"And others along with them," said Dr. O'Donoghue.

"The sergeant, being a man who'd always kept himself to himself and didn't mix with bad company, wasn't going near the house while the like of that language was going on. But he sent down the whole of the four constables to look at the apple trees; which they did. But Simpkins got worse instead of better. He wrote off a note to the District Inspector complaining of the sergeant. But the D.I. had more sense than to take any notice, knowing well that if there's an apple in the place the gossures will get it, and small blame to them."

"Sensible man," said Meldon.

"When Simpkins got no satisfaction out of him," said Doyle, "he wrote to the County Inspector. I can tell you he took mighty little by that. It was a week after, or maybe more, when he got an answer back. It was Sabina Gallagher told me what was in it, having got it out of her cousin, that's servant to Simpkins and seen the letter, so I know what I'm telling you is the truth. The County Inspector said that if there was boycotting in the place, or cattle driving, or any kind of lawlessness, he'd be quick enough to have extra police drafted in and a baton charge up and down upon the streets of the town; but that he wasn't going to upset the policy of the Government, and maybe have questions asked about him in Parliament, for the sake of a few shillings' worth of apples. You'd think that would have been enough for Simpkins, but it wasn't. He wrote another letter, up to Dublin Castle, to the Inspector-General of Police, no less, and the end of it, was that the sergeant was moved out of this."

"Poor fellow," said Meldon. "Did he mind much?"

"He did not then, for they sent him to a better station. It was only last week they moved him, there being a lot of enquiries to be gone through that occupied them the whole of the winter and the spring. The doctor and myself is thinking of getting up a subscription to present him with an illuminated address on account of the way he conducted himself to the satisfaction of the inhabitants of this town while he was in it, and as a protest against the underhand way that Simpkins went about trying to injure him and take the bread out of the mouth of his children."

"I'll see that the Major subscribes to that," said Meldon.

"Tell Mr. Meldon," said Doyle, "what it was you were saying ought to be on the address."

"It isn't worth speaking about," said the doctor modestly.

"You'd better tell me," said Meldon. "If I'm to be responsible for revenging the wrongs of the community on Simpkins, I ought to be well up in every detail of what's going on."

"It was nothing but just an idea that came across my mind," said the doctor.

"It may be only that," said Meldon, "but it may be more. The proper person to judge of its importance is me. You must have frequently observed, doctor, that the man to whom an idea occurs is not by any means the best judge of its value. Sometimes he thinks too much of it. Take Galileo, for instance. He hit upon the fact that the earth goes round the sun, and it struck him as immensely important. He gassed on about it until everybody got so tired of the subject that the authorities had to put him in prison and keep him there until he said it wasn't true, and that he'd stop writing books to say it was. As a matter of fact it was true, but it didn't matter. We'd all be doing exactly the same things we are doing to-day if he had never made his beastly telescope. On the other hand, men who get a hold of really important ideas often think very little of them. Look, for example, at the case of the man who first thought of collecting a lot of people together and making them pass a unanimous resolution. He didn't even take the trouble to patent the process, and now there's no record left of when and where he hit upon his idea. And yet, where would we all be without unanimous resolutions? Doyle will tell you that government couldn't be carried on and civilisation would practically become extinct. It may be the same with this idea of yours, and I've no doubt that I'll be able to judge if you tell me what it is."

"He was thinking," said Doyle, "of having a picture of an apple tree in the top left-hand corner of the address with apples on it, and the same tree in the top right-hand corner with no apples. He says it would be agreeable to the sergeant."

"I don't think much of that," said Meldon. "It strikes me as a poor idea, for three reasons. In the first place, you'll not be able to get an artist who can draw the apple trees so that any ordinary man could recognise them. I know what I'm talking about, for apple trees necessarily come a good deal into ecclesiastical art, the kind of art I'm most familiar with. I give you my word that the most of them might as well be elms, and I've seen lots that look like Florence Court yews. As a general rule, you wouldn't have a ghost of a notion what they were meant for if it wasn't for Eve and the serpent. In the next place, I don't think the sergeant would care for it. The whole business must be painful to him, and he won't care to be obliged every day of his life to be staring at something that would remind him of Simpkins. In the third place, it would almost certainly irritate Simpkins when he heard of it."

"It's that," said Doyle, "that we were hoping it might do."

"Well, then, you may put the idea out of your heads. I can't have Simpkins irritated at present. It's of the utmost possible importance that he should be lulled into a sense of security. I can't deal with him if his suspicions are aroused in the slightest. I've been with him myself this morning, lulling him."

"Were you, then?" said Doyle.

"I was, and I think I may say that for the immediate present he's lulled."

"And how did you like him?" said Doyle.

"My feelings don't matter," said Meldon. "As a matter of fact, judging from a single interview, I should say he was a pleasant enough, straightforward sort of man who is trying to do what is right."

"If he tried less," said Doyle, "he'd get on better."

"Quite so. And you mustn't think that I'm going to allow my personal feelings to interfere with my action in the matter. The Major is my friend, and I have a great regard for the poor old rector, in spite of his suffering from bronchitis. Also I like the people of Ballymoy, and I'm ready to help them in any way I can. So, whatever opinion I have formed of Simpkins, I'm going to deal with him precisely as if he were my personal enemy."

"What do you mean to do to him?" said the doctor. "You were speaking this minute of a post mortem."

"It won't come to that," said Meldon, "unless you boggle over the death certificate. But the precise details of my scheme I must keep to myself for the present, merely saying that I shall be severe with him. I couldn't, in fact, be severer if I caught him throwing stones at my infant daughter."

"Is that the one the Major stood for?" said Doyle. "He was talking to me about her. A fine child she is by all accounts."

"She was a fine child," said Meldon, "until she got the whooping-cough. Since then she's been wakeful at night.—By the way, doctor, what do you think is the proper way to feed a child that has the whooping-cough? At the present time she's living chiefly on a kind of yellow drink made up out of a powdery stuff out of a tin which tastes like biscuits when it's dry. Would you say now that was a good food for her?"

"You can rear a child," said the doctor, "whether it has the whooping-cough or not, on pretty near anything, so long as you give it enough of whatever it is you do give it."

"I'm glad to bear you say that," said Meldon; "for my wife has a notion that food ought to be weighed out by ounces, so that the child wouldn't get too much at a time."

"Did she get that out of a book?"

"She did—a little book with a pink cover on it. Do you know it?"

"I do not; but if I were you I'd burn it."

"I did," said Meldon. "I burned it before it was a week in the house. If I hadn't been a good-tempered man, I'd have burned the baby along with it. She spent the whole of four nights crying, and that was before she got the whooping-cough, so there was no excuse for her."

"It was hunger ailed her then," said the doctor.

"It was," said Meldon. "I found that out afterwards, for she stopped crying as soon as ever she got enough to eat. If I'd allowed her to be brought up on the principles laid down in that book her temper would have been ruined for life, and she'd have been a nuisance to every one she came across."

"I wouldn't wonder," said Doyle, "but it might be according to that book that Simpkins was reared. It would be hard to account for the kind of man he is any other way."

"It might be that," said the doctor; "but I'd say myself it's more likely to be the want of beating when he was young that's the matter with him."

"Will you stay and have a bit of dinner now you're here, Mr. Meldon?" said Doyle. "I wouldn't like your temper would be destroyed for the want of what I'd be glad to give you."

Meldon looked at his watch.

"Thank you," he said, "I will. It's one o'clock, and Sabina ought to have the bacon ready by now if she started cooking it the time I told her."



CHAPTER VII.

Ballymoy House, save for the occasional presence of a fishing tenant, has been unoccupied for years. Two men are employed to keep the grounds tidy, and Mr. Simpkins does his best to see that the work is done. But in spite of his exertions the place is in a condition of disorder. There is long grass where there ought to be trim lawns; wild growths of brambles in nooks originally dedicated to rose gardening; and a general air of exuberance about the trees and shrubs. Miss King found all this very charming. She took a walk round the pleasure grounds on the evening of her arrival, and felt that she had happened upon the Irish demesne of her dreams—a region of spacious dilapidation, exquisite natural beauty, romantic possibilities, and an inexhaustible supply of local colour; a place very different indeed from the trim Thames-side villas in which she generally spent her summer holidays. Her maid unpacked a large box of requisites for the country life supplied by the Stores, and came, at the bottom of it, upon a very gay hammock made of green and scarlet strings. Miss King was delighted with its appearance, and the promise it gave of luxurious rest. After breakfast next morning she summoned the two gardeners to her presence, and gave orders that the hammock should be securely hung in a shady place. The men were unaccustomed to hammocks, but with the help of some advice from the maid, they tied it to two trees in a corner of what had once been a tennis court. They were so pleased with it that they stood looking at it with great appreciation until Miss King came out at about twelve o'clock. She brought with her a bundle of manuscript and a fountain pen, intending to work into her new novel a description of Ballymoy House and the demesne.

