# Whiteoaks of Jalna/Chapter 1

From the turnstile where the tickets were taken, a passage covered by striped red and white awning led to the hall of the Coliseum. The cement floor of this passage was wet from many muddy footprints, and an icy draught raced through it with a speed greater than that of the swift horses within.
There were but a few stragglers entering now, and among these was eighteen-year-old Finch Whiteoak. His raincoat and soft felt hat were dripping; even the smooth skin on his thin cheeks was shining with moisture.
He carried a strap holding a couple of textbooks and a dilapidated notebook. He was unpleasantly conscious of these as the mark of a student, and wished he had not brought them along. He tried to conceal them under his raincoat, but they made such a repulsive-looking lump on his person that he sheepishly brought them forth and carried them in full view again.
Inside the hall he found himself in a hubbub of voices and sounding footfalls, and in the midst of a large display of flowers. Monstrous chrysanthemums, strange colours flaming behind their curled petals, perfect pink roses that seemed to be musing delicately on their own perfection, indolent crimson roses, weighed down by their rich colour and perfume, crowded on every side.
With the sheepish smile still lingering on his lips, Finch wandered among them. Their elegance, their fragility, combined with the vividness of their colouring, gave him a feeling of tremulous happiness. He wished that there were not so many people. He would have liked to drift about among the flowers alone, absorbing ​their perfume rather than inhaling it, absorbing their rich gaiety rather than beholding it. A pretty young woman, quite ten years older than he, bent over the great pompom of a chrysanthemum, within which burned a sultry orange, and touched it with her cheek. "Adorable thing," she breathed, and glanced smilingly at the awkward stripling beside her. Finch grinned in return, but he moved away. Yet, when he had made sure that she was gone, he returned to the dusky bloom and gazed into it as though he would discover there some essence of the female loveliness that had caressed it.
He was roused by the sound of a man's voice shouting through a megaphone in the inner part of the building where the horse show was in progress. He looked at his wrist watch and discovered that it was a quarter to four o'clock. He would not dare to show himself at the ringside for at least another half-hour. He had cut the last period at school so that he might have time to see something of the other exhibits before the events in which his brother Renny was to take part were due. Renny would expect to see him then, but he would certainly be sharp with him if he discovered that he had missed any of his lessons. Finch had failed to pass his matriculation examinations the summer before, and his present attitude toward Renny was one of humble propitiation.
He moved into the automobile section. As he was examining a lustrous dark blue touring car, a salesman came up and began to expatiate on its perfections. Finch was embarrassed, yet pleased, at being treated with deference, addressed as "sir." He stood talking with the man a few minutes, looking as sagacious as he could and keeping his books out of sight. When at last he strolled away, he threw his shoulders back and tightened his expression into one of manly composure.
He gave no more than a glance at the display of apples, and the aquariums of goldfish. He thought he would have a look at the kennels of silver foxes. A long stairway led to this section. Up here under the roof was a different world, a world smelling of disinfectants, a world of glittering eyes, of pointed muzzles and upstanding, ​vigorous fur. Trapped, all of them, behind the strong wire of their cages. Curled up in tight balls, with just one watchful eye peering; scratching in the clean straw, trying to find a way out of this drear imprisonment; standing on hind legs, with contemptuous little faces pointing through the netting. Finch wished he might open the doors of all the cages. He pictured that wild scampering, that furious padding across the autumn fields, that mad digging of burrows and hiding in the hospitable earth, when he had set them free! Oh, if he could only set them free to run, to dig, to breed in the earth as they had been born to do!
Word seemed to go from cage to cage that someone had come to help them. Wherever he looked, expectant eyes seemed to be fixed on him. The little foxes yawned, stretched, shivered with expectancy. Waited . . .
A bugle sounded from below. Finch came to himself. He slouched away, hurrying toward the stairs, turning his back on the prisoners.
At the head of the stairway an elderly man was drooping mournfully before an exhibit of canaries. He accosted the boy, offering him a ticket in a lottery. The prize was to be a handsome bird in full song.
"Only twenty-five cents for the ticket," he said, "and the canary is worth twenty-five dollars. A regular beauty. Here 'e is in this cage. I've never bred a grander bird. Look at the shape and colour of 'im. And you ought to 'ear 'im sing! What a present for your mother, young man, and Christmas coming in another six weeks!"
