All Men are Ghosts

in a pair of goodly riding-boots, went round to the

's broke her halter and a'most kicked the door out. And she's

said Scattergood. "Put

room. "It's as much as a man'

opened the door of the stable, and the moment the light was let in Ethelb

o time to say yer prayers. Look out, sir! She'll whip round on you like a bit o' sin and put her heel through you before you know wher

s he faced the animal's blazing eyes. "Come, come, sweetheart, let us behave for once like rat

good, seated on as quiet a beast as ever submi

as does it; and if we can find out what they are, it'll be worth 'undreds o' pounds to you and me. I tell yer, it's the words as does it! I reckon as it's summat out o' the Bible. Why, when I was groom to Lord Charles I knowed a man as give Scripture to 'osses regular. A Psalm-smitin' ole teapot he were; and whenever we'd got a kicker, he used to put his 'ead in at the

em. I've 'eard all about scripturin' 'osses, but you won't ketch me tryin' it on-I can tell

i' the watery eyes

whispering into the pony's ear; and the pony became as quiet as a lamb. The saller-faced chap 'eard 'im, and says 'e to 'imself, 'I'll remember them words.' So the next time as they had a kicker at Bullivant's, the saller-faced chap thinks 'e'll try 'is 'and at scripturin' 'im. So out he goes for a drop o' whisky, to put a bit o' 'eart into 'im, for between you and me 'e didn't 'alf like his job. Then he goes into the stables and makes a grab at th

' the right words unless you're the ri

s was in the Balaklava Charge, used to say as no man

im puttin' his money on that 'oss as won the Buddle Stakes? And what about 'im bein' robbed of his winnings just as 'e was gettin' 'ome? He 'adn't got 'is

d Bill; "though to see the old j

ith a wooden leg, who was nursing a fire of sticks in the hedge, some fifty yards ahead, got up and stepped out into the road. For a few moments Ethelberta did not see him, and maintained her swinging trot. Professor Scattergood tightened his grip. The mare went on until the tramp was no

erta like the lash of a whip,

t one point; there was a long steep hill on this side of Charlton Towers, and he reflected that his mare was certain to be blown before she reached the top. He could keep his seat, and, barring a collision with some passing vehicle, the chances we

consciousness, began watching the flow of his own thoughts. He even wondered at the calmness and lucidity of his mind, and asked himself the reason. "Perhaps it is the imminence of death," he reflected; "

bride, leaning on the bridegroom's arm. The party had just emerged from the porch, and the look of terror on the bride's face was clearly visible to Scattergood. "Poor girl," he reflected; "she'll take this for a bad

beneath him. "And yet," he reflected, "I am not utterly abandoned after all. I know what is happening; the leaf on the torrent knows nothing. A point for a lecture on Necessity and Freedom-all the difference between the two involved in that single fact! To have one's wits about him and be unafraid-what a power is that to break the ruling of Fate! Nothing save a shock can unhorse me. It is a match between Pure Reason in Scattergood and madness in Ethelberta. Would that it had been so in the old days! But, please God, I shall beat her this time. Ha! She's giving in!" They were breasting the two-mile hill on this side Charlton Towers, and with the rise

ht of the black object, flung as it were into her eyes, Ethelberta made a rapid swerve, and, placing her near fore-foot on a rolling stone, plunged forward with her head between her knees. Do

ly wounded man lying outstretched, as it seemed, on the circumpolar ice, and a horse stood by him like a ministering priest. The horse was warming the man with its breath, and the steam of its body rose high into the frozen air. The consciousness of Scattergood, hovering in a present which had well-nigh become a past, was on the borderland which separates a running experience from a

g ice-floes and the crackle of the Northern Lights." The sounds thus identified immediately became something else. They seemed to scatter and retreat, and then, concentrating again

him. "I am sleeping through the summer; I must rouse myself before win

miss the mark. Succeeding at last, he saw a vast creature standing motionless above him, its hot breath

ood. It is one of a dozen his poor drug-sodden wife gave him on Christmas Day. And here, close to me, is Ethelberta. How red her feet are!" And he stared

