The Wooden Horse

Jeremy, looking at Harry, "an

happy if his son was not there. He rambled at times and fancied himself back in his youth again. Harry had found his father's room a refuge from the family, and he sat, hour after hour, watching the old man asleep, thinking of his own succession and puzzlin

. He had made, he felt, the right move and was in the stronger position. In earlier days he had never been able to quarrel with any one. Whenever such a thing had happened, he had been the first to make overtures; he hated the idea of an ene

taking it. Once they had passed on the stairs, and for a moment they had both paused as though they would speak. It had been all Harry could do to restrain himself from fli

! That's what it came to-children play

with it? Do you know, Harry, my boy, I think I'm frightened. It's lying here thinking of it. I never had much imagination-it

lmost time to dress for dinner, but Harry sat there, forgetting ti

I've been wandering up and down the street all day and I can't find the place. I've forgotten the number-I can't remember whether it was 23 or 33, and I keep getting into that passage. The

er," he said. "No one

ying down again. "Let's have some lig

s about to rise and move the candles into a clump on the mantelpiece

re told me to look in on my way up to

ere by the bed. His face was flushed in the light of the fire. Har

catch his grandfather's ans

d for a moment as though he were going to say something, or e

eremy, as though he had not noticed

and on each occasion there was need for the same severe self-control. He had to remind himself continually of their treatment of hi

nerations could never see in line; he must not expect that. But he thought of Robin as a boy-as a boy who had made blunders and would make others

iew seemed to drive, like the sun, through the mists of his obscurity; she always saw straight through things-never roun

," she had once said to him. "I daresay they are

ce on his part that he had shrunk from it, and he had even avoided Bethel lest that gentleman should imagine that he was on the edge of a proposal for his daughter's hand. He thought that all the world must know of it, and he blushed like a girl at the thought of its being laid bare for Pendragon to laugh and gibe it. It was so precious, so wonderful, that he kept it, li

cause of the Stones themselves and partly because of the wonderful view. It seemed to him that the whole heart of Cornwall-its mystery, its eternal sameness, its

ines of hill, a cup bounded on three sides by the hills and on the fourth by the sea. In the spring it flamed, a bowl of fire, with the gorse; now it stood grim an

, the shaft and chimney, desolately solitary, looking like the pillars of some ancient temple that had been fashioned by uncouth worshippers. In the valley itself stood the stones of what was o

ones and changing them to marble, striking colour from the mine and filling the chapel with gold. But the sun did not reach that valle

like a golden veil and he could only tell that the sea was there by the sudden gleam of tiny white horses, flashing for a moment on the mirror of blue and shining through the haze; s

rved and tossed and vanished over the shifting colours of the sea; there were wonderful

r chin and floated behind her. Her dress was blown against her body, and she walked as though she loved the battling

to see you ever since yesterday afternoon, but you seemed to have hidden yourself. It d

laughed. "What a splendid place for us

Club to-night-he's been watching us for some time"; a long thin youth, his head turned in their direction, h

y, shrugging his shoulders

and with such vigour that a little more or less makes no difference whatsoever. Pend

of her face, the stray curls that the wind dragged from discipline and

ly. "Never mind just yet. Tell m

ow that anythin

go on just as they were--" she paused a moment and then added seriously, "I hope you don't

course,

you are, really. And I'm sure I shall give you lots of good advice, because you've no idea what a truly practical person I am. Only sometimes lately I've wondered whether you've been a little s

riend I have in the world. How much tha

elf down with her hands folded behind her hea

nority of one. I was accused of a good many things-going down to the Cove, paying no attention to the Miss Ponsonbys, and so on. They attacked me as I thought unfairly, and I lost control-

d n

. Robin and I don't speak. The new game-Father and Son; or how to cut y

g the sea. "He doesn't know, he doesn't understand! Neither himself nor any one else. Oh, I will talk to him s

t's too late and wanting to mend things that are hopelessly broken. And then I have always been impulsive and enthusiastic about people. When I meet them first, I mean, I like them

ed; "that was one of th

d them too highly. I've expected everything and then cried like a child because I've been disappointed. I can see now not only

does. The world's too hard; it doesn't give one credit for

romance in the same way now at forty-five-just as I did at nineteen. I never could bear quarrelling with anybod

all shams now, and when he sees that you are taken in by them, just as he is himself, he despises you. But when he sees you laugh at the

much longer, and when he goes I shall miss him terribly. We have understood each other during this fortnight a

me round when he sees how you face it out. Why, I expect that he's coming already. I've faced

I want to know all about you; you've never told m

. A woman always keeps a little back," she said, looking at him with a

the sea. Then, after a

ipes and moustaches-I was found in a coal cellar. Then we lived in Bloomsbury-a little house looking out on to a little green park-all in miniature it seems on looking back. I don't think that I was a very good child, but

arry said, "

as persuaded that he was killed, and she was very ill. You see he had never left any word as to where he was. And then he suddenly t

selfishness of it and the utter

never could manage, and I don't think parents ever paid her. I had great ideas of myself then; I thought that I would be great, an actress or a novelist, but I got rid of all

ther has never done a stroke of work since he has been here, and mother has never been the same since that night when he ran away; so I've had it all-and it has been scrape, scrape, scrape all the time. You don't know the tyranny o

pose I'm a bad manager; at any rate, whatever it is, things have been getting worse and worse, and one day soon there'll be an explosion, and that will be the end. We're up to our eyes in debt. I try to talk to father about it, but he waves it away with his hand. They have, neither of them, the least idea of money. You see, father doesn't need very much himself, except for buying bo

d, her chin on her han

ing like this, only it does some good sometimes to get rid of it, and really at times I'm frightened when I think of

t she was too proud to ask for his help, but that she must speak. No, sympathy was not what she wanted. He suddenly hated

come, you will ask me to help you. I won't offer to do anything now-I will stand aside until you want me; but you won't

uietly, "I promise. H

on seized him, his body trembled from head to foot, and he grew very white. He was crying, "I

t he said, and he stood

ouched on things that were too sacred for speech; he seemed so strong, so splend

hey turned down the crooked p

that you had for me

meant to have told you before." The

ut R

e, after all, it's only chatter and mother never gets stories

me," he

nows-Mrs. Feverel. Odious to my mind

lad

e won't know her. You see," she added, "we can only know the people that other people don't know. This Mrs. Feverel has a daughte

r was having tea with Mrs. Feverel yesterday afternoon and that good woman hinted a great deal at the pow

the summer, and now wants to back out of it. He had, I gather, wri

g breath. "I'm d

I should think, just the person to hint suspicions for which there's no ground at all. Only it

y he's been too proud. But, of course, he will have to tell some one. A youngster like that is no match for a girl and her mother of the class these people seem to be. He will confide in his aunt-" He stopped and burst into uncontrollable la

see," s

Harry Trojan is no good-Harry Trojan is despised-but suddenly he h

of his sister; she was a little disappointed. "It is really rather serious," she said, "for your sister, I

of Robin. If you knew how I cared for the boy-what this means. Why, it brings him to my feet-if I c

. But, of course, I don't really know if that's how the case lies-mother's account was very confused. On

king quickly. "I can never be gratef

little dingy street past the church a

irl-what i

thin, dark-rather wonderful eyes in a very pale fa

ttle jealous of Robin, the interest in her own affairs had been very sweet to her, the remembrance of it now

er father, flying a huge blue kite. The kite soared above his head; he watched it

rther directions as to the house, and they parted. She felt a little lonely as she watched him hurrying down the street. He seemed to have forgotten her completely. "Mary Bethel, you're a selfish pig," she sa