Finch thought that if he had had a mother living it would have been an extremely nice present for her. He pictured himself presenting it, in its glittering gilt cage, to a shadowy lovely young mother of about twenty-five. He fixed his hungry light eyes on the canary, trig and ruddy from special feeding, and muttered something incoherent. The exhibitor produced a ticket.
"Here you are—number thirty-one. I shouldn't be a bit surprised if it was the lucky number. Sure you wouldn't like to buy two? You might as well buy two while you're about it."
​Finch shook his head, and produced the twenty-five cents. As he descended the stairs he cursed himself for his weakness. He had been short enough of funds without throwing away money. He tried to picture Renny's being chivied into buying a lottery ticket for a canary.
After this expenditure he refrained from buying a programme of events for the horse show. The cheaper seats were so filled that he was obliged to take one near the back among a varied assortment of men and youths. The man next him was rather the worse for liquor. He held the bulky paper-bound programme for the events of the week so close to his nose that they almost touched.
"Damned shilly programme," he was muttering. "Each page shillier than page before."
Judging was taking place inside the ring. The tanbark was dotted with men holding their mounts. Three judges, notebooks in hand, strolled from horse to horse, now and again consulting together. The horses stood motionless, all but one which capered pettishly at the end of the reins. The exhilarating odour of tanbark and good horseflesh hung on the air, which was still cool in spite of the closely packed spectators.
The man with the megaphone announced the winners. Ribbons were presented, and they disappeared after the defeated competitors into the regions behind. The band struck up.
"Damned usheless programme," sounded in Finch's ear. "Make nothing of it."
"Perhaps I can," said the boy, longing to look at the programme, yet not wanting to be seen in conversation with such a person.
"Buy one for yourshelf!" returned the man loudly. "Don't imagine you're going to shponge on me for one."
There was a laugh from the near-by spectators. Finch slumped in his seat, crimson, humiliated. He was thankful for the crash of music from the band that heralded the Musical Ride.
His spirits rose as he watched the glossy creatures, ridden by soldiers from the barracks, trip coyly and yet contemptuously through the intricate evolutions. He ​allowed himself to be carried away by the sensuous harmony of sound, of movement, of colour. The lights suspended from the lofty ceiling, shrouded by bright flags and bunting, quivered in the metallic vibrations of the air.
The next event was the judging of ladies' saddle horses. There were fifteen entries, among them Silken Lady, ridden by Finch's sister-in-law, Pheasant Whiteoak. She came in at the tail of the string, a large number 15 on a white square attached to her waist. Finch felt a sudden leap of pride as he watched Lady circle the tanbark, showing her good blood and her pride of life in every step. He felt a pleasant sense of proprietorship in Pheasant, too. She was like a slender boy in her brown coat and breeches, with her bare, closely cropped head. Odd how young she looked, after all she'd been through. That affair of hers with Eden that had nearly separated Piers and her. The two seemed happier now. Piers was awfully keen that Pheasant should make a good showing in the jumps. A hard fellow, Piers—he must have given her a rough time of it for a while. A good thing that Eden was safely out of the way. He'd made trouble enough—been a bad brother to Piers, a bad husband to Alayne. All over now! Finch gave his mind to the riders.
A stout man in the uniform of a colonel put them through their paces, sending them trailing, now swift, now slow, around the ring. Pheasant's pale face grew pink. Ahead of her rode a short plump girl in immaculate English riding clothes, a glossy little bell-topped hat, a snowy stock. A youth next to Finch told him that she came from Philadelphia. She had a noble-looking mount. The judges were noticing him. Finch felt a sinking of the heart as the American horse swept rhythmically over the tanbark. When the riders dismounted and stood in various limp attitudes beside their horses, Finch's eyes were riveted on Pheasant and the girl from Philadelphia.
It was as he feared. The blue ribbon was attached to the bridle of the plump girl's horse. Silken Lady did not even get the second or third. They were awarded to horses from other towns in the province. Pheasant, her ​little face immobile, rode out with the troop of the defeated.
