CHAPTER XXXVI

RUTH FACES THE STORM

That night as the Colonel sat on the loggia chewing his pipe, long after Mrs. Lewknor had retired, he was aware of a pillar of blackness, erect against the dull sea and star-lit sky, on the edge of the cliff, at the very spot where he had seen it on the night of the declaration of war.

Electric torch in hand, he stole out on the pair. Oblivious of all things save each other, they remained locked in each other's arms. He flashed the torch full in their faces.

"O, Joe!" came a familiar voice.

The Colonel was taken a-back.

"That you, Anne?" he muttered.

"Yes, sir," his parlour-maid answered. "Me and my Joe. He come up to say goodbye. Joining up to-morrow, he is."

The Colonel mumbled something about spies, and apologised.

"No harm done, sir," laughed Anne, quietly. "It's nothing to some of them. Turn their search-light full glare on you just when you don't want, and never a by-your-leave—same as they done war-night! If that's war, I says to Joe, better ha done with it afore you begin, I says."

The Colonel retired indoors, doubly humiliated: he had made a fool of himself before his own parlour-maid, and in his mind he had gravely wronged Ruth Caspar.

Next day he started off for Old Town to find out if there was any way by which he could make amends to his own conscience and, unknown to her, to the woman he had maligned.

She met him with kind eyes, a little wistful.

"We're all friends now, sir," she said, as she shook hands. "Got to be, I reckon."

If it is true, as is said to-day, that old men make wars and young men pay for them, it is also true that the mothers, wives, sisters, and sweethearts of the young men bear their share of the burthen.

Ruth was left with four children and a debt.

She faced the situation as hundreds of thousands of women up and down Europe in like case were doing at that moment—quiet, courageous, uncomplaining as an animal under the blows that Life, the inexplicable, rained upon her. One thought constantly recurred to her. In her first tragedy she had stood alone against the world. Now there were millions undergoing the same experience. And she derived from that thought comfort denied to others.

There were no complications about her economic situation.

That at least was very simple.

She owed several weeks' rent, had debts outstanding to the tune of several shillings—mostly boots for the children; and a little cash in coppers in hand.

Two nights after Ernie's departure, Alf came round for his back-rent. He came stealthily, Ruth noticed; and she knew why. Public opinion in the Moot, which might at any moment find explosive self-expression through the fists of Reuben Deadman, was against him. It was against all landlords. Ern moreover was still a hero in the eyes of the Moot and would remain so for several days yet; and Ruth received the consideration due to the wife of such.

Alf was dogged, with downcast eyes. There was no nonsense, no persiflage about him. He went straight to the point.

"I come for my money," he said.

Ruth rallied him maliciously.

"Money!" she cried, feigning surprise. "I thart it was accommodation you was a'ter."

"And I mean to have it," Alf continued sullenly.

"Even a landlord's got to live these times. I got to have it or you got to go. That's straight."

Ruth had her back to the wall.

"Ah, you must have that out with the Government," she said coolly. "It's got nothing to do with me."

"Government!" cried Alf sharply. "What's the Government got to do with it."

"They're passin some law to protect the women and children of them that's joined up," Ruth answered.

"Who said so?"

"The Colonel."

"Anyway it's not passed yet."

"No," retorted Ruth. "So you'd best wait till it is. Make you look a bit funny like to turn me out, and put some one else in, and then have to turn them out and put me back again, say in a fortnight, and all out o your own pocket. Not to talk o the bit of feeling, and them and me taking damages off o you as like as not, I should say."

That evening Ruth went up to see Mr. Pigott.

The Manager said he would pay her half Ern's wages while the war lasted; and he paid her the first instalment then and there.

"Will the Government do anything for the women and children sir?" she asked.

Mr. Pigott shook his grizzled head.

As the years went by he had an always diminishing faith in the power and will of Governments to right wrongs.

"The old chapel's the thing," he would say.

Ruth put the same question to Mr. Trupp whom she met on her way home to the Moot.

"They will if they're made to," the doctor answered, and as he saw the young woman's face fall, he added more sympathetically, "They're trying to do something locally. I don't know what'll come of it. Keep in touch with Mrs. Trupp. She'll let you know. I believe there's to be a meeting at the Town Hall."

He rolled on, grumbling and grousing to himself. Call ourselves a civilised country, and leave the women and children to take their luck! Chaos—as usual! ... Chaos backed and justified by cant! ... Would cant organise Society? ... Would cant feed the women and children? ... Would cant take the place of Scientific Method? ...

Ruth went home with her eleven shillings and sixpence and an aching heart, to find that little Alice had already arranged her brood in their bibs around the tea-table, and was only waiting for mother to come and tilt the kettle which she might not touch.

The other fledgelings hammered noisily on the table with their spoons.

"My dears," she said, as she went round the table, kissing the rosy faces uplifted to hers.

"What is it, Mum?" asked little Alice, who had something of her mother's quick sympathy and power of intuition. "Is daddy shotted at the war?"

"Not yet, my pretty," her mother answered. "It's only nothing you can understand. Now help me get the tea."

Next day brought a lawyer's letter giving her notice to quit.

That evening Ruth took the letter up to the Manor-house.

The maid told her Mr. and Mrs. Trupp had just started off to a meeting at the Town Hall.

"Something to do with the women and children, I believe," she added. "Prince o Wales's Fund or something."

Ruth turned down the steps disconsolate.

Just then she saw Joe Burt getting off the motor-bus opposite the Star. She had not seen him since he had come up on the evening of Ern's departure to give her the latest news of her husband. Now he came striding towards her, blowing into her life with the vigour of Kingsley's wild Nor'-easter. At the moment the politician was on top—she noted it with thankful heart.

"Coom on, ma lass!" he said. "You're the very one I'm after. We want you. We want em all. You got to coom along o me to this meeting."

"But I aren't got my hat, Joe!" pleaded Ruth, amused yet deprecating.

The engineer would take no excuses.

