The Project Gutenberg eBook of Jack Carstairs of the Power House, by Sydney Sandys

ENGINEER
INVENTOR OF THE FIRST LOCOMOTIVE, AND OF
THE TOOLS TO CONSTRUCT IT
FIGHTER OF MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES
PIONEER OF THE RAILWAY

I have endeavoured to show you the engineer, in two phases, as I have met him: it is for you, gentlemen with the votes, to decide which you prefer; for you have to have one of them, and his numbers are increasing at a high rate of acceleration.

CHAPTER I

A young engineer stood at the gates of the electric power house yard watching the sun set. It was the middle of June, in the north of Scotland, where the summer days are very long and very beautiful.

The sun sank slowly behind a little wooded hill, throwing into strong relief a clump of fir trees at the summit, and making lanes of golden light along the sparkling rushing river where the silver salmon leapt in sportive joy. As the last edge of the sun disappeared behind the hill, a sudden hush seemed to descend on all the land. The power house was about a mile from the little town that nestled at the foot of the hills. It was a bare, brick building standing alone on the river-bank in the middle of a large tract of waste moorland. Inside, a stalwart, bearded highlander sat on a box eating his "piece," and drinking tea from a can; he and the young engineer at the door were the only occupants of the place. There was no machinery running, a battery was doing the work, for the needs of this little town in summer time were very small.

The young man at the door gazed around him enchanted with the beauty of the evening; the sudden hush that fell on everything seemed to strike him too. He felt subdued with a great awe, the great and awful majesty of Nature seemed thrust upon him suddenly; only the faint rustle of the long grass near the water served to make the stillness more intense; some crisis in Nature seemed impending.

Suddenly a strange note struck his ear, and immediately afterwards all the usual sounds of life started afresh; a robin and a thrush commenced to sing simultaneously, several birds started chirping all around, a salmon splashed heavily in the river, the distant moo of a cow was borne in upon his ears, the Scotsman inside moved his box with a harsh creak: all these things seemed to start off at once, as though some tension were removed, some crisis past.

The engineer looked in the direction of the sound that had at first broken the stillness and perceived a young girl, with a basket on her arm, raking over the heaps of ashes outside the boiler-house in search of stray bits of coal or coke.

He looked at her intently, with an unusual interest. There was a gipsy camp not far off, and some members of the tribe were usually hovering round the works for what they could pick up; as a rule they were very young and very dirty. This girl seemed about seventeen, and somewhat clean; every movement showed graceful, even lines. He strolled towards her.

He looked at her steadily too, and so they stood; brown eyes gazing into grey. He wondered greatly at the singular clearness of hers, big, and of a marvellous shade of dark brown, the white absolutely clear; the colour like some beautifully tinted crystal. He noticed eyes, and he gazed into hers for some time, dispassionately, as something inanimate, noting their marvellous perfection.

He smiled with pleasure, and instantly noted a gleam of pleasure in her eyes also. Then he shifted his gaze and took in a general impression of the face. It was remarkably beautiful, every feature was even and in perfect harmony. The eyebrows were delicately pencilled lines of deepest black. The eyelashes unusually long, they drooped downwards, and as he looked at her, the whole head took a gentle bend downwards in natural and graceful modesty before the open admiration in his eyes.

"You won't find much there. Come over here," he said. He led the way to the coal heap. She followed in silence.

"Help yourself," he said grandly, with a wave of the arm, giving away what didn't belong to him. As a general rule he was consistently conscientious in these details, but under the influence of those eyes he cast honesty to the four winds of heaven.

The graceful movements and even poise of her figure appealed to him immensely. He was somewhat of an athlete, and he noted with pleasure the firm fulness of the arms (which were bare to the elbow), and the throat and neck (which were quite unprotected). Her jet black hair hung down below her waist in heavy, wavy tresses. Her short black skirt (faded to almost a light green) showed a neat ankle and fair proportion of shapely leg. He stood back and watched her closely. The skin, where it was visible about the face and throat, was rather dark, probably dirty, he thought, yet it did not seem offensive, though he was usually fastidious in such things. He took life very seriously did this young man, very seriously indeed; he was bent on making his fortune, his fortune and a name—nothing less. He was nineteen; older than his years in many things, younger in a lot.

The gipsy girl stood up. "Thank you, sir," she said again, and moved haltingly towards the gate, glancing up at him with her big brown eyes and dropping them again as she caught his.

"Don't go!" he said, stepping forward. "Put that basket down and come in and have a look at the engines. Have you ever seen a dynamo? An electric machine, you know. Thing that makes the light for those big lamps in the street."

She put down the basket and followed him with a look of pleasure. She glanced furtively at the roof as they passed through the doorway, and stepped quickly close up to him, her eyes rolled widely round in obvious apprehension. He looked at her with amusement.

She caught his eye and smiled too. "Lovely," she said, as she glanced round the clean and well-kept little engine-room. "Lovely," she repeated, as her eyes were held by the bright lacquered copper switches and instruments set on the enamelled slate switchboard.

"You'll go a long way before you see gipsies your colour," she said, glancing at his fresh face and light brown hair.

She took him by the wrist and gazed at his palm earnestly for some minutes seeming to feel his pulse all the while.

He looked at her curiously, the fun had faded from her face, the liquid eyes seemed heavily shaded with sorrow. He stepped after her.

"Yes. Good, very good—for you," she answered, and passed through the door. With the sky overhead and the air of heaven on her face, she altered at once. "Thank you, sir, for the coal." She smiled brightly.

"Don't mention it," he said. "Come over again, will you? I want to talk to you." He looked into her eyes and she flushed with pleasure under the tan, or dirt, whichever it was.

He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a cake of chocolate (that was one of the things in which he was younger than his years). "I say, do you eat chocolate?"

He watched her bite a piece off and noticed the even regularity of her teeth, and the perfect shape of her mouth, though the lips were somewhat full.

"When will you come again? To-morrow? Oh! I forgot! To-morrow I shall be on all night. Will you come over early in the morning, or any time between midnight and eight o'clock in the morning? I'll bring you down some chocolate, if you like it."

"Yes," she answered, and her head took a gentle droop downwards, half averted, the long lashes swept her cheek and a rich red flushed beneath the russet brown of her skin.

He looked at her with pleasure, he felt his own colour rising a little too. He experienced a strange thrill, he felt older somehow, a sense of responsibility, of protection.

He went inside, and spoke to the Scotsman. "We'll put the engine on now, Mac." He busied himself with the engine and the switchboard. The girl was lost to sight and memory, but a sense, a something remained.

Next day the young engineer went on duty at midnight; he passed the gipsy camp on his way; four caravans stood silent and dark, and five ragged tents showed faint and ghostly in the moonlight, a fire smouldered in one corner. At the works he relieved another young man like himself, and the bearded highlander. They put on their hats and coats and bade him good-night, and he was left alone, all alone in the dimly lighted engine room with nothing running, everything still, except for the ghostly, uncanny rattle of the steam condensing in the now idle steam pipes.

Going into the little room which served as office, mess room, and test room combined, he took off his hat and coat and rolled back his shirt sleeves. He was a well built young man, standing just on six feet in his boots, with regular, handsome features and strong, prominent chin and nose; the arms that he exposed to view were substantial and very muscular, the hands were spread by the use of hand tools, they were not pretty, but very strong and serviceable. He walked briskly out and carefully looked all round—the plant, the switchboard, the engines, the recording instrument, the battery and boilers; he opened the furnace doors and gazed in at the fires to see that they were properly "banked;" then he went round with a scribbling block and took the meter readings, carefully entering them in the log book; then he opened the door and stepped out into the northern summer night.

He looked round on the fair prospect with extreme pleasure, the hills all round with the mountains in the background, the irregular patches of wood, the few straggling houses showing white and distinct in the moonlight, the little town close by with its few twinkling lights; all spoke to him of peace and pleasure yet strangely, too, of ambition. He would own one of those houses on the hillside as a summer resort. Time would tell, he had no doubt, he was quite confident, he felt it in him. He worked while other fellows played. Worked! Lord! Yes! he stoked boilers and drove engines, he cleaned brass work and did navvies' work, all for ten shillings per week. He smiled, the idea did not depress him in the least.

Suddenly the figure of a girl appeared round the corner of the building. The gipsy girl, he knew her figure at once. He knew she would come, but he had not expected her at this hour.

She advanced slowly, shyly; as she turned the corner she had been active, full of life; she seemed to droop as she caught sight of him standing alone in his shirt sleeves in the moonlight. She came close up and stood before him.

She raised her eyes and looked into his—they seemed all alight, veritably to sparkle like gems.

He was rather taken aback, but did not show it; his features were impassive, he also felt a tingling of the pulses, and his eyes showed that as he looked into hers.

He led the way into the little office and pulled out a chair. "Sit down," he said.

She sat down, somewhat uncomfortably, somewhat nervously, as one who was not used to it.

Going to his coat hanging on the wall he took a packet of chocolate from it. She watched him with a sort of dog-like observance.

"Here you are," he said. He handed her the chocolate, drew another chair out, and sat down facing her.

"Gathering sticks," she answered. He noticed that she did not speak with her mouth full, it seemed a natural refinement, perhaps because she observed him carefully finish munching a piece of chocolate before he put the question to her—anyhow she did the same.

They sat and looked at each other in silence for some minutes. He was observing her very closely; he noticed that her hands were clean, comparatively; they were not large and very well shaped, it was obvious that she did not do much work; everything about her denoted natural grace and, it seemed to him, refinement; but ever and anon her eyes rolled widely round, taking in everything; in this confined atmosphere, sitting on this made-to-order chair, she was obviously not at ease.

He drew his chair up closer to her and looked into her eyes. "You're very beautiful. Are all gipsy girls beautiful?"

She flushed, gave her head a little toss, slightly imperious. "My mother is the Queen of the gipsies."

"Yes," she answered. "I've been through Gloucestershire and Somersetshire and Devonshire and Warwickshire and Staffordshire. I've been all round England and Scotland."

"Yes," she said, and told him about it and the country round; she seemed to have observed everything. They talked of the counties and the people, the fields and the woods, the birds and beasts, till she stood up and pushed the chair back.

So they went outside and sat on the little low wall with the smooth cement top that marked the tunnel where the water pipes went into the works.

They sat down side by side, eating chocolates and saying nothing, looking at the east and watching the sky begin to lighten with the first faint indication of dawn. All was hushed, and silent the river at their feet swirled past in glassy, rapid smoothness, on the opposite bank the sedges stirred and rustled stealthily, just moved by the scarcely perceptible breeze.

They sat there for a long time, exchanging occasional remarks and lapsing long between replies. The spirit of the night, the silent, pensive night, seemed on the girl and he did not want to talk. The cloak of peace was around her; she was at one with nature; she laughed in the sunshine and wept in the rain. To the young engineer the silence of the night had a very different message; this universal peace and stillness spoke to him, somehow, of strife, vigorous strife, of great difficulties attempted and overcome, of progress, eternal progress; he made many resolves of what he would do, and the more he had done, the more, he felt, he would be able to enjoy these moments of rest and reflection. Some day he would marry, and this was the sort of girl he would like, a refined and educated edition of this; some one with a soul, a mind, and a body, not a mere clothes-horse. Her remarks had shown a natural refinement, a depth of feeling and thought that exactly suited his own, she appreciated nature and that was the foundation of all things to him.

The dawn was rapidly brightening; on the opposite side of the river a stoat poked an inquiring nose through the long grass at the top of the bank. Silently the girl gripped his arm and pointed to it, together they watched it come cautiously into full view sniffing the air; very slowly, very cautiously, it made its way, its head upraised, moving with a graceful swaying motion from side to side; it was the caution of the pursuer and not of the pursued, there was no terror in it. The young engineer watched it in fascination, then it disappeared again in the grass.

"The stoat gets a better time than the rabbit," he propounded, after a thoughtful pause.

"Rabbits!" she said, in disgust, "rabbits are good to eat, that's all. Everything kills rabbits, they play and play and never think—I've watched them for hours and hours."

He jumped up. "I must go and have a look round inside now." He looked at her steadily with approval, and more; there was a light in her eyes as she looked up at him too.

"Will you come over to-morrow night?" he asked. There was a touch of suspense in his voice.

He held her rather long, looking at her thoughtfully, he seemed in doubt, then he slowly released her hand and turned away. "Good-bye till to-morrow then," he said.

Next night he was outside before half-past twelve, waiting. He saw her leave the camp and come towards him springing lightly from tuft to tuft over the rough ground.

"How are you?" he answered, gravely, shaking hands. The limitations of the Englishman bound him fast. "Come inside," he continued.

She drew back with a little expression of repugnance. "I don't like houses," she said.

"I've got some sweets in there. Come in and get them, and then we'll go outside again."

She followed him meekly, and he took her into the little office and tilted the contents of four different little bags on to a clean newspaper.

They walked in silence to the door, then he paused under the lamp. "Look here, you never told my fortune. Finish it, will you?"

She stopped and looked at the hand he held out under the light. "I don't know very much yet. You're very strong."

"Fairly," he agreed, doubling up his biceps. "You said I had a good fortune. How do you know that?"

"By the feel," she answered. She took him by the wrist again and seemed lost in wonder. "Think of what you'd like," she said.

He shut his eyes and conjured up his favourite vision. A great industrial centre; a huge machinery shop; teeming workmen, strong and greasy; and himself in the centre, thinking, feeling, living for it all.

"I have. And a weasel and a stoat with their heads tied. And cats and dogs and birds and all sorts. You feel like a dog, a trained fighting dog when he's going to fight—and win."

He smiled, somewhat indulgently. "Very probably," he said. "I'm a bit of a sportsman, football, and that sort of thing, you know. I've got a pistol in there; I put in time shooting rats along the river bank when I'm by myself and not reading."

"Come on down by the river bank now and I'll show you some birds' nests. I found them to-day."

"Wait till it gets lighter," he answered. "We'll climb up that hill and watch the sun rise."

So they started off together across the intervening space of moorland, the tall athletic young man and the slender graceful girl, and the great silver moon looked down at it all with a parental smile, as he has on countless such scenes since the birth of man.

"All right," she answered, and broke into a run, bounding lightly over the rough ground like a young deer. But the trained athlete kept pace with her easily, he did not pass her, but kept a pace behind; she glanced back and sprinted faster; still he hung on her rear till they were within a hundred yards of the hill.

"A final spurt," he said, and she bounded away again. He could have passed her then, too, but he did not.

"Yes, you won," he agreed, looking at her with marked approval. Her head was thrown back a little and her breast heaved steadily, taking great deep long, breaths. She was slightly flushed and her eyes sparkled brightly. They had run a quarter of a mile, and without a pause they went straight up the hill taking it quickly and easily.

It took them a quarter of an hour to get to the top, up the zigzag, stony pathway through the pine wood. She led the way and brought him out to a little clearing at the head of a miniature precipice.

"There!" she said, and pointed up the valley of the river straight at the lightening dawn.

"Grand!" he ejaculated, and they sat down side by side on the bed of soft brown pine needles where the ground sloped gradually towards the cliff. The deep gloom of the pine wood closed behind them like a curtain; down below, at their feet, they could see the tops of the trees in the gorge; out in front spread the beautiful valley with the silent river threading its way down the heart of it.

They sat and gazed in silence, listening to the indistinct rustle of nocturnal life in the wood behind them, and the air above: a rustle of leaves, a faint crackle of twigs, a little scream, and some woodland tragedy was past and gone, some tiny life was sped.

An owl hooted above them many times, long-drawn, awe-inspiring, suited to the night.

"Tune?" he repeated, in amusement. "I didn't know there was any difference," he added, apologetically.

"Listen!" she commanded, holding his arm suddenly. There was a flutter of wings in a tree not far away, a little agonized scream, then all was silent. "That's a weasel, or a stoat got a bird," she explained.

The dawn was brightening rapidly, lighting up all the valley, turning the sombre river to a thread of silver, throwing out the white farmhouses into strong relief, stirring birds and beasts to a new life.

She laughed with amusement. "A black dot," she repeated. "What's the matter with your eyes?"

He looked into her marvellous orbs with wonder and admiration. "I'm usually considered to have good eyes," he said, "but they're not in it with yours. You must be related to the golden eagle."

He pulled out his watch. "By Jove! I must get back to the works, somebody will be stealing the dynamos, or the coal," he added, looking at her with a sudden smile.

She smiled too and they disappeared into the wood, down the stony paths and across the bit of moorland. He stopped at the gate of the works and held out his hand.

She came, somewhat reluctantly; the colour overspread her face. There was doubt in her eyes. He passed his disengaged arm round her neck and kissed her on her full red lips.

A wild wonder sprang to her eyes. "Gipsies don't kiss," she said, as she gazed at him.

"Don't they?" he said, "then I'll do it again in case you forget," and he did, a long kiss. He looked at her in astonished admiration, the deep colour that mantled on her cheek, and the vivid light in her eyes made a picture the like of which he had never seen.

She turned away and bounded off across the moorland to her people's camp. He watched her with bright eyes, she turned and waved a hand to him then disappeared among the caravans. He went into the little works very thoughtful for he knew that he was violently in love with this beautiful girl—this child of nature, and he seemed up against a blank wall.

He paced the little engine room slowly, chin on breast, gazing unseeing at the tiles on the floor. "I'll tell her not to come again," he said to himself. For he was a very conscientious and a very ambitious young man.

That was decided. He threw back his shoulders and raised his head with a feeling of relief. Going out into the boiler house, he opened the furnace doors, and taking a fire rake in his hands, pushed back the banked fires and spread them over the grates, he sprinkled a few shovels full of coal over them, opened the dampers, blew down the gauge glasses, and went into his little office again to read.

Mostly he read technical works, but the book he picked up now contained the life story of George Stephenson. There was a full page portrait in it too: this fascinated the young engineer—he gazed at it long and earnestly. To him it seemed the face of the greatest of all Englishmen, of all men; statesmen, soldiers, philosophers, none of them had left such a monument behind them, none had done so much for civilization as this great man whose features he gazed upon. "And he was a fighter, too," he said to himself. "Beat the prize fighter bully of his village, and without training. He must have been always fit and lived very straight and clean." He put down the book and went outside.

The sun was now bright and powerful, but still low down in the sky. The young engineer gazed all around at the fairy scene, enchanted with the beauty of the landscape; yet he carried in his mind's eye still the frontispiece of the book, a strong, sturdy figure, and a firm, composed, yet kindly face. The picture seemed to haunt him. "The ideal engineer," he said to himself, "would never get angry, only think, think, deeper and deeper. He would be absolutely firm, but not a brute. The engineer must handle men as well as material, and this north country collier did it!" He felt his biceps. "A great engineer of to-day has laid it down that physical fitness is the essential ground work of engineering success."

Next night the gipsy girl appeared earlier than usual, he was not outside, and she ventured timidly in, walking on tip-toe, her eyes glancing quickly all round her. She advanced to the foot of the switchboard steps and stayed there.

He saw her then and went down to speak to her. She held out her hand. He took it gravely. She looked up at him underneath her long lashes, then her eyes drooped, the colour mounted to her cheek, she let her hand rest limply in his. He looked at her steadily for a minute, holding her hand, then he drew her towards him and kissed her.

"You like kissing," he said. She looked up at him with all her soul in her wonderful dark eyes.

"Go and sit down, I've got some work to do yet. My coat's hanging up in the office there. There's some sweets in the pocket, take them out."

In ten minutes' time he went to her. "We'll go up on the hill again," he said, "and you shall tell me what all the sounds and squeaks and all that we hear in the wood mean."

So they started off, and at the edge of the wood a dusky shape scampered off from the grass and disappeared into the gloom.

She laughed, and going close up to him, put her arms round him and lifted him easily.

They went to the top and sat down again in the old place, the little clearing, overlooking the valley. They sat for some time in silence.

He looked at her sharply. "Poor little devil," he thought, "is it possible—" Then he looked into her eyes very steadily, rather sadly. "I haven't any idea who I shall marry, yet," he said. "Probably some girl that I shall meet at home, some girl who lives in a house about the same size that my father lives in. A girl who reads and writes, and perhaps plays the piano and sings, who can look after a house and manage servants and see that everything is looked after properly. That is," he added, thoughtfully, "if I can ever make enough money to keep such a girl."

"I hope that she will be as beautiful and graceful as you, but one can't have everything."

"What does your father do?" she asked, and her tone was one of interested inquiry simply.

"I've no doubt you are," he said, with some amusement. He wondered what the gipsy standard of music was.

Suddenly he noticed her raise her head, listening intently, he watched her with interest; the delicate nostrils quivered, she seemed to be smelling something.

"Come into the dark," she whispered. She moved silently into the shadow of the pine trees.

He was getting up to follow her when a rough looking man in a round fur cap, a suit with big poacher pockets to the coat and gaiters protecting his trousers, and carrying a big stick under his arm, came out into the moonlight.

"You knows, you an' that girl. I seen her go away." Without more ado, he rushed viciously at the engineer and lashed out a sweeping blow with his bludgeon.

The young athlete sprang nimbly aside, and as the gipsy turned to make a second onslaught, the girl came out of the darkness of the wood behind and sprang on his back like a wild cat, pulling him over backwards and wrenching the stick from his grasp. She threw it to the engineer. "Take that," she said, "and watch him."

The gipsy, cursing and spitting like an angry cat, lashed out with his feet and caught the girl in the ribs.

With a little sob, like a punctured balloon, she sank down, a huddled, helpless heap. The gipsy lashed out again at her and then scrambled to his feet.

The engineer stood over him. "You swine," he said, and he brought the stick down over the man's shoulders for all he was worth. It was ash and very stout; there was not much "give" in it. He gave a coughing gasp, then closed with his assailant.

They wrestled fiercely. The gipsy was shorter and not so heavy, but exceedingly strong; he strove to work the engineer backwards towards the cliff, his hands sought his throat.

The engineer had dropped the stick, he passed his forearm across the gipsy's throat and forced his head backwards so that to save his neck or his back the man had to relax his grip. Instantly the engineer dealt him a severe blow on the chin with his fist.

The latent savagery of the chimpanzee and the fierce deep passion of the sportsman who had been "fouled" were aroused side by side in the breast of the young engineer. He sprang forward again and struck the falling man another furious blow; he seemed to yield easily; it was almost like striking the empty air. There was not that sense of springy resistance which is the whole source of pleasure in a blow well delivered and reaching well home.

With a sudden chilling of the blood he realized that the man was over the edge, falling downwards on to the trees. He felt sick with horror and tried to throw himself back, only to discover that the impetus of his own forward progress was too much for him. He slowed up and hung for (it seemed to him) many minutes just balanced, then gradually tilted forwards towards the tops of the trees that showed down below in the faint light of the rising dawn. He seemed to be moving very slowly—slowly, forwards. He glanced out over the valley below him and got a clear impression of the view; he saw an owl flit past between himself and the tree tops; he heard it hoot, its long drawn, melancholy hoot. Then he felt a sudden jerk behind, something pulled him backwards, he felt his centre of gravity shift till his legs had control of his body again. Then the blood rushed from his heart with a mighty bound; he sank down on the soft bed of the weather-browned pine needles.

The girl leaned over him, her eyes alight. "I thought I was over too," she said.

She stretched herself and suddenly relaxed with a little gasp. "I'm all right. I've got a pain, that's all."

"My sweetheart—the man I'm going to marry—if he's alive," she answered, simply.

"Oh! Great God in heaven!" he said, and he held out his hands to the rising sun, gazing out on the smiling valley and beautiful hills in the peaceful stillness of the early dawn.

CHAPTER II

They wended their way slowly down the steep path, the girl giving little gasps of pain at every few steps.

"Rot!" he said, and without more ado he picked her up in his arms. She was very light considering the strength she had displayed. "Say how you are easiest," he said.

So they proceeded slowly down the stony, rocky hillside, the girl cradled in his arms with her arms round his neck easing her weight as much as possible.

He had to stop and rest frequently, laying her gently on a bed of pine needles or moss.

She put her fingers gently on his wrist and felt his pulse. "You're a winner," she said.

So carrying on a disjointed conversation they worked their way round to the foot of the cliff.

"Shall I take you back to the camp or shall I have a look for the—man, first?"

"No, you're not. You stay there." He put her down on the ground, and made his way through the trees to the cliff.

He searched up and down; there was no sign of a body dead or alive, no sign of derangement, nothing to indicate tragedy. There was a rustle of bird life all round him and a cheerful chorus of early morning song in the bushes outside, for this was just on the edge of the wood. He went up and down gazing over head and under foot; the trees here were mostly firs, young spruce firs with heavy, carpety foliage interlocking, shutting out the light.

He went back to the girl. "I'll take you back and go for a doctor while your people come and look for him."

That one word "home" is used to describe a vast number of widely differing places.

Picking her up in his arms again, he carried her out across the strip of moorland to the camp.

The gipsies were out and astir, there seemed to be a sort of meeting going on among the tents and caravans. Jack Carstairs walked into the centre of them and deposited his burden on the ground.

The girl sat up. "There's Sam," she said, pointing to a young gipsy sitting propped up against the wheel of a caravan. His face was deathly pale, and one eye was bulged out like a small balloon.

A woman of about fifty, eagle-eyed, black-haired, descended the steps of a particularly well-appointed caravan and went over to the girl, and felt her carefully all over. "Who did it?" she asked.

The gipsies made no sound, but dark glistening eyes rolled from the recumbent gipsy to the tall, fair-haired young Englishman.

The young man felt a pair of piercing black eyes gazing searchingly into his, they seemed to see right into his brain: he was aware of a strange tingling sensation in his blood as the woman looked at him.

She caught hold of his wrist, and lifting his hand examined his palm. She gazed at it long and earnestly, ever and anon glancing up into his eyes. She dropped it suddenly.

He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out all the money he had, about seven shillings. "Here, get the girl whatever you can. Shall I send a doctor?

"Alright," he said, and made his way unmolested past the silent, fierce-eyed men.

He went back to the little works and fired up the boilers and got steam ready for the day man to start the engine when he came in.

That night he went down about ten o'clock and crossed over to the gipsies. The whole camp was gathered in a circle round the embers of a fire.

He was turning to go away when she spoke again in singularly sweet and winning tones. "Won't you come and sit down, sir?"

A young gipsy immediately got up and disappeared into the flashy looking caravan, to reappear with a violin and bow in his hands.

An old man who had lain stretched out before the fire arose and took the instrument; he fingered it lovingly. Carstairs looked at him with curiosity; he was attired in an old frock coat, green with age, and the silk facings threadbare; straightened out he would have been as tall as Carstairs himself, but he was bent and bowed, his knees tottered, his face was the uniform purple-red of the confirmed drunkard. He tried the strings with his fingers, tuning up. They brought forward a chair, and he sat down. The face, Carstairs thought, showed something of refinement and good breeding even in its bloated, blotched condition. He pushed back his greasy cap and showed a head of fine silver-grey hair; the mouth was in constant motion, twitching, compressing, relaxing. He passed the bow across the strings, making a harsh, jarring scream; then he seemed to settle down, and Carstairs was entranced.

He dropped down beside one of the gipsies and sat silent, lost in beautiful, entrancing thought. All that was best in his life came back to him, his highest thoughts and loftiest ambition were stirred and enlarged, his resolution strengthened, his soul uplifted. He glanced round the circle of rough, mahogany-coloured faces. Dark eyes glistened like precious jewels in the flickering firelight, the rough lines of the features seemed softened.

The player passed on from tune to tune, only pausing to take a drink from a bottle that the old woman handed him. Many of the strains were familiar to the young engineer; he understood they were "masterpieces" difficult to render. And wonder and a great pity stirred in him side by side at the awful contrast, the inexpressible beauty of the music and the despicable condition of the player. But he, too, seemed to straighten out and grow taller; he stood up, the mouth became steadier, the bleared eyes seemed quite brilliant in the dim light.

Slowly dying down, growing gradually less, the music stopped. Then dropping bow and fiddle the musician made straight for the brass-finished, leather-upholstered caravan, and disappeared inside.

There was silence round the little circle of the gipsies, no one stirred; Carstairs was lost in reverie, ideas thronged through his brain; he was lost to the present, his soul seemed free of his body, delving about in the unknown depths of the future.

A young gipsy started up from the circle and picked up the fiddle and bow. For Carstairs that broke the spell, he looked up and found the gipsy woman's eyes upon him.

"Oh!" he said. He held out his hand. "Good-bye! you must thank him very much for me."

She took his hand and looked into his eyes in the fixed firelight. "You like music?" she asked.

He felt a strange feeling of friendliness for this woman, her presence seemed to give him a sensation of comfort, of hope.

They passed the technical news of the day, then the bearded Scotsman and the other young engineer departed.

Carstairs stood at the door watching them go away along the winding path beside the river, towards the little town. He hadn't altogether shaken off the reverie induced by the music; he gazed out into the silence of the night; in the beautiful half light of the northern night, he could see far up the valley. Long after his companions had disappeared from view he stood there gazing out over the silent landscape, and for once his thoughts were not entirely of himself, of his ambitions and resolves: he wondered at the old man who played the beautiful music, the old woman and the girl, their offspring; it seemed incredible, the girl was so different from either of them. He went inside, closing the wicket gate in the big doors behind him, then going into the little office he produced a drawing-board and instruments and settled down resolutely to work; for he had ideas, many of them, and his occupation gave him ample time for thought.

Next night he went down early to call at the camp again, but when he got there, he found, with a disappointment he was astonished at, the gipsies were gone.

"Cancelled out," he said to himself, for Carstairs thought mathematically. Still, as he spoke, he felt a doubt if the factor were really eliminated.

So time, relentless time, passed away, and Carstairs went his daily round, working and studying, planning and dreaming. Very often in the early summer mornings when he had been on all night, and found it impossible to study any more, he would take his pistol and wander out along the river bank looking for rats or water voles. Always the vision of the gipsy girl came back to him. Her verdict "you're a winner," occurred to him as he fired at the rats or selected some inanimate mark to aim at, and always hit, for his hand was strong and steady and his eye very keen. One day as he wandered so, pistol in hand, there was a sudden swirl in the water, a gleam of silver shot heavenwards, he pointed the pistol and pulled just as the salmon touched the water again, it dived instantly, but there was something wrong with it, the white belly seemed unduly prominent, it was obviously impeded by something.

"Hit! by Jove!" Carstairs said, as the big fish came to the surface and lay quite still floating down with the stream. "A winner," he said, and he wondered thoughtfully if it would always be so.

Then he went on holiday, ten days, back to his home in Gloucestershire, the country vicarage and the Cotswold hills, where the pick of the old prize fighters came from; and there was much of the prize fighter in Carstairs' composition, perhaps it was in the air.

The Reverend Hugh Carstairs was tall and well built, silver haired and clean shaven; his religion was of the comfortable order; he did not consider it necessary to be miserable in order to be good. He was clean in mind and body, rather sporting and rather intellectual. His good lady was somewhat similar, less sporting and less intellectual, more homely and more pious. The product of the union was six well-grown, healthy Englishmen. Jack was the youngest.

His parents received him with undemonstrative but deep-felt pleasure. Up to the present Jack had been, if not the most prosperous, the least expensive of the six; engineering to him had been more or less compulsory because cheap, or comparatively so. The other five had absorbed large sums in their education, and up to the present made small return on capital invested. Jack didn't gamble or drink expensive drinks; he didn't paint pictures or play any musical instrument. As far as his parents knew he had had no love affairs. He was a very sober young man. His mother said he feared God. His father, that he respected himself. The truth was that he had an ambition to bulk very big at some future date, and so had not the time for indulgence in the ordinary common or garden vices and pastimes.

His mother looked somewhat disappointed, his father pleased. The dividends on classics did not pan out very well in his experience.

"I'm working out an idea, you know; rather good thing if it's workable. Want some more 'maths,' to read up the authorities on the subject."

"Ah," his mother sighed, something seemed to touch a sensitive chord. "You know Phillip is going out to India?"

"That isn't much for a man twenty-four years old, is it? Fitters get that out there."

The Rev. Hugh regarded his son with quiet approval. "It keeps you occupied," he said, "and as long as you're honest."

Jack was silent. "As a general rule I am," he said, at length. "Stole a basketful of coal the other day, though."

His father smiled too, he had Jack's eyes, grey and shrewd. "To a certain extent the end justified the means," he said, "That is, in the common court of our conscience. I suppose it was very cold up in Scotland?"

"On that particular day it was, I think, if anything warmer than it is down here to-day. I should like to be whitewashed, but—the end was a very pretty gipsy girl, whom I afterwards kissed, and punched her affianced husband—broke his leg."

"Not a bit, mater. I'm going to shine as the villain of the family; it's in me, for under the given circumstance, I'd do the same again." He gave them the main outlines of the case, concisely, hiding nothing.

The Rev. Hugh's grey eyes twinkled merrily. "Everything comes to him who goes and fetches it," he said.

"That's an engineering precept, guv'nor. An engineer is a man who fetches things. You ought to have been an engineer, not a bally old parson."

Jack was standing up with his back to the mantel-piece. His father smiled, then he stood up, too, and, laying a hand on his son's broad shoulder, looked with solemn, benevolent eyes into the eyes that were level with, and so like, his own. "Go on fetching things, my boy, but never forget that the object of life is happiness. And happiness is only possible to an easy conscience. It is nice to win the match, but better to lose than cheat. I should leave these gipsy girls alone, if I were you."

Jack was thoughtful. "Up to the present," he said, "it is not necessary to generalize, but thanks all the same."

The Rev. Hugh looked at his son, at the steady eyes and close, firm mouth; the lines were very definite, almost cruel; such men do not have many love affairs. "I think you can take care of yourself," he said.

CHAPTER III

The vicarage at Chilcombe, Jack's home, was a fairly large, well-built house with plenty of ground round it, forming a complete rectangle. Two sides of it (bordering the road) were bounded by seven-foot walls, a third side was a thick, tall hedge, and the fourth (furthest from the house) was a brook, or river—a sort of cross, a big brook or a small river—deeply bordered with willow trees and blackberry bushes. Two close wooden gates in the seven-foot wall opened on to a small brown-gravel drive, which led by a single short curve through a shrubbery of laurel bushes to the front entrance porch. A big room at the other side of the house opened out by French windows on to a lawn. There was a big chestnut tree in one corner of this lawn, with a seat round it; in the summer there were usually two or three hammock chairs spread out in the shade of it also. Jack was lounging in one of these latter the morning after his arrival, while his mother did knitting in a more sedate-looking but less comfortable chair at his side, when Mrs Bevengton and Bessie came round the corner of the house. Mrs Bevengton was the doctor's wife, and Bessie was her daughter. Bessie was fairly tall and distinctly plump—"fatty" Jack used to call her when he was younger; she was not really fat, though not angularly hard; there was no superfluous tissue about her. She could play tennis all day long, run with the beagles, or row two or three miles on the river without getting "done up." She had a good pink colour and dimples on each cheek which were nearly always in evidence, for she smiled at most things. Her hair was light brown and curly; it was always straying out of place and framing her happy, smiling face in little light brown curves.

Mrs Bevengton looked at him critically. "What are you doing now, Jack?" she asked.

"Earning ten bob a week, Mrs Bevengton," he answered, with just a flicker of a smile. The doctor's wife was inclined to be a materialist in worldly matters.

Bessie's dimples burst into renewed prominence, and a frizzy curl strayed out from over her forehead. She said nothing, but her blue eyes danced in the sunlight as she glanced round the three faces in front of her, and endeavoured to suppress the rebellious curl.

Mrs Bevengton looked at Bessie, then back again at Jack. He seemed very steady-looking and confident; she had only a vague notion of what he was doing, but had an impression that electrical engineering was a safe sort of thing, displacing the Church as the thing to put the fool of the family into. Still, the Carstairs so far had not "got on."

Jack looked at his hands which would have compared favourably with a young carpenter's. "Fairly good, I think," he said, "for the right men. About the same as doctoring, only more pleasant—to the young mind at least."

The doctor's wife was puzzled. He spoke too soberly for a Carstairs—and nineteen. She looked at Mrs Carstairs. "When does Phillip leave?"

Jack looked at Bessie. "Come on, Bessie! I'll give you a game of tennis. Expect you'll beat me easily now. Haven't had a game since last summer."

"No, I haven't," he answered. "Come on down to the brook and see if that old trout is still there."

"That old trout," was an ancient retainer of the Carstairs family, weighing some two to two and a half pounds. Six successive sons had tried to catch him: bright red worms, "dopping" blue bottles, artificial flies, gentles and green caterpillars had been tried in vain; the veteran shook his head and slowly winked the other eye as he lazily flapped his tail in the gentle current, regarding the tempting baits and eager faces peering over the blackberry bushes with easy unconcern. Twice they had waded through the shallows, three abreast, with butterfly nets, after frightening him from his deep hole, but without success: once, indeed, with the aid of wire netting, was the speckled warrior landed, high and dry; but after performing a joyous war-dance, hand in hand, round the panting, kicking champion, the means were voted underhand and mean—not sporting—so by unanimous consent he was consigned to the deep again, never afterwards, by fair means or foul, to be lured thence. In later days he reigned supreme, monarch of all he surveyed, for many yards on either side of the willow tree, his seat. It was considered the correct thing, when on holidays, to feed him with worms and gentles and other tit-bits.

So, rackets in hands, they strolled down to the brook and peeped cautiously over the top of a blackberry bush, down into a deep hole under the roots of an overhanging willow tree; silently they pressed forward, for the bush had grown and obscured the view more than it used to. Suddenly there was a slip, a little scream, a sound of tearing dress material, a splash, and Bessie was in the stream.

Jack knew that Bessie could not swim, one of the few athletic accomplishments she had not acquired. The water was six or seven feet deep for two or three hundred yards on either side of the hole, which was nine or ten feet deep, the banks were very steep.

Without a second's pause, Jack burst his way through the bushes and into the stream; the brambles clung to him and let him down gently. He found Bessie floundering hopelessly, head under water, one leg elevated in the air, held securely by a tangle of brambles, so keeping her in an inverted position.

He grabbed an overhanging branch of the willow tree with one hand and reached down for Bessie's hair with the other. He succeeded in raising her head above water. She clutched his arm frantically, half-unconscious, she had quite lost her reason.

She was unable to comprehend, so he gave a vigorous tug at her; the brambles yielded pliantly, but did not let go.

"Damn the thing," he said. He tugged again, and the fresh green willow branch broke off short at the rotten old trunk. Bessie's head sank under water again, and she clutched him in a despairing grasp; he "trod water" vigorously and tried to pull her clear of the bramble; then he tried to get free of her grasp so that he might get at the bramble at close quarters, but she clung to him in despairing energy, and she was very strong. Twice he lifted her head out of water and let her get a breath, but the effort drove him very deep down himself, and he was beginning to feel the strain.

He looked round him in search of inspiration. The water was running very placidly and calmly past him, all dappled with round spots of sunlight coming through the leaves of the trees. A little way off, his mother and Bessie's mother sat quietly chatting in the shade of the chestnut tree, a cow grazed peacefully very near the opposite bank; he could hear the steady "munch" of her jaws; a willow wren trilled out a pretty little warble on a tree near by; and Bessie was drowning. Jack wondered what to do. It never occurred to him to shout for help, he never shouted for help—he was not built that way.

"Her grip will relax when she gets unconscious," he said to himself, and thinking so, he pulled her head deeper under water and tugged to get free of her grip. This time he succeeded, and instantly hauled himself up the bank by means of the entangled leg and set it free. It was very simple; two interlaced briars formed a stirrup, that was all. He raised the foot and it was free at once. Then he dropped back into the water and getting under her, raised her head, and swam with her down stream where the bank shelved down; getting out and laying her on the grass, he applied his rudimentary knowledge of artificial resuscitation; he saw a gentle heaving of the breast, then picked her up and hurried towards the house.

"Whatever is the matter?" she said. She was very pale, but not hysterical. Jack noted her behaviour with approval.

"Bessie fell into the brook, got her head fixed under water for some time; she's breathing alright." He hurried on into the house with her.

The doctor was immediately sent for while Mrs Bevengton administered all she knew, and in half an hour Bessie was sitting up in bed, Jack's bed, drinking hot beef tea. She smiled genially. "I'm sorry to give you all this trouble, Mrs Carstairs," she said.

That evening Jack's sailor uncle paid a surprise visit—his were nearly always surprise visits; he came and went like the sea breeze, fresh, boisterous, and invigorating. As they sat smoking after dinner and commenting on the morning's catastrophe, Commander John Carstairs, R.N., looked across at his nephew and namesake through the smoke.

"Oh, first-class, I think. However 'what is, is best,' you know, 'the moving finger writes,' etc. I'm going to make money."

The sailor's merry blue eyes became thoughtful, and so, even the casual observer must have been struck by the sense of power the whole man conveyed. The face was clean shaven and of an even pink-red all over, the jaw very strong and square, the cheek bones high and the nose prominent, the mouth a straight line, the eyes deep set and not too close together as deep-set eyes usually are; in repose they looked stern and hard, when he smiled they were the most kindly looking in all the world; his figure, particularly the shoulders and chest, gave one the impression that he swung heavy-weight Indian clubs for many hours each day.

"The service makes men, but not millionaires," he remarked, and his own personality seemed the proof of the assertion.

Dr Bevengton (who stayed to dinner) broke in. "It's possible to be both, I imagine."

Jack Carstairs puffed slowly at one of his father's cigars. "The line of demarcation between a man and a fool is rather hard to draw, I think."

"Well, I've heard both a man and a fool defined in so very many different ways. One of our Scotch labourers assured me that a man who couldn't take a half tumbler of whisky neat was 'nae man at a'.' Then one frequently hears such terms as 'an ass who plays football,' or 'a fool who reads Shakespeare.'"

The sailor slapped his knee. "Well done!" he said. "By Jove, that's good! What about the girl?" he asked, suddenly.

"Then you'll have a chance before you go back, Jack, to prove yourself a man or a fool."

The sailor smiled genially at his nephew, and his nephew regarded him in solemn silence. The doctor coughed, so did the parson.

The sea develops to a remarkable degree the English trait of persistence. Nothing short of a twelve-inch shell would have diverted Jack's uncle from his "chaff."

"In these cases, Jack, there's nothing like striking when the iron's hot," he continued.

The doctor and the parson were distinctly ill at ease, the sailor was happy, the young engineer quite calm. He puffed away slowly at his cigar while the sailor looked laughingly into his eyes.

"I perceive, uncle," Jack said, at length, "that it's possible to be a fool and a man at the same time."

Next day Bessie was about again, and Jack met her on the lawn. Her dimples were as deep as ever and her hair as rebellious. She held out her hand, "Thanks very much for pulling me out, Jack," she said.

God, in His wisdom, has denied speech to the English, but has specially endowed them with feeling.

They played tennis again and went down and looked at the place where she fell in.

So time passed away and the ten days were soon gone. Jack visited all his old haunts and friends and saw a good deal of Bessie. Their relations were changing, they were merging into man and woman, the incident of the brook seemed to have hastened it. Jack saw a difference in her; she seemed a trifle shy at times, and he never failed to notice it. He noticed, too, that she seemed to defer to him more, and not dispute, as they always used to. When he was going away, he said good-bye to her alone, and as he shook hands he noticed a look in her eyes that surprised him. She blushed slightly.

