One was the vicar of the parish, and the other Mrs. Woodburn. The two worked together for the common end unknown except to each other and those they helped.

Mr. Haggard was something of a saint and something of a scholar. Mrs. Woodburn had been born among the people, knew them, their family histories, and failings; was wise, tolerant, and liberal alike in purse and judgment. Her practical capacity made a good counterpoise to the other's benevolence and generous impetuosity.

When the vicar was in trouble about a case, he always went to Mrs. Woodburn long before he went to the Duke; and he rarely went in vain.

The parlour at Putnam's had seen much intimate communion between these two high and tranquil spirits over causes that were going ill and souls reluctant to be saved. The vicar always came to Putnam's: Mrs. Woodburn never went to the Vicarage. That was partly because the vicar's wife was a stout and strenuous churchwoman who cherished a genuine horror of what she called "chapel" as the most insidious and deadly foe of the spirit, and still more because Mrs. Haggard was a woman, and a jealous one at that.

* * * * *

It was a few days after the National that the vicar made one of his calls at Putnam's.

"What is it?" asked Mrs. Woodburn in her direct and simple way after the first greeting.

She knew he never came except on business.

"It's that wretched fellow Joses," he answered. "He's been in some scrape at the National, I gather, and got himself knocked about. Somehow he crawled back to his earth. I rather believe Mr. Silver paid his train-fare and saw him through."

"Is he dying?" asked Mrs. Woodburn.

The vicar replied that the parish nurse thought he was in a very bad way.

"Is she seeing to him?"

"She's doing what she can."

"We'd better ask Dr. Pollock to go round and look at him," said Mrs. Woodburn. "Don't you bother any more, Mr. Haggard. I'll see that the best is done."

She telephoned to the Polefax doctor.

That afternoon he called at Putnam's and made his report.

"He's in a very bad way, Mrs. Woodburn," he said. "Advanced arterial deterioration. And the condition is complicated by some deep-seated fear-complex."

The doctor was young, up-to-date, and dabbling in psycho-therapy.

"Fear of death?" asked Mrs. Woodburn.

"Fear of life, I think," the other answered. "He wouldn't talk to me. And I can't, of course, attempt a mental analysis."

Mrs. Woodburn had no notion what he meant, and believed, perhaps rightly, that he did not know himself.

"He's been unfortunate," she said.

"So I guessed," answered the young man. "He asked me who sent me, and when I told him said he'd be grateful if you'd call on him."

"I'll go round."

Toward evening she called at the cottage.

Mrs. Boam showed her up.

Joses lay on a bed under the slope of the roof, his head at the window so that he could look out.

His face was faintly livid, and he breathed with difficulty.

Mrs. Woodburn's heart went out to him at the first glance.

"I'm sorry to see you like this, Mr. Joses," she said gently. "You wanted to see me?"

"Well," he answered, "it was Miss Woodburn I wanted to see." He looked at her wistfully out of eyes that women had once held beautiful. "D'you think she'd come?"

"I'm sure she will," the other answered reassuringly.

Joses lay with his mop of red hair like a dingy and graying aureole against the pillow.

"D'you mind?" he asked.

Her eyes filled with kindness. He seemed to her so much a child.

"What! Her coming to see you here?"

"Yes."

She smiled at him in her large and loving way.

"Of course I don't," she said, and added almost archly: "And if I did I'm not sure it would make much difference."

He found himself laughing.

She moved about the room, ordering it.

Then she returned to Putnam's to seek her daughter.

* * * * *

After the National Boy had emerged from the cloud which had long covered her.

She returned home, radiant and impenitent.

"I've been thinking things over," she said on the morning after her return. "And I'll forgive you, mother, for your lack of faith."

"Thank you, my dear," replied the other laconically.

"This once," added Boy firmly. "Now, mind!"

* * * * *

Mrs. Woodburn now gave her daughter Joses's message.

The girl said nothing, but visited the cottage next morning.

She stood in the door, firm and fresh, the colour in her hair, the bloom on her cheeks, and looked at that mass of decaying man upon the bed.

"Are you bad?" she asked, anxious as a child.

