Mightier than the Sword

g all right?" And Ferrol had nodded cheerfully and smiled as he passed into his room. Perhaps, he had asked Pride to come and see

ing of telephone bells, the ticking and clicking and buzzing, floor above floor, of the great grey building in which they all lived, Ferrol rises with his masterful personality and c

he body he had created, and his nerves and his arteries were spread over the earth. He placed his fingers on

2

achines, rattling and thudding, and driving the work of their world forward, you would have found it there—the motive power of the whole. It lurked in the tap-tap of the telegraph transmitter, in the quick click of the type in the slots of the linotype machines as the aproned operators touched the keyboard; it was in the heart of the reporter groping through the day for facts, and wri

ding over sensationalism.... One must see him as Tommy Pride and all those who worked for him on The Day saw him, eager, keen, and large-hearted, a wonderful blend of sentiment and business, torn, somet

2

of Fleet St

gged it to himself secretly, as though it were a weakness of which he was ashamed. It came upon him at odd, unexpected moments when he was hemmed in by the gross materialism of every day, this passionate, sudden yearning for poetry and ideals. He would try to lift the la

m up and making his name. How glorious that power was to Ferrol! The power of singling men out, finding the spark of genius that he could raise to a steady flame, fanning it with opportunity; he could make a man suddenly rich with a

n he m

open his columns to the cult of the beautiful, and then a grisly murder or a railway disaster would happen, crushing Ferrol's sentiment. Away with the ideal, for, after all, the w

ary, listening to the applications for employment. He made a point of hearing them, now and again. There was one letter there that suddenly awoke his interest; the name touched a chord in his mem

ould give it. Well did he know, even in those far-off days, that destiny was holding out her hands, laden with roses and prizes for him.... Those were the days of the young heart; the days of nineteen and twenty, and the first love, scarce understood, that comes to us, mysterious and beautiful

ed much of the tenderness of life, and the love of Nature that had remained with him. He was a clerk in an auctioneer's office then, with most of his dreams still undreamt. He and Margaret had

venings came to him, of kisses in the starlight, when incomprehensible emotions surged through him, vague imaginings of what life must really be, and the torture of unrest, of something that

ve the cobble-stones: two dogs were fighting with jarring yelps that could be heard all down the street; the baker's cart went by with an empty rattle, and Miss Martin of Willow Hall drove in as usual to the bank next door. An old man was herding a flock of sheep towards the market-place, and the sheep-dog ran this way and that way, barking as he ran. Three sandwich-men, grotesquely hidden in boards, slouched past in frayed clothes and battered hats, with pipes in their mouths. He read their boards m

n became more unbearable than the turmoil and clatter of cities. There was something to be

uade him.... The parting with Margaret, and the whispered vows and promises, spoken

is outlook, and saw that here was a way to power indeed. He shone like a new star over London, gathering lesser lights around him, developing that marvellous power of organization, that astonishing personality that drew men to hi

ide horizon of life. She must have noticed this in his letters, and instead of seeking to bind him to her against his will, she just let him go. And Ferrol must have weighed the impossibility of asking her to marry him at this point of his career, when he was striving and struggling upwards; not all men travel the fastest when they travel alone, but Ferrol was one of those who could run no risk of being delayed. They had none of the pang of parting ... but years afterwards, when Ferr

an antiquarian turns over his treasures and rejoices in some ancient relic. It was a day in summer, when the heat was heavy over London, an

piled up a wall before him, separating him for evermore from this old world that had been. The ivy still clung to the castellated walls of the Cathedral close; the c

ooding air of stillness, that had once seemed so stale and intolerable to him, now appealed to him with its wondrous peace, a magical spot far away from the turmoil of things. There were the same names over the grocers' and the drapers' and the

e

HALF

WA

AN

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f the people that were living there had laid sacrilegious hands upon the holy fragrance of the past; as if their prying eyes had peered into all the hidden secrets that belonged to him. He turned away resentfully towards the old inn, the Red Lion, whose proprietor, old Hamblin, remembered him from other days when he revealed himself, and was inclined to be overcome with the importance of the visit, until Ferrol put him at his ease.

ventional phrases came from his lips when Hamblin told him of her death. Somehow, it seemed to him so natural. He had been away seventeen years, and Easterham had lost

.. I expect he was after your time ... a good deal older than you, Mr Ferrol.... They had one c

dding at wet moss-grown stones in some old decayed ruin, turning them over to see wha

the middle, came in with a notebook and pencil in his hand. He looked as if he spent every moment of his[30] spare time in washing his face. There

he lot to-day. Quain. Written on Easterham Gaze

ong ceased to marvel at F

letter asking him to cal

e a note an

what Margaret'

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