JOHN SHERMAN AND DHOYA  GANCONAGH  JOHN SHERMAN  AND  DHOYA  SECOND EDITION  LONDON T .  FISHER UNWIN  PATERNOSTER SQUARE  M DCCC XCI  GANCONAGH’S APOLOGY .  The maker of these stories has been told that he must not bring them to you himself .  He has asked me to pretend that I am the author .  I am an old little Irish spirit , and I sit in the hedges and watch the world go by .  I see the boys going to market driving donkeys with creels of turf , and the girls carrying baskets of apples .  Sometimes I call to some pretty face , and we chat a little in the shadow , the apple basket before us , for , as my faithful historian O’Kearney has put it in his now yellow manuscript , I care for nothing in the world but love and idleness .  Will not you , too , sit down under the shade of the bushes while I read you the stories ?  The first I do not care for because it deals with dull persons and the world’s affairs , but the second has to do with my own people .  If my voice at whiles grows distant and dreamy when I talk of the world’s affairs , remember that I have seen all from my hole in the hedge .  I hear continually the songs of my own people who dance upon the hill-side , and am content .  I have never carried apples or driven turf myself , or if I did it was only in a dream .  Nor do my kind use any of man’s belongings except the little black pipes which the farmers find now and then when they are turning the sods over with a plough .  GANCONAGH .  PART I .  JOHN SHERMAN LEAVES BALLAH .  I .  In the west of Ireland , on the 9th of December , in the town of Ballah , in the Imperial Hotel there was a single guest , clerical and youthful .  With the exception of a stray commercial traveller , who stopped once for a night , there had been nobody for a whole month but this guest , and now he was thinking of going away .  The town , full enough in summer of trout and salmon fishers , slept all winter like the bears .  On the evening of the 9th of December , in the coffee-room of the Imperial Hotel , there was nobody but this guest .  The guest was irritated .  It had rained all day , and now that it was clearing up night had almost fallen .  He had packed his portmanteau : his stockings , his clothes-brush , his razor , his dress shoes were each in their corner , and now he had nothing to do .  He had tried the paper that was lying on the table .  He did not agree with its politics .  The waiter was playing an accordion in a little room over the stairs .  The guest’s irritation increased , for the more he thought about it the more he perceived that the accordion was badly played .  There was a piano in the coffee-room ; he sat down at it and played the tune correctly , as loudly as possible .  The waiter took no notice .  He did not know that he was being played for .  He was wholly absorbed in his own playing , and besides he was old , obstinate , and deaf .  The guest could stand it no longer .  He rang for the waiter , and then , remembering that he did not need anything , went out before he came .  He went through Martin’s Street , and Peter’s Lane , and turned down by the burnt house at the corner of the fish-market , picking his way towards the bridge .  The town was dripping , but the rain was almost over .  The large drops fell seldomer and seldomer into the puddles .  It was the hour of ducks .  Three or four had squeezed themselves under a gate , and were now splashing about in the gutter of the main street .  There was scarcely any one abroad .  Once or twice a countryman went by in yellow gaiters covered with mud and looked at the guest .  Once an old woman with a basket of clothes , recognizing the Protestant curate’s locum tenens , made a low curtsey .  The clouds gradually drifted away , the twilight deepened and the stars came out .  The guest , having bought some cigarettes , had spread his waterproof on the parapet of the bridge and was now leaning his elbows upon it , looking at the river and feeling at last quite tranquil .  His meditations , he repeated , to himself , were plated with silver by the stars .  The water slid noiselessly , and one or two of the larger stars made little roadways of fire into the darkness .  The light from a distant casement made also its roadway .  Once or twice a fish leaped .  Along the banks were the vague shadows of houses , seeming like phantoms gathering to drink .  Yes ; he felt now quite contented with the world .  Amidst his enjoyment of the shadows and the river — a veritable festival of silence — was mixed pleasantly the knowledge that , as he leant there with the light of a neighbouring gas-jet , flickering faintly on his refined form and nervous face and glancing from the little medal of some Anglican order that hung upon his watch-guard , he must have seemed — if there had been any to witness — a being of a different kind to the inhabitants — at once rough and conventional — of this half-deserted town .  Between these two feelings the unworldly and the worldly tossed a leaping wave of perfect enjoyment .  How pleasantly conscious of his own identity it made him when he thought how he and not those whose birthright it was , felt most the beauty of these shadows and this river ?  To him who had read much , seen operas and plays , known religious experiences , and written verse to a waterfall in Switzerland , and not to those who dwelt upon its borders for their whole lives , did this river raise a tumult of images and wonders .  What meaning it had for them he could not imagine .  Some meaning surely it must have !  As he gazed out into the darkness , spinning a web of thoughts from himself to the river , from the river to himself , he saw , with a corner of his eye , a spot of red light moving in the air at the other end of the bridge .  He turned towards it .  It came closer and closer , there appearing behind it the while a man and a cigar .  The man carried in one hand a mass of fishing-line covered with hooks , and in the other a tin porringer full of bait .  “ Good evening , Howard .  ”  “ Good evening , ” answered the guest , taking his elbows off the parapet and looking in a preoccupied way at the man with the hooks .  It was only gradually he remembered that he was in Ballah among the barbarians , for his mind had strayed from the last evening gnats , making circles on the water beneath , to the devil’s song against “ the little spirits ” in “ Mefistofele .  ” Looking down at the stone parapet he considered a moment and then burst out —  “ Sherman , how do you stand this place — you who have thoughts above mere eating and sleeping and are not always grinding at the stubble mill ?  Here everybody lives in the eighteenth century — the squalid century .  Well , I am going to-morrow , you know .  Thank Heaven , I am done with your grey streets and grey minds !  The curate must come home , sick or well .  I have a religious essay to write , and besides I should die .  Think of that old fellow at the corner there , our most important parishioner .  There are no more hairs on his head than thoughts in his skull .  To merely look at him is to rob life of its dignity .  Then there is nothing in the shops but school-books and Sunday-school prizes .  Excellent , no doubt , for any one who has not had to read as many as I have .  Such a choir !  such rain !  ”  “ You need some occupation peculiar to the place , ” said the other , baiting his hooks with worms out of the little porringer .  “ I catch eels .  You should set some night-lines too .  You bait them with worms in this way , and put them among the weeds at the edge of the river .  In the morning you find an eel or two , if you have good fortune , turning round and round and making the weeds sway .  I shall catch a great many after this rain .  ”  “ What a suggestion !  Do you mean to stay here , ” said Howard , “ till your mind rots like our most important parishioner’s ?  ”  “ No , no !  To be quite frank with you , ” replied the other , “ I have some good looks and shall try to turn them to account by going away from here pretty soon and trying to persuade some girl with money to fall in love with me .  I shall not be altogether a bad match , you see , because after she has made me a little prosperous my uncle will die and make me much more so .  I wish to be able always to remain a lounger .  Yes , I shall marry money .  My mother has set her heart on it , and I am not , you see , the kind of person who falls in love inconveniently .  For the present — — ”  “ You are vegetating , ” interrupted the other .  “ No , I am seeing the world .  In your big towns a man finds his minority and knows nothing outside its border .  He knows only the people like himself .  But here one chats with the whole world in a day’s walk , for every man one meets is a class .  The knowledge I am picking up may be useful to me when I enter the great cities and their ignorance .  But I have lines to set .  Come with me .  I would ask you home , but you and my mother , you know , do not get on well .  ”  “ I could not live with any one I did not believe in , ” said Howard ; “ you are so different from me .  You can live with mere facts , and that is why , I suppose , your schemes are so mercenary .  Before this beautiful river , these stars , these great purple shadows , do you not feel like an insect in a flower ?  As for me , I also have planned my future .  Not too near or too far from a great city I see myself in a cottage with diamond panes , sitting by the fire .  There are books everywhere and etchings on the wall ; on the table is a manuscript essay on some religious matter .  Perhaps I shall marry some day .  Probably not , for I shall ask so much .  Certainly I shall not marry for money , for I hold the directness and sincerity of the nature to be its compass .  If we once break it the world grows trackless .  ”  “ Good-bye , ” said Sherman , briskly ; “ I have baited the last hook .  Your schemes suit you , but a sluggish fellow like me , poor devil , who wishes to lounge through the world , would find them expensive .  ”  They parted ; Sherman to set his lines and Howard to his hotel in high spirits , for it seemed to him he had been eloquent .  The billiard-room , which opened on the street , was lighted up .  A few young men came round to play sometimes .  He went in , for among these provincial youths he felt recherché ; besides , he was a really good player .  As he came in one of the players missed and swore .  Howard reproved him with a look .  He joined the play for a time , and then catching sight through a distant door of the hotel-keeper’s wife putting a kettle on the hob he hurried off , and , drawing a chair to the fire , began one of those long gossips about everybody’s affairs peculiar to the cloth .  As Sherman , having set his lines , returned home , he passed a tobacconist’s — a sweet-shop and tobacconist’s in one — the only shop in town , except public-houses , that remained open .  The tobacconist was standing in his door , and , recognizing one who dealt consistently with a rival at the other end of the town , muttered : “ There goes that gluggerabunthaun and Jack o’ Dreams ; been fishing most likely .  Ugh !  ” Sherman paused for a moment as he repassed the bridge and looked at the water , on which now a new-risen and crescent moon was shining dimly .  How full of memories it was to him !  what playmates and boyish adventures did it not bring to mind !  To him it seemed to say , “ Stay near to me , ” as to Howard it had said , “ Go yonder , to those other joys and other sceneries I have told you of .  ” It bade him who loved stay still and dream , and gave flying feet to him who imagined .  II .  The house where Sherman and his mother lived was one of those bare houses so common in country towns .  Their dashed fronts mounting above empty pavements have a kind of dignity in their utilitarianism .  They seem to say , “ Fashion has not made us , nor ever do its caprices pass our sand-cleaned doorsteps .  ” On every basement window is the same dingy wire blind ; on every door the same brass knocker .  Custom everywhere !  “ So much the longer , ” the blinds seem to say , “ have eyes glanced through us ” ; and the knockers to murmur , “ And fingers lifted us .  ”  No. 15 , Stephens’ Row , was in no manner peculiar among its twenty fellows .  The chairs in the drawing-room facing the street were of heavy mahogany with horsehair cushions worn at the corners .  On the round table was somebody’s commentary on the New Testament laid like the spokes of a wheel on a table-cover of American oilcloth with stamped Japanese figures half worn away .  The room was seldom used , for Mrs. Sherman was solitary because silent .  In this room the dressmaker sat twice a year , and here the rector’s wife used every month or so to drink a cup of tea .  It was quite clean .  There was not a fly-mark on the mirror , and all summer the fern in the grate was constantly changed .  Behind this room and overlooking the garden was the parlour , where cane-bottomed chairs took the place of mahogany .  Sherman had lived here with his mother all his life , and their old servant hardly remembered having lived anywhere else ; and soon she would absolutely cease to remember the world she knew before she saw the four walls of this house , for every day she forgot something fresh .  The son was almost thirty , the mother fifty , and the servant near seventy .  Every year they had two hundred pounds among them , and once a year the son got a new suit of clothes and went into the drawing-room to look at himself in the mirror .  On the morning of the 20th of December Mrs. Sherman was down before her son .  A spare , delicate-featured woman , with somewhat thin lips tightly closed as with silent people , and eyes at once gentle and distrustful , tempering the hardness of the lips .  She helped the servant to set the table , and then , for her old-fashioned ideas would not allow her to rest , began to knit , often interrupting her knitting to go into the kitchen or to listen at the foot of the stairs .  At last , hearing a sound upstairs , she put the eggs down to boil , muttering the while , and began again to knit .  When her son appeared she received him with a smile .  “ Late again , mother , ” he said .  “ The young should sleep , ” she answered , for to her he seemed still a boy .  She had finished her breakfast some time before the young man , and because it would have appeared very wrong to her to leave the table , she sat on knitting behind the tea-urn : an industry the benefit of which was felt by many poor children — almost the only neighbours she had a good word for .  “ Mother , ” said the young man , presently , “ your friend the locum tenens is off to-morrow .  ”  “ A good riddance .  ”  “ Why are you so hard on him ?  He talked intelligently when here , I thought , ” answered her son .  “ I do not like his theology , ” she replied , “ nor his way of running about and flirting with this body and that body , nor his way of chattering while he buttons and unbuttons his gloves .  ”  “ You forget he is a man of the great world , and has about him a manner that must seem strange to us .  ”  “ Oh , he might do very well , ” she answered , “ for one of those Carton girls at the rectory .  ”  “ That eldest girl is a good girl , ” replied her son .  “ She looks down on us all , and thinks herself intellectual , ” she went on .  “ I remember when girls were content with their Catechism and their Bibles and a little practice at the piano , maybe , for an accomplishment .  What does any one want more ?  It is all pride .  ”  “ You used to like her as a child , ” said the young man .  “ I like all children .  ”  Sherman having finished his breakfast , took a book of travels in one hand and a trowel in the other and went out into the garden .  Having looked under the parlour window for the first tulip shoots , he went down to the further end and began covering some sea-kale for forcing .  He had not been long at work when the servant brought him a letter .  There was a stone roller at one side of the grass plot .  He sat down upon it , and taking the letter between his finger and thumb began looking at it with an air that said : “ Well !  I know what you mean .  ” He remained long thus without opening it , the book lying beside him on the roller .  The garden — the letter — the book !  You have there the three symbols of his life .  Every morning he worked in that garden among the sights and sounds of nature .  Month by month he planted and hoed and dug there .  In the middle he had set a hedge that divided the garden in two .  Above the hedge were flowers ; below it , vegetables .  At the furthest end from the house , lapping broken masonry full of wallflowers , the river said , month after month to all upon its banks , “ Hush !  ” He dined at two with perfect regularity , and in the afternoon went out to shoot or walk .  At twilight he set night-lines .  Later on he read .  He had not many books — a Shakespeare , Mungo Park’s travels , a few two-shilling novels , “ Percy’s Reliques , ” and a volume on etiquette .  He seldom varied his occupations .  He had no profession .  The town talked of it .  They said : “ He lives upon his mother , ” and were very angry .  They never let him see this , however , for it was generally understood he would be a dangerous fellow to rouse ; but there was an uncle from whom Sherman had expectations who sometimes wrote remonstrating .  Mrs. Sherman resented these letters , for she was afraid of her son going away to seek his fortune — perhaps even in America .  Now this matter preyed somewhat on Sherman .  For three years or so he had been trying to make his mind up and come to some decision .  Sometimes when reading he would start and press his lips together and knit his brows for a moment .  It will now be seen why the garden , the book , and the letter were the three symbols of his life , summing up as they did his love of out-of-door doings , his meditations , his anxieties .  