"I suppose I'm not very good," he answered.

She snatched her eyes away.

"Well, I congratulate you," he said at last, quietly.

She sought for irony in his voice and eyes, and detected none.

"What on?"

"Your victory."

Her face softened.

"Thank you."

"You deserved to win," continued the other, with genuine admiration. "You rode a great race. I couldn't have believed a girl could have got the course if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes." His gaze met hers quite honestly. "You see I didn't count on the double fake. I knew you were going to ride as Albert, but I'd quite forgotten the corollary—that Albert might dress as you. That's where you beat me."

The girl's chest was rising and falling.

"Mr. Joses," she said, "I didn't ride the horse."

His eyes sought hers, dissatisfied, and then wandered to the window.

"Well, well," he said. "We won't argue about it. Anyway, you won."

Boy looked out of the window.

"I did try and deceive you into thinking I was going to ride," she said with a quake in her voice. "That was partly deviltry and partly to put you off. I thought if you believed you could get back on us after the race you'd not try it on before. Besides, I could never ride the course. Three miles was my limit over fences at racing speed when I was at my best, and that's some years since."

He was quite unconvinced.

"I give you best, Miss Woodburn," he said. "But Albert could never have ridden that race. Never! It was a good win. And you deserved it. But it wasn't that I wanted to see you about." He looked round the little room. "It's not much of a place perhaps, you may think. But there's the window, and the sight of grass, and cows grazing and folks passing on the path. And in this house there's Mrs. Boam, and Jenny, and the pussy-cat. I should miss it." He lifted those suffering eyes of his. "I don't want to pass what little time I've left in the cage."

"But they won't hurt you now," cried Boy. "They couldn't."

The other laughed his dreadful laughter.

"Couldn't they?" he said. "You don't know 'em. It's the cat-and-mouse business all the time. I'm the mouse. I've been there."

"But you've done nothing," said Boy.

Joses moved his head on the pillow.

"There's just one thing," he said, dropping his voice. "Mr. Silver's got a little bit of paper that might make trouble for me."

"But he shall give it up!" cried the girl.

"Will he?" grunted the other.

"Of course he will. He's as kind as kind."

Joses shook a dubious head.

"Men are men," he said. "And when men get across each other they are tigers."

"He's a tame one," said the girl. "I'll see to that."

"He might be," muttered the other. "In the hands of the right tamer."

Boy went straight back to Putnam's and discovered Mr. Silver smoking in the saddle-room.

She told him what had passed.

"I know," he said. "Here it is." He produced the bit of paper. "I'll burn it," and he held it to the bowl of his pipe.

"No!" cried the girl. "Give it me."

She took it straight back to the sick man.

He lit a match and watched it burn with eyes that were almost covetous.

"That's the last of 'em," he said. "Now I shall die in the open like a gentleman."

He was, in fact, dying very fast.

It did not need Dr. Pollock's assurance to make the girl aware of that.

She longed to help him.

"Would you like to see Mr. Haggard?" she asked awkwardly.

He shook his head, amused.

"He'd come the parson over me."

"I don't think he would."

"He couldn't help it if he was true to his cloth."

"I'm not sure he is," said Boy doubtfully.

"You're the same," he said.

She glanced up at him swiftly.

His eyes were mischievous, almost roguish.

"What d'you mean?"

"You want me to repent."

She coloured guiltily, and he laughed like a boy, delighted with his own cleverness.

"There's one thing Mr. Haggard might do for me," he said. "Lend me Clutton Brock's Shelley, if he would. He's got it, I know."

The girl made a mental note, wrinkling her brow.

"Shelley's Clutton Brock," she said. "I'll remember."

She sat beside his bed. His eyes dwelt on her keen, earnest young face, and the blue eyes gazing thoughtfully out of the window.

"You're a Philistine," he said at last. "But you're clean. Philistines are. That's the best of them."

"What's a Philistine?" she asked.

He did not answer her.

"You're the cleanest thing I've met," he continued. "There's a flame burning in you all the time that devours all your rubbish. Mine accumulates and corrupts."

