Secret Bread

ead-pink heads of hemp-agrimony, and tufts of strong yellow fleabane, all squeezed together in his hot little hand. The air seemed al

aked save for its topmost bell, quivered beneath the onslaught of the arched brown and yellow body. The heat haze shimmered on the

t innocence of childhood was wearing away, and the deliberate cleanliness of mind achieved, if at all, in the malleable years between fifteen and twenty was as yet far ahead. Nevertheless, Parson Boase was not wrong in scenting the idealist in Ishmael, and he wondered how far the determined but excitable child, with the nervous strain of his race and all the little bluntnesses of a

brambles and gorse bushes, peering short-sightedly here and there, and as Ishmael appeared the man's hand clo

gging beneath him. As he drew near he caught a whirring sound, so strong as to seem metallic, and saw a big green and yellow dragon-fly fighting in the Parson's hands. Boase took hold of it carefull

eir cue from their elders. The neighbouring gentry treated him with an embarrassed kindness when they met him with Parson Boase, and solved the problem by leaving him alone on other occasions; the farmers looked at him as though he embodied a huge joke, and their wives mothered him surreptitiously, giving him saffron-cake, which he loved, and quick, hard kisses, which he detes

bby old cassock. He knew better than to pat a boy's head or thump him between the shoul

Ishmael-not for worlds would he have admitted Phoebe Lenine as the obje

wain,'" he cor

l, with his deceptive do

oment to drop his carefully-prepared offering between two gorse-bushes. Boase smiled, then sighed, wondering where such an abnormal dread

nderstanding between them so complete, that they sometimes spent an hou

he Neck this evening

ich for the first time Ishmael was to attend, and at the succeeding supper Boase meant him to take his place at the head of the table, as future master of Cloom. "Crying

ming," remarked

g alone?" asked

others are trapesing," replied Ishmael, with equal carelessness. For they were Cornishmen, these two, and th

t for miles in that wind-swept district, and the bed of the valley showed green and lush with its marshy pastures, where the ugly red and white cows were tearing at the grass. The wheel was standing dumb, as harvest was not yet garnered, and Boase and Ishmael passed the mill door and went on to the house. There the door stood open, as did the further one at the end of the cool, straight passage that looked dark b

ns of the corn off her small blue lap with no signs of haste or disco

er! Passon's co

ung away from her softly-rounded face. Her pouting mouth, always slightly open to show a hint of two little front teeth, laughed up at him, her dove's eyes narrowed with her mirth. Of

on and at Ishmael-"and I be gwain to stay to th' supper, and maybe I'll dance

dancing, Phoebe?"

d sing I don't see no good in liven'! I don't hold wi' chaps who think of naw

hit, and the Parson la

ets into a bow

-if it's with the right kind of chap. I don't think much of Jacka's John-Willy; if you really want to be a great lady to-night you must ge

as a person of import

ed at him as though

I," she announced loftily. "Fa?ther

er-like head under his arm and sl

asked Ishmael carelessly.

answered Ishmael, stil

e where the old pig was killed. There's been a dark place on the stones ever since. I saw it

plauded the miller, whose big form, pow

ic side of their lives, but this callousness struck him as horrible in a young child like Phoebe. Yet as he saw Ishmael wince he regretted the very sensibility in the boy, the lack o

." Then, afraid lest Phoebe should taunt him with his fear: "But I'll come and see the pigs, though I don't s'pose

gnantly, "and you'm nawthen but a g?at coward, Ishm

d back at Ishmael. He hesitated, pride fighting with longing; then he also began to saunter-ai

then to the way o' a maid wi' a man, is it, P

rather horrible that anything so innocent as Ishmael still was should develop into a man, even a healthy, clean-living man; such a pity that the instinct that was the cause of c

r to Cry the Neck, Sam?" he as

e there,

would be a good opportunity to sit

again, but wai

he way you speak of him and treat things generally w

t sight of Ishmael and Phoebe reappearing from the pig-stye, and his ey

ttle, Passon," he sai

othing, his face darkened. Already the cords of intrigue were beginning to close round Ishmael Ruan, and the Parson longed to

me now; there are things I want

osing battle. Sooner than be conquered he obeyed as though he were doing the thing commanded merely because he himself w

elessly; "I've a heap of things to do fo

gain, with his t