His life in the garden had granted serenity to his forehead , the reading of his few books had filled his eyes with reverie , and the feeling that he was not quite a good citizen had given a slight and occasional trembling to his lips .  He opened the letter .  Its contents were what he had long expected .  His uncle offered to take him into his office .  He laid it spread out before him — a foot on each margin , right and left — and looked at it , turning the matter over and over in his mind .  Would he go ?  would he stay ?  He did not like the idea much .  The lounger in him did not enjoy the thought of London .  Gradually his mind wandered away into scheming — infinite scheming — what he would do if he went , what he would do if he did not go .  A beetle , attracted by the faint sunlight , had crawled out of his hole .  It saw the paper and crept on to it , the better to catch the sunlight .  Sherman saw the beetle but his mind was not occupied with it .  “ Shall I tell Mary Carton ?  ” he was thinking .  Mary had long been his adviser and friend .  She was , indeed , everybody’s adviser .  Yes , he would ask her what to do .  Then again he thought — no , he would decide for himself .  The beetle began to move .  “ If it goes off the paper by the top I will ask her — if by the bottom I will not .  ”  The beetle went off by the top .  He got up with an air of decision and went into the tool-house and began sorting seeds and picking out the light ones , sometimes stopping to watch a spider ; for he knew he must wait till the afternoon to see Mary Carton .  The tool-house was a favourite place with him .  He often read there and watched the spiders in the corners .  At dinner he was preoccupied .  “ Mother , ” he said , “ would you much mind if we went away from this ?  ”  “ I have often told you , ” she answered , “ I do not like one place better than another .  I like them all equally little .  ”  After dinner he went again into the tool-house .  This time he did not sort seeds — only watched the spiders .  III .  Towards evening he went out .  The pale sunshine of winter flickered on his path .  The wind blew the straws about .  He grew more and more melancholy .  A dog of his acquaintance was chasing rabbits in a field .  He had never been known to catch one , and since his youth had never seen one for he was almost wholly blind .  They were his form of the eternal chimera .  The dog left the field and followed with a friendly sniff .  They came together to the rectory .  Mary Carton was not in .  There was a children’s practice in the school-house .  They went thither .  A child of four or five with a swelling on its face was sitting under a wall opposite the school door , waiting to make faces at the Protestant children as they came out .  Catching sight of the dog she seemed to debate in her mind whether to throw a stone at it or call it to her .  She threw the stone and made it run .  In after times he remembered all these things as though they were of importance .  He opened the latched green door and went in .  About twenty children were singing in shrill voices standing in a row at the further end .  At the harmonium he recognized Mary Carton , who nodded to him and went on with her playing .  The white-washed walls were covered with glazed prints of animals ; at the further end was a large map of Europe ; by a fire at the near end was a table with the remains of tea .  This tea was an idea of Mary’s .  They had tea and cake first , afterwards the singing .  The floor was covered with crumbs .  The fire was burning brightly .  Sherman sat down beside it .  A child with a great deal of oil in her hair was sitting on the end of a form at the other side .  “ Look , ” she whispered , “ I have been sent away .  At any rate they are further from the fire .  They have to be near the harmonium .  I would not sing .  Do you like hymns ?  I don’t .  Will you have a cup of tea ?  I can make it quite well .  See , I did not spill a drop .  Have you enough milk ?  ” It was a cup full of milk — children’s tea .  “ Look , there is a mouse carrying away a crumb .  Hush !  ”  They sat there , the child watching the mouse , Sherman pondering on his letter , until the music ceased and the children came tramping down the room .  The mouse having fled , Sherman’s self-appointed hostess got up with a sigh and went out with the others .  Mary Carton closed the harmonium and came towards Sherman .  Her face and all her movements showed a gentle decision of character .  Her glance was serene , her features regular , her figure at the same time ample and beautifully moulded ; her dress plain yet not without a certain air of distinction .  In a different society she would have had many suitors .  But she was of a type that in country towns does not get married at all .  Its beauty is too lacking in pink and white , its nature in that small assertiveness admired for character by the uninstructed .  Elsewhere she would have known her own beauty — as it is right that all the beautiful should — and have learnt how to display it , to add gesture to her calm and more of mirth and smiles to her grave cheerfulness .  As it was , her manner was much older than herself .  She sat down by Sherman with the air of an old friend .  They had long been accustomed to consult together on every matter .  They were such good friends they had never fallen in love with each other .  Perfect love and perfect friendship are indeed incompatible ; for the one is a battlefield where shadows war beside the combatants , and the other a placid country where Consultation has her dwelling .  These two were such good friends that the most gossiping townspeople had given them up with a sigh .  The doctor’s wife , a faded beauty and devoted romance reader , said one day , as they passed , “ They are such cold creatures .  ” The old maid who kept the Berlin-wool shop remarked , “ They are not of the marrying sort , ” and now their comings and goings were no longer noticed .  Nothing had ever come to break in on their quiet companionship and give obscurity as a dwelling-place for the needed illusions .  Had one been weak and the other strong , one plain and the other handsome , one guide and the other guided , one wise and the other foolish , love might have found them out in a moment , for love is based on inequality as friendship is on equality .  “ John , ” said Mary Carton , warming her hands at the fire , “ I have had a troublesome day .  Did you come to help me teach the children to sing ?  It was good of you : you were just too late .  ”  “ No , ” he answered , “ I have come to be your pupil .  I am always your pupil .  ”  “ Yes , and a most disobedient one .  ”  “ Well , advise me this time at any rate .  My uncle has written , offering me £ 100 a year to begin with in his London office .  Am I to go ?  ”  “ You know quite well my answer , ” she said .  “ Indeed I do not .  Why should I go ?  I am contented here .  I am now making my garden ready for spring .  Later on there will be trout fishing and saunters by the edge of the river in the evening when the bats are flickering about .  In July there will be races .  I enjoy the bustle .  I enjoy life here .  When anything annoys me I keep away from it , that is all .  You know I am always busy .  I have occupation and friends and am quite contented .  ”  “ It is a great loss to many of us , but you must go , John , ” she said .  “ For you know you will be old some day , and perhaps when the vitality of youth is gone you will feel that your life is empty and find that you are too old to change it ; and you will give up , perhaps , trying to be happy and likeable and become as the rest are .  I think I can see you , ” she said , with a laugh , “ a hypochondriac , like Gorman , the retired excise officer , or with a red nose like Dr. Stephens , or growing like Peters , the elderly cattle merchant , who starves his horse .  ”  “ They were bad material to begin with , ” he answered , “ and besides , I cannot take my mother away with me at her age , and I cannot leave her alone .  ”  “ What annoyance it may be , ” she answered , “ will soon be forgotten .  You will be able to give her many more comforts .  We women — we all like to be dressed well and have pleasant rooms to sit in , and a young man at your age should not be idle .  You must go away from this little backward place .  We shall miss you , but you are clever and must go and work with other men and have your talents admitted .  ”  “ How emulous you would have me .  Perhaps I shall be well-to-do some day ; meanwhile I only wish to stay here with my friends .  ”  She went over to the window and looked out with her face turned from him .  The evening light cast a long shadow behind her on the floor .  After some moments , she said , “ I see people ploughing on the slope of the hill .  There are people working on a house to the right .  Everywhere there are people busy , ” and , with a slight tremble in her voice , she added , “ and , John , nowhere are there any doing what they wish .  