One evening, before his uncle had left, they had all spent the evening with the doctor. As the men sat alone smoking, his uncle had questioned Jack about his work. Jack remembered that the doctor had listened with marked interest.

"They call me an Improver," Jack had explained. "Certainly, I've improved lots of things since I've been there, and wrecked others. 'Improver wanted for Central Station in Scotland, must have workshop training and theoretical knowledge, good opportunity to gain a thorough insight into Central Station work. Salary (they called it salary) ten shillings per week.' That's how the advertisement ran. They are correct in describing the insight to be gained as 'thorough.' My first job was to sweep out the engine room and to do it thoroughly, then I had to clean the switchboard, thoroughly too, then, as I had shown my ability, I was allowed to wipe down the engine, thoroughly. Now I stoke boilers and drive engines and operate the switchboard—all for the same pay, while the latest comer sweeps the floor, etc."

The doctor, Jack had noticed, looked considerably down in the mouth. The sailor only laughed. "That'll do you good," he had said.

All these things Jack thought over after he had left Bessie, and the train was speeding him northward.

CHAPTER IV

Back in Scotland, Jack Carstairs took up the thread of his work where he had left off, stepped into the old routine again. He had "started applying," that is to say he carefully scanned the advertisement columns of the Electrical Review, and then in dignified and appropriate language submitted a list of his qualifications to those people (and at this time their name was legion) who required the services of junior station engineers. Nearly all of these were municipalities, and they set out gaudy, lengthily worded advertisements occupying about a quarter of a column, with elaborate specification of duties and qualifications. They finished up with the mild and modest statement that the salary (?) would be at the rate of one pound (or perhaps twenty-five shillings) per week.

Jack answered dozens of these; sometimes he received a little printed slip to inform him that his application had not been successful, which usually arrived by the time he had forgotten all about it, or else he heard nothing whatever. He usually wrote out these applications at the works and posted them on his way home. His route, via the post-box, lay along a road deeply shaded with big beech trees on one side and an open space on the other, the footpath ran along under the trees.

One night, coming off duty at midnight, as he pursued his usual way home, enjoying the deep peace of the night, carrying a bundle of letters in his hands, he felt a sudden, violent blow on the back of the head, and the next thing he knew was that he woke up with a violent headache, and found himself lying on his back, under the shade of one of the big trees. He put his hand to the back of his head and felt a big lump there. He staggered to his feet and searched his pockets; everything was intact, nothing gone or displaced; his letters were lying scattered on the ground; painfully and slowly he gathered them up, the stooping made his head seem about to burst. Then he staggered home to his diggings, posting his letters on the way, and wondering with the vague and painful persistence of the fevered brain who or what had struck him and why.

He let himself into his diggings, and going to his bedroom, carefully sponged his head with water. Then he wiped it dry, sat down and ate his supper, and went to bed.

His sleep was somewhat fevered and disturbed, but he woke up in the morning feeling only a bad headache.

"Damn funny thing," he said to himself, then he turned over and went to sleep again. His landlady knocked at his door and told him it was very late, so he got up and felt fairly fresh.

She looked at him searchingly. Scottish women have an equal curiosity with other women but less tongue; she said nothing, and he volunteered no further information, partly because he was naturally uncommunicative, and partly—well, he could not say why exactly, but he did not.

There are so many things which one does not quite know why one does, which afterwards prove of vast consequence, which is probably why most men who observe and think are superstitious, religious, or fatalistic. The man who can only read plain print does not believe in these things.

Jack Carstairs said nothing, but he went down to the works as usual, and they remarked there that he looked pale and had a lump on the back of his head.

"What's up?" the vociferous young English engineer asked (it is astonishing what a number of English electrical engineers there are in Scotland).

The bearded, blue-eyed Scotsman looked at him in solemn seeing silence; he said nothing, and his gaze was not obtrusive. The Scotch are a pleasant people to live with because they have grasped, above all others, the art of minding their own business, which possibly also explains why Scotsmen occupy high places all over the world.

Carstairs went back the same way that night again, but he took a handy piece of light, strong iron piping with him. He walked clear of the trees and looked carefully all around, but saw no one.

He walked on and had just reached his diggings when he heard a light step behind him; he turned and saw a tall girl quite close to him.

Carstairs face brightened with pleasure and surprise. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

Suddenly he noticed she carried a substantial ash cudgel. A great wave of wonder passed over him. "Good God, was it you who flattened me out last night?

There was an involuntary twitch of the cudgel in her hand. "He wouldn't have done it if I'd been there."

Carstairs' look showed admiration and appreciation. "That's jolly good of you," he said. "Where are you—er—where is the camp?"

"But you can't walk all night—all that distance." He glanced helplessly up at the window of his little sitting-room.

She followed his glance. "I'll have a sleep out in the fields before I start," she said. She stepped up closer and looked into his eyes.

"Sam's going to 'do' for you." She watched him intently. The grey eyes hardened down till they glinted like steel in the moonlight.

"Perhaps," he admitted, slowly. "I rather hope not. Are you—er—married yet?"

"Mother said I needn't, and I don't want to. I'm going to work in a house, a farm," she watched him closely, "not far from here."

With a spontaneous movement he held out his hand. "Good, then I may see you sometimes. Good-bye."

"Well, good-bye. Come over and look me up at the works when you've time, will you?"

"Yes," she answered. She turned and went away. He stood looking after her as she went away down the long moonlit street. He stood at the mouth of the "close" (the common entrance to a number of flats), his latchkey at his lips, whistling softly, in doubt. Suddenly he started off at a run after her. She turned quickly, grasping her cudgel, at the sound of his footsteps.

"Look here, I'll let you into my digs, my rooms, you know, and you can stay there till the morning. I'll stroll around."

He looked at her and saw she meant it; doubt again assailed him. "I suppose you're used to it?" he asked.

He laughed too. "I've never slept out of one," he said, "good-bye." He went back again and let himself into his diggings, and went to bed.

Next morning there were two letters waiting for him, both with the city arms of a municipality embossed on the flap of the envelope. "The mayor and corporation, or the City Electrical Engineer regret," he said to himself with a smile as he opened them. In the first, the city electrical engineer of a municipality in the north of England had to inform him that his application for the post of switchboard attendant at a salary of one pound per week had been successful, and would be pleased to know the earliest date on which he could take up his duties.

Carstairs read over the short, concisely worded document a second time. With a little thrill of pleasure he repeated the name of the town to himself. "That's a big job," he said, "and likely to grow." He opened the other letter. Another Borough Electrical Engineer in the Midlands had pleasure in offering him an appointment as switchboard attendant at a salary of one pound per week, and desired that he start as soon as possible.

He smiled over his lonely breakfast table, at the soup plateful of porridge, at the fried bacon and eggs, at the brown bread and the coffee-pot. It was the sort of smile one must share with somebody or something, or burst; for Jack Carstairs was nineteen. He ate his breakfast with much zest, but before it was over he got up and fished out directories and lists of Central Stations from a pile of books and papers in a cupboard; with these spread out on the table before him, or propped up against the sugar basin, he took intermittent mouthfuls of food while he carefully scanned the lists. Then having found both the towns and noted the capacity and peculiarity of their plant, the population, etc., he gave his whole attention to his plate, thinking deeply as he ate. "Not much to choose between them," he said to himself.

Then he went out for a walk and walked along, deep in thought. "I think," he said to himself, at the end of his stroll, "I think Muddleton (the town in the Midlands) will be the better experience."

He went down to the works to see his chief and find out if he could get away earlier than his legal agreement allowed him to. Then he went back to his digs and wrote accepting one and refusing the other.

In after life he often wondered what would have happened had he chosen the other. This seeming free choice, is it really free, and if so, how far?

Next day he hired a bicycle (he did not own one, could not afford the time to use it and look after it, he said) and cycled over to the place where the gipsy girl had told him their camp was pitched. He tried every road that led out of the little Scotch village, but could find nothing of the camp. He made inquiries, and the dour highland policeman looked at him with open suspicion.

So Carstairs went back the way he had come, and in a week was in the train for England. He was hurried out of Scotland, over the moorlands and southwards through the wilderness of little towns that cluster, thick as blackberries (and about the same hue), all about the heart of England. At four o'clock in the morning, he was turned out, bag and baggage, in a great industrial centre, on the middle platform of a vast and gloomy station. By eight o'clock a.m. he had reached his destination.

He got out at the dirty little station with somewhat of the edge taken off his enthusiasm. Leaving his luggage in the cloak-room, he went out and wandered round the town, looking at the smoke stacks and the factories, the squalor and the dirt.

He located the works in the lowest and dirtiest part of the town, and next to the gas-works, as usual. The extent of the buildings and the two towering chimney stacks acted like a tonic on his somewhat jaded spirits. At ten o'clock he went round again and interviewed his new chief, a tall clean-shaven young man of twenty-six, who drew a modest salary of £400 per annum; he was very affable and pleasant, but not in the least impressed by the gravity of the situation.

"Oh, yes! you're the new switchboard attendant. Have you had a look round? No? Oh, go out and stroll round the works, then. Mr Thomson will be in shortly."

Carstairs went out into the engine room and wandered in and out amongst the big engines, till another very young man, in his shirt sleeves, came up and asked him what he wanted.

The young man smiled a pleasant smile, and held out his hand. "I'm the Shift Engineer. My name is Smith. Come on upstairs." He took Carstairs up the switchboard steps, along the gallery, and into a big room at the end. It was very light, with large windows and glass doors, and numerous lights, all burning. Five other young men, very young (the eldest of them not over twenty-two), were lounging around on tables and chairs. All had their coats off, and some their collars as well. One had a piece of flexible wood with a large piece of cardboard fastened across the end; with this instrument he gravely hunted flies, squashing them flat on walls or window panes, remarking "exit," in a mechanical sort of voice at every stroke. A long sloping-topped drawing table occupied the whole length of the room under the windows, another large drawing board was supported on light trestles in another part, an ordinary writing table occupied the centre. Instruments, paper, pencils, ink, technical journals, and pocket books, were scattered about broadcast.

Seated on the table in the middle, idly swinging his legs, a young man was telling a story; all the others, except the fly hunter, listened attentively. He was tall and dark, with a small neat moustache and marvellous large brown eyes.

The Shift Engineer introduced them. "Darwen, this is Carstairs, the new switchboard attendant."

The dark young man reached out a hand—a strong, sinewy hand, with long, taper, artistic fingers; he smiled, such a genial, winning smile, that Carstairs felt friendly towards him at once.

The Shift Engineer continued the introduction with a light wave of the arm. "Green, Brown, Jones, Robinson." Then he perched himself on the table. "Go on with the yarn, Darwen," he said.

The dark man smiled, and Carstairs noted the remarkable perfection of his face; the forehead was broad and not too high; the nose strong but delicately chiselled; the chin, well moulded and firm but not aggressively prominent; the mouth was almost perfect. The whole man presented a striking picture: the head was perfectly shaped, and the figure gave every indication of great strength and activity; the deltoid muscles at the angle of the shoulder showed very prominently, the neck was big and firm. The pectoral muscles were clearly defined under the tight-fitting waistcoat, the leg, bent over the table, showed a well-developed thigh and knee.

Carstairs eyed him with pleasure, he had a keen appreciation of a well-built man. Darwen's brown eyes seemed continually to meet Carstairs' steady grey ones, and always there was the light of pleasure in them. He went on with his tale, and the others listened and laughed at the right place, which was the end. Carstairs smiled a solemn sort of smile, The story did not appeal to him very much.

Darwen caught the smile, and his own eye seemed to kindle with an appreciation, though it was his story. "What shift are you on?" he asked.

"He'll be in now, I expect." With a sudden spring he threw himself off the table and went to the glass door. "There he is, down in the engine room now," he said.

Carstairs went out and perceived another very young man talking to an engine fitter down below. At that time Central Stations were very young and most of the staffs were very young also. When municipalities were putting up electric lighting stations faster than men were being trained to fill them, young men passed quickly from charge engineer to chief engineer, and from that to bigger chiefs. All sorts and conditions of men drifted into station work. Now they are drifting out again; sick of councillors and contractors; sick of mayors and corporations; sick of red tape and Bumbledom; sick of life.

Mr Thompson was smartly, rather horsily dressed. He eyed Carstairs over somewhat in the manner of a horse fancier. He let it be evident also that he was satisfied.

"Thanks," Carstairs said. Thompson, he thought, was probably only about three or four years older than himself, and he looked less. They walked round together, Thompson explaining and pointing out peculiarities, Carstairs listening and asking questions. In ten minutes they were as chummy as school boys.

"Well, look here, you'll be on the day shift this week; you can go out now and get fixed. Some of the other fellows will perhaps be able to give you some addresses."

"Thanks, I'll try." Carstairs went up to the drawing office again. "I say, can any one put me up to some digs?"

Darwen was leaning over a drawing board doing some fine work, whistling softly to himself. "I can," he said. "Half a minute." He put in one or two more strokes, then he looked up. "I've got pretty decent digs; there's another bedroom empty in the house I know. You can share the sitting room with me, if you like."

"Right you are! What's your address, and how do I get there? I'll go round and fix it up at once. Thompson said I could."

CHAPTER V

Carstairs and Darwen were on the same shift together, that is to say, they put in the same eight hours of the day at the works, day, evening, or night; and they shared diggings. They were about the same height and the same weight, they were both extremely interested in their work, both came from the south of England, and consequently both felt like strangers in a strange land. The first evening they were off, Darwen showed Carstairs round the town.

"That's the theatre," he said, with a smile, pointing to a dingy-looking building in a dingy-looking street. He watched Carstairs' face curiously as he spoke.

They walked round the dingy main streets with their surging crowd of factory girls and factory men, flashily dressed in their evening attire, of poor physique and unhealthy looking.

Carstairs looked pained. "The landlady," he remarked, "described that acre or so of bare earth opposite our window, as a field."

Darwen stopped and looked at him impressively. "Mind, I promise nothing! But last time I was there, there were three cows in it." He suddenly relaxed into a sunny smile. "Come on," he said, and started off briskly.

They walked about five miles, past endless rows of symmetrical, dingy, box-like, red brick houses. It was getting dark when they reached the field, but the cows were there—three sorry specimens, grazing on the smoke-grimed, subdued-looking grass. The young engineers sat on the gate and looked at them in amused pity.

"We've come through one town, and we're on the borders of another," Darwen remarked. "It's hard to say just what town you're in at any given moment, about here."

"It seems very bracing although it's so smoky," Carstairs said. "I wonder why any one lives here who could live anywhere else."

"Lord! Don't tell 'em that. I nearly got mobbed for making a similar remark last week. They think these places are very fine towns. When they've made their pile they still stay here."

"Oh, I shall start applying when I've put in four months. Might get away at the end of six, then."

So they lapsed into technicalities; and as they strolled back, the dingy houses and the smoke and grime were all forgotten. Community of interest was drawing these two young men very close together. They sat up late into the night smoking and comparing notes of what they had seen and wished to see in the engineering world. As they went to bed, Carstairs passed Darwen's door.

He went in, and while Darwen rummaged about in a big trunk, Carstairs glanced round his bedroom. The walls were hung with framed photographs of football teams and cricket teams, school teams and town teams; Darwen's handsome features and sturdy limbs were prominent in all. Carstairs examined them with keen interest. "You're a rugger man, I see," he said, with great appreciation.

"Oh, yes. I play, but I haven't got an international cap, or—" Carstairs mentioned the name of one of the teams on the wall. Darwen stood up with a roll of engineering drawings in his hand. He flushed slightly with pleasure. "I only played for them one season," he explained, "left the town at the end of it."

Carstairs looked at the drawings and Darwen explained. They sat down together side by side on the bed; for half an hour longer they discussed technicalities, then Carstairs went out. He noticed two photographs on the mantelpiece as he passed, both of girls, both pretty. He noticed also that both of them were autographed across the corner. One of them he thought had "with love" written on it too. "Shouldn't have thought Darwen was the sort of ass to get engaged," he said to himself as he went into his own room and glanced round at the landlady's wishy-washy prints and cheap ornaments.

At the works Carstairs and Darwen were always on together, with Smith as charge engineer. On the night shift (that is, from midnight to eight in the morning), Smith spent most of his time in the drawing office reading novels or newspapers, and sleeping; he took periodical walks round to see that the others were awake, then he went back into the drawing office and reclined peacefully in a chair, his head thrown back against the wall (cushioned by a folded coat), and his feet supported by a small box. During the first two or three hours the two juniors spent their time tracing out connections behind the switchboard, making diagrams, and clambering about on the tops of engines or boilers; later on, they too, usually dozed off, sprawling over the switchboard desk, or stretched out on the floor somewhere out of sight. After about two o'clock a.m. the whole works, in fact, became a sort of temporary palace of sleep; the stoker dozed on his box in the boiler house, the engine driver made himself snug on the bed plate of an engine, the fires in the boilers died gradually down from a fierce white to a dull red glow, the steam pressure gauge dropped back twenty or thirty pounds, the engines hummed away merrily, with a rather soothing sort of buzz from the alternator, and a mild sort of grinding noise from the direct current dynamos, with a little intermittent sparking at the brushes. On the switchboard, the needles of all the instruments remained steady, the pressure showing perhaps a little drop. At irregular intervals the driver would get up and slowly oil round his engines, feeling the bearings at the same time; the stoker would arise and throw a few shovelfuls of coal on his fires, glance up at his water gauges and regulate the feed water, perhaps putting the pump on a little faster, or stopping it off a bit; a switchboard attendant would open one eye and glance sleepily at the big voltmeter swung on an arm at the end of the switchboard, note that the pressure was only a little way back, and close his eyes again in quiet unconcern.

One night Smith had been drinking a lot of strong tea and couldn't sleep; he strolled round at an unaccustomed hour and surveyed the sleeping beauties with a little smile of glee, for Smith was twenty-three years old, and to the healthy young man at that age many things appear humorous which a few years later take on a hue of tragedy.

Going through the boiler house, he carefully examined the steam and water gauges. Then he stood for some moments gazing interestedly at the recumbent stoker; he was rather a ferocious-looking man in ordinary wakeful moments, but thus, with his big jaw dropped to its full extent, his eyes closed, and every feature relaxed, he seemed singularly feeble. Smith took a shovel and threw it with a clatter down on the iron checker plates.

It was quite an appreciable number of seconds before the man moved, then he sprang bolt upright, with his eyes wide open, both arms extended above his head, and every expression of alarm on his countenance; he saw Smith standing there smiling, but it was some moments before his face resumed its normal expression; he looked at the shovel on the iron plates. "Did you drop that, sir?" he asked.

A joke loses more than half its zest if there's no one to share it with. "I'll have those chaps in the engine room now. Come in and see," Smith said, as he led the way to the engine room door. The heavy stoker followed; he was a man over forty, but he grinned like a boy of twelve.

"Half a minute," the engineer said, in a whisper. Leaving the expectant stoker at the door, he carefully surveyed the engine room and switchboard, then he returned with an oil bucket in his hand. "Shut the door, and when I switch the lights out, rattle that like blazes." He handed over the bucket and crossed the engine room again to the station-lighting switchboard, picking up two more buckets as he went. Then he switched off the main switch, putting the place in inky darkness; instantly the stoker rattled his bucket with great vigour. Smith bowled one of his along the iron checker plates on top of the pipe trench, and rattled the other vigorously in his hands.

From the security of their corners they heard voices shouting in the darkness, and the sounds of men in anger swearing.

Smith heard a bump above his head on the switchboard gallery as though some one had fallen, a match was struck down in the engine room and another on the switchboard, then he heard Darwen's voice say, "Good God! Smith! Hullo! Smith!"

Carstairs was lying limp and helpless on his back with Darwen bending over him. Smith turned as white as a ghost.

"I don't know. Got a shock, I think. Look at his hands, got across the contacts in the dark somehow."

They stretched him out on his back with a folded coat underneath him, and put him through the motions for artificial respiration. The driver and stoker waived ceremony and mounted the switchboard steps to see what was wrong; they stood leaning over the prostrate form watching the anxious efforts of Smith and Darwen in silent, interested sympathy. "Shall I have a spell, sir?" the brawny stoker asked, as the agitated Smith paused for a moment in his efforts.

No one present was ever able to say precisely how long they worked at Carstairs, probably not many minutes before his chest began to heave in a natural breathing motion. They carried him out into the yard, and the fresh air so revived him that in half an hour he walked through the engine room unaided, and lay down on the floor of the drawing office, made comfortable with coats and newspapers, and dozed off into a sleep. When he woke up, and had had a wash, he seemed quite normal again.

Smith was profuse in his apologies. "I'm beastly sorry. I never dreamt of anything of that sort, etc."

"Oh, it's alright," Carstairs answered, with a sincere desire to let the matter drop. "I ought to have stood still, went shoving my hands out, knew I was somewhere near the machine switch, too. Got right past the guards and touched the bare metal first go off, wouldn't happen once in a thousand times. Not your fault at all."

So the incident passed, and remained a secret in the bosoms of those five men till years later, when, Carstairs and Darwen were dim and distant memories at those works, a driver or a stoker would sometimes tell wondering pupils a tale of how a man was nearly killed on the night run through the Shift Engineer "skylarking."

Things went very smoothly for a bit. Darwen and Carstairs got more chummy than ever. They were leaning over the switchboard rail together, it was not quite a week since Carstairs had got the shock. "I rather wanted to see a chap get a shock, not killed, you know," Darwen was saying.

They separated to take reading; it was half-past nine in the evening; Carstairs stood looking at an ammeter which was set some way above his head. The divisions on the scale were small and indistinctly figured; Carstairs stood very close in, on tip-toe, straining his neck upwards; the high tension fuses were at the bottom of the board, about level with his knees (carefully calculated as the most awkward possible position), they were seven inches long and enclosed in porcelain pots, which invariably shattered when a fuse blew. As Carstairs stood there taking feeder reading, with what he afterwards learnt was unnecessary accuracy, the needle of the instrument he was looking at gave a sudden violent plunge, the fuse pot, almost touching his trousers, was shattered into a hundred pieces with a report like a miniature cannon, and a vivid arc blazed away under his eyes with a rattling, screaming roar. Carstairs jumped back in an instant, to the furthest limit that the width of the gallery would allow.

Darwen came along from the low tension switchboard; he was all eagerness, his eyes were bright. He stopped and looked at his new friend in amazement. Carstairs cowered against the handrail, gripping his scribbling block and pencil, palpitating, useless.

For two or three seconds Darwen gazed at him in astonishment. Then he fetched the long, insulated crook kept for that purpose, and himself pulled out the feeder switch.

"Bring down your volts, Carstairs," he said, in a kindly, soothing voice, avoiding his eyes.

With a deep, gasping sigh Carstairs pulled himself together, and with an unsteady hand adjusted the rheostat.

They looked down into the engine room and saw Thompson, the chief assistant, looking up, watching them. He came up the steps and looked at the shattered fuse pot and burnt slate; he expressed no surprise, nor even anger; in those early days sparks and blinding flashes were the daily fare of the electrical engineer, very much more than they are now. Thompson picked up one or two of the pieces of partially fused porcelain and examined them with interest, then he glanced at Carstairs with a great wonder in his eyes, but he spoke to Darwen.

That night, as they walked home together, Carstairs was more than usually silent, and the remarks of Darwen were choppy and abrupt. They ate their supper almost in silence, then they lit their pipes and smoked, in easy chairs, one on each side of the fireplace. They puffed in silence for some time, then Carstairs spoke.

"No! Quite so! But I'm going to look out for a nice, quiet little job in the country with two low tension machines, where the wheels are very small, and fuses never blow."

"My dear chap, you'll get over that; the first one I saw go knocked me all in a heap."

Carstairs appreciated Darwen's sympathetic lying, but it cut him more than all. "Don't give me silly lies, for God's sake," he said, letting his temper get the better of him. "I have found out that I am a skunk with no nerve, not a ha'porth, so I drop behind, into my place, the place of the cur. And the bottom is knocked out of my universe." He puffed vigorously at his pipe, blowing great clouds of smoke.

Darwen was silent, too, for some time, then he spoke slowly, thoughtfully, punctuating his remarks by blowing softly at the wreaths of smoke about him. "I must say (puff), honestly (puff), I was never more surprised in my life (puff). You're such a deliberate, cool sort of chap (puff). Thought earthquakes wouldn't upset you."

Darwen proceeded: "Surely must be something abnormal (puff). I mean to say, a fuse going is startling, and all that—but (puff), damn it! (puff) you haven't got over that shock, you know, that's what it is." He sat upright with a sudden vigour and a light in his expressive eyes. "That's it, man. You want to go slow for a bit. Dash it! two thousand volts, that usually 'corpses' a chap, you know."

Carstairs brightened somewhat. "Yes," he said, "I'm convinced that's it, too, but how long will it take to get over it? If ever?" He stood up excitedly; it was obvious he was not himself even then. His hand was unsteady as he held his pipe outwards, pointing with the stem at Darwen. "That shock was devilish, Darwen. A nightmare. Devilish. I could feel you chaps working at me, for hours it seemed to me, working so damn slowly. And I wanted to tell you to get on, to keep it up, to go faster, and I couldn't, couldn't budge, couldn't get out a word. Did I sweat? You didn't notice if I sweated. Think I must have. There was a sensation of something fluttering round me, something like a damn great moth in the dark. I could hear it, and I was frightened of the thing, frightened as hell. I wanted to put my arm up to shield my eyes, to beat the thing off, to lash out in sheer terror, and I couldn't budge. God! It was awful! I had no idea terror was so really terrible. Wonder what the moth thing was?"

Darwen looked at him steadily with bright eyes, a world of sympathy in them, sympathy and interest. "Your face was very drawn, I noticed that. You looked terror-stricken."

"I was. And when that fuse went to-night, the bang and the flash and roar brought it all back. I lost control of myself. I wanted to be steady, but I couldn't, I shook like a leaf; you saw it, and Thompson saw it. You'd hardly believe how angry I was, how I was cursing myself." He broke off suddenly and shook his clenched fist in the air. "Curse that blasted silly Smith and his blasted monkey tricks." It was almost a scream.

"Sit down, old chap. You want a rest, that's what it is—shock to the system and that sort of thing, you know. I'll go round with you in the morning and see a doctor."

Carstairs sat down, he seemed almost himself again; calm, discerning, calculating. "Can't do that! What am I to say? Sure to get old Smith into a row. These bally doctors and councillors they're all mixed up, you know, sure to get round."

"He'd get the sack; it would wreck him. His people are not very well off; he told me once that before he came here he was getting a quid a week in London—and living on it."

Darwen spread out his hands with an almost continental gesture. "My dear chap, you're following quite an erroneous line of reasoning, it's rather a pet theory of mine, as an engineer. However, tell the doctor you had an accident in the execution of your duty, etc., etc. No need for it to get round at all. He'll forget all about you as soon as you've paid him his fee."

Carstairs was thoughtful, he puffed his pipe in silence for some minutes, then he stood up. "Alright, let's go to two while we're about it, then we can check 'em one on the other. I'm going to bed."

CHAPTER VI

In the morning Carstairs and Darwen went together to first one doctor and then another. Their verdicts were remarkably alike. "Shock! you'll feel the effects for some time. You really want a month's rest."

"What are you going to do?" Darwen asked when they got outside. "Ask for a month?"

"No!" Carstairs answered, definitely. "Smith's the sort of chap who'd own up at once if the subject were brought up; I'll sit it out, now I know it's only temporary, I don't mind. The thought of it otherwise fairly took the stuffing out of me."

Darwen reasoned with him. "My dear chap, you fly in the face of providence all the way round. As an engineer you should have learnt to pursue truth relentlessly."

"Well, the elementary truth underlying all things is that a man's first duty is to himself. When you introduce sentimental side issues, you overload yourself and consequently shorten the run of your existence. You also render it less pleasant."

"What are my sentimental side issues? I'm not engaged on anything of that sort." Carstairs shot a quick glance at Darwen.

He was quite unmoved. "Your idea about screening Smith, etc. The fool must pay the penalty of his folly. Smith is a fool. In the great scheme of the Universe all things are interdependent. Naturalists say that if there had been no worms there would be no men, and an engineer is a man who uses this interdependence to his own advantage."

"Perhaps! Rogue is so often simply a term applied by fools to men smarter than themselves. However, I said, 'I see no limit'; I should add 'as yet.' My theory is incomplete, I am expanding it as I grow older."

"It's part of my theory that every man should be a sort of little Prince, as far as his intellect, etc., will allow him."

"Hear! hear! to that. Now our views begin to converge. The engineer is essentially analytical and mathematical. Why not apply his abilities to men as well as engines, eh?"

"Good! then as in engineering it is necessary not only to have theory, but practice as well, practise, practise, practise, eh? We will experiment so that we may know the limit of the truth of our theories, so that we may know and recognize the little difficulties that crop up in the application of all theories. On the night shift next week we'll experiment on Smith and Jones and Foulkes."

The following week as they were preparing to go on night shift together, Carstairs noticed that the landlady put up a bag of large onions for Darwen. "What in thunder are those things for?" he asked.

"The experiment. We'll see if we can persuade those other chaps to eat raw onions. I believe you can make most men do anything if you have observed them closely and drawn accurate deduction from your observations. Now Foulkes, the stoker, is a strong, hard-headed sort of chap, but he's immensely impressed with his own hardihood. We'll attack him on that side. Twig?"

"I think a sledge-hammer would be a more appropriate weapon to tackle old Foulkes with."

"That's the good old masculine idea. In these things you want to take a line from the feminine."

"Lucky dog! wish I could. My landlady recommended me to eat onions. Jolly good things, but they burn my mouth out."

Darwen laughed too. "I suppose," he said, "that they don't have any effect on you. I daresay you could eat 'em like apples." He pulled an onion from his pocket and threw it up and caught it. "I've heard of chaps with very strong heads being able to do it," he remarked, gazing at the onion in his hand tentatively. "I couldn't tackle 'em like that. No more could you, Foulkes."

They stood and watched. Carstairs very solemn, Darwen with just a flicker of a smile of satisfaction, as the big stoker ate the best part of a raw onion till the tears ran down his cheeks and he almost gasped for breath. Darwen kept him at it. "That's beaten you, Foulkes, you can't go on with it." But he did, and finished it.

"My dear chap, you don't give sporting chances to an engine." He looked at Carstairs curiously. "We have different methods of looking at things; I wonder who will prove most successful in the end."

"Your experiment would have failed any way if Foulkes hadn't been a plucky, obstinate sort of chap."

"Exactly. That goes to prove the correctness of my observations. I had placed Foulkes rightly as the man to eat onions. That is to say, to eat an entire onion. The successful man is the man who can make others eat onions, and also pair up the right man with the right onion. I have an ambition to be a successful man."

Carstairs was silent for some time. "Let us agree to differ. You don't mean all you say, or all that your words convey to me. You're a sportsman."

"That's true. I'm somewhat hampered by a sporting instinct, and if I followed my theory to its logical conclusion, I should not now be reasoning with you."

They sat down on the switchboard and glanced over the technical papers that were just out that day.

Two months passed away and Carstairs found to his very great pleasure that his nerves had regained their normal steadiness. He and Darwen were both scanning the advertisement columns of the technical press with great anxiety and interest; they were both answering advertisements, and they had come to an agreement not to both apply for the same job. They were watching with eager interest a town in the south of England. They had both seen tenders out for plant about a year ago; then they saw an advertisement for a chief engineer.

Now the advertisement was before them, set out with much pomp and ceremony among a long list of other stuff. Three shift engineers at a salary of £104 per annum.

Carstairs felt a singular sense of satisfaction as he surveyed the advertisement. "We'll toss for first choice as usual, I suppose," he said.

"Of course," Darwen answered. "They'll never select two chaps from one station, and I'm certain it reduces the chances of both." He threw a coin in the air.

Darwen turned it up. "Tails" it was. "There you are," he said, with a genial smile, pocketing the coin.

Carstairs wrote out his application, and copied his testimonials with great care on unruled foolscap. About a fortnight later, Thompson, the chief assistant, called him into his office.

He picked up a letter from his desk. "I've got a letter from Southville in reference to your application for Shift Engineer. The chief there asks my recommendation between you and Darwen."

Thompson glanced at the letter. "Yes, Darwen," he said. He hummed and hesitated a minute, while Carstairs was turning over various thoughts and reasons in his mind. "You see it's a new job, Carstairs. I have a very high opinion of your abilities. The testing and that, that we have done together, but—er—things are always going wrong in a new job, you know. I think it will be better for you if you stay here till you get more accustomed to fuses, etc., going."

Carstairs flushed; from his neck to the roots of his hair he was a vivid red. Thompson looked down at the letter he held in his hands.

"Ye-es, I think, for a new job, you understand. Darwen would be rather more suitable. I tell you this because I thought probably Darwen would tell you, and you might misinterpret my action."

"Thanks! I understand," Carstairs said, and went out. He crossed the engine room and looked for Darwen.

"So you're putting your theory into practice," he said, looking Darwen sternly in the eyes.

"What do you mean?" he asked, flushing angrily, and Carstairs couldn't help thinking what a remarkably handsome fellow he was.

Carstairs looked at him in astonishment, his anger seemed so genuine and righteous. "You're welcome to try any time you like," he answered.

Darwen gazed at him a moment, then he suddenly smiled. "Look here, old chap, I can see you believe you're in the right, but I assure you you're not. I'm positive I won the toss."

"My dear chap, I held the coin right under your eyes, and I remember distinctly it was a tail."

Darwen's face seemed to lighten with a sudden comprehension. "I'm devilish sorry," he said. "I remember now. I didn't notice particularly at the time what you said. I was watching the coin. "Head" is so often the choice that I assumed it was head. Look here, I'll withdraw my application. I'll tell Thompson." He started off.

Carstairs followed, and stopped him at the office. "Let it go now, Darwen," he said.

"It's too late now, any way," Thompson said. "The letter's gone. I think it's best as it is, too."

They went out into the engine room again together. Darwen was profuse, more than profuse, in his apologies. "I'd sooner almost anything had happened than this," he said.

In a week Darwen left for Southville. They parted excellent friends, almost the same as before the unpleasant incident, but not quite. There was a "something."

The new man who came to fill Darwen's place was very bumptious and very conceited, the son of a large shopkeeper. He would have been a decent fellow if he had not been so conceited. For his first time on night shift he was as lively as a cricket for the first two hours, singing and whistling and trying to startle the stoker and driver by dropping heavy spanners on the checker plates unawares, etc.; then he announced loudly that he'd "keep the beggars awake."

At three o'clock Smith found him tilted back in his chair, mouth wide open, fast asleep. Smith's eyes sparkled, he gently called Carstairs; they both repaired to the drawing office and came back with bottles of ink of various colours—red, green, black, and purple—and two fine camel-hair brushes: delicately and with great care they painted his face with streaks and circles and elaborate scrolls of many colours; every now and again during the process the sleeper raised a hand to brush away the flies. He turned his head uneasily occasionally too, but they finished it in style, and stood back to regard their masterpiece with keen satisfaction; he looked a most fearsome warrior. Then they stood back and dropped a heavy book with a bang on the floor. He jumped up startled, but saw them laughing.

Smith smiled. "Alright, don't get your hair off," he said; he strolled towards the steps, Carstairs followed, and the new man dropped in behind. They strolled across the engine room in solemn procession, and the engine driver, catching sight of the new man's face, went off into shrieks of hysterical laughter. Smith and Carstairs took no notice, but the new man hurried up alongside, frowning severely, which added exceedingly to the comic effect of his countenance.

The other two turned and looked at the driver with a sort of tolerant good humour. "He is a bit touched, I think," Smith observed. "He's been in India for a long time—in the army, you know."

"Cheeky brute, he broke out like that when he saw me. I'll ask him what the hell he's laughing at if he doesn't shut up."

"Never mind him," they said, "he can't help it, he'll be alright in a minute." They went out into the boiler house and the new man followed; the stoker was asleep on his box against the wall; they paused, all three, and stood looking at him.

"They are a drowsy lot, these chaps," the new man remarked. "See me wake him up." He picked up a heavy firing iron, and, standing in front of the stoker, dropped it on the iron plates with a huge clatter.

The stoker—he had been in a very light doze—jumped up instantly and stood fronting the new man, face to face, directly under a lamp; for fully half a minute he stared, in speechless, motionless, wonder, then he burst forth into mighty guffaws that shook the very building. He caught sight of the others standing a few yards off.

"Strike me pink! Take 'im away. Take 'im away," he moaned in piteous appeal, squirming painfully with his hand on his stomach.

The new man stared at him in petrified rage and astonishment. "What the hell is the matter with you?" he asked. "You were asleep," he said, severely, "and it's no use trying to pass it off by laughing."

"Oh, go away, go away." The stoker motioned with brawny hand and averted face. He took a sideways glance out of one eye, and burst forth into fresh paroxysms.

Smith and Carstairs retired somewhat precipitately into the yard, and under the friendly shade of night, behind a big cable drum, they screamed in unison.

The new man after vainly endeavouring to quell the stoker with a frown, went back to the engine room again; as he opened the door the driver, who was just mopping his eyes with a red cotton handkerchief, caught sight of him and burst forth anew.

Smitten with a sudden suspicion, the new man glanced hastily over his clothing and passed his handkerchief over his face, but the ink was quite dry and gave no evidence.

"Everybody in this place seems to be mad to-night," he said, and the driver screamed louder.

With increased suspicion, the new man went off to the lavatory and looked in the glass. What he said is not known, but later, when Smith and Carstairs returned to the drawing office, they found him with a clean face. He didn't look up when they entered, but continued to read in moody silence. They sat down and read too, while the stoker and driver at the door of the engine room conferred notes with much laughter.

Not very long after the stoker appeared at the glass door of the drawing office. He knocked and came inside; his face was pale beneath its grime, and his eyes were full of apprehension, which he endeavoured not to show.

Probably eighty per cent. of boiler explosions are due to low water. Smith's merry, boyish face grew pale and stern, as he moved quickly to the door. "How the devil is that?" he asked.

They arrived at the boiler house, all four. Smith looked at the water gauge glasses and blew them through.

Smith stood for a moment, his hand on the check valve, his eyes far away. The weight of responsibility comes early on these young men, especially if they have a tendency to skylarking and letting things drift occasionally; as a rule they look old beyond their years.

"Damp your fires! Get some of those wet ashes and cover them over! Let the stream drop and shut this one in as soon as it's back twenty pounds!" He stood in front of the boiler and watched the stoker throw ashes on the fires; he looked a different man; he was very steady and calm. This young man with the vulgar name of Smith had some excellent British blood in his veins, as who shall say in England here, that any navvy in the street has not?

Carstairs stood behind him, his heart beating considerably faster; only the day before he had been reading a detailed account of a disastrous boiler explosion. He felt a tingling, pricking sensation in his blood; afterwards he learnt to look for this tingling of the blood, it was one of his chief sources of enjoyment.

The big stoker watched Smith very intently with a sort of child-like dependent observation. He obeyed his instructions quietly but quickly, very quickly. He was very silent, and very meek, but there was a tinge almost of fever in his movements.

The new man watched them for a moment, then with every assumption of languor he strolled off—and he did not come back till the boiler was shut in and the pressure very low.

When, after about half an hour, everything seemed safe again, Smith gave a sigh of relief as he and Carstairs returned to the engine room. "I don't mind sparks, but I'm darned if I like steam," he said. He looked at Carstairs with approval. "You didn't seem to be very much impressed."

Carstairs smiled, his slow, steady smile. "As a matter of fact, I felt like a chap who's found a bomb and doesn't quite know whether it's exploded or about to explode, or whether it really is a bomb."

CHAPTER VII

At the end of a month Darwen wrote a rather long letter, giving a detailed description of the station and staff. "The plant is good," he wrote, "all brand new and full of possibilities. The chief assistant is a delightful thickhead, and the chief—words fail me to describe him. The possibilities and probabilities of this job are immense."

Carstairs read it through twice carefully and thoughtfully; he penned a brief reply. "No news here. New man an utter ass, blown out with conceit, impossible to share digs with him." That was about all, it was almost telegraphic.

At the works things went on much as usual. Thompson made more than usual overtures of friendliness; he wished to impress on Carstairs that it was through no feeling of personal bias that he had not recommended him for the Southville job. Frequently when they were testing with high tension currents he caught Thompson looking at him with a sort of wonder and distinct approval.

One day when there was a fault on the mains, and Thompson had been out all night in the rain testing and digging out cables and opening junction boxes till he was tired and weary of all the world, he came into the works in a fine spirit of irritation. "We'll have to burn the damn thing out," he said. "Run up a machine on it."

By a specially complicated arrangement of the already complicated switchboard, it was possible to run any machine on any feeder. The Shift Engineer signalled for another machine, and Carstairs plugged her in on the faulty circuit. The fuse held for about one minute, then it blew with a flash and a bang right in Carstairs' face. Promptly and coolly he switched out and went through the complicated operation necessary to isolate that section.

Thompson watched him in some surprise. "You've got used to fuses, then," he said.

Carstairs flushed. "Er—" he hesitated a moment. Thompson waited in expectant silence, which is the severest cross-examination to a very young man. "I got a shock some time ago and it upset my nerves a bit. I'm alright now."

Carstairs was silent for a moment; he looked at Smith who was down below in the engine room, then he turned and faced Thompson.

"It was my own fault. I was fooling about, trying some experiments, you know—and tired. It knocked me over. Smith and Darwen brought me round; Smith was jolly decent. You needn't say anything to him about it if you don't mind, it was his request." He looked Thompson steadily in the eyes like a practised liar.

Thompson smiled with a sort of admiration and pleasure. "You'll be more careful next time," he said.

"I shall, very careful," Carstairs answered, and Thompson smiled; he started to go away, but turned at the head of the steps.

"I shouldn't be in a hurry to leave this job if I were you. If a vacancy occurs, I think I can promise you a Shift Engineer job here." He went down the steps.

It has been observed that misfortunes never come singly, it is equally true that good fortune comes in lumps also. The observant man like the successful gambler may gain much profit by regulating his actions to the ebb and flow of fortune. What appears to the casual or timid observer to be a particularly "long shot" is often the outcome of close observation, and not the mere freak of a desperate plunger. The tide of affairs never sets either way without warning. The watchful man, like the careful mariner, knows fairly well what to expect. Carstairs was a particularly close observer, and after Thompson's remarks and other things, he had an idea that the luck was flowing his way again; he was not much surprised therefore to find a letter waiting for him next morning from Darwen telling him of a vacancy at Southville, and urging him to run down and see the chief. "I have so strongly recommended you that I think the job is yours," he said.

Carstairs felt a singular satisfaction that he had gauged the trend of his luck so accurately. He went down to the works to see Thompson and get a day off. Thompson looked rather disappointed. "You'll get that alright," he said, "but I'm rather sorry. I've had an inquiry about Smith here (he held up a letter), there'll probably be a vacancy soon. I suppose you don't think it worth while waiting?"

Carstairs stood for a few minutes in deep thought. "I think it would be rather stemming the tide of my luck, wouldn't it?" he remarked, quite seriously.

Thompson smiled. "Alright. I'll write to the chief at Southville telling him I have had reason to considerably improve my opinion of you."

