The Hill of Dreams  By  Arthur Machen  Frontispiece by S.H. Syme .  London  E .  Grant Richards  1907  I  There was a glow in the sky as if great furnace doors were opened .  But all the afternoon his eyes had looked on glamour ; he had strayed in fairyland .  The holidays were nearly done , and Lucian Taylor had gone out resolved to lose himself , to discover strange hills and prospects that he had never seen before .  The air was still , breathless , exhausted after heavy rain , and the clouds looked as if they had been molded of lead .  No breeze blew upon the hill , and down in the well of the valley not a dry leaf stirred , not a bough shook in all the dark January woods .  About a mile from the rectory he had diverged from the main road by an opening that promised mystery and adventure .  It was an old neglected lane , little more than a ditch , worn ten feet deep by its winter waters , and shadowed by great untrimmed hedges , densely woven together .  On each side were turbid streams , and here and there a torrent of water gushed down the banks , flooding the lane .  It was so deep and dark that he could not get a glimpse of the country through which he was passing , but the way went down and down to some unconjectured hollow .  Perhaps he walked two miles between the high walls of the lane before its descent ceased , but he thrilled with the sense of having journeyed very far , all the long way from the know to the unknown .  He had come as it were into the bottom of a bowl amongst the hills , and black woods shut out the world .  From the road behind him , from the road before him , from the unseen wells beneath the trees , rivulets of waters swelled and streamed down towards the center to the brook that crossed the lane .  Amid the dead and wearied silence of the air , beneath leaden and motionless clouds , it was strange to hear such a tumult of gurgling and rushing water , and he stood for a while on the quivering footbridge and watched the rush of dead wood and torn branches and wisps of straw , all hurrying madly past him , to plunge into the heaped spume , the barmy froth that had gathered against a fallen tree .  Then he climbed again , and went up between limestone rocks , higher and higher , till the noise of waters became indistinct , a faint humming of swarming hives in summer .  He walked some distance on level ground , till there was a break in the banks and a stile on which he could lean and look out .  He found himself , as he had hoped , afar and forlorn ; he had strayed into outland and occult territory .  From the eminence of the lane , skirting the brow of a hill , he looked down into deep valleys and dingles , and beyond , across the trees , to remoter country , wild bare hills and dark wooded lands meeting the grey still sky .  Immediately beneath his feet the ground sloped steep down to the valley , a hillside of close grass patched with dead bracken , and dotted here and there with stunted thorns , and below there were deep oak woods , all still and silent , and lonely as if no one ever passed that way .  The grass and bracken and thorns and woods , all were brown and grey beneath the leaden sky , and as Lucian looked he was amazed , as though he were reading a wonderful story , the meaning of which was a little greater than his understanding .  Then , like the hero of a fairy-book , he went on and on , catching now and again glimpses of the amazing country into which he had penetrated , and perceiving rather than seeing that as the day waned everything grew more grey and somber .  As he advanced he heard the evening sounds of the farms , the low of the cattle , and the barking of the sheepdogs ; a faint thin noise from far away .  It was growing late , and as the shadows blackened he walked faster , till once more the lane began to descend , there was a sharp turn , and he found himself , with a good deal of relief , and a little disappointment , on familiar ground .  He had nearly described a circle , and knew this end of the lane very well ; it was not much more than a mile from home .  He walked smartly down the hill ; the air was all glimmering and indistinct , transmuting trees and hedges into ghostly shapes , and the walls of the White House Farm flickered on the hillside , as if they were moving towards him .  Then a change came .  First , a little breath of wind brushed with a dry whispering sound through the hedges , the few leaves left on the boughs began to stir , and one or two danced madly , and as the wind freshened and came up from a new quarter , the sapless branches above rattled against one another like bones .  The growing breeze seemed to clear the air and lighten it .  He was passing the stile where a path led to old Mrs. Gibbon 'sdesolate little cottage , in the middle of the fields , at some distance even from the lane , and he saw the light blue smoke of her chimney rise distinct above the gaunt greengage trees , against a pale band that was broadening along the horizon .  As he passed the stile with his head bent , and his eyes on the ground , something white started out from the black shadow of the hedge , and in the strange twilight , now tinged with a flush from the west , a figure seemed to swim past him and disappear .  For a moment he wondered who it could be , the light was so flickering and unsteady , so unlike the real atmosphere of the day , when he recollected it was only Annie Morgan , old Morgan 'sdaughter at the White House .  She was three years older than he , and it annoyed him to find that though she was only fifteen , there had been a dreadful increase in her height since the summer holidays .  He had got to the bottom of the hill , and , lifting up his eyes , saw the strange changes of the sky .  The pale band had broadened into a clear vast space of light , and above , the heavy leaden clouds were breaking apart and driving across the heaven before the wind .  He stopped to watch , and looked up at the great mound that jutted out from the hills into mid-valley .  It was a natural formation , and always it must have had something of the form of a fort , but its steepness had been increased by Roman art , and there were high banks on the summit which Lucian 'sfather had told him were the vallum of the camp , and a deep ditch had been dug to the north to sever it from the hillside .  On this summit oaks had grown , queer stunted-looking trees with twisted and contorted trunks , and writhing branches ; and these now stood out black against the lighted sky .  And then the air changed once more ; the flush increased , and a spot like blood appeared in the pond by the gate , and all the clouds were touched with fiery spots and dapples of flame ; here and there it looked as if awful furnace doors were being opened .  The wind blew wildly , and it came up through the woods with a noise like a scream , and a great oak by the roadside ground its boughs together with a dismal grating jar .  As the red gained in the sky , the earth and all upon it glowed , even the grey winter fields and the bare hillsides crimsoned , the waterpools were cisterns of molten brass , and the very road glittered .  He was wonder-struck , almost aghast , before the scarlet magic of the afterglow .  The old Roman fort was invested with fire ; flames from heaven were smitten about its walls , and above there was a dark floating cloud , like fume of smoke , and every haggard writhing tree showed as black as midnight against the black of the furnace .  When he got home he heard his mother 'svoice calling : " Here 'sLucian at last .  Mary , Master Lucian has come , you can get the tea ready .  " He told a long tale of his adventures , and felt somewhat mortified when his father seemed perfectly acquainted with the whole course of the lane , and knew the names of the wild woods through which he had passed in awe .  " You must have gone by the Darren , I suppose " â € ” that was all he said .  " Yes , I noticed the sunset ; we shall have some stormy weather .  I do n't expect to see many in church tomorrow .  "  There was buttered toast for tea " because it was holidays .  " The red curtains were drawn , and a bright fire was burning , and there was the old familiar furniture , a little shabby , but charming from association .  It was much pleasanter than the cold and squalid schoolroom ; and much better to be reading Chambers 'sJournal than learning Euclid ; and better to talk to his father and mother than to be answering such remarks as : " I say , Taylor , I 'vetorn my trousers ; how much do you charge for mending ?  " " Lucy , dear , come quick and sew this button on my shirt .  "  That night the storm woke him , and he groped with his hands amongst the bedclothes , and sat up , shuddering , not knowing where he was .  He had seen himself , in a dream , within the Roman fort , working some dark horror , and the furnace doors were opened and a blast of flame from heaven was smitten upon him .  Lucian went slowly , but not discreditably , up the school , gaining prizes now and again , and falling in love more and more with useless reading and unlikely knowledge .  He did his elegiacs and iambics well enough , but he preferred exercising himself in the rhymed Latin of the middle ages .  He liked history , but he loved to meditate on a land laid waste , Britain deserted by the legions , the rare pavements riven by frost , Celtic magic still brooding on the wild hills and in the black depths of the forest , the rosy marbles stained with rain , and the walls growing grey .  The masters did not encourage these researches ; a pure enthusiasm , they felt , should be for cricket and football , the dilettanti might even play fives and read Shakespeare without blame , but healthy English boys should have nothing to do with decadent periods .  He was once found guilty of recommending Villon to a school-fellow named Barnes .  Barnes tried to extract unpleasantness from the text during preparation , and rioted in his place , owing to his incapacity for the language .  The matter was a serious one ; the headmaster had never heard of Villon , and the culprit gave up the name of his literary admirer without remorse .  Hence , sorrow for Lucian , and complete immunity for the miserable illiterate Barnes , who resolved to confine his researches to the Old Testament , a book which the headmaster knew well .  As for Lucian , he plodded on , learning his work decently , and sometimes doing very creditable Latin and Greek prose .  His school-fellows thought him quite mad , and tolerated him , and indeed were very kind to him in their barbarous manner .  He often remembered in after life acts of generosity and good nature done by wretches like Barnes , who had no care for old French nor for curious meters , and such recollections always moved him to emotion .  Travelers tell such tales ; cast upon cruel shores amongst savage races , they have found no little kindness and warmth of hospitality .  He looked forward to the holidays as joyfully as the rest of them .  Barnes and his friend Duscot used to tell him their plans and anticipation ; they were going home to brothers and sisters , and to cricket , more cricket , or to football , more football , and in the winter there were parties and jollities of all sorts .  In return he would announce his intention of studying the Hebrew language , or perhaps Provençal , with a walk up a bare and desolate mountain by way of open-air amusement , and on a rainy day for choice .  Whereupon Barnes would impart to Duscot his confident belief that old Taylor was quite cracked .  It was a queer , funny life that of school , and so very unlike anything in Tom Brown .  He once saw the headmaster patting the head of the bishop 'slittle boy , while he called him " my little man , " and smiled hideously .  He told the tale grotesquely in the lower fifth room the same day , and earned much applause , but forfeited all liking directly by proposing a voluntary course of scholastic logic .  One barbarian threw him to the ground and another jumped on him , but it was done very pleasantly .  There were , indeed , some few of a worse class in the school , solemn sycophants , prigs perfected from tender years , who thought life already " serious , " and yet , as the headmaster said , were " joyous , manly young fellows .  " Some of these dressed for dinner at home , and talked of dances when they came back in January .  But this virulent sort was comparatively infrequent , and achieved great success in after life .  Taking his school days as a whole , he always spoke up for the system , and years afterward he described with enthusiasm the strong beer at a roadside tavern , some way out of the town .  But he always maintained that the taste for tobacco , acquired in early life , was the great life , was the great note of the English Public School .  Three years after Lucian 'sdiscovery of the narrow lane and the vision of the flaming fort , the August holidays brought him home at a time of great heat .  It was one of those memorable years of English weather , when some Provençal spell seems wreathed round the island in the northern sea , and the grasshoppers chirp loudly as the cicadas , the hills smell of rosemary , and white walls of the old farmhouses blaze in the sunlight as if they stood in Arles or Avignon or famed Tarascon by Rhone .  Lucian 'sfather was late at the station , and consequently Lucian bought the Confessions of an English Opium Eater which he saw on the bookstall .  When his father did drive up , Lucian noticed that the old trap had had a new coat of dark paint , and that the pony looked advanced in years .  " I was afraid that I should be late , Lucian , " said his father , " though I made old Polly go like anything .  I was just going to tell George to put her into the trap when young Philip Harris came to me in a terrible state .  He said his father fell down ' all of a sudden like ' in the middle of the field , and they could n't make him speak , and would I please to come and see him .  So I had to go , though I could n't do anything for the poor fellow .  They had sent for Dr. Burrows , and I am afraid he will find it a bad case of sunstroke .  The old people say they never remember such a heat before .  "  The pony jogged steadily along the burning turnpike road , taking revenge for the hurrying on the way to the station .  The hedges were white with the limestone dust , and the vapor of heat palpitated over the fields .  Lucian showed his Confessions to his father , and began to talk of the beautiful bits he had already found .  Mr. Taylor knew the book wellâ € ” had read it many years before .  Indeed he was almost as difficult to surprise as that character in Daudet , who had one formula for all the chances of life , and when he saw the drowned Academician dragged out of the river , merely observed " J'ai vu tout ça . " Mr. Taylor the parson , as his parishioners called him , had read the fine books and loved the hills and woods , and now knew no more of pleasant or sensational surprises .  Indeed the living was much depreciated in value , and his own private means were reduced almost to vanishing point , and under such circumstances the great style loses many of its finer savors .  He was very fond of Lucian , and cheered by his return , but in the evening he would be a sad man again , with his head resting on one hand , and eyes reproaching sorry fortune .  Nobody called out " Here 'syour master with Master Lucian ; you can get tea ready , " when the pony jogged up to the front door .  His mother had been dead a year , and a cousin kept house .  She was a respectable person called Deacon , of middle age , and ordinary standards ; and , consequently , there was cold mutton on the table .  There was a cake , but nothing of flour , baked in ovens , would rise at Miss Deacon 'sevocation .  Still , the meal was laid in the beloved " parlor , " with the view of hills and valleys and climbing woods from the open window , and the old furniture was still pleasant to see , and the old books in the shelves had many memories .  One of the most respected of the armchairs had become weak in the castors and had to be artfully propped up , but Lucian found it very comfortable after the hard forms .  When tea was over he went out and strolled in the garden and orchards , and looked over the stile down into the brake , where foxgloves and bracken and broom mingled with the hazel undergrowth , where he knew of secret glades and untracked recesses , deep in the woven green , the cabinets for many years of his lonely meditations .  