"Your children are worth more'n your hat, I reck'n," he said. "Coom on!—Coom on!—No time to be lost!"

And in a moment she was walking briskly at his side down the hill up which he had just come.

The strength, the resolution, the certainty of her companion swept all her clouds away and renewed her faith.

She told him of the notice she had received.

"All the better," he said. "Another trump for us to play. Don't you worrit. The Labour Party in Parliament's disappointed all its supporters so far, but it's going to justify itself at last. One thing. They can't trample on us this time, the Fats canna. We're too well organised."

They walked down the hill together.

At the stile opposite the Drill Hall where six months before she had rescued Ernie, drenched and dripping, from the police, they turned off into Saffrons Croft in the direction of the Town Hall.

Joe, as he trod the grass beneath his feet, became sombre, silent. The woman sweeping along at his side, her shawl about her head, felt his change of mood. The Other was coming to the top again—the One she feared. She was right. The Other it was who spoke surlily and growling, out of his deeps, like the voice of a yard-dog from his kennel.

"Well, what's it going to be?"

Her heart galloped but she met him gaily.

"What you mean, Joe?"

"You know what I mean," bearing down on her remorselessly.

She made a half halt.

"O Joe!"

"Aye, you may O Joe me! That wunna better it."

"And after what you promised him solemn that night and all."

He answered moodily.

"He forced me to it. Took advantage. Shouldn't ha done it. Springin it on me without a word. That's not the game."

Ruth turned on him.

"You're the one to talk, aren't you?" she said, flashing the corner of an eye at him. "Playing the game prarper, you are?"

He barged ahead, sullen as a bull and as obstinate.

"A don't know; and A don't care. A know what A want and A know A'm going to get it."

She met him light as a rapier thrust.

"I thart you was a man, Joe."

"Better'n a no-man anyway."

She stopped dead and faced him.

"Where's my no-man now then?" she cried. "And where are you?"

That time she had planted her dart home. He glared at her savage, sullen, and with lowered head.

"Thou doesna say A'm a coward?"

Slowly she answered,

"I'm none so sure.—Ern's my soldier, Ern is."

He gripped her arm.

"I'll go home," she said, curt as the cut of a whip.

He relaxed.

"Nay," he answered. "If we're to fight for your children yo mun help."

She threw off his arm with a gesture of easy dignity. Then they walked on again together down Saffrons Road towards the Town Hall.

CHAPTER XXXVII

MRS. LEWKNOR

The Town Hall was crowded.

The Mayor, who was in the chair, had spoken on behalf of the Prince of Wales's Fund and announced that subscriptions would be received by the Town Clerk.

Thereafter an indescribable orgie of patriotism had taken place. Red-necked men outbid fat women. The bids mounted; the bidders grew fiercer; the cheers waxed. And all the while a little group of Trade Unionists at the back of the hall kept up a dismal chaunt—

We don't want charity,
We won't have charity.

Then a little dapper figure in the blue of a chauffeur rose in the body of the hall.

"I'm only a workin chauffeur," he said, wagging his big head, "but I got a conscience, and I got a country. And I'm not ashamed of em eether. I can't do much bein only a worker as you might say. But I can do me bit. Put me down for fifty guineas, please, Mr. Town-clerk."

He sat down modestly amidst loud applause.

"Who's that?" whispered the Colonel on the platform.

"Trupp's chauffeur," the Archdeacon, who had a black patch over his eye, answered with a swagger—"my sidesman, Alfred Caspar. Not so bad for a working-man?" He cackled hilariously.

Then a voice from Lancashire, resonant and jarring, came burring across the hall.

"Mr. Chairman, are you aware that Alfred Caspar is turning his sister-in-law out of his house with four children."

Alf leapt to his feet.

"It's a lie!" he cried.

A big young woman sitting just in front of Joe rose on subdued wings. She was bare-headed, be-shawled, a dark Madonna of English village-life.

"Yes, you are, Alf," she said, and sat down quietly as she had risen.

There was a dramatic silence. Then the Archdeacon started to his feet and pointed with accusing claw like a witch-doctor smelling out a victim.

"I know that woman!" he cawed raucously.

A lady sitting in the front row just under the platform rose.

"So do I," she said.

It was Mrs. Trupp, and her voice, still and pure, fell on the heated air like a drop of delicious rain.

She sat down again.

The Archdeacon too had resumed his seat, very high and mighty; and Bobby Chislehurst was whispering in his ear from behind.

The Colonel had risen now, calm and courteous as always, in the suppressed excitement.

"Am I not right in thinking that Mrs. Caspar is the wife of an old Hammer-man who joined up at once on the declaration of war and is at this moment somewhere in France fighting our battles for us?"

The question was greeted with a storm of applause from the back of the hall.

"Good old Colonel!" some one called.

"Mr. Chairman, d'you mean to accept that man's cheque?" shouted Joe. "Yes or no?"

In the uproar that followed, Alf rose again, white and leering.

"I'd not have spoken if I'd known I was to be set upon like this afore em all for offering a bit of help to me country. As to my character and that, I believe I'm pretty well beknown for a patriot in Beachbourne."

"As to patriotism, old cock," called Joe, "didn't you sack your cleaners without notice on the declaration of war?"

"No, I didn't then!" shouted Alf with the exaggerated ferocity of the man who knows his only chance is to pose as righteously indignant.

The retort was greeted with a howl of Tip! There was a movement at the back of the hall; and suddenly an old man was lifted on the shoulders of the Trade Unionists there. Yellow, fang-less, creased, he looked, poised on high above the crowd against the white background of wall, something between a mummy and a monkey. As always he wore no tie; but he had donned a collar for the occasion, and this had sprung open and made two dingy ass-like ears on either side of his head.

"Did he sack you, Tip?" called Joe.

"Yes, he did," came the quivering old voice. "Turned us off at a day. Told us to go to the Bastille; and said he'd put the police on us."

The tremulous old voice made people turn their heads. They saw the strange figure lifted above them. Some tittered. The ripple of titters enraged the men at the back of the hall.