A slightly increased colour mantled on Carstairs' cheek. "Thanks! if you will," he said. Next day he went to Southville. He saw the chief and was appointed there and then. He spent the rest of the day with Darwen who showed a somewhat un-English effusion in his greeting. They strolled round the pleasant southern town together.

In a week he left the grimy, little midland town, but before he went, there was a solemn gathering of the shift engineers and switchboard attendants in the drawing office for the purpose of presenting him with a standard work on electricity (Darwen had had a silver cigarette case). Smith made the presentation. In a somewhat nervous little speech, he expressed regret at Carstairs' departure, and rosy hopes of his future, with a few glowing tributes to his personal qualities. Carstairs thanked them very solemnly, and deflected the glowing tributes on to the assembled company. These little gatherings were a recognized institution in Central Stations; about every three or four months there would be a "whip round" of half a crown or so each to present some man who had been there about six months with a small token of esteem on the occasion of his departure to a better job. Some men have quite a collection of pipes, cigarette cases, walking sticks, slide rules, books, etc.

Just before he left the works for the last time, Foulkes, the stoker, accosted him.

"There was some gipsy-looking bloke asking if a man called Carstairs worked here, yesterday," he said.

"Not quite as tall as you, sir. A rough-looking cove. Walked with a bit of a limp, like as though he'd bin shot or something sometime."

"Still quite enough, I expect. Poor devil! Well, thanks very much, Foulkes, good-bye." Carstairs held out his hand. "May bump up against you again some day. Good-bye!"

He turned and walked out across the yard, and the burly stoker looked after him with interest and curiosity. "They comes and goes," he soliloquized. "Rum thing about that gipsy bloke, still it ain't no business o' mine." Which was a point of view he had acquired in the army.

"You're on with me for the first week," he said. His marvellous eyes sparkled with delight. "Where's your luggage? I've got a cab waiting. The new digs (I swopped this morning) are about two miles out, first-class place; thirty bob a week each. You don't mind that, do you? Piano too. Do you vamp? Never mind, I can do enough for two."

He seemed unusually excited. Carstairs couldn't help feeling flattered at the obvious pleasure his arrival caused.

As they rattled away in the cab, Darwen explained: "I'm jolly glad you've come, sort of levels up over that misunderstanding about this job."

"Yes, it is now. You're a damn good sort, you know, Carstairs. You and I ought to run this job. Chief and chief assistant. How would that suit you?"

Darwen was watching him closely, he seemed quite exultant at Carstairs' reply. "I knew it would. You wait till you see the chief and chief assistant here, they're not fit to run a mud dredger."

Darwen's eyes glittered strangely. "By Jove, that's it, they can't stick it much longer. Don't you see. Damme! I wouldn't give either of 'em a shift engineer's job."

Darwen snapped his fingers impatiently. "Bah! He's civil and all that, but he'll never be an engineer."

They pulled up at the diggings, a nice-looking semi-detached villa, with big, bay windows, and a well-kept front garden.

"I'm as safe as houses, old chap! She's engaged to a grocer's assistant in the town here, and describes herself as 'a young lady'; 'me and two other young ladies,' you know the sort."

They got the luggage stowed away and sat down in the sitting-room, a large room on the second floor with a big, bay window looking out on the quiet tree-shaded road. Some of Darwen's technical books and papers were scattered on the table; there were two big easy chairs and a comfortable-looking couch with numerous cushions scattered about; the carpet was light-coloured and thick. The general tone of the room was light, a sort of drawing-room effect. Probably to the expert feminine eye the curtains and other things were old and cheap, and dirty, and everything dusty. To Carstairs, straight from the dingy north, it appeared a palace. He threw himself into an easy chair and putting his legs up on another, sighed with content.

Darwen looked at him with sympathy. "That's so," he agreed. He sat down at the piano. "This isn't a bad instrument," he observed, "it is stipulated that the daughter may be allowed to play on it when she likes."

"Not at all." He sounded one or two notes thoughtfully, then he glided off into something slow and soothing with a tinge of melancholy in it too. He stopped and looked at Carstairs critically. "That's how you feel," he said.

Darwen swung round on the stool and "did it again," and went on and on, seeming to lose himself; his long, artistic fingers moved with a graceful, loving poise across the white keys. He stopped abruptly and wheeled round. "How's that?" he asked.

"What I want to do. As a matter of fact I elucidated a knotty point in connection with an idea I'm working out."

Darwen's dark eyes lighted up into a positive gleam. "It's curious," he said. "I bet when old Chopin composed that thing he had no ideas of electrical machinery in his head. What's the line of the invention?" He swung round and toyed with the keys; a low, sweet strain welled out, pleading, winning.

"Well, it occurred to me one day that there was no adequate reason why—" Carstairs stopped, seemingly interrupted by his own thoughts. "No," he said, as if speaking to himself. "It's not quite right after all." He laughed aloud suddenly. "The reasons," he said in his normal voice, "appear more and more adequate as I investigate the case, still——"

Darwen waited in expectation for some time, but Carstairs remained silent, lost in thought. Suddenly Darwen burst into life and rolled out an immense volume of sound from the piano.

A look of pain crossed Carstairs' features. "What the devil do you make that row for?"

"Is that so? Well, it's a jolly good imitation of a breakdown in the engine room."

Darwen laughed. "You have a vulgar mind, old chap." He branched off into an Hungarian waltz.

"Suited to your taste, you mean." He wandered on through numerous scraps of dance music. "Do you dance, Carstairs?"

"Quite so, so am I. So much that the average man considers work is painful, misdirected effort. Do you want results, financial results?"

Darwen's fingers moved very slowly, it was a slow waltz tune, very slow; his gaze was far away. "The whole world is a shop," he said, speaking very slowly. "Everything is bought and sold; the most successful salesman is not the man who has the best goods, but he who shows them most advantageously. We sell our brains, you and I, our brains and nerves. The buyers are the Corporation; this collection of greengrocers, drapers, lawyers, doctors, and one navvy. They are entirely incapable of judging our technical abilities, they rely on the opinion of a fool; a sort of promoted wireman, the chief." The music ceased altogether, and he wheeled round facing Carstairs. "And however much you grind, and swot, and work, this fool (who only got his job because these people are unable to distinguish between a man who can use his hands and one who can use his head) will always fix your market value, and by his own little standard. The obvious conclusion is to get a better place in the shop window than the fool occupies."

Darwen blazed out into a sudden anger. "You're a fool, Carstairs. You and your methods. It doesn't matter a curse to you how you generate your electricity, does it? You want results, that's all! The correct methods are the most successful, the most economical." He sobered down again suddenly and smiled. "Look here, Carstairs, I want to make this job, yours and mine, worth more than it is. I like this town and I want to stay here, but I must get some bally pay."

"Well, I'm going to work the oracle. I'm going to know every man on the council, then I'm going to apply for a rise."

"These things are easily worked. A man who's not handling his own money is very generous to his friends. Can you lie?"

"Well, we shall want to lie sometimes. The age of truth has not yet arrived, and the man who sticks to the truth is before his time, consequently he's not appreciated, which means, he's not paid. I want pay. How's that?"

"I think so too. The mistake most people make is not knowing when to lie. To be a good liar requires more brains and just as much pluck as to tell the truth."

A slow smile flickered round Carstairs' face. "You introduce me to the proper people, and I'll tell 'em unblushingly that we're two jolly smart engineers very much underpaid."

"That's the idea! And they'll believe you, such is the paradox of this lying and trustful generation."

These young men, it will be seen, were very young, but their wisdom was much in excess of the pig-headed obstinacy of the average greybeard.

CHAPTER VIII

The works at Southville were rather larger than the works he had just left in the Midlands, and Carstairs felt a delightful sense of exaltation as he first took charge of a shift by himself. For eight hours he was entirely responsible for the efficient, economical, and safe working of about 6000 horsepower of plant. He felt a sense of responsibility, of age; he felt uplifted and steadied. He was very thoughtful, but very confident; he had taken great pains during the week he was on with Darwen to make himself thoroughly acquainted with everything about the station. His confidence was the direct outcome of his knowledge; he looked at the various engines, dynamos, boilers and switch gears, and felt that he fully grasped the why and wherefore of it all; he reviewed the possibilities of what might happen, what might break down, in the various component parts of the complicated whole, and what he would do to tackle it. He considered it all very solemnly and felt very confident; he knew he would not scare. Physically he was in the pink of condition, his head was very clear and his technical knowledge very bright from constant use.

The chief, an awkward-looking, flabby man, came down to see him on his first shift. "Well! do you think you can manage it?" he asked.

"Yes," Carstairs answered, looking his chief steadily in the eyes; the eyes were lack-lustre and heavy, they shifted uneasily and roamed round the engine room: he stepped up to a bit of bright brass work and rubbed his finger across it. "That won't do," he said, holding up a finger soiled with greasy dirt. "Make that man clean that." He turned and went away abruptly.

Carstairs called the engine driver, a little man of herculean build. "I knowed he'd spot that," the man said, in a tone of protest. "Got a eye like a hawk, he have."

It was the first time Carstairs had noticed this man particularly; they had been on different shifts before. He looked him over with approval; the arms, bare to the elbow, were astonishingly big and sinewy-looking; the chest was immensely deep, it arched fully outward from the base of the full, white throat; the top button of his shirt, left undone, showed a glimpse of a very white skin and the commencement of a tattoed picture ("Ajax defying his mother-in-law," the man called it); his eyes were a bright hazel brown, singularly piercing and steady.

"Bounce, sir." He stood up very straight, his piercing eyes resting with steady persistence on Carstairs' face.

The name seemed remarkably appropriate. The whole man was suggestive of indiarubber.

"Did you?" Carstairs looked at him, thoughtfully. "I've got an uncle in the navy."

"Carstairs, I knows him. Commander Carstairs. I was with him in the 'Mediterranean.' Nice bloke he was. You ask him if he remembers Bounce, sir, Algernon Edward Bounce, A.B., light-weight champion boxer of the Mediterranean Fleet. He was there when I won it at Malta."

The man's manner was exceedingly civil and respectful, but there was something about it that kept irresistibly before your mind all the time that he was an independent unit, a man. After twelve years of the sternest discipline in the world this man was as free as the air he breathed, there was no sign of servility. The thought passed through Carstairs' mind, as he looked at him, that this breed, truly, never could be slaves.

"Yes, sir. Light weight, though I ought to go middle; eleven stone two pounds, that's my weight. I can get down to ten, but I ain't comfortable, though I 'ave a done it."

Carstairs measured him with his eyes. He seemed very little over five feet. Later on, he ascertained that he was exactly five feet three inches.

With remarkable alacrity, and a peculiarly prompt and decisive manner, the man saluted and set about his work.

Carstairs watched him in silence for some minutes, struck more than ever by the appropriateness of his name; he marvelled too at the singularity of his chief. In all that clean and bright engine room there was only that one bit of obscure brass work uncleaned, and the chief had spotted it. "An acutely observant man, evidently," Carstairs meditated.

Later on in the evening, the chief assistant dropped in. He was a big, heavily-built man with a well-shaped, massive head and handsome, even features with general indication of great strength—mental, moral, and physical; the sort of man many women go into ecstasies over: the element of the brute seemed fairly strong in him. To Carstairs' critical eyes and slow, careful scrutiny, he appeared, however, somewhat flabby. He stood behind Carstairs on the switchboard and watched him parallel machines.

Now the process known as "paralleling" or "synchronizing" alternating current dynamos or "alternators" is somewhat critical; the operator has to watch two voltmeters and get their reading exactly alike; he also has to watch two lamps (now usually supplanted by a small voltmeter) which grow dull and bright more or less quickly, from perhaps sixty times a minute to ten or twelve times per minute, as the engine drivers slowly vary the speed of the engines. When the voltmeters are reading alike, and during the small fraction of a minute when the lamps are at their brightest, the operator has to close a fairly ponderous switch; if he is too late or too early, but particularly if he is too late, there are unpleasant consequences: the machines groan and shriek with an awe-inspiring sound, keeping it up very often for a considerable time; all the lamps on the system surge badly, and the needle of every instrument on the switchboard does a little war dance on its own, till the machines settle down. Sometimes the consequences of a "bad shot" are even more dire. There once appeared in one of the technical journals a pathetic little poem about a pupil's "first shot," how "he gazed severely at the voltmeters," and "looked sternly at the lamps," then he "took a howler," and "switched out again," "wished he hadn't," "Plugged in again and—bolted." In a similar journal there was another sort of prose poem, too, written in mediæval English which finished up a long tale of woe thus: "He taketh a flying shot and shutteth down ye station."

This was the operation then (in which every man needs all his wits and some more than they possess) in which Carstairs was engaged at a critical period of the load (for be it remembered the time available is always strictly limited) when the chief assistant stood behind him. He remained calm and impassive, as behoved his countenance, for some time, then, just when the phases were beginning to get longer, and Carstairs took hold of the switch handle in readiness to plug in; the chief assistant stepped excitedly up behind him. "Now! Be careful! Watch your volts! There! There! You might have had that one! Look out, here she comes! Watch your volts, man, watch your volts!"

Carstairs felt like knocking him down, he missed two good phases that he might have taken, then he "plugged in" rather early. The machines groaned a little, but soon settled down.

In angry silence Carstairs turned and signalled the engine driver to speed up the machine. The chief assistant left the board, and went out without further comment.

"Does that ass always play the mountebank behind a chap when he's paralleling?" Carstairs asked his junior.

"Sometimes, he gets fits now and again: Fitsgerald, the chap that's just left, turned round and cursed him one day. I nearly fell off the board with laughing. Old Robinson looked at me. 'What the devil are you laughing at?' he said. I might have got your job if it hadn't been for that. Fitsgerald got the sack over it."

When he got home at about half-past twelve, Darwen was sitting up for him. "How did you get on?" he asked, with his genial smile.

"Oh, first-class." They sat down to supper. "Took rather a howler, paralleling six and seven. That ass Robinson was jigging about like a monkey-on-stick behind me, telling me what to do. Next time I shall stand aside and ask if he'd prefer to do it himself."

"Don't do that, old chap, he's a malice-bearing beast. Funks always are! Don't take any notice of him. Forget him, or send him away; ask if he'd mind watching the drivers, as they brought her down too quick, or something, last time."

"Fitsgerald got the sack for cursing him over the same thing. He was a red-headed chap. We were talking about Robinson's unpleasant ways (he'd had a go at me the day before). I said he wanted a good cursing to cure him of it, and I'm blowed if Fitz didn't curse him about a couple of days later." Darwen's eyes seemed to flicker with an uncanny sort of light, his voice dropped into a reflective tone. "Threatened to chuck him over the handrail if he didn't go off the switchboard. Hasty chaps those red-headed fellows are. We had a chap at school—what school were you at, Carstairs?"

Pushing back his chair, Darwen, got up and went to the piano, he played some very slow, soft music, slow and soothing, it breathed the breath of peace into Carstairs' troubled soul.

"Robinson is only a fool," Darwen said over his shoulder. "I feel rather sorry for him—hasn't got the heart of a mouse—gets in a frightful stew when he's got to parallel himself—he's not a bad-hearted chap—done me one or two rather good turns."

"I thought he was alright too, at other times." Carstairs felt the spirit of peace stirring within him.

"It's kinder to him to let him drift, he doesn't mean anything—can't help himself—nervous, you know. I just smile at him."

"Suppose that is the best way. I'll have a shot next time, anyway. Made me rather ratty to-night."

Darwen played for some time in silence. "Chief come in at all?" he asked, at length.

"That's like the chief. He'll never express an opinion on anything except its external appearance; very safe man, the chief, extremely safe, but stupid: he'll fail, not through what he does, but what he leaves undone." He ceased speaking, but the music went on slowly welling out, breathing good will and trust to all mankind. It died slowly away leaving the tired listener in a blissful state of rest. Darwen got up and looked at him with sparkling, observant eyes.

Carstairs arose slowly from the big, easy chair, "Wish I could play like you, Darwen."

The rest of the week passed (at the works) with singular uneventfulness, in fact never afterwards did Carstairs have such an uneventful week on load shift; but all the same the memory of his first week on shift by himself remained always clear and distinct above all other experiences; never afterwards did he feel the delightful thrill of responsibility, of excitement, of awe almost, as he walked round the engine room and boiler house surveying the men and plant, for those first few days, and felt that for eight hours he was monarch of all he surveyed; with all the other men far out of call, spreading out in different parts of the town, reading their papers, at the theatre or music halls, while he was responsible for the lightening of their darkness, and the safe keeping of the men and plant around him. In after life he often reflected that the princely salary of £104 per annum was singularly inadequate for the kingly nature of his office; but the greengrocers, the doctors, and publicans thought it was remarkably good for a man who spent most of his time walking about with his hands in his pockets. These works had been making a financial loss of from £100 to £2000 every year since they started, with the exception of one year, when, by careful manipulation of the accounts, they managed to show a profit of £20, which, under the expert examination of a proper accountant, would probably have been converted to a loss of £500.

Darwen watched the finances with a keen interest. He was very chummy with Robinson; they studied the reports of the various stations together with great earnestness. "A loss or a profit doesn't matter much to a corporation as long as they have continuity of supply." Darwen laid it down as a law, and Robinson heartily agreed. That axiom was only a half truth, but the foundation of all municipal work is only a half truth, so it did not matter much.

Robinson was very proud. "We never have the lights out here," he said. And Darwen smiled approval. "That's so," he agreed, and on his shift he took care that it always should be so; he had every engine in the place warmed up, ready for instant use, and two boilers always lighted up and under pressure in case of necessity. Robinson approved of his method, and the chief—the chief grumbled about the boiler house being dirty, but on Darwen's shift it was cleaner and more tidy than on any other shift; also the engine room was brighter and more spotless, so much and so persistently so, in fact, that the cautious chief was drawn out of his shell to express a decided opinion to the chairman of the electricity committee (who remarked on it). "Yes," the chief said, with a little flicker of enthusiasm, "that man Darwen is decidedly the best engineer I've ever had." Which remark was not overlooked by the chairman, a doctor, a large man with a large imposing black beard, who had been struck, as who could fail to be, by the remarkable beauty of face and form and general impression of intelligence of the athletic young engineer.

It was not very long after Darwen had observed the chief and chairman in conversation and looking pointedly at him, that he developed certain symptoms which, in his opinion, necessitated medical advice. Common sense, he explained to Carstairs, pointed out the chairman as the man to go to.

The doctor recognized him at once. "Hullo!" he said, looking him over with distinct approval, for Darwen's winning, frank smile captivated him at once. "Has the electricity got on your system?" The doctor was a jovial, hearty man.

Darwen laughed. He showed precisely the right amount of amusement at the joke, then, shortly and precisely, he stated (almost verbatim from a medical book he had looked up in the reference library) the symptoms of a more or less minor complaint.

Recognizing it at once, "I'll soon put that right for you," the doctor said, in his hearty, jovial way. His extensive practice was largely due to his jovial manner; he appreciated the clear and precise statement of the symptoms.

"Ah! that's just it; it's the same with an engine, you know, 'a stitch in time.' I like to get expert advice at the start."

This was business from the doctor's point of view. He became serious. "Most true," he said. "Still, people will aggravate their complaints by so-called home treatments."

"The penny-wise policy, doctor, the results of combined ignorance and meanness."

"I wonder," Darwen said, later on, as he poured the contents of a medicine bottle down the bathroom waste pipe, "I wonder what in thunder this is, a sort of elixir of life served out to most people for most complaints at a varying price. Funny what stuff people will pour down their necks."

Some hours later, as they sat facing each other in their big easy chairs, Darwen said: "Didn't you say your guv'nor was a parson, Carstairs?"

"I have not got a guv'nor," Darwen observed, sadly; "haven't any recollection of my guv'nor. He went down with the Peninsula coming home from Australia. He was a mining engineer."

Carstairs was softened. "Hard lines," he said, and there was much sympathy in his tone.

"It is," Darwen agreed. "A guv'nor helps one so much. I want you to get your guv'nor to come down and stay with us for a few days. What College was he at?"

"Then it's almost a cert he'll bump up against some one he knows down here, some other parson, or somebody. I want to get into the chairman's crowd, he's churchwarden at St James'. I'm going there."

Carstairs removed his pipe slowly from his lips and stared more or less blankly. It was the limit of surprise he allowed himself ever to express.

"Yes, and I'm joining St James' Gym. and the Conservative Club. Robinson has introduced me to one or two rather decent people, too; Robinson belongs here, you know. To-morrow you and I are going to sign on for a dancing class; Robinson's people put me on to it; Robinson doesn't dance. I'm pretty good, and you'll be good with practice. Every fit man can dance well with practice."

Carstairs puffed silently at his pipe for some minutes. "Will the dividends on dancing, gymnastics, church-going, etc., pan out better than working?" he asked at length.

"Do you think you are getting the full value of your present stock of knowledge?"

"I beg to differ; some men get paid considerably over the value of their knowledge."

"Well, I want to join the happy band. Shove your knowledge forward, having due regard to the manner of your doing so, that it does not defeat its own ends. And that is wisdom; you're paid for the combined product of your knowledge and your wisdom. Wisdom is the most scarce, the most valuable, and the most difficult to acquire: it is the knowledge of the use of knowledge. Do you see?"

"Not quite. Theory is an effort of the imagination, either a spontaneous effort of your own, based on known facts, or an assimilation of the results of other men's practice as recorded by them in books. The sources of error are twofold; the limits of your own imagination, your own conception of the other man's description, and the limit of the other man's gift of expression and explanation. Practice is your own conception and remembrance of what you yourself have personally experienced. Both are knowledge; wisdom is distinct from either."

Carstairs smiled. "Well, it's your wisdom I doubt, not your knowledge. I mean to say, that my application of my knowledge to my conception of your application of your knowledge, as expressed by you in the present discussion, leads me to doubt the accuracy of your application of your knowledge to the case under discussion. The possible sources of error being in my imagination or your expression, and as my imagination is a fixed quantity, unless you can improve your expression, I shall fail to coincide with you. How's that?"

"That's very good." Darwen took a deep breath and laughed. "Let me have another shot. Who gets the most money, the successful professor or the successful business man?"

"Hear, hear! That's because he's selling wisdom, while the professor is selling knowledge."

"I disagree, on two points. Number one, the business man sells necessities, boots for instance; the professor sells luxuries, quaternions, for instance." Carstairs paused and quoted, "'What I like about quaternions, sir, is that they can't be put to any base utilitarian purpose.'"

"Half a minute! Number two, the business man sells knowledge of men and affairs as opposed to the professor's knowledge of things only."

"Well, let us acquire knowledge of men and affairs, instead of merely of things—engines."

"You're Harveyized steel, Carstairs, and it gives me immense satisfaction to see that I'm making some impression on you. Well, you may go on grinding away all your life, and if nobody knows of the knowledge you possess, you'll never get paid for it."

"But I will show it by the application of it in my work. The chief is bound to see it."

"Not a ha'porth, my boy. And if he does, the chances are that he'll depreciate it in the eyes of the world, or get you the sack, because he'll be afraid of you."

"As an engineer you must never forget the interdependence of parts: as a successful man you must never overlook the interdependence of everything in nature. Smile at men as if you were overjoyed to see them and they'll give you anything, as long as it's not their own property."

"Our object in life is to persuade the councillors to dole us out an extra dose of the ratepayers' money."

"Then let us, with all circumspection, smile on the councillors and their wives and daughters, particularly the daughters."

"They'll do that alright, old chap, if you only do it the right way. The most potent force in nature is the love of women; it behoves us as engineers to utilize this force. There is nothing much that a woman in love won't do, and there is even less that she won't make the poor fool, who imagines she is in love with him, do."

"You may take it as proved that, 'In the same town and on the same side of it, there cannot be two girls in love with the same man, etc.' All the same, the idea of it is rather fascinating." Darwen's eyes sparkled.

Darwen fished out his purse with a smile. "The seeds of wisdom are in you, I perceive," he said.

Suddenly the strains of music were wafted in to them through the open window. "What in thunder is that?" Darwen asked, getting up with a puzzled look and gazing out into the street. "By Jove, it's a kid with a mouth organ, looks like a gipsy kid."

With a serious face Carstairs got up and looked out of the window too. The boy was looking directly up at the window; as soon as he caught sight of Carstairs, he changed his tune abruptly.

"That's 'The Gipsy's Warning.' The kid plays very well, too, for an instrument like that. I thought it was a violin for a minute."

They stood up at the window and watched. The boy played the same thing twice over, then he played a Scotch tune. Then he opened the gate and walking across the little lawn stood under the window and touched his cap.

Carstairs put his hand in his pocket and pulled out sixpence. "Wait a minute," he said to the boy. He went downstairs and spoke to him. "Do you come from Scotland?"

"Yes, sir; I seen you there. Sam's down here and he's after you." He turned and went out into the road again and disappeared.

Carstairs looked after him with a troubled frown, then he returned to the sitting-room.

Darwen looked at him with observant, surprised eyes. "Did you know that kid?" he asked.

"No, but he knew me. I once had a row with a gipsy in Scotland; flattened him out, broke his leg; he's been after me ever since. That kid came to tell me he's in this town now. Next pay day I shall invest in a young bull dog."

Carstairs sat down again in the big easy chair and gazed at nothing. His thoughts were far away; he had no doubt who had sent the gipsy boy to warn him. "The most potent force, the love of women." Good God! and what of the love of men? A gipsy girl. It was quite impossible.

Then Darwen played—pleading, soothing music—and Carstairs told him the whole story.

"You'll have to remove that gipsy, that Sam—in self-defence, mind, of course. And the girl—you couldn't marry a gipsy, of course, but it's not necessary."

CHAPTER IX

Time passed, and although Carstairs kept a good look out, he saw nothing of Sam, the gipsy; he bought a substantial ash walking stick which he kept constantly by him. On the night shift he tackled Bounce, the ex-sailor. "Can you fence?"

Carstairs smiled, but he knew all the same that it was a simple statement of the truth without any affected modesty or blatant boasting. "I'll bring down a couple of sticks, and you can give me a little instruction if you will."

He had a manner all his own of making even this simple statement; it suggested an equality of manhood while admitting an inferiority of station; every word and action showed a confident, self-contained, self-respecting man.

So in the wee sma' hours of the morning, when everyone else was in bed, Carstairs and Bounce fenced with single sticks in a clear space in the engine room. They got very chummy over these contests. Carstairs had frequently had long yarns with Bounce before in the quietness of the night watch, but now as they smote each other good and hard (for they wore neither helmets, jackets, nor aprons) and Carstairs smiled and Bounce grinned like a merry imp, and occasionally apologized for an "extra stiff un," they seemed to draw very close together, so much so, that one night Carstairs told him the tale of Sam the gipsy.

Bounce shook his head seriously. "Gipsies is nasty blokes," he observed, pondering deeply. "Some good fighting men amongst 'em, too." He pondered again. "I should think now that a bit of boxing would be more useful to you than fencing. Or—have you got a pistol?"

Next night Bounce's eyes scintillated light as he fingered the well-made brown leather boxing gloves, and examined the beautiful little American target revolver. "This is fancy," he said, in regard to the latter. "It wouldn't stop a man, though."

They retired to a secluded corner of the boiler house, and Bounce fastened a piece of board on the wall and stuck three tin tacks in it, then he drew back as far as the dimensions of the place would admit, which was about fifteen yards. "Shall I have first shot, sir?" he asked.

Carstairs handed him the revolver, and then a box of cartridges. He loaded, then raised his arm, and, taking a fairly long sight at the board, fired. "That's a miss," he observed. "I'll get a bit of chalk."

Stepping up to the board, Carstairs saw that he had missed the head of a tin tack by about a sixteenth of an inch.

Bounce returned from the engine room with a piece of chalk and whitened over the heads of the tin tacks. "I ain't had a shot with a revolver for two years, or more," he observed, apologetically. Then he took another shot and burst the head of one tin tack; his next shot bent the second tin tack over on one side. The third shot drove the remaining tack right home. "There you are, sir," he said, with some pride, handing Carstairs the revolver.

"Look here, Bounce! Is there anything much in the way of offence and defence that you can't do?" Carstairs asked with open admiration.

"Well, I don't think there is very much, sir. I've fired everything up to a six-inch gun, over that I ain't quite sure. Mind, I have afired a twelve-inch, but I ain't quite sure. A twelve-inch takes some handling, see." He stood up very straight, looking Carstairs steadily in the eyes as he made this simple statement.

Then they boxed, and the applicability of his surname struck Carstairs more than ever; he seemed literally to bounce out of the way, just when Carstairs was going to hit him, and he bounced in again with singular directness and precision immediately Carstairs had missed him. Every night for the rest of the week they boxed for half an hour at a time, and Carstairs, with his clear head and steady nerves, soon began to make progress.

"What you wants, principally, is to hit hard, an' quick an' straight." Bounce laid it down as a law, and suiting his own actions accordingly, he bounced in and hit Carstairs in the eye, so that it afterwards turned a lively shade of deep, blue-black.

Bounce apologized, then he grinned like a healthy fiend. "It do show up," he observed, "but a black eye ain't near so painful as a good un on the nose."

Carstairs smiled too. "Oh! it doesn't matter in the least," he said. "It's part of the game. Unfortunately I'm going home to see my people to-morrow." He gazed at it thoughtfully in the looking-glass in the lavatory. "The guv'nor'll understand, but the mater——"

Next day Carstairs went home to the little vicarage of Chilcombe, and on his way to the station he caught sight of a rough-looking man in well-worn gaiters, a fur cap and a heavy coat with big poacher's pockets, limping down a side street. Carstairs felt angry. "That's the swine," he said, to himself. Then a sudden surge of pity overwhelmed him. "Poor devil! he does limp."

He got a seat in the corner of an empty third-class carriage and opened a paper he had purchased, but he did not read, he thought of the rough-looking man with the limp, of the beautiful girl in Scotland and Darwen—the three seemed inextricably mixed up, somehow. "Darwen's a skunk," he said, but that was the only definite conclusion at which he could arrive.

Meanwhile the train hurried him homewards, and very soon he arrived at the main line junction, and changed into the crawling local. He had written to say which train he would arrive by, and as the train drew up at the pretty country station, he saw the tall, black-garbed figure of his father on the platform. They shook hands solemnly, and eyes so much like his own beamed approval and pleasure as the strong brown cricketer's hand gripped his. Suddenly they sobered down into a look half amusement, half pain, as they rested on the discoloured skin (by careful doctoring reduced to a bright yellow) round his eye.

"Yes; a man at the works, engine driver, you know, ex-sailor, light-weight champion of the Mediterranean Fleet, he's coaching me."

"Oh, no! Not with Bounce." He laughed. "How's the mater and all the rest of them?"

"Your mother's very well, very well indeed. Phillip is going on very well in India."

"Rise?—er—no. In fact, you're doing the best of any, so far. Mrs Bevengton was inquiring about you; she and Bessie are coming over to tea to-morrow." He shot a sudden, keen glance at his son. "Very nice girl, Bessie, extremely nice."

"Have you seen anything more of your gipsy maiden?" There was a note of anxiety in his father's voice.

"Nothing very serious, I suppose; still it's a pity you got mixed up with those people."

"Yes; the girl came down next night with another stick to flatten out her fancy man." Unconsciously there was a note of pride in Jack's voice.

"Dear me, what terrible people! It's a very great pity you got mixed up with them at all—a very great pity."

"Yes, it is a pity," Jack agreed. He seemed so pensive that his father regarded him in some concern.

"Many young men entirely wreck their lives by these youthful entanglements," he said. "Those sort of girls, who appear beautiful and fascinating at your age, usually strike one as coarse and outré a few years later."

"That's very possible," Jack admitted, and he smiled as though a weight had been lifted off his mind.

"By the way, there is—er—no necessity to mention that little affair to your mother. Women brood over these things, and build up all sorts of vague horrors and possibilities of their own."

"Quite so," Jack admitted, very soberly, so that his father glanced quickly at him again. But they were at the house and there was no time for further questioning.

Jack's mother noticed his discoloured eye at once. "Oh, Jack, whatever have you been doing?"

"I wish you'd be more careful; you're so violent. I'm sure cricket and lawn tennis are much nicer."

There was a seriousness in the way he said it that made both father and mother look at him sharply. "Useful?"

He smiled, his calm, easy smile. "I mean to say, stokers and so on sometimes get abusive, you know, and in the interests of real peace it is best to know how to flatten 'em out if necessary."

But his father's keen, blue eyes continued to watch him steadily, and after Mrs Carstairs had gone to bed, he stayed down for half an hour chatting with his son. "I suppose," he said, "there is no possibility of those gipsies molesting you further?"

Jack shrugged his shoulders. "Can't say," he drawled. "I left them in Scotland."

"That's true; however, there is always the police, you know." Jack was very unconcerned. "By the way, guv'nor, could you come back and stay with me for a few days? Another fellow and myself are digging together, you know. He's a jolly decent sort; opens his mouth rather wide at times, says more than he means, you know, but he's a good sort. Got me my job, as a matter of fact. He wants you to come too. Wants to get to know some decent people; he's a dancing man and that sort of thing. Thinks you'll probably bump up against some one you know, give us a lift in our jobs besides making things more pleasant. You understand."

The Reverend Carstairs' shrewd eyes twinkled merrily. "You want to utilize your old father, eh? What about this young man's father?"

"Ah!" The grey eyes softened into sympathy at once. "Of course I'll come. It's quite the right view to take; young men cast adrift in a strange town usually get acquainted with quite the wrong people. Southville? Southville? Ah, yes. I think the vicar of St James' there is an old Christ Church man. Let me see." He got up and reached down a book of reference. "Here we are. Southville, St James. Yes! Moorhouse. Ah! I thought so. He was not exactly a chum, but a friend. I've no doubt he'll be pleased to see me. What is your friend like?"

"Oh, about the same as myself, but exceedingly handsome, striking, you know. Sort of chap you turn round to look at. Very dark, almost Italian looking."

"Ah! You ought to be able to make things very pleasant for yourselves down there. I'll go back with you on Monday." His father stood up.

So Jack turned in once more in the old familiar bed in the old familiar room at the corner of the house, with windows overlooking a wide sweep of the rolling Cotswold Hills.

Next morning after church he met Mrs Bevengton and Bessie; she coloured slightly as she shook hands with him, and her dimples sprang into prominent evidence in a smile that expressed more than pleasure.

Jack regarded her thoughtfully, with very great pleasure too. She seemed the personification of beauty, not so much in the physical as the moral sense; as he walked by her side slowly down the brown-gravel path in the warm light of an autumn sun, countless little incidents of his childhood's days returned to him, bearing a fuller and a newer meaning; this girl had always been clean, clean as it is understood in England, honest and unspiteful, she never cheated. When he parted at the gate it was with a distinct sense of pleasure that he was to meet her again in the afternoon. She laughed, a jolly, happy laugh, when he explained the discolouration of his eye.

Mrs Carstairs and Mrs Bevengton coming behind had observed them with mutual approval: "Don't you think Bessie's improved?" Jack's mother said to him as they walked home together.

"She's better looking if that's what you mean, otherwise she was always a jolly decent girl."

"In that, mater, your opinion should be of considerably more value than mine, I haven't met very many girls."

About three o'clock in the afternoon, Dr and Mrs Bevengton and Bessie arrived. After half an hour's exchange of family greetings, Jack and Bessie went out into the garden, leaving the old people indoors.

Cleeve woods were the private property of Lady Cleeve, but Jack and Bessie were privileged persons, allowed to trespass whenever they liked. They wandered along the well-known paths, going very slowly; every tree and bush held its own secret for them, recalling each its own little tragedy or comedy of their early lives.

Bessie stopped in front of a tall pine tree. "Do you remember when you climbed up there and took the kestrel's eggs?"

"I remember curly-haired 'Fatty,' and Jim down below keeping 'cave,' in case the keeper came."

The dimples burst out anew. "I was a fatty then, wasn't I? You came down all the way without a word. I knew you'd got eggs by the careful way you were watching your pockets. I thought it was only a magpie's, then you glanced round like a burglar and just showed one eye over the top of your pocket, I knew it was a hawk's because it was red."

"A kestrel is a falcon, Bessie, not a hawk. You said, 'O-oh,' under your breath, and Jim whispered 'what is it?' Jim never could tell one egg from another."

"We all felt like desperate poachers and crept out of the wood in breathless haste, and you blew them under the chestnut tree on your lawn."

"You were always a pal and full of pluck," he said. "When I was up old Giles' apple tree and he came out with his dog, Jim bolted like a rabbit, but you stayed behind like a brick and waited for me."

Bessie laughed. "Old Giles was a good sort. He knew who we were right enough, but he never told father."

Talking thus they strolled on till they came out on the trimmed laurels and well-kept lawn that surrounded Lady Cleeve's house. Jack stopped. "I expect the footman will come out and ask impertinent questions if we go over the lawn, won't he?"

Still they stopped for some time admiring the house and the well-kept grounds. It was just getting dusk and lights were already beginning to appear in some of the windows of the big old house. "I should like to own a place like this some day," Jack said. He stepped on to the lawn. "By Jove! these lawns are grand, aren't they? Do you remember that time I was on holidays from Cheltenham, when they gave a sort of tea fight to the whole village? And the yokels were playing kiss-in-ring on the lawn?"

Bessie coloured a good red and looked down at the smooth carpet-like grass, poking aimlessly with the point of her umbrella. They were fairly close to the house. Suddenly one of the near windows sprang into a glare of light, showing up everything within with great distinctness. A female servant, in cap and apron, was lighting the gas. Her profile showed clear and distinct against the light.

"Oh! there's that new maid who's just come to the Hall. Don't you think she's remarkably handsome, Jack?"

Carstairs looked up, the girl in the room turned, so that the light was full on her face, and every feature was distinct: the blood seemed to bound in his veins, he was astonished at the thrill he felt.

It was some seconds, perhaps a minute, before he answered, then it was a very slow drawl. "Yes, exceedingly handsome."

Then they went home almost in silence, for Carstairs had recognized in Lady Cleeve's new housemaid, his gipsy girl from Scotland.

CHAPTER X

Early on the Monday morning the Reverend Hugh and his son Jack entrained for Southville. Jack was pre-occupied with some deep thought, and his father noticed it.

Jack pulled himself together; he had been gazing earnestly at Lady Cleeve's house nestling in among the pine trees; the slope of a hill suddenly shut out the view, and Jack turned to his father with attention undivided. "You know I'm not so keen on the people as the work, but Darwen seems to think that in municipal work you can't get on at all without friends."

The parson's eyes lighted up with approval as he listened to his son. "Work is the thing that makes life enjoyable, but you must have friends, you know."

Jack was silent for some time. "It seems a rotten state of things," he observed at length, and his father laughed aloud.

Darwen was on shift when they arrived, but Jack took his father to their diggings, and very soon after Darwen came in; his handsome face lighted up with a beaming smile as he shook hands with the Reverend Hugh. "I say," he said, "I should have known you for Jack's father if I had met you in the street alone."

The old parson smiled with approval as his shrewd grey eyes took in a complete impression of face and form and expression. He succumbed at once to the charming manner and charming personality of the tall, clean-looking young engineer. "Wholesome, athletic, happy-go-lucky, but intelligent," was his mental summing up. Such were the sort of friends he expected his son to make; he looked from one to the other with keen approval. They pushed forward the easiest chair and plied him with cushions and tobacco. They took him back to his own college days.

He smiled. "It was always 'not bad,'" he said. "Hullo!" he glanced along the backs of the books on the shelf at his side. "Tennyson, Keats, Dante, Shelley, 'Hamlet,' 'Julius Cæsar,' 'Barrack Room Ballads,' 'The Prince'! I didn't know you had a fancy for poetry, Jack."

"Not guilty! Those are Darwen's." Jack was stretched out, six feet of muscularity, full length on a slender-looking couch. He puffed slowly at his pipe. "Those are mine"—he pointed to a shelf on the other side.

His father glanced along the backs of them, reading the names aloud. "'Dynamo, Electric Machinery,' h-m, bulky volume that! 'Manual of the Steam Engine'; 'The Steam Engine,' h-m, three volumes. 'Polyphase Currents,' ah! 'Text Book of Heat,' 'Theoretical Chemistry,' 'Trigonometry,' 'Integral Calculus,' 'Differential Calculus' (Todhunter). That's mine, I think. I thought Edwards was the man on the Calculus nowadays."

"Ye-es, Darwen's got him somewhere. I prefer Todhunter, leaves more to the imagination, you know."

"Seems to me the limit of a man's possibility in anything is the limit of his imagination."

Darwen had his chair tilted back wards, blowing clouds of smoke vertically upwards to the ceiling. He spoke slowly between the puffs. "Carstairs—Jack, has got no soul above machines, inanimate lumps of iron; the hum of a smoothly running engine is the only poetry that appeals to him, so it does to me, but I like a change; little bits of Shelley, little drops of Kipling——"

"Shut up! You reek of the engine room. I like a change. Variety is the soul of amusement." He dropped his chair on to its front legs again and looked at Jack's father. "Hasn't some one said that?" he asked.

Darwen looked at him steadily, thoughtfully, for a moment. "Do you know I think there's a touch of the Dago in me—or perhaps it's Celt. Do you think I'm Irish?"

"That's so! English, the mater says, pure English, but I don't know. I'm a bit of a rogue, you know; the instinct of dishonesty is very strong at times."

The Reverend Hugh laughed, and Darwen jumped up. "I'll play you a tune, if you'll stand it," he said. He sat down and played, wandering on from one thing to another, ever and anon glancing at the old vicar, then he got up. "Does that bore you?" he asked.

He flushed slightly with pleasure. "I like music. Let's have a trot round the town and show your guv'nor the sights, Carstairs."

The Reverend Moorhouse was short and very broad, he had more the legal than the clerical type of face; an old international Rugby footballer, the impress of the game was still strong on him, vigorous, keen, bluff. It was evident he was pleased to see his old friend, he said so, and invited all three of them to dinner the next night.

The dinner was good; Mrs Moorhouse was plain, stout, chatty, and exceedingly kind; the Misses Moorhouse, two of them, were tall, athletic, and pretty. They talked about hockey and tennis and swimming; the two young men were charmed. Carstairs was quite vivacious, Darwen seemed to scintillate; Mrs Moorhouse watched him with approving eyes, and later on, when he played and sang with the elder Miss Moorhouse, she took possession of him; crossing the room she sat down beside him. "You must come and help us at the church," she said.

The vicar's wife was business-like and decisive, she fastened him down by compact and contract at once.

Altogether it was a merry and delightful evening, and when they at length departed it was in a particularly bright and happy mood. They walked back; it was not very far and a beautiful starry night; there was a tinge of frost in the air; Jack Carstairs threw his chest out and took a deep gulp of the fresh, crisp air.

"I believe these little diversions do improve one's form, you know, I feel like a sprint." He looked up and down the long silent street of semi-detached, shrubbery-enclosed villas. As he looked back his face suddenly hardened into a fierce look of anger, his mouth shut like a steel trap, and his grey eyes took on a cold, steely glitter; for just as he glanced round, a rough-looking man, carrying a big stick had limped past a lamp light on the other side of the road. Carstairs said no word, but there was an abruptness in his manner that attracted his father's attention.