Every path about his home , every field and hedgerow had dear and friendly memories for him ; and the odor of the meadowsweet was better than the incense steaming in the sunshine .  He loitered , and hung over the stile till the far-off woods began to turn purple , till the white mists were wreathing in the valley .  Day after day , through all that August , morning and evening were wrapped in haze ; day after day the earth shimmered in the heat , and the air was strange , unfamiliar .  As he wandered in the lanes and sauntered by the cool sweet verge of the woods , he saw and felt that nothing was common or accustomed , for the sunlight transfigured the meadows and changed all the form of the earth .  Under the violent Provençal sun , the elms and beeches looked exotic trees , and in the early morning , when the mists were thick , the hills had put on an unearthly shape .  The one adventure of the holidays was the visit to the Roman fort , to that fantastic hill about whose steep bastions and haggard oaks he had seen the flames of sunset writhing nearly three years before .  Ever since that Saturday evening in January , the lonely valley had been a desirable place to him ; he had watched the green battlements in summer and winter weather , had seen the heaped mounds rising dimly amidst the drifting rain , had marked the violent height swim up from the ice-white mists of summer evenings , had watched the fairy bulwarks glimmer and vanish in hovering April twilight .  In the hedge of the lane there was a gate on which he used to lean and look down south to where the hill surged up so suddenly , its summit defined on summer evenings not only by the rounded ramparts but by the ring of dense green foliage that marked the circle of oak trees .  Higher up the lane , on the way he had come that Saturday afternoon , one could see the white walls of Morgan 'sfarm on the hillside to the north , and on the south there was the stile with the view of old Mrs. Gibbon 'scottage smoke ; but down in the hollow , looking over the gate , there was no hint of human work , except those green and antique battlements , on which the oaks stood in circle , guarding the inner wood .  The ring of the fort drew him with stronger fascination during that hot August weather .  Standing , or as his headmaster would have said , " mooning " by the gate , and looking into that enclosed and secret valley , it seemed to his fancy as if there were a halo about the hill , an aureole that played like flame around it .  One afternoon as he gazed from his station by the gate the sheer sides and the swelling bulwarks were more than ever things of enchantment ; the green oak ring stood out against the sky as still and bright as in a picture , and Lucian , in spite of his respect for the law of trespass , slid over the gate .  The farmers and their men were busy on the uplands with the harvest , and the adventure was irresistible .  At first he stole along by the brook in the shadow of the alders , where the grass and the flowers of wet meadows grew richly ; but as he drew nearer to the fort , and its height now rose sheer above him , he left all shelter , and began desperately to mount .  There was not a breath of wind ; the sunlight shone down on the bare hillside ; the loud chirp of the grasshoppers was the only sound .  It was a steep ascent and grew steeper as the valley sank away .  He turned for a moment , and looked down towards the stream which now seemed to wind remote between the alders ; above the valley there were small dark figures moving in the cornfield , and now and again there came the faint echo of a high-pitched voice singing through the air as on a wire .  He was wet with heat ; the sweat streamed off his face , and he could feel it trickling all over his body .  But above him the green bastions rose defiant , and the dark ring of oaks promised coolness .  He pressed on , and higher , and at last began to crawl up the vallum , on hands and knees , grasping the turf and here and there the roots that had burst through the red earth .  And then he lay , panting with deep breaths , on the summit .  Within the fort it was all dusky and cool and hollow ; it was as if one stood at the bottom of a great cup .  Within , the wall seemed higher than without , and the ring of oaks curved up like a dark green vault .  There were nettles growing thick and rank in the foss ; they looked different from the common nettles in the lanes , and Lucian , letting his hand touch a leaf by accident , felt the sting burn like fire .  Beyond the ditch there was an undergrowth , a dense thicket of trees , stunted and old , crooked and withered by the winds into awkward and ugly forms ; beech and oak and hazel and ash and yew twisted and so shortened and deformed that each seemed , like the nettle , of no common kind .  He began to fight his way through the ugly growth , stumbling and getting hard knocks from the rebound of twisted boughs .  His foot struck once or twice against something harder than wood , and looking down he saw stones white with the leprosy of age , but still showing the work of the axe .  And farther , the roots of the stunted trees gripped the foot-high relics of a wall ; and a round heap of fallen stones nourished rank , unknown herbs , that smelt poisonous .  The earth was black and unctuous , and bubbling under the feet , left no track behind .  From it , in the darkest places where the shadow was thickest , swelled the growth of an abominable fungus , making the still air sick with its corrupt odor , and he shuddered as he felt the horrible thing pulped beneath his feet .  Then there was a gleam of sunlight , and as he thrust the last boughs apart , he stumbled into the open space in the heart of the camp .  It was a lawn of sweet close turf in the center of the matted brake , of clean firm earth from which no shameful growth sprouted , and near the middle of the glade was a stump of a felled yew-tree , left untrimmed by the woodman .  Lucian thought it must have been made for a seat ; a crooked bough through which a little sap still ran was a support for the back , and he sat down and rested after his toil .  It was not really so comfortable a seat as one of the school forms , but the satisfaction was to find anything at all that would serve for a chair .  He sat there , still panting after the climb and his struggle through the dank and jungle-like thicket , and he felt as if he were growing hotter and hotter ; the sting of the nettle was burning his hand , and the tingling fire seemed to spread all over his body .  Suddenly , he knew that he was alone .  Not merely solitary ; that he had often been amongst the woods and deep in the lanes ; but now it was a wholly different and a very strange sensation .  He thought of the valley winding far below him , all its fields by the brook green and peaceful and still , without path or track .  Then he had climbed the abrupt surge of the hill , and passing the green and swelling battlements , the ring of oaks , and the matted thicket , had come to the central space .  And behind there were , he knew , many desolate fields , wild as common , untrodden , unvisited .  He was utterly alone .  He still grew hotter as he sat on the stump , and at last lay down at full length on the soft grass , and more at his ease felt the waves of heat pass over his body .  And then he began to dream , to let his fancies stray over half-imagined , delicious things , indulging a virgin mind in its wanderings .  The hot air seemed to beat upon him in palpable waves , and the nettle sting tingled and itched intolerably ; and he was alone upon the fairy hill , within the great mounds , within the ring of oaks , deep in the heart of the matted thicket .  Slowly and timidly he began to untie his boots , fumbling with the laces , and glancing all the while on every side at the ugly misshapen trees that hedged the lawn .  Not a branch was straight , not one was free , but all were interlaced and grew one about another ; and just above ground , where the cankered stems joined the protuberant roots , there were forms that imitated the human shape , and faces and twining limbs that amazed him .  Green mosses were hair , and tresses were stark in grey lichen ; a twisted root swelled into a limb ; in the hollows of the rotted bark he saw the masks of men .  His eyes were fixed and fascinated by the simulacra of the wood , and could not see his hands , and so at last , and suddenly , it seemed , he lay in the sunlight , beautiful with his olive skin , dark haired , dark eyed , the gleaming bodily vision of a strayed faun .  Quick flames now quivered in the substance of his nerves , hints of mysteries , secrets of life passed trembling through his brain , unknown desires stung him .  As he gazed across the turf and into the thicket , the sunshine seemed really to become green , and the contrast between the bright glow poured on the lawn and the black shadow of the brake made an odd flickering light , in which all the grotesque postures of stem and root began to stir ; the wood was alive .  The turf beneath him heaved and sank as with the deep swell of the sea .  He fell asleep , and lay still on the grass , in the midst of the thicket .  He found out afterwards that he must have slept for nearly an hour .  The shadows had changed when he awoke ; his senses came to him with a sudden shock , and he sat up and stared at his bare limbs in stupid amazement .  He huddled on his clothes and laced his boots , wondering what folly had beset him .  Then , while he stood indecisive , hesitating , his brain a whirl of puzzled thought , his body trembling , his hands shaking ; as with electric heat , sudden remembrance possessed him .  A flaming blush shone red on his cheeks , and glowed and thrilled through his limbs .  As he awoke , a brief and slight breeze had stirred in a nook of the matted boughs , and there was a glinting that might have been the flash of sudden sunlight across shadow , and the branches rustled and murmured for a moment , perhaps at the wind 'spassage .  He stretched out his hands , and cried to his visitant to return ; he entreated the dark eyes that had shone over him , and the scarlet lips that had kissed him .  And then panic fear rushed into his heart , and he ran blindly , dashing through the wood .  He climbed the vallum , and looked out , crouching , lest anybody should see him .  Only the shadows were changed , and a breath of cooler air mounted from the brook ; the fields were still and peaceful , the black figures moved , far away , amidst the corn , and the faint echo of the high-pitched voices sang thin and distant on the evening wind .  Across the stream , in the cleft on the hill , opposite to the fort , the blue wood smoke stole up a spiral pillar from the chimney of old Mrs. Gibbon 'scottage .  He began to run full tilt down the steep surge of the hill , and never stopped till he was over the gate and in the lane again .  As he looked back , down the valley to the south , and saw the violent ascent , the green swelling bulwarks , and the dark ring of oaks ; the sunlight seemed to play about the fort with an aureole of flame .  " Where on earth have you been all this time , Lucian ?  " said his cousin when he got home .  " Why , you look quite ill. It is really madness of you to go walking in such weather as this .  I wonder you have n't got a sunstroke .  And the tea must be nearly cold .  I could n't keep your father waiting , you know .  "  He muttered something about being rather tired , and sat down to his tea .  It was not cold , for the " cozy " had been put over the pot , but it was black and bitter strong , as his cousin expressed it .  The draught was unpalatable , but it did him good , and the thought came with great consolation that he had only been asleep and dreaming queer , nightmarish dreams .  He shook off all his fancies with resolution , and thought the loneliness of the camp , and the burning sunlight , and possibly the nettle sting , which still tingled most abominably , must have been the only factors in his farrago of impossible recollections .  He remembered that when he had felt the sting , he had seized a nettle with thick folds of his handkerchief , and having twisted off a good length , and put it in his pocket to show his father .  Mr. Taylor was almost interested when he came in from his evening stroll about the garden and saw the specimen .  " Where did you manage to come across that , Lucian ?  " he said .  " You have n't been to Caermaen , have you ?  "  " No. I got it in the Roman fort by the common .  "  " Oh , the twyn .  You must have been trespassing then .  Do you know what it is ?  "  " No. I thought it looked different from the common nettles .  "  " Yes ; it 'sa Roman nettleâ € ” arctic pilulifera .  It 'sa rare plant .  Burrows says it 'sto be found at Caermaen , but I was never able to come across it .  I must add it to the flora of the parish .  "  Mr. Taylor had begun to compile a flora accompanied by a hortus siccus , but both stayed on high shelves dusty and fragmentary .  He put the specimen on his desk , intending to fasten it in the book , but the maid swept it away , dry and withered , in a day or two .  Lucian tossed and cried out in his sleep that night , and the awakening in the morning was , in a measure , a renewal of the awakening in the fort .  But the impression was not so strong , and in a plain room it seemed all delirium , a phantasmagoria .  He had to go down to Caermaen in the afternoon , for Mrs. Dixon , the vicar 'swife , had " commanded " his presence at tea .  Mr. Dixon , though fat and short and clean shaven , ruddy of face , was a safe man , with no extreme views on anything .  He " deplored " all extreme party convictions , and thought the great needs of our beloved Church were conciliation , moderation , and above all " amolgamation " â € ” so he pronounced the word .  Mrs. Dixon was tall , imposing , splendid , well fitted for the Episcopal order , with gifts that would have shone at the palace .  There were daughters , who studied German Literature , and thought Miss Frances Ridley Havergal wrote poetry , but Lucian had no fear of them ; he dreaded the boys .  Everybody said they were such fine , manly fellows , such gentlemanly boys , with such a good manner , sure to get on in the world .  Lucian had said " Bother !  " in a very violent manner when the gracious invitation was conveyed to him , but there was no getting out of it .  Miss Deacon did her best to make him look smart ; his ties were all so disgraceful that she had to supply the want with a narrow ribbon of a sky-blue tint ; and she brushed him so long and so violently that he quite understood why a horse sometimes bites and sometimes kicks the groom .  He set out between two and three in a gloomy frame of mind ; he knew too well what spending the afternoon with honest manly boys meant .  He found the reality more lurid than his anticipation .  The boys were in the field , and the first remark he heard when he got in sight of the group was :  " Hullo , Lucian , how much for the tie ?  " " Fine tie , " another , a stranger , observed .  " You bagged it from the kitten , did n't you ?  "  Then they made up a game of cricket , and he was put in first .  He was l.b.w. in his second over , so they all said , and had to field for the rest of the afternoon .  Arthur Dixon , who was about his own age , forgetting all the laws of hospitality , told him he was a beastly muff when he missed a catch , rather a difficult catch .  He missed several catches , and it seemed as if he were always panting after balls , which , as Edward Dixon said , any fool , even a baby , could have stopped .  At last the game broke up , solely from Lucian 'slack of skill , as everybody declared .  Edward Dixon , who was thirteen , and had a swollen red face and a projecting eye , wanted to fight him for spoiling the game , and the others agreed that he funked the fight in a rather dirty manner .  The strange boy , who was called De Carti , and was understood to be faintly related to Lord De Carti of M'Carthytown , said openly that the fellows at his place would n't stand such a sneak for five minutes .  So the afternoon passed off very pleasantly indeed , till it was time to go into the vicarage for weak tea , homemade cake , and unripe plums .  He got away at last .  As he went out at the gate , he heard De Carti 'sfinal observation :  " We like to dress well at our place .  His governor must be beastly poor to let him go about like that .  D'y 'see his trousers are all ragged at heel ?  