in his most insidious tones. "Mr. Pamment so very particularly wished to see you."

"Come—come," said old Iden, "don't be silly," as she still hung back. "It's a splendid place inside—there, lean on me, don't be afraid," and so the grandfather pulling her one side, and the butler very, very gently pressing her forward the other, they persuaded, or rather they moved Amaryllis onward.

She glanced back, her heart beat quick, she had half a mind to break loose—easy enough to over-turn the two old fogies—but—how soon "but" comes, "but" came to Amaryllis at sixteen. She remembered her father. She remembered her mother's worn-out boots. By yielding yet a little further she could perhaps contrive to keep her grandfather in good humour and open the way to a reconciliation.

So the revolutionary Amaryllis, the red-hot republican blood seething like molten metal in her veins, stepped across the hated threshold of the ancient and mediaeval Pamments.

But we have all heard about taking the horse to water and finding that he would not drink. If you cannot even make a horse, do you think you are likely to make a woman do anything?

Amaryllis walked beside her grandfather quietly enough now, but she would not see or hear; he pointed out to her the old armour, the marble, the old oak; he mumbled on of the staircase where John Pamment, temp. Hen. VII., was seized for high treason; she kept her glance steadfastly on the ground.

Iden construed it to be veneration, and was yet more highly pleased.

Raleigh had taste enough to receive them in another room, not the whiskey-room; he met old Iden literally with open arms, taking both the old gentleman's hands in his he shook them till Iden tottered, and tears came into his eyes.

Amaryllis scarcely touched his fingers, and would not raise her glance.

"Raw," thought Freddie, who being tall looked over Raleigh's shoulder. "Very raw piece."

To some young gentlemen a girl is a "piece."

"My granddaughter," said Iden, getting his voice.

"Ah, yes; like to see the galleries—fond of pictures——"

Amaryllis was silent.

"Answer," said Grandfather Iden graciously, as much as to say, "you may."

"No," said Amaryllis.

"Hum—let's see—books—library—carvings. Come, Mr. Iden, you know the place better than I do, you're an antiquarian and a scholar—I've forgotten my Greek. What would you like to show her?"

"She is fond of pictures," said Iden, greatly flattered that he should be thought to know the house better than the heir. "She is fond of pictures; she's shy."

Amaryllis' face became a dark red. The rushing blood seemed to stifle her. She could have cried out aloud; her pride only checked her utterance.

Raleigh, not noticing the deep colour in her face, led on upstairs, down the corridors, and into the first saloon. There he paused and old Iden took the lead, going straight to a fine specimen of an old Master.

Holding his great grey hat (which he would not give up to the butler) at arm's-length and pointing, the old man began to show Amaryllis the beauties of the picture.

"A grand thing—look," said he.

"I can't see," said Amaryllis, forced to reply.

"Not see!" said Iden, in a doubtful tone.

"Not a good light, perhaps," said Raleigh. "Come this side."

She did not move.

"Go that side," said Iden.

No movement.

"Go that side," he repeated, sharply.

At last she moved over by Raleigh and stood there, gazing down still.

"Look up," said Iden. She looked up hastily—above the canvas, and then again at the floor.

Iden's dim old eyes rested a moment on the pair as they stood together; Amaryllis gazing downwards, Raleigh gazing at her. Thoughts of a possible alliance, perhaps, passed through Iden's mind; only consider, intermarriage between the Pamments and the Idens! Much more improbable things have happened; even without the marriage license the connection would be an immense honour.

Grandfather Iden, aged ninety years, would most certainly have sacrificed the girl of sixteen, his own flesh and blood, joyously and intentionally to his worship of the aristocrat.

If she could not have been the wife he would have forced her to be the mistress.

There is no one so cruel—so utterly inhuman—as an old man, to whom feeling, heart, hope have long been dead words.

"Now you can see," he said, softly and kindly. "Is it not noble?"

"It looks smoky," said Amaryllis, lifting her large, dark eyes at last and looking her grandfather in the face.

"Smoky!" he ejaculated, dropping his great white hat, his sunken cheeks flushing. It was not so much the remark as the tone of contemptuous rebellion.

"Smoky," he repeated.

"Smoky and—dingy," said Amaryllis. She had felt without actually seeing that Raleigh's gaze had been fixed upon her the whole time since they had entered, that emphatic look which so pleases or so offends a woman.

Now there was nothing in Raleigh's manner to give offence—on the contrary he had been singularly pleasant, respectfully pleasant—but she remembered the fellow staring at her from the window at the "Lamb" and it biased her against him. She wished to treat him, and his pictures, and his place altogether with marked contempt.

"I do not care for these pictures," she said. "I will leave now, if you please," and she moved towards the door.

"Stop!" cried Iden, stretching out his hands and tottering after her. "Stop! I order you to stop! you rude girl!"

He could not catch her, she had left the gallery—he slipped in his haste on the polished floor. Fred caught him by the arm or he would have fallen, and at the same time presented him with his great white hat.

"Ungrateful!" he shrieked, and then choked and slobbered and mumbled, and I verily believe had it not been for his veneration of the place he would have spat upon the floor.

Raleigh had rushed after Amaryllis, and overtook her at the staircase.

"Pardon me, Miss Iden," he said, as she hastily descended. "Really I should have liked you to have seen the house—will you sit down a moment? Forgive me if I said or did——. No, do stay—please—" as she made straight for the hall. "I am so sorry—really sorry—unintentional"—in fact he had done nothing, and yet he was penitent. But she would not listen, she hurried on along the path, she began to run, or nearly, as he kept up with her, still begging her to pause; Amaryllis ran at last outright. "At least let me see you through the fair—rough people. Let me open the door——"

The iron-studded door in the wall shut with a spring lock, and for a moment she could not unfasten it; she tore at it and grazed her hand, the blood started.

"Good Heavens!" cried Raleigh, now thoroughly upset. "Let me bind it up," taking out his handkerchief. "I would not have had this happen for money"—short for any amount of money. "Let me——"

"Do please leave me," cried Amaryllis, panting, not with the run, which was nothing to her, but pent-up indignation, and still trying to open the lock.

Raleigh pressed the lock and the door swung open—he could easily have detained her there, but he did not. "One moment, pray—Miss Iden." She was gone down the passage between the Abbey church and the wall; he followed, she darted out into the crowd of the fair.



CHAPTER XVIII.

WHEN he stopped and turned, angry beyond measure, vexation biting deep lines like aquafortis on his broad, good-natured face.

"That I should have been such a fool—an infernal blockheaded fool—" shutting the iron-studded door with a kick and a clang—"muddle-headed fool—I'll never touch a drop of whiskey again—and that jackass, Fred—why, she's—" a lady, he would have said, but did not dare admit to himself now that he had thought to ask her in to "wake us up." "But what did I do? Can't think what annoyed her. Must have been something between her and that tedious old Iden. Quite sure I didn't do or say——" but still he could not quiet his conscience, for if he had not by deed or word, he knew he had in thought.

He had sent for her as he might have done for any of the vulgar wenches in the fair to amuse an idle hour, and he was ashamed of himself.