One has to think of so many things — of duty and God .  ”  “ Mary , I didn’t know you were so religious .  ”  Coming towards him with a smile , she said , “ No more did I , perhaps .  But sometimes the self in one is very strong .  One has to think a great deal and reason with it .  Yet I try hard to lose myself in things about me .  These children now — I often lie awake thinking about them .  That child who was talking to you is often on my mind .  I do not know what will happen to her .  She makes me unhappy .  I am afraid she is not a good child at all .  I am afraid she is not taught well at home .  I try hard to be gentle and patient with her .  I am a little displeased with myself to-day ; so I have lectured you .  There !  I have made my confession .  But , ” she added , taking one of his hands in both hers and reddening , “ you must go away .  You must not be idle .  You will gain everything .  ”  As she stood there with bright eyes , the light of evening about her , Sherman for perhaps the first time saw how beautiful she was , and was flattered by her interest .  For the first time also her presence did not make him at peace with the world .  “ Will you be an obedient pupil ?  ”  “ You know so much more than I do , ” he answered , “ and are so much wiser .  I will write to my uncle and agree to his offer .  ”  “ Now you must go home , ” she said .  “ You must not keep your mother waiting for her tea .  There !  I have raked the fire out .  We must not forget to lock the door behind us .  ”  As they stood on the doorstep the wind blew a whirl of dead leaves about them .  “ They are my old thoughts , ” he said ; “ see , they are all withered .  ”  They walked together silently .  At the vicarage he left her and went homeward .  The deserted flour store at the corner of two roads , the house that had been burnt hollow ten years before and still lifted its blackened beams , the straggling and leafless fruit-trees rising above garden walls , the church where he was christened — these foster-mothers of his infancy seemed to nod and shake their heads over him .  “ Mother , ” he said , hurriedly entering the room , “ we are going to London .  ”  “ As you wish .  I always knew you would be a rolling stone , ” she answered , and went out to tell the servant that as soon as she had finished the week’s washing they must pack up everything , for they were going to London .  “ Yes , we must pack up , ” said the old peasant ; she did not stop peeling the onion in her hand — she had not comprehended .  In the middle of the night she suddenly started up in bed with a pale face and a prayer to the Virgin whose image hung over her head — she had now comprehended .  IV .  On January the 5th about two in the afternoon , Sherman sat on the deck of the steamer Lavinia enjoying a period of sunshine between two showers .  The steamer Lavinia was a cattle boat .  It had been his wish to travel by some more expensive route , but his mother , with her old-fashioned ideas of duty , would not hear of it , and now , as he foresaw , was extremely uncomfortable below , while he , who was a good sailor , was pretty happy on deck , and would have been quite so if the pigs would only tire of their continual squealing .  With the exception of a very dirty old woman sitting by a crate of geese , all the passengers but himself were below .  This old woman made the journey monthly with geese for the Liverpool market .  Sherman was dreaming .  He began to feel very desolate , and commenced a letter to Mary Carton in his notebook to state this fact .  He was a laborious and unpractised writer , and found it helped him to make a pencil copy .  Sometimes he stopped and watched the puffin sleeping on the waves .  Each one of them had its head tucked in in a somewhat different way .  “ That is because their characters are different , ” he thought .  Gradually he began to notice a great many corks floating by , one after the other .  The old woman saw them too , and said , waking out of a half sleep —  “ Misther John Sherman , we will be in the Mersey before evening .  Why are ye goin’ among them savages in London , Misther John ?  Why don’t ye stay among your own people — for what have we in this life but a mouthful of air ?  ”  PART II .  MARGARET LELAND .  I .  Sherman and his mother rented a small house on the north side of St. Peter’s Square , Hammersmith .  The front windows looked out on to the old rank and green square , the windows behind on to a little patch of garden round which the houses gathered and pressed as though they already longed to trample it out .  In this garden was a single tall pear-tree that never bore fruit .  Three years passed by without any notable event .  Sherman went every day to his office in Tower Hill Street , abused his work a great deal , and was not unhappy perhaps .  He was probably a bad clerk , but then nobody was very exacting with the nephew of the head of the firm .  The firm of Sherman and Saunders , ship brokers , was a long-established , old-fashioned house .  Saunders had been dead some years and old Michael Sherman ruled alone — an old bachelor full of family pride and pride in his wealth .  He lived , for all that , in a very simple fashion .  His mahogany furniture was a little solider than other people’s perhaps .  He did not understand display .  Display finds its excuse in some taste good or bad , and in a long industrious life Michael Sherman had never found leisure to form one .  He seemed to live only from habit .  Year by year he grew more silent , gradually ceasing to regard anything but his family and his ships .  His family were represented by his nephew and his nephew’s mother .  He did not feel much affection for them .  He believed in his family — that was all .  To remind him of the other goal of his thoughts hung round his private office pictures with such inscriptions as “ S.S. Indus at the Cape of Good Hope , ” “ The barque Mary in the Mozambique Channel , ” “ The barque Livingstone at Port Said , ” and many more .  Every rope was drawn accurately with a ruler , and here and there were added distant vessels sailing proudly by with all that indifference to perspective peculiar to the drawings of sailors .  On every ship was the flag of the firm spread out to show the letters .  No man cared for old Michael Sherman .  Every one liked John .  Both were silent , but the young man had sometimes a talkative fit .  The old man lived for his ledger , the young man for his dreams .  In spite of all these differences , the uncle was on the whole pleased with the nephew .  He noticed a certain stolidity that was of the family .  It sometimes irritated others .  It pleased him .  He saw a hundred indications besides that made him say , “ He is a true Sherman .  We Shermans begin that way and give up frivolity as we grow old .  We are all the same in the end .  ”  Mrs. Sherman and her son had but a small round of acquaintances — a few rich people , clients of the house of Sherman and Saunders for the most part .  Among these was a Miss Margaret Leland who lived with her mother , the widow of the late Henry Leland , ship-broker , on the eastern side of St. Peter’s Square .  Their house was larger than the Shermans , and noticeable among its fellows by the newly-painted hall door .  Within on every side were bronzes and china vases and heavy curtains .  In all were displayed the curious and vagrant taste of Margaret Leland .  The rich Italian and mediæval draperies of the pre-Raphaelites jostling the brightest and vulgarest products of more native and Saxon schools .  Vases of the most artistic shape and colour side by side with artificial flowers and stuffed birds .  This house belonged to the Lelands .  They had bought it in less prosperous days , and having altered it according to their taste and the need of their growing welfare could not decide to leave it .  Sherman was an occasional caller at the Lelands , and had certainly a liking , though not a very deep one , for Margaret .  As yet he knew little more about her than that she wore the most fascinating hats , that the late Lord Lytton was her favourite author , and that she hated frogs .  It is clear that she did not know that a French writer on magic says the luxurious and extravagant hate frogs because they are cold , solitary , and dreary .  Had she done so , she would have been more circumspect about revealing her tastes .  For the rest John Sherman was forgetting the town of Ballah .  He corresponded indeed with Mary Carton , but his laborious letter writing made his letters fewer and fewer .  Sometimes , too , he heard from Howard , who had a curacy in Glasgow and was on indifferent terms with his parishioners .  They objected to his way of conducting the services .  His letters were full of it .  He would not give in , he said , whatever happened .  His conscience was involved .  II .  One afternoon Mrs. Leland called on Mrs. Sherman .  