Is old Taylor a gentleman ?  "  It had been a very gentlemanly afternoon , but there was a certain relief when the vicarage was far behind , and the evening smoke of the little town , once the glorious capital of Siluria , hung haze-like over the ragged roofs and mingled with the river mist .  He looked down from the height of the road on the huddled houses , saw the points of light start out suddenly from the cottages on the hillside beyond , and gazed at the long lovely valley fading in the twilight , till the darkness came and all that remained was the somber ridge of the forest .  The way was pleasant through the solemn scented lane , with glimpses of dim country , the vague mystery of night overshadowing the woods and meadows .  A warm wind blew gusts of odor from the meadowsweet by the brook , now and then bee and beetle span homeward through the air , booming a deep note as from a great organ far away , and from the verge of the wood came the " who-oo , who-oo , who-oo " of the owls , a wild strange sound that mingled with the whirr and rattle of the night-jar , deep in the bracken .  The moon swam up through the films of misty cloud , and hung , a golden glorious lantern , in mid-air ; and , set in the dusky hedge , the little green fires of the glowworms appeared .  He sauntered slowly up the lane , drinking in the religion of the scene , and thinking the country by night as mystic and wonderful as a dimly-lit cathedral .  He had quite forgotten the " manly young fellows " and their sports , and only wished as the land began to shimmer and gleam in the moonlight that he knew by some medium of words or color how to represent the loveliness about his way .  " Had a pleasant evening , Lucian ?  " said his father when he came in .  " Yes , I had a nice walk home .  Oh , in the afternoon we played cricket .  I did n't care for it much .  There was a boy named De Carti there ; he is staying with the Dixons .  Mrs. Dixon whispered to me when we were going in to tea , ' He 'sa second cousin of Lord De Carti 's, 'and she looked quite grave as if she were in church .  "  The parson grinned grimly and lit his old pipe .  " Baron De Carti 'sgreat-grandfather was a Dublin attorney , " he remarked .  " Which his name was Jeremiah M'Carthy .  His prejudiced fellow-citizens called him the Unjust Steward , also the Bloody Attorney , and I believe that ' to hell with M'Carthy 'was quite a popular cry about the time of the Union .  "  Mr. Taylor was a man of very wide and irregular reading and a tenacious memory ; he often used to wonder why he had not risen in the Church .  He had once told Mr. Dixon a singular and drolatique anecdote concerning the bishop 'scollege days , and he never discovered why the prelate did not bow according to his custom when the name of Taylor was called at the next visitation .  Some people said the reason was lighted candles , but that was impossible , as the Reverend and Honorable Smallwood Stafford , Lord Beamys 'sson , who had a cure of souls in the cathedral city , was well known to burn no end of candles , and with him the bishop was on the best of terms .  Indeed the bishop often stayed at Coplesey ( pronounced " Copsey " ) Hall , Lord Beamys 'splace in the west .  Lucian had mentioned the name of De Carti with intention , and had perhaps exaggerated a little Mrs. Dixon 'srespectful manner .  He knew such incidents cheered his father , who could never look at these subjects from a proper point of view , and , as people said , sometimes made the strangest remarks for a clergyman .  This irreverent way of treating serious things was one of the great bonds between father and son , but it tended to increase their isolation .  People said they would often have liked to asked Mr. Taylor to garden-parties , and tea-parties , and other cheap entertainments , if only he had not been such an extreme man and so queer .  Indeed , a year before , Mr. Taylor had gone to a garden-party at the Castle , Caermaen , and had made such fun of the bishop 'srecent address on missions to the Portuguese , that the Gervases and Dixons and all who heard him were quite shocked and annoyed .  And , as Mrs. Meyrick of Lanyravon observed , his black coat was perfectly green with age ; so on the whole the Gervases did not like to invite Mr. Taylor again .  As for the son , nobody cared to have him ; Mrs. Dixon , as she said to her husband , really asked him out of charity .  " I am afraid he seldom gets a real meal at home , " she remarked , " so I thought he would enjoy a good wholesome tea for once in a way .  But he is such an unsatisfactory boy , he would only have one slice of that nice plain cake , and I could n't get him to take more than two plums .  They were really quite ripe too , and boys are usually so fond of fruit .  "  Thus Lucian was forced to spend his holidays chiefly in his own company , and make the best he could of the ripe peaches on the south wall of the rectory garden .  There was a certain corner where the heat of that hot August seemed concentrated , reverberated from one wall to the other , and here he liked to linger of mornings , when the mists were still thick in the valleys , " mooning , " meditating , extending his walk from the quince to the medlar and back again , beside the moldering walls of mellowed brick .  He was full of a certain wonder and awe , not unmixed with a swell of strange exultation , and wished more and more to be alone , to think over that wonderful afternoon within the fort .  In spite of himself the impression was fading ; he could not understand that feeling of mad panic terror that drove him through the thicket and down the steep hillside ; yet , he had experienced so clearly the physical shame and reluctance of the flesh ; he recollected that for a few seconds after his awakening the sight of his own body had made him shudder and writhe as if it had suffered some profoundest degradation .  He saw before him a vision of two forms ; a faun with tingling and prickling flesh lay expectant in the sunlight , and there was also the likeness of a miserable shamed boy , standing with trembling body and shaking , unsteady hands .  It was all confused , a procession of blurred images , now of rapture and ecstasy , and now of terror and shame , floating in a light that was altogether phantasmal and unreal .  He dared not approach the fort again ; he lingered in the road to Caermaen that passed behind it , but a mile away , and separated by the wild land and a strip of wood from the towering battlements .  Here he was looking over a gate one day , doubtful and wondering , when he heard a heavy step behind him , and glancing round quickly saw it was old Morgan of the White House .  " Good afternoon , Master Lucian , " he began .  " Mr. Taylor pretty well , I suppose ?  I be goin ' to the house a minute ; the men in the fields are wantin 'some more cider .  Would you come and taste a drop of cider , Master Lucian ?  It 'svery good , sir , indeed .  "  Lucian did not want any cider , but he thought it would please old Morgan if he took some , so he said he should like to taste the cider very much indeed .  Morgan was a sturdy , thick-set old man of the ancient stock ; a stiff churchman , who breakfasted regularly on fat broth and Caerphilly cheese in the fashion of his ancestors ; hot , spiced elder wine was for winter nights , and gin for festal seasons .  The farm had always been the freehold of the family , and when Lucian , in the wake of the yeoman , passed through the deep porch by the oaken door , down into the long dark kitchen , he felt as though the seventeenth century still lingered on .  One mullioned window , set deep in the sloping wall , gave all the light there was through quarries of thick glass in which there were whorls and circles , so that the lapping rose-branch and the garden and the fields beyond were distorted to the sight .  Two heavy beams , oaken but whitewashed , ran across the ceiling ; a little glow of fire sparkled in the great fireplace , and a curl of blue smoke fled up the cavern of the chimney .  Here was the genuine chimney-corner of our fathers ; there were seats on each side of the fireplace where one could sit snug and sheltered on December nights , warm and merry in the blazing light , and listen to the battle of the storm , and hear the flame spit and hiss at the falling snowflakes .  At the back of the fire were great blackened tiles with raised initials and a date.â. € ” I.M. , 1684.  " Sit down , Master Lucian , sit down , sir , " said Morgan .  " Annie , " he called through one of the numerous doors , " here 'sMaster Lucian , the parson , would like a drop of cider .  Fetch a jug , will you , directly ?  "  " Very well , father , " came the voice from the dairy and presently the girl entered , wiping the jug she held .  In his boyish way Lucian had been a good deal disturbed by Annie Morgan ; he could see her on Sundays from his seat in church , and her skin , curiously pale , her lips that seemed as though they were stained with some brilliant pigment , her black hair , and the quivering black eyes , gave him odd fancies which he had hardly shaped to himself .  Annie had grown into a woman in three years , and he was still a boy .  She came into the kitchen , curtsying and smiling .  " Good-day , Master Lucian , and how is Mr. Taylor , sir ?  "  " Pretty well , thank you .  I hope you are well .  "  " Nicely , sir , thank you .  How nice your voice do sound in church , Master Lucian , to be sure .  I was telling father about it last Sunday .  "  Lucian grinned and felt uncomfortable , and the girl set down the jug on the round table and brought a glass from the dresser .  She bent close over him as she poured out the green oily cider , fragrant of the orchard ; her hand touched his shoulder for a moment , and she said , " I beg your pardon , sir , " very prettily .  He looked up eagerly at her face ; the black eyes , a little oval in shape , were shining , and the lips smiled .  Annie wore a plain dress of some black stuff , open at the throat ; her skin was beautiful .  For a moment the ghost of a fancy hovered unsubstantial in his mind ; and then Annie curtsied as she handed him the cider , and replied to his thanks with , " And welcome kindly , sir .  "  The drink was really good ; not thin , nor sweet , but round and full and generous , with a fine yellow flame twinkling through the green when one held it up to the light .  It was like a stray sunbeam hovering on the grass in a deep orchard , and he swallowed the glassful with relish , and had some more , warmly commending it .  Mr. Morgan was touched .  " I see you do know a good thing , sir , " he said .  " Is , indeed , now , it 'sgood stuff , though it 'smy own makin '.  My old grandfather he planted the trees in the time of the wars , and he was a very good judge of an apple in his day and generation .  And a famous grafter he was , to be sure .  You will never see no swelling in the trees he grafted at all whatever .  Now there 'sJames Morris , Penyrhaul , he 'sa famous grafter , too , and yet them Redstreaks he grafted for me five year ago , they be all swollen-like below the graft already .  Would you like to taste a Blemmin pippin , now , Master Lucian ?  there be a few left in the loft , I believe .  "  Lucian said he should like an apple very much , and the farmer went out by another door , and Annie stayed in the kitchen talking .  She said Mrs. Trevor , her married sister , was coming to them soon to spend a few days .  " She 'sgot such a beautiful baby , " said Annie , " and he 'squite sensible-like already , though he 'sonly nine months old .  Mary would like to see you , sir , if you would be so kind as to step in ; that is , if it 'snot troubling you at all , Master Lucian .  I suppose you must be getting a fine scholar now , sir ?  "  " I am doing pretty well , thank you , " said the boy .  " I was first in my form last term .  "  " Fancy !  To think of that !  D'you hear , father , what a scholar Master Lucian be getting ?  "  " He be a rare grammarian , I 'msure , " said the farmer .  " You do take after your father , sir ; I always do say that nobody have got such a good deliverance in the pulpit .  "  Lucian did not find the Blenheim Orange as good as the cider , but he ate it with all the appearance of relish , and put another , with thanks , in his pocket .  He thanked the farmer again when he got up to go ; and Annie curtsied and smiled , and wished him good-day , and welcome , kindly .  Lucian heard her saying to her father as he went out what a nice-mannered young gentleman he was getting , to be sure ; and he went on his way , thinking that Annie was really very pretty , and speculating as to whether he would have the courage to kiss her , if they met in a dark lane .  He was quite sure she would only laugh , and say , " Oh , Master Lucian !  "  For many months he had occasional fits of recollection , both cold and hot ; but the bridge of time , gradually lengthening , made those dreadful and delicious images grow more and more indistinct , till at last they all passed into that wonderland which a youth looks back upon in amazement , not knowing why this used to be a symbol of terror or that of joy .  At the end of each term he would come home and find his father a little more despondent , and harder to cheer even for a moment ; and the wall paper and the furniture grew more and more dingy and shabby .  The two cats , loved and ancient beasts , that he remembered when he was quite a little boy , before he went to school , died miserably , one after the other .  Old Polly , the pony , at last fell down in the stable from the weakness of old age , and had to be killed there ; the battered old trap ran no longer along the well-remembered lanes .  There was long meadow grass on the lawn , and the trained fruit trees on the wall had got quite out of hand .  At last , when Lucian was seventeen , his father was obliged to take him from school ; he could no longer afford the fees .  This was the sorry ending of many hopes , and dreams of a double-first , a fellowship , distinction and glory that the poor parson had long entertained for his son , and the two moped together , in the shabby room , one on each side of the sulky fire , thinking of dead days and finished plans , and seeing a grey future in the years that advanced towards them .  At one time there seemed some chance of a distant relative coming forward to Lucian 'sassistance ; and indeed it was quite settled that he should go up to London with certain definite aims .  Mr. Taylor told the good news to his acquaintancesâ € ” his coat was too green now for any pretence of friendship ; and Lucian himself spoke of his plans to Burrows the doctor and Mr. Dixon , and one or two others .  Then the whole scheme fell through , and the parson and his son suffered much sympathy .  People , of course , had to say they were sorry , but in reality the news was received with high spirits , with the joy with which one sees a stone , as it rolls down a steep place , give yet another bounding leap towards the pool beneath .  Mrs. Dixon heard the pleasant tidings from Mrs. Colley , who came in to talk about the Mothers 'Meeting and the Band of Hope .  Mrs. Dixon was nursing little Athelwig , or some such name , at the time , and made many affecting observations on the general righteousness with which the world was governed .  Indeed , poor Lucian 'sdisappointment seemed distinctly to increase her faith in the Divine Order , as if it had been some example in Butler 'sAnalogy .  " Are n't Mr. Taylor 'sviews very extreme ? " she said to her husband the same evening .  " I am afraid they are , " he replied .  " I was quite grieved at the last Diocesan Conference at the way in which he spoke .  The dear old bishop had given an address on Auricular Confession ; he was forced to do so , you know , after what had happened , and I must say that I never felt prouder of our beloved Church .  "  Mr. Dixon told all the Homeric story of the conference , reciting the achievements of the champions , " deploring " this and applauding that .  It seemed that Mr. Taylor had had the audacity to quote authorities which the bishop could not very well repudiate , though they were directly opposed to the " safe " Episcopal pronouncement .  Mrs. Dixon of course was grieved ; it was " sad " to think of a clergyman behaving so shamefully .  " But you know , dear , " she proceeded , " I have been thinking about that unfortunate Taylor boy and his disappointments , and after what you 'vejust told me , I am sure it 'ssome kind of judgment on them both .  