The men watched her settle herself, and then came forward cautiously and asked if there was anything they could do for her. Miss King suggested that they should go away and do their work. They went obediently, but returned in a few minutes with two scythes.

"If it's pleasing to your ladyship," said the elder of the two, "I was thinking of cutting the grass beyond, while the weather's fine, and we'd have a chance of getting the hay saved without rain."

Miss King was not very well pleased. She would have preferred to be left alone, in order that she might enjoy thoroughly the picturesque dilapidation she wished to describe. But she did not see her way to forbid the cutting of the grass. The two men sharpened their scythes noisily and mowed down several swathes of long grass. Miss King watched them, mildly interested. At the end of five minutes they stopped mowing and whetted their scythes again. Then they sat down, lit their pipes, and looked at Miss King. She busied herself with her papers, and made some corrections with the fountain pen. When their pipes were about half smoked, the men rose, whetted their scythes for the third time, and mowed again. Miss King stopped writing and watched them. The day grew hotter, and the spells of mowing became shorter. Miss King gave up the attempt to write, and lay dreamily gazing at the men, roused to active consciousness now and then by the rasp of the hones against the scythe blades. At one o'clock the men, guessing it to be dinnertime, stopped pretending to work and went away. A few minutes later Miss King, feeling the need of luncheon, disentangled herself from the hammock, bundled her papers together, and went into the house.

At two o'clock the men, carrying their scythes, returned to the tennis court, which was nearly half mowed. At half-past two Miss King joined them, and climbed as gracefully as she could into the hammock. She brought a book with her this time instead of her manuscript. The afternoon was hotter than the morning had been, and there was a very soothing sound of bees among the branches of the trees. Miss King, who had eaten her luncheon with a good appetite, went to sleep. The two gardeners, after a short consultation, sat down under a tree and smoked. At half-past three Meldon arrived.

"You seem," he said to the men, "to be taking things pretty easy. Are you supposed to be mowing that lawn, or is Mr. Simpkins paying you to cut the legs off any tiger or other wild beast that comes up with the idea of devouring Miss King in her sleep?"

The men grinned pleasantly, and put their pipes in their pockets.

"It's how we didn't like to be disturbing the young lady," said the elder of the two men, "and her lying there quiet and innocent, maybe tired out, the creature, with the way she's been travelling to and fro."

"Isn't it Callaghan your name is?" said Meldon.

"It is. Glory be to God! but it's wonderful the way you'd know me, Mr. Meldon, and you out of the place these three years."

"Send that other man away," said Meldon, "and listen to me while I speak to you."

"Mickey," said Callaghan to his fellow-labourer, "let you be off with you and get the potatoes earthed up beyond in the garden. It's wonderful, so it is, the way you'd take a delight in sitting there all day and not doing a hand's turn."

Mickey went off, still grinning. He had no intention of earthing up the potatoes. Digging is hard work, not to be lightly undertaken on a hot afternoon. Meldon watched him out of sight, and then turned to Callaghan.

"I'm speaking confidentially to you," he said, "and I hope that nothing I say will—"

"Take care," said Callaghan, "that you wouldn't wake herself, talking so loud and all."

Meldon looked at Miss King.

"She seems pretty sound," he said, speaking more softly.

"It's tired she is, the creature,", said Callaghan. "It would be a shame to wake her, though I wouldn't care myself for the notion of sleeping in one of them new-fashioned beds."

"What I want to say to you is this," said Meldon. "You know Mr. Simpkins, of course?"

"I do."

"Is he a particular friend of yours?"

"He is not," said Callaghan. "The Lord forgive me for saying the like! but I hate him worse than I do the devil."

"I thought you probably would," said Meldon, "and I don't wonder at it. Any man who works the sort of way you were working when I arrived would be pretty sure to hate Simpkins."

"Since ever he come to the place," said Callaghan, "there's been neither peace nor quiet in it. There doesn't a day pass but he's up here asking why this isn't done, and what's the matter with the other thing, and whether I couldn't manage to settle up some contraption or other. Many's the time I've said to myself it would be better for me to starve out on the bog beyond than to have the life plagued out of me listening to the way he does be talking."

"I expect," said Meldon, "that he's simply trying to make you do your work, and a hard job he has of it."

"Any way, it's what I'm not accustomed to; and what's more, won't stand."

"You'll have to stand it for a while more, any way. That's what I want to impress on your mind. I can't have a word said against Mr. Simpkins, in the presence of Miss King."

"The young lady there?"

"Yes, that exact young lady. She's a stranger in these parts, and you're more or less responsible for the opinions she forms of the people she comes across. It's to you she'll be looking for guidance when she's in a difficulty and wants information about any one."

"She will, of course. Why wouldn't she? Amn't I old enough to be her father and the father of a dozen more like her?"

"Exactly," said Meldon. "So when she consults you about Mr. Simpkins you'll say all the good you can of him, and you'll praise him up to the servants in the house in such a way that they'll repeat what you've said to her."

"Would you have me tell what isn't true?"

"I would."

"Well, then, I'll not do it. I've more respect for myself, let alone the young lady, than to do the like."

"Don't take that tone with me," said Meldon, "for I'll not stand it. There isn't a man in Ireland this minute that has a greater respect for the truth than I have. It's a good thing—one of the best things there is—in its proper place. But there's no bigger mistake than to suppose that because a thing is good in one place at one time, it must necessarily be good everywhere and always. Take the case of bottled porter. You're not a teetotaller, are you?"

"I was one time," said Callaghan, "after the mission there did be going round the country last spring. They had me pledged before I rightly understood what it was they were doing; but, thanks be to God, I'm through with it now, and can take a drop of drink as well as another."

"Very well. Then you'll appreciate what I say about bottled porter. It's a good thing when you have it in a tumbler, and the tumbler in your hand, and you thirsty."

"It is." Callaghan spoke with conviction. He was thirsty at the moment, and he had some hope that Meldon might possibly have the bottle of which he spoke in his pocket. He was disappointed when Meldon went on with his speech.

"But it's not a good thing when somebody jogs your elbow and spills the whole of it over the legs of your trousers. Now it's exactly the same with truth. It's all right under certain circumstances. It's one of the worst things going when it's told to the wrong man at the wrong time. You follow me so far, I hope. Very well. Now I want to make it plain to you that the truth about Mr. Simpkins must not be told to Miss King. I expect he'll be up to call on her tomorrow or next day, and it's most important that she should not be prejudiced against him."

"Have you a match made up between them?" asked Callaghan.

"I have."

"And why couldn't you have said so before? If that's the way of it, it isn't likely I'd be saying a word that would turn her against the man that's laid down for her to marry. There was a friend of my own one time that had a match made up for his son with a girl that had a good fortune. But there was only one leg on her, and he was terrible feared that the boy'd never take her if he found it out. There wasn't one in the place, only myself, that knew the way the girl was on account of her father living away beyond the bog. Do you think I said the word? I did not. And the boy was well enough pleased at the latter end."

"In this particular case," said Meldon, "you'll have to do rather more than keep your mouth shut. Simpkins' legs are all right, of course, but—"

"He has the divil of a long tongue."

"Well, don't dwell on his tongue when you're talking about him to Miss King."

"Beyond saying an odd time that he's a pleasant-spoken gentleman, I will not."

"That's right," said Meldon. "I shall rely absolutely on you. And you are to let me know from time to time how they get on together when he comes up here to visit her."

"If there's any impropriety of conduct between them," said Callaghan, "I'll speak to your reverence."

"Don't misunderstand me," said Meldon. "I don't want to interfere with their love-making. The more of that they do, the better I'll be pleased. Even if they run rather into extremes—"

"It's what I won't be a party to," said Callaghan; "I don't hold with them ways, and the clergy is against them, all but yourself; and you ought to be ashamed to be encouraging the like."

"You don't in the least understand the situation," said Meldon. "Mr. Simpkins and Miss King are both English, and in England they manage these things quite differently from the way we do here."

"Well, it's yourself ought to know about that, seeing that you're a Protestant."