"See what you've made of him!" thundered Joe. "And then jeer! ... Shame!"

"Shame!" screamed a bitter man. "Do the Fats know shame?"

"Some of em do," said a quiet voice.

It was true too. Mrs. Trupp was looking pale and miserable in the front-row, so was the Colonel on the platform, Bobby Chislehurst and others. The titterers, indeed, howled into silence by the storm of indignation their action had aroused, wore themselves the accusing air of those who hope thereby to fix the blame for their mistake on others.

In the silence a baggy old gentleman rose in the body of the hall, slewed round with difficulty, and mooned above his spectacles at the strange idol seated on men's shoulders behind him.

"And He was lifted up," he said in a musing voice more to himself than to anybody else.

The phrase, audible to many, seemed to spread a silence about it as a stone dropped in a calm pond creates an ever-broadening ripple.

In the silence old Tip slid gently to the ground and was lost once more amid the crowd of those who had raised him for a brief moment into fleeting eminence.

The meeting broke up.

Outside the hall stood Mr. Trupp's car, Alf at the wheel: for the old surgeon's regular chauffeur had been called up.

Mrs. Trupp, coming down the steps, went up to Ruth who was standing on the pavement.

"So glad you spoke up, Ruth," she said, and pressed her hand.

"Come on!" said Mr. Trupp. "We'll give you a lift home, Ruth."

Alf was looking green. The two women got in, and the old surgeon followed them. He was grinning, Mrs. Trupp quietly malicious, and Ruth amused. The people on the pavement and streaming out of the hall saw and were caught by the humour of the situation, as their eyes and comments showed.

Then Colonel Lewknor made his way to the car.

"Just a word, Mrs. Caspar!" he said. "Things are squaring up. Mrs. Lewknor's taking the women and children in hand. Could you come and see her one morning at Under-cliff?"

The hostel that Mrs. Lewknor had built upon the cliff boomed from the start. It was full to over-flowing, winter and summer; and Eton was in sight for Toby when war was declared.

Then things changed apace.

Beachbourne, for at least a thousand years before William the Norman landed at Pevensey on his great adventure, had been looked on as the likeliest spot for enemy invasion from the Continent. Frenzied parents therefore wired for their children to be sent inland at once; others wrote charming letters cancelling rooms taken weeks before. In ten days the house was empty; and on the eleventh the mortgagee intimated his intention to fore-close.

It was a staggering blow.

The Colonel, with that uncannie cat-like intuition of his she knew so well, prowled in, looked at her with kind eyes, as she sat in her little room the fatal letter in her hand, and went out again.

Throughout it had been her scheme, not his, her responsibility, her success; and now it was her failure.

Then Mr. Trupp was shown in, looking most unmilitary in his uniform of a Colonel of the Royal Army Medical Corps.

"It's all right," he said gruffly. "I know. Morgan and Evans rang me up and told me. Unprofessional perhaps, but these are funny times. I let you in. You built the hostel at my request. I shall take over the mortgage."

"I couldn't let you," answered the little lady.

"You won't be asked," replied the other. "I ought to have done it from the start; but it wasn't very convenient then. It's all right now." The old man didn't say that the reason it was all right was because he was quietly convinced in his own mind that his boy Joe would need no provision now.

Just then the Colonel entered, looking self-conscious. He seemed to know all about it, as indeed he had every right to do, seeing that Mr. Trupp had informed him at length on the telephone half an hour before.

"You know who the mortgagee is?" he asked.

"Who?" said both at once.

The Colonel on tiptoe led them out into the hall, and showed them through a narrow window Alf sitting at his wheel, looking very funny.

"Our friend of the scene in the Town Hall yesterday," he whispered. "When I went to the bank yesterday to insure the house against bombardment, the clerk looked surprised and said—You know it's already insured. I said—Who by? He turned up a ledger and showed me the name."

Mr. Trupp got into his car, wrapping himself round with much circumstance.

"To Morgan and Evans," he said to Alf.

In the solicitors' office he produced his cheque-book.

"I've been seeing Mrs. Lewknor," he said. "I'll pay off your client now and take over the mortgage myself."

He wrote a cheque then and there, and made it out to Alfred Caspar, who was forthwith called in.

"I'm paying you off your mortgage, Alf," he said. "Give me a receipt, will you?"

Alf with the curious simplicity that often threw his cunning into relief signed the receipt quite unabashed and with evident relief.

"See, I need the money, sir," he said gravely, as he wiped the pen on his sleeve. "The Syndicate's let me in—O, you wouldn't believe! And I got to meet me creditors somehow."

"Well, you've got the money now," answered Mr. Trupp. "But I'm afraid you've made an enemy. And that seems to me a bit of a pity just now."

"Colonel Lewknor?" snorted Alf. "I ain't afraid o him!"

"I don't know," said Mr. Trupp. "It's the day of the soldier."

That evening, after the day's work, Alf was summoned to his employer's study.

Mrs. Trupp was leaving it as he entered.

"I've been thinking things over, Alfred," said the old man. "There's no particular reason why you shouldn't drive for me for the present if you like—until you're wanted out there. But I shall want you to destroy this."

He handed his chauffeur Ruth's notice to quit.

Alf tore the paper up without demur.

"That's all right, sir," he said cheerfully. "That was a mistake. I understood the Army Service Corps was taking over my garage; and I should want a roof over my head to sleep under."

He went back to his car.

Another moment, and the door of the Manor-house opened. Ruth emerged briskly and gave him a bright nod.

"Can't stop now, Alf," she said. "I'm off to see Mrs. Lewknor. See you again later."

"That's right," Alf answered. "She's on the committee for seeing to the married women ain't she?—them and their lawful children. Reverend Spink's on it too."

He stressed the epithet faintly.

A moment Ruth looked him austerely in the eyes. Then she turned up the hill with a nod. She understood. There was danger a-foot again.

The matter of the hostel settled, Mrs. Lewknor, before everything an Imperialist, and not of the too common platform kind, was free to serve. And she had not far to look for an opening.

