it is, however, one thing to be a conspirator in intention, and quite another to put your conspiracy into action. the opportunity perversely refused to present itself, or, at any rate, to elizabeth’s eyes it refused to present itself, and that, after all, came to the same thing. a dozen times at least she went over her prepared formula in her mind, intending at each meeting to put it into words.
and there were meetings enough. you might have imagined that david sought them; that he knew, by some uncanny instinct, the exact moments when elizabeth would approach the green man. of course, too, there were the meetings at breakfast, but to elizabeth’s mind these barely counted. it was not a subject to be served up with coffee and eggs and bacon; the hour, also, [pg 270]was unpropitious. she was never glib of speech in the early morning. but then every hour seemed unpropitious.
the whole difficulty of the matter lay in the fact that she was on the outlook for an opportunity, that her formula was prepared. i defy any one—at all events any one of elizabeth’s truthful nature—to introduce a pre-arranged subject casually and naturally. if you have ever tried to do so yourself, you will hear the instant ring of falsity in your words.
“oh, by the way——”
and if you don’t begin in this fashion, how on earth are you going to begin, i ask?
every meeting which passed without the subject being broached, lent further difficulty to its broaching. and the moment the opportunity had gone by, elizabeth would upbraid herself for cowardice, would speak confidently to her heart of next time. and when next time came, the little dumb devil would sit maliciously on guard before her lips allowing every word to pass them but those she desired to speak.
the matter became almost farcical; it would have been farcical, but that the days were slipping by.
[pg 271]
“it’s positively absurd,” elizabeth told herself, half-laughing, half-angry.
but absurd or not, the little dumb devil was keeping close watch.
and here it was that fate or providence stepped in in a purely unexpected manner. doubtless you, according to your views, will give the credit to whichever pleases you.
the intervention can hardly be termed direct. but then, that is frequently the case. it is the side issues, which in themselves appear of little or no importance, which have a momentous influence on the graver and deeper questions of life.
and here i am minded to quote the words reflected upon by the sunny-hearted pippa.
“say not ‘a small event!’ why ‘small’?
costs it more pain than this, ye call
a ‘great event,’ should come to pass,
than that? untwine me from the mass
of deeds which make up life, one deed
power shall fall short in or exceed!”
yet, if you should reply boldly in refutation of these words, here, in my life, is one deed, one action at least, which stands paramount above all others, i would answer, true; but what of the [pg 272]so-called tiny influences, the so-called minute events which led to it? can you eliminate any one of them, and then say with certainty that, without it, the result would have been the same? and if you can not, how can you declare that the apparently tiny event was of less importance than the one you call great?
however, let’s on to the matter in hand.
corin found the joys of scraping plaster off walls beginning to pall. apparently he had come to an end of discovery.
it is one thing to delve for new treasures, it is another to scrape for hours on end to find a mere repetition of design. however delightful masonry and herb robert may be when it dawns freshly on the sight, its continued contemplation waxes somewhat stale. to his judging, and no doubt he judged rightly, there were still yards and yards of it to be uncovered. monotony, therefore, crept upon his soul. with a view, then, to relaxing the monotony, and taking into consideration that the sunshine without the church appeared infinitely preferable to the gloom within, he laid down his tools this particular afternoon a full [pg 273]hour before his customary time, and came out into the open.
and here, for a moment, he paused.
before him, eight miles distant, lay whortley, to be reached by road or field, according to inclination. he ruled out that notion promptly. to the right lay the river, the silver ribbon bordered by pollard willows; to the left lay wood and moorland; behind him and the church lay the sea. it was distant a mile or thereabouts, and the sun was distinctly hot. but what of that! wouldn’t the music of its voice on the shore, the colour of its sparkling waters, the coolness of the little breeze that would sweep across its surface, be well worth the tramp?
“the sea for me!” cried corin to his heart. “and that’s rhyme, and i’m not sure that it isn’t poetry if you take into consideration the vision it conjures up. in fact, taking that into consideration, i am sure that it is poetry.”
whereupon he wheeled around.
first the route lay uphill towards delancey castle. it was a stiffish climb. the sun, beating upon the white roadway, flung waves of heat up from it. they shimmered before his spectacled, [pg 274]short-sighted eyes in an irritating glaring dance. his round, cherubic face was glowing to a deep crimson before he was half-way up the ascent. the vision he had conjured up of the seashore might truly be poetical, but i question the poetry in the appearance of the little man trudging towards that vision. yet this is unkind. who are we to judge from appearances? truly may poetic aspirations be hidden beneath the most unlikely exteriors.
at the top of the hill, corin paused, looking reflectively down the long avenue. exhaustion rather than reflection prompted the pause, nevertheless he gave vent to a sage one.
“omne ignotum pro magnifico,” he remarked, “by which token, i fancy, our young american friend down yonder had a very different conception of what he was going to find up here. he has found less magnificence than irksomeness, i take it. now, i wonder why karma——”
but i refuse to follow corin in his meditative flights in this direction. it is sufficient to note that we see him, from the remark i have given you, in like mind with three at least of our other characters herein mentioned.
[pg 275]
his meditation on the mysteries of karma completed, and his exhaustion being in part, at least, lessened, corin pursued his way. his route was level now, leading presently to a footpath across an expanse of short grass. here he came upon full view of the sea—blue, sparkling, radiant, dotted with white- and red-winged sailing boats.
coming at length to a rough, descending track, he made his way down it. it brought him into a cove, a place of white sand, smooth and gleaming.
truly here was all that his vision had expected. the grass-crowned cliffs sloped down to the cove in rugged grey walls, samphire-covered. nor did the grey rocks stop abruptly on reaching the white sand, but ran out into it, as if eager to gain to the sun-kissed water. little pools lay among them, mirrors reflecting the blue of the sky. in the pools waved feathery fronds of sea-weed—pink, crimson, and brown; tiny silver fish darted hither and thither; sea anemones stretched forth dainty flower-like tentacles.
“this,” remarked corin to his soul, “was worth the tramp.”
and he sat down on the warm white sand.
there wasn’t a soul in sight; nothing but those [pg 276]white- and red-winged boats, making a lazy headway with the tide, to remind him of his fellow mortals, and they but added to the beauty of the picture. the water broke in baby waves on the shore, with the faintest musical ripple. sea-gulls dipped to the shining surface, or floated smoothly in the blueness above. now and again a cormorant flew, black and long-necked across the water.
some half-hour or so corin sat there, basking and dreaming in the sun, thinking, you may be pretty certain, of nothing, or at all events with thoughts too diffused to be worthy of the name.
and then, all at once, the antics of two birds roused him to sudden interest. gulls, he would have called them, yet assuredly their manners were perplexing. winging rapidly for a moment or so, they dropped suddenly like stones to the water. up again, they repeated the manœuvre, and again, and yet again.
“now what,” remarked corin aloud, addressing the apparent solitude, “do those things call themselves?”
“they,” said a voice behind him, “are gannets.”
corin turned.