She very often called — this fat , sentimental woman , moving in the midst of a cloud of scent .  The day was warm , and she carried her too elaborate and heavy dress as a large caddis-fly drags its case with much labour and patience .  She sat down on the sofa with obvious relief , leaning so heavily among the cushions that a clothes-moth in an antimacassar thought the end of the world had come and fluttered out only to be knocked down and crushed by Mrs. Sherman , who was very quick in her movements .  As soon as she found her breath , Mrs. Leland began a long history of her sorrows .  Her daughter Margaret , had been jilted and was in despair , had taken to her bed with every resolution to die , and was growing paler and paler .  The hard-hearted man , though she knew he had heard , did not relent .  She knew he had heard because her daughter had told his sister all about it , and his sister had no heart , because she said it was temper that ailed Margaret , and she was a little vixen , and that if she had not flirted with everybody the engagement would never have been broken off .  But Mr. Sims had no heart clearly , as Miss Marriot and Mrs. Eliza Taylor , her daughter’s friends , said , when they heard , and Lock , the butler , said the same too , and Mary Young , the housemaid , said so too — and she knew all about it , for Margaret used to read his letters to her often when having her hair brushed .  “ She must have been very fond of him , ” said Mrs. Sherman .  “ She is so romantic , my dear , ” answered Mrs. Leland , with a sigh .  “ I am afraid she takes after an uncle on her father’s side , who wrote poetry and wore a velvet jacket and ran away with an Italian countess who used to get drunk .  When I married Mr. Leland people said he was not worthy of me , and that I was throwing myself away — and he in business , too !  But Margaret is so romantic .  There was Mr. Walters , the gentleman farmer , and Simpson who had a jeweller’s shop — I never approved of him !  — and Mr. Samuelson , and the Hon. William Scott .  She tired of them all except the Hon. William Scott , who tired of her because some one told him she put belladonna in her eyes — and it is not true ; and now there is Mr. Sims !  ” She then cried a little , and allowed herself to be consoled by Mrs. Sherman .  “ You talk so intelligently and are so well informed , ” she said at parting .  “ I have made a very pleasant call , ” and the caddis-worm toiled upon its way , arriving in due course at other cups of tea .  III .  The day after Mrs. Leland’s call upon his mother , John Sherman , returning home after his not very lengthy day in the office , saw Margaret coming towards him .  She had a lawn tennis racket under her arm , and was walking slowly on the shady side of the road .  She was a pretty girl with quite irregular features , who though really not more than pretty , had so much manner , so much of an air , that every one called her a beauty : a trefoil with the fragrance of a rose .  “ Mr. Sherman , ” she cried , coming smiling to meet him , “ I have been ill , but could not stand the house any longer .  I am going to the Square to play tennis .  Will you come with me ?  ”  “ I am a bad player , ” he said .  “ Of course you are , ” she answered ; “ but you are the only person under a hundred to be found this afternoon .  How dull life is !  ” she continued , with a sigh .  “ You heard how ill I have been ?  What do you do all day ?  ”  “ I sit at a desk , sometimes writing , and sometimes , when I get lazy , looking up at the flies .  There are fourteen on the plaster of the ceiling over my head .  They died two winters ago .  I sometimes think to have them brushed off , but they have been there so long now I hardly like to .  ”  “ Ah !  you like them , ” she said , “ because you are accustomed to them .  In most cases there is not much more to be said for our family affections , I think .  ”  “ In a room close at hand , ” he went on , “ there is , you know , Uncle Michael , who never speaks .  ”  “ Precisely .  You have an uncle who never speaks ; I have a mother who never is silent .  She went to see Mrs. Sherman the other day .  What did she say to her ?  ”  “ Nothing .  ”  “ Really .  What a dull thing existence is !  ” — this with a great sigh .  “ When the Fates are weaving our web of life some mischievous goblin always runs off with the dye-pot .  Everything is dull and grey .  Am I looking a little pale ?  I have been so very ill. ”  “ A little bit pale , perhaps , ” he said , doubtfully .  The Square gate brought them to a stop .  It was locked , but she had the key .  The lock was stiff , but turned easily for John Sherman .  “ How strong you are , ” she said .  It was an iridescent evening of spring .  The leaves of the bushes had still their faint green .  As Margaret darted about at the tennis , a red feather in her cap seemed to rejoice with its wearer .  Everything was at once gay and tranquil .  The whole world had that unreal air it assumes at beautiful moments , as though it might vanish at a touch like an iridescent soap-bubble .  After a little Margaret said she was tired , and , sitting on a garden seat among the bushes , began telling him the plots of novels lately read by her .  Suddenly she cried —  “ The novel-writers were all serious people like you .  They are so hard on people like me .  They always make us come to a bad end .  They say we are always acting , acting , acting ; and what else do you serious people do ?  You act before the world .  I think , do you know , we act before ourselves .  All the old foolish kings and queens in history were like us .  They laughed and beckoned and went to the block for no very good purpose .  I dare say the headsmen were like you .  ”  “ We would never cut off so pretty a head .  ”  “ Oh , yes , you would — you would cut off mine to-morrow .  ” All this she said vehemently , piercing him with her bright eyes .  “ You would cut off my head to-morrow , ” she repeated , almost fiercely ; “ I tell you you would .  ”  Her departure was always unexpected , her moods changed with so much rapidity .  “ Look !  ” she said , pointing where the clock on St. Peter’s church showed above the bushes .  “ Five minutes to five .  In five minutes my mother’s tea-hour .  It is like growing old .  I go to gossip .  Good-bye .  ”  The red feather shone for a moment among the bushes and was gone .  IV .  The next day and the day after , Sherman was followed by those bright eyes .  When he opened a letter at his desk they seemed to gaze at him from the open paper , and to watch him from the flies upon the ceiling .  He was even a worse clerk than usual .  One evening he said to his mother , “ Miss Leland has beautiful eyes .  ”  “ My dear , she puts belladonna in them .  ”  “ What a thing to say !  ”  “ I know she does , though her mother denies it .  ”  “ Well , she is certainly beautiful , ” he answered .  “ My dear , if she has an attraction for you , I don’t want to discourage it .  She is rich as girls go nowadays ; and one woman has one fault , another another : one’s untidy , one fights with her servants , one fights with her friends , another has a crabbed tongue when she talks of them .  ”  Sherman became again silent , finding no fragment of romance in such discourse .  In the next week or two he saw much of Miss Leland .  He met her almost every evening on his return from the office , walking slowly , her racket under her arm .  They played tennis much and talked more .  Sherman began to play tennis in his dreams .  Miss Leland told him all about herself , her friends , her inmost feelings ; and yet every day he knew less about her .  It was not merely that saying everything she said nothing , but that continually there came through her wild words the sound of the mysterious flutes and viols of that unconscious nature which dwells so much nearer to woman than to man .  How often do we not endow the beautiful and candid with depth and mystery not their own ?  We do not know that we but hear in their voices those flutes and viols playing to us of the alluring secret of the world .  Sherman had never known in early life what is called first love , and now , when he had passed thirty , it came to him that love more of the imagination than of either the senses or affections : it was mainly the eyes that followed him .  It is not to be denied that as this love grew serious it grew mercenary .  Now active , now latent , the notion had long been in Sherman’s mind , as we know , that he should marry money .  A born lounger , riches tempted him greatly .  When those eyes haunted him from the fourteen flies on the ceiling , he would say , “ I should be rich ; I should have a house in the country ; I should hunt and shoot , and have a garden and three gardeners ; I should leave this abominable office .  ” Then the eyes became even more beautiful .  It was a new kind of belladonna .  He shrank a little , however , from choosing even this pleasant pathway .  