Читать книгу The Blind Man's House--a Quiet Story - Hugh Walpole - Страница 12

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By Sizyn Church there is a very old wall. It runs straight across the Moor until it reaches another wall, a very modern one which Frank Partridge of Sizyn Farm helped to make with his own strong hands. But the wall by the Church is very, very old, thirteenth-century they say, although nobody really knows. Some who have been up very early in the morning and have passed that way as evening light is fading, say that they have seen a donkey close to the wall, cropping at the grass—a ghost donkey, of course. It is said that you can walk right through it. The donkey, they say, belonged to the Franciscan who designed the famous Hawthorn Window early in Queen Elizabeth's reign—so early that there were still Franciscans to be found wandering the country.

In any case that part of the Moor is a haunted place, for behind Sizyn Farm is the oak tree where the young lady hanged herself in Monmouth's time because she was going to have a baby. And there are the Crazy Stones, eight of them, in a half-circle, on the projecting spike of the Moor above the wood known as the Well, and nobody knows how old they are! And at the very Cross-roads themselves, on the Garth in Roselands-Rafiel road, they say that the highwayman of Charles II's time, whose treasure is still supposed to be hidden somewhere on the Moor, was buried with a stake through his heart. Across this Moor the English marched to defend their country against the Spaniards, to fight for Cromwell, to die for Monmouth, to challenge the French in 1805—yes, and many, many marched before those days. We can see them, horde upon horde of naked men and women driven like cattle, the hide-whips of the Danes whistling in the air above them. And before them again, the men with bowed hairy backs and monkey-faces, and before them again the giant horny beast with the long neck and the tiny head rising sluggishly from the sea which lapped with its crystal wave the very edge of the Moor where the Church now stands.

Through it all the Moor unchanged, the tough little grasses blowing, the sea-birds screaming against the sun even as they are today.

For it is a fine day and everyone is thankful—Mr. and Mrs. Cromwell, Mrs. Brennan and her children, Dorothy, Gilbert, and Simon, Mr. and Mrs. Lamplough, Miss Vergil, Mrs. Ironing and Fred Ironing her brother, Miss Phyllis Lock, her old mother, Oliphant, Curtis, and Jim Burke—all, all are thankful that it is a fine day.

For what is a picnic when it rains, or, worse than that, when the sea-mist comes up, as on the Glebeshire coast it does so often, and veils the world in water? Dangerous thing, Jim Burke warned Oliphant and Curtis, to have a picnic on the Moor late in August. Weather can change there in the twinkling of a firefly—seen fifty weathers up there, Jim Burke had, all of one afternoon. Queer place the Moor. Many a picnic had been ruined by it. The Moor doesn't like ginger-beer bottles, silver chocolate paper, orange peel, ladies' lipstick. Upon which crazy statement Oliphant, who had no imagination but only knew his duty, and Curtis, whose mind was entirely mechanical, stared at him as though Jim Burke were mad.

Whereupon Jim Burke, straddling his lively body on his restless legs and sticking his thumbs into his trouser-pockets, saw fit to say:

'That's all blighters like you can think of. All right, Dick Oliphant, I've known you just a fortnight, haven't I? What's the matter with that? I think you champion but limited. Why shouldn't you be limited? Much happier that way. But you ask your master you're so sure of whether he's sure of himself—whether since he was blinded he hasn't been more and more uncertain about the past, the present, and the future. What's the past, the present, the future? Just words. And haven't I seen a little short man in a brown habit going into Sizyn Church carrying the box he's going to make Mass out of? But if I haven't, I haven't. But do you, Dick Oliphant, know the Moor as I know it? Have you watched it all times of day in all weathers as I have? Alone, mind you. Alone. That's what you've got to be. And that's what your master, Dick Oliphant, is the only one in the whole of this blessed place to be save myself. We're alike in that, him and I.'

The cars drove up the hill and stopped near the Church. It was a day of a pale lighted sky, warm in sunshine, the faint odorous chill of approaching autumn in the shadow. The line of sea stretched milk-white against the blue-white sky.

Out they all tumbled: Julius and Celia from one car, Mrs. Brennan, Dorothy, Gilbert, and Simon from another, Mr. and Mrs. Lamplough with Miss Vergil from a third, Mrs. Ironing, her brother Fred, and Mrs. Mark from a fourth, Phyllis Lock and her old mother from a fifth. After them came Oliphant, Curtis, and Jim Burke bearing baskets.