In truth, Raleigh had never seen a woman like Amaryllis Iden. Her features were not beautiful, as general ideas go, nor had her form the grace of full increase; indeed words, and even a portrait by a master-hand, would have failed to carry the impression her nature had made upon him.

It is not the particular cast of features that makes a man great, and gives him a pre-eminence among his fellows. It is the character—the mind.

A great genius commands attention at once by his presence, and so a woman may equally impress by the power of her nature. Her moral strength asserts itself in subtle ways.

I don't say for certain that it was her character that impressed Raleigh—it might have been nothing of the sort, it might have been because it was so, a woman's reason, and therefore appropriate. These things do not happen by "why and because."

Some may say it is quite out of place to suppose a whiskey-sipping, cutty-pipe smoking, horse-racing, bar-frequenting fellow like Raleigh could by any possible means fall in love at first sight. But whiskey, cutty, horse, and bar were not the real man, any more than your hat is your head, they were mere outside chaff, he had a sound heart all the same, a great deal sounder and better, and infinitely more generous than some very respectable folk who are regularly seen in their pews, and grind down their clerks and dependents to the edge of starvation.

Raleigh was capable of a good deal of heart, such as the pew-haunting Pharisee knows not of. Perhaps he was not in love: at all events he was highly excited.

Fred had contrived to keep old Iden from following Amaryllis by representing that Raleigh would be sure to bring her back. The butler, who was very well acquainted with old Iden, hastily whipped out a bottle of champagne and handed him a brimming glass. The old gentleman, still mouthing and bubbling over with rage, spluttered and drank, and spluttered again, and refusing a second, would go, and so met Raleigh in the hall.

Raleigh tried on his part to soothe the old man, and on his part the old man tried at one and the same moment to apologize for his granddaughter and to abuse her for her misconduct. Consequently neither of them heard or understood the other.

But no sooner was Iden gone than Raleigh, remembering the rough crowd in the fair, despatched the butler after him to see him safe home. It was now growing dusky as the evening came on.

Without more ado, this young gentleman then set to and swore at Fred for half an hour straight ahead. Fred at first simply stared and wondered what on earth had turned his brain; next, being equally hot-tempered, he swore in reply; then there followed some sharp recriminations (for each knew too much of the other's goings on not to have plenty of material), and finally they sparred. Two or three cuffs cooled their ardour, having nothing to quarrel about; sulks ensued; Raleigh buried himself in the papers; Fred lit a cigar and walked out into the fair. Thus there was tribulation in the great house of the Pamments.

Grandfather Iden permitted the butler to steer him through the crowd quietly enough, because it flattered him to be thus taken care of before the world by a Pamment servitor. When they parted at the doorstep he slipped half-a-sovereign in the butler's hand—he could not offer less than gold to a Pamments' man—but once inside, his demeanour changed. He pushed away his housekeeper, went into his especial sitting-room, bolted the door, spread his hands and knees over the fire, and poked the coals, grunted, poked, and stirred till smoke and smuts filled the stuffy little place.

By-and-by there was a banging of drawers—the drawers in the bureau and the bookcases were opened and shut sharply—writing-paper was flung on the table, and he sat down to write a letter with a scratchy quill pen. The letter written was ordered to post immediately, and the poking, and stirring, and grunting recommenced. Thus there was tribulation in the house of the head of the Idens.

Amaryllis meantime had got through the town by keeping between the booths and the houses. Just as she left the last street Ned Marks rode up—he had been on the watch, thinking to talk with her as she walked home, but just as he drew rein to go slow and so speak, a heathen pig from the market rushed between his horse's legs and spoiled the game by throwing him headlong.

She did not see, or at least did not notice, but hastening on, entered the fields. In coming to town that morning she had seen everything; now, returning in her anger and annoyance, she took no heed of anything; she was so absorbed that when a man—one of those she met going to the fair for the evening—turned back and followed her some way, she did not observe him. Finding that she walked steadily on, the fellow soon ceased to pursue.

The gloom had settled when she reached home, and the candles were lit. She gave her father the sovereign, and was leaving the room, hoping to escape questioning, when Mrs. Iden asked who had the prize-guinea.

"I did," said Amaryllis, very quietly and reluctantly.

"Where is it? Why didn't you say so? Let me see," said Mrs. Iden.

"I—I—I lost it," said Amaryllis.

"You lost it! Lost a guinea! A spade-guinea!"

"What!" said Iden in his sternest tones. "Show it immediately."

"I can't; I lost it."

"Lost it!"

And they poured upon her a cross-fire of anger: a careless, wasteful hussy, an idle wretch; what did she do for her living that she could throw away spade-guineas? what would her grandfather say? how did she suppose they were to keep her, and she not earn the value of a bonnet-string? time she was apprenticed to a dressmaker; the quantity she ate, and never could touch any fat—dear me, so fine—bacon was not good enough for her—she could throw away spade-guineas.

Poor Amaryllis stood by the half-open door, her hat in her hand, her bosom heaving, her lips apart and pouting, not with indignation but sheer misery; her head drooped, her form seemed to lose its firmness and sink till she stooped; she could not face them as she would have done others, because you see she loved them, and she had done her best that day till too sorely tried.

The storm raged on; finally Iden growled "Better get out of sight." Then she went to her bedroom, and sat on the bed; presently she lay down, and sobbed silently on the pillow, after which she fell asleep, quite worn out, dark circles under her eyes. In the silence of the house, the tom-tom and blare of brazen instruments blown at the fair two miles away was audible.



CHAPTER XIX.

So there was tribulation in three houses. Next morning she scarcely dared come in to breakfast, and opened the door timidly, expecting heavy looks, and to be snapped up if she spoke. Instead of which, on taking her place, Iden carefully cut for her the most delicate slice of ham he could find, and removed the superfluous fat before putting it on her plate. Mrs. Iden had a special jug of cream ready for her—Amaryllis was fond of cream—and enriched the tea with it generously.

"And what did you see at the fair?" asked Iden in his kindest voice, lifting up his saucer—from which he always drank—by putting his thumb under it instead of over, so that his thick little finger projected. He always sipped his tea in this way.

"You had plenty of fun, didn't you?" said Mrs. Iden, still more kindly.

"I—I don't know; I did not see much of the fair," said Amaryllis, at a loss to understand the change of manner.

Iden smiled at his wife and nodded; Mrs. Iden picked up a letter from the tea-tray and gave it to her daughter:

"Read."

Amaryllis read—it was from Grandfather Iden, furiously upbraiding Iden for neglecting his daughter's education; she had no reverence, no manners—an undutiful, vulgar girl; she had better not show her face in his house again till she had been taught to know her position; her conduct was not fit for the kitchen; she had not the slightest idea how to behave herself in the presence of persons of quality.

She put it down before she had finished the tirade of abuse; she did not look up, her face was scarlet.

Iden laughed.

"Horrid old wretch! Served him right!" said Mrs. Iden. "So glad you vexed him, dear!"

Amaryllis last night a wretch was this morning a heroine. The grandfather's letter had done this.