The Mayor summoned a meeting in his parlour to consider the situation of the families of soldiers called to the colours.

Mrs. Lewknor was by common consent appointed honorary secretary of the Association formed; and was given by her committee a fairly free discretion to meet the immediate situation.

Nearly sixty, but still active as a cat, she set to work with a will.

Her sitting room at Undercliff she turned into an office. Her mornings she gave to interviewing applicants and her afternoons to visiting.

Ruth Caspar was one of the first to apply.

The little slight Jewish lady with her immense experience of life greeted the beautiful peasant woman who had never yet over-stepped the boundaries of Sussex with a brilliant smile.

"There's not much I want to know about you," she said. "We belong to the same regiment. Just one or two questions that I may fill up this form."

How many children had Mrs. Caspar.

"Three, 'M ... and a fourth."

Mrs. Lewknor waited.

"Little Alice," continued Ruth, downcast and pale beneath her swarthiness. "Before I were married."

Mrs. Lewknor wrote on apparently unconcerned.

She knew all about little Alice, had seen her once, and had recognised her at a glance as Royal's child, the child for which, with her passionate love for the regiment, she felt herself in part responsible. On the same occasion she had seen Ruth's other babies and their grandfather with them—that troubadour who forty years before had swept the harp of her life to sudden and elusive music.

"I think that'll be all right now, Ruth," she said with a re-assuring look. "I'm going to call you that now if I may. I'll come round and let you know directly I know myself."

Ruth retired with haunted eyes. She guessed rather than knew the forces that were gathering against her, and the strength of them.

Outside in the porch she met Lady Augusta with her mane of thick bobbed white hair and rosy face; and on the cliff, as she walked home, other ladies of the Committee and the Reverend Spink.

How hard they looked and how complacent! ...

Mrs. Lewknor put the case before her committee, telling them just as much as she thought it good for them to know.

There was of course the inevitable trouble about little Alice.

"We don't even know for certain that she is the child of the man the mother afterwards married," objected Lady Augusta Willcocks in her worst manner. "She mayn't be a soldier's child at all."

Mrs. Lewknor turned in her lips.

"Our business surely is to support the women and children while the men are away fighting our battles," she said.

"Need we form ourselves into a private enquiry office?" asked Mrs. Trupp quietly.

The old lady's eyes flashed. Mrs. Trupp of course didn't care. Mrs. Trupp never went to church. "Putting a premium on immorality!" she cried with bitter laughter—"as usual."

"We must look a little into character surely, Mrs. Lewknor," said a honied virgin from St. Michael's.

"I'll go bail for this woman's character," answered Mrs. Lewknor, flashing in her turn.

"I believe she is more respectable than she used to be," said a dull spinster with a dogged eye.

"Damn respectability," thought Mrs. Lewknor, but she said, "Are we to deprive this child of bread in the name of respectability? Whatever else she is she's a child of the Empire."

Then the Reverend Spink spoke. He and Lady Augusta Willcocks were there to represent the point of view of the Church.

He spoke quietly, his eyes down, and lips compressed, mock-meekly aware of the dramatic significance of his words.

"Perhaps I ought to tell the committee that the man this woman is now living with is not her husband."

The silence that greeted this announcement was all that the reverend gentleman could have desired. It was only broken by the loud triumphant cry of the Lady Augusta Willcocks.

"Then all four children are illegitimate!"

"Oh, that would be joyful!" cried Mrs. Lewknor with a little titter.

It was the great moment of the Reverend Spink's life.

"She married some yeahs ago," he continued, so well-pleased with the cumulative effect of the impression he was making, as even to venture an imitation of the Archdeacon's accent. "And her husband is still alive."

Mrs. Lewknor challenged swiftly.

"Where did she marry?" she asked, lest another question should be asked first: for the honour of the regiment was involved.

"At the Registrar's Office, Lewes."

"When?"

"September 14th, 1906."

The man had his story pat enough to be sure.

"Who told you?" asked Mrs. Lewknor aggressively.

Mr. Spink pursed his lips.

"I have it on reliable information."

"I know your authority, I think," said Mrs. Trupp quietly.

"Did you check it?" asked Mrs. Lewknor.

"It was unnecessary," replied the curate insolently. "I can trust my authority. But if you doubt me you can check it yourself."

"I shall of course," retorted the little lady.

Then the Chairman interposed.

"It looks like a case for the police," he said.

"Certainly," Lady Augusta rapped out.

"It's very serious," said the Chairman.

"For somebody," retorted Mrs. Lewknor.

By common consent the case was adjourned.

The Reverend Spink retired to Old Town.

The fierce hostility of Mrs. Lewknor, and the no less formidable resistance of Mrs. Trupp, made the curate uneasy.

After dark he went round to Alf Caspar's garage.

"You're sure of your facts?" he asked.

"Dead cert," said Alf. "Drove em there meself."

"And the date?"

"Marked it down at the time, sir.... I can show it you in me ledger. Always make a note of me engagements. You never know when it mayn't come in handy."

He went down to his office, followed by the curate, and was proceeding to take a bulky folio down from the shelf, when the telephone bell rang.

It was Mr. Trupp to say the car would be wanted at four to-morrow afternoon.

"Is it a long run, sir?" asked Alf.

"No," came the answer. "Lewes—Mrs. Trupp."

Alf determined to send a man and not drive himself.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

SUSPENSE

Ruth walked home across the golf links, at her heart the agony of the beaten vixen who, crawling across a ploughed field still far from her earth, glances round to see a white wave of hounds breaking over the fence at her brush.

At Billing's Corner she nearly ran into her mother-in-law.

For the first time Anne paused deliberately to address her.

"That you, Mrs. Caspar?" she said, and looked away a sour smirk on her face. At the moment, beautiful old woman though she was, with her porcelain complexion of a girl, her snow-white hair, and broad-splashed dark brows, there was a suggestion of Alf about her—Ruth noticed it at once and was afraid.

