The Seeker

Table of

rime is Appra

, despite the warnings preached all about him. It would surely be interesting to die, if one had come properly to the Feet. Even coming to but one of the Feet, as he had, might make it still more interesting. Perhaps he would not, for this reason, be always shut up in Heaven. In his secret heart was a lively desire to see just what they di

or a month he had daily dramatised to himself the building's swift destruction amid the kind and merry flames. But Allan, to whom he had one day hinted the possibility of this gracious

r an aged and poor lady. This lady seemed to Bernal to do nothing much but burn a tremendous lot of stove-wood, but presently she turned out to be the long-lost cousin of Mr. Granville Parkinson, the Great Banker from the City, who thereupon took cheery Ralph there and gave him a position in the bank where he could be honest and industrious and respectful to his superiors. Such was the barren tale of Virtue's gain. But contrasted with Ralph Overton in this book was one Budd Jackson, who led a life of voluptuous sloth, except at times when the evil one moved him to activity. At these bad moments he might go bobbing for catfish on a Sabbath, or purloin fruit from the orchard of Farmer

rited white horses, seated high on one of those gay closed wagons-those that went through the street with that delicious hollow rumble-hearing perchance the velvet tread, or the clawing and snarling of some pent ferocity-a leopard, a lion, what not; to hear each day that muffled, flattened beating of a bass drum and cymbals f

rim, was a blur of woods beyond which the sun went down each night. This, in the little boy's mind, was the highway to the glad free Life of Evil. Many days he looked to that western wood when the sky was a gush of colour behind its furred edge, perc

's father died, so that he was cheated out of the resulting three-days' vacation, other children being free while he lay on a bed of pain-if you tasted pickles or any sour thing? Not only was it useless to try to learn to write "a good

olden Days," with an article giving elaborate instructions for camping in the wilderness. He was compelled to disregard all of them, but there was comfort and sustenance in the article itself. Then there was the gun that came at Christmas. It shot a cork as far as the string would let it go, with a fairly sa

reak the news to Clytie. She, busy

oaxed nor in any manner dissuaded. He thought she took it rather coolly, th

dd Jackson!" he continued to Clytie. He was gl

y if I give y

l never set eye

w!-two

go!" in a voice

en I'll give t

put other loaves in to bake, while he stood awkwardly

r as you like and you needn't

at his hand. He thought this seemed not quite the correct attitude to take toward him

ckets of his jacket. He would have liked one of the big preserved peaches all punctuated

led to Clytie, turning b

't you shake h

he shook her b

n inconsequential dog that had been given to

ice a year- don't forget!" And, brutally before his very eyes, she handed the sniffing a

ned from this harrowing scen

tle girl after a just Providence had done its work as a depilatory. And after she recovered from the fever, it seemed, she had cared to do nothing but read the Scriptures to bed-ridden old ladies-even after a good deal of her hair came in again -though it didn't curl this time. The only pleasure she ever experienced thereafter was that, by vir

they commonly drove caged beasts, and no one ever so much as thought of Coming to the Feet or washing in th

uff buttoned shoes, a Christmas card with real snow on it, shining like dia

h a heavenly bitterness; for to the little boy, pushing sternly on, her tears afforded that certain thrill of gratified brutality under conscious rectitude, the capacity for which is among those matters by which Heaven has set th

Chink C

wisht yo

Chink C

wisht yo

ctually and tr

ures are made tragic by courage they are not different from successes." For it cam

arrying an inconvenient box. At the farther end of this was another fence, and beyond this an ancient orchard with a grassy floor, whe

ic wood just this side of the sun was now seen to be farther off than he had once supposed. So he spread his carpet, arranged the contents of his box neatly, and ate half his food-supply, for one's strength must be kept up in these affairs. As he ate he looked back toward

graceful figures in the air, like a fancy skater. Then, on a bough above him, a little dusty-looking bird tried to sing, but it sounded only like a very

ocious appearing of all known beasts-a thing to be proved by any who will survey one amid strange surroundings, with a mind cleanly disabused of preconceptions. A visitor from another planet, for example, knowing nothing of our fauna, and confronted in the forest simultane

rge and powerful cows, all chewing at him in unison. Yet, even so, and knowing, moreover, that strange cows are ever untrustwo

n; but another shout turned and routed them, and he even chased them a little way,

the sun went down behind the magic wood he lay uneasily on his lumpy bed, trying again and again to shut his eyes and op

ing in the end even to be taken from over his dead body. But the treacherous Penny grew first restive, then plainly desirous of returning to his home. At last, after many effort

him-"the moment that will close thy life on earth and begin thy song in heaven or thy wail in hell"-"impossible to

ay be thy l

moment he

e, the sec

Christ-reje

urned again to better things. Gradually he began to have an inkling of a possibility that made his blood icy -a possibility that not even the

ng in whispers. This horror, of course, was not long to be endured. Yet, even so, with increasing myriads of Them all about, rustling and whispering their awful laughs and cries -it was no ignominious rout. With consider

the door for him so late at night. As for Penny,

the kitchen into the dining-room. Probably they had gotten up in the middle of the night, out of tardy alarm for him. It served them right. Yet they seemed hardly to

supper for at thi

him now not unkindly, whi

ng past midnigh

his superior brother. He seemed about to say mor

ing questions, or tried to be funny or anything. Over a final dish of plum preserves and an imposing segment of marble cake he relented so far as to tell Clytie something of his adventures -especially since she had said that the big hall-clock was very likely slow-that it must surely be

ad the rare good luck to be the son of a Presbyterian clergyman. The little boy resolved next time to go beyond the trees to sleep; perhaps if he went far enough he would

s. The air about his head seemed full of ghostly "good business hands," each with its accus

felt the close-drawn rein of his authority. Again he felt her rebellious little tugs, and the wrench of her final defiance when she did the awful thing. He had been told by a plain speaker that her revolt was the fault of his severi