Iden never complained—never mentioned his father—but of course in his heart he bitterly felt the harsh neglect shown towards him and his wife and their child. He was a man who said the less the more he was moved; he gossiped freely with the men at the stile, or even with a hamlet old woman. Not a word ever dropped from him of his own difficulties—he kept his mind to himself. His wife knew nothing of his intentions—he was over-secretive, especially about money matters, in which he affected the most profound mystery, as if everyone in Coombe was not perfectly aware they could hardly get a pound of sugar on credit.

All the more bitterly he resented the manner in which Grandfather Iden treated him, giving away half-crowns, crown-pieces, shillings, and fourpenny bits to anyone who would flatter his peculiarities, leaving his own descendants to struggle daily with debt and insult.

Iden was in reality a very proud man, and the insults of his petty creditors fretted him.

He would have been glad if Amaryllis had become her grandfather's favourite; as the grandfather had thrown savage words at the girl, so much the more was added to the score against the grandfather.

Mrs. Iden hated the grandfather with every drop of Flamma blood in her veins—hated him above all for his pseudo-Flamma relationship, for old Iden had in his youth been connected with the Flammas in business—hated him for his veneration of the aristocratic and mediaeval Pamments.

She was always impressing upon Amaryllis the necessity of cultivating her grandfather's goodwill, and always abusing him—contradicting herself in the most natural manner.

This letter had given them such delight, because it showed how deeply Amaryllis had annoyed the old gentleman. Had he been whipped he could hardly have yelled more; he screamed through his scratchy quill. Suppose they did lose his money, he had had one good upset, that was something.

They were eager to hear all about it. Amaryllis was at first very shy to tell, knowing that her father was a thick Tory and an upholder of the Pamments, and fearing his displeasure. But for various reasons both father and mother grew warmer in delight at every fresh incident of her story.

Mrs. Flamma Iden—revolutionary Flamma—detested the Pamments enthusiastically, on principle first, and next, because the grandfather paid them such court.

Iden was indeed an extra thick Tory, quite opaque, and had voted in the Pamment interest these thirty years, yet he had his secret reasons for disliking them personally.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Iden agreed in their scorn of the grandfather's pottering about the grounds and in and out the conservatories, as if that was the highest honour on earth. Yet Mrs. Iden used often to accuse her husband of a desire to do the very same thing: "You're just as stupid," she would say; "you'd think it wonderful to have a private key—you're every bit as silly really, only you haven't got the chance."

However, from a variety of causes they agreed in looking on Amaryllis' disgrace as a high triumph and glory.

So she was petted all the morning by both parties—a rare thing—and in the afternoon Iden gave her the sovereign she had brought home, to buy her some new boots, and to spend the rest as she chose on herself.

Away went Amaryllis to the town, happy and yet not without regret that she had increased the disagreement between her father and grandfather. She met the vans and gipsies slowly leaving the site of the fair, the children running along with bare brown feet. She went under the archaeologically interesting gateway, and knocked at the door of Tiras Wise, shoemaker, "established 200 years."

Tiras Wise of the present generation was thin and nervous, weary of the centuries, worn out, and miserable-looking. Amaryllis, strong in the possession of a golden sovereign, attacked him sharply for his perfidious promises; her boots promised at Christmas were not mended yet.

Tiras, twiddling a lady's boot in one hand, and his foot measure in the other, very humbly and deprecatingly excused himself; there had been so much trouble with the workmen, some were so tipsy, and some would not work; they were always demanding higher wages, and just as he had a job in hand going off and leaving it half finished—shoemaker's tricks these. Sometimes, indeed, he could not get a workman, and then there was the competition of the ready-made boot from Northampton; really, it was most trying—it really was.

"Well, and when am I going to have the boots?" said Amaryllis, amused at the poor fellow's distress. "When are they going to be finished?"

"You see, Miss Iden," said the shoemaker's mother, coming to help her son, "the fact is, he's just worried out of his life with his men—and really—"

"You don't seem to get on very well with your shoemaking, Mr. Wise," said the customer, smiling.

"The fact is," said poor Wise, in his most melancholy manner, with a deep sigh, "the fact is, the men don't know their work as they used to, they spoil the leather and cut it wrong, and leave jobs half done, and they're always drinking; the leather isn't so good as it used to be; the fact is," with a still deeper sigh, "we can't make a boot."

At which Amaryllis laughed outright, to think that people should have been in business two hundred years as shoemakers, and yet could not make a boot!

Her experience of life as yet was short, and she saw things in their first aspect; it is not till much later we observe that the longer people do one thing, the worse they do it, till in the end they cannot do it at all.

She presently selected a pair for herself, 9s., and another pair for her mother, 10s. 6d., leaving sixpence over; add sixpence discount for ready-money, and she was still rich with a shilling. Carrying the parcel, she went up the street and passed old Iden's door on elate instep, happy that she had not got to cross his threshold that day, happy to think she had the boots for her mother. Looking in at two or three dingy little shops, she fixed at last on one, and bought half-a-dozen of the very finest mild bloaters, of which Mrs. Iden was so fond. This finished the savings, and she turned quickly for home. The bloaters being merely bound round with one thin sheet of newspaper, soon imparted their odour to her hand.

A lady whose hand smells of bloaters is not, I hope, too ideal; I hope you will see now that I am not imaginative, or given to the heroinesque. Amaryllis, I can tell you, was quite absorbed in the bloaters and the boots; a very sweet, true, and loving hand it was, in spite of the bloaters—one to kiss fervently.

They soon had the bloaters on over a clear fire of wood-coals, and while they cooked the mother tried her new boots, naturally not a little pleased with the thoughtful present. The Flamma blood surged with gratitude; she would have given her girl the world at that moment. That she should have remembered her mother showed such a good disposition; there was no one like Amaryllis.

"Pah!" said Iden, just then entering, "pah!" with a gasp; and holding his handkerchief to his nose, he rushed out faster than he came in, for the smell of bloaters was the pestilence to him.

They only laughed all the merrier over their supper.



CHAPTER XX.

RIGHT at the top of the house there was a large, unfurnished room, which Amaryllis had taken as her own long since. It was her study, her thinking-room, her private chapel and praying-room, her one place of solitude, silence, and retirement.

The days had gone on, and it was near the end of April. Coming up the dark stairs one morning, she found them still darker, because she had just left the sunshine. They were built very narrow, as usual in old country-houses, and the landing shut off with a door, so that when you were in them you seemed to be in a box. There was no carpet—bare boards; old-fashioned folk did not carpet their stairs; no handrail; the edges of the steps worm-eaten and ragged, little bits apt to break off under sudden pressure, so that the board looked as if it had been nibbled by mice.

Shutting the landing door behind her, Amaryllis was in perfect darkness, but her feet knew the well-remembered way, and she came quickly to the top.

There were two great rooms running the whole length of the house: the first was a lumber-room, the second her own especial cell. Cell-like it was, in its monastic or conventual bareness. It was vague with bareness: a huge, square room, gaunt as a barn, the walls and ceiling whitewashed, the floor plain boards. Yonder, near the one small window, stood a table and tall-backed oaken chair, afar off, as it were, from the doorway—a journey to them across the creaking floor. On one side an old four-post bedstead of dark oak, much damaged, was placed by the wall; the sacking hung down in a loop, torn and decayed—a bedstead on which no one had slept these hundred years past. By the table there was, too, an ancient carved linen-press of black oak, Amaryllis' bookcase.