"They're puttin away all the chance children the mothers can't support in there," the elder woman said casually, nodding at the blue roofs of the old cavalry barracks at the back of Rectory Walk that was now the Work-house. "To save expense, I suppose—the war or something. If you didn't want yours to go I might take my son's children off your hands. Then you could go out and char for her."

Ruth sickened.

"No, thank-you, Mrs. Caspar," she said.

Just then a nurse came by pushing a wicker spinal chair in which were a host of red-cloaked babies packed tight as fledgelings in a nest. Behind them trooped, two by two and with clattering heels, a score of elder children from the Work-house, all in the same straw hats, the same little capes. Ruth glanced at them as she had often done before. Those children, she remarked with ironic bitterness, were well-soaped, wonderfully so, well-groomed, well-fed, with short hogged hair, and stout boots; but she noted about them all, in spite of their apparent material prosperity, the air of spiritual discontent which is the hallmark, all the world over, of children who know nothing of a mother's jealous and discriminating care.

"The not-wanteds," said Anne. "They'll put yours along with them, I suppose."

Ruth shook. Then she lifted up her eyes and saw help coming. Old Mr. Caspar was bundling down the road towards her, crowding on all sail and waving his umbrella as though to tell her that he had seen her mute S.O.S.

Anne drew away.

"There's my husband," she said.

"Yes," answered Ruth, "that's dad," and walked away down Church Street, trembling still but faintly relieved that she had planted her pin in the heart of her enemy before disengaging.

She reached home and turned the key behind her. That vague enemy, named They, who haunts each one of us through life, was hard on her heels. She was in her earth at last; but They could dig her out. Before now she had seen them do it on Windhover, with halloos, the men and women standing round with long-lashed cruel whips to prevent escape. She had seen them throw the wriggling vixen to the pack ... and the worry ... and the huntsman standing amid a foam of leaping hounds, screaming horribly and brandishing above his head a bloody rag that a few minutes since had been a warm and breathing creature. Horrible—but true ... That was the world. She knew it of old; and could almost have thanked that hard old woman with eyes the blue of steel who had just reminded her of what They and life were compact.

Then she noted there was silence in the house.

What if in her absence They had kidnapped her child—little Alice, born in agony of flesh and spirit, so different from those other babies, the heirs of ease and security; little Alice, the child for whom she had fought and suffered and endured alone. It was her They were after: Ruth never doubted that. She had seen it in Lady Augusta's eyes, as she passed her in the porch of the hostel; in the downward glances of those other members of the committee she had met upon the cliff; in the voice and bearing of her mother-in-law.

She rushed upstairs.

Alice, busiest of little mothers, had tucked the other three away in bed a little before their time because she wanted to do it all alone and without her mother's help. Now she was turning down her own bed. Her aim successfully achieved she was free to bestow on her mother a happy smile.

Ruth swept her up in her arms, and bore her away into her own room, devouring her with passionate eyes.

"You shall sleep along o me place o daddy," she said, and kissed her hungrily.

"What about Susie and Jenny, mum?" asked the child.

"We'll leave the door open so we can hear," answered Ruth, remarking even then the child's thoughtfulness. "See, daddy wants you to take care o mother."

Alice gave a quick nod of understanding.

Next morning Ruth refused to let her go to school with the others, would not let her leave the house.

"You'll stay along with me," she said, fierce for once.

At eleven o'clock there came a knock. Ruth hustled the child out into the backyard, shoved her into the coal-shed, turned the key on her, and locked the backdoor. Then she went very quietly not to the front-door but to the window, opening it a crack with the utmost stealth. Kneeling she listened. Whoever was at the door was very quiet, not a man. If it had been he would have spat by now, or sworn.

"Who is it? she asked.

"Mrs. Lewknor," came the reply.

Ruth opened. The little lady entered, and followed into the kitchen.

"Is it all right, 'M?" asked Ruth anxiously.

"It's going to be," replied the other, firm and confident. "You've got your marriage-certificate if we should want it?"

Ruth sighed her relief.

"O yes, 'M. I got my lines all right. They're in the tin box under the bed." She was running upstairs to fetch them when the other stayed her.

"There's just one thing," said Mrs. Lewknor gravely. "It would help Mrs. Trupp and me very much, if you could give us some sort of idea where you were on September 14th, 1906—if you can throw your mind back all that great way."

"I was with him!" Ruth answered in a flash. She was fighting for her best-beloved: everything must be sacrificed to save her—even Royal. "It was the day!" she panted. "It were the first time ever I was in a car—that's one why I remember: Alf drove us."

"D'you happen to remember at all where you went?" tentatively.

"All wheres," Ruth answered. "Hailsham—Heathfield. I hardly rithely knaws the names. We'd tea at Lewes—I remembers that."

Mrs. Lewknor raised her keen eyes.

"You don't remember where you had tea?"

Ruth shook her head, slowly.

"I can't justly remember where. See Lewes is such a tarrabul great city these days—nigh as big as Beachbourne, I reck'n. It was over the Registrar's for births and deaths and such like—I remember that along o the plate at the door."

Mrs. Lewknor rose, her fine eyes sparkling.

"That's splendid, Ruth!" she said. "All I wanted."

All that afternoon Ruth waited behind locked doors—she did not know what for; she only knew that They were prowling about watching their chance. She had drawn the curtains across the windows though the sun was still high in the heaven, and sat in the darkness, longing for Ernie as she never would have believed she could have longed for him. Every now and then little Alice came in a tip-toe from the backyard to visit her. The child thought her mother had one of her rare head-aches, and was solicitous accordingly.

About three o'clock Ruth crept upstairs and peeped through her window. It was as she had thought. Alf was there, strolling up and down the pavement opposite, watching the house. Then he saw her, half-hidden though she was, crossed the street briskly and knocked.

She went down at once to give him battle.

He met her with his sly smile, insolently sure of himself.

"Police come yet?" he asked.

She banged the door in his face; and the bang brought her strange relief. With mocking knuckles he rapped on the window on to the street as he withdrew.