"What's the matter, Jack?" He glanced round and Darwen followed suit, but the man was now in the shade and hardly noticeable.

"Nothing," he answered, staring straight ahead; but out of the corner of his eye he caught a meaning look from Darwen, and in response jerked his head ever so slightly backwards and to one side.

Promptly Darwen dropped back to do up his bootlace. A few seconds later, the man with the limp, who had crossed the road and was now directly behind them, quickened his pace and limped past. Carstairs stopped and faced round as the limping step drew near, but the man's face was averted and he went on without a word or sign; some way ahead they saw that he was joined by another man, hitherto unobserved, who, without any word of greeting, stepped out of the shadow and walked along with him; he seemed exceptionally short, but his hands hung down below his knees—probably a hunchback.

Darwen held out his walking-stick. "Do you notice the sticks we carry? Guaranteed to kill at one smite." He laughed lightly. Something of the spirit of the party returned to them, and they went home more or less lighthearted.

After the old vicar was safely in bed, Darwen went along to Jack's bedroom. He was half expected; he sat down on a chair while Carstairs stretched himself, half undressed, on the bed.

"Yes, I'm sure of it! Don't know who the other chap is, seems as if he's rounding up a gang. What do you think of putting the police on it?"

"Don't see how you can! Anyhow the scandal of it, if there was an exposure, would wreck your rosy prospects in this town. A young man with a fancy for spending his nights in the woods with charming gipsy maidens is not the sort that the wife of the vicar of St James can allow to associate with her daughters."

Carstairs swore volubly. "Do you know she's got a slavey's job at Lady Cleeve's, the local big bug's at home."

"I don't know." Carstairs was very thoughtful. "Damn it, she knocks spots off any girl I've seen yet. She's improving, too."

"Oh! but that's no good either, you mustn't attract attention in that way. I tell you what, we'll set a trap and collar the brute. You'll have to be the bait. And—say Bounce and I, we ought to be able to effect a capture."

"Oh, anything. Bribery, threats, or we might shanghai the beast off to Australia."

Carstairs was dubious. "They'll give it a rest for a bit now. He's as cunning as a fox, that gipsy, he knows I recognized him. Damn him! I'd have hit him over the head with my stick as he passed if the guv'nor hadn't been there."

"Well, anyway, shall we call in Bounce? You've already told him the story, haven't you?"

"Yes. Bounce's great idea is a heavy right on the jaw. 'Get in close and hit hard,'" he said.

"That's very sound, too. After your guv'nor's gone, we'll hold a council of war. Bounce may have some reliable pals. Good night, old chap, keep your pecker up."

"Thanks. It's jolly good of you to lend me a hand over a rotten business like this."

Next day the old vicar went back to his flock again leaving a cordial invitation for Darwen to come and see them. Jack saw him off.

"Yes! he's a jolly good sort," Jack answered, enthusiastically, having fresh in his memory Darwen's offer of assistance.

The same night, Carstairs, Bounce, and Darwen held a council of war in the shift engineer's office. "What we wants to do," Bounce said, "is to find out what 'e wants. If it's murder 'e's after, we'll shanghai 'im, if it's only a row, we'll give 'im that, but the first thing to do is to capture 'im."

Carstairs sat on the side of the table puffing slowly at his pipe. "Thanks very much for the suggestion and offer of assistance, Bounce, but I don't want to shanghai him, I only want to get a fair show, also I don't mind giving him a fair show if that will satisfy him."

The Quixotic strain of the Englishman was coming out in him. They observed him in wonder. "Giving him a fair show?" they queried in a breath.

He drawled very slowly. "I mean to say," he said, "I broke his leg. I beat him once, but I had some assistance; if he fancies he can give me a licking fair and square, I don't mind giving him a trial, provided, of course, that that is really what is worrying him, you understand."

Bounce nodded, a compound now of comprehension and disapproval, his face expressed a keen appreciation of the principle involved, but a strong objection to the practice suggested. "It's revenge 'e's after, 'e don't want no fair play. Them sort o' blokes don't appreciate fair play. You give 'im a licking once, 'e wants to give you one in the back now. Most like you could buy 'im off."

"A mixture of threats and bribes," Darwen suggested. "We'll capture him and frighten the wits out of him; say that we're going to give him in charge for attempted murder. Then you can offer him a small sum to go away and stay away. We'll explain that if he ever gets within speaking distance of you again, you'll promptly have him arrested."

"I suppose that is the best," Carstairs said, thoughtfully. "Do you know I feel when I think of him that a damn good licking is the only thing I can offer him. Yet when I consider that the poor devil is permanently lame because—well, because I went off with his girl, well, dash it, he has my entire sympathy. In my case I remember distinctly that it gave me a sensation of extreme pleasure to think I was whacking that brute for the sake of the girl. I'm not exactly pugilistic, but I've never experienced anything so pleasureable as the one or two smites I got home on him with the idea that they were for the girl. I can understand the persistence with which he is following me. She's the finest girl in all the world." His keen grey eyes seemed to glow with a fierce ardour. At that moment he was violently in love.

He stood up and stretched himself. "I should feel a better man if I went out now and searched out that gipsy and bashed him, and then went straight across to the girl and married her. What the devil are these wishy-washy dances, these tuppenny ha'penny jobs, this sham respectability? Simply a drag on a man's actions. I want to do something."

Bounce nodded vigorously. "You're fit," he said, "trained fine. In the pink of condition. That's how you feels when you comes ashore after a three months' cruise. 'To hell with everything. Let's do something.' That's it, ain't it?"

"How you feel at the end of the 'footer' season," Darwen chimed in. "Or when a match is postponed and you've got to dissipate your energies on the desert air. Usually you make a thundering idiot of yourself."

"I suppose that is so, but you enjoy it." Carstairs became thoughtful again. "There are only certain times, practically moments, when you can do these things; you do not appreciate them in your normal condition, besides there's the guv'nor and the mater, and really I know very little about the girl."

Darwen clapped him on the shoulder. "Wake up, old chap! You're dreaming. You can't marry a gipsy girl; she'd want to feed you on gipsy stew and half-hatched pheasant's eggs."

"When you goes off to-night at twelve o'clock, me and Mister Darwen will shadow you like, and catch this yer Sam if he's knocking about. I'll have a line in my pocket so's we can tie him up." Bounce was very serious; he turned to Darwen. "When shall I meet you, sir?"

"Five minutes to twelve at the corner? Very good, sir. Good night." Bounce was just going when a boy came in to say that a policeman had come to report some street light out. Darwen went out to see him. "Half a minute," he said. He was back in a few moments with glowing eyes. "By Jove! that's a whacking great chap, somewhere near seven feet, I should think."

"Well now, maybe 'e'd be mistook if 'e was to try to 'lift' me an' I didn't want to go."

Darwen clapped his hands. "Well done. I'll tell you what. We'll put down five bob for the winner and half a crown for the loser, and you shall mutually arrest each other. Start at the boiler house and you chuck him into the street, or he lugs you into the engine room. How's that?"

"Very good, sir. If 'e'll take on, that five bob's mine." The little sailor was very confident.

"Hurray!" Darwen rushed out to the door to interview the policeman and explain the terms to him. The big man's eyes glistened. "There ain't no man in this town as I can't arrest," he said. He glanced up and down the street. "You'll make it all right if the sergeant comes, sir? You wanted my assistance to eject a drunk bloke or something, eh?" he winked, knowingly.

"Right you are, sir." The big man followed Darwen into the engine room with long, stately strides and easy, confident air. He towered a good six inches over Darwen's head.

Bounce stood up and eyed him up and down, then he put his hands to his mouth and gave a mock hail. "Main top there!" he yelled.

The policeman smiled. "Don't you come talking to growed-up men," he said. "Shall I take 'im now, sir?"

Bounce was eleven stone eight and a half pounds. "'E oughtn't to be out without his p'rambulator," the guardian of the law remarked, as he stepped into the scales, and brought them up with a bang. They shifted the weight along the rod till at nineteen stone eight and a half pounds it balanced.

Bounce nodded approval. "'E'd go near ten stone with 'is boots off," he said, with conviction.

"Six feet and a half. I was the tallest man in the Grenadier Guards when I was in it."

They went back to the boiler house and stood in a clear space under an arc lamp. The policeman took off his long coat and helmet, "In case 'e wipes 'is boots in it while I'm carrying of 'im."

"Open them big doors," Bounce requested, "so as I won't 'ave to push 'im through the window."

The two men stood facing each other with smiling, confident faces. The big man stretched out a hand that would have supplied a whole cannibal tribe with a substantial meal. "Are you coming quiet?" he asked.

Suddenly the big man made a short rush and a grab, but Bounce was not there; instead he had dived at the policeman's legs and pulled him down. He made another grab as he was falling, but the sailor was like an eel. He dodged, and slipping round to the back of him, took a grip with both hands on the policeman's collar. "Open them doors," he shouted, shuffling backwards and dragging the big man all along the dirty floor.

The entire staff, on the broad grin, lined the doorway, as Bounce dragged his burden through and deposited it on the pavement. Then he stood up and tossed his shoulders with a jaunty, nautical air. "Now, my lad, you run away, and play with the nurse-maids," he said.

In angry silence the policeman reached out for his helmet and coat; Darwen slipped half a crown into his hand, and he went out into the night, tramping sullenly along his beat.

Bounce beamed and pocketed his five shillings. "Them big blokes ain't never no use," he said. "Five minutes to twelve? Good night, sir!" He departed. But Darwen sat down on the edge of the table.

"Wonderful chap, Bounce." They chatted for some minutes, then dropped into silence. Darwen broke it.

"For God's sake, Carstairs, don't go and do anything silly over that gipsy girl. It would break your poor old guv'nor's heart; he was holding forth to me, when you were out, about how very careful a young man ought to be to avoid awkward entanglements: you were so very steady, he said. I think he rather fancied I was not so steady. 'Young men fly into an engagement with a girl because she sings nicely or something superficial like that.' Does the gipsy sing?" Darwen laughed.

"She was natural, that's all. Her father told her she was good, and she repeated it."

"Her father? I didn't know that gipsies were always certain on these points. Did you see him?"

"Oh, no; the violin. I'm not much of an authority on these things, but it seemed to me good, exceedingly good, the best I'd heard."

"No. For the sake of my peace of mind I shall have to avoid that girl like the very devil."

"My dear chap! probably St James, the footman, has already supplanted you in the lady's affections. Wonderfully fascinating chaps, those footmen. By the way, it's not usual for gipsies to go into domestic service, is it?"

"No, I don't think it is." Carstairs pulled out his watch. "I must go and have a look round; the load is heavy to-night." He opened the door and Darwen followed him.

They went out through the engine room into the boiler house. Carstairs brightened up at once, the hum of running machinery, and the bustle of working men, was the breath of life to him; his face hardened and his eye brightened with the "splendid purpose." Darwen observed him closely.

"Do you think so? Sometimes I think so myself." He looked around him with keen appreciation at the long row of boilers under steam, with the furnace-doors red hot, "a beautiful orange glow" he was wont to describe it as; at the coal-grimed, brawny men, with the sweat running off them as they sliced up the dazzling white fires. He gazed critically into the blinding glare as they opened the red hot doors, the radiant heat scorched his face and the intense light dazzled his eyes, so that for some minutes afterwards everything was green and blue to him. He looked at the men with their hard, strong faces and their bare muscular arms and chests, the whole scene gave him a sensation of extreme pleasure. To him it was more than beautiful, it was sublime. A sensation of majestic force, of overwhelming power, such as a towering mountain, the limitless ocean, or a vast moorland conjure up. This sensation was his now, and it was uplifting, artistic; he felt beyond the earth; yet in many ways there was little of the artist in him, he was essentially of the earth, earthly. Such is the best type of that modern product, the Engineer.

And that you may know him when you meet him, I will tell you that he is rather a rare bird. At the present time, probably, no profession contains more "wasters" than electrical engineering; this is because any man who can persuade a mayor and corporation or a chief engineer to give him the job, can take charge of many thousands of horse-power in boilers, and engines and dynamos, with infinite possibilities of damage, and the lives of many men resting on his direction, nerve and knowledge. Those dear men, who scorn to take an interest in their work, are not the breed I mean; nor are those greasy individuals who have arrived, oilcan in hand, from the engine bed: they are practical they say, which means that their minds are a storehouse of undoubtedly useful facts, they have a fairly clear recollection of a great number of engineering possibilities which they have actually witnessed; but, their reasoning powers are undeveloped, and their methods of procedure on new lines are particularly hap-hazard trial and error. The engineer to whom I refer is essentially a man of science; he is mathematical, theoretical, and practical; he holds an engineering degree and has been through the "shops"; he understands both men and materials and the methods of handling them; frequently he is a lonely sort of savage. He knows little of billiards, cards, or dancing; his work precludes him from much intercourse with other men except in business hours; often he is silent and somewhat shy with women; usually he is of good physique and logically minded; his life-work is the pursuit of truth; in the "shops" he learns to file "truly," then he learns to set a thing in the lathe "truly." He tests his finished work carefully to see that it runs "true," and on the test plate he learns to measure accurately, in the drawing office to calculate exactly; he works under, with, and over the working man, and learns to know him better than anyone else; he does not shine at football or cricket, but is often a particularly useful man in a rough and tumble fight, an accomplishment he acquires in his progress through the "shops"; he is an individual; he thinks and sees things as they are, for that is what his work teaches him; he regards things carefully, observing their quality, and speculating on the process of their manufacture; he sums up men quickly. In my opinion, he is only inferior to the sailor.

The æsthetic soul of Darwen was moved, too. "You're making 'em do their damnedest," he observed.

Carstairs nodded. "That's what I like; you know the Yankee definition, 'An engineer is a man who can do for one dollar what any fool can do for two.' It's not bad, but like most Yankee things, it's cheap and incomplete."

"The taint of the cheapness, old chap, is passing from the Americans to us. You can get quality in the States, if you pay for it, now."

"That is so in some things, and to my mind that's the most marked sign of progress; the nation without quality is as a house built upon the sand. The moral effect on the workman who manufactures cheap articles must be disastrous."

"The workmen, dear boy, are the people, and the people are mud. That is the one point upon which I disagree with dear old Nick Machiavelli."

"And probably, as far as I know, the one point on which I agree with him, if he says the people are not mud."

"He does. He quotes a proverb, 'He who builds on the people, builds on mud,' and disagrees with it. Personally, I think the people, the mass, don't matter tuppence. Our officers have made the riff raff of all nations fight like tigers."

"That's not correct. A relative of mine was in Ashantee, and the coast niggers there ran like sheep. They had to give them up as fighting material."

"Perhaps so, but it's only the exception that proves the rule, and that was because we were hampered by sentiment. A coward rightly handled, that is to say, brutally handled, will achieve more than many really brave men."

"I very much doubt that too. I get good results by giving the stokers a drink occasionally."

"Well, not exactly curse them; you can't listen to all their complaints; some of 'em would never do any work at all if you did."

"Quite so!" They passed on into the engine room. "I observe again, Carstairs, that you make them do their damnedest."

"I have heard that the chief so far committed himself as to say that you were the best engineer he'd ever had."

"I heard so too, which goes to prove my point. You are paid in this world, not for pleasing yourself, but pleasing others. I believe I could get my costs down to yours, but the chief and Robinson are eminently 'safe' men. I shall never get a shut-down. Old Robinson is on tenter hooks whenever you are on evening shift. 'That chap cuts things too fine,' he told me the other day."

"Of course, because if you get a shut-down it will be 'in the unavoidable absence of Mr Robinson or Mr Chief.' See?"

Darwen's eyes glistened with honest admiration. "There is much of the aboriginal Saxon in you, Carstairs, with your grey eyes and light hair and that big, bull-dog jaw. Rightly, you should worship Thor and Odin, the gods of force. It's absurd for your guv'nor to be a minister of the Christian religion."

"I agree with your last point; we're a family of seamen, really. We worship Neptune."

"Ah! the sea, water, steam, electricity. Hence Jack Carstairs, electrical engineer, seaman twice removed, eh?"

"These things are always interesting. It is essential to understand the machine you work with, and the people you live with. To properly grip the bent of a man's mind, it is necessary to know his antecedents. The seaman, we observe, has a natural aptitude for engineering, coupled with great tenacity and self-reliance, a particularly good friend, a just, but particularly unpleasant enemy; a touch of sentiment and superstition, the results of much battering and erratic favours from Father Neptune. The gipsy, on the other——"

"Here we have a most interesting relic of the Berserk rage of the Norseman. If within reach, that gipsy would have a particularly rough time just at this moment."

"Thanks very much for the advice, but I will return to the gipsy, who, as I was about to observe, is, on the other hand, naturally a poacher and very vindictive, and will therefore have to be poached, that is to say, captured by stealth which——"

A sudden flash like miniature lightning illuminated the engine room, followed immediately by a loud report.

Carstairs' big jaw tightened. Darwen's eyes glittered with an æsthetic sort of joy. "Breakdown," he observed, "and I'm a spectator."

A circuit fuse had blown, and was instantly followed by a continuous flash and bang of some half dozen fuses, going one after the other, like a straggling volley of small artillery. By an ingenious inter-connection of the network of main supply cables it is arranged that if one circuit fuse goes half a dozen immediately follow suit. This is one of the many diabolical devices on which mains superintendents particularly pride themselves. Carstairs strode up on to the switchboard, very alert, but very cool. He switched out all the switches, replaced the fuses by bigger ones, and switched in again, the switchboard attendant assisting him in a high state of nervous excitement. Now there is a piece of apparatus known as a magnetic automatic circuit breaker. It is carefully designed to come out at the wrong time and stay in at all other times; the good chief of Southville, in the simplicity of his trust in catalogues, had, "for safety," as he expressed it, two of these devices fixed on every machine; when, therefore, Carstairs plugged in again on the heavier fuses, these "safety" devices promptly opened, one after the other, all except one small one, which hung in with a tenacity worthy of a better cause. The station was plunged into instant inky darkness, relieved only by fitful flashes from the commutators of the idle machines, the governor of one of which having stuck, it raced away in a frantic effort to burst its fly-wheel and wreck the engine room; the one small machine, left all alone struggling valiantly with a load four times too big for it, first of all stopped dead till its field died away, then pounded into the work with little spurts and pauses, being helped out with a little juice from the kindly, helpful battery (which was ruining itself in the process). All the boiler feed pumps, fans, and condenser pumps stopped. (The chief, being a wireman, liked to have all the accessories electrically driven.) Pandemonium at once reigned. There was much shouting in the darkness, an engine-driver and a stoker, in their frantic efforts to do something, collided violently, and collapsed on the floor, groaning, to the accompaniment of soft nothings, whispered sweetly to the empty air; the boilers blew off, the steam roared and shrieked out of twelve safety valves like ten thousand fiends let loose; they were blowing off for high steam first of all, and very shortly afterwards for low water as well. In the middle of it all, the alternators (which were unaffected) hummed merrily in the darkness, while the telephone bell screamed an angry protest from an adjacent wall. At such moments the meek and lowly Shift Engineer feels that he is really alive; his only wish is that his chief may happen to drop in and share his happiness with him, or one or two of the councillors; he could accommodate them all with comfortable seats on the safety valves, and the possibility of a quick passage to heaven by the shortest route, straight upwards. Most chiefs are worse than useless on a switchboard during a breakdown; the Shift Engineer, handling the switches every day of his life, sometimes makes mistakes when he is in a hurry; the chief, who handles them once a year, always does; usually his nerves are not as steady as they should be; he wants to know what the Shift Engineer is going to do, and why he doesn't do it at once, then, just to add to the general concert, he plugs in a wrong switch. Councillors generally stand like fools, and wonder what it's all about, or else button-hole the Shift Engineer and demand an immediate explanation. In this case, no one appeared to hinder him, and Carstairs proceeded all alone. Striking a match, he went along the switchboard and pulled out all the circuit switches; the little machine and the battery, pulling together, then raced away joyously and lit up the station with a superabundant light; the switchboard attendant soon altered that, however, and Carstairs went quickly round the boiler house, switching out all the pumps, etc., as very few of them had "no load releases" on, and some that had were tied in; he glanced up at the boiler water gauges as he passed, for he did not want cold water to be suddenly pumped into empty boilers. It took him precisely one minute before he returned to the switchboard and put in the circuit breakers one by one, tieing them in with a piece of insulated wire. "Now!" he said, "we'll start again, more or less in comfort."

He plugged in a circuit and the fuse held though the lights grew dim, and the machines flashed and groaned. The switchboard attendant plugged in another, and the fuse blew in his face. He stood shielding his eyes in a dazed sort of way, the flash had temporarily blinded him. In those days things in central stations were carefully designed to kill and maim as many as possible; men have become more expensive since and a little more care is taken of them, almost as much, in fact, as of the machines. The fuses on this low tension switchboard were accurately adjusted to the level of an average man's eyes and the instrument placed just beneath, as a sort of bait, so that as he took a reading he got the full benefit of the flash and the molten metal flying about if a fuse went, which they did frequently. Carstairs stood up and pulled the switch out, he then replaced the fuse and switched in again. The machine gave a groan, and a fuse at the other end of the board blew simultaneously with the one he had just replaced.

Ejaculating a little word that went in rhyme with 'jam,' he brought the volts down again. "Here, shove in that other fuse, will you? Put a bigger one this time."

The switchboard attendant was dancing round like one possessed, fumbling and twitching. Carstairs replaced his fuse and went along to look at his assistant. He watched him fumbling for a few minutes, then took it out of his hands. "Go and sit down," he said. He finished the job himself. "Stand clear there!" He motioned the switchboard attendant back. "Stand by those engines. Watch the brushes and bring them forward when they spark, far forward. Do you hear?"

"Yes, sir," the engine drivers answered. They stood in expectant attitudes by their respective engines just below the switchboard gallery.

"Alright!" He plugged in, one after the other, ducking his head out of the way of the possible flash. The fuses held. "Bring her up there! Steady, not too quickly! Whoa!" He held up his hand with the fingers outspread, then made a circular motion. "Get round number five," he shouted.

Promptly the driver ran up another engine, and Carstairs put her on. He leaned over the railing and shouted down to Darwen, "I say, would you mind ringing up Farrell and telling him I'm pumping 500 amps extra into something on the Moorfields Road?"

Farrell was the mains superintendent; it was his pleasant duty to turn out of his bed, round up a gang of navvies, and dig holes in the street all night to ascertain what that "something" was, and remove it. The only consolation a Shift Engineer feels for the arduousness of his existence is that sometimes the mains man (whose life is usually cast in pleasant places) has even a rougher time than he has.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how electricity is "made"—the same as everything else that is any good—by the sweat of men. And as men woo nature, and she reveals her secrets to them, she demands, in return, ever better and better of their best. Man moves, not to peace and plenty, to cowardice and luxury, but to sublime courage and arduous, soulful work, and he may not look back.

Half an hour later, Farrell, a fat, prosperous looking individual, rode up on a bicycle.

The two Shift Engineers laughed. "Sorry it's not raining, Farrell," Darwen observed.

Soon a little stream of men filtered in; jointers, half awake and surly; navvies, limply, subdued, bearing pick and shovel; it meant overtime for them.

Darwen and Carstairs stood on the doorway and watched them disappear into the night with a hand-cart full of tools and instruments.

They had been gone some time, Carstairs was preparing to go home, when the telephone bell rang violently. It was Farrell, very excited. "What do you think?" he asked. "Got it first shot, just outside that big house at the corner. When the lights went out, the footman was rushing about to get candles and lamps and unearthed a burglar, the burglar they think, skulking in the shrubbery. He bolted at once and the footman chased him all down the road. He'd have got away too, but a paving stone blew up right under his feet and tripped him up. Of course, that's the fault we were looking for."

"Oh, he had a bludgeon with him and a big knife. One of the windows had been forced, and they found some jewellery in his pockets."

"A rough looking handful, they say, sort of a gipsy, a bit lame in one leg, but he ran like a hare. Strong as a tiger too, nearly strangled the footman before help arrived. The police have noticed him skulking round that neighbourhood for some time."

"Is that so? Well, he's done us a good turn, anyhow." Carstairs was very casual, very slow, there was no emotion whatever in his voice; he said, "good night," and rang off. "Ye gods," he ejaculated to himself. "That's my way home, of course. Wonder what he'll get? Jewellery in his pockets, too, those great big pockets, built for hares and pheasants. 'To what ignoble uses,' etc., as Darwen would say. Still 'living on the country,' I suppose, as they call it in warfare."

About a quarter of an hour afterwards he saw Darwen and Bounce. It was with a keen sense of amusement that he observed them "shadowing" him. He slipped into a gateway and waited unobserved till they approached, and then sprang out on them unawares.

"What the devil are you chaps following me for?" he demanded with mock severity.

"Hang it all, Carstairs, you fool. Play the game! You've probably spoilt the whole show now."

"Well, I'm blowed, these 'ere police are always shoving their noses into somebody else's business," Bounce growled.

CHAPTER XI

With keen curiosity Carstairs turned up at the police court to watch the trial of "Sam Lee, of no fixed abode," on a charge of burglary. The prisoner pleaded not guilty, but the evidence was too damning, and he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment.

Carstairs came away with a feeling of relief like a schoolboy on holidays. Any lingering feeling of pity that he had entertained for the man he felt he had wronged, was dispelled by the sight of the hard, savage face in the dock. He studied it closely at his leisure and in the daylight, as the man stood there on his defence, the beau ideal of the Bill Sykes of fiction. A face of very great animal strength, showing extreme tenacity of purpose, and unrestrained passion, in every line of the features; he was considerably thicker and heavier about the chest and shoulders than when Carstairs had met him face to face in the dim light of the dawn in Scotland; the eyes had not the shifty, suspicious expression that one associates with the habitual criminal; they were dark and deep set, protected by massive bony projections all round; eyebrow and cheek bone rose in strong relief above and below; the eye itself was steady and slowly moving, it glowed with a sort of slumbering, malignant hatred; he looked the magistrate and the police and everyone else steadily in the eyes with a surly defiance. This was the child of the moorland and the wood transplanted to the slums, absorbing into the depths of his strong, deep nature the terrible germs of the diseased life of the city. Apparently he didn't see Carstairs, or if he did, he gave no sign of recognition.

The following Sunday Darwen was on shift, but Carstairs went to church all alone, to St James'. On the way out the vicar's wife and two daughters met him. The good lady greeted him effusively.

"And where's Mr Darwen?" she asked. Carstairs observed that both the daughters' eyes seemed to light up with super-added interest as they awaited his reply. "He's on shift," he said.

"How horrid," the elder daughter remarked, "to have to go to—er—business on Sunday."

Carstairs laughed. "Call it work," he said, "sort of thing you take your coat off to."

"Well, perhaps a little less than on other days. As a matter of fact it's mostly pretence, just to show you are really ready if necessary. But what you really do is to walk about with your eyes and ears as wide open as they'll go, like the officer of a ship, you know."

"So do we sometimes; in fact, in some of the cheap and nasty stations, where the chief is an ex-ironmonger, and the councillors are labourers out of a job, we have to do quite a lot with our hands, and so, of course, do less with our heads."

"Why! the chief here is an ex-ironmonger, isn't he?" Carstairs raised his eyebrows. "Not exactly an ironmonger, was he?"

The vicar's wife intervened. "Do you think he is really competent? There has been a lot of dissatisfaction in the town, you know."

"Well, we caught a burglar for you the other night," Carstairs evaded the question.

"Yes, I'm so glad! Oh! I hope you and Mr Darwen will come to our little dances; we hold a series every winter, you know. They're rather nice. Mrs Mellor is the moving spirit and men are so scarce. They start soon now."

Talking thus, Carstairs accompanied them till their ways divided, then he proceeded thoughtfully by himself to his diggings. He sat down in the big easy chair. Darwen's book-shelf was at his elbow; he glanced idly along the names on the backs. "Curious taste for an engineer to read poetry," he mused. His eye rested on "The Prince" by Machiavelli. "Darwen's favourite," he thought. He took it down and glanced through it. It was a dainty, leather-covered volume with gilt edges. Three hours later when Darwen returned, he found Carstairs deeply immersed in the last chapter of his favourite book.

He looked at him curiously. "Hullo! Got 'The Prince,' have you? How do you like it?"

"Well, I want to think about it. He seems to point out that you mustn't do things by halves. By the way, I went to church this morning."

"Yes, and to-morrow I'm going to look up a dancing expert and take lessons. It's as well to do the thing well while you're about it."

"I say again, Carstairs, there's much of the original Saxon in you. How long did it take you to come to this decision?"

"About half an hour—that is to say, it took me that time to decide that I would go in for dancing. The rest followed as a sort of corollary."

Darwen's eyes gleamed with approval. "I'll play you a tune," he said; he struck a note idly and listened to the vibrations tentatively for a few moments. "The foundation of engineering science is a knowledge of the strength of material," he observed thoughtfully. "Before one builds a bridge or an engine it is necessary to correctly apportion the size and quality of the various parts." He struck up into a lively dance tune.

Next day Carstairs consulted the local directory and made a note of all the teachers of dancing, and for the following three weeks, he waltzed for an hour a day, as regular as clockwork. Darwen alternately chaffed and encouraged him, but he took it all alike with a steady, tolerant smile, puffing slowly at his pipe. Then the first of the little dances came off; a select gathering of about sixty dancers with two dear old ladies to see that the proprieties were observed. It was a suite of rooms in a comparatively big house which had once been the residence of wealthy gentlemen, but had now dropped into the professional quarters of a dancing master. Carstairs acquitted himself with credit, and Darwen with distinction. He spotted the elder Miss Jameson (daughter of the chairman of the electricity committee) and asked to be introduced; he danced three times with her with great success.

She was rather small, distinctly pretty, of the doll type; with innocent, wide-open, blue eyes, and a perfect little mouth. She was a good talker in a slightly affected juvenile sort of way; her brain, however, was more active than it appeared; she had a lively sense of precisely what was best for Miss Jameson. Darwen was a good talker too, so they rattled on brightly and humorously from one subject to another. She had a fine sense of humour, which he appreciated immensely. He brought the subject round to the electricity works.

"I'm assisting the corporation on its way to bankruptcy," he remarked, laughing lightly.

"How?" she enquired, and he observed by the solid interest in her eye that she had swallowed the bait.

"Oh! I'm not doing it maliciously, of course, only following my instructions, which are, to waste coal."

He laughed again. "I'm not giving it away to the poor, or anything of that sort, you know. But we're very, very safe here, safe from possible failure as far as steam goes, and the price we pay for our safety is high, excessive, it seems to me, in the matter of coal."

"I don't know! Life is run on sporting chances, you know. It's the ultra-cautious man who makes a mess of things and dies young."

"Just nothing at all. Father and Mr Jones were explaining one against the other. I don't think either of them knew much about it."

"So I've heard. Would you care to come round again under—h'm—more competent guidance?"

She laughed lightly and fixed him at once. "Thanks, very much, I will, and I shall bring a friend, an awfully clever girl, a B.Sc. She's interested in these sort of things, and mother."

On their way home after it was all over, Darwen said to Carstairs, "Truly, fortune favours the bold. Do you remember that passage of old Nick's about fortune and women, that they both favoured the young? Youth is simply a matter of indiscretions; many old fools of sixty ought to be wheeled round in perambulators."

Carstairs paused to light a cigarette, his face illuminated by the fitful flare of the match, was pre-occupied, absent. "From which I conclude," he observed between the puffs, "that you have been indiscreet."

"Not indiscreet, simply bold, and you, you seem to have something on your mind."

"Ye—es! It's being borne in upon me very forcibly that there is no girl that I have met yet to compare in face or form or intelligence, that is to say, my idea of intelligence, with a certain gipsy maiden in Scotland, or at least, Chilcombe."

Darwen's eyes gleamed—the thrill of the waltz, the excitement of the evening, was in his blood. "Damme! I must see this girl. I observe that in many things our tastes agree, perhaps I may be able to relieve you of her."

"No! By Jove! you won't!" Carstairs faced round abruptly and looked him in the eyes.

They looked at each other for some moments, then Darwen smiled. "By Jove, Carstairs, you are badly hit."

"Well, perhaps I am. But, you know, none of those girls to-night gave me an impression of genuineness; artificial and superficial, stereotyped, unoriginal, like the pawns on a chess-board, only capable of moving (intellectually) in one direction; they all held precisely the same views on precisely the same subjects, and they had absolutely no reasons for holding them, and yet they are so superlative."

"So was the kid. Seventeen, I think she said. Yet she gave me the impression of having thought about things."

"It suggests lager beer and sausage, many generations of 'em. Flat, ponderous, indigestible. I prefer champagne, and—er—some of those French dishes, you know."

"Well! damn you for a Saxon, I don't either, but I've heard of 'em. You ought to have said you knew! Don't you see how you prick the effervescing bubbles of conversation?"

"Alright. England was built with the sledge hammer. I admit that I'm naturally a slogger."

"Not a bit, I prefer the twelve-inch gun. Which brings me naturally to Bounce. Do you admire Bounce?"

"Then I can explain. Bounce bears the same relation to the other men that the gipsy kid bears to other girls."

They let themselves into their diggings, and Darwen sat down in an easy chair, and whistling softly to himself one of the tunes he had just been dancing to, he gazed absently in front of him, but there was a happy light in his eyes; he stopped whistling suddenly and addressed Carstairs, who was mixing himself a whiskey and soda.

"Do you know I have an idea that our respected chief will not be with us much longer?"

"No, you have no comprehension whatever of the rapier, or perhaps we should say the stiletto, or the back stairs."

"Robinson will go first, I'm afraid." There was a touch of real sorrow in Darwen's voice.

"Well, I shall have a shot for it, of course. How would you like Robinson's job?"

"Precisely. 'For a time.' I don't imagine that either of us will petrify here." Darwen's eyes had a strangely humorous glitter, he arose and stretched his arms above his head and yawned. "Good-night, old chap!"

A few days later Darwen showed Mrs and Miss Jameson and their clever friend (who was also exceedingly plain, such is the balance of nature) round the works. Carstairs was on shift. His coat was off, his hands grimy. Darwen introduced him, the old lady and the clever girl took possession of him. The clever girl catechised and examined Carstairs like a police court lawyer. The old lady listened with dignity and entire mental oblivion.

While the clever girl was asking Carstairs for precise chemical information as to the residual scale left in the boiler, Darwen was explaining in an obscure corner of the works that that collection of big tanks was a water softener, where there were great big hammers going round to crack up the lumps in the water.

Carstairs and the clever girl argued about "ides" and "ates." Darwen and the pretty girl laughed and joked and made ribald remarks in the face of dignified 1000 H.P. engines.

A week later the second of the little dances came off. Carstairs took it seriously, and Darwen lightly. One of the dear old ladies who acted as chaperone this time was Mrs Jameson. Darwen was most attentive. He fetched her wraps when she got cold, and saw that she had a liberal supply of the best refreshments going. He was asked to call on Sunday.

He did so. The old doctor and he discussed the electricity works. "The place ought to pay, you know," Darwen said, and the doctor shook his head.

Then a big dance came off, and Darwen sent Miss Jameson a spray of flowers, white roses. He was a regular caller at the house now.

It was well into December and the mayor was holding a huge reception at the Town Hall, when the electric light failed and could not be got on again. Darwen was on shift. The entire switchboard was burnt down. The mayor in his robes and the other councillors in evening dress, descended in anger upon the works, which were not far from the Town Hall. The chief was away, but Robinson was sent for in a cab. He came, he saw, and remained helpless and useless.

Darwen was very cool and very civil, but the councillors did not bully him, he stood inches taller than any one of them, and there was a sort of snaky glitter in his eye; he did not seem the sort of man to be bullied. It was obvious he was master of the situation, the massive-looking Robinson was in a pitiable state of collapse.

Next day in answer to a wire the chief returned. The gods (which is the press) called for a human sacrifice. The local influence of Robinson was big, but the chairman seemed unaccountably heavy in favour of Darwen; then the mayor and several aldermen had seen that Darwen knew his work, while apparently Robinson did not. The chief sacked Robinson, and Darwen, as next in seniority, was promoted in his stead.

All this time Carstairs had pursued the even tenor of his way undisturbed. He grew more silent and thoughtful than ever; of Darwen he saw very little, except when they met at the works, or at dances, which Carstairs still consistently attended. There was a light of triumph continually in Darwen's eyes; he seemed very happy over his engagement. After he was made chief assistant he and Carstairs saw more of each other at the works; they spent long hours in consultation about the work, a common bond seemed to be drawing them even closer together. One day Carstairs remarked, "I'm going home for a week end next week. Would you and Miss Jameson care to come with me?"

On the Saturday afternoon the three of them set out for Chilcombe. When they arrived there was quite a house party. Stephen, Jack's artist brother, was at home, and Commander John Carstairs and the Bevengtons were invited to spend Sunday. As the five big men sat smoking after dinner, the old vicar repeated his congratulations to Darwen. "I hope Jack will be as lucky," he observed. "Hasn't he shown any decided preference at any of those dances yet?"

"Why! the girl he pulled out of the river, of course. You can't get out of that, Jack."

"No. I don't think the subject ever arose, did it?" Jack puffed solemnly at his pipe.

"There's no need to talk about it, it's a settled thing, eh, Jack?" the sailor would not be denied his chaff.

They looked expectantly at him, but he continued to puff away in silence, there was just a suspicion of a twinkle in his eye.

"That's alright, Jack; I'll see that you're not disturbed," Commander Carstairs said boisterously.

"Jack'll have to make up his mind soon then; she's a catch in the marriage market now. Her uncle left her ten thousand pounds the other day."

"Ten thousand pounds! Why, that would cover a multitude of sins," Darwen observed.

The Reverend Hugh smiled. "Oh, but I'm sure she doesn't want any gilding. She's a very nice girl and good looking."

The budding artist opened his mouth languidly, he was going to speak. They paused to listen, it seemed that he had something weighty to say. "She's—ah!—somewhat obese, don't you know." They laughed. This young man had been budding for a very long time, but as yet he had produced no appreciable flower. Cheltenham and Oxford had made him a finished gentleman, but not apparently able to earn his own living. He was a taller edition of Jack, rather better looking, but he lacked the steadiness of eye and firmness of mouth. "If I had ten thousand pounds I'd go to Paris and settle down."

"Jack and I are working out a patent in the corporation's time." Darwen looked at the Reverend Hugh with bright, hopeful eyes.

"Is that the——" Darwen paused, but Carstairs said no word, so he proceeded. "The thing you're working out on the night shift?"

"Finished!" Darwen's eyes grew abnormally large and bright. "Have you patented it?"

"Going to make more than ten thousand out of it, Jack?" The sailor had been watching Darwen intently.

Next day the Bevengtons came back from church with them, and spent the entire day at the Vicarage. They were a jolly party. Darwen, as usual, was the life and soul of it. He was very attentive to Miss Jameson, but he often caught Bessie Bevengton's eye. Jack and she were never left alone, they exchanged common-places and chaff.

"Oh, Jack!" she said, and she seemed to watch him closely. "You know that handsome housemaid at Lady Cleeve's?"

"Well, a little while ago she horsewhipped the footman; he offended her somehow. They say she's stronger than a good many men."

"Bully for the girl," and there was a thrill of admiration in his voice that was apparent to all.

There was an awkward pause in the conversation, then Jack spoke again. "Do you remember a man called Bounce sailing with you, uncle? A sailor, an A.B., a boxer."

"Ah! Yes! I remember. Bull-dog Bounce, they called him; he had half a dozen other nicknames, too. I remember one night hearing a voice on the lower deck, 'Halgernon Hedward, I shall tell your ma'ma of you.' He was a splendid fellow, great pity he left the Service."

"A pity, a great pity! He dived overboard once in the Indian Ocean, swarming with sharks, to get his straw hat which had dropped over. I had to reprimand him for quitting the ship without leave."

On the following Monday as they went back together, Miss Jameson said, "What an exceedingly nice girl Miss Bevengton is."

Jack answered "yes," so that when they were alone together, his fiancée told Darwen that Carstairs was not in love with Bessie Bevengton.

Meanwhile things at the electricity works had progressed, there had been another failure of the supply. All the churches in the town were in darkness on Sunday night, and a steam pipe had burst and scalded a man to death. The papers were frantic. Some demanded a complete review of the staff of the electricity works, others suggested that the chief be asked to resign. All agreed that something would have to be done.

The committee sat in solemn conclave. "Who shall we sacrifice?" they asked, and the heavy weight of Dr Jameson made it the chief. He pointed out that during the short time Darwen had been chief assistant, the coal costs had gone down enormously, and he was in a position to say that still further sweeping reductions could be made if that brilliant young engineer were allowed a free hand. Dr Jameson was known as the strong man of the council; he usually had things his way, and he did so now.

So Mr Jones was asked to resign, and Mr Darwen promoted in his stead at a salary of £350 per annum. Jones had had £500, but this was only to commence. It was probable, the doctor said, that if he made it pay, he would have no difficulty in getting £750 in time.

Darwen smiled happily. "Not very long I expect. I'm giving up these diggings, though, of course. The mater is coming over to live with me," he said.

CHAPTER XII

For the next month Carstairs saw little of Darwen except at the works; he was busy with his mother, getting a house and supervising the moving. At the works they talked simply "shop." Carstairs was absolutely lost to everything except engines, boilers, dynamos, etc. For twelve hours a day he was at the works planning, improving, overhauling.

"We'll mop off that £1000 debt, and show a profit in the first year," he announced to Darwen enthusiastically.

"Yes," Darwen agreed, and his marvellous eyes shone with an even greater enthusiasm. "We'll show 'em how to run things on this job, eh?"

In three months they knocked £1000 off the coal bill, in spite of the strenuous opposition of certain members of the council.

"Rummy things, those chaps making such a row about our getting different coal and weighing it ourselves, isn't it?" Carstairs asked.

Darwen smiled. "The application of a little oil," he observed, "but they've got up against the wrong men this time, eh? We have the doctor solid behind us, too."

A sudden light seemed to break in upon Carstairs. "Oh!" he said, almost in horror. He was honest to the core, every fibre in his body vibrated in disgust at such treacherous roguery laid bare under his very eyes, as it were.

"Ah, quite so!" Darwen was thoughtful, he knew that Carstairs was a particularly keen observer.

They reconstructed switchboards and overhauled engines. They tested and calibrated all the consumers' meters; some had been paying for juice they had never used; others, and the great majority, had been using current far in excess of that for which they paid. Carstairs found a meter in a councillor greengrocer's shop that must have been entirely stopped for months.

The genial representative of the people descended into his cellar and watched the new meter being installed. "Are you going to make my bill lighter, Mr Carstairs?" he asked, with an anticipatory smile.

Carstairs looked at him calmly, searchingly. "Just as you like, of course, Mr Green. We can't afford to give the juice away, you know."

"You can't afford! What do you mean? That's not the way to talk to consumers. I'm afraid you don't know your business, Mr Carstairs."

"Very well, I shall bring the matter up at the next committee. Things are going from bad to worse."

"I think not! However, I hope you'll do everything possible to satisfy yourself on that point Mr Green." Carstairs spoke very slowly and very quietly, it was a way he had when his anger was rising.