These bits of rude furniture were lost in the vastness of space, as much as if you had thrown your hat into the sky.

Amaryllis went straight to the window and knelt down. She brought a handful of violets, fresh-gathered, to place in the glass which she kept there for her flowers. The window was cut in the thick wall, and formed a niche, where she always had a tumbler ready—a common glass tumbler, she could not afford a vase.

They were the white wild violets, the sweetest of all, gathered while the nightingale was singing his morning song in the April sunshine—a song the world never listens to, more delicious than his evening notes, for the sunlight helps him, and the blue of the heavens, the green leaf, and the soft wind—all the soul of spring.

White wild violets, a dewdrop as it were of flower, tender and delicate, growing under the great hawthorn hedge, by the mosses and among the dry, brown leaves of last year, easily overlooked unless you know exactly where to go for them. She had a bunch for her neck, and a large bunch for her niche. They would have sunk and fallen into the glass, but she hung them by their chins over the edge of the tumbler, with their stalks in the water. Then she sat down in the old chair at the table, and rested her head on her hand.

Except where she did this every day, and so brushed it, a thin layer of dust had covered the surface (there was no cloth) and had collected on her portfolio, thrust aside and neglected. Dust on the indiarubber, dust on the cake of Indian ink, dust invisible on the smooth surface of the pencils, dust in the little box of vine charcoal.

The hoarse baying of the hungry wolves around the house had shaken the pencil from her fingers—Siberian wolves they were, racing over the arid deserts of debt, large and sharp-toothed, ever increasing in number and ferocity, ready to tear the very door down. There are no wolves like those debt sends against a house.

Every knock at the door, every strange footstep up the approach, every letter that came, was like the gnawing and gnashing of savage teeth.

Iden could plant the potatoes and gossip at the stile, and put the letters unopened on the mantelshelf—a pile of bills over his head where he slept calmly after dinner. Iden could plant potatoes, and cut trusses of hay, and go through his work to appearance unmoved.

Amaryllis could not draw—she could not do it; her imagination refused to see the idea; the more she concentrated her mind, the louder she heard the ceaseless grinding and gnashing of teeth.

Potatoes can be planted and nails can be hammered, bill-hooks can be wielded and faggots chopped, no matter what the inward care. The ploughman is deeply in debt, poor fellow, but he can, and does, follow the plough, and finds, perhaps, some solace in the dull monotony of his labour. Clods cannot feel. A sensitive mind and vivid imagination—a delicately-balanced organization, that almost lives on its ideas as veritable food—cannot do like this. The poet, the artist, the author, the thinker, cannot follow their plough; their work depends on a serene mind.

But experience proves that they do do their work under such circumstances. They do; how greatly then they must be tortured, or for what a length of time they must have suffered to become benumbed.

Amaryllis was young, and all her feelings unchecked of Time. She could not sketch—that was a thing of useless paper and pencil; what was wanted was money. She could not read, that was not real; what was wanted was solid coin.

So the portfolio was thrust aside, neglected and covered with dust, but she came every day to her flowers in the window-niche.

She had drawn up there in the bitter cold of February and March, without a fire, disdainful of ease in the fulness of her generous hope. Her warm young blood cared nothing for the cold, if only by enduring it she could assist those whom she loved.

There were artists in the Flamma family in London who made what seemed to her large incomes, yet whose names had never been seen in a newspaper criticism, and who had never even sent a work to the Academy—never even tried to enter. Their work was not of an ambitious order, but it was well paid.

Amaryllis did not for a moment anticipate success as an artist, nor think to take the world by storm with her talent. Her one only hope was to get a few pounds now and then—she would have sold twenty sketches for ten shillings—to save her father from insult, and to give her mother the mere necessities of dress she needed.

No thought of possible triumph, nor was she sustained by an overmastering love of art; she was inspired by her heart, not her genius.

Had circumstances been different she would not have earnestly practised drawing; naturally she was a passive rather than an active artist.

She loved beauty for its own sake—she loved the sunlight, the grass and trees, the gleaming water, the colours of the fields and of the sky. To listen to the running water was to her a dear delight, to the wind in the high firs, or caught in the wide-stretching arms of the oak; she rested among these things, they were to her mind as sleep to the body. The few good pictures she had seen pleased her, but did not rouse the emotion the sunlight caused; artificial music was enjoyable, but not like the running stream. It said nothing—the stream was full of thought.

No eager desire to paint like that or play like that was awakened by pictures or music; Amaryllis was a passive and not an active artist by nature. And I think that is the better part; at least, I know it is a thousand times more pleasure to me to see a beautiful thing than to write about it. Could I choose I would go on seeing beautiful things, and not writing.

Amaryllis had no ambition whatever for name or fame; to be silent in the sunshine was enough for her. By chance she had inherited the Flamma talent—she drew at once without effort or consideration; it was not so much to her as it is to me to write a letter.

The thought to make use of her power did not occur to her until the preceding Christmas. Roast beef and plum pudding were a bitter mockery at Coombe Oaks—a sham and cold delusion, cold as snow. A "merry Christmas"—holly berries, mistletoe—and behind these—debt. Behind the glowing fire, written in the flames—debt; in the sound of the distant chimes—debt. Now be merry over the plum-pudding while the wolves gnash their teeth, wolves that the strongest bars cannot keep out.

Immediately the sacred day was past they fell in all their fury upon Iden. Pay me that thou owest! The one only saying in the Gospel thoroughly engrained in the hearts of men. Pay me that thou owest! This is the message from the manger at Bethlehem of our modern Christmas.



CHAPTER XXI.

SO Amaryllis went up into the gaunt, cold room at the top of the house, and bent herself seriously to drawing. There was no fireplace, and if there had been they could not have allowed her coals; coals were dear. It was quite an event when the horse and cart went to the wharf for coal. There was plenty of wood for the hearth—wood grew on the farm—but coal was money.

The March winds howled round the corner of the old thatched house, and now and again tremendous rains blew up against the little western window near which she had placed her table. Through the silent cold of January, the moist cold of February, the east winds and hurricane rains of March, Amaryllis worked on in her garret, heedless of nipped fingers and chilled feet.

Sometimes she looked out of the window and watched Iden digging in the garden underneath, planting his potatoes, pruning his trees and shrubs, or farther away, yonder in the meadow, clearing out the furrows that the water might flow better—"trenching," as he called it.

The harder it rained the harder he worked at this in the open, with a sack about his shoulders like a cloak; the labourers were under shelter, the master was out in the wet, hoping by guiding the water to the grass to get a larger crop of hay in June.

Bowed under his sack, with his rotten old hat, he looked a woful figure as the heavy shower beat on his back. But to Amaryllis he was always her father.