He had planned many futures for himself and learnt to love them all .  It was this that had made him linger on at Ballah for so long , and it was this that now kept him undecided .  He would have to give up the universe for a garden and three gardeners .  How sad it was to make substantial even the best of his dreams .  How hard it was to submit to that decree which compels every step we take in life to be a death in the imagination .  How difficult it was to be so enwrapped in this one new hope as not to hear the lamentations that were going on in dim corners of his mind .  One day he resolved to propose .  He examined himself in the glass in the morning ; and for the first time in his life smiled to see how good-looking he was .  In the evening before leaving the office he peered at himself in the mirror over the mantlepiece in the room where customers were received .  The sun was blazing through the window full on his face .  He did not look so well .  Immediately all courage left him .  That evening he went out after his mother had gone to bed and walked far along the towing-path of the Thames .  A faint mist half covered away the houses and factory chimneys on the further side ; beside him a band of osiers swayed softly , the deserted and full river lapping their stems .  He looked on all these things with foreign eyes .  He had no sense of possession .  Indeed it seemed to him that everything in London was owned by too many to be owned by any one .  Another river that he did seem to possess flowed through his memory with all its familiar sights — boys riding in the stream to the saddle-girths , fish leaping , water-flies raising their small ripples , a swan asleep , the wallflowers growing on the red brick of the margin .  He grew very sad .  Suddenly a shooting star , fiery and vagabond , leaped from the darkness .  It brought his mind again in a moment to Margaret Leland .  To marry her , he thought , was to separate himself from the old life he loved so well .  Crossing the river at Putney , he hurried homewards among the market gardens .  Nearing home , the streets were deserted , the shops closed .  Where King Street joins the Broadway , entirely alone with itself , in the very centre of the road a little black cat was leaping after its shadow .  “ Ah !  ” he thought , “ it would be a good thing to be a little black cat .  To leap about in the moonlight and sleep in the sunlight , and catch flies , to have no hard tasks to do or hard decisions to come to , to be simple and full of animal spirits .  ”  At the corner of Bridge Road was a coffee-stall , the only sign of human life .  He bought some cold meat and flung it to the little black cat .  V.  Some more days went by .  At last , one day , arriving at the Square somewhat earlier than usual , and sitting down to wait for Margaret on the seat among the bushes , he noticed the pieces of a torn-up letter lying about .  Beside him on the seat was a pencil , as though some one had been writing there and left it behind them .  The pencil-lead was worn very short .  The letter had been torn up , perhaps , in a fit of impatience .  In a half-mechanical way he glanced over the scraps .  On one of them he read : “ My dear Eliza , — What an incurable gossip my mother is .  You heard of my misfortune .  I nearly died — — ” Here he had to search among the scraps ; at last he found one that seemed to follow .  “ Perhaps you will hear news from me soon .  There is a handsome young man who pays me attention , and — — ” Here another piece had to be found .  “ I would take him though he had a face like the man in the moon , and limped like the devil at the theatre .  Perhaps I am a little in love .  Oh !  friend of my heart — — ” Here it broke off again .  He was interested , and searched the grass and the bushes for fragments .  Some had been blown to quite a distance .  He got together several sentences now .  “ I will not spend another winter with my mother for anything .  All this is , of course , a secret .  I had to tell somebody ; secrets are bad for my health .  Perhaps it will all come to nothing .  ” Then the letter went off into dress , the last novel the writer had read , and so forth .  A Miss Sims , too , was mentioned , who had said some unkind thing of the writer .  Sherman was greatly amused .  It did not seem to him wrong to read — we do not mind spying on one of the crowd , any more than on the personages of literature .  It never occurred to him that he , or any friend of his , was concerned in these pencil scribblings .  Suddenly he saw this sentence : “ Heigho !  your poor Margaret is falling in love again ; condole with her , my dear .  ”  He started .  The name “ Margaret , ” the mention of Miss Sims , the style of the whole letter , all made plain the authorship .  Very desperately ashamed of himself , he got up and tore each scrap of paper into still smaller fragments and scattered them far apart .  That evening he proposed , and was accepted .  VI .  For several days there was a new heaven and a new earth .  Miss Leland seemed suddenly impressed with the seriousness of life .  She was gentleness itself ; and as Sherman sat on Sunday mornings in his pocket-handkerchief of a garden under the one tree , with its smoky stem , watching the little circles of sunlight falling from the leaves like a shower of new sovereigns , he gazed at them with a longer and keener joy than heretofore — a new heaven and a new earth , surely !  Sherman planted and dug and raked this pocket-handkerchief of a garden most diligently , rooting out the docks and dandelions and mouse-ear and the patches of untimely grass .  It was the point of contact between his new life and the old .  It was far too small and unfertile and shaded in to satisfy his love of gardener’s experiments and early vegetables .  Perforce this husbandry was too little complex for his affections to gather much round plant and bed .  His garden in Ballah used to touch him like the growth of a young family .  Now he was content to satisfy his barbaric sense of colour ; right round were planted alternate holyhock and sunflower , and behind them scarlet-runners showed their inch-high cloven shoots .  One Sunday it occurred to him to write to his friends on the matter of his engagement .  He numbered them over .  Howard , one or two less intimate , and Mary Carton .  At that name he paused ; he would not write just yet .  VII .  One Saturday there was a tennis party .  Miss Leland devoted herself all day to a young Foreign Office clerk .  She played tennis with him , talked with him , drank lemonade with him , had neither thoughts nor words for any one else .  John Sherman was quite happy .  Tennis was always a bore , and now he was not called upon to play .  It had not struck him there was occasion for jealousy .  As the guests were dispersing , his betrothed came to him .  Her manner seemed strange .  “ Does anything ail you , Margaret ?  ” he asked , as they left the Square .  “ Everything , ” she answered , looking about her with ostentatious secrecy .  “ You are a most annoying person .  You have no feeling ; you have no temperament ; you are quite the most stupid creature I was ever engaged to .  ”  “ What is wrong with you ?  ” he asked , in bewilderment .  “ Don’t you see , ” she replied , with a broken voice , “ I flirted all day with that young clerk ?  You should have nearly killed me with jealousy .  You do not love me a bit !  There is no knowing what I might do !  ”  “ Well , you know , ” he said , “ it was not right of you .  People might say , ‘Look at John Sherman ; how furious he must be !  ’ To be sure I wouldn’t be furious a bit ; but then they’d go about saying I was .  It would not matter , of course ; but you know it is not right of you .  ”  “ It is no use pretending you have feeling .  It is all that miserable little town you come from , with its sleepy old shops and its sleepy old society .  I would give up loving you this minute , ” she added , with a caressing look , “ if you had not that beautiful bronzed face .  I will improve you .  To-morrow evening you must come to the opera .  ” Suddenly she changed the subject .  “ Do you see that little fat man coming out of the Square and staring at me ?  I was engaged to him once .  Look at the four old ladies behind him , shaking their bonnets at me .  Each has some story about me , and it will be all the same in a hundred years .  ”  After this he had hardly a moment’s peace .  She kept him continually going to theatres , operas , parties .  These last were an especial trouble ; for it was her wont to gather about her an admiring circle to listen to her extravagancies , and he was no longer at the age when we enjoy audacity for its own sake .  VIII .  Gradually those bright eyes of his imagination , watching him from letters and from among the fourteen flies on the ceiling , had ceased to be centres of peace .  They seemed like two whirlpools , wherein the order and quiet of his life were absorbed hourly and daily .  