Has Mr. Taylor forgotten the vows he took at his ordination ?  But do n't you think , dear , I am right , and that he has been punished : ' The sins of the fathers '?  "  Somehow or other Lucian divined the atmosphere of threatenings and judgments , and shrank more and more from the small society of the countryside .  For his part , when he was not " mooning " in the beloved fields and woods of happy memory , he shut himself up with books , reading whatever could be found on the shelves , and amassing a store of incongruous and obsolete knowledge .  Long did he linger with the men of the seventeenth century ; delaying the gay sunlit streets with Pepys , and listening to the charmed sound of the Restoration Revel ; roaming by peaceful streams with Izaak Walton , and the great Catholic divines ; enchanted with the portrait of Herbert the loving ascetic ; awed by the mystic breath of Crashaw .  Then the cavalier poets sang their gallant songs ; and Herrick made Dean Prior magic ground by the holy incantation of a verse .  And in the old proverbs and homely sayings of the time he found the good and beautiful English life , a time full of grace and dignity and rich merriment .  He dived deeper and deeper into his books ; he had taken all obsolescence to be his province ; in his disgust at the stupid usual questions , " Will it pay ?  " " What good is it ?  " and so forth , he would only read what was uncouth and useless .  The strange pomp and symbolism of the Cabala , with its hint of more terrible things ; the Rosicrucian mysteries of Fludd , the enigmas of Vaughan , dreams of alchemistsâ € ” all these were his delight .  Such were his companions , with the hills and hanging woods , the brooks and lonely waterpools ; books , the thoughts of books , the stirrings of imagination , all fused into one phantasy by the magic of the outland country .  He held himself aloof from the walls of the fort ; he was content to see the heaped mounds , the violent height with faerie bulwarks , from the gate in the lane , and to leave all within the ring of oaks in the mystery of his boyhood 'svision .  He professed to laugh at himself and at his fancies of that hot August afternoon , when sleep came to him within the thicket , but in his heart of hearts there was something that never fadedâ € ” something that glowed like the red glint of a gypsy 'sfire seen from afar across the hills and mists of the night , and known to be burning in a wild land .  Sometimes , when he was sunken in his books , the flame of delight shot up , and showed him a whole province and continent of his nature , all shining and aglow ; and in the midst of the exultation and triumph he would draw back , a little afraid .  He had become ascetic in his studious and melancholy isolation , and the vision of such ecstasies frightened him .  He began to write a little ; at first very tentatively and feebly , and then with more confidence .  He showed some of his verses to his father , who told him with a sigh that he had once hoped to writeâ € ” in the old days at Oxford , he added .  " They are very nicely done , " said the parson ; " but I 'mafraid you wo n't find anybody to print them , my boy .  "  So he pottered on ; reading everything , imitating what struck his fancy , attempting the effect of the classic meters in English verse , trying his hand at a masque , a Restoration comedy , forming impossible plans for books which rarely got beyond half a dozen lines on a sheet of paper ; beset with splendid fancies which refused to abide before the pen .  But the vain joy of conception was not altogether vain , for it gave him some armor about his heart .  The months went by , monotonous , and sometimes blotted with despair .  He wrote and planned and filled the waste-paper basket with hopeless efforts .  Now and then he sent verses or prose articles to magazines , in pathetic ignorance of the trade .  He felt the immense difficulty of the career of literature without clearly understanding it ; the battle was happily in a mist , so that the host of the enemy , terribly arrayed , was to some extent hidden .  Yet there was enough of difficulty to appall ; from following the intricate course of little nameless brooks , from hushed twilight woods , from the vision of the mountains , and the breath of the great wind , passing from deep to deep , he would come home filled with thoughts and emotions , mystic fancies which he yearned to translate into the written word .  And the result of the effort seemed always to be bathos !  Wooden sentences , a portentous stilted style , obscurity , and awkwardness clogged the pen ; it seemed impossible to win the great secret of language ; the stars glittered only in the darkness , and vanished away in clearer light .  The periods of despair were often long and heavy , the victories very few and trifling ; night after night he sat writing after his father had knocked out his last pipe , filling a page with difficulty in an hour , and usually forced to thrust the stuff away in despair , and go unhappily to bed , conscious that after all his labor he had done nothing .  And these were moments when the accustomed vision of the land alarmed him , and the wild domed hills and darkling woods seemed symbols of some terrible secret in the inner life of that strangerâ € ” himself .  Sometimes when he was deep in his books and papers , sometimes on a lonely walk , sometimes amidst the tiresome chatter of Caermaen " society , " he would thrill with a sudden sense of awful hidden things , and there ran that quivering flame through his nerves that brought back the recollection of the matted thicket , and that earlier appearance of the bare black boughs enwrapped with flames .  Indeed , though he avoided the solitary lane , and the sight of the sheer height , with its ring of oaks and molded mounds , the image of it grew more intense as the symbol of certain hints and suggestions .  The exultant and insurgent flesh seemed to have its temple and castle within those olden walls , and he longed with all his heart to escape , to set himself free in the wilderness of London , and to be secure amidst the murmur of modern streets .  II  Lucian was growing really anxious about his manuscript .  He had gained enough experience at twenty-three to know that editors and publishers must not be hurried ; but his book had been lying at Messrs Beit 'soffice for more than three months .  For six weeks he had not dared to expect an answer , but afterwards life had become agonizing .  Every morning , at post-time , the poor wretch nearly choked with anxiety to know whether his sentence had arrived , and the rest of the day was racked with alternate pangs of hope and despair .  Now and then he was almost assured of success ; conning over these painful and eager pages in memory , he found parts that were admirable , while again , his inexperience reproached him , and he feared he had written a raw and awkward book , wholly unfit for print .  Then he would compare what he remembered of it with notable magazine articles and books praised by reviewers , and fancy that after all there might be good points in the thing ; he could not help liking the first chapter for instance .  Perhaps the letter might come tomorrow .  So it went on ; week after week of sick torture made more exquisite by such gleams of hope ; it was as if he were stretched in anguish on the rack , and the pain relaxed and kind words spoken now and again by the tormentors , and then once more the grinding pang and burning agony .  At last he could bear suspense no longer , and he wrote to Messrs Beit , inquiring in a humble manner whether the manuscript had arrived in safety .  The firm replied in a very polite letter , expressing regret that their reader had been suffering from a cold in the head , and had therefore been unable to send in his report .  A final decision was promised in a week 'stime , and the letter ended with apologies for the delay and a hope that he had suffered no inconvenience .  Of course the " final decision " did not come at the end of the week , but the book was returned at the end of three weeks , with a circular thanking the author for his kindness in submitting the manuscript , and regretting that the firm did not see their way to producing it .  He felt relieved ; the operation that he had dreaded and deprecated for so long was at last over , and he would no longer grow sick of mornings when the letters were brought in .  He took his parcel to the sunny corner of the garden , where the old wooden seat stood sheltered from the biting March winds .  Messrs Beit had put in with the circular one of their short lists , a neat booklet , headed : Messrs Beit + Co. 'sRecent Publications .  He settled himself comfortably on the seat , lit his pipe , and began to read : " A Bad Un to Beat : a Novel of Sporting Life , by the Honorable Mrs. Scudamore Runnymede , author of Yoicks , With the Mudshire Pack , The Sportleigh Stables , etc. , etc. , 3 vols. At all Libraries .  " The Press , it seemed , pronounced this to be a " charming book .  Mrs. Runnymede has wit and humor enough to furnish forth half-a-dozen ordinary sporting novels .  " " Told with the sparkle and vivacity of a past-mistress in the art of novel writing , " said the Review ; while Miranda , of Smart Society , positively bubbled with enthusiasm .  " You must forgive me , Aminta , " wrote this young person , " if I have not sent the description I promised of Madame Lulu 'snew creations and others of that ilk .  I must a tale unfold ; Tom came in yesterday and began to rave about the Honorable Mrs. Scudamore Runnymede 'slast novel , A Bad Un to Beat .  He says all the Smart Set are talking of it , and it seems the police have to regulate the crowd at Mudie 's.  You know I read everything Mrs. Runnymede writes , so I set out Miggs directly to beg , borrow or steal a copy , and I confess I burnt the midnight oil before I laid it down .  Now , mind you get it , you will find it so awfully chic .  " Nearly all the novelists on Messrs Beit 'slist were ladies , their works all ran to three volumes , and all of them pleased the Press , the Review , and Miranda of Smart Society .  One of these books , Millicent 'sMarriage , by Sarah Pocklington Sanders , was pronounced fit to lie on the school-room table , on the drawing-room bookshelf , or beneath the pillow of the most gently nurtured of our daughters .  " This , " the reviewer went on , " is high praise , especially in these days when we are deafened by the loud-voiced clamor of self-styled 'artists .  ' We would warn the young men who prate so persistently of style and literature , construction and prose harmonies , that we believe the English reading public will have none of them .  Harmless amusement , a gentle flow of domestic interest , a faithful reproduction of the open and manly life of the hunting field , pictures of innocent and healthy English girlhood such as Miss Sanders here affords us ; these are the topics that will always find a welcome in our homes , which remain bolted and barred against the abandoned artist and the scrofulous stylist .  "  He turned over the pages of the little book and chuckled in high relish ; he discovered an honest enthusiasm , a determination to strike a blow for the good and true that refreshed and exhilarated .  A beaming face , spectacled and whiskered probably , an expansive waistcoat , and a tender heart , seemed to shine through the words which Messrs Beit had quoted ; and the alliteration of the final sentence ; that was good too ; there was style for you if you wanted it .  The champion of the blushing cheek and the gushing eye showed that he too could handle the weapons of the enemy if he cared to trouble himself with such things .  Lucian leant back and roared with indecent laughter till the tabby tom-cat who had succeeded to the poor dead beasts looked up reproachfully from his sunny corner , with a face like the reviewer 's, innocent and round and whiskered .  At last he turned to his parcel and drew out some half-dozen sheets of manuscript , and began to read in a rather desponding spirit ; it was pretty obvious , he thought , that the stuff was poor and beneath the standard of publication .  The book had taken a year and a half in the making ; it was a pious attempt to translate into English prose the form and mystery of the domed hills , the magic of occult valleys , the sound of the red swollen brook swirling through leafless woods .  Day-dreams and toil at nights had gone into the eager pages , he had labored hard to do his very best , writing and rewriting , weighing his cadences , beginning over and over again , grudging no patience , no trouble if only it might be pretty good ; good enough to print and sell to a reading public which had become critical .  He glanced through the manuscript in his hand , and to his astonishment , he could not help thinking that in its measure it was decent work .  After three months his prose seemed fresh and strange as if it had been wrought by another man , and in spite of himself he found charming things , and impressions that were not commonplace .  He knew how weak it all was compared with his own conceptions ; he had seen an enchanted city , awful , glorious , with flame smitten about its battlements , like the cities of the Sangraal , and he had molded his copy in such poor clay as came to his hand ; yet , in spite of the gulf that yawned between the idea and the work , he knew as he read that the thing accomplished was very far from a failure .  He put back the leaves carefully , and glanced again at Messrs Beit 'slist .  It had escaped his notice that A Bad Un to Beat was in its third three-volume edition .  It was a great thing , at all events , to know in what direction to aim , if he wished to succeed .  If he worked hard , he thought , he might some day win the approval of the coy and retiring Miranda of Smart Society ; that modest maiden might in his praise interrupt her task of disinterested advertisement , her philanthropic counsels to " go to Jumper 's, and mind you ask for Mr. C .  Jumper , who will show you the lovely blue paper with the yellow spots at ten shillings the piece .  " He put down the pamphlet , and laughed again at the books and the reviewers : so that he might not weep .  This then was English fiction , this was English criticism , and farce , after all , was but an ill-played tragedy .  The rejected manuscript was hidden away , and his father quoted Horace 'smaxim as to the benefit of keeping literary works for some time " in the wood .  " There was nothing to grumble at , though Lucian was inclined to think the duration of the reader 'scatarrh a little exaggerated .  But this was a trifle ; he did not arrogate to himself the position of a small commercial traveler , who expects prompt civility as a matter of course , and not at all as a favor .  He simply forgot his old book , and resolved that he would make a better one if he could .  With the hot fit of resolution , the determination not to be snuffed out by one refusal upon him , he began to beat about in his mind for some new scheme .  At first it seemed that he had hit upon a promising subject ; he began to plot out chapters and scribble hints for the curious story that had entered his mind , arranging his circumstances and noting the effects to be produced with all the enthusiasm of the artist .  But after the first breath the aspect of the work changed ; page after page was tossed aside as hopeless , the beautiful sentences he had dreamed of refused to be written , and his puppets remained stiff and wooden , devoid of life or motion .  Then all the old despairs came back , the agonies of the artificer who strives and perseveres in vain ; the scheme that seemed of amorous fire turned to cold hard ice in his hands .  He let the pen drop from his fingers , and wondered how he could have ever dreamed of writing books .  Again , the thought occurred that he might do something if he could only get away , and join the sad procession in the murmuring London streets , far from the shadow of those awful hills .  But it was quite impossible ; the relative who had once promised assistance was appealed to , and wrote expressing his regret that Lucian had turned out a " loafer , " wasting his time in scribbling , instead of trying to earn his living .  Lucian felt rather hurt at this letter , but the parson only grinned grimly as usual .  