e colour of my doctor's gown-I have trodden the wine-press alone. The colour of poppies-drowsy syrups-deadly drugs! The ground-tint of the Universe-a difficult problem! Strange that a friendly Universe should be so red. Gentlemen, I am not well to-day-don't laugh at a sic

distance. A second joined it; a third, a fourth, a fifth, until a whole

to dream his last dre

d see the ringers pulling at the ropes. And Ethelbert

ed, "let us behave oursel

of the bells, struck him dumb. The swift image of a grey-headed man, riding a maddened ho

said, with a great effor

uainted with grief," said

behind, and rolled after the echoes like pursuing cavalry. "A man of sorrows," crie

rhythm of beating hoofs gave the time to their undulations. A tide of joy awoke within the dreamer; he was horsed on the thunder; he was leading the field; he was close on the heels of the game; he was captain of the host to an innumerable company of loud-voiced and meaningless things. Then would come expansions, accelerations, and sudden checks. Fissures yawned in front; moun

leap beneath him like a living thing?" "It is I-John Scattergood-it is I!" And ever before

king him. They swept by on either side; they forged ahead; they pressed close and jostled him on his rock

a presence encircled him, something touched him o

leaving him, and his heart was almost still. Then the dying flame flickered once more. He opened his eyes, gazing into the darkness like one who sees a long-aw

ined handkerchief still between them, slowly relaxed; the glance withered; the arms fell; the head drooped. It rested for a moment

d. Not a soul came nigh the spot, and for hours the silence was unbroken by the footfall of any living creature or by the

among the village merchandise. Suddenly he woke with a start: his cart had stopped. Leaning forward, he peered ahead; and the gleam of his lantern fell on the stark figure of a man lying

EREMY AN

ndowed that part, or aspect, of his person with an astonishing vitality and developed it to an enormous size. Not without reason did our yeomanry sergeant e

er's body, and a poet's eye was needed to interpret the meaning it conveyed. For myself, I should never have suspected that it meant anything more than great physical strength employed in a strenuous life

becoming extinct. He represents agriculture as it was before the advent of science and Radical legislation. He is the most honest and prosperous farm

is trousers up a moment ago. His thoughts are pleasant-you can see it in the rhythmical movement of the muscles under his coat. He has some great design on hand and is sure he can carry it through-see how his shoulders, as he swings along, seem to be tumbling forward over his chest. He has had great sorrows-the droop in the cervical vertebr? confirms it; he has conquered th

d it was not so; since at those moments the functions of the two sides of his body were interchanged, the organ of expression being the side now towards you, with every smile and frown accurately registered in the creases of the coat as they followed the movements of the muscles beneath. So, too, when Jeremy laughed. No doubt his f

emy when engaged in devotion did not kneel, but stretched his body forward from the seat to the book-rest, presenting his back to the heavens and his face to the inner regions of the earth; and, as his body was very long and the pew very wide, the back formed a solid and substantial bridge over which you might have trundled a wheelbarrow laden with turnips. No photograph, indeed, save one of the cinematograph order, the app

ndfather, his great-grandfather, and by ancestors of yet remoter date. If there is any calling in which heredity is of importance to success it

ght time, and handled his land as though it were a living thing, with a kind of unconscious tact which seemed to me the exact opposite to that blind and mechanical following of habit which so often, but so mistakenly, is said to be the standing fault of his class. Obstinate and incredulous as he seemed to the new teachings of veterinar

vain through all the gardening books I could find for a remedy, and even went the length of consulting some of the gifted authors, two of whom were ladies. I sent them specimens of the soil for examination; they teased them with formul? and tormented them with acids; they boiled them in retorts and pickled

his breeches; inspected the result, first on his breeches and then on his hand-and now my barren patch is blossoming like the garden of the Lord. The others had advised me to try I kno

ess, I believe, helped to give him that confidence in himself without which no man can successful

were said to have sharpened their swords; on the outside wall was a row of rings and stables where the same troopers had tethered their horses. In the cellar there was a collection of large shot, which there was reason to think had been stored there at the time of the forgotten battle; and with these were a lot of iron buckles, and broken tobacco-pipes of ancient form, which had been dug up in a mound on the hillside through which Jeremy was cutting a drain. A good pint-measure of human teeth, in excellent preservation, had been discovered in the same place, and these were kept in an old tobacco-box. Connected with all this, I suppose, were the names of several