After that nobody came but the children back from school. Ruth packed them off to bed early. She wanted to be alone with little Alice.

In the kitchen she waited on in the dark.

Then she heard solid familiar feet tramping down the pavement towards her cottage. She knew whose feet they were, and knew their errand. The hour of decision had come. One way or the other it must be.

In the confusion and uncertainty only one thing was clear to her. There was a way—and a price to be paid; if she took it.

Joe knocked.

Ruth slipped to her knees. She did not pray consciously. Kneeling on the stone-slabs, her face uplifted in the darkness, her hands pale on the Windsor chair before her, she opened wide the portals of her heart to the voice of the Spirit, if such voice there were.

And there was. It came to her from above in the silence and the dusk. Ruth knew it so well, that still small voice with the gurgle in it.

It was Susie laughing in her sleep.

CHAPTER XXXIX

THE VALLEY OF DECISION

The answer she had sought had been given her. Comforted and strengthened she rose, went to the door and unlocked it. Joe had strolled a yard or two down the street. She did not call him, but retired to await him in the kitchen, leaving the door a-jar.

In a few minutes his feet approached slowly. She heard him brush his boots in the passage, and turn the key of the outer door behind him. Then he entered.

An immense change had been wrought in him since last they had met. The bull-moose of Saffrons Croft had given place to a man, humbled, solemn, quiet, the heir of ages of self-discipline and the amassed spiritual treasure of a world-old civilisation.

He stood afar off, with downward eyes. Then he held out both arms to her.

"Ruth, A've come to claim thee—or say good-bye."

She gripped the mantelpiece but did not answer. Her head was down, her eyes closed.

"Then it's goodbye, Joe," she said in a voice so small that she hardly recognised it herself.

He dropped his hands, darkening.

"And who'll keep thee and children now Ern's gone?"

A note of harshness had crept into his voice.

She murmured something about the Government.

He laughed at her hardly.

"The Government! What's Government ever done for the workers? They make wars: the workers pay for em. That law's old as the capitalist system. What did Government do for women and children time o South Africa?—Left em to the mercy o God and the ruling class. If your children are to trust for bread to the Government, heaven help em!"

Ruth knew that it was true. She remembered South Africa. In those days there had been a neighbour of theirs at Aldwoldston, the wife of a ploughman, a woman with six children, whose husband had been called up. Ruth had only been a girl then; but she remembered that woman, and that woman's children, and her home, and that woman's face.

"There's the ladies," she said feebly.

Joe jeered.

"You know the ladies. So do I. Might as lief look for help to the Church straight off."

"There's One Above."

"Aye, there's One Above. And He stays there too and don't fash Himself over them below—not over you and me and our class any road."

His tone that had been mocking became suddenly serious.

"Nay, there's nobbut one thing now atween you and them and Work-house."

She peeped, faintly inquisitive.

"What's that?"

"The arm of a Lancasheer lad."

There came into her eyes the tenderness tinged with irony of the woman amused at the eternal egoism of the male. He noted the change in her, thought she had relaxed, and came in upon her, instantly, appealing now—

"Coom and live with me, brother and sister, the lot of you ... A swear to thee a wunna touch thee."

She laughed at him, low and tender.

"Never do, Joe—never!" shaking her head and swallowing.

"Why not then?"

"There's far over much nature in us—two valiant great chaps like you and me be."

Then little Alice entered and went to Joe, who put a sheltering arm about her.

"Her and me and you!" he said huskily to Ruth. "Us three against the world! Laugh at em then!"

Ruth motioned to the child to go on up to bed. She went; and the two striving creatures were left alone once more.

"Ern bequeathed thee to me."

"Aye, but he didn't rithely knaw you, and he didn't rithely knaw me eether."

He caught at the straw.

"Then you do loov me?"

She shook her head, and the tears from her long lashes starred her cheek.

"Nay, Joe: Ern's my man—always was and always will be."

He stood before her, firm on his feet, and solid as a rock, his fists clenched, his eyes on her, brilliant, dark, and kindly. She felt the thrill of him, his solidity, his sincerity, above all his strength, and thrilled to him again.

"A'm the mon for thee," he said.

She did not answer. In her ears was the roar of cataracts.

"Thoo dursena say me nay."

The words came from far off, from another world. Wavering like a flame in the wind, she heard but could make no reply.

"Thoo canna."

Then a voice spoke through her, a voice that was not hers, coming from far away over waste seas, a voice she had never heard before and did not recognise.

"I can—Lord Jesus helpin me."

At that the mists began to float away. She saw more clearly now. The worst perhaps was over.

"You want a mon with a purpose in his life."

Ah, how well he knew her!

"A mon who knows what he wants to do and means to do it.—And you must have it or dee. The bairns arena enough for a woman like you."

He was putting forth the whole of his huge strength to overwhelm her: she was aware of it and of her own weakness.

"A've got a purpose. You can help me fulfill it—none else, only you. Time was A thought A could go on alone. You learnt me better. A canna. God didna make mon that way—not this mon any gate. Mon needs Woman for his work. A need you."

Quietly she was gathering her forces.

"Ern's my man, Joe," she repeated. "I need him; and none other."

Baffled for the moment, her assailant paused in his assault.

"And has Ern got a purpose in his life?"

"He has now."

"What's that then?"

"What you said at the Citadel that Sunday—the war, and what it stands for."

"The war won't last for ever. What when that's over?"

"He'll come back a made man."

He regarded her with a kind of sardonic pity.

"He'll never coom back—never."

She lifted her eyes to his, steadfast and tender.

"Hap he'll not, Joe. If so be he doosn't, I shan't grudge him. A soldier in a soldier's grave. Liefer that than he should linger here now. He's such a battler, Ern is. That's why I love him."

He took the blows she dealt him, unflinching.

"You don't loov, Ern."

"I'm learning to."

His lips curled in scorn.

"You don't know what loov is. See here!—This is loov." He tapped his outspread palm, as often when lecturing.

