"Mollie--my dear, my dear," he said.

"And she's quite young, too," observed Tommy, as they walked home in the starlight.

The poet waved his hand.

"Love laughs at age--takes no account of it," he said.

"Hurrah," cried Tommy.

XVI

IN WHICH TOMMY CROSSES THE PLOUGHING

The early days of January were shadowed by Lady Chantrey's illness.

I fancy that over all hung the presentiment that it would bear her away from our midst, and there was no home in Camslove or Becklington, nor a heart in any of the far-scattered farms around them, but would be the sadder for the loss.

And on a January afternoon she kissed Madge for the last time.

To Madge it seemed that heaven and earth alike had become black and desolate, for ever, as she sobbed upon the bed-clothes, and besought her mother to come back.

The household was too overwhelmed, and itself too sorrow-stricken to take much notice at first of the child, and for an hour or more she lay with her arms about her mother's neck.

Then, at last, she slipped from the bed and stole out into the dusk. A thin rain was falling over the country-side, but she hardly noticed it as she crossed the barren fields and stumbled through the naked hedges.

At the ploughing she stopped.

Something in the long, relentless furrows seemed to speak to her of the finality of it all, and it was only when she flung herself down upon the upturned earth that, as to all in sorrow, the great mother put forth her words of cheer to her, as who should say:

"See, now, the plough is set, the furrow drawn, and the old life hidden away; and who can make it any more the same? But Spring, little girl, is surely coming, and even, after long months, harvest."

Down the path, across the fields, came Tommy, dangling a contented catapult, and ruminating on the day's successes.

As he pa.s.sed the ploughing he stopped, and gave a low whistle of surprise--then guessed quickly enough what had happened. Madge lay stretched out, face downwards, upon the black loam, and for a moment Tommy stood perplexed.

Then he called, in a low voice, almost as he would have spoken in a church:

"Madge, Madge."

But she did not move.

He knelt beside her, and some strange instinct bade him doff his cap.

Then he touched her shoulder and her black hair, with shy fingers.

"Madge," he called, again.

The child jumped to her feet, and tossing back her hair, looked at him with half-frightened eyes.

He noticed that her cheeks were stained with the soft earth, and he saw tears upon them.

Tommy had never willingly kissed anyone in his life--he had not known a mother--but now, without thought or hesitation--almost without consciousness, for he was still very much a child--he laid his arms about her neck and kissed her cheek--once, twice.

But what he said to her only the great night, and the old plough, know.

XVII

IN WHICH TOMMY TAKES THE UPLAND ROAD

If I have not, so far, touched upon Tommy's religious life it is chiefly for the reason that, to me, at this time, it was practically as a sealed book.

Nor had I ever talked with him on these matters. And this for two reasons--one of them being, no doubt, the natural hesitation of the average Englishman to lay his hands upon the veil of his neighbour's sanctuary, and one, a dawning doubt in my mind as to the capacity of my own creed to meet the requirements of Tommy's nature. For, to me, at this time, the idea of G.o.d was of One in some distant Olympus watching His long-formulated laws work out their appointed end--a Being infinitely beneficent, and revealed in all nature and beauty, but, spiritually, entirely remote.

And my religion had been that of a reverent habit and a peaceable moderation, and to live contented with my fellows.

But here was a boy put into my hands, with a future to be brought about, and already at the outset I had seen a glimpse of the dangers besetting his path, and the glimpse had, as I have already confessed, frightened me not a little. Nor had my musings so far comforted me, but rather shown me the lamentable weakness of my position. True, I could lay down rules, and advise and warn, but the whole of Tommy's every word and action showed me the powerlessness of such procedure.

And I dared not let things drift. The matter I felt sure should be approached on religious grounds, and it was this conviction that revealed to me my absolute impotence.

So far as I remembered, no great temptations had a.s.sailed me, no violent pa.s.sions had held me in thrall.

My life had been a smooth one, and of moral struggle and defeat I seemed to know nothing. But that such would be Tommy's lot I felt doubtful, and the doubt (it was almost a certainty) filled me with many apprehensions.

So full was I of my musings that I had not noticed how in my walk I had reached the doctor's garden.

The click of a cricket bat struck into my thoughts and brought me into the warm afternoon again, with all its sweetness of scent and sound.

I could hear Tommy laughing, and as I drew back the bushes, I caught a glimpse of the doctor coaching him in the right manipulation of the bat.

"I say, I never knew you played cricket, you know," said Tommy. "I thought you were an awful a.s.s at games, and all that sort of thing."

The doctor laughed.

"I'm jolly rusty at 'em, anyway," he said. "But I used to play a bit in the old days."

Tommy continued to bat, and I lounged, unnoticed, upon the rails, watching the practice.

Presently the doctor took a turn, and I, too, was surprised at his evident mastery of the art, for I had long since disregarded him as a sportsman.