The Ladies' Hunters class came on. The sense of pleasurable anticipation was enhanced by the joyous throbbing of the drums beneath the martial air played by the horns. The first rider entered, her mount, with arching neck and polished hoofs, spurning the tanbark. With a gay air of assurance he sped lightly toward the four-foot gate. Then, as the rider dropped his head for the jump, he swerved aside and galloped easily along the track. The tension was relaxed into amusement. Laughter rippled over the boxes and broke loudly from the rear seats. Rider wheeled horse sharply and rode him again at the gate. He leaped it with ease. Without mishap he jumped the wall, then the first oxer, but as he cleared the bars he kicked the top rail and it clattered to the ground. Another try! Again the balking at the gate, again the leap, but this time two rails were scattered. A bugle sounded. Rider and horse disappeared, the girl dejected, the beast ingenuously pleased with himself.
Two more entries came and went without creating a stir. The next rider was the girl from Philadelphia. The beautiful horse looked too tall for the plump little figure in the perfect riding-habit. But he knew his business. He threw himself whole-heartedly into the jumping. Only one mishap in the twice around—a tick behind. They sailed off amid a steady beat of handclaps.
Then Pheasant on The Soldier, half-brother to Silken Lady. Finch's heart beat heavily as they trotted into the arena. It was no joke to manage The Soldier. He was scarcely a fit mount for a slim girl of nineteen. He approached the gate sidewise, showing his teeth in a disagreeable grin. Pheasant trotted him back to the starting point, and again headed him with soft encouragement toward the gate.
"Give him tashte o' whip!" advised the man beside Finch.
Again The Soldier balked at the jump. Again Pheasant wheeled him and made a fresh start, but this time a sharp cut as they approached the gate sent him flying ​over it like a swallow. Then over each of the tall white gates he flew, the white "socks" on his hind legs flashing, his ginger-coloured tail streaming.
Finch was grinning happily. Good little Pheasant. Good boy Soldier. He added his applause violently to the storm that commended them. Still, his eyes were anxious as he awaited the second time around. This time there was no balking, but a swift triumphant flight over gate, over hedge, over double oxer. But one never knew what The Soldier would do. At the last gate he swerved aside, galloped past it, and, amid handclaps and laughter, disappeared.
The Philadelphia girl, Pheasant, and three others were recalled for a "jump off." All five did well, but the American horse was the best. Sadly, Finch agreed that the judges were right when he was awarded the blue ribbon, and The Soldier the red. "But the girl can't ride like young Pheasant, anyhow," he thought.
Now came the Corinthian Class, grey and chestnut, bay and black, streaming along the track close on each other's heels. Ah, there was Renny! That thin, strong figure that looked as though it were a part of the long-legged roan mare. A quiver of excitement ran through the crowd, like a breeze stirring a field of wheat. As the sound of the band died away the thunder of hoofs took up the music, sweeter by far! Finch could not bear to remain in his seat. He slid past the knees of those between him and the aisle, and descended the steps. He joined the line of men that lounged against the paling that surrounded the track.
Here the tanbark looked like brown velvet. Here one heard the straining of leather, the blowing, the snorting of the contesting glossy beasts, their heavy grunts as they alighted on the ground after the clearing of the hedge. His eyes were directed toward its greenness. He looked up at each horse as it rose, at its rider bending above it, their two muscular organisms exquisitely merged into the semblance of a centaur.
No women in this contest. Only men. Men and horses. Oh, the heart-straining thrill of it! As Renny's horse ​skimmed the barrier, the hedge, flew through the air, dropped to its thudding hoofs again, and thundered down the tanbark, its nostrils stretched, its mouth open, its breath rushing from its great barrel of a body, it seemed the embodiment of savage prehistoric power. Renny, with his carven nose, his brown eyes blazing in his narrow, foxlike face, his grin that had always something vindictive in it, he too seemed possessed by this savage power.
No woman in this contest? What of the mare? That gaunt roan devil that carried him, leaped at the tug of his rein, galloped like the east wind speeding across the waves with him! Ah, she was feminine enough! Every inch of her. Hadn't she whinnied from her stall cries of challenge to the velvet-eyed stallion? Hadn't she stood in the straw and given from her gaunt body a big-boned foal that had not yet been broken? Hadn't she suckled that foal, nuzzling it gently, snuffing the sweetness of it? She was feminine enough, by God, thought Finch.