Sometimes she went into the next room—the lumber-room—only lighted by a window on a level with the floor, a window which had no glass, but only a wire network. Sitting on the floor there, she could see him at the stile across the road, his hands behind his back, gossiping now with another farmer or two, now with a labourer, now with an old woman carrying home a yoke of water from the brook.

The gossiping hurt Amaryllis even more than the work in the cold rain; it seemed so incongruous, so out of character, so unlike the real Iden as she knew him.

That he, with his great, broad and noble forehead, and his profile like Shakespeare, should stand there talk, talk, talking on the smallest hamlet topics with old women, and labourers, and thickheaded farmers, was to her a bewilderment and annoyance.

She could not understand it, and she resented it. The real Iden she knew was the man of thought and old English taste, who had told her so much by the fireside of that very Shakespeare whom in features he resembled, and of the poets from Elizabethan days downwards. His knowledge seemed to be endless; there was no great author he had not read, no subject upon which he could not at least tell her where to obtain information. Yet she knew he had never had what is now called an education. How clever he must be to know all these things! You see she did not know how wonderful is the gift of observation, which Iden possessed to a degree that was itself genius. Nothing escaped him; therefore his store was great.

No other garden was planted as Iden's garden was, in the best of old English taste, with old English flowers and plants, herbs and trees. In summer time it was a glory to see: a place for a poet, a spot for a painter, loved and resorted to by every bird of the air. Of a bare old farmhouse he had made a beautiful home.

Questions upon questions her opening mind had poured upon him, and to all he had given her an answer that was an explanation. About the earth and about the sea, the rivers, and living things; about the stars and sun, the comet, the wonders of the firmament, of geology and astronomy, of science; there was nothing he did not seem to know.

A man who had crossed the wide ocean as that Ulysses of whom he read to her, and who, like that Ulysses, enjoyed immense physical strength, why was he like this? Why was he so poor? Why did he work in the rain under a sack? Why did he gossip at the stile with the small-brained hamlet idlers?

It puzzled her and hurt her at the same time.

I cannot explain why it was so, any better than Amaryllis; I could give a hundred reasons, and then there would be no explanation—say partly circumstances, partly lack of a profession in which talent would tell, partly an indecision of character—too much thought—and, after all said and done, Fate.

Watching him from the network window, Amaryllis felt her heart drooping, she knew not why, and went back to her drawing unstrung.

She worked very hard, and worked in vain. The sketches all came back to her. Some of them had a torn hole at the corner where they had been carelessly filed, others a thumb-mark, others had been folded wrongly, almost all smelt of tobacco. Neither illustrated papers, periodicals: neither editors nor publishers would have anything to do with them. One or two took more care, and returned the drawings quite clean; one sent a note saying that they promised well.

Poor Amaryllis! They promised well, and she wanted half a sovereign now. If a prophet assured a man that the picture he could not now dispose of would be worth a thousand pounds in fifty years, what consolation would that be to him?

They were all a total failure. So many letters could not be received in that dull place without others in the house seeing what was going on. Once now and then Amaryllis heard a step on the stairs—a shuffling, uncertain step—and her heart began to beat quicker, for she knew it was her mother. Somehow, although she loved her so dearly, she felt that there was not much sympathy between them. She did not understand her mother; the mother did not understand the daughter. Though she was working for her mother's sake, when she heard her mother's step she was ashamed of her work.

Mrs. Iden would come in and shuffle round the room, drawing one foot along the floor in an aggravating way she had, she was not lame, and look out of window, and presently stand behind Amaryllis, and say—

"Ah! you'll never do anything at that. Never do anything. I've seen too much of it. Better come down and warm yourself."

Now this annoyed Amaryllis so much because it seemed so inconsistent. Mrs. Iden blew up her husband for having no enterprise, and then turned round and discouraged her daughter for being enterprising, and this, too, although she was constantly talking about the superiority of the art employments of the Flammas in London to the clodhopper work around her.

Amaryllis could never draw a line till her mother had gone downstairs again, and then the words kept repeating themselves in her ear—"Never do no good at that, never do no good at that."

If we were to stay to analyse deeply, perhaps we should find that Amaryllis was working for a mother of her own imagination, and not for the mother of fact.

Anyone who sits still, writing, drawing, or sewing, feels the cold very much more than those who are moving indoors or out. It was bitterly cold in the gaunt garret, the more so because the wind came unchecked through the wire network of the window in the next room. But for that her generous young heart cared nothing, nor for the still colder wind of failure.

She had no name—no repute, therefore had her drawings been equal to the finest ever produced they would not have been accepted. Until the accident of reputation arises genius is of no avail.

Except an author, or an artist, or a musician, who on earth would attempt to win success by merit? That alone proves how correct the world is in its estimation of them; they must indeed be poor confiding fools. Succeed by merit!

Does the butcher, or the baker, or the ironmonger, or the tallow-chandler rely on personal merit, or purely personal ability for making a business? They rely on a little capital, credit, and much push. The solicitor is first an articled clerk, and works next as a subordinate, his "footing" costs hundreds of pounds, and years of hard labour. The doctor has to "walk the hospitals," and, if he can, he buys a practice. They do not rely on merit.

The three fools—the author, the artist, and the musician—put certain lines on a sheet of paper and expect the world to at once admire their clever ideas.

In the end—but how far is it to the end!—it is true that genius is certain of recognition; the steed by then has grown used to starvation, waiting for the grass to grow. Look about you: Are the prosperous men of business men of merit? are they all clever? are they geniuses? They do not exactly seem to be so.

Nothing so hard as to succeed by merit; no path so full of disappointments; nothing so incredibly impossible.

I would infinitely rather be a tallow-chandler, with a good steady income and no thought, than an author; at the first opportunity I mean to go into the tallow business.

Until the accident of reputation chanced to come to her, Amaryllis might work and work, and hope and sigh, and sit benumbed in her garret, and watch her father, Shakespeare Iden, clearing the furrows in the rain, under his sack.

She had not even a diploma—a diploma, or a certificate, a South Kensington certificate! Fancy, without even a certificate! Misguided child!

What a hideous collection of frumpery they have got there at the Museum, as many acres as Iden's farm, shot over with all the rubbish of the "periods." What a mockery of true art feeling it is! They have not even a single statue in the place. They would shrivel up in horror at a nude model. They teach art—miserable sham, their wretched art culminates in a Christmas card.

Amaryllis had not even been through the South Kensington "grind," and dared to send in original drawings without a certificate. Ignorance, you see, pure clodhopper ignorance.

Failure waited on her labours; the postman brought them all back again.

Yet in her untaught simplicity she had chosen the line which the very highest in the profession would probably have advised her to take. She drew what she knew. The great cart-horse, the old barn up the road, the hollow tree, the dry reeds, the birds, and chanticleer himself—

High was his comb, and coral red withal, In dents embattled like a castle wall.

Hardly a circumstance of farm life she did not sketch; the fogger with his broad knife cutting hay; the ancient labourer sitting in the wheelbarrow munching his bread-and-cheese, his face a study for Teniers; the team coming home from plough—winter scenes, most of them, because it was winter time. There are those who would give fifty pounds for one of those studies now, crumpled, stained, and torn as they are.