"That man," Darwen observed, when Carstairs told the story, "is a little rogue. It never pays to be little in anything. It's a sign of intellectual incompetence, lack of courage and general feebleness. I'm glad you told me; we'll have this out in committee. I'll break that man just to encourage the others, eh?" There was a glitter in his eye that Carstairs could not quite understand. Carstairs' brain was somewhat heavy and ponderous, but once on the move in any direction, it rolled onwards with an irresistible sweep; he was a ruthless searcher after truth according to his light. Darwen himself had set the wonderful mechanism of his brain moving in the direction of suspicion, he now began almost unconsciously to suspect his friend.

At the next committee meeting Darwen awaited the attack of Mr Green in smiling affability, but it never came. The little rogue had thought better of it. However, Darwen was not to be baulked. Producing a number of bills, consumers' meter reading, calculations of probable consumption, etc., he attacked Mr Green. The little man arose in his wrath, lost his head and shouted. Darwen smiled and smiled, and played with him, as a cat plays with a mouse; then he squashed him with overwhelming evidence and demanded an apology for personalities. The little man gave in, he almost wept; Darwen was so big, so suave, so very acute, so merciless and so cool; it almost broke his heart; he got up, a shattered, nerveless wreck, and left the room.

"Now, gentlemen, I think we may proceed to business." The talons were sheathed, he was so genial, so pleasant, that it was scarcely possible to grasp the fact that this was the same man who had just crumpled up the little greengrocer like an empty paper bag. Many of the other councillors shifted uneasily in their seats and fear gnawed at their hearts; they cast shifty, uneasy glances at the young handsome engineer. What was this awful thing they had raised up in their midst? Even the massive, grand old doctor at the head of the table was subdued; he gazed straight at Darwen in solemn thought; perhaps he was wondering whether this was, after all, the sort of man he ought to entrust his daughter's happiness to.

That evening the proceedings in the committee room were reported verbatim in the local papers, and more than that, some of the London papers had a short pithy paragraph exaggerating the event. Of course there was nothing for it, the little councillor had to resign.

Darwen's mother had taken a nice house, small, but in a good part of the town, and the day after the eventful committee meeting, Carstairs went there to dinner. The rooms were tastefully furnished. Carstairs commented to himself that the feminine eye and hand were apparent everywhere; he went in with Darwen, and, as he was left in the drawing-room alone for a few minutes while Darwen went to look for his mother, he looked round at the water colour paintings on the walls, the cabinet of old china, the frequent ornaments, statuettes, bronze and marble: he felt somehow that it had a Frenchy tone; at any rate, was unlike any other room he had ever been in; it was the sort of thing he felt that his brother Stephen, the artist, would admire. Darwen's mother he imagined as tall, artistic, graceful (bearing in mind Darwen's face and form), beautiful and brilliant. The poets, that he remembered in their diggings, were scattered over the table; he noted that the bindings of all were beautiful and expensive, too. "The Prince" was not among them.

Carstairs stood up and held out his hand. His face showed no emotion whatever, but in his brain was deepest wonder. The woman who stood before him, the mother of that graceful, accomplished son, the designer of these rooms, was almost short and very broad, full chested, broad hipped, her hair was light brown and very luxuriant. But the face—probably at one time it had been handsome in a masculine sort of way, now—the skin was of an exceedingly coarse texture, lined with innumerable small wrinkles and of a uniform weather-beaten red; the eyes were bloodshot, clouded; the eyes of a drunkard, or at least a heavy drinker.

The manner was distinctly "loud," and looking at the speaker, the voice seemed to lose half its charm.

The clouded eyes seemed to light up with a flash of pleasure. "Charlie does all this. I haven't got any taste in these things." Carstairs was more astonished than ever, but he made a remark which occurred to him as suitable, then they drifted into generalities. She asked Carstairs about his home. "I know that part fairly well," she explained. "I've hunted over a good bit of it."

Mrs Darwen laughed, rather a coarse laugh. "That is to say, I followed the hounds, while Charlie was at school at Clifton. I used to have a day out occasionally, just to remind me of old times." She sighed deeply. "I was brought up in the Quorn district, you know."

"Round there. That was where I met Charlie's father. Poor dear Tom, he wasn't much of a horseman."

"Did you? I suppose you would." She looked him over with approving eyes, somewhat, he felt, as a groom looks over a nice horse; and there was no doubt Carstairs was a very fine animal.

A gong sounded in the hall, and Mrs Darwen rose. "That's dinner," she said, "come on in."

She led the way and Carstairs followed, lost in wonder, as he contemplated a rear view of her squat, ungainly figure. At dinner she drank a stiff glass of whisky and soda. Carstairs carefully avoided looking at it; he knew Darwen was watching him closely. Both the young men were rather silent, but the old lady rattled away.

"Do you play football—rugby? Yes, you would of course! Charlie's a splendid player. I used to turn out and watch him, stood about in the damp grass and got the rheumatism thoroughly into my old bones," she laughed again, a louder, coarser laugh.

"Not so very old, I expect, Mrs Darwen," Carstairs was trying his 'prentice hand at a compliment.

She laughed aloud. "Ha, ha! Charlie'd do better than that, he can pay compliments like his father. Ah! his father was a rare hand at that game, or any other game. So's Charlie, he's a thorough sportsman. 'Always go straight, boy,' that's what I taught, 'over hedges and ditches, straight ahead.'" She gesticulated with her arms.

Carstairs felt rather embarrassed. Darwen was unusually silent, but his mother talked away and laughed and joked. After dinner they smoked a cigar apiece and Darwen seemed to wake up, but still he was serious. "From your description, mater, I imagine the guv'nor was something like Carstairs here."

"But dark, I suppose?" Carstairs asked, looking at Darwen's almost swarthy complexion.

Perhaps it was in answer to Carstairs' puzzled look, or perhaps just as the wayward fit took her. Anyhow, she volunteered an explanation.

"The Darwens were French," she said, "a good French family—Huguenots. They came to England about six generations ago. They were fair, but there was once an inter-marriage with a noble Florentine lady, and ever since then there have been occasional dark Darwens. Charlie is one." She threw back her head. There was much pride and something of defiance in her tone.

"No, that's true." Darwen was very silent for some minutes, and Carstairs could find nothing to say. "Then it's possible that I may have some of the blood of Old Nick in me." It was said quite seriously.

Mrs Darwen burst into a harsh scream of charwoman laughter. "My boy, you've got a touch of the devil in you right enough."

"Oh, mater! He was an exceedingly clever Italian. He stripped the common facts of human existence of their halo of sentiment and showed things as they are; here in England we suffer from the despotic sway of a fetish called 'fair play.'"

"There you are! Look at that!" Darwen pointed excitedly at Carstairs. "Behold the Saxon, yellow-haired, blue-eyed, clasping his gilded idol frantically to his bosom."

"He's not yellow-haired and he's not blue-eyed, and he's clasping his own big biceps across his bosom," Mrs Darwen observed laughing.

Darwen shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "I'm in a strange country, I cannot comprehend. 'Don't hit a man when he's down,' you say. Why! that's the only time you've got a chance to really punish him. Oh, the fearful and wonderful Saxon brain!" He stood up, and stretching both arms above his head, gazed upwards at the ceiling. "Surely, surely, the Saxon is the devil personified. The Lord, the great Lord Nature, has endowed the Saxon with mighty biceps and a head of surpassing density. The yellow-haired son of darkness has spread himself over the globe. 'I cannot think: thou shalt not think,' has been his maxim and his passport, and, because of the magnitude of his biceps and the paucity of his ideas, he has cramped the intellect of the world. With his biceps the Lord endowed the Saxon with one idea, one commandment, 'Thou shalt not yield.' And the races of mankind, the multitudes of humanity, have spent themselves in vain endeavours to combat this idea. He has driven the Red man from America, the Black man from Australia. He stole the very country he lives in from a more intellectual, more civilized, and more refined race. Not once but many times has he been beaten, well beaten and rightfully beaten, but he could not see it." Darwen let his arms drop listlessly to his sides. "The Saxon has broken the heart of the world."

His mother went over to him and put her hand affectionately on his shoulder; she seemed rather concerned. "My boy! You were always a sportsman, always clean; many's the time I turned out in the rain on the wet grass, in the wind or the frost to watch you play, and you were always straight, always clean; I knew the game and I watched you."

He looked into his mother's eyes. "I was, mater, always straight, never cheated."

She looked proud and happy. "I know, I know!" she said. "You got that from me, from my side, your grandfather was a splendid sportsman. He rode right across country, straight as the crow flies, over hedges and ditches and walls, always straight, quite straight."

"Yes," he agreed, "that's how I played, always straight. But I never, for the life of me, could see why."

She shook her head. "Because it's not right, you wouldn't feel the same if you won by cheating."

"You're the best mater in all the world." He smiled at her affectionately. "But you have the intellectual limitation of the Saxon; history teaches me that it's useless to argue with you."

Carstairs had been sitting still, staring straight ahead; he arose and looked at his watch. "I'm afraid I must be going. I want to get out those figures——"

"Nonsense, my dear chap," Darwen took him by the arm. "Come on into the other room, and I'll play you a tune."

"You and the mater," Darwen remarked, as they made their way into the other room, "ought to get on as thick as thieves, you're both so very Saxon."

Carstairs laughed. "In the light of your recent little oration, I'm sure we're both highly flattered," he said.

On his way home late that night, Carstairs was very thoughtful. "So Darwen was right, there was a touch of the Dago in him; the subtle Italian diplomatist, crossed with the dashing English-French sportsman, a strange mixture." He pondered deeply.

Next morning on his way to the works, a policeman, an acquaintance made in the dark days of his shift engineering career, stopped him. "Have you heard the news, sir?"

"Last night? Why I was there up till half-past eleven. Did they get away with much?"

Policeman X19 smiled. "More than they wanted, sir. Mr Darwen heard a noise and come down with a bull's-eye lantern and a revolver. They fired almost together; 'e hit Mr Darwen in the arm, and Mr Darwen plugged 'im through the chest. Our men's on his track, now."

"Good Lord, I must go along and see him." Carstairs turned off towards Darwen's house. As he went up the garden path, he passed a rather pretty girl, neatly dressed, going out. He raised his hat and also his eyebrows at the same time.

She stopped and blushed slightly. "Oh, Mr Carstairs, I heard Mr Darwen was shot and came round to inquire if it was serious."

He found Darwen having breakfast with his mother. His left arm was bound up, but he seemed jubilant and happy. His mother also seemed the same. "It was most exciting. Something woke me up just about two o'clock. Don't know what it was, but while I lay awake I thought I heard somebody, the noise was very slight. Anyhow I went down to see, accompanied by a bull's-eye lantern, which I'd only bought the day before, and a small bore revolver. I located the disturber just coming out of the drawing-room, I was on the stairs. I hadn't made a sound, but he had a revolver in his hand, and as soon as he saw the light he let fly."

"I heard two shots, one just after the other, nearly frightened me out of my life—" Mrs Darwen took up the tale. "The brute tried to kill him, and now he won't prosecute him. You remember the way he was talking about fair play last night, Mr Carstairs."

Darwen smiled apologetically. "The poor devil has had enough, though it's not a very serious wound. I tied him up, gave him some brandy and a pipe of tobacco. He's a unique specimen, born in the woods, and bred at sea, on sailing ships; hardly civilized, but quite a decent chap, very susceptible to music; only he's deficient in moral sensibilities. Like me." He looked at his mother and laughed.

She looked triumphantly at Carstairs. "And he won't give him up to the police. He's upstairs in Charlie's bed, and he wants me to nurse him and keep it dark. What do you think of it, Mr Carstairs?"

Darwen pushed back his chair and stood up. "I'll come down to the works with you," he said. He got his hat and they went out together.

"By the way," Carstairs remarked as the front door banged behind them, "I met my landlady's daughter as I came in."

"That's so. I think Mrs Hughes took quite a motherly interest in you. The grub's not half as good since you left."

"Is that so? I used to give the girl a little instruction on the piano occasionally you know, perhaps that made the difference."

"No-o. It was only occasionally you know, when you were out, and there was nothing else to do. She's rather an intelligent girl."

They arrived at the works. Carstairs was proceeding to his own office, but Darwen stopped him. "Come into my room for a minute and have a chat." They sat down in the comfortable, almost luxurious office.

"Who do you think that burglar was?" Darwen looked at Carstairs with a humorous light flickering round his big brown eyes.

A heavy frown gathered on Carstairs' brow. "How's that? Did he make a mistake? Was it me he was after, or——"

Darwen did not answer for a minute; he watched Carstairs' face thoughtfully, he seemed to be speculating on something. "No," he said, at length. "He made no mistake, not a single one; for a man who can neither read nor write he's very intelligent, but the fates were against him. Do you believe in Fate?" Darwen had a way of digressing at critical points which always jarred on the mathematically direct mind of Carstairs.

"My dear chap! you can't. I say he made no mistakes. He came there to kill, to kill me, and he'd have done it, but I happened to be awake and I fancied I heard a noise. It was pure fancy, mind, because he was in his bare feet, and silent as a mouse. It was so much fancy, in fact, that I lay in bed debating with myself whether I should go down. I reasoned thus: Everything is quite still, but it may have been a noise that woke me. I am awake, why should I not go down? If I go down to look for burglars, I ought to be prepared to receive them, therefore I will take a loaded revolver and my nice new bull's-eye lantern. Do you know I felt quite a childish pleasure in lighting up that new bull's-eye lantern."

"Yes. I told him I had a pretty good idea of the plot. The Irishman had given it away, I said."

Darwen smiled. "That's precisely what I wanted to know. There are on the electricity committee, three Irishmen, two Welshmen, four Englishmen, and one Scotsman."

"Right in once." Darwen's eyes sparkled. "You know a devilish lot about machinery, but I admit I thought you were rather a fool as far as men were concerned."

Darwen laughed. "When we had that unpleasant incident in the committee the other day, I watched 'em all, carefully, as I made my points. When Green called me a rogue and a liar, I watched 'em all. They didn't seem to think it a very grave charge. But when I answered him, when I said, 'You've called me a rogue and a liar, Mr Green, but I think you'll find if you carefully analyse your feelings on the matter, that it's my honesty and not my roguery, that annoys you. I'm sorry I can't see things as you do, Mr Green, but I'm a sportsman, and anything that appears to me unfair, or that I can't fully grasp, I invariably expose to the daylight, and turn and twist it till I can understand it, or till I let daylight into it. That's my method, Mr Green, and I may assure you that it is as unalterable as the laws of the Medes and Persians.'"

"How's that for eloquence? We used to run a sort of parliament at school, rather good practice, you know." Darwen laughed lightly.

"So they all agreed, and Mr Pat Donovan (publican and bookmaker) made a most vehement speech in support of it. But when I was making it, and several other little points, I observed that the majority of them looked a sort of pea-green colour. Have you ever been sea-sick?"

"Then you'll appreciate how they felt. They wanted to get out and walk but they couldn't, and the way Donovan and M'Carthy rubbed it into poor old Green was astonishing. The Irish are really a wonderful people. I summed it up that there were two honest men in all that committee; one was Dr Jameson at the head of the table, and the other was Mr John Brown, navvy, at the foot of the table. I observed them with the greatest possible interest; the study of mankind is all-enthralling. Those representatives of the several parts of these tiny little islands were as distinct as possible; the Irish, loud and violent; the Welshmen, quiet and sly; the Englishmen, two of them justly indignant, and two just a trifle uneasy; the Scotsman, like an owl, very wise. Now I'll bet if there were a public inquiry on those men, the two Englishmen who have made perhaps £20 each, would come off worst. The Irishmen, who have made perhaps £50 or £60 per annum, would be next. The Welshmen, who have made about the same, would be let off lightly. The two honest Englishmen would have a stain on their characters till their dying day, and the Scotsman, who has probably been making a steady £500 per annum, would leave the court without a stain on his character. People would cheer wildly in the streets, and frantic fools would rush forward to shake him by the hand—then he'd reluctantly accept a modest salary of £200 per week to show himself on the music-hall stage, and send a few simple manly letters to the papers acknowledging the receipt of a large public subscription to keep his old mother (who'd been dead years) out of the workhouse."

Carstairs laughed. "You seem down on the Scotch. Personally I liked them when I lived there."

"My dear chap, Scotsmen in Scotland and Scotsmen in England are two different things. Besides, I'm not down on them a bit. The Scotch are a supremely intellectual race, they are eminently gilt-edged. I knew that the Scotsman would never attack me, he'd rely on other people doing that. The Englishmen, hampered by their ingrained ideas of fair play, would have sent anonymous letters, warning me to be careful. The Welshmen would be very cautious. Only the Irishmen would act so promptly. This, of course, is only the opening of the ball. I'm going to stir up this hornet's nest properly, the place simply stinks of roguery, and I want your help. You'll stand by me, old chap?"

Darwen held out his hand, he looked at Carstairs with great admiration. "You're a pure Englishman, Carstairs, and I honestly believe the Englishman is the salt of the earth; he's a bit slow in the top story, but he's hard and fit, and he's a pal all the time, which I think is the real keynote of why he owns such a large section of the earth."

A tall, heavy-shouldered, large-headed man with a short nose and a long, clean-shaven upper lip, red-haired, and with a slight squint, rushed enthusiastically up to Darwen and shook him by the hand. "It's right pleased I am to see ye looking so well and fit after the dastardly outrage on ye last night, Mr Darwen."

Darwen smiled cordially, and returned his grasp warmly. "It's very kind of you, Mr Donovan, but it's the sort of thing that's only likely to occur once in a lifetime, thank God."

"Oh, yes, yes. Shure, an' such a thing cud niver happen again in a civilized town like Southville. I'm just off to call a special meeting of the police committee this minute, Mr Darwen."

"Ah! that's like you, Mr Donovan! So energetic. There's no fear of their going to sleep while you're on the council. I'm just off to Dr Jameson myself."

Carstairs watched them for a minute as they stood hand in hand, smiling compliments into each other's faces, then he opened the door quietly and went out into the engine room. He looked round on his smoothly-running, even-turning friends; he had been wont to remark that the applied logic of a running steam engine was the thing that appealed to him most, but now—

CHAPTER XIII

For a month things went on quite smoothly. The police, although spurred to strenuous efforts by the glib tongue of Pat Donovan, J.P., absolutely failed to discover any trace of Darwen's assailant. Something seemed to be on the mind of Mr Donovan too, but Darwen still smiled. "I'm taking that man into my service when he's able to get about again, he's going to take on the job of gardener, etc."

"He won't know. That's what's worrying him now, he can't make out what has become of his man. Mr Donovan will move again shortly. The Irishman can never wait."

They were carrying out extensions at the works, adding a wing to the engine room, and one day, a few weeks later, Carstairs and Darwen were standing in the new part, just underneath some scaffolding where some men were working under the roof; they were discussing an important point, but Carstairs noticed that Darwen seemed a trifle absent-minded. He kept looking away, up at the men working. Suddenly, without any warning, he pulled Carstairs aside, next moment a heavy iron bar crashed down on the concrete at their feet, just as a man's voice sang out, "Look out below."

"Our friend above there was a little late in warning us," Darwen observed. There was a sort of pleased light in his eye, he seemed strangely buoyant. "He's drunk," he continued, "I've been watching him, he's a new man, on to-day. I'll go up and tell the foreman to send him home." He walked over to the ladder, then he stopped, and picking up the iron bar stood it carefully upright in a bolt hole. "You might go into my office and get those papers, will you? I'll be with you in a minute," he said over his shoulder as he mounted the ladder.

There were three or four men on the scaffold, all working with their faces to the wall, only one man was out further than the rest. Darwen walked along the planking, balancing easily and gracefully; the men bustled ahead with their work as they saw him coming. He stopped at the man who was furthest out, the man who had dropped the bar.

The man looked up with a piteous appeal. He was a sickly white and as sober as a judge, he trembled in every limb.

Darwen watched him in silence for some minutes as his quivering lips moved inarticulately. He was a tough-looking citizen with a low, unintelligent forehead, and strong, brutal jaw; his imagination was so dull that cruelty had to be brought very near home before his sluggish mind began to move. A sort of instinct, apparently, seemed to warn him that he was in danger; he seemed fascinated by Darwen's eyes, he gazed hopelessly and fixedly into them. He made a movement to edge away.

Darwen was gripping a tie rod over his head and standing very close to the man, who was sitting on the plank. He glanced round, no one was looking. "Fortune favours the bold," he said. Next minute his foot shot out, and the man was off the plank.

Darwen shouted for help and clung to his tie rod with both hands. "That man's killed," he said. "He was drunk. He'd got no business to be on a scaffolding in that condition. Where's the foreman?"

They went below. A little crowd gathered and looked at the man; he was quite still, his head had struck the iron bar and his brains were scattered over the new concrete engine bed.

Carstairs stood by in solemn silence, looking at the thing which had been a man. "That's the chap that dropped the bar, isn't it?" he asked, at length.

"Yes!" Darwen answered. "He was helplessly drunk. Where's the foreman?" he looked round.

"Why did you allow that man to go up there when you saw he was drunk?" Darwen was very stern, his eyes seemed to look through the man.

"Only this morning, sir. He came down with a note from Councillor Donovan asking to give him a start."

"Ah! well, I suppose you can't be responsible for every strapper that you have to put on."

Two of his mates reverently covered the remains with an engine cloth, and Darwen and Carstairs went away together. Carstairs was very thoughtful.

"Very. I say old chap, come on home and spend the evening with me, will you? The girl's away, and I know the mater will be pleased to see you."

"Dash it, Carstairs, it's time you did. Why don't you get engaged, give you something to do in your evenings."

"Yes, I know, there's that girl over at your place. She struck me as being a particularly nice girl."

"That's only the beginning, she's so very fit, and so full of pluck. You see, if I have any kids I want 'em to be sportsmen, to play rugger and that sort of thing."

"By Jove, you're right!" Darwen was very thoughtful for some minutes. "Yes," he said at length. "I keep myself fit because the mater brought me up that way, and fitness means so much."

"To a station man it usually means all the difference between success and failure; you remember how that shock I got upset me, for some time Thompson thought I was no good." Carstairs was thinking that if it had not been for that shock their positions at that moment might have been reversed.

"That is so, particularly if he's got a crowd like Donovan and Co. to deal with. Do you know, honestly I never in all my life experienced such a thrill of exquisite pleasure as when I exchanged pistol shots with that poor devil on the stairs that night; that's fitness, you know, simply fitness. I'm in the pink of condition." His eyes sparkled like living jewels.

"Come on in," he said, "and let's have a turn with the gloves. I've never had a turn with you."

So they went inside. The place was empty, so they had it to themselves; they changed and donned boxing gloves. They looked a superb pair of men as they stood up facing each other, in long flannel trousers and singlets; Carstairs was a trifle shorter and a trifle heavier; neither of them was an inch under six feet. For half an hour they boxed, hitting fast and furious, and although Carstairs was as quick as a panther, Darwen was quicker, and had distinctly the best of the bout.

"By Jove, old chap! You do put 'em in," he observed, as Carstairs landed a heavy right hander.

"Yours are fairly hefty, too," Carstairs answered, as Darwen knocked him against the wall.

Then they had a cold shower, dressed, and went back to Darwen's home, feeling at peace with all the world, forgetting Councillor Donovan and the dead man in the engine-room and all other troubles.

Darwen let himself in and took Carstairs into the drawing-room. "Sit down in that big chair, old chap, and I'll play you a tune. The mater'll soon come in when she hears the music."

Carstairs threw himself back in the deep padded chair with a sigh of content. "I envy not in any mood," he started and stopped. "Where's that from, Darwen?"

"Yes, that's it. I remember. I picked it up one day in the digs and that caught my eye. It goes on to say something else about noble rage and linnets, or something, but what I 'envy not' is the man who's never been tired."

"I agree with you. Being tired, with the pleasant contemplation of work well done and sitting in a comfortable chair, is heaven."

"Precisely. And you never get tired, really, pleasantly tired, unless you're fit. The man who's not fit, doesn't appreciate comfort or discomfort, he's only half alive."

"That is so. I think this is your favourite." Darwen commenced to play, lightly and slowly.

"Well, they're jolly good." He lay far back in the chair and spread his legs wide in front of him, his thoughts wandered pleasantly under the slow stimulation of the music. Darwen himself seemed to revel in it too, they were silent for some time; when the door opened and Mrs Darwen came in. Carstairs, sitting motionless in the chair, turned his head at the sound, and then suddenly sprang up.

"Ah! why did you do that? I wouldn't have disturbed you for worlds." She held out her hand. "How are you?"

"I could see that from the way you were sitting, men only sit quite still like that when they've had a good day at something. When Charlie used to come home—why, what have you been doing?" she looked closely at one of his eyes.

"He's knocked my mouth all side ways, too, mater!" Darwen said over his shoulder.

Mrs Darwen laughed. "What would the councillors think if they saw you two knocking each other about like that?"

"The councillors, dear mater, are beneath contempt. Let's talk about something pleasant. I've been urging Carstairs to get married."

"Well, you marry the girl you're in love with, Mr Carstairs, and don't take any notice of anybody."

"What do you mean by impossible? I don't believe in impossibility. If you're in love with the girl and she's in love with you, marry her, Mr Carstairs, and snap your fingers at everybody. It's better for you and for the girl and for everybody concerned. I hate those busy bodies who talk about 'impossible marriages.'" She seemed strangely excited.

Carstairs looked steadily into her excited, inflamed eyes. "I agree with you entirely, Mrs Darwen. The girl I'm in love with is a gipsy. She's a servant in a big house near my home."

"A servant?" Mrs Darwen seemed in doubt for a moment. Then the look of resolution again hardened in her eyes. "It doesn't matter what she is. Are you really in love?"

"Ah! I see you're not. Once in love, always in love. Very few people really fall in love. They haven't got it in them. It's a matter of pluck. You've got it in you. When you're in love, you'll know it, and so will the girl, or I'm very much mistaken." She looked at Carstairs' steady eyes and firm mouth with a sort of motherly admiration.

"I have not seen her since, except once, through the window, and—well, it was very bad indeed for some time after that."

"Ah, Mr Carstairs, you're badly hit." She leaned towards him in an affectionate, motherly manner. "You're badly hit," she grew pensive all of a sudden. "It may be good, or it may be bad. 'Tis a Providence, I suppose. You know you're very selfish, Mr Carstairs."

"You needn't be so surprised, it's a universal masculine attribute. Charlie can explain it, he understands it."

"Full of pluck! Ah!" she gave a deep sigh. "They feel it most, always." She seemed very sad all of a sudden. "What's that bit of poetry, Charlie, about the strongest and the wisest, you know."

"Is it true, O Christ in Heaven, that the wisest suffer most,
That the strongest wander farthest, and most hopelessly are lost."

She gazed at him steadily with a puzzled air. "You're different," she said, "you're not like the men of my generation. Are you a horseman?"

Darwen swung round on his music stool. "It's a new type to the world, mater; a sort of thinking machine, getting the human emotions thoroughly under control; the horseman was a sort of embryo engineer, he utilised the forces of nature according to his lights, but he was essentially a passionate man, he opposed his will to the brute's will. The engineer has to do with inanimate lumps of metal, and it's no use hitting them. Have you ever observed, Carstairs, the old type of fitter let go with his hammer at a job that's baffling him, the younger generation is much less so, he thinks. Nowadays every one is becoming more or less of an engineer, and it's good, it makes necessary a higher standard of intelligence, of self-reliance, and self-control. The nation of the future is the nation with the best engineers."

"It seems to me," Mrs Darwen remarked, "that you are substituting a coldly brutal type for a passionately brutal type. Men are very much nearer animals than women."

"The engineer has also to deal with men as well as engines, which has a humanizing effect on him, Mrs Darwen," Carstairs said.

"Yes! Fortunately Providence has provided a safety valve for his pent up emotions; you can't possibly imagine the intense mental relief of growling at a stoker because the steam's low, when it's not really the man's fault at all."

Carstairs laughed. "I rather like stokers myself, they're a rough and ready crowd, they'd knock you down for the price of a drink. And the language—Shakespeare isn't in it."

"They do swear, but if you think a minute you'll admit that the average stoker isn't in it with the average engineer; it's the same as everything else, it takes brains and feelings to swear well."

"My dear mater! Women are the finest engineers in the world now, they engineer us poor men, first to the altar, then to the graveyard or to the work-house. Men run engines, business, etc., women run men. The world is run by women, not by men. I remember talking to a stoker once about matrimony. 'It's alright for a change,' he said, 'but it ain't no use permanent.' I suggested that a little kindness might improve matters. ''Taint no use,' he said. I then ventured the opinion that to go home drunk and break up the furniture, sometimes has a conciliatory effect. ''Taint no use,' he repeated again. 'Stop supplies for a bit,' I suggested. ''Taint no use,' he repeated. 'Well, clear out.' ''Taint no use,' he answered. 'I've stayed home and helped 'em in the house, I've give 'em all my pay. I've come home drunk and broke things, I've chucked boiling water over 'em, and beat 'em with the poker, but ''tain't no use,' he shook his head with infinite sadness, 'you always gets had,' he said. He was a thoughtful, intelligent sort of man, and he'd had three wives, so he ought to know."

Mrs Darwen laughed. "He was a thorough sort of man, anyway, and women like a thorough man."

"So do men, Mrs Darwen. Personally my daily prayer is to be preserved from the wishy-washy fool who does what he's told in unquestioning obedience."

"Listen to the Saxon expounding his creed, mater. 'Oh God, give me some one to have a row with.'"

Carstairs smiled. "If you'd lived in Scotland you'd know that the first thing the Scotch working man does is to flatly contradict you to your face; then he argues the point, if you let him. The Scotchman is naturally mathematical, he is not willing to accept your word that you're the boss, he wants proof. I like the Scotch."

Darwen drove one fist with a bang into the palm of his other hand. "The logic of the Englishman," he said.

"It seems to me that's the bed rock of all logic. I think that it was you who told me that Herbert Spencer and Ruskin both arrived at the same conclusion."

"Perhaps I did; I forget. But anyway, all of you people make the mistake of dividing people into types, classes and creeds. 'Nature recognizes neither kingdoms nor classes, no orders, no genera, no sub-genera, nature recognizes nothing but individuals.' That's Lamarck."

"Is it? Well, I hope he won't do it again, because he upsets all your elaborate theories about Saxons, Celts, and so on."

"Not at all; he doesn't say that they don't run in types, that large classes and races of men are not as like as two peas in almost all respects, he simply says that nature makes no effort to preserve them as they are, or, because of their numbers, to save them from annihilation. A whole class, a whole creed, or a whole race may exist simply for the benefit, and to assist in the development of, one individual, and when he ceases to have need of them, puff! they are wiped out."

"Exactly. 'The King can do no wrong' simply means that if he does wrong, he ceases to be a king, and the only proof that he has done wrong is the fact that he has failed to keep his crown. That is the teaching of old Nick, and personally I expand the theorem to embrace all humanity, every man should be a little king unto himself. That is to say, he must use his brains and control his passions."

Mrs Darwen sighed. "The inward passions are sometimes the voice of God, and sometimes the voice of the Devil," she said.

"There you are! and how are you to distinguish? Tennyson tells us that 'doubt is devil-born,' and certainly constant doubt and hesitation play the devil with a man's mind and body. My theory is 'never analyse an impulse. Act on it with the best conjunction of your reason.' Here's old Carstairs, analysing, theorizing, vacillating, hesitating as to whether he's in love or not."

Mrs Darwen stood up. "It's hard to say which is best," she said. "You're like, and yet very unlike, your father, Charlie." She went over to a small table and picked up a large album. "Have you ever seen Charlie's father, Mr Carstairs?"

"No, I don't think I have." He took the volume on his knees, and she leaned over his shoulder as he turned the pages.

He looked closely and intently at a full length portrait of a remarkably handsome and well built girl, dressed in a riding habit, sitting on a saddle. The features were clear-cut and regular, nothing harsh and nothing coarse; the mouth was firm, and the eyes bold and defiant. It seemed the portrait of a happy, rollicking tom-boy. The resemblance to the woman at his side seemed rather faint.

On the opposite page was a tall man, handsome, big-nosed, but he seemed deficient in chin.

Carstairs looked at him closely for some time. "He's handsome too. Not very much like Charlie, and yet—the face seems familiar. I seem somehow to have met that man, sort of family resemblance to Charlie, I suppose. You cannot say that any individual feature is like, and yet—you know. Was he musical?"

Suddenly the little gong sounded outside in the hall, and Mrs Darwen stood up. "There's dinner. Let's go in," she moved out, and they followed.

Darwen sat down opposite Carstairs, he caught hold of his chin with both hands. "Old Carstairs gave me such a whack on the jaw that I'm afraid he's jammed the hinges, mater. I hope you've got something nice and not tough. How's the new maid? Hullo!"

Carstairs had half risen from his chair and stood staring like a man transfixed. Following the direction of his gaze, Darwen's eyes rested for the first time on his mother's new maid who was bringing in the dinner. She was tall and beautifully proportioned, every movement showed a lissome supple grace, and the features were equal to anything he had ever seen carved in marble; the jet black hair and deep brown eyes gave him the clue. This was Carstairs' gipsy maid.

Her face was the colour of a boiled beet as she bent down and placed a dish in front of Mrs Darwen.

Carstairs watched her for a minute with a sort of amazed frown. Her colour faded to the normal again, and as she raised her head she looked into his eyes for a second without a vestige of recognition.

Mrs Darwen glanced from one to the other and glanced at the maid. Then she smiled.

"I thought so, the fates arrange these things. She's lovely; I thought when I was engaging her that it was a good job Charlie was shortly going to get married."

"Well, she broke it off. You see—you remember that girl at the diggings, Carstairs, I used to give her a few music lessons and that sort of thing. Well, she got hold of Isabel and told her all about it; of course I couldn't deny it. It seemed to me she took a very narrow-minded view of it. So we broke off the engagement. Anyway, I could never have run smoothly with her, besides, the old Doctor's too much of an autocrat."

"I'm afraid not, mater. The more we talked, the further apart we seemed to get. I said I was sorry and all that, but this has been coming on for some time. We haven't been hitting it at all well for months past."

"As a matter of fact," Darwen proceeded, "I'm getting sick of this place and all the people in it, I want a change. Your people were good enough to ask me to come and see them whenever I liked. Do you think they could put me up next week-end, Carstairs? I like having a chat with your guv'nor. I must admit I'm rather sick over this business—disappointed, you know. I had built up an idol—you don't understand these things, Carstairs. If I stopped to think now I should feel suicidal."

"Don't talk nonsense, my boy. Can't you and Mr Carstairs go away for the week end?"

"Not together, mater, we mustn't both leave the works. If Carstairs' people could do with me for the week end——"

"I can understand these things better than you think, Darwen. The people will be very pleased to see you, I know." Carstairs was very sober. "The feminine mind is incomprehensible."

Mrs Darwen leaned over towards him. "I'll help you, Mr Carstairs. Come and spend Sunday with me when Charlie's away. Perhaps if I called on Isabel, Charlie—

"You can't restore a shattered idol, mater. It's my fault, I know, but a fellow expects——"

"Everything," Mrs Darwen said sadly, "and some women give it, ah! yes, some women give it."

CHAPTER XIV

A few days later, the inquest on the man who had been killed at the works was held. Darwen gave evidence that he was going up to tell the man to be more careful as he had just dropped an iron bar, when he tried to get up on his feet and slipped off the plank. Several men who had been working there at the time corroborated his evidence, and a verdict of 'accidental death' was brought in—with a censure on the foreman for allowing an intoxicated man to go up on high scaffolding.

Councillor Donovan met Darwen afterwards. "You seem to be having a run of bad luck, Mr Darwen."

"Yes, we have been rather unfortunate lately; still 'tis a Providence' you know, Mr Donovan. If men will get drunk——"

"You're puttin' down a lot of plant, Mr Darwen, making quite a new place of it."

"Yes, the old stuff is quite inadequate for our increasing load," Darwen leaned forward confidentially and spoke very low. "Do you know, Mr Donovan, I'm bringing to light some very funny things in these works."

"Between ourselves, I've got almost clear proof that a considerable number of men who didn't exist were drawing regular weekly pay, and the plant—" he shrugged his shoulders.

"Not a word! I don't want to make a scandal, but I can't have any unpleasantness on the council, so! of course, if it becomes necessary in self defence—"

"I want a friend on the council, Mr Donovan. I've broken off my engagement with Dr Jameson's daughter—and there's no knowing how he'll take it. I must have a friend, a really stalwart friend, or else I shall perhaps be compelled to take unpleasant action, which would be very regrettable, very regrettable indeed I'm going to apply for a rise, a £100 rise."

They walked out together and down the street; they stopped at the corner where their ways divided.

"Good-bye, Mr Donovan. I'm going away on Saturday to spend a week-end with my friend, the Vicar of Chilcombe, on the Cotswold Hills, you know. My nerves are rather run down, unpleasant incidents seem to be dogging me; the air there is very fine, I shall take some good country walks."

"Ah! ye need a rest. Ye've been working very hard, Mr Darwen. And may the devil take ye," Mr Donovan added under his breath as he turned away.

Similar interviews Darwen had that day with several other councillors, and impressed on them all that he needed a friend on the council. Two days later he left for Chilcombe; Carstairs saw him off. "Remember me to all the people," he said.

On Sunday Carstairs called on Mrs Darwen. She was watching for him at the window, and came out to open the door herself.

"Gone!" Carstairs repeated with a disappointment he made no endeavour to conceal.

"A small boy came and called her away to her people. They're encamped about ten miles away from here, and her mother is very ill."

Carstairs sat down. "Her mother," he repeated absently. "That old gipsy woman, the Queen of the gipsies, she told my fortune, no, it was the kid. She said, 'You're a winner, you'll always win.' Lord, I haven't won much yet. I'm too slow. Mrs Darwen, I shall have to hustle."

She watched him with sympathy and admiration. He wasn't knocked down, he was spurred to further energy; she liked that sort, it was the breed she was used to—the thorough bred.

"You know, Mr Carstairs, Charlie has got a very true friend and assistant in you; he thinks a lot of you, he told me that you had done more towards making the works pay than any man."

"Charlie's a jolly good sort, Mrs Darwen! We were chums from the start. He's given me a tremendous leg up too."

She smiled with infinite pleasure; she could listen to such remarks all day long. "I don't like his being mixed up with that lodging-house girl, though. Do you know her?"

"Oh, I see her once or twice a day when she brings in the grub and that sort of thing. She seems alright. You know, Charlie's such a handsome chap that the girls won't leave him alone."

"She'd be a fool if she didn't; the postman, the butcher's boy, the milkman and all the lot are simply wild about her."

"But she takes no notice of them. I sit and watch them at this window. It's very amusing. They try all their time-honoured wiles, whistling and winking, etc. She quells them easily. The butcher boy blushed as red as a piece of his own beef. She's got quite the drawing-room manner."

"She gave no explanation, simply that she wanted to leave. She has exceptional characters."

"I suppose it does, but no man need ever be ashamed of that girl. She speaks perfectly correct English."

"Oh yes. I asked her to come into the drawing-room one evening, bearing in mind her possible relation to you, you know. Charlie says she's very highly gifted that way, and he's going to give her a little instruction on the piano."

Carstairs stood up suddenly. "Charlie and I are going to quarrel," he said with a little laugh, but his eyes flashed fire. He sat down as promptly as he had got up.

She came over and put a hand on his arm; she was very serious. "You don't like that business of the lodging-house gin, any more than I do. I shall make a point of always being in the room when Charlie's teaching her."

Carstairs looked gloomily at the carpet. "Charlie's such a handsome chap, he plays and sings and does everything so well; he's got all the luck."

She looked at him very sadly. "You're a better man than Charlie, Mr Carstairs. I'm his mother, and it goes to my heart to say it, but I can't help it. I suppose I spoilt him. He's had his own way so much. I shall tell that girl so, it if seems necessary."

"Ah! I was afraid so. The only friend he's got, the only chum he ever had; plenty of acquaintances, but no friends, no real friends. Don't you quarrel with him, Mr Carstairs, please don't. I feel you do him so much good, I know it, he says so himself and I'm afraid he'll get wild and go to the bad. Promise me you'll always be his friend."

Carstairs stood up and looked steadily into her eyes. "I can't promise, Mrs Darwen, because I may not be able to keep it, but I'll try."

"To-morrow, she said, but I told her not to hurry if her mother were really ill."

"Can you send her out somewhere—say to the general post office, at eight o'clock in the evening. I'll meet her and tackle her alone."

Carstairs stopped to consider. He liked to have everything above board; this secrecy rather savoured of double dealing to him.

"No-o," he said at length. "I shall tell him as soon as I get an opportunity that I'm going to make the running with that girl if I can."

"Perhaps not. It doesn't matter anyway." He shook hands and left. He went down to the works and sat in the little watch office chatting with the shift engineer for half an hour, then he strolled round and looked at engines and boilers and had a few words with stokers and engine-drivers. Sunday in an electricity generating station is a particularly doleful time; when half the place is dark and three quarters of the plant idle, and the staff, a mere ghost of its normal week-day number; when men with unusually clean hands and faces and a general semi-Sunday appearance flit silent and spectre-like across the dreary, empty engine-room, and silent, idle machines cast uncanny shadows in the unlighted parts of the building. It was rather pleasant to Carstairs, as he wandered round, to contemplate the bad old days when he himself used to be tied by the leg as it were, to this place for eight hours at a time. He was just going out when he almost ran into Mr Donovan and another councillor, resplendent in frock coats, white waistcoats and silk hats.

"Is he now! That's disappointing, we'll just have a look round anyway. Ye might come with us and explain, Mr Carstairs."

Mr Donovan became enthusiastic. "He's a clever chap is Mr Darwen, a wonderful clever chap. Look at this, Mr Jenkins" (as Carstairs switched on the arc light in the new part). "An' all out of his own head. Ah! he's a clever chap. We mustn't lose him, Mr Jenkins."

"Well! Well! Indeed now, Mr Donovan, the Lord takes us all in His own good time."

"True for ye. An' Mr Darwen tried to save him, so he did. Look at this, Mr Jenkins! engine beds, see! one, two, three. Three new engines, is it, Mr Carstairs?"

So they went on these two Celts, the small built, swarthy, insidious, oily Welshman, and the brawny, hearty, crafty Irishman; till Carstairs felt an actual physical nausea creeping over him. He had drawn out most of these plans himself, working night and day, calculating, measuring, thinking. And Darwen was going to get a rise. Darwen who had done nothing but stick out for considerably larger engines than Carstairs thought necessary. Darwen who had everything and was even now ensnaring the only girl that Carstairs ever cared for. Jack Carstairs with the great, big, English heart, felt really sick.

At last they went and Carstairs wished them good-night at the door. Shortly after he walked home alone by himself, ruminating on many things.

Next day Darwen returned late in the afternoon. He could read Carstairs like a book, and as he shook hands he saw that something was on his friend's mind.

"Do you really? It'll rather wreck your prospects in this town. I mean to say, I shan't be staying very much longer, I expect."

"Oh, rats to this town, I'm sick of it anyway. But why are you going to leave just when you're going to get a rise?"

"Donovan and Jenkins were in here last night, and I gathered so from their remarks."