There was a great female chattering as of birds released from cages into the sunlight.

'Where is it to be?' 'There's a lovely spot to the right of the Church—there, where those stones are!' 'How charming of you, Mr. Cromwell, giving us this party. I do love a picnic above all things.'

The children ran ahead.

Julius Cromwell was led slowly forward by Oliphant.

'Now don't take your coat off, Alice. This time of the year it's most treacherous.'

Little Mrs. Lamplough, who had no intention of taking her coat off and knew exactly always what she intended to do, murmured to Phyllis: 'I do think it was very strange of Mr. Cromwell to engage that Burke boy. Everyone knows the things he did when he was with the Ironings. To be with someone who's blind must always have been his dearest wish.'

'He's very good-looking,' Phyllis said, with a sigh.

Mrs. Brennan was advancing, a splendid ship in full sail.

'It was so very good of you, Mrs. Cromwell, to invite us all—such a lot of us, but I'm sure you'll find the children no trouble. My husband, poor man, had to stay behind and write his sermon. This afternoon was his only chance.'

'I always think,' Celia said, 'that clergymen and doctors are the most unselfish and overworked people in the world.'

She didn't mean a word of it—she had been told that Mr. Brennan always read his sermons, choosing them from some clever other clergyman's clever book, so that she wondered that Mrs. Brennan should bother with so obvious a lie. Still it was no business of hers, nor did she care in the least. She was amazingly happy. Mrs. Brennan could tell as many lies as she liked.

They found a perfect site, almost under the Church wall and yet in the sunshine.

'I think,' said Celia, 'that we'll have lunch at once. It's almost one, and I know I'm fearfully hungry.'

'Oh yes! Oh yes!' everyone cried, all except Gabriel Lamplough, who began to wander away with a vague independence.

Celia thought that he was a very odd-looking man, so tall and thin, with a broken nose and eyes fierce and haughty.

They were all conscious of Julius. A blind man made an unexpected difference. There he was, his big body planted against the wall, his long legs stuck out, his blue eyes staring into space, his hands folded, saying nothing, but a queer secret little smile on his lips. Mrs. Mark was seated beside him.

'Did you come up here often when you were a boy?' she said. 'We came very seldom. My mother for some reason disliked the Moor. She forbade us to come here alone even when we were quite old.'

Julius turned his face toward her.

'I was always coming here. Catsholt was no distance. I loved this Church. You know the old story about the window?'

'No. I've forgotten ...'

'It's in one of Baring-Gould's books. When the Franciscan was sitting in the Church painting his design for the window a young gentleman came riding by. His name was Herries. He stopped and ate with the Franciscan, and then they found that the Monk's beloved donkey had been stolen. They knew who had stolen it and I'm afraid it was an ancestor of yours, Mrs. Mark. He was the big man of the place and lived at the House. One of his soldiers had stolen it, so young Mr. Herries, who was a bashful kind of boy, bravely went and faced the grand people at the House and demanded the donkey back. But your ancestor said it wasn't the Monk's donkey. Young Herries had been told that the donkey had her initials cut under her belly. The Monk had told him. And with that knowledge young Herries was able to prove that it was the Monk's donkey and bring it back to the Monk. And they say, if you're up very early in the morning, you can see the donkey waiting patiently for her master.'

'That's a very pretty story.'

'Yes, isn't it? Now tell me—is the House dreadfully changed? Have we ruined it?'

'Oh no, it's ever so much more beautiful than when we were there, although of course I don't like it nearly so much. In our day it was filled with odds and ends, old things that were of no use, but that nobody could bear to destroy.'

'It must have been an exciting moment the first time you saw it again.'

'Yes.' Her voice dropped. 'I stood in the door out of which my husband and I eloped. It was a wild stormy evening, but I remember there was one brilliant star shining between the clouds. Just before I left I met my brother Henry on the stairs, and he, thinking I was just going to the village, said: "You'll be late for dinner," which was an awful crime in those days. I said, "No, I won't. I shall hurry." I wanted to kiss him but didn't, and I ran out. I eloped because Philip and my mother didn't agree. They were both domineering people.'