He was thinking of how he signed a check many years before , in the days of his prosperity , and the check was payable to this didactic relative , then in but a poor way , and of a thankful turn of mind .  The old rejected manuscript had almost passed out of his recollection .  It was recalled oddly enough .  He was looking over the Reader , and enjoying the admirable literary criticisms , some three months after the return of his book , when his eye was attracted by a quoted passage in one of the notices .  The thought and style both wakened memory , the cadences were familiar and beloved .  He read through the review from the beginning ; it was a very favorable one , and pronounced the volume an immense advance on Mr. Ritson 'sprevious work .  " Here , undoubtedly , the author has discovered a vein of pure metal , " the reviewer added , " and we predict that he will go far .  " Lucian had not yet reached his father 'sstage , he was unable to grin in the manner of that irreverent parson .  The passage selected for high praise was taken almost word for word from the manuscript now resting in his room , the work that had not reached the high standard of Messrs Beit + Co. , who , curiously enough , were the publishers of the book reviewed in the Reader .  He had a few shillings in his possession , and wrote at once to a bookseller in London for a copy of The Chorus in Green , as the author had oddly named the book .  He wrote on June 21st and thought he might fairly expect to receive the interesting volume by the 24th ; but the postman , true to his tradition , brought nothing for him , and in the afternoon he resolved to walk down to Caermaen , in case it might have come by a second post ; or it might have been mislaid at the office ; they forgot parcels sometimes , especially when the bag was heavy and the weather hot .  This 24th was a sultry and oppressive day ; a grey veil of cloud obscured the sky , and a vaporous mist hung heavily over the land , and fumed up from the valleys .  But at five o'clock , when he started , the clouds began to break , and the sunlight suddenly streamed down through the misty air , making ways and channels of rich glory , and bright islands in the gloom .  It was a pleasant and shining evening when , passing by devious back streets to avoid the barbarians ( as he very rudely called the respectable inhabitants of the town ) , he reached the post-office ; which was also the general shop .  " Yes , Mr. Taylor , there is something for you , sir , " said the man .  " Williams the postman forgot to take it up this morning , " and he handed over the packet .  Lucian took it under his arm and went slowly through the ragged winding lanes till he came into the country .  He got over the first stile on the road , and sitting down in the shelter of a hedge , cut the strings and opened the parcel .  The Chorus in Green was got up in what reviewers call a dainty manner : a bronze-green cloth , well-cut gold lettering , wide margins and black " old-face " type , all witnessed to the good taste of Messrs Beit + Co. He cut the pages hastily and began to read .  He soon found that he had wronged Mr. Ritsonâ € ” that old literary hand had by no means stolen his book wholesale , as he had expected .  There were about two hundred pages in the pretty little volume , and of these about ninety were Lucian 's, dovetailed into a rather different scheme with skill that was nothing short of exquisite .  And Mr. Ritson 'sown work was often very good ; spoilt here and there for some tastes by the " cataloguing " method , a somewhat materialistic way of taking an inventory of the holy country things ; but , for that very reason , contrasting to a great advantage with Lucian 'shints and dreams and note of haunting .  And here and there Mr. Ritson had made little alterations in the style of the passages he had conveyed , and most of these alterations were amendments , as Lucian was obliged to confess , though he would have liked to argue one or two points with his collaborator and corrector .  He lit his pipe and leant back comfortably in the hedge , thinking things over , weighing very coolly his experience of humanity , his contact with the " society " of the countryside , the affair of the The Chorus in Green , and even some little incidents that had struck him as he was walking through the streets of Caermaen that evening .  At the post-office , when he was inquiring for his parcel , he had heard two old women grumbling in the street ; it seemed , so far as he could make out , that both had been disappointed in much the same way .  One was a Roman Catholic , hardened , and beyond the reach of conversion ; she had been advised to ask alms of the priests , " who are always creeping and crawling about .  " The other old sinner was a Dissenter , and , " Mr. Dixon has quite enough to do to relieve good Church people .  "  Mrs. Dixon , assisted by Henrietta , was , it seemed , the lady high almoner , who dispensed these charities .  As she said to Mrs. Colley , they would end by keeping all the beggars in the county , and they really could n't afford it .  A large family was an expensive thing , and the girls must have new frocks .  " Mr. Dixon is always telling me and the girls that we must not demoralize the people by indiscriminate charity .  " Lucian had heard of these sage counsels , and through it them as he listened to the bitter complaints of the gaunt , hungry old women .  In the back street by which he passed out of the town he saw a large " healthy " boy kicking a sick cat ; the poor creature had just strength enough to crawl under an outhouse door ; probably to die in torments .  He did not find much satisfaction in thrashing the boy , but he did it with hearty good will .  Further on , at the corner where the turnpike used to be , was a big notice , announcing a meeting at the school-room in aid of the missions to the Portuguese .  " Under the Patronage of the Lord Bishop of the Diocese , " was the imposing headline ; the Reverend Merivale Dixon , vicar of Caermaen , was to be in the chair , supported by Stanley Gervase , Esq. , J.P. , and by many of the clergy and gentry of the neighborhood .  Senhor Diabo , " formerly a Romanist priest , now an evangelist in Lisbon , " would address the meeting .  " Funds are urgently needed to carry on this good work , " concluded the notice .  So he lay well back in the shade of the hedge , and thought whether some sort of an article could not be made by vindicating the terrible Yahoos ; one might point out that they were in many respects a simple and unsophisticated race , whose faults were the result of their enslaved position , while such virtues as they had were all their own .  They might be compared , he thought , much to their advantage , with more complex civilizations .  There was no hint of anything like the Beit system of publishing in existence amongst them ; the great Yahoo nation would surely never feed and encourage a scabby Houyhnhnm , expelled for his foulness from the horse-community , and the witty dean , in all his minuteness , had said nothing of " safe " Yahoos .  On reflection , however , he did not feel quite secure of this part of his defense ; he remembered that the leading brutes had favorites , who were employed in certain simple domestic offices about their masters , and it seemed doubtful whether the contemplated vindication would not break down on this point .  He smiled queerly to himself as he thought of these comparisons , but his heart burned with a dull fury .  Throwing back his unhappy memory , he recalled all the contempt and scorn he had suffered ; as a boy he had heard the masters murmuring their disdain of him and of his desire to learn other than ordinary school work .  As a young man he had suffered the insolence of these wretched people about him ; their cackling laughter at his poverty jarred and grated in his ears ; he saw the acrid grin of some miserable idiot woman , some creature beneath the swine in intelligence and manners , merciless , as he went by with his eyes on the dust , in his ragged clothes .  He and his father seemed to pass down an avenue of jeers and contempt , and contempt from such animals as these !  This putrid filth , molded into human shape , made only to fawn on the rich and beslaver them , thinking no foulness too foul if it were done in honor of those in power and authority ; and no refined cruelty of contempt too cruel if it were contempt of the poor and humble and oppressed ; it was to this obscene and ghastly throng that he was something to be pointed at .  And these men and women spoke of sacred things , and knelt before the awful altar of God , before the altar of tremendous fire , surrounded as they professed by Angels and Archangels and all the Company of Heaven ; and in their very church they had one aisle for the rich and another for the poor .  And the species was not peculiar to Caermaen ; the rich business men in London and the successful brother author were probably amusing themselves at the expense of the poor struggling creature they had injured and wounded ; just as the " healthy " boy had burst into a great laugh when the miserable sick cat cried out in bitter agony , and trailed its limbs slowly , as it crept away to die .  Lucian looked into his own life and his own will ; he saw that in spite of his follies , and his want of success , he had not been consciously malignant , he had never deliberately aided in oppression , or looked on it with enjoyment and approval , and he felt that when he lay dead beneath the earth , eaten by swarming worms , he would be in a purer company than now , when he lived amongst human creatures .  And he was to call this loathsome beast , all sting and filth , brother !  " I had rather call the devils my brothers , " he said in his heart , " I would fare better in hell .  " Blood was in his eyes , and as he looked up the sky seemed of blood , and the earth burned with fire .  The sun was sinking low on the mountain when he set out on the way again .  Burrows , the doctor , coming home in his trap , met him a little lower on the road , and gave him a friendly good-night .  " A long way round on this road , is n't it ?  " said the doctor .  " As you have come so far , why do n't you try the short cut across the fields ?  You will find it easily enough ; second stile on the left hand , and then go straight ahead .  "  He thanked Dr. Burrows and said he would try the short cut , and Burrows span on homeward .  He was a gruff and honest bachelor , and often felt very sorry for the lad , and wished he could help him .  As he drove on , it suddenly occurred to him that Lucian had an awful look on his face , and he was sorry he had not asked him to jump in , and to come to supper .  A hearty slice of beef , with strong ale , whisky and soda afterwards , a good pipe , and certain Rabelaisian tales which the doctor had treasured for many years , would have done the poor fellow a lot of good , he was certain .  He half turned round on his seat , and looked to see if Lucian were still in sight , but he had passed the corner , and the doctor drove on , shivering a little ; the mists were beginning to rise from the wet banks of the river .  Lucian trailed slowly along the road , keeping a look out for the stile the doctor had mentioned .  It would be a little of an adventure , he thought , to find his way by an unknown track ; he knew the direction in which his home lay , and he imagined he would not have much difficulty in crossing from one stile to another .  The path led him up a steep bare field , and when he was at the top , the town and the valley winding up to the north stretched before him .  The river was stilled at the flood , and the yellow water , reflecting the sunset , glowed in its deep pools like dull brass .  These burning pools , the level meadows fringed with shuddering reeds , the long dark sweep of the forest on the hill , were all clear and distinct , yet the light seemed to have clothed them with a new garment , even as voices from the streets of Caermaen sounded strangely , mounting up thin with the smoke .  There beneath him lay the huddled cluster of Caermaen , the ragged and uneven roofs that marked the winding and sordid streets , here and there a pointed gable rising above its meaner fellows ; beyond he recognized the piled mounds that marked the circle of the amphitheatre , and the dark edge of trees that grew where the Roman wall whitened and waxed old beneath the frosts and rains of eighteen hundred years .  Thin and strange , mingled together , the voices came up to him on the hill ; it was as if an outland race inhabited the ruined city and talked in a strange language of strange and terrible things .  The sun had slid down the sky , and hung quivering over the huge dark dome of the mountain like a burnt sacrifice , and then suddenly vanished .  In the afterglow the clouds began to writhe and turn scarlet , and shone so strangely reflected in the pools of the snake-like river , that one would have said the still waters stirred , the fleeting and changing of the clouds seeming to quicken the stream , as if it bubbled and sent up gouts of blood .  But already about the town the darkness was forming ; fast , fast the shadows crept upon it from the forest , and from all sides banks and wreaths of curling mist were gathering , as if a ghostly leaguer were being built up against the city , and the strange race who lived in its streets .  Suddenly there burst out from the stillness the clear and piercing music of the réveillé , calling , recalling , iterated , reiterated , and ending with one long high fierce shrill note with which the steep hills rang .  Perhaps a boy in the school band was practicing on his bugle , but for Lucian it was magic .  For him it was the note of the Roman trumpet , tuba mirum spargens sonum , filling all the hollow valley with its command , reverberated in dark places in the far forest , and resonant in the old graveyards without the walls .  In his imagination he saw the earthen gates of the tombs broken open , and the serried legion swarming to the eagles .  Century by century they passed by ; they rose , dripping , from the river bed , they rose from the level , their armor shone in the quiet orchard , they gathered in ranks and companies from the cemetery , and as the trumpet sounded , the hill fort above the town gave up its dead .  By hundreds and thousands the ghostly battle surged about the standard , behind the quaking mist , ready to march against the moldering walls they had built so many years before .  He turned sharply ; it was growing very dark , and he was afraid of missing his way .  At first the path led him by the verge of a wood ; there was a noise of rustling and murmuring from the trees as if they were taking evil counsel together .  A high hedge shut out the sight of the darkening valley , and he stumbled on mechanically , without taking much note of the turnings of the track , and when he came out from the wood shadow to the open country , he stood for a moment quite bewildered and uncertain .  A dark wild twilight country lay before him , confused dim shapes of trees near at hand , and a hollow below his feet , and the further hills and woods were dimmer , and all the air was very still .  Suddenly the darkness about him glowed ; a furnace fire had shot up on the mountain , and for a moment the little world of the woodside and the steep hill shone in a pale light , and he thought he saw his path beaten out in the turf before him .  The great flame sank down to a red glint of fire , and it led him on down the ragged slope , his feet striking against ridges of ground , and falling from beneath him at a sudden dip .  The bramble bushes shot out long prickly vines , amongst which he was entangled , and lower he was held back by wet bubbling earth .  He had descended into a dark and shady valley , beset and tapestried with gloomy thickets ; the weird wood noises were the only sounds , strange , unutterable mutterings , dismal , inarticulate .  He pushed on in what he hoped was the right direction , stumbling from stile to gate , peering through mist and shadow , and still vainly seeking for any known landmark .  Presently another sound broke upon the grim air , the murmur of water poured over stones , gurgling against the old misshapen roots of trees , and running clear in a deep channel .  He passed into the chill breath of the brook , and almost fancied he heard two voices speaking in its murmur ; there seemed a ceaseless utterance of words , an endless argument .  