"It's not so much a question of religion," said Meldon. "It's temperament. I don't suppose you understand what that means; but the fact is, that an Englishwoman wouldn't marry a man who hadn't been making love to her off and on for at least a week. If he hadn't got her thoroughly accustomed to his occasionally squeezing her hand, and offering to pick flowers for her, and picking up anything she dropped about, and— But I needn't go into details. The fact is, that if he hadn't made love to her pretty violently, she wouldn't consider it decent to marry him. That's the sort of people the English are."

"They're queer," said Callaghan, "and that's a fact."

"They are," said Meldon. "But we've simply got to take them as we find them. There's no use our trying to teach them better ways, for they wouldn't listen to us. I'm telling you all this so that you won't be shocked if you happen to see Simpkins kissing Miss King. It's no affair of yours, to start with; and, in the second place, there's no point in comparative ethnology so firmly established as the fact that morality is quite a different thing among different peoples. What would be wrong for you and me may be, and is, perfectly right for Miss King and Simpkins. I needn't go into that more fully. All you have to do is to crack up Simpkins as a first-rate sort of man that any girl would be lucky if she married; and then let me know how they hit it off together when they meet."

"I'll do it. I'd do more than that to oblige your reverence in the matter of making a match for any boy about the place; for I'm not one to spoil his chances on a boy, not if I hated him worse than I do Simpkins."

"Very well. Now I want to speak a few words to Miss King, but it won't do for me to wake her up. She wouldn't like it; and what's more, she might suspect that we'd been talking together about her. I'll go back to the house and walk over here across the lawn. I'll signal to you as soon as I'm ready to start, and then you go over and wake Miss King."

"I wouldn't like to do it. I'd be ashamed, for fear she might think I was taking a liberty."

"I don't want you to go and shake her," said Meldon, "or pour cold water over her, or anything of that sort. Just take your scythe over close to where she is, and as soon as ever I give the signal, you begin to scrape the blade of it with your stone and whistle a tune at the same time as loud as you can."

"'The Wearing of the Green,' or the like?"

"Not 'The Wearing of the Green.' It's a melancholy, soothing sort of tune which would probably only make her sleep sounder. Whistle a good lively jig."

"I will," said Callaghan.

Meldon walked away. When he reached the house he stood on the top step of the flight which leads to the hall door and waved his pocket handkerchief. Callaghan picked up his scythe cautiously, and went on tip-toe across to Miss King's hammock. He did not wish to disturb her prematurely. Then, his hone in one hand and his scythe in the other, he stood and watched Meldon, The handkerchief waved again, and Meldon started walking briskly across the lawn. The hone rasped harshly against the scythe blade, and "The Irish Washerwoman" rang out shrilly. Miss King woke with a start. Callaghan turned away from her, and still whistling vigorously, began to mow. Meldon hurried forward.

"How do you do, Miss King?" he said. "I happened to be passing the gate and I just called in to see how you are getting on, and to see whether there is anything I can do for you."

Miss King blinked, got her feet out of the hammock, sat up, and shook hands with Meldon.

"It's very kind of you. Won't you come inside and have some tea, or shall I get them to bring it out here?"

"No, thanks. No tea for me. I haven't time to stay; and besides, I've had luncheon with Mr. Doyle. You know what that means."

"No," said Miss King. "I don't."

"Well, I needn't go into details," said Meldon; "but as a matter of fact when you've lunched with Mr. Doyle you don't want anything more to drink for a long time. By the way, you're not looking out for a cook just at present, are you?"

"No, I'm not. What made you think I was?"

"People generally are," said Meldon. "In fact, I've hardly ever met any one who wasn't. I happen just now to know of a really excellent girl, called Sabina. With a little training she'd make a first-rate cook. She's first cousin to the red-haired girl who's with Mr. Simpkins. That's a recommendation in itself."

"Is it? Who is Mr. Simpkins? Oh, of course, he's the man from whom I took the house."

"A capital fellow," said Meldon; "young, strong, and vigorous. The sort of man," he sank his voice impressively, "that it would take a lot to kill."

Miss King seemed moderately interested.

"But why do you think," she said, "that his servant's first cousin—"

"Sabina is her name," said Meldon. "It's a very attractive name, isn't it?"

"Yes. But why do you think it likely that Mr. Simpkins' servant's first cousin can cook?"

"He's a most particular man," said Meldon; "fidgety to a degree about having everything quite right, always worrying the life out of his servants, which is excellent for them, of course; but, well, if he was married"—he sank his voice again—"I expect his wife would consider herself quite justified in killing him. I daresay he'll be up to call on you this afternoon."

"If he's as bad as that," said Miss King, "I had better go in and tidy my hair before he comes."

"Perhaps you had," said Meldon.

"You're very rude," said Miss King.

She smiled as she spoke, blushed slightly, and then looking at Meldon from under her eyelashes, said,—

"Come now, tell me the truth. Am I an absolute fright?"

Most men would have attempted a pretty speech of some sort. Many men would have responded to Miss King's eyes with a glance of admiration. She had very fine eyes, and a singularly attractive way of looking out of the corners of them. Miss King was, in fact, a little tired of her own company, and would have liked to hear Meldon say something pleasant about her appearance. She would have enjoyed herself very well if he had attempted some slight flirtation with her. But he snubbed her severely.

"I told you yesterday," he said, "that I'm a married man. I have a daughter two years old, and I'm a clergyman. I really can't allow you—"

The soft look vanished in an instant from Miss King's eyes. They flashed fiercely. Her face became suddenly crimson.

"You are outrageous," she said. "How dare you suggest—? How dare you even think—?"

She sprang to her feet and started at a rapid pace towards the house. Her head was poised defiantly. Meldon, though he could only see her back, felt certain that her chin was in the air. Callaghan, who had retired with his scythe to the middle of the lawn, stopped mowing and stared after Miss King. Then he laid down his scythe and approached Meldon.

"Were you telling her," he asked, "of the match you had laid out for her?"

"No," said Meldon, with a broad smile, "I wasn't."

"From the look of her," said Callaghan, "I thought maybe you might."

"Well, I wasn't. All I was trying to make plain to her was that she couldn't marry me."

"I'd say," said Callaghan, "that she seen that plain enough, however it was that you put it to her."

"I thought it better to make it quite clear at once," said Meldon. "She was looking at me in a kind of way you'd hardly understand."

"I might, then," said Callaghan, still grinning.

"You would not," said Meldon. "You told me a moment ago that the priests wouldn't let you!"

"There's many a thing," said Callaghan, "that the clergy might not approve of, but—"

"Any how," said Meldon, "it was that kind of way she looked at me, and I thought it better to put a stop to it at once."

"You're right there; and it's no more than what I'd expect of you."

"I don't think you quite grasp my point yet," said Meldon. "In a general way I shouldn't mind her looking at me any way she liked. I might have enjoyed it, if she'd done it well, as I expect she could. But under the existing circumstances I had to stop her; because, if she took to looking at me like that, she'd look quite another way at Mr. Simpkins, and then he wouldn't be inclined to marry her."

"You're dead set on that match," said Callaghan.

"I am. It's most important that it should come off."

"She's a fine girl," said Callaghan. "She's too good for the like of Simpkins. He'll be tormenting her the way he does be tormenting everybody about the place."

"Believe you me," said Meldon, "she'll know how to manage him."

"She might," said Callaghan. "By the looks of her, when she left you this minute, I wouldn't say but she might."



CHAPTER VIII.

It was eight o'clock, and the evening was deliciously warm. Major Kent and Meldon sat in hammock chairs on the gravel outside Portsmouth Lodge. They had dined comfortably, and their pipes were lit. For a time neither of them spoke. Below them, beyond the wall which bounded the lawn, lay the waters of the bay, where the Spindrift, Major Kent's yacht, hung motionless over her mooring-buoy. The eyes of both men were fixed on her.

"I feel," said Meldon at last, "like the village blacksmith."

"There are four in Ballymoy," said the Major. "Reilly is the man who works for me. If you feel like him, I'm sorry for you. He's generally drunk at this hour."

"I refer," said Meldon, "to Longfellow's village blacksmith. You're not a highly-educated man, I know, but I thought you'd have heard of him.

"'The muscles of his brawny arms Were strong as iron bands.'

It's a poem which most people learn while at school. I am sometimes tempted to think that you never were at school."

"I don't see, J. J., that your muscles are anything particular to swagger about."

"I wasn't referring to my muscles," said Meldon. "The resemblance I speak of lies in the fact that I've 'earned my night's repose.' The village blacksmith felt that he deserved his after listening to his daughter singing in the local church choir. I've undergone an even severer nerve strain. I've practically arranged the marriage between Simpkins and the murderess."