He still thought sometimes of the country house of his dreams and of the garden and the three gardeners , but somehow they had lost half their charm .  He had written to Howard and some others , and commenced , at last , a letter to Mary Carton .  It lay unfinished on his desk ; a thin coating of dust was gathering upon it .  Mrs. Leland called continually on Mrs. Sherman .  She sentimentalized over the lovers , and even wept over them ; each visit supplied the household with conversation for a week .  Every Sunday morning — his letter-writing time — Sherman looked at his uncompleted letter .  Gradually it became plain to him he could not finish it .  It had never seemed to him he had more than friendship for Mary Carton , yet somehow it was not possible to tell her of this love-affair .  The more his betrothed troubled him the more he thought about the unfinished letter .  He was a man standing at the cross-roads .  Whenever the wind blew from the south he remembered his friend , for that is the wind that fills the heart with memory .  One Sunday he removed the dust from the face of the letter almost reverently , as though it were the dust from the wheels of destiny .  But the letter remained unfinished .  IX .  One Wednesday in June Sherman arrived home an hour earlier than usual from his office , as his wont was the first Wednesday in every month , on which day his mother was at home to her friends .  They had not many callers .  To-day there was no one as yet but a badly-dressed old lady his mother had picked up he knew not where .  She had been looking at his photograph album , and recalling names and dates from her own prosperous times .  As she went out Miss Leland came in .  She gave the old lady in passing a critical look that made the poor creature very conscious of a threadbare mantle , and went over to Mrs. Sherman , holding out both hands .  Sherman , who knew all his mother’s peculiarities , noticed on her side a slight coldness ; perhaps she did not altogether like this beautiful dragon-fly .  “ I have come , ” said Miss Leland , “ to tell John that he must learn to paint .  Music and society are not enough .  There is nothing like art to give refinement .  ” Then turning to John Sherman — “ My dear , I will make you quite different .  You are a dreadful barbarian , you know .  ”  “ What ails me , Margaret ?  ”  “ Just look at that necktie !  Nothing shows a man’s cultivation like his necktie .  Then your reading !  You never read anything but old books nobody wants to talk about .  I will lend you three every one has read this month .  You really must acquire small talk and change your necktie .  ”  Presently she noticed the photograph-book lying open on a chair .  “ Oh !  ” she cried , “ I must have another look at John’s beauties .  ”  It was a habit of his to gather all manner of pretty faces .  It came from incipient old bachelorhood , perhaps .  Margaret criticized each photo in turn with , “ Ah !  she looks as if she had some life in her !  ” or , “ I do not like your sleepy eyelids , ” or some such phrase .  The mere relations were passed by without a word .  One face occurred several times — a quiet face .  As Margaret came on this one for the third time , Mrs. Sherman , who seemed a little resentful about something , said —  “ That is his friend , Mary Carton .  ”  “ He told me about her .  He has a book she gave him .  So that is she ?  How interesting !  I pity these poor country people .  It must be hard to keep from getting stupid .  ”  “ My friend is not at all stupid , ” said Sherman .  “ Does she speak with a brogue ?  I remember you told me she was very good .  It must be difficult to keep from talking platitudes when one is very good .  ”  “ You are quite wrong about her .  You would like her very much , ” he replied .  “ She is one of those people , I suppose , who can only talk about their relatives , or their families , or about their friends’ children : how this one has got the hooping-cough , and this one is getting well of the measles !  ” She kept swaying one of the leaves between her finger and thumb impatiently .  “ What a strange way she does her hair ; and what an ugly dress !  ”  “ You must not talk that way about her — she is my great friend .  ”  “ Friend !  friend !  ” she burst out .  “ He thinks I will believe in friendship between a man and a woman .  ”  She got up , and said , turning round with an air of changing the subject , “ Have you written to your friends about our engagement ?  You had not done so when I asked you lately .  ”  “ I have .  ”  “ All ?  ”  “ Well , not all .  ”  “ Your great friend , Miss — — what do you call her ?  ”  “ Miss Carton .  I have not written to her .  ”  She tapped impatiently with her foot .  “ They were really old companions — that is all , ” said Mrs. Sherman , wishing to mend matters .  “ They were both readers ; that brought them together .  I never much fancied her .  Yet she was well enough as a friend , and helped , maybe , with reading , and the gardening , and his good bringing-up , to keep him from the idle young men of the neighbourhood .  ”  “ You must make him write and tell her at once — you must , you must !  ” almost sobbed out Miss Leland .  “ I promise , ” he answered .  Immediately returning to herself , she cried , “ If I were in her place I know what I would like to do when I got the letter .  I know who I would like to kill !  ” — this with a laugh as she went over , and looked at herself in the mirror over the mantlepiece .  PART III .  JOHN SHERMAN REVISITS BALLAH .  I .  The others had gone , and Sherman was alone in the drawing-room by himself , looking through the window .  Never had London seemed to him so like a reef whereon he was cast away .  In the Square the bushes were covered with dust ; some sparrows were ruffling their feathers on the side-walk ; people passed , continually disturbing them .  The sky was full of smoke .  A terrible feeling of solitude in the midst of a multitude oppressed him .  A portion of his life was ending .  He thought that soon he would be no longer a young man , and now , at the period when the desire of novelty grows less , was coming the great change of his life .  He felt he was of those whose granaries are in the past .  And now this past would never renew itself .  He was going out into the distance as though with strange sailors in a strange ship .  He longed to see again the town where he had spent his childhood : to see the narrow roads and mean little shops .  And perhaps it would be easier to tell her who had been the friend of so many years of this engagement in his own person than by letter .  He wondered why it was so hard to write so simple a thing .  It was his custom to act suddenly on his decisions .  He had not made many in his life .  The next day he announced at the office that he would be absent for three or four days .  He told his mother he had business in the country .  His betrothed met him on the way to the terminus , as he was walking , bag in hand , and asked where he was going .  “ I am going on business to the country , ” he said , and blushed .  He was creeping away like a thief .  II .  He arrived in the town of Ballah by rail , for he had avoided the slow cattle steamer and gone by Dublin .  It was the forenoon , and he made for the Imperial Hotel to wait till four in the evening , when he would find Mary Carton in the schoolhouse , for he had timed his journey so as to arrive on Thursday , the day of the children’s practice .  As he went through the streets his heart went out to every familiar place and sight : the rows of tumble-down thatched cottages ; the slated roofs of the shops ; the women selling gooseberries ; the river bridge ; the high walls of the garden where it was said the gardener used to see the ghost of a former owner in the shape of a rabbit ; the street corner no child would pass at nightfall for fear of the headless soldier ; the deserted flour store ; the wharves covered with grass .  All these he watched with Celtic devotion , that devotion carried to the ends of the world by the Celtic exiles , and since old time surrounding their journeyings with rumour of plaintive songs .  He sat in the window of the Imperial Hotel , now full of guests .  He did not notice any of them .  He sat there meditating , meditating .  Grey clouds covering the town with flying shadows rushed by like the old and dishevelled eagles that Maeldune saw hurrying towards the waters of life .  Below in the street passed by country people , townspeople , travellers , women with baskets , boys driving donkeys , old men with sticks ; sometimes he recognized a face or was recognized himself , and welcomed by some familiar voice .  “ You have come home a handsomer gentleman than your father , Misther John , and he was a neat figure of a man , God bless him !  ” said the waiter , bringing him his lunch ; and in truth Sherman had grown handsomer for these years away .  