"I don't like you to talk like that," said the girl, withdrawing.

"There's only one thing that'll purge me," the other continued.

"What's that?"

"Fire."

The girl's eyes darkened.

"Are you afraid?" she asked swiftly.

"Of Hell with a large H?"

She nodded, and he laughed.

"What I've had I've paid for across the counter and got the receipt stamped and signed by the Almighty. No, it's not the fires of Hell; it's the power of the old sun working on my vile body through the ages that'll renew me with beauty and youth in time. Life's eternal, sure enough; but not on the lines the parsons tell us."

A little later she rose to go.

He detained her.

"Shall you come and see me again?" he asked her.

She gave him a shy and brilliant smile.

"Rather," she said. "So'll mother."

He kissed her hand, and there was beauty in his eyes.

Next day she called with the book from Mr. Haggard.

Dr. Pollock was coming down the path.

"He's out of pain," he said gravely.

Boy returned to Putnam's and picked some violets.

Then she came back to the cottage.

Mrs. Boam was weeping as she opened.

"May I see him?" said the girl.

"Yes, Miss," answered the other. "We shall miss him, Jenny and me. He were that lovable."

Boy went upstairs and entered.

Joses was at peace: the dignity of death upon him.

She laid the violets on his breast.



CHAPTER LI

Old Mat on Heaven and Earth

When Old Mat returned home from Liverpool he hung his hat on the peg and informed Silver that he had undergone conversion—for good this time.

"Nebber no more," he announced solemnly. "I done with bettin'—now I got the cash. Always promised Mar I'd be God's good man soon as I could afford it. Moreover, besides I might lose some o' what I made. And then I might have another backslide." He settled himself in his leather chair, drew his feet out of his slippers, and his pass-book out of his pocket.

"It's cash spells conwersion, Mr. Silver," he panted. "I've often seen it in others, and now I knows it for meself. A noo-er, tru-er and bootifler h'outlook upon life, as Mr. 'Aggard said last Sunday—hall the houtcome o' cash in 'and. Yes, sir, if you wants to conwert the world, the way's clear—Pay cash down. That's why these 'ere Socialists are on the grow; because they talks common-sense. 'It's dollars as does it,' they says. 'Give every chap a bankin'-account, and you'll see.' What's Church h'up and h'answer to that? Church says: 'It's all in conwersion. Bank on conwersion. Cash is but wrath and must that corrupts,' says the clergy. 'Leave the cash to us,' they says. 'We'll see to that for you, while you keeps out o' temptation and saves your souls alive.'"

When Mrs. Woodburn told the old man the news about Joses, he received it gravely.

"Moved on, has he?" he said. "I'm sorry. I shall miss him. I always misses that sort. Shouldn't feel at home like without some of them around. Well, Mar, we shall all meet in the yappy yappy land, plea Gob in his goodness." He burst into a sort of chaunt, wagging his head, and beating time with his fist—

"Ho, won't that be jiy-ful? Jam for the fythe-ful.

I wouldn't miss that meetin', Mar, not for all the nuts on Iceland's greasy mountains, the Psalmist made the song about. I sees it all like in a wision." His eyes closed, and his hands and feet swam vaguely. "Me and Monkey o' the one side, and the Three J's o' tother, pitchin' the tale a treat at tops of our voices." He opened his eyes slowly, ogled Ma, tapped her knee, winked, and ended confidentially: "One thing, old dear. I'll lay they'll give Putnam's best same there as here. Now then!"



CHAPTER LII

Putnam's Once More

It was Sunday morning at Putnam's, and in Maudie's estimation things were more comme il faut than they had been for long past.

About a fortnight since there had been trouble in the yard during the night, and after it, for some hours before he went away, the Monster-without-Manners had been subdued almost to gentlemanliness.

Then two of the fan-tails had been taken ill. Maudie from the top of the ladder had watched their dying contortions with the cynical interest of a Roman matron criticizing the death-agonies of a gladiator in the arena. When after staggering about the fan-tails turned over on their backs and flopped, Maudie descended from her perch and toyed with them daintily during their last moments, finally carrying their corpses up into the loft.