ng he had received on enlisting-proving, as Jeremy would often say, that his great-great-grandfather was a "sober" man; a gold watch with a beautifully executed design of the death of Wolfe engraved on the case, said to have been presented to Silas on his return from the wars by the reigning Duke; and, above all, a flint-lock musket, wit

ay, is the anniversary of the battle of the Heights of Abraham. The coincidence had been entirely forgotten by the Jeremys, and was unrecorded in the traditions of our village; but not many days after I had pointed it out, the gossips having been at work in the meantime, an old man came in from a neighbouring parish and told me "as how" his father had talked with a man who knew a

else. And Jeremy's good opinion of me was yet further enhanced when he learnt that I had twice visited the Plains of Abraham; that I knew the place by heart; that I had climbed up the goat-path by which his ancestor had scaled the heights, and had laid my head on the spot where Wolfe met his most enviable death. He would have me into his house that very night to tell him all about it; showed me

rmant, an eyewitness of the scene, was too nearly imbecile to stand cross-examination; but what he remembered was to the point. Aware of the impending danger, Jeremy had built his ricks that year within the defences of his courtyard, the walls of which he had rendered unscalable by various devices. It only remained, therefore, to defend the gate; and here were posted Timothy Caine with a maul, Job Henderson with a flail, an unnamed woman with a cauldron of flour to fl

e the slowest of beasts; but not if you saw it springing on its prey. There was much of the wisdom of the serpent in Mr Jeremy, as there must be in every man who earns his living by battle with the natural order of the world. "I wakes regularly at five o'clock," he said. "But I never gets up till a quarter past. What do I think about in that quarter of an hour? Why, I spends it in cutting out." By "cutting out" he meant the process of mentally arranging the day's work for himself and for every man on the farm. The python on the branch, I imagine, is often engaged in "cutting out." "In farming," he added, for he was giving a lesson, "you ought to cut out fresh every day, and not every week, as some farmers do-though I've knowed them as never cut out at all. And cutting out's a thing you can never learn in books and colleges. It comes by experience-and a lig

ther things. And of Mr Jeremy we may say that whereas, on the one hand, he was extremely slow in the acquisition of new knowledge, on the other he was equally quick to check himself in the application of such knowledge as he possessed alread

so plain as not to be worth discussion. But if I had to speak on that point now, I should hesitate and hedge about to a degree which would force any intelligent audience to regard me as a fool. Instead of speaking out loud and strong for peasant proprietorship, I should be thinking all the time of the three peasant proprietors in our neighbourhood-George Corey, Charles Narroway, and Billy Hoare, who are the meanest, the stingiest, the most underhand and generally despicable rascals I have ever met. Were a resolution placed before the meeting in favour of bringing the townspeople back on to the land, I should say in support that while it is infinitely sad to see the real peasantry drifting into the towns, it is yet worse to see people like Prendergast, the ex-draper, drifting out of the towns and setting up as country gentlemen. I should want to tell the audience all about Prendergast and the hideous human packing-case he has bui

class. I know it is wrong-headed, generalising from a particular case and all that-but I would rather be wrong-headed with Jeremy, who took a back-view of everything, than right-head

he Dook-he's safeguard enough for me! And what safeguard have you when fellers like Prendergast begin buying up the land? Look at his tenants-not a real farmer among 'em, no, and not one as can make both ends meet. These little landlords are the men they ought to shoot at, not the big 'uns. Now isn't it a wonderful thing that my family and the Dook's has kept step with one an

im with 400 acres of his own, and me with 380 acres under the Dook, rented all round at twenty-eight shillings an acre. And where are we both now after thirty years? Why, if Charley's land, and all he's made on it, and all he's put into it, were set at auction to-morrow, I could buy him up twice over! And me paying over five hundred pound

ed that I

tenness spreads and runs together. And as to selling, I tell you there's something in the land as knows when you're goin' to sell it, and loses hear

likely to be, one that's been in the same hands for hundreds o' years, one that's never been shaken up and messed with and slopp