With a mood of horror pressing on him , he listened to the noise of waters , and the wild fancy seized him that he was not deceived , that two unknown beings stood together there in the darkness and tried the balances of his life , and spoke his doom .  The hour in the matted thicket rushed over the great bridge of years to his thought ; he had sinned against the earth , and the earth trembled and shook for vengeance .  He stayed still for a moment , quivering with fear , and at last went on blindly , no longer caring for the path , if only he might escape from the toils of that dismal shuddering hollow .  As he plunged through the hedges the bristling thorns tore his face and hands ; he fell amongst stinging-nettles and was pricked as he beat out his way amidst the gorse .  He raced headlong , his head over his shoulder , through a windy wood , bare of undergrowth ; there lay about the ground moldering stumps , the relics of trees that had thundered to their fall , crashing and tearing to earth , long ago ; and from these remains there flowed out a pale thin radiance , filling the spaces of the sounding wood with a dream of light .  He had lost all count of the track ; he felt he had fled for hours , climbing and descending , and yet not advancing ; it was as if he stood still and the shadows of the land went by , in a vision .  But at last a hedge , high and straggling , rose before him , and as he broke through it , his feet slipped , and he fell headlong down a steep bank into a lane .  He lay still , half-stunned , for a moment , and then rising unsteadily , he looked desperately into the darkness before him , uncertain and bewildered .  In front it was black as a midnight cellar , and he turned about , and saw a glint in the distance , as if a candle were flickering in a farm-house window .  He began to walk with trembling feet towards the light , when suddenly something pale started out from the shadows before him , and seemed to swim and float down the air .  He was going down hill , and he hastened onwards , and he could see the bars of a stile framed dimly against the sky , and the figure still advanced with that gliding motion .  Then , as the road declined to the valley , the landmark he had been seeking appeared .  To his right there surged up in the darkness the darker summit of the Roman fort , and the streaming fire of the great full moon glowed through the bars of the wizard oaks , and made a halo shine about the hill .  He was now quite close to the white appearance , and saw that it was only a woman walking swiftly down the lane ; the floating movement was an effect due to the somber air and the moon 'sglamour .  At the gate , where he had spent so many hours gazing at the fort , they walked foot to foot , and he saw it was Annie Morgan .  " Good evening , Master Lucian , " said the girl , " it 'svery dark , sir , indeed .  "  " Good evening , Annie , " he answered , calling her by her name for the first time , and he saw that she smiled with pleasure .  " You are out late , are n't you ?  "  " Yes , sir ; but I 'vebeen taking a bit of supper to old Mrs. Gibbon .  She 'sbeen very poorly the last few days , and there 'snobody to do anything for her .  "  Then there were really people who helped one another ; kindness and pity were not mere myths , fictions of " society , " as useful as Doe and Roe , and as non-existent .  The thought struck Lucian with a shock ; the evening 'spassion and delirium , the wild walk and physical fatigue had almost shattered him in body and mind .  He was " degenerate , " decadent , and the rough rains and blustering winds of life , which a stronger man would have laughed at and enjoyed , were to him " hail-storms and fire-showers .  " After all , Messrs Beit , the publishers , were only sharp men of business , and these terrible Dixons and Gervases and Colleys merely the ordinary limited clergy and gentry of a quiet country town ; sturdier sense would have dismissed Dixon as an old humbug , Stanley Gervase , Esquire , J.P. , as a " bit of a bounder , " and the ladies as " rather a shoddy lot .  " But he was walking slowly now in painful silence , his heavy , lagging feet striking against the loose stones .  He was not thinking of the girl beside him ; only something seemed to swell and grow and swell within his heart ; it was all the torture of his days , weary hopes and weary disappointment , scorn rankling and throbbing , and the thought " I had rather call the devils my brothers and live with them in hell .  " He choked and gasped for breath , and felt involuntary muscles working in his face , and the impulses of a madman stirring him ; he himself was in truth the realization of the vision of Caermaen that night , a city with moldering walls beset by the ghostly legion .  Life and the world and the laws of the sunlight had passed away , and the resurrection and kingdom of the dead began .  The Celt assailed him , becoming from the weird wood he called the world , and his far-off ancestors , the " little people , " crept out of their caves , muttering charms and incantations in hissing inhuman speech ; he was beleaguered by desires that had slept in his race for ages .  " I am afraid you are very tired , Master Lucian .  Would you like me to give you my hand over this rough bit ?  "  He had stumbled against a great round stone and had nearly fallen .  The woman 'shand sought his in the darkness ; as he felt the touch of the soft warm flesh he moaned , and a pang shot through his arm to his heart .  He looked up and found he had only walked a few paces since Annie had spoken ; he had thought they had wandered for hours together .  The moon was just mounting above the oaks , and the halo round the dark hill brightened .  He stopped short , and keeping his hold of Annie 'shand , looked into her face .  A hazy glory of moonlight shone around them and lit up their eyes .  He had not greatly altered since his boyhood ; his face was pale olive in color , thin and oval ; marks of pain had gathered about the eyes , and his black hair was already stricken with grey .  But the eager , curious gaze still remained , and what he saw before him lit up his sadness with a new fire .  She stopped too , and did not offer to draw away , but looked back with all her heart .  They were alike in many ways ; her skin was also of that olive color , but her face was sweet as a beautiful summer night , and her black eyes showed no dimness , and the smile on the scarlet lips was like a flame when it brightens a dark and lonely land .  " You are sorely tired , Master Lucian , let us sit down here by the gate .  "  It was Lucian who spoke next : " My dear , my dear .  " And their lips were together again , and their arms locked together , each holding the other fast .  And then the poor lad let his head sink down on his sweetheart 'sbreast , and burst into a passion of weeping .  The tears streamed down his face , and he shook with sobbing , in the happiest moment that he had ever lived .  The woman bent over him and tried to comfort him , but his tears were his consolation and his triumph .  Annie was whispering to him , her hand laid on his heart ; she was whispering beautiful , wonderful words , that soothed him as a song .  He did not know what they meant .  " Annie , dear , dear Annie , what are you saying to me ?  I have never heard such beautiful words .  Tell me , Annie , what do they mean ?  "  She laughed , and said it was only nonsense that the nurses sang to the children .  " No , no , you are not to call me Master Lucian any more , " he said , when they parted , " you must call me Lucian ; and I , I worship you , my dear Annie .  "  He fell down before her , embracing her knees , and adored , and she allowed him , and confirmed his worship .  He followed slowly after her , passing the path which led to her home with a longing glance .  Nobody saw any difference in Lucian when he reached the rectory .  He came in with his usual dreamy indifference , and told how he had lost his way by trying the short cut .  He said he had met Dr. Burrows on the road , and that he had recommended the path by the fields .  Then , as dully as if he had been reading some story out of a newspaper , he gave his father the outlines of the Beit case , producing the pretty little book called The Chorus in Green .  The parson listened in amazement .  " You mean to tell me that you wrote this book ?  " he said .  He was quite roused .  " No ; not all of it .  Look ; that bit is mine , and that ; and the beginning of this chapter .  Nearly the whole of the third chapter is by me .  "  He closed the book without interest , and indeed he felt astonished at his father 'sexcitement .  The incident seemed to him unimportant .  " And you say that eighty or ninety pages of this book are yours , and these scoundrels have stolen your work ?  "  " Well , I suppose they have .  I 'llfetch the manuscript , if you would like to look at it .  "  The manuscript was duly produced , wrapped in brown paper , with Messrs Beit 'saddress label on it , and the post-office dated stamps .  " And the other book has been out a month .  " The parson , forgetting the sacerdotal office , and his good habit of grinning , swore at Messrs Beit and Mr. Ritson , calling them damned thieves , and then began to read the manuscript , and to compare it with the printed book .  " Why , it 'ssplendid work .  My poor fellow , " he said after a while , " I had no notion you could write so well .  I used to think of such things in the old days at Oxford ; ' old Bill , ' the tutor , used to praise my essays , but I never wrote anything like this .  And this infernal ruffian of a Ritson has taken all your best things and mixed them up with his own rot to make it go down .  Of course you 'llexpose the gang ?  "  Lucian was mildly amused ; he could n't enter into his father 'sfeelings at all .  He sat smoking in one of the old easy chairs , taking the rare relish of a hot grog with his pipe , and gazing out of his dreamy eyes at the violent old parson .  He was pleased that his father liked his book , because he knew him to be a deep and sober scholar and a cool judge of good letters ; but he laughed to himself when he saw the magic of print .  The parson had expressed no wish to read the manuscript when it came back in disgrace ; he had merely grinned , said something about boomerangs , and quoted Horace with relish .  Whereas now , before the book in its neat case , lettered with another man 'sname , his approbation of the writing and his disapproval of the " scoundrels , " as he called them , were loudly expressed , and , though a good smoker , he blew and puffed vehemently at his pipe .  " You 'llexpose the rascals , of course , wo n't you ?  " he said again .  " Oh no , I think not .  It really does n't matter much , does it ?  After all , there are some very weak things in the book ; does n't it strike you as ' young ?  ' I have been thinking of another plan , but I have n't done much with it lately .  But I believe I 'vegot hold of a really good idea this time , and if I can manage to see the heart of it I hope to turn out a manuscript worth stealing .  But it 'sso hard to get at the core of an ideaâ € ” the heart , as I call it , " he went on after a pause .  " It 'slike having a box you ca n't open , though you know there 'ssomething wonderful inside .  But I do believe I 'vea fine thing in my hands , and I mean to try my best to work it .  "  Lucian talked with enthusiasm now , but his father , on his side , could not share these ardors .  It was his part to be astonished at excitement over a book that was not even begun , the mere ghost of a book flitting elusive in the world of unborn masterpieces and failures .  He had loved good letters , but he shared unconsciously in the general belief that literary attempt is always pitiful , though he did not subscribe to the other half of the popular faithâ € ” that literary success is a matter of very little importance .  He thought well of books , but only of printed books ; in manuscripts he put no faith , and the paulo-post-futurum tense he could not in any manner conjugate .  He returned once more to the topic of palpable interest .  " But about this dirty trick these fellows have played on you .  You wo n't sit quietly and bear it , surely ?  It 'sonly a question of writing to the papers .  "  " They would n't put the letter in .  And if they did , I should only get laughed at .  Some time ago a man wrote to the Reader , complaining of his play being stolen .  He said that he had sent a little one-act comedy to Burleigh , the great dramatist , asking for his advice .  Burleigh gave his advice and took the idea for his own very successful play .  So the man said , and I daresay it was true enough .  But the victim got nothing by his complaint .  ' A pretty state of things , ' everybody said .  ' Here 'sa Mr. Tomson , that no one has ever heard of , bothers Burleigh with his rubbish , and then accuses him of petty larceny .  Is it likely that a man of Burleigh 'sposition , a playwright who can make his five thousand a year easily , would borrow from an unknown Tomson ?  ' I should think it very likely , indeed , " Lucian went on , chuckling , " but that was their verdict .  No ; I do n't think I 'llwrite to the papers .  "  " Well , well , my boy , I suppose you know your own business best .  I think you are mistaken , but you must do as you like .  "  " It 'sall so unimportant , " said Lucian , and he really thought so .  He had sweeter things to dream of , and desired no communion of feeling with that madman who had left Caermaen some few hours before .  He felt he had made a fool of himself , he was ashamed to think of the fatuity of which he had been guilty , such boiling hatred was not only wicked , but absurd .  A man could do no good who put himself into a position of such violent antagonism against his fellow-creatures ; so Lucian rebuked his heart , saying that he was old enough to know better .  But he remembered that he had sweeter things to dream of ; there was a secret ecstasy that he treasured and locked tight away , as a joy too exquisite even for thought till he was quite alone ; and then there was that scheme for a new book that he had laid down hopelessly some time ago ; it seemed to have arisen into life again within the last hour ; he understood that he had started on a false tack , he had taken the wrong aspect of his idea .  Of course the thing could n't be written in that way ; it was like trying to read a page turned upside down ; and he saw those characters he had vainly sought suddenly disambushed , and a splendid inevitable sequence of events unrolled before him .  It was a true resurrection ; the dry plot he had constructed revealed itself as a living thing , stirring and mysterious , and warm as life itself .  The parson was smoking stolidly to all appearance , but in reality he was full of amazement at his own son , and now and again he slipped sly furtive glances towards the tranquil young man in the arm-chair by the empty hearth .  In the first place , Mr. Taylor was genuinely impressed by what he had read of Lucian 'swork ; he had so long been accustomed to look upon all effort as futile that success amazed him .  In the abstract , of course , he was prepared to admit that some people did write well and got published and made money , just as other persons successfully backed an outsider at heavy odds ; but it had seemed as improbable that Lucian should show even the beginnings of achievement in one direction as in the other .  Then the boy evidently cared so little about it ; he did not appear to be proud of being worth robbing , nor was he angry with the robbers .  He sat back luxuriously in the disreputable old chair , drawing long slow wreaths of smoke , tasting his whisky from time to time , evidently well at ease with himself .  The father saw him smile , and it suddenly dawned upon him that his son was very handsome ; he had such kind gentle eyes and a kind mouth , and his pale cheeks were flushed like a girl 's.  Mr. Taylor felt moved .  What a harmless young fellow Lucian had been ; no doubt a little queer and different from others , but wholly inoffensive and patient under disappointment .  And Miss Deacon , her contribution to the evening 'sdiscussion had been characteristic ; she had remarked , firstly , that writing was a very unsettling occupation , and secondly , that it was extremely foolish to entrust one 'sproperty to people of whom one knew nothing .  Father and son had smiled together at these observations , which were probably true enough .  