It was a complete failure. Once only she had a gleam of success. Iden picked up the sketch of the dry reeds in the brook, and after looking at it, put it in his "Farmer's Calendar," on the mantelshelf. Amaryllis felt like the young painter whose work is at last hung at the Academy. His opinion was everything to her. He valued her sketch.

Still, that was not money. The cold wind and the chill of failure still entered her garret study. But it was neither of these that at length caused the portfolio to be neglected, she would have worked on and on, hoping against hope, undaunted, despite physical cold and moral check. It was the procession of creditors.



CHAPTER XXII.

STEADILY they came over from the town, dunning Iden and distracting Amaryllis in her garret. She heard the heavy footsteps on the path to the door, the thump, thump with the fist (there was neither knocker nor bell, country fashion); more thumping, and then her mother's excuses, so oft repeated, so wearisome, so profitless. "But where is he?" the creditor would persist. "He's up at the Hayes," or "He's gone to Green Hills." "Well, when will he be in?" "Don't know." "But I wants to know when this yer little account is going to be settled." Then a long narration of his wrongs, threats of "doing summat," i.e., summoning, grumble, grumble, and so slow, unwilling steps departing.

Very rude men came down from the villages demanding payment in their rough way—a raw, crude way, brutally insulting to a lady. Iden had long since exhausted his credit in the town; neither butcher, baker, draper, nor anyone else would let them have a shilling's-worth until the shilling had been placed on the counter. He had been forced lately to deal with the little men of the villages—the little butcher who killed once a fortnight; the petty cottagers' baker, and people of that kind. Inferior meat and inferior bread on credit first; coarse language and rudeness afterwards.

One day, the village baker, having got inside the door as Mrs. Iden incautiously opened it, stood there and argued with her, while Amaryllis in the garret put down her trembling pencil to listen.

"Mr. Iden will send it up," said her mother.

"Oh, he'll send it up. When will he send it up?"

"He'll send it up."

"He've a' said that every time, but it beant come yet. You tell un I be come to vetch it."

"Mr. Iden's not in."

"I'll bide till he be in."

"He'll only tell you he'll send it up."

"I'll bide and see un. You've served I shameful. It's nothing but cheating—that's what I calls it—to have things and never pay for um. It's cheating."

Amaryllis tore downstairs, flushed with passion.

"How dare you say such a thing? How dare you insult my mother? Leave the house this moment!"

And with both hands she literally pushed the man, unwilling, but not absolutely resisting, outside, grumbling as he moved that he never insulted nobody, only asked for his money.

A pleasing preparation this for steadiness of hand, calculated to encourage the play of imagination! She could do nothing for hours afterwards.

Just as often Iden was at home, and then it was worse, because it lasted longer. First they talked by the potato-patch almost under the window; then they talked on the path; then they came indoors, and then there were words and grumbling sounds that rose up the staircase. By-and-by they went out again and talked by the gate. At last the creditor departed, and Iden returned indoors to take a glass of ale and sit a moment till the freshness of the annoyance had left his mind. Mrs. Iden then had her turn at him: the old story—why didn't he do something? Amaryllis knew every word as well as if she had been sitting in the room.

How Iden had patience with them Amaryllis could not think; how he could stand, and be argued with, and abused, and threatened, and yet not take the persecutor by the collar and quietly put him in the road, she could not understand.

The truth was he could not help himself; violence would have availed nothing. But to youth it seems as if a few blows are all that is needed to overcome difficulties.

Waller and Co., the tailor—he was his own Co.—walked over regularly once a week; very civil and very persistent, and persistent in vain. How he came to be a creditor was not easy to see, for Iden's coat was a pattern of raggedness, his trousers bare at the knee, and his shabby old hat rotten. But somehow or other there was a five-pound account two years overdue.

Cobb, the butcher at Woolhorton, got off his trap as he went by, at least twice a week, to chivey Iden about his money. Though he would not let them have a mutton chop without payment, whenever there was five shillings to spare for meat it was always taken into his shop, as it was better to have good meat there, if you had to pay cash for meat, than inferior in the village. One day, Amaryllis was waiting for some steak, side by side with a poor woman, waiting for scraps, while Cobb served a grand lady of the town. "Yes, m'm—oh, yes, m'm, certainly, m'm," bows, and scrapes, and washing of hands, all the obsequiousness possible. When the fine lady had gone, "Lar, Mr. Cobb," says the poor woman, "how different you do speak to they to what you do speak to me."

"Oh, yes," replied Cobb, not in the least abashed at having one manner for the poor and another for the rich. "Yes, you see, these ladies they require such a deal of homage."

There was a long bill at Beavan's the grocer's, but that was not much pressed, only a large blue letter about once a month, as Beavan had a very good profit out of them through the butter. Mrs. Iden made excellent butter, which had a reputation, and Beavan took it all at about half-price. If it had been sold to anyone else he would have insisted on payment. So, by parting with the best butter in the county at half-price, they got their tea and sugar without much dunning.

At one time Mrs. Iden became excited and strange in her manner, as if on the point of hysterics, from which Amaryllis divined something serious was approaching, though her mother would say nothing. So it turned out—a bailiff appeared, and took up his quarters in the kitchen. He was very civil and quiet; he sat by the great fire of logs, and offered to help in any way he could. Iden gave him plenty of beer, for one thing. Amaryllis could not go into the kitchen—the dear old place seemed deserted while he was there.

This woke up Iden for the moment. First there was a rummaging about in his old bureau, and a laborious writing of letters, or adding up of figures. Next there was a great personal getting up, a bath, clean linen, shaving, and donning of clothes packed away these years past. In two hours or so Iden came down another man, astonishingly changed, quite a gentleman in every respect, and so handsome in Amaryllis's eyes. Indeed, he was really handsome still, and to her, of course, wonderfully so. If only he would always dress like that!

Iden walked into Woolhorton, but all these preparations had so consumed the time that the bank was shut, the solicitor's offices closed, and there was no means of raising any money that evening. The son passed the father's doorstep—the worn stone step, ground by the generations of customers—he saw the light behind the blind in the little room where Grandfather Iden sat—he might, had he paused and listened, have heard the old man poke the fire, the twenty-thousand-guinea-man—the son passed on, and continued his lonely walk home, the home that held a bailiff.

A makeshift bed had to be made up for the bailiff in the kitchen, and there he remained the night, and was up and had lit the fire for Luce the servant before she was down. The man was certainly very civil, but still there was the shock of it.

Early in the morning Iden went into town again, saw his solicitor, and got a cheque—it was only five-and-twenty or thirty pounds, and the bailiff left.



CHAPTER XXIII.

BUT his presence did not die out of the kitchen; they always seemed to feel as if he had been there. The hearth had been stained by a foreign foot, the very poker had been touched by a foreign hand, the rude form at the side by the wall had been occupied by an intruder. Amaryllis had always been so fond of the kitchen—the oldest part of the house, two centuries at least. The wide hearth and immense chimney, up which, when the fire was out, of a winter's night you could see the stars; over which of a windy night you could imagine the witches riding by, borne on the deep howling of the blast; the great beam and the gun slung to it; the heavy oaken table, unpolished, greyish oak; the window in the thick wall, set with yellowish glass; the stone floor, and the walls from which the whitewash peeled in flakes; the rude old place was very dear to her.