ttempts to confute Farmer Jeremy. Not that this made very much difference. On all questions relating to the nature of land and its uses Jeremy was a mystic, and orthodox Political Economy was as futile to his mind as it was to Mr Ruskin's. Every position I took up was immediately stormed by the rejoinder, "Ah, well, you're n

humour. Land likes to be owned by a gentleman, and keeps its heart up accordin'. Wheneve

d effect, but the argument made not the faintest impression on Mr Jeremy,

at his Grace bursts out laughin', and so did Lady Sybil and Lady Agatha too. 'Let me introduce you to my two daughters,' says he. So he introduces me, and I can tell you I stood up to 'em like a man, though I did keep my hat in my hand all the time. 'Well, Jeremy,' says he, 'you've got your farm in tip-top condition'; and then he begins talking about putting up some new buildings, as me and the agent had been talking over before. 'We'll put 'em u

nd while talking to the ladies. Regular insultin' is what he was; and I can tell you I never came nearer giving a man one in the eye than I did him. I believe I'd ha' done it if there'd been room in the carriage for him to put up his hands and make a square fight on it. I don't say as he weren't a plucky chap too; for there wasn't a man in the carriage as couldn't ha' knocked his head off with the flat of his hand, if he'd had a mind to. 'Look here, you fellows,' he says, 'you're a lot of blasted idiots, that's what you are. It's because of the besotted ignorance of men like you that England has the worst land-system in the world. Slaverin' and grovellin' before a lot o' rotten Dooks-why, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves! I'll bet that Dook o' yours and his two painted g

trongest, and Mr Lloyd George was the statesman who had to bear the hottest flame of Jeremy's wrath. More than once I have seen him fling his weekly paper on the floor with the words, "I wish this 'ere Lloyd George would jump into the copper and boil hisself"; and on my remarking that I thought this a rather inhuman suggestion, he would wave his arm round the room, in a manner to indicate the entire Liberal Party, and say, "I wish the whole lot on 'em would jump in

urally, "a finished specimen": so was the German Emperor: so was Dr Crippen: so was a lady of uncertain reputation who "had taken a cottage" in the neighbourhood. A wet harvest, a badly built hayrick, a measly pig, a feeble sermon by the curate, were all "finished specimens." Once when the curate, getting gravelled for lack of matter at the end of five minutes-for he was preaching ex tempore-abruptly concluded his sermon

, "can be no other than the little field on the hillside, where Jeremy washes his sheep in the pool behind the willows." Again, I was morally certain that if Jeremy had lived in the neighbourhood of Edom he would have "cast out his shoe" upon that country, accurately aiming the missile at the head of any rascally Edomite who happened to be prowling about with a rabbit-snare in his pocket. So too when he shouted "Manasseh is mine"-he always shouted the Psalms-I was sure that Manasseh really was his, in a tenant-farmer way of speaking, and that next Thursday he would begin to rip up Manasseh with his great steam plough, and reap in due course a crop of forty bushels to the acre, paying the "Dook" a high rent for the privilege. Nor was Jeremy making any idle boast when he thundered out his further intentions, which were "to divide Sichem," "to mete out the valley of Succoth," and "to triumph" over Philistia. All this was Pragmatism of the purest water; you were sure he wo

was evident that to Jeremy's mind, and perhaps to the clergyman's also, a subtle relation existed between the truth of the Creed and the speed with which it could be rendered. Long before the end was in sight, and while Jeremy was still battling with various "incomprehensibles," the rest of the competitors had retired from sheer exhaustion; the children were munching sweets; the lads and lasses were ogling one another at the back of the church; Mrs Jeremy was staring in front of her, wondering perhaps if the careless Susan would remember that onion sauce always went with a leg of mutton on Sundays; while Lady Agatha and Lady Sybil-I grieve to record this, but my historical conscience compels me-sat down. As to those of us who remained attentive to what was going on, our confidence in Catholic Truth gradually took the form of a certainty that the farmer would come in first and the clergyman be nowhere

ened by Christmas." Serious setbacks, of course, often occurred; but Jeremy, unlike most of his kind, was not the man to talk about them. "What I believe in," he said, "is not only keeping your own heart up, but helping your neighbours to keep up theirs. I've no patience with all this 'ere grumbling and growling. Of course, a person has a lot to put up with in farming; but it doesn't do a person no good to be always thinking about that. Pleasant thoughts goes a long way in making money. And I tell you there's money to be made in farming, let folks say what they will. What farmers want is not for Parliament to help 'e