'It seems to be,' he said, 'a house in which things happen.'

'Yes, I think it is.' She added quietly, 'I do hope, Mr. Cromwell, you'll be very happy there. Mrs. Cromwell is so charming. I like her already so very much.'

'Thank you. She likes you, too. You can be a good friend to her, Mrs. Mark, if you will. She's younger than her age in some ways. I want our marriage to be simply perfect!' He laughed. 'I suppose no marriage is that. But perhaps we'll be the exception.'

Mrs. Mark said: 'Mine was as near perfection, I think, as you could have. Philip grew finer and finer as he grew older, and we were companions in everything.'

'Yes,' Julius said. 'That's just it. You see, Mrs. Mark, I'm blind and fifteen years older than my wife. Do you think we can be companions in everything?'

'Yes—if you are both patient and both unselfish. Trouble often comes, I think, from trying to make someone you love the same as yourself. It's the differences between you that give life to the companionship. But I don't know. I'm only a looker-on now and, as a looker-on, I find I can't help anyone much. The world's so strange and young people want things to be right in such a hurry.'

The food was spread. Oliphant came over and touched his master on the shoulder and said: 'Luncheon is ready, sir!' Celia stood, waving her hand. 'Come on, everybody! Time for food!'

Even old Mr. Lamplough, standing like a stork against the pale horizon, heard her. He turned back slowly towards them.

Very possibly the last rich picnic in Great Britain. The Ichthyosaurus raises its scaly head above the slime, the naked Pict dances on his splay-toed feet, young Mr. Herries shifts his hand to his jewelled dagger and turns for a last look before he rides away, the psalm of the marching Ironsides comes faintly on the sea-breeze—and Phyllis Lock cries out: 'Oh! Galantine of chicken! I love galantine! Have some, May!' and Miss Vergil answers deeply: 'Doing very well, thank you, Phyllis.' Oliphant, Curtis, Jim Burke move about offering champagne, hock, cider-cup, ginger-beer. 'How pleasant,' the ladies think, 'to have a wealthy man living in Garth again! There are so many things he will be able to do.'

But, as the meal proceeds, they all feel a little queer—queer not from the food and drink. Oh no! But they are being fed by a blind man. Soon they will be accustomed to him, of course. But will they? Won't he always be outside their world, reminding them of more worlds than their own, worlds more dangerous, worlds leading to other worlds?...

Phyllis Lock couldn't take her eyes off him, and yet didn't wish to be seen looking at him. May Vergil's eyes were always on her, and May could be so very sarcastic and beastly! Moreover, she must think of her old mother, who, sunk into her old furs, her hat a little askew, her bony brown fingers clutching at the food, looked more like a monkey than many monkeys look.

Phyllis, the young child of her middle years, hissed at her: 'Do sit up straight, Ma, for heaven's sake do. Here! What is it you want? A piece of that pie? You'll never be able to eat it with those bad teeth of yours! There's Mr. Lamplough speaking to you.... Shake yourself together, for pity's sake.'

And to cover her daughterly embarrassment she began brightly: 'I was reading the other day about a picnic in a novel—just like this it was—sitting near the sea. Only they all began to quarrel. Such a funny novel—it had the Devil in it. Yes, really, I mean it. The Devil in modern clothes, and there was a man with a Punch and Judy. No. I don't remember its name, nor who it was by. I never remember the name of a book nor who it's by. I read so many.'

It was at this moment that Mrs. Brennan felt that she was being left out of it, and this feeling led, in the end, to unfortunate consequences. On so slender threads do human fortunes hang! Had Phyllis Lock attended, at that moment, to Daisy Brennan instead of to her old mother, the lives of several persons might have been different.

For Daisy Brennan was accustomed to worship. She was not getting it. Why? Because little Mrs. Cromwell, in her dark hat with the red feather, was dominating the scene. True, it was her party, but need May Vergil and Phyllis Lock and the Lamploughs and Fred Ironing all behave as though they had never seen a pretty woman in their lives before?

As a matter of record Daisy Brennan did not care at all for that childish, girlish figure, that excited laugh, that obvious courting of anybody's favour! Cheap! That was what Celia Cromwell was! No dignity! No sense of a married woman's proper behaviour!

