Part 39 (1/2)

”I'll buy a copy,” said the Boy, as Pigeon blushed wrathfully. ”I must, to see how the Dove lost his mounted company.” He unfolded the flapping sheet and we crowded round it.

”'_Complete Rout of the Guard,_'” he read. ”'_Too Narrow a Front._' That's one for you, Vee! '_Attack Antic.i.p.ated by Mr. Levitt, B. A._' Aha! '_The Schools Stand Fast._'”

”Here's another version,” said Kyd, waving a tinted sheet. ”'_To your tents, O Israel! The Hebrew Schools stop the Mounted Troops._' Pij, were you scuppered by Jewboys?”

”'_Umpires Decide all Four Guns Lost,_'” Bayley went on. ”By Jove, there'll have to be an inquiry into this regrettable incident, Vee!”

”I'll never try to amuse the kids again,” said the baited Verschoyle.

”Children and newspapers are low things.... And I was. .h.i.t on the nose by a wad, too! They oughtn't to be allowed blank ammunition!”

So we leaned against the railings in the warm twilight haze while the battalion, silently as a shadow, formed up behind us ready to be taken over. The heat, the hum of the great city, as it might have been the hum of a camped army, the creaking of the belts, and the well-known faces bent above them, brought back to me the memory of another evening, years ago, when Verschoyle and I waited for news of guns missing in no sham fight.

”A regular Sanna's Post, isn't it?” I said at last. ”D'you remember, Vee-- by the market-square--that night when the wagons went out?”

Then it came upon me, with no horror, but a certain mild wonder, that we had waited, Vee and I, that night for the body of Boy Bayley; and that Vee himself had died of typhoid in the spring of 1902. The rustling of the papers continued, but Bayley, s.h.i.+fting slightly, revealed to me the three- day old wound on his left side that had soaked the ground about him. I saw Pigeon fling up a helpless arm as to guard himself against a spatter of shrapnel, and Luttrell with a foolish tight-lipped smile lurched over all in one jointless piece. Only old Vee's honest face held steady for awhile against the darkness that had swallowed up the battalion behind us. Then his jaw dropped and the face stiffened, so that a fly made bold to explore the puffed and scornful nostril.

I waked brus.h.i.+ng a fly from my nose, and saw the Club waiter set out the evening papers on the table.

”THEY”

THE RETURN OF THE CHILDREN

Neither the harps nor the crowns amused, nor the cherubs' dove-winged races-- Holding hands forlornly the Children wandered beneath the Dome; Plucking the radiant robes of the pa.s.sers by, and with pitiful faces Begging what Princes and Powers refused:--”Ah, please will you let us go home?”

Over the jewelled floor, nigh weeping, ran to them Mary the Mother, Kneeled and caressed and made promise with kisses, and drew them along to the gateway-- Yea, the all-iron unbribable Door which Peter must guard and none other.

Straightway She took the Keys from his keeping, and opened and freed them straightway.

Then to Her Son, Who had seen and smiled, She said: ”On the night that I bore Thee What didst Thou care for a love beyond mine or a heaven that was not my arm?

Didst Thou push from the nipple O Child, to hear the angels adore Thee?

When we two lay in the breath of the kine?” And He said:--”Thou hast done no harm.”

So through the Void the Children ran homeward merrily hand in hand, Looking neither to left nor right where the breathless Heavens stood still; And the Guards of the Void resheathed their swords, for they heard the Command.

”Shall I that have suffered the children to come to me hold them against their will?”

”THEY”

One view called me to another; one hill top to its fellow, half across the county, and since I could answer at no more trouble than the snapping forward of a lever, I let the country flow under my wheels. The orchid- studded flats of the East gave way to the thyme, ilex, and grey gra.s.s of the Downs; these again to the rich cornland and fig-trees of the lower coast, where you carry the beat of the tide on your left hand for fifteen level miles; and when at last I turned inland through a huddle of rounded hills and woods I had run myself clean out of my known marks. Beyond that precise hamlet which stands G.o.dmother to the capital of the United States, I found hidden villages where bees, the only things awake, boomed in eighty-foot lindens that overhung grey Norman churches; miraculous brooks diving under stone bridges built for heavier traffic than would ever vex them again; t.i.the-barns larger than their churches, and an old smithy that cried out aloud how it had once been a hall of the Knights of the Temple.

Gipsies I found on a common where the gorse, bracken, and heath fought it out together up a mile of Roman road; and a little farther on I disturbed a red fox rolling dog-fas.h.i.+on in the naked sunlight.

As the wooded hills closed about me I stood up in the car to take the bearings of that great Down whose ringed head is a landmark for fifty miles across the low countries. I judged that the lie of the country would bring me across some westward running road that went to his feet, but I did not allow for the confusing veils of the woods. A quick turn plunged me first into a green cutting brimful of liquid suns.h.i.+ne, next into a gloomy tunnel where last year's dead leaves whispered and scuffled about my tyres. The strong hazel stuff meeting overhead had not been cut for a couple of generations at least, nor had any axe helped the moss-cankered oak and beech to spring above them. Here the road changed frankly into a carpetted ride on whose brown velvet spent primrose-clumps showed like jade, and a few sickly, white-stalked bluebells nodded together. As the slope favoured I shut off the power and slid over the whirled leaves, expecting every moment to meet a keeper; but I only heard a jay, far off, arguing against the silence under the twilight of the trees.

Still the track descended. I was on the point of reversing and working my way back on the second speed ere I ended in some swamp, when I saw suns.h.i.+ne through the tangle ahead and lifted the brake.

It was down again at once. As the light beat across my face my fore-wheels took the turf of a great still lawn from which sprang hors.e.m.e.n ten feet high with levelled lances, monstrous peac.o.c.ks, and sleek round-headed maids of honour--blue, black, and glistening--all of clipped yew. Across the lawn--the marshalled woods besieged it on three sides--stood an ancient house of lichened and weather-worn stone, with mullioned windows and roofs of rose-red tile. It was flanked by semi-circular walls, also rose-red, that closed the lawn on the fourth side, and at their feet a box hedge grew man-high. There were doves on the roof about the slim brick chimneys, and I caught a glimpse of an octagonal dove-house behind the screening wall.