est crop of wheat he had ever raised was sprouting in the ear. There was sickness among the sheep and the pigs; and the standing crop in his great orchard was sold to a middleman for a quarter the usual price. But Jerem

cles, and I watched a great crease form itself in the lower portion of his coat and gradually creep upwards until it formed a straight line from one shoulder-blade to the other. When the prayer concluded Jeremy said "Amen and Amen!" with the utm

onversation, perhaps foolishly, "Mr Jeremy, the prayer for fine weather seems to have done us very little good." For a moment he looked at me rather angrily, as though suspecting that some lukewarmness on my part had depri

on Saturday night. On Monday morning, Mrs Mellon, whose face for once bore no trace of bruises, informed our cook that "her master had had a dreadful bad night. He would keep jumping out o' bed and going to the window, to look into the sky and see if anything was up." Tom had communicated his fears, when in an early stage of development, to his boon companion, Charley Stamp the ex-roadman, whose old-age pension went the way of Tom's wages and swelled the revenues of the public-house by the regular sum of five shillings per week. These two Arcadians, as they sat over their cups, concerted a plan, composed mainly of bad language, for defeating the ends of justice on the Day of Doom; and on the Saturday night previous to the one last mentioned came home together abominably intoxicated, waving their hats and roaring out as they went up the village that they were "ready" for Judgment-"with a tooral-ri-looral, and a rooral-li-ray." Subsequent events proved that neither of them was "ready." Tom's courage, as we have seen, went to piec

in old days I used to meet Snarley Bob. There I sat down on the very heap of stones on which he sat as he talked to me of the stars. In due time the stars came out, and I wondered in which of them the great spirit of my old friend had found its abode. I imagined it was Capella; why I know not, unless it be that Capella was the star to which Sna

ng up from different points of the horizon, had met in the zenith and every star h

from where I was, there stood an isolated barn surrounded by sheds for the shelter of cattle. From this point the way down into the village could hardly be missed, and thit

to hear the loud and lamentable tones of a human voice. I listened, and at once recognised the voice as Jeremy's, though I could not hear what he was saying nor explain to mysel

over his head, was Jeremy. His back was towards me, but I could see that he had a book in his hand. A glance was sufficient to show me that I was looking at a man in wrestle with his God. I knew the signs of Jeremy'

t hand, holding the book-which I saw was the Book of Common Prayer-drooped on the ground. I noted the head of a steel rat-trap protruding from the big sid

had lost the place-slightly readjusted his position, and in a de

y beseech thee, that although we for our iniquities have worthily deserved a plague of rain and waters, yet upon our true repentance thou wilt send us such weather, as that we may rece

g and insincere self-depreciation of his own creatures; I have heard him talked at, and talked about, by cowardly men-pleasers who had no more religion than a rhinoceros; and I have wondered much at the patience of heaven with all this detestable eloquence. I have heard also the short and stumbling prayers of the honest, of the Salvationist kneelin

as not easy to excuse oneself to Jeremy; his discernments were keen. Moreover, I half feared that he might have discovered my footsteps outside the barn; and I knew that if he had

s late in coming home," she said. "He's gone up the hill with a lantern, to set traps in t

d a moment later I heard the ring of

y the look of the moon last night. Well, given a bit o' fine weather now, we shall not do so badly after all. The wheat's less sprouted than I thought it w

e root-crop

t be better. You see, they

our traps?" sa

much good. We must try this 'ere new poison. That'll

ent up the hill. Just look out o' this winder at them clouds drifting across the sky. And they're a lot higher up than they were this afternoon. And I tell you these 'ere praye

Mrs Jeremy, who, notwithstanding her mental wander

being disinclined to discuss the subject just th

e ready to pray for it. Of course, you can't always tell what you ought to want and what you oughtn't-that's the difficulty. But my plan is to pray for everything as I wants and then leave the Lord to sort out the bad from the good. There's a Collect in church as puts it in that way. Mind you, I wouldn't pray for anything as I knowed were bad.