"I wish very much that I knew exactly what you've been doing all day, J. J. I always feel nervous when you go out alone. I never know—"

"I'll give you an exact account of my proceedings, if you like. First, I had a personal interview with Simpkins; and I may as well say at once that I was on the whole favourably impressed by him. I don't mean to say that he ought not to be killed, but merely that if left to myself I would not go out of my way to kill him. I next talked the matter over with Doyle and Dr. O'Donoghue. I found that they quite agreed with you; and the doctor is prepared to sign the death certificate as soon as Miss King—who will then, of course, be Mrs. Simpkins—has finished him off. I then called at Ballymoy House and arranged with Callaghan, the gardener, to keep me informed of the progress of events. Finally, I interviewed Miss King herself. I was unfortunately obliged to offend her a little, and I expect she won't care about talking to me for the next few days."

"Did you allude to the trial?"

"No. And she wouldn't have minded in the least if I had. She's quite frank with me in talking about her art. The fact is, she wanted to flirt with me, and of course I couldn't have that."

"Are you sure of that, J. J.? It seems to me very unlikely that a lady of that sort would want to flirt with a clergyman."

"I'm not exactly an ordinary clergyman," said Meldon, "and she certainly did want to flirt with me. I could see it by the expression of her eye. Any man who knows anything about women gets into the way of judging them very largely by the expression of their eyes. You find after a little practice that you are able to tell with almost absolute certainty what their intentions are; and there was no mistake about Miss King's this afternoon."

"I'm glad," said the Major, "that you went away at once."

"I didn't," said Meldon. "It was she who went away. I hurt her feelings by telling her plainly that I was a married man. She flew into a temper and pranced off."

"She must be a very—"

"No, she's not—not in the least. It was simply a case of what Virgil calls 'spretae injuria formae.'"

"Talk English," said Major Kent. "You know I don't understand Latin."

"Never mind," said Meldon; "you wouldn't understand it a bit better if I put it into English. You haven't the necessary experience. And in any case it doesn't in the least matter. The important thing for you to get a hold of is that the marriage is arranged, and unless something quite unforeseen turns up it will come off. I told Simpkins that she had a large fortune and was the niece of an earl. Those facts, in addition to her personal charm, will, I imagine, bring him rapidly up to the scratch. I can do no more for the present. That's why I said I was like the blacksmith and had earned my night's repose."

"It's early yet," said the Major. "I seldom turn in before eleven. But, of course, you can go off at once if you like."

"When I quoted that line about the night's repose," said Meldon, "I was speaking figuratively. I haven't the least intention of going to bed at this hour. I don't suppose the original blacksmith did either, even if he was feeling a bit upset about the choir. What I really meant was that I am quite entitled now to have a couple of days off in the Spindrift."

"I'm glad to hear you say that," said the Major. "I was afraid you were going to spend your whole holiday running backwards and forwards between this and Ballymoy."

"I can't take a regular cruise," said Meldon. "I absolutely must be back here the day after to-morrow. No matter how carefully you arrange things, there's always a risk of something going wrong. Quite a trifling accident might upset the entire plan, and I ought to be on the spot to straighten things out directly they begin to get into a tangle."

Major Kent made no answer. He sat smoking until his pipe went out. Then for a while he sat with the empty pipe in his mouth, sucking at it as if it were still alight. He was thinking deeply. The evening darkened slowly, and a faint breeze stole in from the sea.

"Every prospect of a fine day to-morrow," said Meldon.

The Major took no notice of the remark. Meldon filled a fresh pipe, and watched the Spindrift tugging at her moorings as the breeze freshened or died and the tide caught her.

"J. J.," said the Major at last, speaking very solemnly, "I'd rather you didn't."

"Didn't what?"

"I know you enjoy this sort of thing, and I don't want to spoil your holiday. I'd like you to have a really good time, but I wish you'd hit on some other amusement."

"Try and be a little more explicit, Major. I'm a quick-witted man, and I can generally guess at your meaning, no matter how you wrap it up in paraphrases, but this time I really can't. The only amusement I've proposed so far is a short trip in your yacht. I suppose you don't grudge me that?"

"You know very well I don't, J. J. But I wish you wouldn't play these tricks with Simpkins. He's a man I don't like."

"You told me that last night," said Meldon, "and I agreed at once to have him murdered."

"Of course I know that you like talking in that sort of way, and I don't mind it a bit. It's your way of making jokes, and you don't mean any harm by what you say; but I'd really rather not be mixed up with Simpkins even by way of a joke. I don't like the man at all."

"Don't repeat that again," said Meldon. "I quite believe you. And as for the murder of Simpkins being a joke, I assure you it's nothing of the sort. I may be flippant—several people have called me flippant—but I draw the line at making jokes about murder. It's a serious subject. In fact I've more than once hesitated about going into this business at all. It's mainly for your sake that I'm doing it."

"Then don't do it," said the Major. "I know quite well that you don't mean a word you say, but—"

"I mean it all. Am I the kind of man who says what he doesn't mean? Come now, Major; you've known me a good many years, and we've been in some tight places together. Have you ever heard me say a thing I didn't mean?"

"To be quite candid," said the Major, "I have, once or twice."

"You're entirely mistaken. You have not. And in any case I mean what I say now. Do you really suppose that I'd have spent the whole of this hot day fagging up and down the roads about Ballymoy if I wasn't in earnest about what I was at?"

"But you don't. You can't think that this lady—Miss King or whatever her name is—will really murder Simpkins?"

"She'll try to if she marries him. I can't be absolutely certain that she'll succeed, but I think it's very likely that she will. She's had a lot of practice, and by her own account she's been unusually successful."

"That's all rot, of course," said the Major. "Murder isn't committed in that sort of way. No woman would deliberately with her eyes open—"

"Did Mrs. Lorimer murder her husband by accident, or did she intend to do it and plan the whole thing out beforehand?"

"I don't know."

"You do know. You read the evidence and you read the judge's charge, and you know as well as I do that she proceeded in the most deliberate way possible."

"It looked like it," said the Major. "I must say it looked like it."

"Very well. Is Miss King Mrs. Lorimer, or is she not?"

"I don't know."

"I proved to you yesterday evening that she is. I proved it in a way that left no possible room for doubt in your mind, if you are honest with yourself and look facts plainly in the face. I am not going into the proof again, because it's a very exhausting thing and I've had a hard day. Besides, if it didn't convince you the first time, it wouldn't the second. Trains of reasoning aren't like advertisements. You come to believe that a certain kind of pill will prevent your going bald because you've seen statements to that effect ten thousand times. It's the cumulative weight of repeated assertion which compels belief in that case. But the kind of belief which depends on reasoning is quite different. If you've the sort of intellect which cannot grasp the proof which Euclid gives of one of his propositions, no number of repetitions of it will help you in the least. That's a curious psychological law, but it is a law. Therefore it would be the merest waste of time for me to demonstrate to you again that Mrs. Lorimer and Miss King are the same person. I pass on to the next stage in our enquiry. Will Miss King murder her next husband?"

"If she's Mrs. Lorimer," said the Major, "and if Mrs. Lorimer murdered—"

"There are no 'ifs' about the matter," said Meldon; "she unquestionably will. She told me so herself, and whatever else she is she's a woman of her word. There remains now only one question, Who is her next husband to be? And the answer to that may be given in two syllables—Simpkins."

"If you really believe all that," said the Major, "and—"

"I do," said Meldon.

"Then you're going to commit a horrible crime, and I insist on your stopping at once."

"I can't stop it now. I've set the thing going, and it can't be stopped. You might have stopped it yesterday, but you're too late now. I'm sorry for poor Simpkins myself. I thought him a decent enough sort of man."

"He's a cad."

"There you are again. In one breath you try to stop me, and in the very next breath you urge me strongly to go on. Which do you mean? Not that it matters, for the thing is as good as done now. Still you ought to try and cultivate the habit of definitely making up your mind, and then sticking to it. You said yesterday distinctly, and so far I could judge sincerely, that you wished Simpkins was dead. Now you pretend that it's a shock to you to hear that he's going to be killed. That's what I call vacillation, and you ought to be ashamed of it."

Major Kent sighed heavily.

"There's no use my talking," he said, "but you'll get yourself into trouble some day with these jokes of yours."

"Major," said Meldon, "I've absolutely no patience with you. You're back again at that joke theory of yours, after I've spent half the evening explaining to you that this isn't a joking matter at all. I must decline to discuss the matter any further. We'll talk of something else. I was speaking to O'Donoghue to-day about the proper way of feeding the child when it has whoping-cough. He says it ought to be given as much as it wants to eat of any ordinary kind of food. I'm inclined to agree with him. Now what is your opinion?"