"Ern's ma familiar friend—has been for years. He trusts me—look at what he did that last night. And sitha! A'm a mon men do trust. That's ma reputation—earned too. A never sold a pal yet, big or little. And now—A'll betray ma own mate behind his back; ma mate that's gone fightin ma battles in the cause for which A've lived twenty years; ma mate that trusts me—and all for the sake of loov." The great fellow was trembling himself now. "Am A a rotter?—You know A'm none. Am A a mon? You know A am. The measure o ma sin is the measure o ma loov. Judge for yourself."

He was battening down the furnace behind steel-doors; but she could hear the roar of the flames.

"That's loov. A'll lose all to win all; and A've more than most to lose. A'll lose ma life to save ma soul—and that's you. Are you for it?—Was a time A thought nowt o women: now A think o nought but the One Woman.... Now then!—Take it or leave it!—Choose your path!—Will you throw a loov like that away—the loov of a mon—for what?—A chap you don't trust, a chap you can't respect, a chap who's let you and the children down and will again, a chap you're never like to see again—a feeble feckless sot, and son of a sot—"

She put both hands to her ears. He wrenched them fiercely aside and held them. She stood before him, her hands imprisoned in his, her eyes shut, on her face the look of one awaiting the blows about to rain down in her defencelessness.

"I may ha doubted him once, Joe. But I knaw him better now. May he forgive me—and you too; all the wrong I done you both. I knaw him, and myself, better than I did a while back. And now he's won me, I'll never loose him, never."

She spoke with a passion which convinced even that stubborn lover.

He drew back, and she knew from the sound of his breathing that she had beaten him.

"Then you was playin wi me?"

He brooded over her, sullen and smouldering.

She put out her hands to him with something of the appeal of a child.

"Hap a while back when you called me so strong I did answer you—more'n I should—not knawin you cared so much, Joe. And may be I thart if Ernie saw there was anudder man around hap it'd ginger him jealous and help us along. I was fighting for my home ... and my children ... and for him, Joe.... And when a woman's fighting..."

She broke off and gasped.

He met her remorselessly.

"Then yo've chosen ... It's goodbye."

She laid her hands upon his shoulders.

"But not like that.—Kiss me, Joe."

She lifted her face.

Slowly he dropped his hands upon her arms.

And as they stood thus, entwined, the window opened quickly from outside, the curtains parted, and a voice low at first and rising to a horrible scream shrilled,

"Caught em at it!—Mr. Spink.—Come and see

CHAPTER XL

VICTORY AND REVENGE

In the fury of his excitement Alf thrust his head and shoulders far into the room.

"Got you this time!" he screamed to Joe, his face distorted with hate. "Mr. Spink!" he cried to somebody who must have been near by.

The engineer made a grab at him and seized him by the head.

"Got you, ye mean!" he bellowed and jerked the other bodily into the room. "Ah, ye dirty spyin tyke!—I'll learn you!"

He heaved his enemy from his knees to his feet and closed with him. The struggle was that of a parrot in the clutch of a tiger.

Joe carried his enemy to the door and slung him out head first. Alf brought up with a bang against a big car which had just drawn up outside.

A little lady sat in it.

"Will you get out of my way, please?" she said coldly to the man sprawling on his hands and knees in the dust at her feet, as she proceeded to descend.

The prostrate man raised his eyes and blinked. The lady passed him by as she might have passed a dead puppy lying in the road.

Joe crossed the path and examined with a certain detached interest, the door of the car against which Alf's head had crashed.

"Why, yo've made quite a dent in your nice car," he said. "Pity." And he walked away down the street after Mr. Spink who was retiring discreetly round the corner.

Mrs. Lewknor entered the cottage.

Ruth was sitting in the kitchen, her hands in her lap, dazed.

The lady went over to her.

"It's all right, Ruth," she said gently in the other's ear.

Slowly Ruth recovered and poured the tale of the last twenty-four hours into the ear of her friend. It was the cruelty of her mother-in-law more than anything else that troubled her: for it was to her significant of the attitude of the world.

"That's her!" she said. "And that's them!—and that's how it is!"

Mrs. Lewknor comforted her; but Ruth refused to be comforted.

"Ah, you don't know em," she said. "But I been through it, me and little Alice. See I'm alone again now Ernie's gone. And so they got me. And they know it and take advantage—and Mrs. Caspar, that sly and cruel, she leads em on."

"I think perhaps she's not as bad as she likes to make herself out," Mrs. Lewknor answered.

She opened her bag, took out a letter, and put it in Ruth's hand. It was from Anne Caspar, angular as the writer in phrase alike and penmanship, and in the pseudo-business vein of the daughter of the Ealing tobacconist.

Dear Madam,—If your Committee can help Mrs. Caspar in the Moot, board for herself and four children, I will pay rent of same.

Yours faithfully,
        Anne Caspar.

Later just as twilight began to fall Ruth went up to Rectory Walk. Anne was standing on the patch of lawn in front of the little house amid her tobacco plants, sweet-scented in the dusk, a shawl drawn tight about her gaunt shoulders.

Ruth halted on the path outside.

"I do thank you, Mrs. Caspar," she said, deep and quivering.

The elder woman did not look at her, did not invite her in. She tugged at the ends of her shawl and sniffed the evening with her peculiar smirk.

"Must have a roof over them, I suppose," she said. "Even in war-time."

The visit of Mrs. Trupp and Mrs. Lewknor to the Registrar at Lewes had proved entirely satisfactory. No marriage had taken place on the day in question, so examination disclosed. Mrs. Lewknor reported as much to her husband on her return home that evening.

The Colonel grinned the grin of an ogre about to take his evening meal of well-cooked children.

"We must twist Master Alf's tail," he said; "and not forget we owe him one ourselves."

At the next Committee meeting, which the Colonel attended, there was heavy fighting between the Army and the Church; and after it even graver trouble between Alf and the Reverend Spink.

"It's not only my reputation," cried the indignant curate. "It's the credit of the Church you've shaken."