ed on his favourite themes, and this was one of them. But we were interrupted b

aning forward with her face burie

talked about them things before my missus. I never do; but something's m

the infinite tenderness of the good man as he sought to comfort his wife. I draw a veil over that.

tanding in her eyes. She shook

began to explain. His voice trembled and

that open fireplace, where you're sitting now, and pops his head up the chimney, and calls out, 'Father Christmas, please bring me to-night a magic lantern, a pair of roller skates, four wax candles, and a box o' them chocolates with the little nuts inside 'em, for Jesus Christ sake, Amen.' Then he goes away from the fire, and I says, 'All right, nipper, I'll bring 'em,' from behind that door, in a voice to make him believe as Father Christmas was answering. Well, he starts to go to bed; but just as he reached them stairs in the passage he runs back, and pops his little head up the chimney again. 'Father Christmas,' he says, 'don't forget the little nuts in the chocolates. I don't want none o' them pink 'uns.' And, O my God! he'd hardly spoken the words when more than half

ong man in the agony of his soul, and the eyes cannot bear it long. "The clouds are breaking," he said; "and, please God, I'll cut 'the Slaughters

a fortnight after these things, I met Jeremy in t

er for farme

e answered, "and let

enough in coming, and is all th

at all, where a note of music was needed. But I knew not what else to

he said, drawing near to me,

ed and wa

ou," said he. "Th

remy a question flashed through my mind. "May it not be," I asked myself, "that Primit

TE

hear not long ago at the dinner-table of a friend; and the occasion was the more interesting inasmuch as the Philosopher of the party was led by a turn of the argument to lay aside

eenth century; and the Historian had just finished a most surprising narration of the facts, based on his recent investigation o

ces the Professor of Philos

opinion it was that caused the Expedi

insisted on manning the ships with men of its own choosing. Some were diseased; others were criminals; many had never handled a rope in their lives. Bef

Pessimist, as he helped himself to one of our Host's super

ofessor of Philosophy, holding a lighted

hough there were. But who selects the crew? Nobody. They come aboard as they happen to be born, and the unfortunate Commander has to put up with them as they come-broken men, jail-deliveries, invalids, sea-sick land-lubbers, and Heaven knows what. Who in his sens

The World Purpose was famous throughout three continents. The Professor was vi

at we must join the ladies in

hilosopher, after a resolute sip at his

a little exhilarated by that and by the excellence of his father's wine; "that is to say,"-and he spoke eagerly, a

and the Son of the House blu

hat my story, so far from being unsuitable for t

nce," said the Host, "and h

nted us, did you say? Well, I suppose our parents wanted children; but it doesn't follow that they wanted you or me. Somebody else might have filled the book as well, or better. Our birth is a matter of absolute chance. For example, my father has often told me how he met my mother. There was a picnic on a Swiss lake. My father's watch was slow, and when he arrived at the quay the boat that carried his party was out of sight. It so happened that there was another party-people my father didn't know-going to another island, and see

whom, after his second claret-glass of port, The World Purpose had

ll the better for not having heard the introduction. You see, I am assuming that

," said th

up in The World Purpose. That's an awfully good point of the Pessimist's, and a jolly difficult one t

pstairs," s

in the compartment were evidently mother and daughter. The mother had a singularly beautiful and intelligent face; and the daughter, who was about tw

nd looking into the carriages, apparently endeavouring to find a compartment to themselves. They did not succeed, and f

elves and go elsewhere. It would have been a chivalrous act; but whether from indolence

d that the mother, though to all appearance in health, was either ill or convalescent. By the time I had come to this conclusion the train

sped, the girl resting her head on the mother's shoulder and gazing into her face from time to time with a look of i

objectionable to my temper of mind; but for once in my life I was overawed by the consciousness that I was in the presence of deep and genuine emotion. Finally, I gave up the effort to read;

he same position as before. The mother had turned her face away, and was looki

took up my book and pretended to read; and I knew that an effort was being made, that tears were being ch

ame of the station

ated paper, and so on through the usual preliminaries of a traveller's talk. The answers I received were such

n the back the title Human Immortality. Once or twice I noticed the eyes of the woman resting on