"I suppose you're thinking of your own child?"

"Yes, I am. And don't forget that she's not merely my child. She's also your god-child."

"Well, I gave her a silver mug. Didn't I?"

"You did. A capital mug, large and heavy. She'll be very grateful to you for that mug some day; though, up to the present, all she has done to it is to dint its side one day by dropping it against the corner of the fender when it was given her to play with. You did your duty in the matter of a mug, and I'm not suggesting for a moment that you should give her another. When I reminded you that you are her god-father, I merely wanted to suggest that you ought to take some little interest in her health and education."

"But I don't know what babies ought to eat."

"What you really mean is that you don't care. You're so wrapped up in this miserable local squabble with Simpkins about a salmon that you've lost all interest in the wider subjects which are occupying the attention of the world."

"Come now, J. J. Your baby—she's a very nice baby and all that. But really—"

"I won't talk about her any more if she bores you. I thought, and hoped, that she might interest you. That's the reason I started her as a topic of conversation. As she doesn't, I'll drop her again, at once. But what am I to do? I began this evening with a literary allusion, and found that you'd never heard of Longfellow's 'Village Blacksmith.' That wasn't a very encouraging start, you'll admit. Last night I tried you with art, and all you did was to mix it up with morality, which, as everybody knows, is a perfectly hopeless thing to do. The ancient Hebrews had more sense. They were specialists in morality, and they absolutely forbade art. Whereas the Greeks, who were artists, went in for a thoroughly immoral kind of life. Finding that you were totally indifferent to the metaphysics of the aesthetic, I offered you an interesting chain of abstract reasoning. What was the result? You were absolutely unable to follow me. I then threw out some hints which might have led to an interesting psychological discussion, but you didn't know what I meant. This evening I touched on one of the great principles which must guide us in the consideration of the whole feminist question—"

"That was when you talked about judging Miss King's intentions by the look of her eyes," said the Major.

"Yes; it was. And so far as I can recollect, all you did was to grin in a futile and somewhat vulgar way. Finally, I tried to talk to you about child culture, which is one of the most important problems of our day; a problem which is occupying the attention of statesmen, philanthropists, philosophers, doctors, and teachers of every kind, from kindergarten mistresses to university professors. I began in quite a simple way with a question about the food of an infant. We might, if you had taken the subject up at all warmly, have got on to the endowment of motherhood, nature study, medical examination of schools, the boarding-out of workhouse children, religious education, boy scouts, eugenics, and a lot of other perfectly fascinating topics. But what do you do? You say frankly and shamelessly that you know nothing at all about the matter."

"But I really do not know how to feed babies. What was the use of pretending that I do?"

"Is there—to get back to the point from which I started—is there any subject that you do know anything about besides politics and polo ponies?"

"I'm afraid not, J. J., except the yacht. I do know something about her."

"Then," said Meldon, "we'll discuss her. I expect we'll come to an end of her soon, but we can at all events decide where we'll go to-morrow."

The yacht turned out to be a more fruitful subject than Meldon expected. The Major had made some alterations in her trim, which led to an animated discussion. He also had a plan for changing her from a cutter into a yawl, and Meldon was quite ready to argue out the points of advantage and disadvantage in each rig. It was half-past eleven o'clock before they parted for the night, and even then they had not decided where to go next day.



CHAPTER IX.

It was the evening of the second day of the Spindrift's cruise. The wind, which had come fresh from the east in the morning, followed the sun round in its course, blowing gently from the south at mid-day, and breathing very faintly from the west in the evening. After sunset it died away completely. The whole surface of the bay lay calm, save here and there where some chance movement of the air ruffled a tiny patch of water; or where, at the corners of the islands and in very narrow channels, the inward drawing of the tide marked long, curved lines and illusive circles on the oily sea. The Spindrift was poised motionless on the surface of the water, borne slowly, almost imperceptibly, forward by the sweep of the tide. Her mainsail, boomed out, hung in loose folds. The sheet, freed from all strain, was borne down by its own weight, until the slack of it dipped in the water. Terns and gulls, at lazy rest, floated close to the yacht's side. Long rows of dark cormorants, perched on rocky points, strained their necks and peered at her. Innumerable jelly-fish spread and sucked together again their transparent bodies, reaching down and round about them with purple feelers. Now and then some almost imperceptible breath of wind swayed the yacht's boom slowly forward against the loose runner and the stay, lifted the dripping sheet from the water, and half bellied the sail. Then the Spindrift would press forward, her spars creaking slightly, tiny ripples playing round her bows, a double line of oily bubbles in her wake. Again the impulse would fail her, and she would lie still among the palpitating jellyfish, perfectly reflected in the water beneath her; but carried steadily on by the silent shoreward swelling of the tide.

Major Kent sat at the tiller smoking. He was in that mood of vacant obliviousness of the ordinary affairs of life which long drifting on calm seas induces. The helplessness of man in a sailing-ship, when the wind fails him, begets a kind of fatalistic acceptance of the inevitable, which is the nearest thing to peace that any of us ever attain. Indeed to drift along the tide is peace, and no conviction of the inevitableness of the worries which lurk in ambush for us on the land has any power to break the spell.

Meldon lay stretched on the deck outside the combing of the cockpit. Nirvana had no attraction for him. He resented forced inactivity as an unendurable wrong. Instead of smoking with half-closed eyes, he peered eagerly forward under the sail. He noted everything—the floating gulls and puffins, the stiff, wild-eyed cormorants, the jelly-fish, the whirling eddies of the tide. As the yacht drifted on, or was driven forward by the occasional faint puffs of air, he hissed through his teeth in the way known to sailors as whistling for a breeze. He gazed long and steadily at the beach beyond the Spindrift's moorings.

"I think," he said at last, "that there is a man on the shore, and he looks to me very much as if he was waiting for us."

Major Kent made no answer. His feeling was that the man who waited might be left to wait without speculation about his purpose. Guessing at the possible business of an unknown and distant man is a form of mental exertion very distasteful to any one who has entered into the calm joy of drifting home after sunset. But Meldon was a man of incurably active mind. He was deeply interested in the solitary figure on the beach. The yacht was borne very slowly on, and it became possible at last to distinguish the figure of the waiter more clearly.

"He looks to me," said Meldon a few minutes later, "very like that fellow Callaghan, the Ballymoy House gardener."

There was another pause. A puff of wind, the last vital rally of the expiring breeze, carried the Spindrift forward till the punt at her moorings lay almost under her bow.

"It is Callaghan," said Meldon, "and there's only one thing which can possibly bring him here at this hour. Something of real importance must have happened between Simpkins and Miss King. I wonder what it is."

"Catch the punt, J. J., and haul her aft till you get a hold of the buoy. If we drift past we'll never get back again. There's barely steerage way on the boat this minute."

Meldon stepped forward. There was a noise of straining ropes and splashing. Then he stood upright and pulled the buoy on board.

"Unless something exceptionally interesting has occurred," said Meldon, "I can't understand Callaghan waiting for us like this. Perhaps they've got engaged."

"Nonsense," said the Major; "how could they in two days? Let go the peak halyards, and take a pull on the topping lift."

The sail came slowly down. Major Kent and Meldon leaned across the gaff and dragged at the folds of it. Callaghan hailed the yacht from the shore.

"Hold on," said Meldon. "Keep what you've got to say till I come to you. I can't have the details of an interesting love affair shouted across a stretch of water."

The sails were made up and the yacht safely moored. Meldon hustled Major Kent into the punt, and pulled rapidly for the beach. The punt's keel grated on the gravel. Meldon seized the painter in his hand and leaped ashore.

"Now," he said to Callaghan, "trot out your news. Have they got engaged?"

"They have not," said Callaghan.

"Then I suppose there must have been what you call impropriety of conduct. If so—"

"There has not," said Callaghan.

"That's just as well; for if there had been, I should have had to ask you to wait before giving me details until the Major had gone a good bit of the way home. He's an unmarried man, and I don't think it would be good for him to—"

"There was no impropriety of conduct that I seen," said Callaghan.

"Well, it can't be helped. I should have been glad, of course, to hear that Simpkins had been pushing his way on a bit, holding her hand or something of that kind. I suppose, now, if anything of the sort occurred you'd be sure to have seen it."

"Don't I tell you there wasn't," said Callaghan; "nor there couldn't have been, for Simpkins wasn't near the place since the afternoon you was in it yourself."

"What! Do you mean to say—?"