How preposterous if now, just because she had money and laughed and chattered like a schoolgirl, Mrs. Cromwell were to take the lead in a district that had belonged for years to Mrs. Brennan! And, most unexpectedly, Daisy Brennan felt a hot suspicion of tears behind her eyelids when she thought of the shabby Rectory, and the trouble to meet the bills, and the expense of Gilbert at school—yes, and of Gilbert's very peculiar behaviour, for he had spent the day with those people at Rafiel and had never apologized but had rather shown a sulkiness.... Nor was her husband of the least use when she complained, but only laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

So she was angry and looked about her and saw that no one was paying her any attention, and from that moment she began to dislike Celia Cromwell very much indeed.

The Brennan children had eaten their fill. Simon, who was a realist, had eaten more than his fill, but he had a stomach that was his true friend, accommodating and adventurous like himself.

He was now absorbed by the food, not because he was greedy but because he always flung himself wholeheartedly into anything that at the moment he was doing. Short and sturdy, with his bullet-shaped head, large clear brown eyes, in his cricket-shirt and grey flannel shorts, sitting back on his haunches, staring, he was like some friendly self-possessed animal who had found the picnic by chance and was seeing human beings' food for the first time. His eyes took in everything: the big crusted pies, the egg-stuffed veal and ham, the pale marble-coloured galantine, the new crisp-crusted bread, the brilliantly yellow pats of butter with roses stamped on them, the sandwiches with sticks that had names on little flags—Foie gras, Chicken, Tongue, Smoked Salmon—the fresh curling lettuce with brilliant red stabs of beetroot against its green, the two giant trifles with red cherries and streaks of jam, the cut-glass bowl with the fresh fruit—melon, pineapple, peach, oranges, apples, floating in a sea of golden liquor—the round, wide-eyed box of preserved fruit, and, best of all, perhaps, a great cake with icing in the shape of a fortress with two red and blue soldiers—real wooden ones.

He stared and stared; then, as always, when he was absorbed, talked to himself aloud—and also to Dorothy.

'I wouldn't mind being sick if I could have everything once.' He was leaning right forward now, his chubby hands pressing on to his bare knees. 'Because perhaps never'—here there was a deep sigh—'never and never and never will it all be at one place again—will it, Dorothy?—not the same place. And no person could eat it all but he'd be sorry afterwards, wouldn't he?' Then, in a husky whisper, 'Won't they cut the cake? Do you think we'll all go away and they haven't cut the cake?'

'Hush, Simon, you mustn't be so greedy.'

He felt, as he so often felt, a deep disappointment in his strange and unpredictable elders. Living a life of his own that was altogether wise and completely satisfying, he could never understand the omissions, both in deed and thought, of grown-up people. They seemed to have no sense at all! For instance, they all sat round looking so silly and talking such nonsense and not apparently even wanting to try all those wonderful things. What did it matter if they were sick? (He was so thoroughly accustomed to that grown-up monition: 'No, Simon! Not another piece. You'll be sick if you do!') They would forget the sickness and have wonderful things to remember!

'It isn't greedy about the cake,' he said to Dorothy, but not turning his head away from the glorious sight. 'I just want to try!' Then he added disgustedly: 'What do they bring everything for if no one eats anything!'

At that moment Celia Cromwell jumped up, waved a knife and cried: 'Who's going to cut the cake?' He could scarcely believe his ears when she went on: 'You're the youngest, Simon! You must cut it! We'll do it together!'

Jim Burke brought her the cake. Simon knelt on the grass beside her and she guided his hand. She smelt of violets. He cut down into the cake with ferocity. He would show them! It was an enormous piece and was divided on a plate. Then he murmured, so that no one else could hear:

'Can I have a little soldier?'

He had been told again and again never to ask for anything, but when he wanted something he got it. 'Of course,' she said quite practically. She gave him the soldier and, miraculously, did not kiss him. From that moment he was her devoted slave.

'You mustn't let him bother you, dear Mrs. Cromwell.'

'Oh, he doesn't a bit.'

'Only a little piece for Simon.... No, darling, not that bit. It's too rich. You'll be sick.'

Mrs. Brennan began to explain the children, whom she had gathered around her, to Mrs. Mark.

