Aaron's Rod

n the open shed at the bottom of his own garden, looking out on the rainy da

re was a light also in the upstairs window. His wife was gone upstairs again. He wondered if she had the baby ill. He could see her figure vaguely behind the lace curta

een which jutted the intermediary back premises, scullery and outhouse, in dark little blocks. It was something like the keyboard of a piano: more still, like a succession of musical notes. For the rectangular planes of light were of different intensities, some bright

this contiguous stretch of back premises. He heard the familiar sound of water gushing from the sink in to the grate, the dropping of a pail outside the door, the clink of a coal

descent light, and her hat nearly knocked the globe. Next door a man had run out in his shirt sleeves: this time a young, dark-headed collier running to the gate for a newspaper, running bare-headed, coatless, slippered in the rain. He had got his news-sheet, and was returning. And just at that moment the young man's wife came out, shading her candle with a lading tin. She was going to the coal-house

th her hand. The candle blew out. She ran indoors, and emerged again, her white pinafore fluttering. This time she

ght! I hope she'll be no worse. Good night Mrs. Sisson!" She was gone-he heard the

into motion, as so many colliers do. Then he moved along the path to

forward. But she only threw the contents of her pail on the garden and retired again. She might have seen him had she looked. He remained standing where he was, listening to the trickle of rain in the water-butt. The hollow countryside lay beyond him. Sometimes in the windy darkness he could see the red

a jar. There was a bang of the yard-gate. A shortish dark figure in a bowler hat passed the window.

ntly. Voices were upstairs only. He quietly opened the door. The room was empty, save for the baby, who was cooing in her cradle. He crossed to the hall. At the foot of the stairs he

ith familiar cadence. He began feeling for something in the darkness of the music-rack beside the piano. He touched and felt-he could not find what he wanted. Perplexed, he tur

ar room, the familiar voice of his wife and his children-he felt weak as if he were dying. He felt weak like a drowning man who acq

earer from upstairs, feet m

on the stairs. "If she goes on as she is, she'll be all right. Only s

outs I can't bear it," Aa

cked on the tiled passage. They had gone i

er a few drops from the little bottle, and raise he

'll go off my hea

ou won't go off your head. You'll keep your head on your

arly drive

all right, with care. Who have you got sitting up with her? You

ut it's no good-I shall have

w what's good for you as well as for her.

d silence-then a sound of Millicent weeping with her mother. As a matter of fact,

s matter-of-fact voice, after a loud nose-blowing. "I am h

I can't bear it,

ther nose-blowing, a

ear it-but we'll do our best for you. I will do my best for you-always-ALWAYS-in

rd from your hus

-sobs-"from the b

DE B

r month, from him, as an allowance, and tha

not let him trav

ion in her voice. "To go off and leave me with ever

e about him. Aren't you

that letter this morning, I said MAY EVIL BEFA

ret. Don't be angry, it won't

. A week ago I hadn't a grey hair in my

You will be all right, don't you bo

go off like that-never a word-coolly t

ever happy

him. But he'd kill anything.-He kept himself back,

was a

"Marriage is a mystery. I'm

off inside you. He was a man you couldn't quarrel with, and get it over. Quiet-quiet in his tempers, and selfis

m. A fair man? Yes

him in the parlour-taken when he was mar

oice, and his heart went cold. Quick as thought, he obeyed his first impulse. He felt behind the couch, on the floor where the curtains fell. Yes-the bag was there. He took it at once.

passage, holding a candle. She was r

r door open?" she asked o

illicent fro

trait and begin to weep. But he knew her. The doctor laid his hand softly on her arm, and left it there, sympathetically. Nor did he

ne away, you must be happier too, Mrs. Sisson. That's all. Don't let him triumph

on a large white silk handkerchief, and began to polish his pi

down the passage and into the living room. His face was very pale, ghastly-looking. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror over the mantel, as he passed, and felt weak, as if he were really a

lute and piccolo. It seemed a burden just then-a millstone round his neck. He hated the scen

wn to town. He dared not board, because people knew him. So he took a side road, and walked in a detour for two miles. Then h