"He was in it the once," said Callaghan, "not long after you leaving, and barring that she gave him a cup of tea there was nothing passed between them, and I wouldn't say he was there half an hour."

"Do you hear that, Major? That silly ass Simpkins has actually flung away a priceless opportunity. He hasn't been near her."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Major Kent. "Perhaps now you'll stop your foolish games."

"Could she have gone out to meet him anywhere?" said Meldon to Callaghan.

"She could not. It wouldn't be possible for her to do the like unbeknown to me, for I had my eye on her."

"All day?"

"After what your reverence was saying to me I'd have been afraid to let her out of my sight."

"Very well, Callaghan, you can go home. I shall have to think the matter over. I don't deny that I'm disappointed. I thought when I saw you standing there on the shore that you'd have had some definite news for me."

"I was up at the Major's house searching for you," said Callaghan, "and when you weren't within I took a look round and I seen the yacht coming in on the tide, so I thought it would save me a journey to-morrow if I waited for you."

"Quite right," said Meldon. "It's not your fault nothing has happened, and I don't blame you in the least. Good-night."

Callaghan shambled off along the beach. The Major and Meldon, who carried the punt's oars, struck across the fields towards Portsmouth Lodge.

"I can't understand it at all," said Meldon. "After what I said to Simpkins I simply can't understand his neglecting his opportunities like this. You'd think from the way he's behaving that he doesn't want to be married at all."

"Perhaps he doesn't," said the Major. "Any way, you can do no more than you've done. You may as well drop it now, and have the rest of your holiday in peace."

"The fact is," said Meldon, "I ought not to have gone away and left them. I had no business to take that cruise in the Spindrift. If I'd been here—"

"I don't see what you could have done. If the fellow doesn't want the girl, how could you force him to go and marry her? Any way, it's a good job for Miss King that he hasn't."

"If I'd been here—" said Meldon, and then paused.

"What would you have done?"

"I'd have done what I'm going to do now that I'm back."

"And what's that?"

"Throw them together," said Meldon. "Insist on his being constantly with her until he begins to appreciate her charm. I defy any one, any one who's not already married, to resist Miss King if she looks at him out of the corners of her eyes as she did at me the other day."

"She won't do that," said the Major. "No woman would, once she had seen Simpkins."

"Oh, she'll do it all right. Don't you fret about that. All I have to do is to give her a proper opportunity by throwing them together a bit."

"I don't quite see how you're going to do that if Simpkins won't go near her."

"You wouldn't see, of course. Indeed you couldn't, because I don't quite know myself yet how it is to be managed. I shall have to think it all over very carefully. I may have to spend the greater part of the night considering the matter; but one thing you may be quite confident about, Major, and that is that when I say they are to be thrown together, they will be thrown together. I shall make such arrangements that Simpkins simply won't be able to escape, however hard he tries."

Meldon was not obliged to spend a sleepless night devising meetings between Simpkins and Miss King. He put the oars into the coach-house as soon as he reached Portsmouth Lodge, and then settled down with a pipe on a hammock-chair outside the door. He was ready with a practical suggestion by the time Major Kent had finished dressing for dinner. Being too wise to propose a difficult matter to a hungry man, he waited until the meal was nearly over before he said anything to his friend.

"Major," he said, "to-morrow is Sunday, and I think it would be a capital thing if you introduced yourself to Miss King after church. You could waylay her just outside the porch, and tell her who you are. I've talked to her a good deal about you, so she'll know you directly she hears your name."

"I don't think I'll do that, J. J.," said the Major. "From what you've told me about her I don't think she's the kind of woman I'd care about. I think I'll keep clear of her as much as I can."

"I told you," said Meldon, "that she was good-looking and had pleasant manners when not irritated. I don't see what objection you can have to her."

"I wasn't thinking about her appearance or her manners. They may be all right, but if what you said is true and she really—"

"Don't be narrow-minded, Major. I hate that kind of pharisaical bigotry. The fact that Mrs. Lorimer behaved as she did is no reason in the world why you should cut the poor woman. It's a well-known fact that people who are really much worse than she is are freely received into the best society; and, in any case, the latest systems of morality are quite changing the view that we used to take about murder. Take Nietzsche, for instance—"

"Who's Nietzsche?"

"He's a philosopher," said Meldon, "or rather he was, for he's dead now. He divided all morality into two kinds—slave morality, which he regards as despicable, and master morality, which is of the most superior possible kind."

"Still—I don't know anything about the man you mention, but I suppose even he would have drawn the line at murder."

"Not at all. Master morality, which, according to his system, is the best kind, consists entirely of being the sort of man who is able to get into a position to bully other people. Slave morality, on the other hand, consists in having the kind of temperament which submits to being bullied, and pretends to think it a fine thing to suffer. Now murder, as any one can see, is simply an extreme form of bullying; and therefore a successful murderer, according to Nietzsche's philosophy, is the finest kind of man there is. Whereas his victims, the late Lorimer, for instance, are mere slaves, and therefore thoroughly despicable. You follow me so far, I suppose?"

"No, I don't. If any man says what you say that fellow says—"

"Nietzsche doesn't actually say all that," said Meldon. "He hadn't a sufficiently logical mind to work out his philosophy to its ultimate practical conclusions, but you may take my word for it that I've given you the gist of his system."

"Then he ought to have been hanged."

"I daresay he ought," said Meldon. "I need scarcely say I don't agree with him. But that's not the point. As a matter of fact, so far from being hanged or incurring any kind of odium, his system is quite the most popular there is at present. London is full of young men in large, round spectacles, and scraggy women who haven't succeeded in getting married—the leaders of modern thought, you'll observe, Major—every one of whom is deeply attached to Nietzsche. You can't, without labelling yourself a hopeless reactionary, fly right in the face of cultured society by refusing to associate with Miss King."

"I won't mix myself up with—"

"Come now, Major, that sort of attitude would have been all very well fifty years ago, but it won't do now. You simply can't shut yourself up and say that you won't speak to any one who doesn't agree with you in every opinion you have. As a matter of fact, you associate freely with lots of people who differ from you in religion and politics far more fundamentally than poor Miss King does. You can't refuse to know her simply because she accepts a system of philosophy which you never heard of till this minute, and even now don't thoroughly understand in spite of all I've told you about it."

"In any case," said the Major, "I don't like women who flirt. And you told me yourself that she tried to flirt with you."

"Ah," said Meldon, "now we're getting at your real reasons. I thought you couldn't be in earnest about the Nietzschean philosophy. That was merely an excuse. What you're really afraid of is that Miss King might marry you. I don't blame you for being a little cautious about that, knowing what you do about the fate of her former husbands. At the same time I may point out—"

"I'm not the least afraid of her marrying me. She won't get the chance."

"Then why do you say you object to her flirting?"

"Because I do object to it. I don't like that kind of woman."

"Do you mean to say, Major, that a girl isn't to be allowed to make eyes at the man she's going to marry?"

"I don't say anything of the sort. Of course, if she's going to marry a man—but really, J. J., I don't know anything about these things."

"Then don't talk about them. You may take my word for it, Major, that Miss King is perfectly justified in being as nice as ever she can to Simpkins."

"I never said anything about Simpkins. As far as I can make out she isn't particularly nice to Simpkins."

"No, she isn't, so far; but that's only because she hasn't had a fair chance. When we get them out together in the Spindrift—"

"What?"

"When we get the two of them out together in the Spindrift," said Meldon, speaking slowly and distinctly, "you'll see that she'll make herself perfectly fascinating—not to you or me, but to Simpkins."

"Leaving Miss King out of the question," said the Major, "I'd like you to be perfectly clear about this. I won't—"

"Before we go on to Simpkins," said Meldon, "we must settle definitely about Miss King. Is it understood that you catch her after church tomorrow and invite her out for a sail with us in the Spindrift?"

"No; I won't. I wouldn't in any case; but if Simpkins—"

"I'm not going on to Simpkins yet. I must finish Miss King first. You've given your reasons for not making her acquaintance, and I've shown you that they are utterly feeble and won't hold water for a minute. If you've no other objection, then I think, as a straightforward man, you are bound to admit you are in the wrong and do what you ought to have been ready to do without all this arguing."

"To oblige you," said the Major, "and because I want you to have a pleasant holiday now you're here, I will ask Miss King out with us once. But I won't ask Simpkins. The man is a horrid bounder, who makes himself objectionable to everybody, and I won't ask him."

"Nobody wants you to ask him. I'll ask him."

"That will be just the same thing. Once for all, J. J., I won't have that man on board my boat."