"Aha! Mr Donovan, was he? Come on down to old Donovan's pub and have a drink and see me chaff him, he can't for the life of him make out what's become of the hired assassin he sent to shoot me. Do you know, I often wonder what would become of 'em if they brought off the event."

Carstairs was moody. "Why are you going to leave just when your mater's got settled?"

"Dear boy, I want more money. The maximum of this job is about £500 or £600 per annum. You don't imagine that's going to hold me! I want a rise simply as a testimonial, don't you see? London's my place! One of the big London jobs is what I'm after. Get your hat and come on down to old Donovan's pub, and I'll tell you all the news about your people as we go."

"Well, I had a jolly good time," Darwen started. "One of your brothers was home—Stanley. He's going in for the law, isn't he?"

"Is that so? It's a long job, the law. Anyway, they were all very fit and well. Your mater was very sympathetic over my engagement being broken off. I saw the Bevengtons. Jolly decent girl that Bevengton girl. Can't understand why you don't fix it up there."

"Quite so, so you did. By the way, the girl's not gone away altogether, has she?"

"No, her mother's ill, be back to-day possibly." Carstairs was watching him closely and he saw the old, old light that he knew flicker up into Darwen's eyes.

They reached Councillor Donovan's hotel: a not very high class place near the docks. Darwen called for drinks. "Is Mr Donovan about?" he asked.

Darwen paused. "Er—Carstairs," he said. Carstairs looked at his chief in questioning surprise.

"Wait a minute," Darwen said in answer to his look. "Keep your eyes wide open and your mouth shut."

Next minute Mr Donovan appeared, jovial and hearty, his waistcoat of many colours expanded to its utmost limit. He stopped dead and turned a sickly light purple hue when he caught sight of Darwen. He pulled himself together in an instant, however, and advanced with outstretched hand. "How do you do? I thought it was Mr Carstairs." Surprise and apprehension were still in his eyes.

Darwen took him by the hand and smiled into his face, his delightful, winning smile. "What are you going to have, Mr Donovan? Whisky? Have a brandy, you don't seem quite up to the mark. Sit down, my dear chap." He pushed him into a chair facing them. "That's better; you were surprised to see me, Mr Donovan?"

"That's like you, Mr Donovan. Here's your health, your very good health, and may you live a very long time and be very happy."

Darwen carefully wiped his small, neat moustache with a snowy white pocket handkerchief. "I had a most pleasant week-end, but—" he leaned confidentially forward across the little round table—"Now, don't be alarmed, Carstairs—it was marred by a somewhat unpleasant incident." He paused and looked at Mr Donovan in silence for about half a minute. Carstairs watched them both, calmly observant. Darwen took another drink. Mr Donovan seemed in painful suspense.

"Me! Mr Donovan? Oh no, not a scratch. But they found a poor devil under my window, your window, Carstairs."

Darwen turned to Carstairs. "He was a red-headed man, a sailor or marine fireman. Lord knows how he came to get up there among the sheep and the shepherds."

"He was dead!" Darwen looked Mr Donovan steadily in the eyes. "His ribs were crushed in like an egg shell, and his neck was broken."

"Well!" Darwen shrugged his shoulders. "It seemed almost as though he had been hugged by a polar bear. In fact, that's the local theory, that he had a performing bear or animal of some sort which turned on him. They are searching the woods now; there's quite a reign of terror in the neighbourhood."

Carstairs stood up. "I say, I think I had better run home and see the old people."

Darwen caught him by the coat and pulled him into his seat. "It's alright, old chap, your brother's there, and they've got a lot of extra police from Gloucester and other places." Carstairs sat down again with an undecided air. He hadn't much confidence in his brother.

"It's alright; he's got a gun and a heavy service revolver, and Lord knows what." Darwen was speaking to Carstairs about his brother. He always admired the superb confidence Carstairs had in himself; he placed no reliance on other people. He still seemed unsatisfied. "Look here, old chap, I'm convinced that your old people will be alright."

Carstairs considered. "The guv'nor can take care of himself as a rule," he said thoughtfully, "and Stanley's alright, but too theoretical—you can't theorise with bears. I say, we can spare Bounce for a few days; I'll stand the expense and send him over with a revolver to sleep in the house for a bit. He can drive in tin tacks at twenty yards—and I've seen Bounce on breakdowns." He seemed quite relieved and sat down again in peace.

"Ah!" Mr Donovan made a mental note of the name and address of the man who could drive in tin tacks at twenty yards.

Darwen took a drink. "This is the third occasion on which I have had a narrow escape of my life!" he observed.

"I'm a great believer in luck, that's all. A new servant of my mother's, a gipsy girl, told my fortune the other day. 'You'll have several exciting adventures, but you'll always be very lucky,' she said."

Mr Donovan looked from one to the other. He was very superstitious himself, but he didn't know whether they were in jest or earnest.

"Yes," Darwen continued, "this is the third and last attempt. There'll be no more." He rose and held out his hand with a smile.

"By the way," Darwen said, "I was forgetting what I came for. Carstairs is putting in for a rise too, a £50 rise. I suppose I can rely on your assistance, Mr Donovan?"

"Ye can that, Mr Darwen." A little colour came back into his face. "The meeting's on Wednesday," he said.

Outside Darwen clapped Carstairs on the back. "There you are, old chap! Now we'll go and compose your letter to the committee asking for a £50 rise."

"Thanks very much, but what's the bottom of this devil's business, Darwen? How was that man killed, and why isn't that beast in there in prison?"

"My dear fellow, 'that beast' has got brains. I consider Donovan a distinctly clever man. It's only the fools who go to prison. I wish you could come into the committee to hear old Donovan speak, Irishmen are born orators." Darwen spoke quite affectionately. They passed a policeman; he saluted Darwen respectfully.

"Fine, big, brawny chap, isn't he? Gets about thirty shillings a week, and what he can pinch. Truly the English are a mighty people. 'Set a fool to catch a fool.' That man touches his hat to the rogues and yanks honest simpletons off to gaol. I can't understand how you can be so wrapped up in simple, silly engines, when these great, complicated human machines called towns and cities are so vastly more interesting. They follow the same rules, it is well to study engines before you study men: the interdependence of parts, the distribution of stresses, and the vast invisible force which you call steam or electricity, and I call morals and sentiments. I never cease to wonder at the vastness and complexity of nature.

"Our little systems have their day.
They have their day and cease to be.
They are but broken lights of Thee,
And Thou, O Lord, art more than they."

Tennyson was essentially the modern poet. Nature, to him, meant the universe and the controller of the universe. So it does to me. I'm what you would call a truly religious man, Carstairs. Life is full of pleasure to me. I very seldom feel what you call anger. My emotions are well under control. The misery of the world is due to uncontrolled emotion. I had a most pleasant conversation with your guv'nor and Dr Bevengton on Sunday about the same thing." He turned and faced Carstairs suddenly. "You know I was never really in love with Isabel Jameson: the only way I could convince Pa, who was chairman of the electricity committee, that I was a good engineer, was by getting engaged to his daughter. She was simply a cog in the gearing that linked his intellect with mine. These things are necessary for universal peace."

Darwen laughed. "The Saxons used to fight with sledge hammers," he said. "They're still adept with the weapon. A woman is simply a ragged bundle of emotions badly tied up, with the ends trailing out in all directions, and it's those trailing ends that upset half the world. A man never loves as the men in books do."

"I think your remark about the policeman touching his hat to the rogues was most appropriate."

Darwen laughed aloud. "The Saxon could never handle the rapier," he said. "You're built for a slogger, Carstairs, and I expect you'd break most men's hearts at that game, but not mine, I can avoid you, I'm too nimble. Will you come home and spend the evening with me?"

Darwen raised his eyebrows and shot a quick glance at him. He wondered whether Carstairs was trying his prentice hand at lying.

"In that case of course—" he said, and they walked back to the works in silence.

CHAPTER XV

That evening Carstairs hung round the post office from half-past seven to half-past eight, he was thinking of going away when Mrs Darwen's new maid turned the corner at the end of the street, he waited under the big arc light outside the main entrance. As she came into the light, he stepped up and raised his hat.

"What was the matter?" he asked. He was rather at his wits' end for something to say to detain her.

"I don't know," she answered. She looked at him, he thought, with a little amusement. "We gipsies never give names to our complaints. It may have been appendicitis, or fever, or a cold. Mother took herb tea, and she's better now."

"Well, I'm damned," he said to himself. He was beginning to lose his temper. He watched her purchase some stamps at the counter—her profile seemed even better than her full face; the contemplation of her beauty cast a spell over him, for once in his life Carstairs felt rather hopeless. She did not look like a servant in her best clothes, but like a lady in poor circumstances. He noticed the obsequious civilities of the clerk at the counter, and thought what a pitiful ass the fellow was. He stepped up to her again as she came out, a little blaze of anger in his eyes.

"Well, why didn't you speak to me the other evening?" He was rather flabbergasted, he could not realize that this was the meek little girl he had known in Scotland.

She raised her eyebrows in mild surprise. "It's not usual for servants to speak to guests, unless they are spoken to," she said.

"No, er—may I walk home with you?" As he looked into her eyes he thought for a moment, he saw some resemblance to Darwen.

She hesitated a second, and he, watching closely, caught the light of a little look that made him feel very happy. "Yes, if you like," she said, and just for a moment the long black lashes swept the cheek as he had seen them once before.

With much alacrity he stepped on to the off side, and they proceeded down the street.

"Improved," he said, "wonderfully! I had no idea that much improvement was possible, but I see it was." Carstairs was not usually a man of many words, yet that glimpse of the 'something' in her eye seemed to have loosened his tongue. He noticed that she flushed slightly with pleasure.

They were just turning the corner. A long vista of electric lamps and lighted shops opened out before their gaze. He was just about to answer her question (which had struck a jarring note) when the whole long perspective of light suddenly became eclipsed, went out, as if by magic.

"Confound it! That's a breakdown at the works. I shall have to go. I'll put you on your road home, and then, if you'll excuse me, I'll make a bee line for the works."

"You need not trouble about me," she said. "You seem to forget that I piloted you through the woods when you couldn't see your hand before your face."

He hesitated; the trouble at the works called to him like a siren. As a result of many years of habit, other things seemed to fade into temporary insignificance.

Something in her tone seemed to warn him, but he didn't quite grasp the situation. His brain seemed clogged, the siren of groaning engines and flashing fuses seemed to hold his mind enthralled. He held out his hand.

She took it coldly. "Good-bye," she said, and turned and was swallowed up in the darkness.

At the bottom of the street Carstairs jumped into a hansom and dashed up to the works shortly after the breakdown had occurred. He found the shift engineer (a very young man with a very young moustache) trying to do fourteen different things at once, and incidentally, by vigorous tugging, endangering the very existence of the moustache. When a breakdown happens at an electric lighting station, it is the lot of the shift engineer to be called upon to do fourteen different things at once. In the first place, various fools, in various parts of the town, ring up on the telephone to tell him the lights are out: as if he were not painfully aware of it at the start, for it may be taken as an axiom, that when the lights are out in the town, they are very much in in the works; then the engine-drivers get flurried at the unusual display of fireworks around their engines; the switchboard attendant (who is usually a budding shift engineer) makes a frantic grab for the wrong switch and jerks it out, making confusion worse confounded; then the stokers get excited because their boilers are blowing off like to burst and they can't see the water in them; and at the finish of all when the poor shift (usually a very young man) is priding himself on getting rather well out of a tight place, the chief (usually also a very young man) rings up to ask why in thunder he did not do something altogether different, or why he did not do what he did in much quicker time, or else waits till next morning and harshly asks why the shift engineer had not arrived, in a small fraction of a minute, at the same idea of what was best, that he, the chief, had, after a night's rest and a few hours' consideration.

When Carstairs arrived the very young man in question had just decided to cut all the other thirteen things and stick to the one vital point. He was getting another machine ready as Carstairs mounted the switchboard steps.

"Pump juice into it," the very young man answered with a little joyous gleam in his eyes. 'Pumping juice into it' is theoretically a rotten way of treating a fault, but practically the act operates as a soothing balm to the troubled and revengeful soul of the junior engineer.

Carstairs, although a capable and careful engineer, was very youthful himself. "Alright. Let it go," he said. "Old Farrell will take all night to locate it probably, otherwise."

So they "pumped juice into it" for some time, and burnt out several yards of expensive cable, till almost simultaneously with the mains superintendent and his gang of disreputable looking labourers, a policeman arrived to report "smoke issuing from between the paving stones at the corner of High Street."

"There you are!" Carstairs said, triumphantly. "There's your fault accurately located for you right away. I don't know what you mains chaps want Wheatstone Bridges and Potentiometers, etc., for."

"It's all very well," grumbled Farrell. "But who is going to locate the other faults you've started in the process."

Carstairs got on the station "bike," and cycled out to Darwen's. The cook opened the door to him. He was rather disappointed, but he did not dwell on it long. He was ushered into the drawing-room. He shook hands with Mrs Darwen.

Darwen was sitting at the piano, he had swung round to face Carstairs as he entered. "Hurray!" he answered in an unemotional voice at the announcement of the news.

"I was just turning the corner of High Street with—a friend." He caught Mrs Darwen's eye as he hesitated slightly on the word, she smiled delighted approval. Darwen's eyes gave a little flicker from his mother to Carstairs, and unnoticed, he smiled, ever so slightly, too: Carstairs continued. "I had just turned the corner when the lights went out. I—er—jumped into a hansom—"

"I—er—I left her in the street." For three generations or more, the Carstairs had spoken the truth (mostly), this, the youngest scion of the sturdy old stock, could not easily bend to deception.

Darwen laughed aloud. "Carstairs has got a girl, mater," he said with much amusement. "He was just regaling her with a little light converse about volts and engines when the lights went out, and he forgot all about the girl, and hurried off to the works." He paused and looked from his mother to Carstairs with brilliant sparkling eyes. "What's her name, Carstairs?"

Darwen laughed again. "Oh, mater!" he said. "I didn't think it of you! Accessory before and after the fact. Aiding and abetting old Carstairs to break a poor girl's heart: he was getting on so nicely too, just about to propose, when something distracted his attention and he forgot all about it, and the girl and everything else, so that she came in here half way between tears and chucking the pots and pans about. And now, two hours afterwards, old Carstairs turns up to finish the remark he was about to make. And it's lucky for you, old chap, that she's not in, because she'd either have gazed at you as if you were an unclean reptile, or else she'd have chucked the furniture at you."

"Yes. The same boy came and fetched her, her mother is worse. She thinks nothing of walking ten miles across country at this time of night. I offered to pay for a cab or something, but she wouldn't hear of it."

"That's very kind of you, Mrs Darwen. D'you—d'you think she was really offended?"

"Of course she was. I passed her in the hall as she came in, but don't let that worry you, old chap. The course of true love never did run smooth, you know if there were none of these little obstructions and full stops and side issues, the real thing would never be awakened. You may take it as an axiom that if a girl never feels she'd like to chuck the fire-irons at you, she doesn't care tuppence about you; at least, that sort, with those eyebrows and eyes, and that free, swinging carriage. I'm in love with that girl myself."

Carstairs sighed somewhat heavily. "Then you'd better get out of love as soon as you can," he said, with a little laugh, "or we shall fight. I begin to appreciate the spirit of the duelling age, I think it would give me real pleasure to scrap with somebody just now." He laughed again, but there was a gleam in his eyes that both Darwen and his mother noticed. Darwen's face lighted up with appreciation, but his mother looked very sad.

"I wonder how this shut-down will affect our chances of a rise?" Carstairs remarked.

"Oh, that's alright, old chap. I have so many good friends on the council now, that I'm not a bit afraid: There's going to be a duel between old Donovan and the doctor. It'll be rather good, I expect, pity you can't come to see the fun: they're going to rebel against the iron rule of Dr Jameson, the whole council is sick of his autocracy. Donovan will open the ball with a sledge-hammer attack; Jenkins will back him up with some nasty hits below the belt; the old Doctor will roar like a bull in pain, but I think he'll be beaten this time. I shall enjoy it anyway."

He swung round to the piano again, and dashed into a lively waltz tune. "That's the first dance I ever danced with Isabel Jameson," he said over his shoulder. "This is ours, I believe!" "Thanks very much." "Very nice floor." "Yes." "Rotten weather!" etc., etc., he quoted, laughing lightly. "Then, three months later, behind those imitation palms at the foot of the stairs, to the strains of this tune in the distance (he changed to a very slow dreamy waltz) I proposed to her. If it hadn't been for this tune, I shouldn't have done it that night. But it was so appropriate, the opportunity seemed unique, so I spoke up. Isabel, (I never really cared for the name of Isabel, you know), Isabel, may I call you Isabel? I love you. Then—"

His mother stepped up behind him and put her hand on his shoulder. "Hush, Charlie! You don't know what you're saying."

"I assure you, mater, I remember it quite distinctly. It was one of the most exciting events—"

"My boy, the girl's going round the town looking like a shadow since the engagement was broken off."

"Is she? I'm very sorry, I haven't seen her." He seemed thoughtful for a minute. "She was alright, you know, jolly decent in fact, but we could never have paired—she was silly. There is a Providence, mater. ''Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all,' you know; these little afflictions sort of temper our natures, accentuate and harden the good qualities we possess."

"That's so, of course. Good and bad, simply a matter of opinion. I'm an optimist, I see no bad in the world, it's all good. Carstairs there is a grumpy old pessimist, he hasn't got time to smile, he's too busy trying to decide what's good and bad, and honest and dishonest, etc. And he don't know at the finish. Comes round here trying to steal my girl and talks about fighting when I expostulate with him. I tell you the more you think about honesty, the more fogged you get."

Darwen strode over to him and clapped him on the shoulder, "Buck up then, and go in and win, I surrender all rights. Take a day off to-morrow and drive over to this place in a cab. Take a nice little gold watch or something, as a peace offering. Then, if I were you, on the strict Q.T., I should give her a punch in the eye; her ma'mas for generations past were probably wooed that way, and it would appeal to her in spite of herself."

His mother laughed and looked at Carstairs. "Really I should go over if I were you."

"Can't go to-morrow," Carstairs said definitely. "Got to see the test of that new engine."

Darwen drew himself up and threw out his chest with mock gravity. "I'm the chief, and I tell you you can go."

His mother stood up and looked at him sorrowfully. "I don't believe you have very much, Charlie, but pray God you may get one."

Darwen laughed. "That's alright, mater. I've got a jolly good conscience, but I keep it in the background," he said.

Carstairs stood up and held out his hand to Mrs Darwen. "Good night. I'm afraid I've kept you up."

"Thanks, I will." He went out into the night and wended his way slowly home. As he turned the corner of the long tree-shaded street in which his diggings were, a man sprang out of a shrubbery behind, and rushed at him with a heavy bludgeon. Carstairs, lost in reverie, pivoted on his heels at the sound, and ducking mechanically as the stick descended, shot out a straight left for the man's face. It was not a heavy blow, but now thoroughly awakened, he stepped in and followed up with a terrific right hand drive on the chin.

He dropped like a log, and Carstairs bent over him, looking into his face. Even by the dim light of the distant gas lamp, he recognised his old acquaintance Sam Lee, the gipsy. He was not knocked out, but only partly dazed by the blow, and as Carstairs bent over him, he suddenly lashed out with a huge hobnailed boot and caught him a vicious kick in the stomach. Writhing in pain, Carstairs collapsed in the gutter, helpless.

The gipsy staggered to his feet, and picking up his bludgeon made towards him. Just then a large, dark form loomed suddenly into view round the corner. A bull's-eye lantern flashed a sudden light on the scene, and Sam Lee sprinted off down the road with a particularly limping shuffle, but at a good speed. The policeman started in pursuit, but gave it up as hopeless before he had gone very far; he stopped, blew a shrill call on his whistle, and returned to Carstairs who had now got upon his feet, still bent double with pain.

"Ah!" the policeman said, producing a note-book. "It's Mr Carstairs of the electric light, ain't it, sir?"

"That's it, and the other man is Sam Lee, gipsy who was condemned for burglary about two years ago."

"Oh, that's it, is it? He was only let out a week ago. 'As 'e got anything agen you, sir?"

Two other policemen were already in view. Carstairs, almost himself again, waited till they arrived, and told all three the tale. They listened with no sign of surprise, (the English policeman is never surprised), but they took profuse notes.

Next morning at the works, Carstairs sat in Darwen's office, and told him the tale of his adventure.

"Well, it doesn't matter a curse if it all comes out now, old chap, your position here is firmly established."

Carstairs was thoughtful. "My people won't like if it gets into the papers. I wonder what the girl thinks about it."

"Oh, you may bet your boots she's used to that sort of thing. I'm going off to the meeting now. Wish you could come too, sure to be some fun. However, you'll see that engine tested?"

"Yes. I'll put 'em through their paces. The contractor's men are downstairs now."

"Ah, well, ta ta. You'll be worth £50 more per annum when I see you again." Darwen laughed and disappeared through the door.

Carstairs went down into the engine-room, and looked all round the new engine and dynamo. "Seems to me damn small for the power," he said to himself.

Late that evening they met again in the office. Darwen was beaming. "You've got your fifty quid, old chap, and I've got my hundred. It was grand, never had so much sport in all my life. Donovan opened the ball: I tell you I hardly recognized myself under his glowing eulogies. The Doctor objected. Then Donovan went for him. By Jove! old Donovan can talk. But the old Doctor was grand, he stood up at the head of the table with his great chest heaving and his beard seemed to quiver with anger. 'Retract,' he roared, when old Donovan got personal, I tell you he fairly frightened 'em. If I hadn't been there, he'd have crumpled 'em all up. I'll swear they each and every one of 'em shivered when the old man glared at 'em. Bull baiting's not in it. Donovan was about collapsed when I caught his eye and frowned at him, then we went for the Doctor like a tiger. The others seemed to buck up then, till the old man roared. 'Get outside, sir, you're not fit to speak to a decent assembly,' he said. Then I put my spoke in, I swear Donovan would have gone if I hadn't. 'Come! Come! Doctor,' I said. 'Hold your tongue, sir,' he roared. 'You've no right to speak at all.' That old man thinks he's the schoolmaster of this town. Then Jenkins gave him a hit below the belt. 'This is Mr Darwen, not Mr Wakeley,' he said. That's a patient of the Doctor's, who died the other day with something the matter with his tongue. The old man took no notice. Then Evans gave him another dig, and Smith had a rap at him. Little Winter got up to speak to him too, but when the old man wagged his beard at him, his knees gave way, and he sat down suddenly without saying a word; I never saw anything funnier. Then Sullivan got up and screamed like a man with the devil behind him. (I was the devil, most pleasant sensation I've ever experienced). Donovan capped it, and John Brown put a word in for us, too. I like that navvy, and I think the Doctor does too, he very seldom bullies him, and gets as good as he gives him. They ought to put up a grand scrap, those two, if they ever got going, just about a weight. Anyhow it's passed alright, and there's no mistake Donovan worked like a Trojan. How did the test pan out?"

"Oh, it's off. The damn thing wouldn't do much more than three quarters of its load. I knew it wouldn't."

"Go on! Is that right?" Darwen's face expressed incredulous surprise, there was a sort of smile there too, with a strange little flicker of the eyelids whose long lashes were drawn down till they almost completely shaded the brilliant, beautiful eyes.

Darwen laughed suddenly. "You're such a stickler. We mustn't be too hard on them, you know, Peace on earth, etc., you know. And we've just had a rise."

"Yes, yes, of course," Darwen said, picking up his hat. "Good night." He went off rather suddenly.

CHAPTER XVI

That evening Carstairs went to call on Mrs Darwen to ascertain if the girl had got back again. She had. He almost ran into her just outside the house, she was going towards the town.

Carstairs had a momentary impulse to turn on his heel and leave her for good and all without any more words, but he was by nature an inquirer, he liked to get to the bottom of things, besides he was in love with this girl and he felt there must be some vital misunderstanding somewhere.

"I see," he said, "that sweep has been telling you some of his cursed lies with his music lessons."

She stopped and faced him. "Will you kindly tell me which way you are going? Because I'll go a different way. Or is it necessary to make a fuss?"

He stared at her in amazement for a moment, then he stepped a little closer and looked into her eyes. "I am going back to my diggings in Clere Road. I shall never come this way again. I wish I could leave this rotten town and these rotten people for ever. But let me tell you that that man is a rogue, how great a rogue only God knows. And if you think he's going to marry you, you're greatly mistaken. He's deceived two girls in this town, and the Lord only knows how many more elsewhere. He could paper his room with girls' photographs and girls' letters."

"Thanks," she said in icy politeness; she had studied the manners of her superiors to some purpose, but in her they did not seem a burlesque as is usually the case with the superior servant.

He looked at her steadily for some moments in silence, and she returned his gaze quite calmly. "I was in love with you," he said, "and I felt I had done your friend Sam Lee an injustice. Now I feel that I have done him a kindness in saving him from a very exceptional fool."

"I am honoured," she said. "Your friend and benefactor, Mr Darwen, has at least the manners of a gentleman."

"I'll take your word for it. I imagine you know, the penny novelettes describe the article very minutely." He looked into her eyes and saw that they blazed with anger; the sight reminded him of a similar occasion in Scotland when she carried a big stick and they stood facing each other at the door of his diggings. His anger faded at once. "I'm sorry, I've behaved like a cad, but the issues were so important, to me. An apology, I suppose, is all the reparation I can offer." He turned and walked away, leaving her there.

She stood and watched him till he was out of sight, but he never looked back. He was not built that way. On his way to the works next morning, Carstairs heard the news-boys shouting, "mysterious murder of Councillor Donovan." He bought a paper and read the account.

"At an early hour this morning Police Constable Garret observed a body floating down the river near the High Street Bridge. On being dragged ashore, it was at once recognized as that of Councillor Donovan, proprietor of the Blue Anchor Hotel, Dock Street. The unfortunate gentleman's neck was dislocated, and his ribs squashed in as though by some powerful animal."

Carstairs did not read any more, but hurried on down to the works; he searched out Bounce in the engine-room.

"Well, that looks like the same thing, doesn't it?" Carstairs handed him the paper.

"Look here," Carstairs looked at his watch. "Come on down to the mortuary with me, we'll have a look at it, and you can tell the police what the other chap was like."

So they went off together, and on the way Bounce explained. "When we was on the China station, we called at Borneo once, some of our chaps went ashore and went up country a bit. They seen the niggers come running out of the woods, shouting like hell, so they goes in to see what the trouble was. There was a monkey there. He wasn't so very big, an' one of our chaps went in to capture him—well, when they brought 'im back to the ship, 'e looked just like that bloke I seen at Chilcombe."

A policeman let them into the mortuary, and as Bounce gazed on the dead body of Councillor Donovan, he shook his head in mystification. "Just the same," he said. "Exactly the same."

The policeman took profuse notes from Bounce, and then they returned to the works together. Carstairs proceeded at once to Darwen's office.

Darwen read it thoughtfully and slowly, then he whistled softly. "Poor old Donovan," he said. He seemed lost in thought for a moment or so, then he repeated, "Poor old Donovan. And only yesterday he got us our rises, Carstairs."

"Oh, murder, of course. Singular resemblance to that chap who was killed over at your place."

"That's what struck me." He caught just a quick glance from Darwen's dark, penetrating eyes.

"There's no doubt, of course, between ourselves, that Donovan got entangled in his own web, some of the particularly sharp tools he employed have eventually cut him." He looked Carstairs steadily in the eyes as he spoke.

"Ye—es, I suppose that's it. This is a damn funny place. I don't like it a bit."

"You're right, old chap. It is funny. The world's funny. Old Donovan lived down among the docks with sailors and foreigners; all sorts, Lascars, Chinamen, and niggers frequented his pub; besides, he was a bookmaker. God only knows how he met his end. Poor devil!"

"He's not much loss to civilization, that's a certainty, but it seems to come rather near home, somehow."

"Well, the engine's running, but she won't do her load. That little fool from the contractors calmly opened the emergency valve, letting high pressure steam into the low pressure cylinder, when I wasn't looking. 'How's that?' he said, triumphantly. Of course I knew what he'd done at once."

Darwen smiled. "You must give 'em a bit, old chap." He leaned back in his office chair, and looked up at Carstairs, who was standing.

"A bit. By George! If she passes on load, she can't pass, by pounds, on the steam consumption. However, you're the chief. It's for you to pass it, not me."

"You mistake, old chap." Darwen's voice was remarkably suave and silvery. "That's part of your job, to test all the engines."

"Very well, then I don't pass it. I'll stop it at once and tell them to start taking it down to return to the makers."

"That won't do, old chap, we must have the engine, can't get on without it much longer. You know that better than I do."

"Well, I have nothing further to suggest, unless you test the engine and pass it yourself."

"No, I shan't do that. Perhaps—er—perhaps some other chief assistant would do it."

Darwen stood up and going over to Carstairs placed a hand affectionately on his shoulder. "Look here, Carstairs, we must have that engine. I'm going to have it, and you're going to pass it. I'll come down and have a look at it while he's got the by-pass open, so that I shall be able to say that I saw it doing the load alright, then you can give me the steam consumption figures for the run. See?"

"My dear chap," Darwen beamed with the best of good nature. "Think what it means! In your position I'd have done it. I've got past that now. You're getting £250, or you will be next month, and just waiting to step into my job when I leave, which I can assure you won't be long. Don't be an ass, Carstairs. I'm going to have that engine."

A momentary gleam of anger like a flash of forked lightning shot across Darwen's face, but he smiled again banteringly. "I can't understand how such a clever chap as you can be such a fool. You don't seem able to grasp the fact that the cleverness one is paid for in this world, is the cleverness to outwit other people, not the ability to disentangle abstruse problems in the higher mathematics. Trot on down and get me out the figures for the steam consumption like a good chap."

"Look here, Darwen, I'm not going to do your dirty work. I'm sick and tired of you and your roguery. You're a liar, and a cheat and a thief. God only knows if you aren't worse!"

"Dear boy! The elite of mankind is composed of such people. As long as you don't call me a fool, you won't offend me. Are you going to pass that engine?"

"Alright. Good-bye. Call at the office for a month's screw to-morrow morning." He sat down again in his chair and leaned over his table.

Carstairs laughed. "You're calling me a fool," he said, "but I'm not a bit offended. I know it's the reflection entirely of your own intellectual shortcoming. What do you think Dr Jameson would say? What would the council? the whole blooming town say? If I told them I'd got the sack because I refused to pass an engine which wasn't up to specification. I imagine, Mr Darwen, you're prepared to reconsider your decision, for a start, eh? just for a start."

"By Jove, Carstairs, I'm proud of you, and it's all my teaching, every bit. 'Ye ponderous Saxon swingeth ye sledge hammer.'" Darwen smiled like the rising sun in June. "God! what glorious weather we're getting. Look at the sky, Carstairs! Did you ever see a sky like that in October?"

"The sky's alright. I should have thought the the earth beneath your feet had more concern with you." He pointed downwards with his finger. He was feeling rather well pleased with himself.

"Well done, Carstairs. The earth is good. I adore the earth, that is nature. Earth, Ocean, Air, beloved brotherhood. It's a pity you don't ready poetry, Carstairs." He smiled, genially.

Carstairs remained silent, impassive. He watched him as he watched an engine when he tested it; looking at everything, expecting anything.

"When I was taking my before-breakfast walk this morning, I came across a slow-worm; rather late for a slow-worm in October, isn't it?"

"Ah! I thought you were an observer of these things. It's rather a pity. Still, I'll proceed. I touched his tail with my stick, and—you know the usual result—he promptly waggled it off and left it on the footpath while the rest of him disappeared in the long grass. Now the slow-worm thought that was smart, but it was really only silly. I didn't want his tail, or the rest of him; he thought I did, he was used to people who did, he thought I was a common or garden fool. So do you, Carstairs. You can go right now to Dr Jameson or to the devil himself; in fact, you can do what you damn well please. I have no further use for you, and that being the case, I don't intend to carry you around on my back any longer."

"Ah! the strange uncouth ways of the Saxon. However, it doesn't matter. You don't want to hit a fellow when he's down, Carstairs?"

"Ah! the incomprehensible Saxon. You wouldn't see a poor devil with an old mother and a wife and family chucked out on the streets, or sent to quod?"

"Me! Oh dear, no. I'm not down. Ha! ha! You can't touch me, old chap. I haven't passed the engine. As a matter of fact I told the contractor's man yesterday I was afraid she wouldn't do, and I drafted a letter to the firm, telling them so. It's not sent yet; the clerks are awaiting my signature to the typed copy."

"This is the game of life, dear boy, a sort of universal high jinks. Let me explain. I'm going to have that engine, and if you kick up a row, either before or after, you won't touch me. All that will happen will be that half a dozen poor fools, who are at present earning a precarious living as tools, tools of the inexpensive order, will be chucked aside."

"Alright. In case of a rumpus, the first man to go overboard would be Winter, poor little helpless Winter. He was rushed into the council because he was a fool, he accepted a five-pound note because he was a thundering fool, and his wife was ill and the kids hadn't got togs, and because everybody else was having five-pound notes. He'd be the first sacrifice. Poor old Winter, he looks like a thief; really, he's got a better (or worse) conscience than a nonconformist minister; that five pounds has pulled him down astonishingly, I've watched him wither away. And his kids, poor little mites! All through nature one observes that the small units increase at an astonishingly high ratio. He only got one five quid."

"You're damned hard, you know, Carstairs. Then there's the contractor's man there. He'd get the bullet, and two or three fitters also. Possibly a clerk or two and my chief assistant would go to quod, even the honest and highly virtuous Mr Carstairs, son of the vicar of Chilcombe, who would die, with his wife, broken-hearted."

"Carstairs, the mater's taken a fancy to you, and I'll admit you appeal to me more than any man I've ever met. So damned ponderous. Your moment of inertia must be simply enormous. Isn't it possible to save you in your own despite." He touched an electric bell. An office boy appeared.

"Ask Mr Slick if he'll come up here a minute, will you, please." Darwen was invariably excessively polite, even to the minutest and most sub-divided portions of humanity.

"Slick and I will endeavour to show you, Carstairs, that you've got 'no case,' as I believe they say in law."

"Ah! Here you are!" Darwen shook hands cordially. "Mr Carstairs is not satisfied with your engine, Mr Slick. Won't come up to specification, he says."

Mr Slick raised his eyebrows; he was a hard-looking citizen, with strong prominent jaw and piercing blue eyes. "I understood that he expressed himself as quite pleased yesterday."

Darwen held up his hand. "Don't wrangle in my office, please, gentlemen! You have some support for your statement, of course, Mr Slick?"

"Yes. I think I understand the Shift Engineer to say he was present also. The fact is I've written to your firm expressing approval of the engine, on, as I understand, Mr Carstairs' advice. Now there seems to be some hitch. However, we will come down and see to that presently, Mr Slick. Thanks very much for coming up."

The contractor's engineer looked inquiringly at Darwin, then he disappeared through the door again.

Darwen's eyes were wide with admiration. "Ye gods! Ye gods!" he said. "Look here, Carstairs, you and I must continue to be pals, I'll share with you. When I came here, the councillors were sharing the 'profits,' and old Jones was getting an occasional five quid. Now, I get the profits and the councillors get the occasional five quid. See? Will you go halves? And I tell you halves is something pretty good, too!"

"No, I won't. I'll have my market price as an engineer—no more and no less. I can do for one dollar what any fool can do for two. I want my share of the dollar I save."

"But I will! I'll tell you what I'll do. If you chuck this sharp practice and send those engines back, we'll make this place pay well, and the council shall give us our whack."

Darwen was thoughtful for a minute. "They won't do it," he said. "The fool in the street, the voter, whose mind runs in shillings per week, wouldn't let them. In municipal work it doesn't pay to be honest."

Carstairs stroked his chin in perplexity. "You're an enigma to me. You seem such a sound sort of chap in most things. Damn it! One doesn't expect a Clifton man to be a blasted rogue. Can't you run on straight lines? You know you're bound to get bowled out sooner or later."

"Don't be such a pessimist, Carstairs. I hate pessimists. Let me assure you, you are equally an enigma to me. I fail entirely to comprehend your mind. Why do you worry and dissipate your energies deciding what is right and what is wrong? What you really want to know is, what is best. There is nothing wrong in this best of all worlds, only degrees of rightness. All effort that produces no tangible personal benefit is so much wasted energy. You're not an Atlas, you can't carry the world on your shoulders. The whole scheme of nature was evolved for the benefit of individuals, not classes, or masses, or groups. The proof of the pudding is in the eating: I'm always happy, and the keenest source of my pleasure is in out-witting my fellow-men. Life is a perpetual game of skill, and like the integral calculus there are no rules. You're a mathematician, you like mathematics. I've seen you grubbing your snout into 'Salmon's Conic Sections' just on top of a Sunday's dinner. Why don't you step up with me into the higher planes of really applied mathematics; applied as all such things should be, to men and women? We'd have a rare time, you and I. When we boxed the other day we agreed at the start that we would slog; we started out to bump each other for all we were worth; we both got several severe punches; I got a split lip and you got a black eye, but we enjoyed it, didn't we?"

Carstairs sat down with a heavy plump into a chair. "You ought to be put in an asylum, not in prison," he said, wearily. "I wonder if I gave you a good hammering if it would do any good."

They regarded each other with measuring eyes. Carstairs allowed his gaze to roam slowly over the thick, clean neck, the well-developed, lissom-looking shoulders, and last of all rested on the clean-cut, patrician face with the small, neat moustache just shading the well-moulded, full red lips, quite closed; and the brilliant, clear eyes that sparkled with a bold, clear intelligence. They were two splendid animals, these two young men, spotlessly clean, well groomed.

"I tell you what, Darwen. I'll fight you now, to a finish, whether you keep those engines or whether I get the sack."

"Thanks, old chap, that's a new form of the gamble of our early youth—'heads, I win; tails, you lose.' But we shall come to a scrap all the same some day, I know."

"That's so; I'm going away to open the campaign now." Carstairs picked up his hat. "I'll call for my screw, Monday. By the way, I suppose it will be at the increased rate?"

CHAPTER XVII

Carstairs went straight from the works to Dr Jameson's private house. The Doctor was seriously ill and could not be seen, so he went back to his diggings in deep thought. "Better go home and see the guv'nor before I do anything now. Oh, the fearful and wonderful British law," he thought to himself. He saw the landlady and gave notice.

"Oh!" she said. "Has Mr Darwen—" she stopped; she wanted to know all about it, but did not know how to ask.

"Mr Darwen has sacked me, yes," he said; Carstairs was a most unsatisfactory subject for a woman to tackle, he left so much to the imagination. "I shall leave about three o'clock on Monday afternoon," he explained, as a conclusion to the subject. He produced his drawing board and settled down to do a good afternoon's work on his slowly evolving patent. As he bent low over the board, scrutinizing some fine detail work, his eye caught an extra pin-hole on the edge of the clean white board. He dug the point of his pencil thoughtfully into it. "That's funny," he said to himself. "I don't remember to have done that." He looked around at the three other corners and saw pin-holes in all of them. It was a new board and he had never had a sheet of paper on it of the size indicated by the pin-holes. "Some devil has been taking a tracing of this, our esteemed friend, Darwen, or his agents, no doubt." He leaned back in his chair in deep thought for a time, then he bent forward and set to work vigorously again.

He was still busy when the landlady's daughter brought in his tea. He looked up casually and caught her eye bent on his work with extreme interest. "Good evening, Miss Hughes," he said.

"Good evening, Mr Carstairs," she answered, and she had summoned up a defiant sort of air to meet his eye.

Carstairs' face was like the Sphinx. "I'm going up to London to-morrow. Would you mind letting me have breakfast at half-past six? I shall come back by the eleven twenty, but I've got a very important piece of work here I want to finish before I go, so please don't let me be disturbed for the rest of the evening."

"Thanks very much." Carstairs regarding her steadily with his calm, inquiring eyes, caught a gleam in hers that she did not want to be seen; he gave no sign, and she went away quite oblivious of the fact that he had read her like an open book.

Next day he went off to London and saw his lawyer brother; they talked over his case against Darwen, and his brother very quickly decided that he had "no case." So Carstairs returned, and in the stillness of the wee sma' hours he examined the drawing again, and found, as he expected, four more pin-holes. He did not smile; when in company his mirth was seldom excessive, when alone, his features never for one second relaxed their attitude of calm seriousness. He replaced the drawing board in its position, leaning against the wall behind the piano, and went to bed.

The following Monday he called at the office for his month's pay. He waited at the little shutter that the men were paid at, while the office boy went to fetch a clerk who fetched another clerk, who consulted with the first clerk, and called a third clerk and sent the office boy for a book and a pen, then they all three consulted together again and reprimanded the office boy before handing the cheque through the little shutter. Which entire rigmarole was the outcome of insufficient work, and too sufficient pomposity. While Carstairs waited, Darwen opened the door of his office.

"Hullo, old chap, come inside. Here, Morris, bring that cheque along with you." He held out his hand.

Darwen laughed. "A Saxon," he said, "is an individual who proceeds along 'strait' lines. I was going to ask you to come home with me this evening. The mater would like to see you."

"Thanks very much. I should like to see your mother, but I'm afraid I can't stop this evening."

The clerk brought out the cheque. Darwen took it and, glancing over it, handed it on to Carstairs. "There you are, old chap. I'm sorry it's the last."

Carstairs took it. "Thanks," he said. "Good-bye," and turning on his heel he went out for the last time.

Darwen watched him through the window as he walked down the street with his long swinging stride. "The reason, personified, of why England owns half the earth," he said, to himself. "And equally the reason that she doesn't own the whole of it," he added, thoughtfully.

He lay back in his chair and gazed far into the future, mental pictures in many colours shaped themselves in kaleidoscopic procession across the white expanse of ceiling. For half an hour he sat thus, then sitting suddenly upright, and drawing in his outstretched legs, he plunged back into the present among the papers on his table.

Some six months later, in the dining-room at Chilcombe Vicarage, there was held a family council of war. The old vicar was there, Commander Carstairs was there, Phillip and Stanley Carstairs were there, and they all looked serious. For six months Jack Carstairs had been applying for each and every one of the multitudinous appointments advertized in the technical papers, with no results; he had learned through the same medium that Darwen had been appointed to one of the London stations at £750 per annum, to start; and that evening he had returned from making personal application for a very junior appointment at £1 per week in a neighbouring town. The chief (of German antecedent), the personification of ignorance and bombast, had catechized and bullied him, cross-examined and contradicted him, and finally abruptly refused him the billet.

Jack was speaking, and they all listened attentively. "When a German ex-gasfitter, with a little elementary arithmetic and less electrical catalogue information, talks to me as though he were a miniature Kaiser and I the last-joined recruit of his most unsatisfactory regiment, and then refuses me a switchboard attendant's job on technical grounds, then, I admit, my thoughts lightly turn to robbery with violence as a recreation and means of livelihood. He'd have liked me to say 'yes, sir,' and 'no, sir,' and 'please, sir,' and touch my cap and grovel in the dirt. I'd see him in hell first."

"I always said, Hugh, you ought to have put that boy in the Service," the sailor interjected, quite seriously.