After that, Maudie felt queer herself, and not only from the results of a stricken conscience. Indeed, but for the urgent and instant ministrations of Putnam's Only Gentleman she would have followed where the good fan-tails had gone.

Thereafter, for a space of a week, there had fallen on the yard a hallowed time of peace very different from the period of oppression and irritable energy which had preceded it. Maudie attributed the change to the absence of the Monster-without-Manners who had departed quietly with the Four-legs there was all the fuss about.

True, both had now returned, but in chastened mood, the result perhaps of well-deserved affliction experienced in foreign lands.

This morning things were much as of old. The fan-tails puffed and pouted and sidled on the roofs. Across the Paddock Close came the sound of church-bells, and from the Lads' Barn the voices of the boys singing a hymn.

The Bible Class was in full swing.

All the lads were there but one. That one was Albert. He stood in lofty isolation in the door of the stable, a cigarette in his mouth, his arms folded and his face stiff with the self-consciousness that had obsessed him since his ride in the National. Jerry and Stanley, once the friends of Albert, and now his critics, swore that he never took that look off even when he went to bed.

"Wears it in his sleep," said Jerry, "same as his pidgearmours."

But the loftiest of us cannot live forever on the Heights of Make-Believe. And Albert, as he breathed the Spring, and remembered that no one was by to see, relaxed, became himself, and began to warble not unmelodiously—

"When the ruddy sun-shine Beats the ruddy rain, Then the ruddy sparrow 'Gins to chirp again."

Mr. Silver came out of the house.

Albert straightway resumed his air of a Roman Emperor turned stable-boy.

The other listened to the singing that came from the barn.

"Not inside, then, Albert?" he said.

"No, sir," answered the other. "I leave that to the lads."

Mr. Silver looked at his watch.

"You'd better do a bolt before Miss Boy catches you," he said.

Albert redoubled his frozen Emperor mien.

The other passed into the saddle-room; and Albert revealed the bitterness of his soul to Maudie on the ladder.

"He's all right now," he told his confidante. "Goin' to start the Bank again, and all on what I won him. And all the return he can make is to insultify me. That's the way of 'em, that is."

A door opened at the back, and a rush of sound emerged.

The lads were tumbling out of the Barn.

Boy Woodburn came swiftly into the yard, her troop at her heels.

She marked the truant in the door.

"Well, Albert," she said. "We missed you."

"He's too stuck up wiv 'isself to pray to Gob any more," mocked Jerry, stopping while the girl went on into the stable.

"He thinks he can do it all on his own wivout no 'elp from no one," sneered Stanley. "Albert does."

Albert swaggered forward.

"Say!" he said to Jerry. "Was it you or me won the National?"

"Neever," answered Jerry. "It was Miss Boy."

"Did she ride him, then?" asked Albert.

Jerry shot his face forward. All the other lads were at his back.

"She did then," he said.

Albert was white and blinking, but in complete control of himself.

"Who says so?"

"Everyone. You're a plucky fine actor and a mighty pore 'orseman, Albert Edward," continued the tormentor.

Albert was a lad of character. He had sworn to his mistress that if he won the race he would henceforth drop the boy and don the man. And the sign of his emancipation was to be that never again would he use his dukes except in self-defence. Now in the hour of trial he was true to his word.

Happily the strain was relieved, for at the moment Boy, scenting trouble, came out into the yard. Monkey Brand with her.

Albert approached her.

"Beg pardon, Miss, was it you or me won the National?" he asked. "These 'ere genelmen say it was you."

"It was neither," replied the girl. "It was Four-Pound-the-Second. Come in with me, Albert. I want to change his bandages."

She reentered the stable.

Albert followed at a distance, slow and sullen.

Boy entered the loose-box, and Billy Bluff rose to greet her with a yawn.

The door of the loose-box closed.

The girl bent to her task.

A hand was laid upon her shoulder.

She looked up sharply.

Jim Silver was standing above her, and the door was shut.

"It's you, is it?" she said.

He took her quivering life into his arms.

"Now," she sighed.