His face and gesture had more of dignity , for on the centre of his nature life had dropped a pinch of experience .  At four he left the hotel and waited near the schoolhouse till the children came running out .  One or two of the elder ones he recognized but turned away .  III .  Mary Carton was locking the harmonium as he went in .  She came to meet him with a surprised and joyful air .  “ How often I have wished to see you .  When did you come ?  How well you remembered my habits to know where to find me .  My dear John , how glad I am to see you .  ”  “ You are the same as when I left , and this room is the same , too .  ”  “ Yes , ” she answered , “ the same , only I have had some new prints hung up — prints of fruits and leaves and bird-nests .  It was only done last week .  When people choose pictures and poems for children they choose out such domestic ones .  I would not have any of the kind ; children are such undomestic animals .  But , John , I am so glad to see you in this old schoolhouse again .  So little has changed with us here .  Some have died and some have been married , and we are all a little older and the trees a little taller .  ”  “ I have come to tell you I am going to be married .  ”  She became in a moment perfectly white , and sat down as though attacked with faintness .  Her hand on the edge of the chair trembled .  Sherman looked at her , and went on in a bewildered , mechanical way — “ My betrothed is a Miss Leland .  She has a good deal of money .  You know my mother always wished me to marry some one with money .  Her father , when alive , was an old client of Sherman and Saunders .  She is much admired in society .  ” Gradually his voice became a mere murmur .  He did not seem to know that he was speaking .  He stopped entirely .  He was looking at Mary Carton .  Everything around him was as it had been some three years before .  The table was covered with cups and the floor with crumbs .  Perhaps the mouse pulling at a crumb under the table was the same mouse as on that other evening .  The only difference was the brooding daylight of summer and the ceaseless chirruping of the sparrows in the ivy outside .  He had a confused sense of having lost his way .  It was just the same feeling he had known as a child , when one dark night he had taken a wrong turning , and instead of arriving at his own house , found himself at a landmark he knew was miles from home .  A moment earlier , however difficult his life , the issues were always definite ; now suddenly had entered the obscurity of another’s interest .  Before this it had not occurred to him that Mary Carton had any stronger feeling for him than warm friendship .  He began again , speaking in the same mechanical way — “ Miss Leland lives with her mother near us .  She is very well educated and very well connected , though she has lived always among business people .  ”  Miss Carton , with a great effort , had recovered her composure .  “ I congratulate you , ” she said .  “ I hope you will be always happy .  You came here on some business for your firm , I suppose ?  I believe they have some connection with the town still .  ”  “ I only came here to tell you I was going to be married .  ”  “ Do you not think it would have been better to have written ?  ” she said , beginning to put away the children’s tea-things in a cupboard by the fireplace .  “ It would have been better , ” he answered , drooping his head .  Without a word , locking the door behind them , they went out .  Without a word they walked the grey streets .  Now and then a woman or a child curtseyed as they passed .  Some wondered , perhaps , to see these old friends so silent .  At the rectory they bade each other good-bye .  “ I hope you will be always happy , ” she said .  “ I will pray for you and your wife .  I am very busy with the children and old people , but I shall always find a moment to wish you well in .  Good-bye now .  ”  They parted ; the gate in the wall closed behind her .  He stayed for a few moments looking up at the tops of the trees and bushes showing over the wall , and at the house a little way beyond .  He stood considering his problem — her life , his life .  His , at any rate , would have incident and change ; hers would be the narrow existence of a woman who , failing to fulfil the only abiding wish she has ever formed , seeks to lose herself in routine — mournfulest of things on this old planet .  This had been revealed : he loved Mary Carton , she loved him .  He remembered Margaret Leland , and murmured she did well to be jealous .  Then all her contemptuous words about the town and its inhabitants came into his mind .  Once they made no impression on him , but now the sense of personal identity having been disturbed by this sudden revelation , alien as they were to his way of thinking , they began to press in on him .  Mary , too , would have agreed with them , he thought ; and might it be that at some distant time weary monotony in abandonment would have so weighed down the spirit of Mary Carton , that she would be merely one of the old and sleepy whose dulness filled the place like a cloud ?  He went sadly towards the hotel ; everything about him , the road , the sky , the feet wherewith he walked seeming phantasmal and without meaning .  He told the waiter he would leave by the first train in the morning .  “ What !  and you only just come home ?  ” the man answered .  He ordered coffee and could not drink it .  He went out and came in again immediately .  He went down into the kitchen and talked to the servants .  They told him of everything that had happened since he had gone .  He was not interested , and went up to his room .  “ I must go home and do what people expect of me ; one must be careful to do that .  ”  Through all the journey home his problem troubled him .  He saw the figure of Mary Carton perpetually passing through a round of monotonous duties .  He saw his own life among aliens going on endlessly , wearily .  From Holyhead to London his fellow-travellers were a lady and her three young daughters , the eldest about twelve .  The smooth faces shining with well-being became to him ominous symbols .  He hated them .  They were symbolic of the indifferent world about to absorb him , and of the vague something that was dragging him inch by inch from the nook he had made for himself in the chimney corner .  He was at one of those dangerous moments when the sense of personal identity is shaken , when one’s past and present seem about to dissolve partnership .  He sought refuge in memory , and counted over every word of Mary’s he could remember .  He forgot the present and the future .  “ Without love , ” he said to himself , “ we would be either gods or vegetables .  ”  The rain beat on the window of the carriage .  He began to listen ; thought and memory became a blank ; his mind was full of the sound of rain-drops .  PART IV .  THE REV. WILLIAM HOWARD .  I .  After his return to London Sherman for a time kept to himself , going straight home from his office , moody and self-absorbed , trying not to consider his problem — her life , his life .  He often repeated to himself , “ I must do what people expect of me .  It does not rest with me now — my choosing time is over .  ” He felt that whatever way he turned he would do a great evil to himself and others .  To his nature all sudden decisions were difficult , and so he kept to the groove he had entered upon .  It did not even occur to him to do otherwise .  He never thought of breaking this engagement off and letting people say what they would .  He was bound in hopelessly by a chain of congratulations .  A week passed slowly as a month .  The wheels of the cabs and carriages seemed to be rolling through his mind .  He often remembered the quiet river at the end of his garden in the town of Ballah .  How the weeds swayed there , and the salmon leaped !  At the week’s end came a note from Miss Leland , complaining of his neglecting her so many days .  He sent a rather formal answer , promising to call soon .  To add to his other troubles a cold east wind arose and made him shiver continually .  One evening he and his mother were sitting silent , the one knitting , the other half-asleep .  He had been writing letters and was now in a reverie .  Round the walls were one or two drawings , done by him at school .  His mother had got them framed .  His eyes were fixed on a drawing of a stream and some astonishing cows .  A few days ago he had found an old sketch-book for children among some forgotten papers , which taught how to draw a horse by making three ovals for the basis of his body , one lying down in the middle , two standing up at each end for flank and chest , and how to draw a cow by basing its body on a square .  He kept trying to fit squares into the cows .  He was half inclined to take them out of their frames and retouch on this new principle .  Then he began somehow to remember the child with the swollen face who threw a stone at the dog the day he resolved to leave home first .