"Can't we—er—don't we know somebody with some influence on these councils who would use it on Jack's behalf." It was the artist who spoke.

The young engineer stood up suddenly with unwonted passion. "Damn it! I'm not a blasted mendicant! I'm a competent engineer! It's no use talking rot about modesty. I know what I have done and can do again. I say I'm a competent engineer. I've been getting two hundred and fifty quid a year, and earning it, saving it for the people who paid me. And I am willing to take a quid, one blasted quid a week, and I can't get it. I'm not going to beg for my own cursed rights. In all those hundreds of jobs I've applied for, I must have been the best man on my paper form alone. If I can't live as an engineer in my own cursed country, then, by God! I'll steal." He turned on his father with blazing eyes. "I say, I'll steal, and if any blundering idiot or flabby fool tries to stop me, I'll kill him dead. The first law of life is to live. What do you say to that? You preach platitudes from the pulpit every Sunday, what have you to say to the logic of the engine room?"

The old vicar smiled, somewhat sorrowfully. "I might say that you are possessed of a devil," he said, with quiet humour. "Your engineering experience ought to tell you that it's no use ramming your head against a brick wall."

Jack sat down. "That's so," he said, "there's an obstruction somewhere; the thing to do is to find it out and remove it."

"I tell you, Hugh! the initial mistake was in not putting that boy into the Service; though there's a maxim there that promotion comes 80 per cent. by chance, 18 per cent. by influence, and 2 per cent. by merit."

"That's rot, you know, unless you mean to say that 18 per cent. of the men in the Service are snivelling cheats."

The sailor was thoughtful. "There are some cheats in the Navy, but not many; as a rule it's not the man's own fault that he is promoted by influence. At the same time you can't afford to get to loo'ard of your skipper, much depends on one man's word, but that man is usually a——"

"Well! 'an officer and a gentleman' they call him. The Service would have suited you."

"My dear uncle, I have all respect for the Service, but at the same time I should not wish to be anything but an engineer, and engineers in the Service at the present time are somewhat small beer. Anyway, as a money-making concern, the Service don't pan out anything great. Bounce told me that the seamen haven't had a rise in pay since Nelson's time."

The sailor laughed. "That's a good old A.B.'s growl," he said. "I gather, too, that engineering is not panning out so very great as a money-making concern just now."

"No! you're right. I'm a bit sick when I think of it, too, it's rather sickening. I've got a model upstairs of an engine that would make any man's fortune, and I can't get the fools to take it up. I think I shall have to break away for the States."

They were all silent for some minutes till the old vicar rose. "Shall we go to bed?" he said, and they proceeded upstairs, solemnly, silently, in single file.

The weeks passed away and Jack's uncle went back to sea, and his brothers returned to London, and another brother came and went. The winter changed to spring, the days lengthened out and grew brighter, and still Jack Carstairs could get nothing to do, nor get any one to take up his patent. Then one morning amongst the two or three letters awaiting him was one with a penny stamp: the ha'penny ones he knew were the stereotyped replies of the various municipalities to the effect that they "regretted" his application had not been successful; it was a way they had, they sent these things with a sort of grim humour about a month after he had seen by the papers that some one else had been appointed; it wasn't very often they went to the extravagance of a penny stamp for a refusal, so he opened that first, glancing casually at the city arms emblazoned on the flap of the envelope; enclosed was a typewritten letter, he was appointed switchboard attendant at £1 per week.

Carstairs gazed at it sternly with bitter hatred of all the world in his heart. "A blasted quid," he said, aloud. "Ye gods! a quid a week! And Darwen, the cheat, is getting £750." He hadn't fully realized when he was writing his applications for these small appointments, exactly the extent of his fall; but now, as he had it in typewritten form before his eyes, and signed, he looked again, signed by a man who had served his time with him.

Mrs Carstairs was humbly thankful for small mercies, but the old vicar, whom Jack found alone in his study, looked into his son's eyes and read the bitterness of soul there. "Do you think it would be wise to refuse and wait for something better. This is your home you know. You can work on your patent."

"I thought of all that before I applied," Jack answered. "The patent! The path of the inventor seems the most difficult and thorny path of all."

The old man's eyes brightened; he liked the stern definiteness of his youngest son. "It does seem hard," he said. "I don't understand these things, but I think you are wise to take this appointment."

"Oh, yes! I have no idea of refusing, but when I think that that lying cheat, Darwen, is getting £750 a year, it makes me feel pretty sick."

"I know, Jack; we see these things in the Church the same as everywhere else; the cheat seems sometimes to prosper. Why it should be so, I cannot comprehend; the cheat must inevitably cheat himself as the liar lies to himself, so that they both live in a sort of fool's paradise; they both unaccountably get hold of the wrong end of the stick; they imagine that they are successful if they satisfy others that they have done well, while the only really profitable results ensue when one satisfies oneself that one has done well; then and only then, can real intellectual, moral, and physical, progress follow. It is possible to imagine a being of such a low order of morality that he could feel a real intellectual pleasure in outwitting his fellow-men by cheating; such an one, it seems to me, must be very near the monkey stage of development. As man progresses intellectually he sets his intellect harder and harder tasks to perform, else he declines. It is possible that the cheat may occasionally reap very material and worldly advantages by his cheating. Some few apparently do, though the number must be extremely small and the intellectual capacity exceedingly great, for they are constantly pitted, not against one, but against the whole intellect of the world, including their brother cheats. The rewards and the punishments alike, in the great scheme of the Universe, are spread out unto the third and the fourth generation; the progeny of the cheat, in my experience, decline in intellect and moral force till probably the lowest depths of insanity and idiocy are reached. This great law of punishment for the sins of the fathers is beyond my mental grasp, but that it is so I cannot doubt; it is in fact, to me, the greatest proof that there must be something beyond the grave. You understand, Jack, I'm not in the pulpit, this is worldly wisdom, but I want to set these things before you as they appear to me. You must forget Darwen; you reap no profit from his success or failure, but you expend a large amount of valuable energy in brooding over it. 'Play up, and play the game,' Jack. Don't cheat because others are cheating, if you do you are bound to become less skilful in the real game. Think it over, Jack, 'Keep your eyes in the boat,' don't think about the other crew or the prize, simply 'play the game.' Have you told your mother you're going?"

"No, thanks. I've got all the books I want. You've seen my two packing cases full."

"Ah, yes! I'd forgotten. So you're going to-morrow. That's rather soon, isn't it?"

"I told them that if appointed I'd start at once. I'm going to pack and then whip round and say good-bye to my friends."

So Jack took his hat and stick and strolled round to his few friends in the village to tell them he was going. The Bevengtons were furthest away, and he called there last. Bessie had been away in London and other places, nearly all the time he had been home, when he called now she was home. He had heard she was coming.

"I've come to say good-bye, Mrs Bevengton. I've got a job, and I'm going up north again."

They both looked pleased; Mrs Bevengton really liked Jack. "When are you going?" she asked.

Bessie's jaw dropped, she was keenly disappointed, and she looked, Jack thought, in the pink of condition, more so than usual.

"I hope it's a good appointment, Jack," Mrs Bevengton said; she was disappointed too.

"Twenty-five bob at the end of six months," he said, with rather a cynical little smile. Out of the tail of his eye he regarded Bessie, she had flushed a deep red at the mention of his microscopical salary. She seemed more matured, her manner impressed him with a sense of responsibility, an air of definiteness that appealed to him immensely; he saw now that her lips closed suddenly. She had made up her mind to something.

"Come on out for a walk, Jack," she said. "I haven't had a look round the old place for nearly a year. We shall be back to tea, mother."

She got her hat and they walked briskly down the pleasant village street in the glorious spring sunshine; every one they passed greeted them with civility and respect. Jack regarded them with pleasure; he told Bessie they were the stiffest, hardest, and most genuinely civil crowd he had ever encountered. "Perhaps I'm biassed," he said, "but I like men and these chaps appeal to me more than any others I've met so far."

They turned across the fields and went more slowly. "I've been having a good time, Jack, while I've been away."

"Well, I've been to a lot of dances and parties and theatres, etc. I suppose I've enjoyed it—in a way."

"Jack!" she was walking very slowly. "Two men—three men, asked me to marry them."

"Ah! I suppose they were not the right ones." He did not quite know what to say.

"Good Lord!" Jack turned as though he had been shot. "Are you going to marry him?"

"I don't quite know. I've come home to decide. I don't think I care for him in quite the right way. Why did he break off his engagement to Miss Jameson?"

"Ah—er—I—" Carstairs was thinking, thinking, thinking. He wondered what to do and what to say.

"He told me that he thought he was in love with her till he saw me, then he knew he wasn't."

"He's very nice and very handsome, still I know I don't care for him as—as I do for some one else."

Carstairs was silent, he was trying to think. The situation was getting beyond him, he had a fleeting idea of trying to change the subject, of closing the matter; but he knew that once closed it could never be re-opened, and he wanted to do the right thing. They were silent for some minutes.

"Jack?" she asked, and the struggle was painful. "Has my money made any difference to you?"

"Half a minute!" he said, hastily. "Don't say any more, please. Let me think"—he paused—"Five years ago I met a girl in Scotland."

"I'll write to Mr Darwen to-night and tell him that if he likes to wait a long, long time, I'll marry him," she said.

"Why don't you speak, Jack? Mr Darwen's your friend, isn't he? He's handsome and so kind and attentive, and if he cares for me as—as he says he does, I think I ought to marry him. I couldn't before, but now—don't you think I ought?"

"Well, er—it's more a question for the guv'nor. Will you let me explain the situation to him, and then he'll see you. The guv'nor's very wise, in these things, and it's his province, you know. I should like you to talk to him."

That night Jack Carstairs sat up very late with his father in his study. And next morning the train whisked him north, to the dim, grey north, and the engines, and the steam, and the hard, hard men, mostly engineers. Jack was very sad and silent in his corner of a third-class carriage all the way.

CHAPTER XVIII

For three months Carstairs worked steadily at the beginning of things electrical; he cleaned the switchboard and regulated the volts; he took orders from a youth, rather younger and considerably less experienced than himself. For those three months the world seemed a very dull place to him.

Then, quite by accident, as these things always happen, he met a man, a casual caller, who wished to see round the works; the shift engineer told Carstairs off to show him round, because it was "too much fag" to do it himself.

He was an oldish man with whiskers and heavy, bushy eyebrows, just turning grey; his questions were few and to the point, and Carstairs seemed to feel he had met a kindred spirit at once. He listened attentively to Carstairs' clear and concise explanations, and when it was over he did not offer him a shilling as sometimes happened, but in the casual, unemotional, north-country way, he handed him his card and asked if he would like to see round his works "over yonder."

Carstairs glanced from the card in his hand to the rather shabby individual, with the "dickey," and slovenly, dirty tie, in front of him.

"Then I'll see ye." He held out his hand and gave Carstairs a vigorous grip. The name on the card was the name of a partner of a very prominent firm of engine builders.

Carstairs felt a singular sense of satisfaction for the rest of the evening; his perturbed mind seemed at peace, somehow.

Next morning, punctually at nine, he called at the office and was shown round the extensive works by the old man in person. He explained and Carstairs listened and made occasional comments or asked questions. And ever and anon he felt a pair of keen eyes regarding him in thoughtful, shrewd glances. When they had finished the circuit of the works, Carstairs broached the subject of his patent, he felt an extreme friendliness towards this rough, shrewd man, and he knew that his labours on the patent were at last going to bear fruit.

In the dingy little back room of Carstairs' diggings, he examined critically and minutely the small model.

They took it to pieces and spread the parts out on the table, the old man examining them one by one. He offered no comment, and Carstairs put it together again and turned it with his hand, showing the beautiful smooth running of it.

"I'll take those," the old man said, and seizing two of the heavier parts, he tucked them under his arm. And thus, carrying it between them, they returned to the big works. There a long consultation was held. The junior partner (an ex-officer of the Royal Engineers) was called in, and the final result was that the firm undertook to manufacture the engine and pay royalties to Carstairs.

"I must see a lawyer and get advice as to the terms of the agreement," Carstairs said. "I'm only free in the mornings this week. Will that suit you?"

"Well, ye can start here in the drawing office on Monday at £2. Will that do ye?"

The next six months passed like six days to Carstairs; he hadn't time to write to any of his friends and only an occasional scribble to his mother. At the end of that time the first engine built on his model was finished and had completed a most satisfactory run. Then he took a holiday, and went home.

"Bessie is not engaged," his father told him, "but Darwen still pesters her with his attentions."

Jack was thoughtful. "She's a jolly decent girl, Bessie! If Darwen were only honest! I shall go up to London, I want to see his mother." So next day Carstairs went off.

It was the same old, handsome, healthy Darwen; bright-eyed, pink-cheeked, lively.

"Well, I'm blowed!" There was that little flicker of the eyelids that Carstairs knew so well. "Yes, there you are," he handed him a card with an address on it.

"Ye gods. Ha! Ha! Ha! Good old Carstairs. The northern air is simply wonderful for the nerves. Ha! Ha! Ha! I tell you what. I'll go out this evening, just to oblige you. I'll go to the theatre. I haven't seen the new thing at Daly's yet."

"Thanks!" Carstairs turned and went away. He made his way to the address in South Kensington that Darwen had given him. It was a boarding-house; he asked for Mrs Darwen and sent in his card. The German page-waiter sort of chap showed him up to their private sitting-room.

She entered almost immediately, looking older and whiter, her eyes more bleared and her cheeks deeply furrowed. She looked him sadly in the face.

"I'm sorry," he answered. "It couldn't be helped; we didn't really quarrel, I called on him to-day."

"Ah!" There was a gleam of pleasure in her eyes. "Why didn't you call on me before you left Southville?"

"I couldn't—then, he'd just broken me—chucked me aside like a broken chisel. I sent you my best respects."

"Yes, so he said: I wondered if he lied. You're—so—I thought you would have called—about the girl."

"Ah!" She gave a deep sigh. "You're the best man, I think, I've ever met. You want to know where she is?"

He put out a hand to stop her. "I don't expect he'd like me to see them," he said.

He was very serious. "That's so, but I'm full of ideas for improvements and other things, and it is most difficult, when one sees a thing that is appropriate, not to assimilate it consciously or unconsciously into one's own ideas."

"Still, I'll get them," she answered. She went out and came back in a minute or two with a drawing board and a roll of tracings.

Carstairs glanced over the drawing, and allowed just a slight smile to pucker up the corners of his eyes.

She looked at him and saw he was speaking the truth. She spread out the tracing. "That girl from your lodgings in Southville brought that round one day when he was out; he never gets angry, but I know he was annoyed because she'd left it."

Carstairs bent down and examined it. "It's done rather well," he said; "girls are good tracers. I left that for her to copy."

She heaved a very deep sigh of relief. "That's been on my mind like a ton weight. I was afraid my boy was a thief. Very often I was on the point of writing to you, but—you hadn't called."

Carstairs was bent low over the drawing examining some fine work very closely, he was so deeply interested he did not look up as she spoke. "That's excellent work! Darwen was always an artist, in everything," he said.

"Yes," she answered, proudly, "he's very clever. I'm so sorry you quarrelled. I knew that girl would come between you."

"Yes," she repeated, "but you're the one she really likes, I know." Mrs Darwen seemed to have grown visibly younger.

Carstairs straightened himself and stood looking down at her with his calm steady grey eyes. "Ye-es," he said, he was thinking rapidly. "Yes, I hope that's true. Will you give me her address; has she—er—got a situation?"

"Oh, no! she's been in London, having her voice trained. She's got a magnificent voice."

"Where did she get the money from?" he asked, he was quite pale, and his grey eyes glittered like newly fractured steel.

She looked at him aghast, frightened; she put an imploring hand on his arm. "The girl's honest. I know she is. I'm sure of it; she was saving. I know she was saving. Perhaps Lady Cleeve——"

"No, no! I know she wouldn't take anything from him, because—because that was why she left."

"She's gone down to her people again, she came to me yesterday. They're encamped down at the old place near Southville; it suits her father down there, he's getting old and Scotland was too cold for him."

The words brought back a luminous vision to Carstairs; his eyes took on a far-away look. "My word! she was full of pluck," he said, aloud, but really to himself.

Mrs Darwen smiled with great pleasure. "If—when you've married her, you'll be friends with Charlie again——?"

He came to earth suddenly and considered. "We shall be friends," he said, "from now onwards, but I'm afraid we can never again be chums. I'll call and see him before I go to the station."

He shook hands and left her, and half an hour later he called at her son's office. The office boy showed him in and he held out his hand. Darwen grasped it with a warm friendly smile.

"In the presence of other people," Carstairs said, as the door closed behind the office boy, "we are friends, because your mother is one of the best women on this earth. How she came to have such a whelp as you, Lord only knows. Do you agree?"

"My dear chap, I am honoured and delighted. It is not often one gets an opportunity of shaking an honest man by the hand, even though the excuse for doing so is a lie." He smiled his most charming smile. "You're putting on weight, Carstairs."

"No, I've noticed it myself." A shade of real anxiety passed across Darwen's face.

Carstairs noted it, and his opinion of Darwen went up; he stepped up close. "Look here," he said, "she was worried because she thought her son was a damned rogue. I've told her—at least given her to understand, that he is not, and you'll find her looking a different woman. Do you see?" He turned and went out.

Darwen sat back in his chair lost in thought. "That man always makes me think. Wonderful man, wonderful man. Damn him!" He sat up suddenly and went on with his work.

That night Carstairs reached Southville; he got out and put up at a hotel for the night. Before going to bed he went out and strolled round the town in the silence of the late evening. Old memories crowded back on him, and although they were not always of pleasant happenings, the taste of them was sweet; he had progressed since then, and he felt, in the bones of him, he knew, that he was going forward. His steps turned mechanically towards the electric lighting works, and before he quite realized where he was going, he found himself facing the old familiar big gates with the little wicket at the side. He looked at his watch. "Eleven o'clock! Wonder who's on." He paused a minute, then opened the wicket and went in. "Probably some of the men who knew me are still here," he thought.

The engine room was just the same. The hum of the alternators and the steady beat of the engines thrilled his blood. He stood in the doorway for some minutes in silence. The sight of running machinery was meat and drink to him. A little square-shouldered man wandered up to ask him what he wanted. Carstairs held out his hand. "Hullo, Bounce, have you forgotten me?"

"Well, I never. Mister Carstairs! I ain't forgotten you, sir, but you was in the dark."

"It's nearly that now. I'll wait. You can come round to my hotel and get a drink."

"Thank you, sir. I'll go and wash and change. Would you like to see the engineer?"

"No, thanks, I'll just sit on this box and watch the wheels going round: same old box, same old wheels. How many hours of the night have I spent sitting on this box listening to your damn lies, Bounce?"

Carstairs sat and waited, and all sorts of fresh fancies and ideas thronged through his brain as the wheels went round and the alternators hummed and the corliss gear clicked. A distinct and complete idea for a valuable improvement shaped itself in his mind as he watched and listened. He stood up and stretched himself with a sigh of great content. "By Jove, if old Wagner composed music like that, he'd have done a damn sight more for humanity," he said to himself, with a smile at the sacrilege of the thought. To Carstairs, Wagner was a drawing-room conjurer, not to be thought of at the same instant as men who designed engines. Bounce came down the engine-room towards him with his wide-legged sailor's roll. He was attired in a blue-serge suit, spotlessly clean and neat. His strong, clean-cut features and steady, piercing eyes showed to great advantage in the artificial light and against the dark background of his clothes.

"By Jove, Bounce, I can't understand why it is you're not Prime Minister of England."

The little man's bright eyes twinkled, but his features never relaxed. "I can't understand it myself," he said.

They went off together to the hotel, where Carstairs drank whisky and Bounce rum. The waiter looked at him somewhat superciliously, till he met Bounce's eye fair and square, then he seemed impressed.

Carstairs stood up. "Now, look here, Bounce, I really cannot understand—what the devil is there you can't do?"

"Alright. Here goes. I can walk and run and swim; box and wrestle and fence; shoot a revolver, rifle, or big gun; push a perambulator, hand cart, or wheel barrow; drive a steam engine, horse, or a motor car; stroke a boiler, feed a baby, the missus, an' the kids; scrub a floor, table, or furniture; make and mend and wash my own clothes; light a fire, make tea, coffee, or cocoa; make the beds and clean the rooms; wash up dishes, lay the table and wait at same; clean the windows, paint a house, and walk along the roof." Here he started to digress. "I remember once in Hong Kong——"

"Oh, yes! Sing a song, play the mouth organ. Catch fish (when they bite), dance the waltz, polka, hornpipe, quadrilles, lancers, and schottische." He paused.

"There ain't no more. Oh, yes! read an' write an' do sums." He scratched his head. "Sometimes," he added.

"Yes an' no, but mind, I have 'ad a try at that. I come aboard drunk once in——"

"Drink a bottle of rum, brandy, whisky, gin, port, sherry, champagne, beer, or any alcoholic liquors, with anybody; and spin a yarn with the best."

"Very good. I give you a first-class character. Will you come out for a drive with me in the morning and look after the horse while I—while I'm engaged?"

"Yes, sir, I will. I knows all about it. I courted my missus between the spells of three-year cruises."

"Thank you, sir. I forgot as to mention as I could smoke and chew any baccy on the market. This yer—this yer," he reflected, thoughtfully, as he emptied the pouch, "is what we calls boys' terbaccer."

"Yes, sir." He doubled up again, then, suddenly straightening himself, saluted in all solemnity. "To-morrow morning at half-past eight, sir." He turned and made his way out.

Next morning punctually at half-past eight Carstairs and Bounce set off in a hired dog-cart for the gipsy camp. They drove along the beautiful country side chatting lightly till they came (over the top of a hill) into sudden view of a torn and trampled valley, teeming with men; little locomotives steamed fussily in all directions; gantry cranes wheeled and pivoted and travelled with large blocks of stone from one place to another.

"Alright, let's go down, some of the men will be sure to know where the camp is." They drove down to the deeply rutted, slushy, entrance, a five-barred gate was kept permanently open by the furrows of rick brown earth turned up by the heavy cart wheels. A strongly built, healthy looking individual dressed in a tweed suit and yellow leggings and a cloth cap, was picking his way carefully through the deep mud of the gateway: he was the resident engineer. Carstairs pulled up and shouted to him across the hedge, "I say, is there a gipsy camp near here?"

The young man carefully balanced himself on a flat stone in the middle of the sea of mud, then he looked up and pointed with his hand. "Yes, over there! Go down to the bottom of the hill and turn to your left, there's a bit of a common there. Light green common, they call it."

"Thanks!" Carstairs whipped up and drove away. "Healthy chaps those 'civils' always are," he remarked.

They drove in silence till they reached the bottom of the hill and turned to the right.

The common was a triangular piece of land between the forks of two roads; in one place it was fairly flat most of the rest of it was composed of miniature hills and dales, with steep sloping sides and flat bottoms, inclined in places to be marshy. It was on the flat portion, under the shelter of one of these miniature hills, that the caravans were drawn up in a scattered group.

Carstairs walked up to the one he recognised, with the little brass handled stairway, the bright paint and fancy leather work; a little crowd of ragged urchins and mongrel curs trailed after him. He mounted the steps and rapped at the little door. It was promptly opened and a woman looked out; although she was much more haggard and worn looking he recognised her at once, and he saw that she recognised him.

"No,——." She mentioned a little country town about four miles away. "She'll be back this evening."

He stood on the step and stroked his chin in thought. "I've driven over from Southville, but my man can go back with the horse. Where do you think I could get lodgings near here?"

"Ah! Er—" Carstairs stood still a moment. "Yes, I should. Can I talk to him? Something important?"

"Oh, yes. He knows he's going, and it would do him good to hear what you've got to say."

He stared at her in quick surprise for a moment, and then stepped after her into the caravan. It was scrupulously clean and expensively upholstered; the sides were partitioned off horizontally into little bunks with neat brass rods and curtains to shut them in; there were windows along the front and back and sides with snowy white lace curtains to them; it was not at all dingy, but very light and bright. The woman drew aside a curtain and showed the silver-haired old man supported in a half-sitting position in the bunk.

Carstairs could see at once that he was very weak, and also that he was very well attended to.

The old man looked him steadily in the eyes. "I've seen you before. How are you?" he said. The voice was very low.

"Yes, I'm dying. We've all got to die some time. You want to marry my daughter?"

"Oh! She told me," the old man nodded feebly towards the gipsy woman. "She knows everything."

"Who are you?" the old man asked, after a pause, during which he had closed his eyes and remained quite still.

"My name is Carstairs—Jack Carstairs. I'm the son of the Reverend Hugh Carstairs, Vicar of Chilcombe in Gloucestershire."

There was a short silence, then the old man spoke again. "Who was your grandfather?"

"That's alright. I suppose we can't expect anything better. Get those papers!" His last remark was addressed to the woman.

Carstairs stood silently wondering—mystified. He heard the woman unlocking something at the back of the caravan, then she came up and held out some parchment-looking papers. The old man took them in a feeble thin hand and laid them on the bed clothes in front of him.

Carstairs was astonished beyond measure, but his countenance showed very little of it.

"Yes," the old man continued, slowly, "I am Sir Thomas D'Arcy, one time plain Thomas D'Arcy, Professor of Music at Oxford, profligate and drunkard. This gipsy woman is my legally married wife, and that girl is my daughter; there is no estate, and the money is all spent. You can marry the girl when you are getting £400 a year."

"Well, I'm damned." Carstairs thought it so fervently that for a moment he feared it must be visible on his face, but the old man was resting with closed eyes.

"No—but I expect in the next six months to receive royalties on patents to the extent at least of the other £250."

"Very good—expectations do not always materialize. However, those are the conditions. You can go now."

He was moving away when the old man held up a feeble, detaining hand. Carstairs stayed in silence.

"There are other D'Arcys, but no relation to us. I am the last. We were really French, a French noble family—with a strain of Italian running in us too——" He rested again.

Carstairs pondered deeply while the old man paused. Something of the outlines of the features in their deathly pallor seemed familiar to him. He gazed hard at the face as it lay with closed eyes on the pillows, then he asked, speaking slowly. "Do you know a Mrs Darwen?" The resemblance he had traced to the portrait in Mrs Darwen's album.

"Ah! She was the daughter of a yeoman farmer in Oxfordshire, rather well to do, but of course I couldn't marry her—then; the boy—is he any good?"

"Does she? I don't know who she knows. You must marry her. She mustn't—mustn't know."

The old man sank back on his pillows and closed his eyes. Carstairs watched him for a minute or so, then turned and looked interrogatively at the woman. "Asleep?" he asked, quietly.

She nodded. "Resting," she answered, and Carstairs made his way very quietly out of the caravan.

CHAPTER XIX

Lost in thought, Carstairs made his way back to the dogcart and Bounce. He climbed in. "Let's go to the village, Bounce, over there."

"Yes, sir." Bounce was all attention to business; he asked no questions, and looked no questions, but his mind was active in a very great wonder.

They drove in absolute silence till the village was reached, then Carstairs spoke.

"I'm staying here the night. Will you take the horse back and come over again in the morning?" He took out his purse and handed Bounce some money. "I haven't seen the girl, I shall see her to-morrow. I've seen her father and her mother. Her father is dying."

"So am I. Good-bye." Carstairs went into the village inn, arranged for a room, got something to eat, and set off to walk to the little town where the girl had gone.

It was a beautiful day and the country was lovely, but Carstairs had no spare thoughts to give to it; he strode on and at a fast pace, observing nothing, till long before he had disentangled the complicated skein of his thoughts he found himself in the little town.

"What the devil am I to do now?" he asked himself. "I'll walk right through the bally show till I come out on the other side, then I'll turn round and come back a different way," So he walked on again and spent the whole afternoon to no purpose except as far as exercise was concerned. It was quite late when he returned to the inn. He got something to eat and then sat in the little private bar smoking and sipping a whisky and soda. Through the thin partition, from the tap room, he heard a huge uproar of gruff voices. It was pay night, and a great concourse of navvies from the water-works were taking their evening beer. Carstairs caught scraps of conversation, and occasionally references to a "toff" who had been "standing" them beer.

He got up and wandered along the country lanes in the dark, then he turned in and went to bed.

Early in the morning, just after he had finished breakfast, Bounce arrived with the dogcart. Carstairs saw him, through the little lattice window, walking the horse up and down the village street. He went out to him.

So they drove away, Bounce enlivening the journey with little anecdotes of his travels.

"Yes, awful lucky chap I am; always picking up something. Picked up a barrel of beer once, me and a mate."

"Yes, a hogshead, I suppose; been lying on the pavement for hours and nobody happened to notice it till you came along."

Bounce laughed. "Well, there was some other blokes as reckoned they saw it first, but we didn't take no notice of them, furriners, they was, see?"

"We offered to share out, but they wasn't satisfied with that, so we took the lot. Mind, there was a row about it afterwards."

"Yes. 'Asty blokes, them furriners. We 'ad to flatten 'em all out before we 'ad any peace. Stiff blokes they was too, some on 'em, but very soft about the ribs, like punching a bladder of lard it was, sort of unsatisfactory like."

"Yes. An' another time we picked up an old toff with a bullet in 'im, that was in Rio. Fine harbour, Rio. Give us ten dollars each 'e did, three on us."

"Oh, 'aving a bit of a spree, I s'pose, 'e never told us. 'Nother time I picked up a bloke's 'and, cut off at the wrist. In Port Said, that were."

By this time they had reached the camp, and Bounce stopped the recital of his "lucky" incidents. Carstairs got down. "If I'm long, you can drive by yourself to Southville. I don't want to make you late."

"That's alright, sir. I changed-over with my mate to-day. I don't go on till midnight."

Carstairs went across to the caravan. The gipsy woman saw him coming and opened the door to greet him. "She came back and went away again first thing this morning. She'll be back this afternoon."

Carstairs frowned and stared at the woman very severely. He thought she was not telling the truth, but he saw by the light of genuine anger that sprang to her eyes at his frown, that he had misjudged her.

"No thanks, I'll explore the country a bit, and call back again." He was going away when the woman stopped him. "Will you come in just a minute? I'd like to try you with the cards!"

She did not answer, but stepped inside the caravan and produced a pack of cards, quite new and clean. "Shuffle and cut," she said, handing them to him.

"That's true. I was thinking of her prophesying in Scotland that I should be a winner."

Taking hold of him by the right wrist, she turned the palm upwards and looked at it intently for a few seconds. "My word! you are a strong man," she said.

"That's piffle," he answered, "those lines are accentuated by gripping a hammer shaft."

"It's certainly rather a curious coincidence. Hearts infer love, I suppose, and I'm in love, that's true."

"Yes, that's true, but you have a rival, I know. A dark man, perhaps—if he——"

Carstairs frowned. "Good God, that's impossible. Didn't you hear what the old man said? he's her brother."

The old woman looked steadily into his eyes. "You don't know. That's only what you think."

"That dark man's very close, closer than you think. Watch him! Watch him!" she repeated, and retreated into her caravan in a strangely perturbed state.

"Well, Patience is a virtue, sir, so they says. An' you've got to 'ave it with the women, though they ain't got none theirselves."

"Well, I ain't got no more than one missus, an' that's enough for any man, too much for some on 'em."

"That's true. I do, sir. Not but what I 'ave a' done a bit o' courting now an' then in other parts—before I was married, o' course."

"Yes. An' now my missus gets the benefit of all that experience. I come to 'er efficient, thoroughly efficient, as I sez to 'er on the day that we was married."

"Yes, sir. Do it now, an' do it proper. That's the motto of the navy. Only 'steady,' too. 'Steady does it,' is another motto. The man as ain't never done no courting before 'e gets married, ought to be buried an' not married at all."

"That ain't nothing, sir. I've 'ad it done 'undreds of times, an' all different," the little sailor remarked, cheerfully. "When I was in Calcutta——"

So listening to Bounce's wonderful adventures, Carstairs had a very pleasant morning drive. They stopped at a little country public house and got some bread and cheese and beer; Bounce, meanwhile, enlarging on the virtue of beer in general, and that beer in particular.

Then they got into the trap again and completed a circuit of the locality, bringing up finally at the far side of the little common.

They could see a dense crowd of navvies from the water-works moving in the direction of the gipsy camp.

Carstairs looked, anxiously. "Hope there's no row on with the gipsies," he said. They could hear much shouting and singing, but could not distinguish the words. A turn in the road brought the camp full into view: there was much commotion going on, the gipsies were pulling their caravans up together as if to withstand an assault.

"We must stop those chaps, Bounce," Carstairs said, as he whipped up the horse and tore along the road at a furious gallop. They cut across the level strip of green at the acute angle of the common, and raced along the other road. They reached the navvies some three hundred yards from the camp. As they got within earshot they could distinguish what the men were shouting. Carstairs flushed an angry red and set his big jaw tight. "And this is England," he said. "England, in the year of grace 1896, 'England, the eye, the soul of Europe,' as Darwen used to quote."

"Well, you'll all get the sack, you know, besides imprisonment, if you go on with this game."

The words were hardly out of his mouth when Carstairs' fist took him in the face and knocked him backwards among his fellows.

"Hurray!" they shouted. "Hip, hip, hurray!" Five hundred of them roared it out in chorus.

Carstairs stood up. "Wait a minute," he said. "I'll come down. Will you give me fair play?"

Bounce stood up. "Is there any blokes 'ere wot bin in the navy?" he asked, with great dignity.

"'Blue Marines,' mate," a big, burly man on the outskirts of the crowd answered.

The big man pushed his way up to the trap and held out his hand. "How do! old chum. I thought you was still in the Service."

"So I ought a bin if I 'adn't bin a bleeding fool. This 'ere gentleman is Mister Carstairs, 'e's good, I trained 'im myself. 'E's nephew of Lootenant Carstairs wot was on the 'Mediterranean' with us."

The man promptly saluted, and Carstairs nodded to him. "I shall get a fair show?" he asked.

"Thanks!" He stood up and addressed the crowd with a smiling countenance. "Look here, you chaps, I'm going to take on your mate here for as many rounds as you like, or to a finish."

"Well, look here. I'll put my purse containing five pounds in the hands of this gentleman. (He pointed to the marine, who blushed.)

There was a general titter, the navvy is unaccustomed to any sort of a handle to his name.

"That's it. If I lose, that five pounds will be yours to buy drinks with. If I win, will you promise to go back and leave those women alone?"

"Well, mates," Charlie spoke up, "I thinks wot the bloke sez is fair. I'll do my best for you, mates."

Bounce led the horse on to the green, and tied him up to a little tree. "Let's have a proper ring, and half a dozen stewards to see there ain't no crowding."

They selected a level spot in a little dell surrounded by miniature mountains. "'Cos then everybody can see without shoving," a navvy observed. The six stewards, with an air of very great seriousness, took off their coats and rolled up their shirt sleeves, exposing brawny, sunburnt arms to the daylight. They formed a circle and roughly measured with their eyes. "How's that, Charlie? How'll that do, sir?"

They stepped inside the circle, and Bounce and Hiscocks assisted Carstairs to disrobe, while five hundred statuesque navvies crowded round the tiers of the natural theatre, five hundred hard, strong faces; high cheek-boned, square-jawed, steady-eyed. Many of them were exceedingly handsome, in a massive, rough-hewn sort of way; mahogany browned, ear-ringed, coarse skinned. They were gathered there for a brutal, coarse purpose, perhaps, but the dawning of a great truth was uppermost, resolute and steadfast, in the minds of most. They were going to see fair play, "fair play" with all it meant when all the passions of envy, hatred, fierce anger, and the lust of gain were aroused. They were sportsmen, these men, and the term always seems to me synonymous with gentlemen as understood in England. The germ of a desire to do right was firmly fixed in their hearts, and this absorbed through many generations from the force of the precept and example of their leaders, the aristocrats of England. They had no religion, these men, and no politics, but the spirit of the prize ring and the Queensberry rules was deeply implanted in their souls. Their fathers before them had imbibed these rules from constant practical demonstration. Those drunken, dissolute, Georgian noblemen had given these men a code of morals that they could understand, and firmly rooted it in their breasts by consistent example. And every day England reaps the fruit of that seed. Truly it seems to me that England owes more to the sportsman than to the statesman: and although the middle class swamp, by a vast majority, all other classes in the number of great men they have produced: yet the aristocracy, like the head boys of a school, are responsible for the "tone" of the nation, and the "tone" of England is surpassing good. What these men had started out to do that day was due to their mental limitation, not to their wilful vice. Woman, particularly that type of woman, was to them an inferior animal, as she is to most working men; yet the majority treat their female relations, and the women they consider worthy of it (and the working man is not easily deceived by fine clothes and fine manners), with astonishing respect, real and true respect, not superficial mannerisms. The big majority of English working men, in my experience, are sportsmen, and possessed of the instincts of gentlemen, ineradicably stamped into their hard, true natures. And you young men, the budding engineers, who are lost in the intricacies of elementary algebra, or unravelling those painful problems in strength of material; the Tensile stresses in the rims of flywheels, and the elastic limit of steel plates, etc.: it is yours to see that you also understand the elastic limit of human nature, the inherent instincts of the working man, and the durability of your own emotions; this is what you learn in the "shops": it is yours to solve the unemployed problem and see that the English workman gets a chance to develop the fine qualities that are in him; for this (unemployment) is an engineering problem; the reduction of a sine curve to a straight line, the modification of a wave, the control of a tide: it is yours to know that the working man does not want a mouth in Parliament, but a fair show at his work. Watch what he does, and not what he says, as he will watch what you do, and not what you say; then you will see that he is (mostly) a sportsman, and you will learn to understand that it is better that the accent should be on the "man" than on the "gentle"—yet do not forget that a clean mind is the basis of all true force of character, and is inherently respected by every Englishman, foul-mouthed though he be. And you, fond Mammas, who desire your dear boys to be engineers, see to it that their biceps are good, for this is the underlying principle of all work; and when dear Willie comes home from the "shops" with his face punched into a many-hued polyhedron, be not alarmed, this is no doubt the result of scientific research into the specific resistance of the fitter's mate; it is also conceivable that occasions may arise when it is good that Willie should stand in the police court dock, charged with breaking a man's head with a hammer. All these things must come to pass before the steel enters thoroughly into Willie's soul; then he will take a very high polish and be very reliable, yet he will be very flexible and very keen; for this is the age of steel—hard, keen, true steel.

Carstairs stripped to the waist and tied his trousers round with a scarf that Bounce lent him. He stepped into the middle of the ring and looked at his opponent: slightly shorter, but more massive than himself, his face was remarkably hard looking, with a short, clipped moustache, and light china blue eyes with a roving, happy-go-lucky look in them; even now, as Carstairs faced him, there was an element of a grin on his face. (It is written somewhere in the Book of Fate that the British navvy shall fear no man on this earth.) His neck was like the trunk of an oak tree and sloped grandly on to his massive shoulders; in his hands, Carstairs observed, Nature had endowed him with a pair of very formidable weapons, the knuckles were enormous. Altogether Jack Carstairs recognised that he was up against one of the stiffest propositions he had ever tackled in his life.

"Three minute rounds," Bounce said, taking out the fine, half-hunter watch that had been presented to him for rescuing a drowning man.

"Shake hands, then." They reached out and gripped each other with a strong, hearty grip, and five hundred heads nodded grave approval.

As soon as the word was out of Bounce's mouth, the navvy sprang at Carstairs like a tiger. The royal light of battle was in his eyes, there was positive joy written large and bold over all his countenance.

Carstairs was serious, very serious, and quite calm; he ducked the man's furious left and right straight drives, and got in a useful stop hit with his left in the face, then broke ground. But the navvy was on him again like a whirlwind, while five hundred gruff voices shouted.

"One for the toff. First blood for the toff. 'Is nose is bleeding. Don't forget that five pound, Charlie. Mind, your mates is watching you."

Carstairs felt the huge, bony fists whistle past his ears, and he ducked and ducked again to the furious straight drives. He began to smile, too; the pleasure of it was entering into him, the important issue was slipping away from his mind. He hit the navvy heavily about the face, and received one or two glancing blows himself.

When time was called, they stood and looked at each other for a second or so like two newly found friends.

Their seconds came and took them away to their corners and sat them down on one man's knees while another fanned them with big, red pocket handkerchiefs.

"'It 'im in the body," Bounce whispered. "You could 'it 'im in the clock all day, an' 'e'd on'y think you was tickling of 'im."

"Time" was called, and the navvy held out his hand again just to show that they were still on the best of good terms. Carstairs grasped it warmly, and again the five hundred heads nodded strong approval. They stepped back a pace and the navvy said: "Are you ready?"

Carstairs said "Yes," and promptly the man sprang in, letting drive furiously right and left. There was a sameness about his methods, and he swung his shoulders freely and openly before each hit, so that Carstairs knew exactly where and when they were coming, and dodged them easily; he ducked low to the left, and got in a swinging right on the short ribs. The man grunted, his breath had been short before. He stopped and took a deep breath, Carstairs magnanimously standing clear of him; then he rushed again, and Carstairs got him in the same place; again he took a deep breath and rushed, exhaustion was making him slower. Carstairs ducked to the right this time, and got in a beautiful left, fairly and squarely on the solar plexus. The man dropped like a log, and lay gasping.

There was a wild uproar, several of the men tried to break into the ring to pick him up, but the stewards thrust them roughly back. "Don't break the ring," they said. Bounce stood over him, watch in hand, and counted out the seconds. "He's beat," he said at the end of the tenth, as the man lay there helpless.

Carstairs picked him up. "Never mind," he said. "That five pounds is yours, anyway."

The navvies shouted uproariously, and crowded round Carstairs congratulating him in their rough but sincere fashion. In the midst of it all he heard an old familiar voice that drove the smile from his face.

"'E bin down 'ere weeks, off an' on, standing us beer down at the village," a navvy explained.

"So this was some of your devil's work, eh? You were going to resort to force when fair means failed, you damned skunk."

Darwen shrugged his shoulders with easy unconcern. "The forces of Nature, dear boy," he answered. He turned to the navvies. "I came down to see the fun," he said. "The gipsies are going to put up a scrap, I see, they're out with sticks and guns and God knows what."

"That was part of the stakes," Carstairs said, shortly. "And these men will stick to their bargain."

Darwen laughed. "Well, you are mugs, you've let this chap diddle you. This skilled fighter against poor old plucky, but unskilled Charlie."

"That's right; fair is fair all the world over," he was talking to them in their own language, "but it isn't fair for a trained man, practising every day, to take advantage of a plucky sort of chap like Charlie, now is it?"

"A bet is a bet," he repeated, "but it's not sporting to bet on a cert. 'All bets off' in that case is the rule," he said.

Carstairs was slowly dressing; he stopped with his collar in his hand. "That man is a rogue and a liar," he said, "he doesn't know the meaning of the term sport."

"Ha! Ha! Hear that. Ask him if he'd take me on the same terms that he took Charlie on?"

"Yes, here and now," Carstairs answered, starting to undress again. "And glad of the chance."

The navvies cheered. "'Ear. 'Ear. That's a toff, that's sport. Clear the ring, mates. Let the two toffs set to."

The stewards cleared the ring again, the navvies stepped back in expectant silence, they expected something exceptional this time. Charlie stepped up to Carstairs. "I'll be your second, mister. Let this yer bloke (pointing to Bounce) be referee." He was as brisk and lively as ever again.