nd my asking y

tainl

in the Immortal

never like to speak without prolonged preparation, I briefly told her my opinions on that great problem, as you may find them expressed in my published works. Possibly I spoke with some fervour; the more likely, because I spoke without preparatio

when the train drew up at

ore,' said the lady, 'but

's Dad!' cr

clothes stood at

armly shaking me by the hand;

he daughter; 'you'r

nd kissed me fervently three or four times. I was

family. As the train moved off the three

arts to-night, si

' said I. 'I congratula

daughter,' he said; 'she's

e the next time we meet,' I

what had been, in some resp

and I am at a loss to imagine what it has to do

n," said the Professor,

hard lines on a man who dislikes s

the Professor. "But remember, they

t," growled t

ents of children are the judgments o

ividness the incident of my former journey. I found myself repeating, in order and minute detail, everything that had happened in the carriage, some of the particulars of which I had forgotten till that moment. The end of it was that I became possessed with a strong desire to visit St Beeds, though I had no connections whatever with the place, and had never stayed there in my

e old wall and the dismantled quays, and wandered among the narrow streets, reading history, as my habit is, from the monuments with which

n a basket; for, as you know, I have been for many years an enthusiastic rose-grower, and there is nothing which attracts the mind so rapidly as any circumstance connected with one's ho

observed him, he

n looking for you all over the town. Had I kno

ou know I had a

old me you

ve seen me, t

at the station. And she saw you later, standing

before going to the Cathedral, that I might see the exterior in the

remembered my previous impre

ered; 'in fact, quite resto

I shall have the pleasure of seeing her later on in the day-and your dau

n't you like to take a turn round the old town first? It's a wonder

nd I confess that for a moment the thought crossed my mind that he was some sort of impostor, and that I sh

ready. But I've no objection to seeing it

nt memories. And it will please my wife to know that I've taken you round. What do you say to going up the river first? Th

etter,' said I; and we set

g, unconscious for a moment of his presence, I suddenly seemed to hear him groan behind me; and turning round I saw that he was holdin

?' I asked, i

st my way of resting whe

, as we took our places in the boat, he sculling and I s

y allotment. I'm taking

ood deal of argument. Finally, he dropped his sculls, and, taking a piece of paper from his pocket,

, 'let's drop it. We're missing one of the noblest sights

out on the subject of roses. 'Rose-growing is a thing that takes time and patience and thought,' he said. 'Mo

giving it up,' I answered. 'I happe

'She's the best wife man ever had. She's wor

the roses you can g

answered with an emp

on thrown him over for good and all; that he had failed to make a living by his original art; that he had got an engagement with a great furnishing-house as a skilled painter; that he was earning four pounds a week in doing artistic work in rich men's houses and elsewher

t time I took these roses to my wife. We'll just walk along to where I live, and I'll show you the

th great eagerness on the history and antiquities of the town. It struck me as strange that he never waited for any answer b

ve,' he said, and st

u will take me in and reintro

wered, 'but the thin

ted answer that, without thinking,

in her coffin. She died at

put the basket of roses on his knees and b

e train, ran down the steps. Sitting down beside her father she

ased and there w

essimist at length, "why the t

our Hostess. "The woman had

id the Historian. "What, for ex

eldest son last month

introduction would not b

now," he continued, "can anyone here explain to me the strange conduct of the man with the whi

d up and seemed about to speak. But as he raised his eyes they met the bright glance of his pretty cousin, o

that there were two persons in the room to whom the strange

of the man, and of the rude drawings in which I had depicted him. He had the same little coat, the same battered hat, cocked on one eye, the same twinkle in that eye. 'Sir,' said I, knowing him to be an old friend whom I had met in unknown regions, 'sir,' I said, 'may I offer y

érébraux determinés.... Les phénomènes cérébraux sont en effet à la vie mentale ce que les gestes du chef d'orchestre sont à la symphonie: ils en dessinent les articulations motrices, ils ne font pas

Same

THE ID

y, for rightmindedness, and for driving force, will compare favourably with any book of the

S: And Other

iece Drawing by

lth of irony and humour. The character Snarley Bob, the old shepherd, is dest

HEMY of

s: "It is a significant book ... eloquent, imaginative, hu

ok is one which no philosophical stu