"I don't think," said Meldon, "that you are behaving with quite your usual fairness, Major. You don't like Simpkins. I am not going into the reasons for your dislike. They may be sound, or they may be the reverse. I simply state the fact that you don't get on with the man. Very well. I don't get on with Miss King. I told you the other day that I offended her, and she was what I should call extremely rude to me afterwards. But do I bring that up as a reason why you should not take her for a sail in the Spindrift? Certainly not. It won't, as a matter of fact, be particularly pleasant for me having to sit in the same boat all day with a young woman who won't speak to me; but I'm prepared to sacrifice myself and do it. And you ought to be ready to do the same thing in the case of Simpkins."

"I'm not," said the Major. "I can't and won't have Simpkins."

"My dear Major, don't you see that your quarrel with Simpkins is one of the strongest points in the whole plan? He won't speak to you when he sees that you dislike him. Miss King won't speak to me. What will the consequence be? Why, of course, they'll be thrown together. They must talk to each other, and that's exactly what we want them to do. If Simpkins was a friend of yours, and if Miss King was particularly fond of me, there'd be no use our taking them out at all. They wouldn't be obliged to talk to each other."

"If you've finished your dinner, J. J., we may as well go into the next room and smoke. I don't see that there's any use going on with this conversation."

"There isn't; not the least. But you'll do me the justice, Major, to admit that it wasn't I who insisted on it. I could perfectly well have arranged the matter in two sentences, but you would argue with me about every single thing I said."

Major Kent rose and opened the door for his friend. They went together into the study and sat down. The Major, after a few preliminary excuses, took the two copies of The Times, which had arrived by post whilst he was out in the Spindrift. He settled down to the leading articles with a comfortable sense that he was doing his duty. Meldon wandered round the room looking for something to read. He found a new book on boat-building which promised to be interesting. Unfortunately it turned out to be highly technical, and therefore dull. It dropped from his knees. He nodded, took the pipe from his mouth, lay back comfortably, and went to sleep. Major Kent satisfied himself that the English navy, though in some ways the best in the world, was in other respects inefficient and utterly useless as a national defence. Then, at about ten o'clock, he too went asleep. A few minutes later he began to snore, and the noise he made woke Meldon. He felt for his pipe, filled and lit it. He sat gazing at Major Kent for a quarter of an hour, then he coughed loudly. The Major woke with a start.

"It's a remarkable thing," said Meldon, "how sleepy two days on the sea make one. I had a nap myself. You were sound and snoring."

"It's early yet," said the Major, glancing at the clock. "I seldom turn in before eleven."

"I'm going to turn in now," said Meldon. "I'd be better in bed, for I can't sleep here with the way you're snoring. I just woke you up to say that I'll get a hold of Simpkins some time to-morrow and settle things with him. I daresay, after the way he has behaved to the poor old rector, that he'll be ashamed to come to church, but I'll look him up afterwards. You'll be responsible for Miss King."

"I can't argue any more to-night," said the Major, yawning; "but don't you go to bed under the impression that I'm going to have Simpkins in the yacht, for I'm not."

"I don't want to argue either, but I'll just say one word to you before I go: one word that I'd like to have imprinted on your mind during the night. You won't mind listening to one word, will you?"

"Not if it's only one."

"It is literally and simply one. Duty."

"Duty!" said the Major, sitting up.

"Yes, duty. You're an Englishman, Major, at least by descent, and you know that there's one appeal which is never made in vain to Englishmen, and that is the appeal to duty. Wasn't that the meaning of the signal Nelson hoisted just before he asked Hardy to kiss him! And what did Hardy do? Kissed him at once, though he can't possibly have liked it."

"I think you've got the story wrong somewhere, J. J. As well as I recollect—"

"I may be inaccurate in some of the details," said Meldon, "but the broad principle is as I state it; and I put it to you now, Major, before I say good-night, will you or will you not respond to the appeal? Remember Trafalgar and the old Victory. You're a military man, of course, but you must have some respect for Nelson."

"I have. But I don't see how duty comes in in this case. Oh, J. J.! I wish you'd go to bed and stop talking."

"I will. I want to. I'm absolutely dropping off to sleep, but I can't go till I've explained to you where your duty lies. Here is the town of Ballymoy groaning under an intolerable tyranny. Doyle's life is a burden to him. O'Donoghue can't sleep at night for fear of a Local Government Board enquiry. The police are harried in the discharge of their duties. The rector's bronchitis is intensified to a dangerous extent. Sabina Gallagher's red-haired cousin, whose name I've not yet been able to discover, is perfectly miserable. Poor old Callaghan, who means well, though he has a most puritanical dread of impropriety, is worn to a shadow. It rests with you whether this state of things is to continue or not. You and, so far as I can see at present, you alone, are in a position to arrange for the downfall of Simpkins. Is it or is it not your duty, your simple duty, to do what you can, even at the cost of some little temporary inconvenience to yourself?"

"If I thought all that—" said the Major. "But I'm much too sleepy to think."

"You're not asked to think," said Meldon. "Whatever thinking has to be done I'll do myself. You have to act, or rather in this case to permit me to act."

"I expect you'll act, as you call it, whether I permit you or not."

"Of course I will," said Meldon. "But I'd rather have your permission. I'd rather you didn't shatter the ideal I've always had of you as a duty-loving Englishman."

"All right," said the Major wearily. "Do what you like, but for goodness' sake go to bed and stop talking."

"Good-night," said Meldon. "If you find yourself inclined to change your mind before morning, just murmur over to yourself, 'England expects every man to do his duty.' That will stiffen your back."



CHAPTER X.

Major Kent came down to breakfast next morning in a frock coat and a white waistcoat. His silk hat, carefully brushed and glossy, lay on the hall table with a pair of pale grey kid gloves beside it. Meldon, who was a little late for breakfast, paused in the hall and looked at the hat. Entering the dining-room he took a long stare at his friend.

"Major," he said, "you're a wonderful man. I had forgotten how wonderful you are. Now that I am getting to know you again I am struck dumb with absolute amazement."

The Major was uneasily conscious that his attire was in strong contrast to Meldon's shabby jacket and wrinkled trousers.

"I don't suppose," said Meldon, "that there's another man in the whole world who could go on dressing himself up like that Sunday after Sunday in a place like Ballymoy. However, the habit will turn out beneficial for once. I expect you'll produce an excellent effect on Miss King."

"I was thinking over that plan of yours last night," said the Major, "and—"

"I was under the impression that I distinctly told you not to think. There's not the slightest necessity for you to exert yourself in that way; and besides, so far as I know, you invariably think wrong. However, if you really have thought, you'd better get the result off your chest at once."

"It occurred to me—" said the Major.

"That's not quite the same thing as thinking. I don't blame you so much, now that I know that the thing, whatever it is, merely occurred to you. No man can be held responsible for the things that occur to him. There was one of the ancient Egyptian hermits who made a very sensible remark on that subject. You'll find it in Migne's 'Patrologia Latina,' in the volume which contains the 'Verba Seniorum.' I can't quote the exact words at the moment, but they are to this effect: 'If you can't stop the wind from blowing, neither can you prevent evil thoughts from entering your mind.' I daresay the thing that occurred to you wasn't actually evil in the sense which the hermit meant, but it is pretty sure to have been foolish; and that, for all practical purposes, is the same thing. By the way, this is excellent bacon; quite the best I've tasted for a long time. Does Doyle supply it?"

"No; I get it down from Dublin. But about that plan of yours. It occurs to me that Miss King is not likely to be in church."

"Of course she'll be in church. Why shouldn't she?"

"Well, if she's a disciple of that man you were speaking about last night, she can hardly be what's generally called a Christian, can she?"

"Of course not. But she'll come to church just the same."

"But surely— Not if she doesn't believe in Christianity?"

"My dear Major! your ideas in some respects are extraordinarily primitive. The less anybody likes Christianity for himself, the more sure he is that it's an excellent religion for other people. That's the reason you find statesmen all over the world supporting whatever Church is uppermost at the moment in the particular country they happen to be dealing with. Look at the history of Ireland, for instance. For a century and a half British statesmen steadily fatted up our church. Now they are dropping any plums that they can spare—Congested Districts Boards and such things—into the mouths of the Roman Catholic bishops. Do you suppose they care a pin for either? Not they. All they want is to strengthen up some form of religion which will keep the people quiet. They think that Christianity is an excellent thing for everybody they have to govern, though they take jolly good care not to act on it themselves. In just the same way you'll see that Miss King will be in church to-day. As a follower of Nietzsche she doesn't herself accept the ethics of Christianity, but she'll consider it her duty to encourage everybody else to accept them, and the only practical way she has of doing that is to attend church regularly."