"Thanks," Carstairs said. "You and I must have a drink together before I go back."

Darwen stripped with alacrity, his big brown eyes gleamed with abnormal joy: there was sufficient of the Gaul in him to make him "More than man before the fight. Less than woman afterwards." He was attended to by two navvies; a tall red-headed man and a slender dark man with rather a thoughtful, melancholy cast of countenance. A young gipsy youth, slouch-hatted, slovenly, wandered up to the group, and stood beside Darwen for a minute or two; his piercing eyes moved with a quick alert expression under the wide drooping brim of his hat; his face was very dirty and his hands thrust deep into his trousers' pockets. The navvies took no notice of him, and he wandered nonchalantly across the ring and took up a position near Carstairs.

"I'll put a bob on this 'un, he's got the look of a winner," he growled out in a surly, gruff voice.

They stepped out into the ring, two splendid specimens of English manhood. Darwen six feet in his socks, and Carstairs half an inch shorter. They were in the pink of condition, and both of them full of steam. Somewhere near at hand was the girl they both wanted, and they had this in mind. Darwen, for the first time in his life, was in love, really in love, with all the ardour of his passionate nature.

"Shake hands," Darwen's seconds called, but Carstairs took no notice, and the five hundred spectators settled themselves to witness a battle of real hatred.

Promptly Darwen sprang in with a realistic feint, then, smiling, broke ground and worked round his antagonist. Carstairs watched him, keeping the centre of the ring, pivoting slowly on his own axis. Darwen sprang in again with another feint, but still Carstairs gave no opening, then quick as a flash Darwen gave a left lead and followed up with a heavy right swing; both got home, though not with their full effect.

Darwen was at the zenith of a strong man's powers; his head was singularly clear, and his speed almost supernatural. There was a sort of feline fascination about him, his eyes, too, were something catlike, or snakey; there was an undulating ease in his movements that was beautiful, fascinating; he had risen to the sort of hysterical height which the Latins seem capable of, and still the English blood in him kept him cool. As he stood, that day, he was almost the perfect, scientific fighter. He feinted with wonderful expression, he "drew" Carstairs' leads with extremely skilful acting, and timed his counters marvellously. At the end of the round, Carstairs was battered and bruised, but Darwen was as fresh as a daisy.

The navvies maintained a glum silence; this feinting and drawing savoured, to them, of deceit, and the way Carstairs took his punishment, melted their hearts. The ex-marine whispered in his ear: "steady does it, stick to 'im."

The young gipsy reappeared from the crowd. "My money's still on this 'un," he said.

Next round, Carstairs attacked, persistently, all the time; his wind was good and he knew it; from his earliest infancy he had led a spotlessly clean and wholesome life, and he was sound as a bell from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot; he was alert and quick too, but it was the staccato briskness of the terrier, and his eyes were the eyes of an Englishman, an engineer. With a fine disregard of punishment, he hustled Darwen through the whole of the round.

The navvies buzzed with excitement, and the young gipsy had to be turned out of the ring by the stewards.

Darwen's seconds performed their office enthusiastically, but their sympathies were really with the other man.

For four rounds Carstairs took all the punishment steadily. He bored in all the time, attacking persistently, never once had he feinted or tried to keep away. Darwen's smile began to fade, he was getting angry. This man was such a fool that apparently he could not see that he was beaten. There was a devilish gleam of temper in his eyes as they faced each other for the fifth round.

Carstairs' left foot and left fist moved in the old, old way. Instead of steadily countering as he had been doing, Darwen dashed in to hustle matters to a close. Next minute Bounce was standing over him counting out the seconds. For the first time in the fight Carstairs had feinted—and successfully.

At the seventh second, Darwen jumped up furiously and sprang at Carstairs like a fiend incarnate. "You devil," he screamed, "I'll kill you."

But he didn't. Carstairs knocked him down again, and he lay like a log. Still he was up again before the last second was counted. It was astonishing where he got the power from, but he rushed in again like a whirlwind.

Carstairs, cool and precise, but very quick, his grey eyes hard as steel, jabbed him off, and off, and off, till he saw what he wanted, then his wide shoulders swept a half circle in the air, swinging cleanly from the hips; his great, strong, right leg, trailing to the rear like a stay, braced itself suddenly rigid; and the right fist, tightly clenched at the moment of impact, shot out clean and true in a perfectly straight line to the point of Darwen's eagerly extended jaw: it was a perfect blow, showing a beautiful, smooth ripple as one muscle after the other took up its task; then remaining rigid like a statue for one second, with lips firmly closed, and the eyes—the entire expression of the face, full of definite, resolute purpose; Carstairs for that second seemed more than a man. None but a man with his long record of clean living and strict training could have risen to such a blow after receiving such a pounding as he had.

There was a tense silence as Bounce stood over him, the tenth second was called and still he lay there; his seconds picked him up and dabbed his face with a wet handkerchief; slowly the light of intelligence returned to his eyes. He sat up and looked round. There was a subdued cheer; the navvies were unusually moved, they felt, somehow, that this was more than an ordinary fight, every one was still for fully a minute, the silence was oppressive. God knows what was passing in those five hundred rugged minds. Carstairs himself was strangely impressed; in after life he never forgot it. He felt, he said, as though he had come suddenly to the last peak of a majestic mountain, and saw a wondrous valley spread out below him.

Darwen's seconds stood behind him holding up his shoulders. They were quite still, they said no word as he looked slowly and vacantly round; then, without warning, he bent his head forward into his hands and wept like a child.

A beaten man is the most pathetic sight in all Nature: these men were used to death, they had seen their bosom chums killed, squashed flat by falling rocks, buried alive in the earth, mangled by machinery; but when Darwen wept they turned their heads.

The young gipsy moved up to Carstairs, as he stood alone, and whispered in his ear: "I knew you'd win. You'll always win, win whatever you want." A small hand reached out and dropped an emerald ring on to the little heap of his clothes over which he was bending; as he put out his hand to pick it up, he felt the pressure of warm, soft lips on his cheek. He started up in amazement, but the gipsy had melted into the crowd like a shadow. One or two of the navvies who had seen it grinned from ear to ear, and Carstairs blushed from his forehead to his neck.

CHAPTER XX

Bounce had seen that little incident, too. He crossed the ring and helped Carstairs to dress. He said nothing, but his peculiar hazel eyes were alight.

While they were still busy, the little civil engineer from the water-works appeared on the scene. He looked round in surprise. "What the blazes are you chaps doing here?" he asked.

A navvy answered from the crowd. "A fight, sir." The whole assembly had the air of school boys caught breaking bounds.

The little man blazed with anger. "Damn it," he said, "why didn't you tell me? You know I like to see that everything is above board at these little gatherings." He stood on the top of the little hill clear to the view of all.

"Very sorry, sir," the spokesman muttered, and they all looked it. By sheer force of character and unswerving fairness of treatment, this little man had obtained, in the course of two years' constant association, a complete ascendency over these wild, strong men.

"Oh," he said, in a completely changed tone, and made his way quickly to where Carstairs was.

Carstairs was dressed and just moving off, "My name is Carstairs. I'm an engineer too, electrical and mechanical. I'm staying at the Blue Boar in the village, I have an engagement now. If you will call there this evening, I shall be pleased to have a talk with you."

"Oh no." Carstairs looked round, the navvies were beginning to move off hurriedly. He did not want to get them into trouble, still he was not good at lying. "I was to blame," he said. "We had a difference of opinion and settled it in the time-honoured way; they behaved like gentlemen."

The little man's eyes sparkled. He looked round, but the last of the five hundred was disappearing hurriedly, like a cart horse colt over the hillock. He laughed aloud. "They're just damn great kids! those chaps, but the very best. I shan't be able to get within earshot of one of 'em till Monday morning now. They'll shun me like the plague." He laughed again. "By George they are rum chaps. About the first week they were here there was a violent row with the old farmer on the hill there." He pointed to a farm house in the distance. "They went rabbiting with dogs and ferrets right in front of his house; when he expostulated, they were going to pull his place to pieces. He sent for me. I couldn't stop their poaching, of course, nobody could; but I objected to their threatening the man. 'Well, sir,' they said (it was that man Moore by the way), 'what beat us was the cheek o' the beggar coming an' talking to three on us.' He didn't speak to one of them afterwards, poor chap, he was frightened out of his wits; they're a mean sort of swine, farmers. Fancy grousing about a blooming rabbit."

"Oh, I don't think there's much left in 'em now. The keepers keep away when my chaps are about." The little man laughed. "They have elaborate shooting parties with plenty of beer, and about six old guns between 'em. Take it in turns for a shot. Gravely presented me with a pair of pheasants once, and got quite shirty when I wouldn't have 'em; couldn't understand that they were stolen. 'Why! the keeper seen us,' they explained. 'If he'd been a wise man he would have not seen you,' I said. 'Will 'e 'ave a trout then, mister?' 'No thanks,' I said. 'Well, I'm beggared,' they answered, and went away growling. They still think I'm a bit mad."

They laughed together and strolled on. Carstairs was obviously impatient, but the little man did not see it. He only met men with a soul above beer at very rare intervals.

"Damn funny chaps, you know, but the best, the very best, at heart. Don't care tuppence for anybody, and quite fail to see why they should. 'When my 'at's on, my roof's on, an' off I goes,' they say. They wander up and get a start, work for a day, 'sub' a 'bob,' and slope off. Sometimes a man will start one day, and next a policeman arrives, and the man is missing, two or three more with him very likely. Damn funny chaps. What for? Oh, nothing serious as a rule, pinching a pair of boots from a shop window, or something like that, you know; I had a man murdered once, though; not here—up in the midlands, had a hole knocked in his head with a pick axe, never found out who did it. There are black sheep in every flock, of course."

"Men are about the same as any other machine, I think, you get out rather less than you put in. Breed simply means efficiency and reliability."

"Yes. By Jove, that's so. Look here, come up to my digs, will you? What! an engagement. Oh, I see. Well, ta-ta for the present."

They were quite close to the caravan, and the little man looked at Carstairs curiously as he saw where he was going. He made no comment, but turned and made his way back to the village.

The camp was quite silent, the vans were all drawn up together in the form of a square. The dogs and children all seemed to have disappeared. Carstairs went up the steps of the caravan, and knocked at the little door. He began to wonder vaguely if the gipsies had all deserted the place, till he caught sight of the crown of a hat and the muzzle of a gun on the roof of a caravan.

The door was very quietly opened by the old woman (she was in ragged male attire), and her eyes gleamed like an eagle's in the sunlight as she looked at Carstairs. She put a hand on his shoulder. "Well done, well done," she said.

Carstairs frowned like a thunder-storm. "Confound it! She gave me this ring about two minutes ago."

The woman smiled and looked at the ring. "Yes, that's her mother's. Don't lose it."

She positively laughed, and Carstairs turned to go away. She stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "I'm not her mother," she said.

"He didn't know and didn't care much. She's his child, but not mine; mine died, and we stole this one. God forgive me! She's been more than a daughter to me. And he—he was always drunk, always drunk when he wasn't playing the fiddle, always drunk. And now he's dead."

The gipsy woman sat on the top step of the little ladder, her head in her hands, crooning to herself. "My God! My God! And now he's dead! He charmed me with his singing and his playing, and he was in the gutter playing for coppers and drink, while his lawful wife lay dying in her mother's home. Oh, my God! my God!"

Carstairs stood in wonder; he did not know whether to stay or go. She took no notice of him, but crooned on, rocking herself from side to side. "And now he's dead. Dead! Him that opened the gates of Heaven with his fiddle! dead and along with her, but I shall have him; he's mine, mine, and there's another. O my God! My God! but I'm going too! I shall be the first."

Carstairs tapped her on the shoulder. "Pull yourself together," he said. "Shall I get you some brandy?"

"Brandy? No! that's been the curse of it all." She raised her head and glared at him with eyes like live coals. "I stole this child, his child, that ought to have been brought up in the lap of luxury, I stole her and brought her up like a gipsy to try and bring him back." She dropped her head into her hands again and wailed. "God forgive me! God forgive me!"

He shook her quite roughly. "It's no use groaning now," he said, "try and make amends. Have you told the girl who she is?"

"Is that why she left you, then?" Carstairs could hardly believe it, remembering the affection the girl had always shown for this woman whom she believed to be her mother.

"No, no, she kissed me like an angel from heaven. It's you, you who made her leave."

The woman looked up at him again, but her eyes were now dim with tears. "You don't understand, she's very proud, prouder than that old man who's just dead. She'll come for that ring some day."

"No! By God, she won't. I'll find her, and take it to her." He pulled out a card. "Look here, that's my address. If I don't find her before I go back next week, will you send me her address, or any news of her you may have?"

"What's the use of talking rot like that?" he said, angrily. "Are you going to help me?"

He turned and left her without another word. "Bounce," he said, as he climbed into the dog-cart, "you've had some experience. Are all women mad?"

On the way they passed the little civil engineer. "Hullo!" he shouted, "are you off, then?"

Carstairs pulled up. "Yes, jump up and come on into Southville with me, I want some one to swear at."

"Put you up for the week-end, swear at you all day, Sunday, and send you back about your business on Monday."

"Well, half a minute; let's go via my digs—that farm over there—and I'll collect some togs."

"Not a sock or a pyjama. Come as you are, and we'll go to church to-morrow, yellow leggings, and all. I want you to be best man."

"Ah, I see, but there's some formality about banns, and living in the parish, and so on."

"Is that so? I might have known that too by your perverted morals. Never saw such an indignant chap as you when you thought those navvies had cheated you out of a fight."

"The bride is along this road somewhere; she's only got about twenty minutes or half an hour's start. We're bound to catch her, and then, by Jove! I'll gag and bind her if she won't come quietly."

"Look here, Bounce, if you sit up there croaking away like some old raven, I'll chuck you out of the cart."

Carstairs turned to the civil engineer. "They call him Bull-dog Bounce," he explained, "it's no use arguing with him. By the way, I don't know your name. Mine's Carstairs."

"No, sir. Beggin' your pardon, sir. A. E. Bounce, sir. Algernon Edward Bounce, A.B. That's how it's writ down in the Service books."

The little civil engineer was inclined to smile till he glanced at Bounce's perfectly serious face, then he stared straight ahead, and they drove in silence for some time.

As they neared the outskirts of Southville and still saw no signs of the girl on the road, Carstairs got angry. "I wonder if that woman lied to me," he muttered.

They drove on till they reached the hotel. "No luck this journey," he said, with a resigned smile. "Come on in and have a drink, Bounce." They held a council of war in the smoking room. Whitworth raised his brows in wonder at the tale which was partially disclosed to him.

"The curse of it is, I've got to go up north again on Wednesday," Carstairs said.

"Ah, that is awkward. I'll keep an eye on the camp for you, and let you know if the girl's there, or if that dark chap is hanging around."

Bounce left them shortly afterwards, and the two engineers, after partaking of a substantial meal, strolled round the town, particularly the railway station part of it, in the hope of meeting the girl. At about ten o'clock they went home and went straight to bed, they had both had a busy day, particularly Carstairs.

The hotel was old fashioned and very comfortable, but the resources in the way of bedrooms were strictly limited, partly due to the reputation of the place. Anyhow that evening the only bedroom they had to offer for Whitworth was a small one right at the top of an obscure wing of the building. Carstairs said nothing, but had his own luggage taken up there, and gave Whitworth his room, fairly large, close to a bathroom and over-looking a nicely kept lawn and shrubbery. He saw him installed in it, supplying his wants as much as possible from his own portmanteau.

"That's alright, I'm used to roughing it. It's quite a treat to me to have the electric light in my room and listen to the traffic outside. I feel like a kid on a holiday in London."

Carstairs was soon in bed and asleep, but it was still dark when in his obscure corner of the building he became aware of some sort of commotion going on downstairs; he had a sort of vague impression that he had been awakened by a cry. He lay for a moment and heard a police whistle blown violently, and a voice shouting, "Police! Police!"

He sprang out of bed, hurriedly donned a few garments, and wound his way along tortuous passages to the entrance hall. Whitworth was standing there (the centre of a group) in shirt and trousers, with a small bedroom poker in his hand.

"Trouble! By Gad!" The little man was red as a turkey cock and furiously angry. "Some damned swine tried to rob me, came in through the window. I was awake and heard him climbing up, wondered what it was. The window was open—I always sleep with it open—he pushed up the bottom sash and got inside, then I switched on the light and went for him. Look here!" he stretched his neck and pulled down the collar of his shirt showing finger marks still there. "He had no boots or stockings on; he took me by the throat and held me off, with one foot shoved into the pit of my stomach. I was as helpless as a kid. His arms were so long I was quite clear of him, and he was as strong as a tiger. Then—what do you think? he looked in my face a minute, and chucked me across the room. Look here," he exposed a bruised elbow. "I grabbed the poker, and he hopped out of the window like a monkey. I'll swear he was more like a monkey than anything I've ever seen; he was doubled up, hunchbacked, and his head tilted upwards all the time. His hands were below his knees; he jumped from all fours. Most hideous brute I've ever seen. I ran to the window, intending to chuck the poker at him, but he was gone; whether up or down, I couldn't say."

Carstairs listened in silence, his face was very grave. A policeman arrived, and took profuse notes. "Hunchback," he said. "There was a gang here about three year ago with a hunchback bloke."

Then the excitement abated, and the few male visitors who had come out half dressed, to ascertain the cause of the trouble, wandered back to bed. The engineers did likewise.

Carstairs, before getting into bed, carefully examined the room; he locked the door, wedged the window, and put his big pocket knife under his pillow. Then he slept like a top, for he was at heart a fatalist, and felt that nothing would happen that night, and he was right. The morning broke bright and clear, and he and Whitworth were down to breakfast early.

The little man chatted away merrily about his adventure as he disposed of a very liberal breakfast. "The cheek of the swine, to try and rob me!" he said, with unbounded astonishment and indignation, so that Carstairs smiled.

Whitworth laughed. "By Gad, if I'd got that poker a second or two sooner, I'd have flattened him out. Wish old Hiscocks had been there. He's my sort of body servant, chain-bearer, carries the instruments, and that sort of thing, one of the finest men on top of this earth, sixteen stone odd, and no stomach; he'd have flattened that chap to a pulp, he's been in the marine artillery."

"My dear chap, Bounce is invincible. You ought to have seen him chuck a seven-foot policeman out of the works in this town one night."

Whitworth went on with his breakfast with a business like air. "I must find a job for Bounce," he said, decidedly. "What's his pay now?"

"That's been arranged; he's coming up north with me, driving on the test plate. He's worth his weight in gold there, so prompt, clear-headed, and reliable."

"Mean swine! Fancy keeping a man like that indoors driving dirty engines, he ought to be outside in the sun and the rain with the birds and the flowers."

Carstairs laughed. "When you've finished grubbing we'll get outside with the flowers and the birds," he said.

Shortly after they sallied forth together and went for a brisk walk in the country. Coming back they were just in time for the people trooping out of church, and who should they meet but Darwen, prayer book in hand, smiling, gay, as usual.

"Yes. He's probably the biggest sweep unhung, but I know his mother, and I must have a word with him."

Darwen held out his hand. "May I presume to congratulate you on a good score yesterday?" he said.

Darwen still smiled. "I can't allow that, my dear chap. You were good, scientific. I ought to have known you were not such a fool as you look."

"Don't mention it, old chap, honestly I consider you a smart chap; in fact, it begins to seem as if there's not room on this earth for both you and I." He smiled in his happy, genial way, but his eyes were taking in every movement of Carstairs' features.

"Oh, the earth is a big place, we can avoid each other. I'm going to Chilcombe to-morrow, and next day up north again, I expect, but can't say for certain till I get my letters. I shall call to see your mater when I'm that way."

"Yes, do! Of course she need never know of our little scrap, eh?" Darwen's eyes had the same old sparkle in them, and Carstairs with immobile face and calm eyes was watching him as he watched an engine under test.

"By the way one of my old friends in the force told me there was a burglary at some hotel here last night." His eyes flickered with a sunny smile as he watched Carstairs' face.

"Ye-es, my hotel. A drunken sailor climbed in at one of the windows and left by the same route." Carstairs' face was almost expressionless.

Darwen stepped up close and looked intently into his eyes. "Do you ever lie, Carstairs?"

"Oh, yes! not, I think, frequently; as often as you, for instance." His face was sphinx-like still.

"No, by God, I don't believe you could! Decently!" He stepped back and laughed aloud. "You've neglected the most vital accomplishment of modern life—to lie well. Ta, ta, old chap, I wish we could be pals." He passed on with a happy smile and looked up to the sun. "The Lord has delivered him into my hands," he said, to himself.

Carstairs rejoined Whitworth, and they returned to the hotel. After dinner, as they sat smoking, he said, suddenly: "Would you like to catch that chap who tried to rob you last night?"

Carstairs puffed his pipe in silence for a few moments, his steady, shrewd eyes observing Whitworth closely. "That man came to murder me, not to rob you," he said, at length.

"What I believe to be the truth. Can you get to-morrow off, and come home to my place with me—that is, if you're game for a man hunt."

"Well, er—reasonably. The solution I have in mind seems to satisfy most of the conditions of the problem; we are up in the clouds somewhere, beyond all rules. The only methods for such problems are trial and error. Will you come?"

"Oh, in the afternoon some time. You can slip over to your digs in the morning, and you might bring your man, Hiscocks, if you can. I'll get Bounce."

So it was settled, and at half-past three on Monday afternoon, a select-party of four got into a third-class carriage en route for Chilcombe. Carstairs explained the situation. "We're going to catch a burglar, that's all, but I want to keep him myself, that's why I don't want the police brought into it. I hope that they'll come into action later for a double bag."

Bounce and the ex-marine nodded and asked no questions. They were trained that way, but Whitworth leaned forward and spoke. "I say, it's a ghastly business you know, that—that thing was half an animal, I'll swear it, he didn't speak a word, only gave an animal sort of snarl, and his eyes as he looked into my face were the eyes of a wild beast." He gave a little shudder. "By God, we ought to kill it on sight."

"We can't do that, you know, but we can stun it. You saw that man who was killed at the vicarage before, Bounce?"

"I know. I saw Donovan." Carstairs puffed at his pipe. "Must be as strong as an elephant. We'd better stun him for a start."

They arrived at Chilcombe and Bounce and Hiscocks put up at the village inn, while Carstairs took Whitworth home. It was a merry gathering that night at the vicarage; Stanley Carstairs was there, and the Bevengtons came in. Whitworth was as lively as a cricket, he kept the whole company continually on the smile with his humour and endless anecdotes of his navvies and other people he had met. Jack Carstairs lay back in his chair and listened with a steady smile. He was watching Bessie Bevengton and Whitworth and was rather glad he'd brought the little man home.

It was after eleven when the party broke up, and Jack took Whitworth to his bedroom. "Here you are," he said, handing him a heavy cudgel. "I'll meet you in the hall in half an hour's time."

The little man whirled his cudgel round his head thereby seriously endangering the furniture. "We'll flatten that beast out," he said, with extraordinary fervour.

Carstairs laughed. "In half an hour," he said, and went to his room. He turned the gas full on and stood by the window for some minutes with the blind up, in full view of the lawn and shrubbery below. The sky was quite clear, and a full moon was climbing up behind the distant Cotswold Hills. The beauty of the night enchanted him, this was his home, and many memories thronged his brain as he gazed out at the old familiar landscape silvered over with the soft, romantic light of the moon. For a moment he forgot his mission, but a rustle of leaves among the evergreens below and the hoot of an owl quite close at hand, brought him back from the dim and distant past to the pressing, urgent present. He pulled down the blind, picked up a book, and lay on the bed reading for half an hour; then he got up, lighted a bull's-eye dark lantern, turned out the gas, and crept softly downstairs; a dark figure was sitting quietly on one of the hall chairs, a big stick across its knees. It was Whitworth. "This way," Carstairs said, softly, and together they climbed quietly out of the back kitchen window; they stood in the shadow of the wall for a minute and looked round. The lawn was flooded with the soft moonlight, and the big chestnut tree cast a shadow over the clump of laurel bushes near where they stood. Silently they flitted across the narrow strip of moonlight and disappeared into the dense shadow of the evergreens. A hand stretched out in the darkness and touched Carstairs on the arm.

"Alright. Get along a bit further where you can see my window. Is Hiscocks there?" Something that seemed part of the wall murmured, "Yes, sir."

"This way then." Carstairs moved forward and stepped on a dry twig which snapped with a report loud enough to wake the dead, so it seemed to their tensed nerves. Bounce stepped to the front. "I can see," he whispered, "used to the dark at sea." They moved round the shrubbery in single file, very slowly, till they came to a point where they could see the bedroom window, full in the moonlight, just missed by the shade of the big chestnut tree.

They stood there for half an hour, peering out from the darkness into the moonlight. Suddenly they heard something stirring in the big tree, and next instant Whitworth gripped Carstairs by the arm. "Good God! Did you see that?" Something, a man or an animal, had shot out from the high branches of the tree, and landed on the sill of Carstairs' bedroom window. They stood there motionless, gazing at the thing on the window ledge, astonished, paralysed; all except Bounce. For one second only was he held motionless, the next he was on the lawn throwing his heavy stick at the window sill. The thing turned as the stick struck it, and looking down, snarled like an angry dog; next minute it sprang on to the tree again and disappeared, from sight. That broke the spell, and they all ran out. "Don't shout!" Carstairs whispered, hoarsely.

Before they were there the thing was down the tree and racing across the grass on all fours. They saw Bounce fling himself on to it, and the next thing was an indistinguishable tangle whirling about the lawn. As they raced up the little sailor sprang clear and lashed out with his fist. The thing stood erect, and they saw it was a hunchbacked man. He rushed at Bounce who stepped aside. "Stand back!" he commanded the others in a hoarse whisper. "I'll tackle 'im."

He closed in and they heard the dull thud of a body blow as the hunchback reeled back. He charged again, snarling angrily. And again they heard a thud as Bounce's bony knuckles came in contact with the man's deformed breast bone.

Hiscocks raised his stick and rushed forward, but the sailor motioned him back. They circled round each other in the moonlight, while the other three stood silently by. The weirdness of it seemed to have cast a spell over all of them. They saw the sailor step in, they heard a gasping pant, and next minute the hunchback dropped limply to the ground. At once Bounce bent over him, and pulling some cord from his pocket tied up his wrists and ankles in his masterly, definite manner. "Quick," he whispered, "'e's such a funny built bloke, I couldn't get at 'im afore." He stood up and putting his hand to his mouth sucked it and spat. "Bit me, 'e did," he observed.

Next day, at half-past two in the afternoon, Carstairs called at Darwen's office in London. As soon as they were alone, he produced a revolver.

"Ha! Is that so?" He sat down calmly in his chair, toying with an ebony ruler, watching Carstairs carefully, and smiling all the time.

"Put that ruler down; it's no use, your man has gone back on you. I'll give you twenty-four hours to corpse yourself, however you like, otherwise I put the police on you. Before I leave this office I want a written confession."

The brilliant eyes sparkled with amusement. "Dear old Carstairs! It's not bad for a first attempt, but you were not built for a liar. It needs practice, Carstairs! Constant practice. That man is dumb. I cut his tongue before I utilized him for these little missions. Ha! Ha! I'm always willing to learn from the experience of others. Old Donovan was bowled out by a tongue, I removed it; swotted up the literature on the subject, and removed it myself; the human body is a fascinating machine, better than greasy engines. What's the next move, old chap?" His smile was the most charming he had ever worn.

Carstairs toyed with the revolver, keeping his eye on him all the time. "I think," he said, at length, "that as a duty to civilization I ought to wipe you out here and now."

"My dear chap, how absurd! What's civilization done for you? Nothing! Yes, by Jove, it has though, a service of a negative value. Civilization has made you a poor man! As a savage, you would have been a chief! Don't make yourself a bigger ass than nature intended, Carstairs, old chap! If I go, you go too, and there's the girl, eh? The girl we scrapped over. The girl who kissed you on the cheek; I saw her do it, and you blushed like a kid. She'd be left all alone. Now let's talk this matter over quietly."

Carstairs looked him steadily in the eyes, toying meanwhile with the revolver. "Do you know," he said, "that that girl is your sister?"

Darwen doubled up with sudden laughter; in the intensity of it he almost rolled into the fireplace. A sudden click pulled him up; he looked round solemnly to meet the grim, grey eye of Carstairs gazing at him along the revolver barrel; he had cocked it with his thumb.

"Come away from that poker! This is a six shot, a Colt's forty-four, and every shot means a dead man. With it cocked as I have it, I can't miss at this distance."

"By God, old chap, I'm proud of you. You're a credit to my up-bringing! Impossible as it may seem you are becoming day by day less and less of the fool that you look."

Carstairs was thoughtful. "No! I suppose I shouldn't believe it myself," he said. "The man's dead, I have no proof except my word. Your mater might——"

"Ye-es. I think so too. You're not fit to live anyway, and you know my life won't be much to me as long as you're alive."

"Quite so. Quite so. Still there's no need to get personal over it. There is not room for you and I on this little globe. That's it in a nutshell, isn't it? One has to be eliminated, that's obvious; I'm a generous sort of chap, but I can't oblige you in this. I'm in love, yes, by God, in real love for the first and only time. I want that girl, also you want her! We have fought with fists, and you won, but that is not the finish. I'm a sportsman; I'll go back a hundred years with you and we'll fight a duel, eh? A fair and square duel—to a finish."

"Anything you like. I suggest rifles, magazine rifles, to make a clean and engineering job of it."

"Well, I may as well tell you that rifle shooting has been my hobby for the past two years."

"Oh, France! of course. We'll cross to-morrow, and open at a thousand yards. We'll stalk each other among the sand hills, just below Havre there. How's that for real sport, eh?" He looked at Carstairs' steady, thoughtful face with genuine admiration. "By God, Carstairs, you're one of the best! The best. It's a pity we crossed. I suppose you're not prepared to give up the girl?"

"No, quite so! I should never under any circumstances fight you with sledge hammers, Carstairs. We'll cross to-morrow, or this evening then. I think the Havre boats only go at night. Shall we go round to Cook's together and book now? Then we'll buy a couple of rifles." He was like a school boy at the prospect of a holiday, the sporting spirit had bitten very deeply into him. "Come on, old chap," he said, in the height of good humour, and they went out together. They had dinner together and journeyed to Southampton together. Carstairs, his hand on the revolver in his coat pocket, never for one minute taking his eyes off him. They got aboard the little steamer, and she cleared the dock at midnight. They paced the deck together, watching the receding lights of the town; the sky was sprayed and flecked with numberless little clouds, the moonlight shining through the cracks, and ever and anon breaking out into full power between the larger gaps.

As they walked together, and the Solent widened out into the broad English Channel and the Island faded from view, Darwen grew strangely pensive and poetical.

"By Jove, there's nothing like the sea, you know! the sea, by moonlight! Look at that!"

They stood together at the rail, and gazed out over the tossing, tumbling waste of waters, Carstairs still watchful, still suspecting treachery at any minute. Darwen stood silently for some moments, then he burst forth into poetry.

"Weary of myself and sick of asking
What I am, and what I ought to be,
At this vessel's prow I stand which bears me
Forwards, forwards o'er the star-lit sea.

And a look of passionate desire
O'er the sea and to the stars I send.
Ye who from my childhood up have calmed me,
Calm me, ah, compose me to the end!

'Ah,' once more I cried, 'Ye stars, ye waters,
On my heart your mighty charm renew;
Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you,
Feel my soul becoming vast like you!'

From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of Heaven,
Over the lit sea's unquiet way,
In the rustling night air came the answer:
Wouldst thou be as these are? Live as they."

"Ah, I always knew you had a soul somewhere, deep down the abysmal depth of that great carcase of yours. Listen! I'll finish it.

'Unaffrighted by the silence round them,
Undistracted by the sights they see,
These demand not that the things without them
Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.

And with the joys the stars perform their shining,
And the sea its long moon-silvered roll;
For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting
All the fever of some differing soul.'

Bounded by themselves, and unregardful
In what state God's other works may be,
In their own tasks all their powers pouring,
These attain the mighty life you see.

A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear.
'Resolve to be thyself; and know that he
Who finds himself, loses his misery!'"

He had spoken softly and slowly, but quite distinctly; the silver cadence of his rich, cultured voice died away, and they stood together in silence for some minutes.

"In my opinion, Carstairs, that's one of the finest things in the English language. When I read that, it seemed to express exactly what I had been vaguely feeling for years past. It contains the germs, the kernel, of all the philosophy in the world. 'Resolve to be thyself.' Ye gods, think of that! Define 'yourself,' Carstairs! A German professor would fill six volumes and then not do the job. Matthew Arnold does it in one.

'Unaffrighted by the silence round them,
Undistracted by the sights they see,
In their own tasks all their powers pouring.'

There you are. Take that to heart, Carstairs. God knows how much energy you've dissipated uselessly, in thoughts on other people, hopes and fears. Lord! I've been as happy as a bird all my life. That's true religion, Carstairs. I should like to have a talk with your guv'nor on that. He's a sound man, your guv'nor, but with a weakness for worrying over other people's troubles. I never do, or very seldom. 'Keep fit, and answer the impulses of your reason.' That's my motto."

Carstairs said nothing, but watched him closely. He continued. "I say 'I never worry over other people's troubles,' you're the only man I've ever worried over; honestly, Carstairs, you appeal to me exceedingly. I've often wondered whether you're before your time or after, there is much of the noble savage about you. I regard you with awe, yet you can think. You use steam, and coal, and electricity; but you totally disregard men and women. This little globe is just a box of bricks, you and I are part of them—everything fits in—your duty here below is to look after yourself, to fill your little niche efficiently."

Carstairs spoke. "You do that best by considering carefully your true relation to other people, the real interdependence of every one, and the lubrication of sentiment. As an engineer you must know that only the truth endures."

"By Jove, that's true. 'Because right is right,' etc. As an individual you would shine, your conception of the truth is very exact and your ability to act up to it high. As an engineer you are good, but this is the age of states and municipalities, of diplomacy and intrigue; when men are judged for what they say, and not for what they do. Had my lot been cast among companies, instead of municipalities, I should have had to entirely alter my tactics. You can talk to a man and smile at him till you're blue in the face, but if he sees that your work don't pan out into tangible dividends, you've got to go. Municipalities don't put much on dividends, they like a smile and a loud voice. If socialism comes to pass, your type will die out and my type will flourish."

"My dear chap, happiness is a condition of the mind, not of the body. I bet I've made more people happy by my smile, than you have by your work. Socialists are of two classes; wise men and fools (the same as everybody else), the wise men want to develop and get a good price for their natural powers of persuasion, the fools are sentimental idiots who propose to do away with misery by doing away with individuals and the slums. By Jove! the slums are about the happiest places, slum-bred people never commit suicide, when they feel depressed, they go in for murder, a much more healthy occupation. Garden mould is rotten-looking stuff, but the worms enjoy it, and if you take 'em out and put 'em in nice, clean cotton wool, they'll kick the bucket, and if there were no worms, there'd be no men, you know. At the present time, England is overflowing with people who want to put the worms in cotton wool. It's a question of religion; they have forsaken their Gods. I suppose there are some Christians in England, I haven't met them, probably they could be counted on the fingers of one hand. England is a pagan country still; your guv'nor is one of the best men I've met, but he's a pure pagan: I'd give a hundred to one in quids that if I slapped him on the right cheek, he'd instantly plug me in the left eye—and his entire congregation, also his Bishop, would back him up. The Englishman worships Thor, the magnified man with the sledge hammer; I'm a Dago, I worship those brainy old chaps who lived in the Pantheon; they took life easily in the sun, and hadn't a moral amongst them; I've rather a contempt for Thor, he never showed any great brain capacity, but simply slogged around blindly with a sledge hammer. It's a question of my Gods versus your Gods: A man's religion is what he bases the conduct of his life on, not which church he attends on Sunday: our stars were in opposition from the start, Carstairs, and the moving finger of Fate is approaching very rapidly to a blot—the elimination of a unit, with large-bore magazine rifles—and I don't think it'll be me."

Carstairs, watching him closely, was lost in admiration of the beauty of his profile silhouetted against the moon.

"The whole blooming world," he continued, "seems to be slopping over with a sticky sort of sentiment. The centre of gravity of civilization is becoming too high, it'll topple over presently. We have a new God 'The people' and the people are those thick-headed fools one passes in the street: the artizan, who makes things by the 'piece' (cheap and nasty), because he can't be trusted to act on the square otherwise; he gets more than his whack of the good things of life, and puts the surplus into beer and baccy; his 'missus' would like to keep a servant, and objects to bringing up kids. Then there's the middle class man, brought up with the ideas and the ambitions of an aristocrat, the physique of a clerk, and the ability of a navvy; his recreation is suicide: and the aristocrats, I suppose, are those wishy-washy young men, all nose and no chin, who loaf about the West End, and die of ennui. All due to excessive sentiment! Sentiment is far more dangerous than drink or drugs: in exceedingly small doses it adds to the flavour of life. Sentiment will get you out of a job quick enough, but it'll never damn well get you into one. You're my best friend, I honestly like you and admire you, but to-morrow I'm going to shoot you, afterwards I shall be intensely sorry—for precisely five minutes. Hullo! Who the devil is this?" His voice changed to a note of anger.

Carstairs turned and saw something crawling, creeping, sidling cautiously along the deck, like a dog that knows he's done wrong. It was the hunchback. He got close up to Darwen, crouching down, and held up his hands to view; the moon shone out suddenly from behind a cloud, and they saw in the sudden burst of light that the flesh was riven from hands and wrists as though they had been wrenched through something which was too small for them.

Darwen looked at him a moment, then, stooping down, struck him across the face with his flat hand. "You failed, and I have no use for failures; as an intelligence department Sam failed—and he's gone; as an executive, you have failed, too. What use are you?"

The hunchback gave a piteous moan and looked up in Darwen's face with a singular, dog-like, appealing look. He stooped and struck him again in the face. "You're a fool, I tell you, a useless fool."

Carstairs sprang to the side, Darwen was looking over like an eager boy. "By Jove!" he said, "the poor devil can't swim a stroke." He vaulted lightly on to the top of the broad handrail and stood for one second balancing with the graceful ease of the practised gymnast, then he dived after him. "Stop the ship, Carstairs," he said, as he went. A sailor on the poop threw a life belt overboard, and raised the alarm. The ship was turned about, and went round in a circle three times, but nothing was to be seen of either of them, so she turned to her course again.

Carstairs leaned long over the side, gazing into the dark water swirling past. A great big "Why?" confronted him. "Why? Why? Why?" he asked himself, and the answer was locked away, with many another mystery, deep down in the depth of the water at his feet.

For the rest of the night he paced the deck. Next day he gave all the information he could to the authorities: the other passenger, they said, must have been a stowaway, Carstairs thought so too. He took the train to Calais, and returned as quickly as possible to break the news to Darwen's mother.

She had been up all night and was very haggard. "Where's Charlie?" she asked, as soon as she saw him.

"He's dead!" she screamed, seizing him by the hand and looking into his eyes. "Dead! Dead! I knew it."

"We were going to Havre, he and I; he jumped overboard in the night to rescue a stowaway."

She drew herself up with pride, the bleared eyes shone with an unnatural light. "There! He was a sportsman to the last! He played wing three-quarter for England when he was nineteen, and the same year he scored fifty-six against the M.C.C. I was so proud, he was so handsome! And now he's gone! Oh, my boy, my boy, my lovely boy! Oh God, take me too." She fell forward on her face.

Carstairs picked her up and threw water over her; he called a servant, and hurried out for a doctor.

Carstairs went away and hurried north, he was a day overdue as it was. He explained the matter as much as he could to the hard-headed ex-fitter.

"Ay!" the latter said, shaking his head, and there was a world of sympathy in that shake of the head. "It's a bad business, lad, a bad business." He had a commercial head equal to the best in the world, this man, but his heart was exactly in the right place, too. He broached the subject then to Carstairs that he was going to retire, and offered him a much more important position in the firm, which ultimately led (with the great success of his many patents) to a partnership.

For six months or so he was kept hard at the grindstone, external affairs troubled him not at all; he heard that Bessie Bevengton was engaged to Whitworth, who had got a good appointment on the staff of Sir Donald Cox of Westminster; Bounce never ceased to marvel at the manner in which the hunchback had broken out of the double lashing he had put round his wrists; his brother Stephen had got a picture hung in the academy: all these things seemed to affect Jack Carstairs like vague unimportant rumours, for he knew, in his soul, that the girl was his, waiting for him, and he wanted to go and fetch her: only, sometimes, in the early morning, when the atmosphere outside was some ten or fifteen degrees below freezing point, and he wallowed in his cold bath, breathing deeply and steadily through the nose, then with the exhilarating reaction of his blood as he briskly wiped down with a rough towel, these whispers from an external world would find an echo in his brain. "By Jove, I must write and congratulate old Whitworth," or "Jolly glad Stephen's done something at last."

"We'll go to the opera, and hear the new singer," the latter said on their first evening together.

"Madame Edith D'Arcy, daughter of the late Sir Thomas D'Arcy, you know. She's wonderful. Perfect statue, and a marvellous voice."

Before the performance was half over, Jack surprised his brother by getting up and leaving his seat.

"That's what I think, too; she's been dodging me for years." Carstairs was quite confident, his income for the year had totalled considerably nearer £4000, than the £400 stipulated by the autocratic old aristocrat.

He sent up his card and was admitted to her dressing-room. She was dressed in magnificent robes for the part she was taking; he looked at her for some moments, in silence, fascinated; she had attained the full perfection of her beauty, and it was exceeding rare; her eyes looked into his with a wondrous light. Still in silence he stepped up close and took her hand, then, much to his own astonishment, his great shoulders bent forward, and he kissed the back of her fingers; he had never imagined himself doing such a thing, it was quite spontaneous. He raised his head and looked into her eyes. "You are my queen," he said, with a smile, and then he took her in his arms and kissed her on the lips.

"So you've come," she said, "you've been a long time—I—I wanted to do something."

"Ye-es! That is the external—paradox, I imagine," he answered, gazing steadily into the depths of her eyes. They were silent for some minutes. The full tide of his deep, strong nature set to this beautiful woman; the splendid purpose of life tingled in his blood and shone out through his eyes as he gazed into hers. Only men like Carstairs feel such a tide. He felt that this was the summit of his life. "The world was made for you and me," he said.

He stepped to the door and stood with his back to it, the big bulk of him nearly filled it. "No! By Jove, you won't! Not this time."

"Alright, then, I'll burn this place down," he produced a box of matches from his pocket.

"Never again!" He held a lighted match in his hand. "I'm willing to compromise; will you name the day?"

"Absurd!" He held the match to some drapery stuff near, and watched it slowly kindle. "I'll give you till this time next month."

"Alright," he said, crumpling up the cloth in his hands. He produced her mother's ring from his waistcoat pocket, and slipped it on her finger. "That's sealed then. What's the price of the curtain?"

"Dirt cheap," he answered. "I'd buy a hundred at the same price." And the audience, who were competent to judge, said that Madame Edith D'Arcy had never sung as she sang that night.

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