'What I should do without my Dorothy I simply don't know! She's the little mother in the house. Yes, Gilbert goes to school in Polchester. You like school, don't you, Gilbert?'

'Yes, Mother.'

'He isn't very distinguished for anything yet—but he will be one day, won't he, Gilbert?'

Gilbert said nothing.

'My Anthony,' Mrs. Mark said, 'was quite uncertain until he went to Cambridge what he was going to do. We never dreamed it would be astronomy.'

'Oh, I'm afraid Gilbert will never be clever enough for that. Something much more ordinary.'

Dorothy, who hated it when grown-up people talked about them over their heads, was really watching Jim Burke.

The three children adored Jim Burke. When he had been in Garth before he had shown them every kind of thing. He had been like an elder brother to them. She was so very glad that he had come to Garth again. His immediate duties over, he was sitting away by himself against the Church wall doing something with a knife and a piece of wood. That was so very like him. He must always be at something. She watched his brown quick fingers moving. Every part of him was alive and the warm sun lit up his body with a kind of flame.

She heard her mother's voice. 'Yes, they're a nuisance sometimes, but who would be without them? No, Simon—not one of those fruits. Oh, you naughty boy! Well, only the one. No, please, Mrs. Cromwell, don't offer him another—What a wonderful spread! I'm sure I've eaten far too much.'

But now the meal was over and they must all do what they will: lie back against the wall with a handkerchief over his face like Mr. Lamplough, or sit smoking a great cigar and talking silly talk to Phyllis and Miss Vergil like Fred Ironing, or sit with a book like Mrs. Lamplough and watch, with bright restless eyes, over the book's innocent edge, or spread yourself out and sit, as on a throne, Queen of the Moor, waiting for humble people to come and talk to you, as Daisy Brennan does, or run off laughing with the three children, crying 'We'll explore, shall we?' as Celia Cromwell has done, or sit, motionless like a happy boy gazing at the sky for signs, like Julius, or crouch, whistling, making a pipe of Pan out of the clean white wood as Jim Burke is doing....

'Well, what do you think of him, Fred?' said May Vergil, smoking a little cheroot and watching Phyllis Lock. Fred Ironing was a big fat jolly man who must either kill some animal or kiss some woman if life were to have any kind of flavour.

'Him? Who?' he asked. He was always rather short with May Vergil, because it was one of his creeds that if a woman wasn't a woman she'd better take strychnine at once. And he had no interest in Phyllis Lock, because he had discovered that her policy with men was to tease rather than satisfy. But Celia Cromwell! By golly, there was a neat little woman with lovely legs! And a blind husband! What more could you ask?

'Who?... Why, Julius Cromwell, of course.'

'Well, I think it's very decent of him to give us all such a grand meal!'

'Oh, that, of course! No—idiot! What sort of a man do you think he is? Is he a fool, or isn't he?'

'I suppose he's like the rest of us—sometimes a fool, sometimes not such a fool. For instance, he's a fool for one thing because he's taken Jim Burke to work for him. I could have told him a thing or two about Jim Burke, but he didn't ask me. All he asked me was whether he was industrious. Industrious! I should say!' Fred Ironing grinned.

'Oh, you mean he's always after girls!'

'And some! However, that's Cromwell's affair. Only he must be a simple, trusting kind of chap.'

'Phyllis thinks he's Sir Galahad and St. Christopher rolled into one. Look at her! She's staring round the corner of her nose at him now!' May Vergil coughed but not kindly. Then she rose on to her knees and said very affectionately: 'Come for a stroll, Phil, old girl. Do you good.'

They strolled off together while Fred looked after them with cynical good-temper.

Mrs. Lamplough, seated beside her husband still lying with a handkerchief over his face, whispered without moving her eyes from her book: 'Phyllis Lock has fallen in love with Mr. Cromwell already. May Vergil's furious.'

When Celia returned with the children she went to her husband, sat down beside him, and caught his hand.

'Happy?' she asked. 'Julius, those are the sweetest children, especially the small one.'

'I expect they are.' He put his arm around her and drew her close to him, not caring who was there.

'Darling, I want to go into the Church. Shall we?'

'I'd love to.'