"I know nothing only the facts," retorted Alf doggedly—"if they're any good to you. I drove them there meself—14th September, 1906, four o'clock of a Saturday afternoon and a bit foggy like. You can see it in the entry-book for yourself. They went into the Registrar's office single, and they walked out double, half-an-hour later. I see em myself, and you can't get away from the facts of your eyes, not even a clergyman can't."

Alf was additionally embittered because he felt that the curate had left him disgracefully in the lurch in the incident of the Moot. The Reverend Spink on his side—somewhat dubious in his heart of the part he had played on the fringe of that affair—felt that by taking the strong and righteous line now he was vindicating himself in his own eyes at least for any short-comings then.

"I shall report the whole thing to the Archdeacon," he said. "It's a scandal. He'll deal with you."

"Report it then!" snapped Alf. "If the Church don't want me, neether don't I want the Church."

The war was killing the Archdeacon, as Mr. Trupp had said it must.

The flames of his indomitable energy were devouring the old gentleman for all the world to see. He was going down to his grave, as he would have wished, to the roll of drums and roar of artillery.

Thus when the Reverend Spink went up to the Rectory to report on the delinquencies of the sidesman, he found his chief in bed and obviously spent.

The old gentleman made a pathetic figure attempting to maintain his dignity in a night-gown obviously too small for him, which served to emphasize his failing mortality.

His face was ghastly save for a faint dis-colouration about one eye; but he was playing his part royally still. His bitterest enemy must have admired his courage; his severest critic might have wept, so pitiful was the old man's make-believe.

On a table at his side were all the pathetic little properties that made the man. There was his snuff-box; there the filigree chain; a scent-bottle; a rosary; a missal. On his bed was the silver-mounted ebony cane; and beneath his pillow, artfully concealed to show, the butt-end of his pistol.

Over his head was the photograph of a man whom the curate recognised instantly as Sir Edward Carson; and beneath the photograph was an illuminated text which on closer scrutiny turned out to be the Solemn League and Covenant.

Facing the great Unionist Leader on the opposite wall was the Emperor of the French. The likeness between the two famous Imperialists was curiously marked; and they seemed aware of it, staring across the room at each other over the body of their prostrate admirer with intimacy, understanding, mutual admiration. Almost you expected them to wink at each other—a knowing wink.

Mr. Spink now told his chief the whole story as it affected Alf. Much of it the Archdeacon had already heard from his wife.

"I'd better see him," he now said grimly.

And the Archdeacon was not the only one who wanted to see Alf just then. That afternoon, just as he was starting out with the car, he was called up on the telephone.

The Director of Recruiting wished to see him at the Town Hall—to-morrow—11 a.m., sharp. The voice was peremptory and somehow familiar. Alf was perturbed. What was up now?

"Who is the Director of Recruiting here?" he asked Mr. Trupp a few minutes later.

"Colonel Lewknor," the old surgeon answered. "Just appointed. All you young men of military age come under him now."

Alf winced.

The Colonel's office was in the Town Hall, and one of the first men to come and sign on there was Joe Burt.

The Colonel, as he took in the engineer, saw at once that the hurricane which was devastating the world had wrought its will upon this man too. The Joe Burt he had originally known four years ago stood before him once again, surly, shy, and twinkling.

"Good luck to you," said the Colonel as they shook hands. "And try to be an honest man. You were meant to be, you know."

"A'm as honest as soom and honester than most, A reckon," the engineer answered dogged as a badgered schoolboy.

The Colonel essayed to look austere.

"You'd better go before you get into worse trouble," he said.

Joe went out, grinning.

"Ah, A'm not the only one," he mumbled.

Outside in the passage he met Alf, and paused amazed.

"You goin to enlist!" he roared. "Never!" and marched on, his laughter rollicking down the corridor like a huge wind.

Alf entered the Colonel's office delicately: he had reasons of his own to fear everything that wore khaki.

The Colonel sat at his desk like a death's head, a trail of faded medal-ribands running across his khaki chest.

He was thin, spectral, almost cadaverous. But his voice was gentle, as always; his manner as always, most courteous. Nothing could be more remote from the truculence of the Army manner of tradition.

He was the spider talking to the fly.

"I'm afraid this is a very serious matter, Mr. Caspar," he began; and it was a favourite opening of his. "It seems you've been taking away the character of the wife of a member of His Majesty's forces now in France..."

The interview lasted some time, and it was the Colonel who did the talking.

"And now I won't detain you further, Mr. Caspar," he said at the end. "My clerk in the next room will take all your particulars for our index card register, so that we needn't bother you again when conscription comes."

"Conscription!" cried Alf, changing colour.

"Yes," replied the Colonel. "There's been no public announcement yet. But there's no reason you shouldn't know it's coming. It's got to."

Alf went out as a man goes to execution. He returned to his now almost deserted garage to find there a note from the Archdeacon asking him to be good enough to call at the Rectory that afternoon.

Alf stood at the window and looked out with dull eyes. Now that the earth which three weeks since had felt so solid beneath his feet was crumbling away beneath him, he needed the backing of the Church more than ever; and for all his brave words to Mr. Spink, he was determined not to relinquish his position in it without a fight.

That afternoon he walked slowly up the hill to the Rectory.

Outside the white gate he stood in the road under the sycamore trees, gathering courage to make the plunge.

If was five o'clock.

A man got off the bus at Billing's Corner and came down the road towards him. Alf was aware of him, but did not at first see who he was.

"Not gone yet then?" said the man.

"No," Alf answered. "Got about as far as you—and that ain't very far."

"I'm on the way," answered Joe. "Going up to the camp in Summerdown now; and join up this evening."

"Ah," said Alf. "I'll believe it when I see it."

Swag on back, Joe tramped sturdily on towards the Downs.

Alf watched him. Then a gate clicked; and Edward Caspar came blundering down the road. Alf in his loneliness was drawn towards him.

"Good evening, father," he said.

The old gentleman blinked vaguely through his spectacles, and answered most courteously,