Mr. Taylor at last left Lucian along ; he shook hands with a good deal of respect , and said , almost deferentially :  " You must n't work too hard , old fellow .  I would n't stay up too late , if I were you , after that long walk .  You must have gone miles out of your way .  "  " I 'mnot tired now , though .  I feel as if I could write my new book on the spot " ; and the young man laughed a gay sweet laugh that struck the father as a new note in his son 'slife .  He sat still a moment after his father had left the room .  He cherished his chief treasure of thought in its secret place ; he would not enjoy it yet .  He drew up a chair to the table at which he wrote or tried to write , and began taking pens and paper from the drawer .  There was a great pile of ruled paper there ; all of it used , on one side , and signifying many hours of desperate scribbling , of heart-searching and rack of his brain ; an array of poor , eager lines written by a waning fire with waning hope ; all useless and abandoned .  He took up the sheets cheerfully , and began in delicious idleness to look over these fruitless efforts .  A page caught his attention ; he remembered how he wrote it while a November storm was dashing against the panes ; and there was another , with a queer blot in one corner ; he had got up from his chair and looked out , and all the earth was white fairyland , and the snowflakes whirled round and round in the wind .  Then he saw the chapter begun of a night in March : a great gale blew that night and rooted up one of the ancient yews in the churchyard .  He had heard the trees shrieking in the woods , and the long wail of the wind , and across the heaven a white moon fled awfully before the streaming clouds .  And all these poor abandoned pages now seemed sweet , and past unhappiness was transmuted into happiness , and the nights of toil were holy .  He turned over half a dozen leaves and began to sketch out the outlines of the new book on the unused pages ; running out a skeleton plan on one page , and dotting fancies , suggestions , hints on others .  He wrote rapidly , overjoyed to find that loving phrases grew under his pen ; a particular scene he had imagined filled him with desire ; he gave his hand free course , and saw the written work glowing ; and action and all the heat of existence quickened and beat on the wet page .  Happy fancies took shape in happier words , and when at last he leant back in his chair he felt the stir and rush of the story as if it had been some portion of his own life .  He read over what he had done with a renewed pleasure in the nimble and flowing workmanship , and as he put the little pile of manuscript tenderly in the drawer he paused to enjoy the anticipation of tomorrow 'slabor .  And thenâ € ” but the rest of the night was given to tender and delicious things , and when he went up to bed a scarlet dawn was streaming from the east .  III  For days Lucian lay in a swoon of pleasure , smiling when he was addressed , sauntering happily in the sunlight , hugging recollection warm to his heart .  Annie had told him that she was going on a visit to her married sister , and said , with a caress , that he must be patient .  He protested against her absence , but she fondled him , whispering her charms in his ear till he gave in and then they said good-bye , Lucian adoring on his knees .  The parting was as strange as the meeting , and that night when he laid his work aside , and let himself sink deep into the joys of memory , all the encounter seemed as wonderful and impossible as magic .  " And you really do n't mean to do anything about those rascals ?  " said his father .  " Rascals ?  Which rascals ?  Oh , you mean Beit .  I had forgotten all about it .  No ; I do n't think I shall trouble .  They 'renot worth powder and shot .  "  And he returned to his dream , pacing slowly from the medlar to the quince and back again .  It seemed trivial to be interrupted by such questions ; he had not even time to think of the book he had recommenced so eagerly , much less of this labor of long ago .  He recollected without interest that it cost him many pains , that it was pretty good here and there , and that it had been stolen , and it seemed that there was nothing more to be said on the matter .  He wished to think of the darkness in the lane , of the kind voice that spoke to him , of the kind hand that sought his own , as he stumbled on the rough way .  So far , it was wonderful .  Since he had left school and lost the company of the worthy barbarians who had befriended him there , he had almost lost the sense of kinship with humanity ; he had come to dread the human form as men dread the hood of the cobra .  To Lucian a man or a woman meant something that stung , that spoke words that rankled , and poisoned his life with scorn .  At first such malignity shocked him : he would ponder over words and glances and wonder if he were not mistaken , and he still sought now and then for sympathy .  The poor boy had romantic ideas about women ; he believed they were merciful and pitiful , very kind to the unlucky and helpless .  Men perhaps had to be different ; after all , the duty of a man was to get on in the world , or , in plain language , to make money , to be successful ; to cheat rather than to be cheated , but always to be successful ; and he could understand that one who fell below this high standard must expect to be severely judged by his fellows .  For example , there was young Bennett , Miss Spurry 'snephew .  Lucian had met him once or twice when he was spending his holidays with Miss Spurry , and the two young fellows compared literary notes together .  Bennett showed some beautiful things he had written , over which Lucian had grown both sad and enthusiastic .  It was such exquisite magic verse , and so much better than anything he ever hoped to write , that there was a touch of anguish in his congratulations .  But when Bennett , after many vain prayers to his aunt , threw up a safe position in the bank , and betook himself to a London garret , Lucian was not surprised at the general verdict .  Mr. Dixon , as a clergyman , viewed the question from a high standpoint and found it all deplorable , but the general opinion was that Bennett was a hopeless young lunatic .  Old Mr. Gervase went purple when his name was mentioned , and the young Dixons sneered very merrily over the adventure .  " I always thought he was a beastly young ass , " said Edward Dixon , " but I did n't think he 'dchuck away his chances like that .  Said he could n't stand a bank !  I hope he 'llbe able to stand bread and water .  That 'sall those littery fellows get , I believe , except Tennyson and Mark Twain and those sort of people .  "  Lucian of course sympathized with the unfortunate Bennett , but such judgments were after all only natural .  The young man might have stayed in the bank and succeeded to his aunt 'sthousand a year , and everybody would have called him a very nice young fellowâ € ” " clever , too .  " But he had deliberately chosen , as Edward Dixon had said , to chuck his chances away for the sake of literature ; piety and a sense of the main chance had alike pointed the way to a delicate course of wheedling , to a little harmless practicing on Miss Spurry 'sinfirmities , to frequent compliances of a soothing nature , and the " young ass " had been blind to the direction of one and the other .  It seemed almost right that the vicar should moralize , that Edward Dixon should sneer , and that Mr. Gervase should grow purple with contempt .  Men , Lucian thought , were like judges , who may pity the criminal in their hearts , but are forced to vindicate the outraged majesty of the law by a severe sentence .  He felt the same considerations applied to his own case ; he knew that his father should have had more money , that his clothes should be newer and of a better cut , that he should have gone to the university and made good friends .  If such had been his fortune he could have looked his fellow-men proudly in the face , upright and unashamed .  Having put on the whole armor of a first-rate West End tailor , with money in his purse , having taken anxious thought for the morrow , and having some useful friends and good prospects ; in such a case he might have held his head high in a gentlemanly and Christian community .  As it was he had usually avoided the reproachful glance of his fellows , feeling that he deserved their condemnation .  But he had cherished for a long time his romantic sentimentalities about women ; literary conventions borrowed from the minor poets and pseudo-medievalists , or so he thought afterwards .  But , fresh from school , wearied a little with the perpetual society of barbarian though worthy boys , he had in his soul a charming image of womanhood , before which he worshipped with mingled passion and devotion .  It was a nude figure , perhaps , but the shining arms were to be wound about the neck of a vanquished knight ; there was rest for the head of a wounded lover ; the hands were stretched forth to do works of pity , and the smiling lips were to murmur not love alone , but consolation in defeat .  Here was the refuge for a broken heart ; here the scorn of men would but make tenderness increase ; here was all pity and all charity with loving-kindness .  It was a delightful picture , conceived in the " come rest on this bosom , " and " a ministering angel thou " manner , with touches of allurement that made devotion all the sweeter .  He soon found that he had idealized a little ; in the affair of young Bennett , while the men were contemptuous the women were virulent .  He had been rather fond of Agatha Gervase , and she , so other ladies said , had " set her cap " at him .  Now , when he rebelled , and lost the goodwill of his aunt , dear Miss Spurry , Agatha insulted him with all conceivable rapidity .  " After all , Mr. Bennett , " she said , " you will be nothing better than a beggar ; now , will you ?  You must n't think me cruel , but I ca n't help speaking the truth .  Write books ! " Her expression filled up the incomplete sentence ; she waggled with indignant emotion .  These passages came to Lucian 'sears , and indeed the Gervases boasted of " how well poor Agatha had behaved .  "  " Never mind , Gathy , " old Gervase had observed .  " If the impudent young puppy comes here again , we 'llsee what Thomas can do with the horse-whip .  "  " Poor dear child , " Mrs. Gervase added in telling the tale , " and she was so fond of him too .  But of course it could n't go on after his shameful behavior .  "  But Lucian was troubled ; he sought vainly for the ideal womanly , the tender note of " come rest on this bosom .  " Ministering angels , he felt convinced , do not rub red pepper and sulfuric acid into the wounds of suffering mortals .  Then there was the case of Mr. Vaughan , a squire in the neighborhood , at whose board all the aristocracy of Caermaen had feasted for years .  Mr. Vaughan had a first-rate cook , and his cellar was rare , and he was never so happy as when he shared his good things with his friends .  His mother kept his house , and they delighted all the girls with frequent dances , while the men sighed over the amazing champagne .  Investments proved disastrous , and Mr. Vaughan had to sell the grey manor-house by the river .  He and his mother took a little modern stucco villa in Caermaen , wishing to be near their dear friends .  But the men were " very sorry ; rough on you , Vaughan .  Always thought those Patagonians were risky , but you would n't hear of it .  Hope we shall see you before very long ; you and Mrs. Vaughan must come to tea some day after Christmas .  "  " Of course we are all very sorry for them , " said Henrietta Dixon .  " No , we have n't called on Mrs. Vaughan yet .  They have no regular servant , you know ; only a woman in the morning .  I hear old mother Vaughan , as Edward will call her , does nearly everything .  And their house is absurdly small ; it 'slittle more than a cottage .  One really ca n't call it a gentleman 'shouse .  "  Then Mr. Vaughan , his heart in the dust , went to the Gervases and tried to borrow five pounds of Mr. Gervase .  He had to be ordered out of the house , and , as Edith Gervase said , it was all very painful ; " he went out in such a funny way , " she added , " just like the dog when he 'shad a whipping .  Of course it 'ssad , even if it is all his own fault , as everybody says , but he looked so ridiculous as he was going down the steps that I could n't help laughing .  " Mr. Vaughan heard the ringing , youthful laughter as he crossed the lawn .  Young girls like Henrietta Dixon and Edith Gervase naturally viewed the Vaughans 'comical position with all the high spirits of their age , but the elder ladies could not look at matters in this frivolous light .  " Hush , dear , hush , " said Mrs. Gervase , " it 'sall too shocking to be a laughing matter .  Do n't you agree with me , Mrs. Dixon ?  The sinful extravagance that went on at Pentre always frightened me .  You remember that ball they gave last year ?  Mr. Gervase assured me that the champagne must have cost at least a hundred and fifty shillings the dozen .  "  " It 'sdreadful , is n't it , " said Mrs. Dixon , " when one thinks of how many poor people there are who would be thankful for a crust of bread ?  "  " Yes , Mrs. Dixon , " Agatha joined in , " and you know how absurdly the Vaughans spoilt the cottagers .  Oh , it was really wicked ; one would think Mr. Vaughan wished to make them above their station .  Edith and I went for a walk one day nearly as far as Pentre , and we begged a glass of water of old Mrs. Jones who lives in that pretty cottage near the brook .  She began praising the Vaughans in the most fulsome manner , and showed us some flannel things they had given her at Christmas .  I assure you , my dear Mrs. Dixon , the flannel was the very best quality ; no lady could wish for better .  It could n't have cost less than half-a-crown a yard .  "  " I know , my dear , I know .  Mr. Dixon always said it could n't last .  How often I have heard him say that the Vaughans were pauperizing all the common people about Pentre , and putting every one else in a most unpleasant position .  Even from a worldly point of view it was very poor taste on their part .  So different from the true charity that Paul speaks of .  "  " I only wish they had given away nothing worse than flannel , " said Miss Colley , a young lady of very strict views .  " But I assure you there was a perfect orgy , I can call it nothing else , every Christmas .  Great joints of prime beef , and barrels of strong beer , and snuff and tobacco distributed wholesale ; as if the poor wanted to be encouraged in their disgusting habits .  It was really impossible to go through the village for weeks after ; the whole place was poisoned with the fumes of horrid tobacco pipes .  "  " Well , we see how that sort of thing ends , " said Mrs. Dixon , summing up judicially .  " We had intended to call , but I really think it would be impossible after what Mrs. Gervase has told us .  The idea of Mr. Vaughan trying to sponge on poor Mr. Gervase in that shabby way !  I think meanness of that kind is so hateful .  "  It was the practical side of all this that astonished Lucian .  He saw that in reality there was no high-flown quixotism in a woman 'snature ; the smooth arms , made he had thought for caressing , seemed muscular ; the hands meant for the doing of works of pity in his system , appeared dexterous in the giving of " stingers , " as Barnes might say , and the smiling lips could sneer with great ease .  Nor was he more fortunate in his personal experiences .  As has been told , Mrs. Dixon spoke of him in connection with " judgments , " and the younger ladies did not exactly cultivate his acquaintance .  Theoretically they " adored " books and thought poetry " too sweet , " but in practice they preferred talking about mares and fox-terriers and their neighbors .  They were nice girls enough , very like other young ladies in other country towns , content with the teaching of their parents , reading the Bible every morning in their bedrooms , and sitting every Sunday in church amongst the well-dressed " sheep " on the right hand .  It was not their fault if they failed to satisfy the ideal of an enthusiastic dreamy boy , and indeed , they would have thought his feigned woman immodest , absurdly sentimental , a fright ( " never wears stays , my dear " ) and horrid .  At first he was a good deal grieved at the loss of that charming tender woman , the work of his brain .  