'I'd been waiting for the right moment. I've been waiting ever since I came to Garth.' He raised himself up, he stretched his arms, breathing in the air. 'Salt and sun and the grass. I put my ear to the ground just now and I could hear a million animals marching.'

He gave her again his broad strong hand and she helped to lift him until he stood on his feet.

'Aren't I a weight? The last time I was in that Church I was eighteen years of age and I went in with a girl whom I thought I'd fallen in love with. I sat and looked at the window and knew that I didn't love the girl a bit. Perhaps I shall have another revelation now!'

'Oh, I hope not!' Celia's cry had in it a fear.

'The difference, my pet, is that now I can't see the window—or I still see it as it was that day all those years ago. And there have been wars and rumours of wars ever since. And yet the window is the same. I bet it's the same.'

'Of course it's the same, you silly. It's been the same for hundreds of years.'

'I'm the only one of all of you that sees it the same. Your eyes change every time you see it. But you!—Of course, I was forgetting. You've never seen it at all yet!'

Celia looked around her. She wanted passionately that they two should go alone into the Church.

It was so. Mrs. Brennan was seated with her back to them, queening it with Phyllis, Miss Vergil, and Mrs. Lamplough. The Brennan children were with Jim Burke. No one observed them. She took his arm and they slipped round the corner, pushed their way through the little door, and sat down on one of the old benches.

The sun was shining fiercely behind the Hawthorn Window. The fierce white of the hawthorn blossom, the brilliant green of the grass, the purple that coloured the name of the Prior to whom the window was dedicated, burned brilliantly as though the old glass were beaten into the air that was sun-flamed. The little Church wrapped them round with friendliness. They sat close together, hand in hand.

'The sun is shining behind the window,' Celia said. 'It makes the colours very brilliant.'

'It was the first coloured window I ever saw,' Julius said. 'As a little boy my mother brought me the first time here. I thought the figures of the monk and the donkey were alive.'

'They are alive now. The donkey has silver bells.'

'It can never be spoiled for me again. Whatever the weather, however dark or cold it is, when the rain is thundering on the roof or there is sea-mist everywhere, it makes no difference. It will always be brilliant and burning and alive.'

He pressed her hand. 'I love you so dearly, Celia. Whatever may happen, never forget that. Nothing can change it. If ever you are troubled think of this moment. Remember it always. Darling, remember it. Never let it go.'

'I will. I will. I will always remember it. I love you, Julius, so deeply that I'm afraid. I think perhaps I haven't the character to love anyone so much. It's as though love of this kind had come to the wrong person. I don't deserve it.'

'We none of us deserve it. It's a gift, maybe, more than either of us can carry. We mustn't be cheated by lesser things.' He laughed. 'I was going to say "blinded."'

'Be patient with me, Julius. When we were married six months ago I thought it was all going to be so easy. I would look after you and we would love one another and everything would be lovely. But of course it's not going to be like that. I'll tell you something. When we were driving in the car that first day, just as we were passing this place I was suddenly terrified. I wanted to get out of the car and run.'

'Why?'

'I don't know. I think I saw myself clearly for the first time. I've been so rottenly brought up. Father was always abroad, and Mother never bothered about training me in anything. She only wanted me to be happy so that I wouldn't be a nuisance. I had everything far too early. Boys made love to me before I was fifteen. I was bored with sex before I was eighteen, bored with everything, really. Everyone said that religion was rot and that all anyone cared for was to have a good time, and that life was a take-in anyway, however good a time one had. Until I fell in love with you I was a complete waster. And now I'm beginning to see that I've got a job that I'm simply not up to.'

'Why?' he said, smiling at her. 'Am I so difficult?'

'No. Of course not. You're adorable. But you don't know what someone like me is capable of. And when one day you do know ... I seem to be about half a dozen different people and some of the half-dozen are really beastly. I've never been taught restraint or self-sacrifice. I'm greedy and vain and selfish. I ought never to have married you. It's a damned shame....'

He laughed.

'I'm not much to shout about either. I've been blind for twenty years and that's made me selfish and self-centred. I've always had as much money as I wanted, which in these days is a crime as bad as murder. I've always been waited on hand and foot. I've liked all sorts of women, some pretty rotten ones. I get very depressed sometimes and then I'm as cross as a bear. There are days when I think I'd be much better dead, just cumbering the ground. So you see, you'll have to put up with a lot....