Ofttimes they sat there in winter instead of the sitting-room, drawn by its antique homeliness. Mrs. Iden warmed elder wine, and Iden his great cup of Goliath ale, and they roasted chestnuts and apples, while the potatoes—large potatoes—Iden's selected specialities—were baking buried in the ashes. Looking over her shoulder Amaryllis could see the white drift of snow against the window, which was on a level with the ground outside, and so got Iden to tell her stories of the deep snow in the United States, and the thick ice, sawn with saws, or, his fancy roaming on, of the broad and beautiful Hudson River, the river he had so admired in his youth, the river the poets will sing some day; or of his clinging aloft at night in the gale on the banks of Newfoundland, for he had done duty as a sailor. A bold and adventurous man in his youth, why did he gossip at the stile now in his full and prime of manhood?

It would be a long, long tale to tell, and even then only those who have lived in the country and had practical experience could fully comprehend the hopelessness of working a small farm, unless you are of a wholly sordid nature. Iden's nature was not sordid; the very reverse. The beginning, or one of the beginnings, of the quarrel between father and son arose because of this; Grandfather Iden could not forgive his son for making the place beautiful with trees and flowers.

By-and-by the baked potatoes were done, and they had supper on the old and clumsy table, village made and unpolished, except in so far as the stains of cooking operations had varnished it, the same table at which "Jearje," the fogger, sat every morning to eat his breakfast, and every evening to take his supper. What matter? George worked hard and honestly all day, his great arms on the table, spread abroad as he ate, did not injure it.

Great mealy potatoes, cracked open, white as the snow without, floury and smoking; dabs of Mrs. Iden's delicious butter, a little salt and pepper, and there was a dish for a king. The very skins were pleasant—just a taste.

They were not always alone at these kitchen-feasts, sometimes a Flamma from London, sometimes an Iden from over the hill, or others were there. Iden was very hospitable—though most of his guests (family connections) were idle folk, no good to themselves or anybody, still they were made cordially welcome. But others, very high folk, socially speaking (for they had good connections, too, these poor Idens), who had dined at grand London tables, seemed to enjoy themselves most thoroughly on the rude Homeric fare.

For it was genuine, and there was a breadth, an open-handed generosity, a sense of reality about it; something really to eat, though no finger-glasses; Homeric straightforwardness of purpose.

Amaryllis was very fond of the old kitchen; it was the very centre of home. This strange man, this intruding bailiff, trod heavily on her dearest emotions. His shadow remained on the wall though he had gone.

They all felt it, but Amaryllis most of all, and it was weeks before the kitchen seemed to resume its former appearance. Jearje was the one who restored it. He ate so heartily, and spoke so cheerily at breakfast and at supper, it almost made them forget their troubles to see anyone so grateful and pleased with all they did for him. "Thank you, ma'am; dest about a good bit a' bacon, this yer"—locally the "d" and "j" were often interchangable, dest for jest, or just—"That'll be a' plenty for I, ma'am, doan't want more'n I can yet"—don't want more than I can eat, don't want to be greedy—"Thank you, miss; dest about some ripping good ale, this yer; that it be."

He so thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the bacon, and the cheese, and the ale; he was like a great, big human dog; you know how we like to see a big dog wag his tail at his food, or put his paws on our knees and laugh, as it were, with his eyes in our face. They petted him, these two women, exactly as if he had been a dog, giving him all the bones, literally and metaphorically, the actual bones of the meat, and any scraps there were, to take home with him (besides his regular meals), and now and then some trifles of clothing for his aged mother. The dog most thoroughly appreciated this treatment; he rolled in it, revelled in it, grew shiny and fat, and glistened with happiness.

Iden petted him, too, to some degree, out of doors, and for much the same reason; his cheery content and willingness, and the absence of the usual selfish niggardliness of effort. George worked willingly and fairly, and, if occasion needed, stayed another hour, or put his shoulder to the wheel of his own accord, and so, having a good employer, and not one minded to take advantage of him, was rewarded in many ways. Iden did not reduce his wages by a shilling or eighteenpence in winter, and gave him wood for firing, half a sack of potatoes, garden produce, or apples, and various other things from time to time.

Living partly indoors, and being of this disposition, Jearje was more like a retainer than a servant, or labourer; a humble member of the family.

It was a sight to see him eat. Amaryllis and Mrs. Iden used often to watch him covertly, just for the amusement it gave them. He went about it as steadily and deliberately as the horses go to plough; no attempt to caracole in the furrow, ready to stand still as long as you like.

Bacon three inches thick with fat: the fat of beef; fat of mutton—anything they could not finish in the sitting-room; the overplus of cabbage or potatoes, savoury or unsavoury; vast slices of bread and cheese; ale, and any number of slop-basins full of tea—the cups were not large enough—and pudding, cold dumpling, hard as wood, no matter what, Jearje ate steadily through it.

A more willing fellow never lived; if Mrs. Iden happened to want anything from the town ever so late, though George had worked hard the long day through from half-past five in the morning, off he would start, without sign of demur, five miles there and back, and come in singing with his burden.

There are such, as George still among the labourer class, in despite of the change of circumstance and sentiment, men who would be as faithful as the faithfullest retainer who ever accompanied a knight of old time to the Crusade. But, observe, for a good man there must be a good master. Proud Iden was a good master, who never forgot that his man was not a piece of mechanism, but flesh and blood and feelings.

Now this great human dog, sprawling his strong arms abroad on the oaken table, warming his heavily-booted feet at the hearth, always with a cheery word and smile, by his constant presence there slowly wore away the impression of the bailiff, and the dear old kitchen came to be itself again.



CHAPTER XXIV.

BUT all these shocks and worries and trampling upon her emotions made the pencil tremble in the artist's hand as she worked in the gaunt garret.

One day, as she was returning from Woolhorton, Iden's solicitor, from whom he had borrowed money, overtook her, walked his horse, and began to talk to her in his perky, affected, silly way. Of all the fools in Woolhorton town there was none equal in pure idiotcy to this namby-pamby fellow—it was wonderful how a man of Iden's intelligence could trust his affairs to such a man, the more so as there was at least one good lawyer in the place. This is very characteristic of the farming race; they will work like negroes in the field, and practise the utmost penury to save a little, and be as cautious over a groat as the keenest miser, and then go and trust their most important affairs to some perfect fool of a solicitor. His father, perhaps, or his uncle, or somebody connected with the firm, had a reputation about the era of Waterloo, and upon this tradition they carry their business to a man whom they admit themselves "doan't seem up to much, yon." In the same way, or worse, for there is no tradition even in this case, they will consign a hundred pounds' worth of milk to London on the mere word of a milkman's agent, a man of straw for aught they know, and never so much as go up to town to see if there is such a milk business in existence.