When the Miss Dixons went haughtily by with a scornful waggle , when the Miss Gervases passed in the wagonette laughing as the mud splashed him , the poor fellow would look up with a face of grief that must have been very comic ; " like a dying duck , " as Edith Gervase said .  Edith was really very pretty , and he would have liked to talk to her , even about fox-terriers , if she would have listened .  One afternoon at the Dixons 'he really forced himself upon her , and with all the obtuseness of an enthusiastic boy tried to discuss the Lotus Eaters of Tennyson .  It was too absurd .  Captain Kempton was making signals to Edith all the time , and Lieutenant Gatwick had gone off in disgust , and he had promised to bring her a puppy " by Vick out of Wasp .  " At last the poor girl could bear it no longer :  " Yes , it 'svery sweet , " she said at last .  " When did you say you were going to London , Mr. Taylor ?  "  It was about the time that his disappointment became known to everybody , and the shot told .  He gave her a piteous look and slunk off , " just like the dog when he 'shad a whipping , " to use Edith 'sown expression .  Two or three lessons of this description produced their due effect ; and when he saw a male Dixon or Gervase approaching him he bit his lip and summoned up his courage .  But when he descried a " ministering angel " he made haste and hid behind a hedge or took to the woods .  In course of time the desire to escape became an instinct , to be followed as a matter of course ; in the same way he avoided the adders on the mountain .  His old ideals were almost if not quite forgotten ; he knew that the female of the bête humaine , like the adder , would in all probability sting , and he therefore shrank from its trail , but without any feeling of special resentment .  The one had a poisoned tongue as the other had a poisoned fang , and it was well to leave them both alone .  Then had come that sudden fury of rage against all humanity , as he went out of Caermaen carrying the book that had been stolen from him by the enterprising Beit .  He shuddered as he though of how nearly he had approached the verge of madness , when his eyes filled with blood and the earth seemed to burn with fire .  He remembered how he had looked up to the horizon and the sky was blotched with scarlet ; and the earth was deep red , with red woods and red fields .  There was something of horror in the memory , and in the vision of that wild night walk through dim country , when every shadow seemed a symbol of some terrible impending doom .  The murmur of the brook , the wind shrilling through the wood , the pale light flowing from the moldered trunks , and the picture of his own figure fleeing and fleeting through the shades ; all these seemed unhappy things that told a story in fatal hieroglyphics .  And then the life and laws of the sunlight had passed away , and the resurrection and kingdom of the dead began .  Though his limbs were weary , he had felt his muscles grow strong as steel ; a woman , one of the hated race , was beside him in the darkness , and the wild beast woke within him , ravening for blood and brutal lust ; all the raging desires of the dim race from which he came assailed his heart .  The ghosts issued out from the weird wood and from the caves in the hills , besieging him , as he had imagined the spiritual legion besieging Caermaen , beckoning him to a hideous battle and a victory that he had never imagined in his wildest dreams .  And then out of the darkness the kind voice spoke again , and the kind hand was stretched out to draw him up from the pit .  It was sweet to think of that which he had found at last ; the boy 'spicture incarnate , all the passion and compassion of his longing , all the pity and love and consolation .  She , that beautiful passionate woman offering up her beauty in sacrifice to him , she was worthy indeed of his worship .  He remembered how his tears had fallen upon her breast , and how tenderly she had soothed him , whispering those wonderful unknown words that sang to his heart .  And she had made herself defenseless before him , caressing and fondling the body that had been so despised .  He exulted in the happy thought that he had knelt down on the ground before her , and had embraced her knees and worshipped .  The woman 'sbody had become his religion ; he lay awake at night looking into the darkness with hungry eyes ; wishing for a miracle , that the appearance of the so-desired form might be shaped before him .  And when he was alone in quiet places in the wood , he fell down again on his knees , and even on his face , stretching out vain hands in the air , as if they would feel her flesh .  His father noticed in those days that the inner pocket of his coat was stuffed with papers ; he would see Lucian walking up and down in a secret shady place at the bottom of the orchard , reading from his sheaf of manuscript , replacing the leaves , and again drawing them out .  He would walk a few quick steps , and pause as if enraptured , gazing in the air as if he looked through the shadows of the world into some sphere of glory , feigned by his thought .  Mr. Taylor was almost alarmed at the sight ; he concluded of course that Lucian was writing a book .  In the first place , there seemed something immodest in seeing the operation performed under one 'seyes ; it was as if the " make-up " of a beautiful actress were done on the stage , in full audience ; as if one saw the rounded calves fixed in position , the fleshings drawn on , the voluptuous outlines of the figure produced by means purely mechanical , blushes mantling from the paint-pot , and the golden tresses well secured by the wigmaker .  Books , Mr. Taylor thought , should swim into one 'sken mysteriously ; they should appear all printed and bound , without apparent genesis ; just as children are suddenly told that they have a little sister , found by mamma in the garden .  But Lucian was not only engaged in composition ; he was plainly rapturous , enthusiastic ; Mr. Taylor saw him throw up his hands , and bow his head with strange gesture .  The parson began to fear that his son was like some of those mad Frenchmen of whom he had read , young fellows who had a sort of fury of literature , and gave their whole lives to it , spending days over a page , and years over a book , pursuing art as Englishmen pursue money , building up a romance as if it were a business .  Now Mr. Taylor held firmly by the " walking-stick " theory ; he believed that a man of letters should have a real profession , some solid employment in life .  " Get something to do , " he would have liked to say , " and then you can write as much as you please .  Look at Scott , look at Dickens and Trollope .  " And then there was the social point of view ; it might be right , or it might be wrong , but there could be no doubt that the literary man , as such , was not thought much of in English society .  Mr. Taylor knew his Thackeray , and he remembered that old Major Pendennis , society personified , did not exactly boast of his nephew 'soccupation .  Even Warrington was rather ashamed to own his connection with journalism , and Pendennis himself laughed openly at his novel-writing as an agreeable way of making money , a useful appendage to the cultivation of dukes , his true business in life .  This was the plain English view , and Mr. Taylor was no doubt right enough in thinking it good , practical common sense .  Therefore when he saw Lucian loitering and sauntering , musing amorously over his manuscript , exhibiting manifest signs of that fine fury which Britons have ever found absurd , he felt grieved at heart , and more than ever sorry that he had not been able to send the boy to Oxford .  " B.N.C. would have knocked all this nonsense out of him , " he thought .  " He would have taken a double First like my poor father and made something of a figure in the world .  However , it ca n't be helped .  " The poor man sighed , and lit his pipe , and walked in another part of the garden .  But he was mistaken in his diagnosis of the symptoms .  The book that Lucian had begun lay unheeded in the drawer ; it was a secret work that he was engaged on , and the manuscripts that he took out of that inner pocket never left him day or night .  He slept with them next to his heart , and he would kiss them when he was quite alone , and pay them such devotion as he would have paid to her whom they symbolized .  He wrote on these leaves a wonderful ritual of praise and devotion ; it was the liturgy of his religion .  Again and again he copied and recopied this madness of a lover ; dallying all days over the choice of a word , searching for more exquisite phrases .  No common words , no such phrases as he might use in a tale would suffice ; the sentences of worship must stir and be quickened , they must glow and burn , and be decked out as with rare work of jewelry .  Every part of that holy and beautiful body must be adored ; he sought for terms of extravagant praise , he bent his soul and mind low before her , licking the dust under her feet , abased and yet rejoicing as a Templar before the image of Baphomet .  He exulted more especially in the knowledge that there was nothing of the conventional or common in his ecstasy ; he was not the fervent , adoring lover of Tennyson 'spoems , who loves with passion and yet with a proud respect , with the love always of a gentleman for a lady .  Annie was not a lady ; the Morgans had farmed their land for hundreds of years ; they were what Miss Gervase and Miss Colley and the rest of them called common people .  Tennyson 'snoble gentleman thought of their ladies with something of reticence ; they imagined them dressed in flowing and courtly robes , walking with slow dignity ; they dreamed of them as always stately , the future mistresses of their houses , mothers of their heirs .  Such lovers bowed , but not too low , remembering their own honor , before those who were to be equal companions and friends as well as wives .  It was not such conceptions as these that he embodied in the amazing emblems of his ritual ; he was not , he told himself , a young officer , " something in the city , " or a rising barrister engaged to a Miss Dixon or a Miss Gervase .  He had not thought of looking out for a nice little house in a good residential suburb where they would have pleasant society ; there were to be no consultations about wall-papers , or jocose whispers from friends as to the necessity of having a room that would do for a nursery .  No glad young thing had leant on his arm while they chose the suite in white enamel , and china for " our bedroom , " the modest salesman doing his best to spare their blushes .  When Edith Gervase married she would get mamma to look out for two really good servants , " as we must begin quietly , " and mamma would make sure that the drains and everything were right .  Then her " girl friends " would come on a certain solemn day to see all her " lovely things .  " " Two dozen of everything !  " " Look , Ethel , did you ever see such ducky frills ?  " " And that insertion , is n't it quite too sweet ?  " " My dear Edith , you are a lucky girl .  " " All the underlinen specially made by Madame Lulu !  " " What delicious things !  " " I hope he knows what a prize he is winning .  " " Oh !  do look at those lovely ribbon-bows !  " " You darling , how happy you must be .  " " Real Valenciennes !  " Then a whisper in the lady 'sear , and her reply , " Oh , do n't , Nelly !  " So they would chirp over their treasures , as in Rabelais they chirped over their cups ; and every thing would be done in due order till the wedding-day , when mamma , who had strained her sinews and the commandments to bring the match about , would weep and look indignantly at the unhappy bridegroom .  " I hope you 'llbe kind to her , Robert .  " Then in a rapid whisper to the bride : " Mind , you insist on Wyman 'sflushing the drains when you come back ; servants are so careless and dirty too .  Do n't let him go about by himself in Paris .  Men are so queer , one never knows .  You have got the pills ?  " And aloud , after these secreta , " God bless you , my dear ; good-bye !  cluck , cluck , good-bye !  "  There were stranger things written in the manuscript pages that Lucian cherished , sentences that burnt and glowed like " coals of fire which hath a most vehement flame .  " There were phrases that stung and tingled as he wrote them , and sonorous words poured out in ecstasy and rapture , as in some of the old litanies .  He hugged the thought that a great part of what he had invented was in the true sense of the word occult : page after page might have been read aloud to the uninitiated without betraying the inner meaning .  He dreamed night and day over these symbols , he copied and recopied the manuscript nine times before he wrote it out fairly in a little book which he made himself of a skin of creamy vellum .  In his mania for acquirements that should be entirely useless he had gained some skill in illumination , or limning as he preferred to call it , always choosing the obscurer word as the obscurer arts .  First he set himself to the severe practice of the text ; he spent many hours and days of toil in struggling to fashion the serried columns of black letter , writing and rewriting till he could shape the massive character with firm true hand .  He cut his quills with the patience of a monk in the scriptorium , shaving and altering the nib , lightening and increasing the pressure and flexibility of the points , till the pen satisfied him , and gave a stroke both broad and even .  Then he made experiments in inks , searching for some medium that would rival the glossy black letter of the old manuscripts ; and not till he could produce a fair page of text did he turn to the more entrancing labor of the capitals and borders and ornaments .  He mused long over the Lombardic letters , as glorious in their way as a cathedral , and trained his hand to execute the bold and flowing lines ; and then there was the art of the border , blossoming in fretted splendor all about the page .  His cousin , Miss Deacon , called it all a great waste of time , and his father thought he would have done much better in trying to improve his ordinary handwriting , which was both ugly and illegible .  Indeed , there seemed but a poor demand for the limner 'sart .  He sent some specimens of his skill to an " artistic firm " in London ; a verse of the " Maud , " curiously emblazoned , and a Latin hymn with the notes pricked on a red stave .  The firm wrote civilly , telling him that his work , though good , was not what they wanted , and enclosing an illuminated text .  " We have great demand for this sort of thing , " they concluded , " and if you care to attempt something in this style we should be pleased to look at it .  " The said text was " Thou , God , seest me .  " The letter was of a degraded form , bearing much the same relation to the true character as a " churchwarden gothic " building does to Canterbury Cathedral ; the colours were varied .  The initial was pale gold , the h pink , the o black , the u blue , and the first letter was somehow connected with a bird 'snest containing the young of the pigeon , who were waited on by the female bird .  " What a pretty text , " said Miss Deacon .  " I should like to nail it up in my room .  Why do n't you try to do something like that , Lucian ?  You might make something by it .  "  " I sent them these , " said Lucian , " but they do n't like them much .  "  " My dear boy !  I should think not !  Like them !  What were you thinking of to draw those queer stiff flowers all round the border ?  Roses ?  They do n't look like roses at all events .  Where do you get such ideas from ?  "  " But the design is appropriate ; look at the words .  "  " My dear Lucian , I ca n't read the words ; it 'ssuch a queer old-fashioned writing .  Look how plain that text is ; one can see what it 'sabout .  And this other one ; I ca n't make it out at all .  "  " It 'sa Latin hymn .  "  " A Latin hymn ?  Is it a Protestant hymn ?  I may be old-fashioned , but Hymns Ancient and Modern is quite good enough for me .  This is the music , I suppose ?  But , my dear boy , there are only four lines , and who ever heard of notes shaped like that : you have made some square and some diamond-shape ?  Why did n't you look in your poor mother 'sold music ?  It 'sin the ottoman in the drawing-room .  I could have shown you how to make the notes ; there are crotchets , you know , and quavers .  "