She raised her lips, and he laid his own upon them.

"Again," she said with closed eyes.

His own drank in her face.

"You've been a patient old man," she whispered.

"It was worth it," he answered.

"I'll make it so," she said. "Please God!" she added with delightful inconsequence. "I'm glad you didn't bet."

The great brown horse turned his head and breathed on them.

Boy disengaged, patting her hair. "I'm glad you didn't bet," she repeated.

"We shall have enough to farm on without that," he said. "And to breed a few 'chasers."

Her hand was moving up and down the horse's smooth, hard neck.

"I don't want to breed 'chasers," she said.

He laughed softly.

"Don't you?"

"No," she said. "I'm tired of it. I'm like mother. It's all right when you're quite young. But it doesn't last—if you've got anything in you. It's froth."

He nodded.

"You're right," he said. "What shall we breed?"

"Shire horses," the girl replied. "Great, strong, useful creatures that'll work all day and every day—"

"Bar Sunday," he said. "Remember grand-pa, please."

"—without a fuss," she continued, ignoring his impertinence, "shifting trucks, drawing the plough, and carrying the wheat, and come home tired of evenings with wet coats and healthy appetites."

"My old love," he said. "You're right, my dear, of course. But he's a beauty all the same."

"He is that," replied Boy, with a friendly slap.

They left the loose-box, Billy Bluff attending them.

Monkey Brand, his back ostentatiously toward them, was on watch at the door.

He heard them coming down the gangway and turned shyly.

Then he touched his hat.

The girl took his hand and shook it with a will.

Jim Silver followed suit.

"Very please, Miss, I'm sure," gulped the old jockey.

The little man drew Silver mysteriously aside.

"Only one thing, sir," he said. "That little mistake o' yours about the copper's nark. I'm goin' to forget all about that now."

"Thank you, Brand," answered Jim earnestly. "We all make mistakes, don't we?"

"That's right, sir," said Monkey. "Only that's a mistake I never made—and never would."

Some of the lads were still hanging about the yard. They knew, too. Maudie knew. Even the fan-tails, splashing in mid-air, were not deceived.

Albert came forward and ventured a shy and sullen word of congratulation.

"That hundred thousand you won for me made it possible, no doubt," replied Silver gravely.

Albert was still on his pinnacle.

"Very glad to 'elp in such a good cause, sir," he answered. "Only one thing, if I might make so bold: I 'ope you won't forget young Jerry's alf-dollar come Christmas. Means a lot to a little feller like that."

The pair passed out into the Paddock Close.

Old Mat and his missus were coming down the hill from church.

The young couple strolled to meet them.

"He's been making amends for what he did amiss at Liverpool, dad has," said Mrs. Woodburn comfortably.

Mat lifted a dull eye to the blue.

"Yes," he said. "I put a sovereign in the plate. That should square the account, de we, accordin' to my reckonin'."

He pursed his lips firmly, almost defiantly, as he looked the heavens in the face.

A sudden shyness fell on the little group.

Then Boy went to her mother, lifted the old lady's veil, and kissed her.

"Mother," she said.

Mrs. Woodburn took Jim Silver's hand in both of hers, and kneaded it in just the way her daughter would do in moments of deep emotion.

She said nothing, but her eyes were beautiful.

Old Mat swallowed, touched his hat, and looked away.

"That's a little bit o' better," he muttered to himself.

* * * * *

A minute later the old man was walking down the hill, Mrs. Woodburn on his arm.

The young couple strolled on up the slope.

Boy looked across the Paddock Close to Joses's window.

Mrs. Boam was pulling up the blind, and the sun was pouring in splendid torrents on to the dead man within.

The girl was glad.

They came to the quiet church.

"Shall we go in?" she said.

"Let's," he answered.

Together they entered the silence and stood looking up toward the Figure in the dim east window.

Mr. Haggard, in his cassock, was arranging the narcissi on the altar.

As he saw them, he turned and came slowly down the aisle in the quiet.

For Boy it was almost as if the Figure in the window had come to life and was drawing near to her and Jim.

THE END



THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS GARDEN CITY, N.Y.