'But the great thing is we love one another—really love one another. I know lots of other people have thought the same and it hasn't been true. But that's became they haven't been able to stand enough. They've been beaten half-way through. We won't be, will we?'

'No. Never. Nothing shall beat us.'

She stared at the window as though she were committing her oath to the Prior, the Monk, and the Donkey.

She laid the palm of her hand against his cheek. 'If I loved you less I wouldn't ever be frightened.'

The sun shone down hot on to the grass and the heads of Jim Burke and the three children. The children were absorbed, for Jim was cutting a head out of a piece of wood. There it was emerging as the fragments of white wood scattered through the air—the round head, the small ears, the wide blind eyes, the mouth smiling.

'He's blind like Mr. Cromwell,' Gilbert said. He could scarcely speak for excitement. This was what he wanted to do. Jim should show him.

'Can I have it afterwards?' Simon asked.

'Hush!' Dorothy said. 'You mustn't ask for things.'

'Why mustn't I?' Then he smiled mischievously. 'I've got this,' he said, showing the little red and blue soldier.

'Of course you can have it,' Jim Burke said. He was whistling. All his body, his bright eyes, his brown neck, his arms bare to the elbow, seemed to work with his hands.

Dorothy watched him and thought him wonderful. He could do anything and was always pleasant. He looked up for a moment at her and their eyes met.

'Now it's done! Now it's done!' Simon cried.

'No, it isn't. Wait a minute. I knew a man once could carve animals out of stone—rabbits and dogs and horses. He made a bird once. It was a yellowhammer and you could see it moving, against the gorse and such. It seemed to be all gold, but it wasn't really. There wasn't a spot of paint on it. Only he could make you fancy things, that man could!'

'Jim,' Gilbert asked again, almost below his breath, 'could you teach me to make things out of wood? I'd work and work——'

'Oh, I daresay. But you've got to have it in you.'

'I've got it in me! I've got it in me!' Simon cried out.

'That's just what I think you haven't. You want the things after they're done, not before. I know your sort.' Jim grinned. 'There. You can have it now! Yes. He's blind like Mr. Cromwell.'

Simon caught at it as though he were afraid lest someone should get it before him.

Jim took a long look at Dorothy.

'I'll do something for you much finer than that one day,' he said.

They were having tea.

Simon, although he had eaten so much at luncheon, could manage very easily scones with strawberry jam, saffron cake, and rock buns so new that they were still warm.

But there was a greater fascination for him than food. He could not take his eyes from Mr. Cromwell. That big man and yet not able to see anything! Did he feel like ordinary people? If you touched him was he just the same all over as everybody else?

Unknown almost to himself he crept nearer and nearer. No one noticed him. Everyone was talking, drinking tea, thinking 'This has been a nice day, this has!'

Simon had arrived. He put out his very grubby hand and laid it on Julius' knee.

Julius started. 'Hullo, who's that?'

'It's me,' Simon said.

Julius' big hand came down on Simon's little one.

'Well—what do you want?'

'A piece more of the sugar cake,' Simon said in a husky whisper, terrified of his mother, who was not far away. Julius' thigh was warm and strong and altogether reassuring. Julius put an arm around him.

'You're Simon?'

'Yes.'

'That's right. Enjoyed yourself?'

'Yes. Thank you.'

'Will you come and see me in my own home one day?'

'Yes, I will—if Mother lets me.'

'Why shouldn't she?'

'She says I'm not to bother.'

'Oh, you won't bother. I like little boys. How old are you?'

'Eight and twenty-six days.'

'It isn't too late for me to give you a birthday present.'

Simon was about to say: 'Look what Jim's given me.' But he suddenly remembered. Poor Mr. Cromwell couldn't see anything! A stray impulse of protectiveness commanded his heart. He felt exactly as he had felt a week ago when he had seen a small terrier at the farm that had broken its leg and lay, with helpless eyes, in a basket.

So, while he ate his cake, he clutched Julius' hand very hard.

Tea was over. They all prepared to go. Mrs. Ironing, of course, made the only tactless remark of the whole afternoon.

'Oh, Mr. Cromwell, I wish you could see! Then you'd know how happy we've all been!'

But Julius was delighted.