This jackanapes began to talk to Amaryllis about her father. "Now, don't you think, Miss Iden, you could speak to your father about these money matters; you know he's getting into a pound, he really is (the jackanapes pretended to hunt); he'll be pounded. Now, don't you think you could talk to him, and persuade him to be more practical?"

The chattering of this tom-tit upset Amaryllis more than the rudeness of the gruff baker who forced his way in, and would not go. That such a contemptible nincompoop should dare to advise her father to be practical! The cleverest man in the world—advise him to be practical; as if, indeed, he was not practical and hard-working to the very utmost.

To her it was a bitter insult. The pencil trembled in her hand.

But what shook it most of all was anxiety about her mother. Ever since the bailiff's intrusion Mrs. Iden had seemed so unsettled. Sometimes she would come downstairs after the rest had retired, and sit by the dying fire for hours alone, till Iden chanced to wake, and go down for her.

Once she went out of doors very late, leaving the front door wide open, and Amaryllis found her at midnight wandering in an aimless way among the ricks.

At such times she had a glazed look in her eyes, and did not seem to see what she gazed at. At others she would begin to cry without cause, and gave indications of hysteria. The nervous Flamma family were liable to certain affections of that kind, and Amaryllis feared lest her mother's system had been overstrained by these continual worries.

Poor woman! she had, indeed, been worried enough to have shaken the strongest; and, having nothing stolid in her nature, it pressed upon her.

After awhile these attacks seemed to diminish, and Amaryllis hoped that nothing would come of it, but it left her in a state of extreme anxiety lest some fresh trouble should happen to renew the strain.

When she thought of her mother she could not draw—the sound of her shuffling, nervous footstep on the landing or the path outside under the window stopped her at once. These things disheartened her a thousand times more than the returned sketches the postman was always bringing.

On butter-making mornings, once a week, there was always a great to-do; Mrs. Iden, like nervous people, was cross and peevish when she was exceptionally busy, and clapper-clawed Iden to some purpose. It chanced that Amaryllis one day was just opening an envelope and taking out a returned drawing, when Iden entered, angry and fresh from Mrs. Iden's tongue, and, seeing the letter, began to growl:—

"Better drow that there fool stuff in the vire, and zee if you can't help your mother. Better do zummat to be some use on. Pity as you wasn't a boy chap to go out and yarn summat. Humph! humph!" growl, mutter, growl. "Drow" was local for throw, "summat" for something, "yarn" for earn. Unless I give you a vocabulary you may not be able to follow him.

The contemptuous allusion to her sketches as fool stuff, contrasted with the benefit and advantage of earning something—something real and solid—hit the artist very hard. That was the thought that troubled her so much, and paralysed her imagination. They were unsaleable—she saw the worthlessness of them far more than Iden. They were less in value than the paper on which they were traced; fool stuff, fit for the fire only.

That was the very thought that troubled her so, and Iden hit the nail home with his rude speech. That was the material view; unless a thing be material, or will fetch something material, it is good for the fire only.

So it came about that the portfolio was pushed aside, and dust gathered on it, and on the pencils, and the india-rubber, and in the little box of vine charcoal. Amaryllis having arranged her violets in the tumbler of water in the window niche, sat down at the table and leant her head on her hand, and tried to think what she could do, as she had thought these many, many days.

The drawings were so unreal, and a sovereign so real. Nothing in all the world at these moments seemed to her to be so good and precious as the round disk of gold which rules everything. The good that she could do with it—with just one of those golden disks!

Did you ever read Al Hariri? That accomplished scholar, the late Mr. Chenery (of The Times), translated twenty-six of his poems from the Arabic, and added most interesting notes. This curious book is a fusion of the Arabian Nights, Ecclesiastes, and Rabelais. There is the magical unexpectedness of the Arabian Nights, the vanity of vanities, all is vanity, of the Preacher, and the humour of the French satirist. Wisdom is scattered about it; at one moment you acknowledge a great thought, the next you are reproached for a folly, and presently laugh at a deep jest.

Al Hariri has a bearing upon Amaryllis, because he sang of the dinar, the Arabian sovereign, the double-faced dinar, the reverse and the obverse, head and tail, one side giving everything good, and the other causing all evil. For the golden disk has two sides, and two Fates belong to it. First he chants its praises:—

How noble is that yellow one, whose yellowness is pure, Which traverses the regions, and whose journeying is afar. Told abroad are its fame and repute: Its lines are set as the secret sign of wealth; Its march is coupled with the success of endeavours; Its bright look is loved by mankind, As though it had been molten of their hearts. By its aid whoever has got it in his purse assails boldly, Though kindred be perished or tardy to help. Oh! charming are its purity and brightness; Charming are its sufficiency and help. How many a ruler is there whose rule has been perfected by it! How many a sumptuous one is there whose grief, but for it, would be endless! How many a host of cares has one charge of it put to flight! How many a full moon has a sum of it brought down! How many a one, burning with rage, whose coal is flaming, Has it been secretly whispered to and then his anger has softened. How many a prisoner, whom his kin had yielded, Has it delivered, so that his gladness has been unmingled. Now by the Truth of the Lord whose creation brought it forth, Were it not for His fear, I should say its power is supreme.

The sovereign, our dinar, does it not answer exactly to this poem of the Arabian written in the days of the Crusades! It is yellow, it is pure, it travels vast distances, and is as valuable in India as here, it is famous and has a reputation, the inscription on it is the mark of its worth, it is the sinew of war, the world loves its brightness as if it was coined from their hearts, those who have it in their purses are bold, it helps every one who has it, it banishes all cares, and one might say, were it not for fear of the Lord, that the sovereign was all mighty.

All mighty for good as it seemed to Amaryllis thinking in her garret, leaning her head on her hand, and gazing at her violets; all mighty for good—if only she could get the real solid, golden sovereign!

But the golden coin has another side—the obverse—another Fate, for evil, clinging to it, and the poet, changing his tone, thunders:—

Ruin on it for a deceiver and insincere, The yellow one with two faces like a hypocrite! It shows forth with two qualities to the eye of him that looks on it, The adornment of the loved one, the colour of the lover. Affection for it, think they who judge truly, Tempts men to commit that which shall anger their Maker. But for it no thief's right hand were cut off; Nor would tyranny be displayed by the impious; Nor would the niggardly shrink from the night-farer; Nor would the delayed claimant mourn the delay of him that withholds; Nor would men call to God from the envious who casts at them. Moreover the worst quality that it possesses Is that it helps thee not in straits, Save by fleeing from thee like a runaway slave. Well done he who casts it away from a hilltop, And who, when it whispers to him with the whispering of a lover, Says to it in the words of the truth-speaking, the veracious, "I have no mind for intimacy with thee,—begone!"

"The worst quality that it possesses" remains to this day, and could Amaryllis have obtained the sovereign, still it would only have helped her by passing from her, from her hand to that of the creditor's, fleeing like a runaway slave.

But Amaryllis surrounded with the troubles of her father and mother, saw only the good side of the golden sovereign, only that it was all powerful to bless.

How unnatural it seems that a girl like this, that young and fresh and full of generous feelings as she was, her whole mind should perforce be taken up with the question of money; an unnatural and evil state of things.