"You're preaching to-day, aren't you, J. J.?"

"Yes, I am. I promised the poor old rector that I would do all I could to help him while I'm here. Why do you ask?"

"I was wondering," said the Major, "if you were going to give us that doctrine out of the pulpit."

"Well, I'm not. You ought to know, Major, that my sermons are always strictly practical, and deal entirely with matters of pressing local importance: the ordinary difficulties and dangers of the people I'm preaching to. There won't be any statesmen in church to-day, so there'd be no point in my explaining that theory. If I'm ever asked to preach before the House of Commons I shall give it to them."

This account of Meldon's theory of sermons made the Major a little nervous. He asked his next question anxiously.

"Are you going to be personal, J. J.? I hope not."

"I can't preach the whole sermon to you beforehand, Major; but I don't mind telling you that it will deal with the vice of squabbling which I find rampant in small communities. I shan't, of course, mention you and Simpkins; or, for the matter of that, Doyle and O'Donoghue, though it wouldn't matter much if I did mention them. Being Roman Catholics, they won't be there to object."

"The sermon will be personal, then?"

"No, it won't. I shan't even allude to the subject of fishing. I shall preach in such a way as to get at everybody who has ever quarrelled with anybody else. After listening to what I say, you will be much more inclined to take Simpkins out in the Spindrift."

Meldon's sermon was all that he boasted. He chose as his text a verse out of the Book of Proverbs which compares any one who meddles unnecessarily with strife to a man who takes a dog by the ears. He spoke feelingly, from what appeared to be the recollection of unpleasant experience, of the way in which spirited dogs behave when any one takes them forcibly by the ears. He explained in a short parenthesis the best way of dealing with dog-fights. He also described in simple language the consequences which result from being bitten—consequences which range from hydrophobia and tetanus down to simple blood-poisoning. Then he passed on to show that human bites, inflicted, so he said, oftener with the tongue than with the teeth, were far more dangerous than those of dogs. The congregation became greatly interested at this point, and allowed themselves to be swept forward by a violent sophism which carried the preacher far beyond the original statement of Solomon. All quarrelling, not merely interfering with existing quarrels of long standing, was denounced in forcible language. Major Kent felt uncomfortable; then, as the preacher worked himself up, resentful. Finally, he was cowed. Meldon seized the psychological moment and closed his discourse with a quotation from the poetry of Dr. Watts. He made a remarkably apposite citation of the well-known lines which exonerate dogs, bears, and lions from any blame when they bark, bite, growl, or fight, and emphasised the entirely different position of the human race.

Major Kent, bruised by the vigour of his friend's eloquence, accosted Miss King in the church porch after service; apologised for not having formally called on her; and invited her to go yachting with him next day in the Spindrift. Miss King accepted the invitation, and then, worked up perhaps to an unusual pitch of friendliness by the sermon, asked the Major to go back to Ballymoy House with her for luncheon. Meldon appeared from the door of the vestry room and urged the Major to accept the invitation.

"As I expected," he said, "Simpkins wasn't in church.—How do you do, Miss King? I'm glad you and the Major have made friends. You're sure to like each other.—So I shall have to go round to his house and look him up. I daresay he'll give me a bite to eat; and if he doesn't, Doyle will. You will of course accept"—he appeared to be addressing Major Kent—"Miss King's invitation. I'll call round for you at about four. I daresay Miss King will give us both a cup of tea. You drive her home in your trap, Major. I can walk down to Simpkins' house quite easily."

Meldon, carrying his hat in one hand, strode off in the direction of Mr. Simpkins' house. Miss King looked at Major Kent.

"You see it's all settled for you," she said. "You'll have to come back with me."

"I suppose I had better," said the Major. Then after a pause he added, "Of course I'm delighted to, and it's very kind of you to ask me."

Simpkins was stretched in a hammock chair reading a novel when Meldon found him. He received a severe lecture for not attending church, which seemed to surprise him a good deal, especially as his absence was attributed by Meldon to shame and a consciousness of guilt, feelings from which Simpkins had never in his life suffered. Then—and this seemed to astonish him still more—he was warmly invited to go for a day's yachting in the Spindrift.

"I didn't hear," he said doubtfully, "that Major Kent was going away."

"He isn't," said Meldon. "Don't I tell you he's giving a picnic in his yacht?"

"Are you sure he wants me?"

"Certain. He sent you an invitation, which is a plain proof that he wants you. He would have delivered it himself, only that Miss King caught him after church and carried him off to luncheon. But I have one of his cards with me, and if you insist on everything being done in the most accurate and correct possible manner, I'll leave it on the umbrella stand in your hall as I go out."

Meldon had provided himself with a few of the Major's visiting cards before leaving Portsmouth Lodge in the morning. He was a man who prided himself on leaving nothing to chance. Since it was just possible that the cards might turn out to be useful, he had put a few in his pocket.

"In fact," he went on, "to prevent any possible mistake or misunderstanding I may as well hand it over to you at once." He produced a card, slightly crumpled and a good deal soiled, from his waistcoat pocket, and laid it on Simpkins' knee. Simpkins looked at it doubtfully, took it up in his hand, and examined both sides of it. Then he spoke slowly.

"I think you know," he said; "in fact, I've told you myself, that the Major and I aren't on very good terms. I was obliged to speak to him rather strongly about the way he used to fish in a part of the river—"

"I know all about that; you needn't go into it again. It's entirely over and done with. An era of peace is beginning to dawn. After listening to my sermon this morning—it's a great pity for your own sake that you weren't in church, Simpkins—the Major finds himself in a position to forget the past and to start fresh. His attitude now—very largely owing to my sermon—is that of the dove which came to the ark with an olive leaf plucked off in its mouth."

Simpkins was not apparently prepared to accept the olive leaf. He asked Meldon whether that dove was the text of his sermon.

"No, it wasn't. I might have alluded to it, but I didn't. I might have explained, if I'd thought of it at the time—in fact, I will explain to you now. The dove is of all birds the most peaceful and the least inclined to quarrel with other birds. You'd know that by the soothing way it coos, and also by the colour of its breast. Tennyson, the poet, notes the fact that the peculiar bluey shade of its feathers arouses feelings of affection in people who weren't thinking of anything of the sort before they saw it. I'm not prepared to assert that positively myself, but I shouldn't wonder if there was something in the idea. Then the olive branch is the regular, recognised symbol of peace. The reason of that is that oil is got out of olives, and oil is one of the most soothing things there is. Of course, you get oil from other sources too—from whales, for instance; but the olive branch is chosen as a symbol because it's such a much more convenient thing to carry about than a whale is. No explorer, when meeting a savage tribe with which he doesn't want to fight, could possibly wave a whale, even if he had one with him—and he wouldn't be likely to, unless he was exploring the polar regions—whereas he can wave an olive branch, and always does. That's the reason the olive branch and not the whale is chosen as the symbol of peace. You'll be able to realise now how extraordinarily peaceable the Major is when I compare him to a dove with an olive leaf in his mouth."

"If," said Simpkins, who had only partially followed the reasoning about the dove and the olive—"if the Major apologises for the way he spoke, I'm quite ready—"

"He doesn't actually apologise," said Meldon. "You can hardly expect that of him. I think myself he's going as far as can reasonably be expected of him when he asks you out for a day's yachting. Very few men would do as much; and I may say to you, Simpkins, that if you'd been in church to-day and heard my sermon, you wouldn't be inclined now to stand out for an apology. You would, in fact, most likely be looking out for an olive leaf and a dove of your own to carry to the Major."

"But he was entirely in the wrong about the fishing. I admitted all along that he was perfectly entitled to fish below the bridge, but he insisted—-"

"Quite so," said Meldon. "That's my exact point. Any fool can apologise when he's been in the right. That gives him such a comfortable sense of superiority that he doesn't a bit mind grovelling before the other fellow. What is totally impossible is to apologise when you're in the wrong. You must be able to realise that."

"I'm not at all sure," said Simpkins, "that I ought to accept the invitation. Major Kent's hostility to me has been most marked. Everybody about the place has noticed it."

"Unless you're perfectly sure that you ought not to accept the invitation," said Meldon, "I think you'd better give yourself the benefit of the doubt. It will be a most enjoyable expedition. Miss King is coming. By the way, I hope you haven't quarrelled with Miss King in any way?"

"No, I haven't. Why should I?"

"I'm glad to hear it, I was afraid perhaps you and she might have fallen out over something. But if you haven't, why didn't you go near her for the last two days?"