The boy's imagination, liberated by the tumult of plunging horses whose breath comes in warm gusts against his face as they pass, spreads itself like a fantastic screen between him and the reality of the scene before him. He sees Renny's mare, galloping toward him, continue to bear upon him instead of following the track. He sees her galloping across him, trampling him, crushing him under hoof, annihilating him. . . . He next witnesses the release of his soul from the trampled body. He sees his soul, opaque, iridescent, strangely shaped, leap to the back of the mare, behind Renny, clasping him about the waist with its shadowy yet savagely strong arms, and soaring with him above the circling riders, above the hand-clapping spectators, up among the lights which rise in rushing billows of colour toward a thunderous sky above. The drums beat, and the soaring music of the horns accompanies them. . . . He stands clinging to the paling, a lanky boy with hollow cheeks, hungry eyes, one bony shoulder-blade projecting a sharp ridge through his coat. His expression is so ridiculous that Renny, trotting tranquilly around the track, the blue ​ribbon fluttering against the roan's neck, on suddenly discovering him thinks, "Good Lord, the kid looks little more than an idiot!"
His greeting to Finch, when the boy sought him out among the groups of men and horses in the enclosure behind the arena, was only a nod. He continued his conversation with a rigid-looking officer in the uniform of an American lieutenant. Finch had seen this man taking part in several jumping events. He had followed Renny with the red ribbon.
Finch stood humbly by, listening to their talk of horseflesh and hunting. Mutual admiration beamed from their eyes. At last Renny, glancing at his wrist watch, said, "Well, I must be getting on. By the way, this is my young brother, Finch, Mr. Rogers."
The American shook hands with the boy kindly, but looked him over without enthusiasm.
"Grown fast, I suppose," he commented to the elder Whiteoak, as they turned away together.
"Oh yes," returned Renny. "No bone to speak of," and he added, apologetically: "He's musical."
"Is he studying music?"
"He was, but I stopped it last summer after he failed in his matric. I feel regularly up against it with him. Now the music is cut off, he has taken to play-acting. It seems that he'd rather do anything than work. But I dare say he'll turn out all right. Sometimes the most unpromising colt, you know. . . ."
They were now crossing an open paved space, unlighted save by the blurred beam from a motor-car cautiously moving among the horses that were being led to stable or station by shouting attendants. However, a murky daylight made it still possible to distinguish one face from another.
An ostler, running across the yard, slipped on the thin layer of mud that covered the pavement and plunged forward, his bullet head coming in violent contact with the stomach of a burly fellow leading a rearing blanketed horse.
He roared: "Keep your blurry 'ead out of my stum​mick, will yer? Wot do you think this is, a Soccer match?"
The ostler returned a volley of abuse which was drowned by the whinnying of the horse, outraged by the delay in seeking his supper. Inside the building the band could be heard playing "God Save the King."
The moving shadows in the yard now became indistinguishable as darkness fell like a palpable covering overall. The rain, which had been fitful, now blew in wildly from the east, and at the same moment the roaring of the lake increased in volume, as though the elements, weary of the activities of men and beasts, had united to obliterate them.
Renny Whiteoak and the American parted, and Finch, who had been slouching behind, moved to his brother's side.
"Gosh, it's cold," mumbled the boy.
"Cold!" exclaimed his elder, in astonishment. "Why, I'm hot. The trouble with you is that you don't get enough exercise. If you'd go in for sports more, you'd get your circulation up. A foal just dropped wouldn't feel the cold to-night."
A voice called from the car which they were approaching:
"Is that you, Renny? I thought you were never coming. I'm getting beastly cold."
It was young Pheasant.
Renny got in and turned on the lights. Finch clambered in beside the girl.
"What a pair!" said Renny, letting out the clutch. "I'll need to keep you in a nest of cotton wool."
"Just the same," she persisted, "it's very bad for Baby, my getting chilled, and I've been away from him too long already. Can't you get the car started?"
"Something's gone wrong with its blasted old innards," he growled, then added hopefully: "Perhaps the engine's just a bit cold." He did various spasmodic things to the antiquated mechanism of the car, unloosing at the same time, in a concentrated undertone, the hatred of seven years. Loving and understanding horses, he was bewildered by the eccentricities of a motor.
​Pheasant interrupted: "How did I do?"
No answer came for a moment, then he growled: "Not so badly. But you needn't have touched The Soldier. Much better not."
"Well, I came second, anyway."
"Might have come first if you hadn't. Lord, if ever I get this cursed old bus home!"
Pheasant's voice was indignant. "Look at that American girl's horse! It was a perfect peach!"
"So is The Soldier," muttered her brother-in-law, stubbornly.
Finch reclined in a corner of the car, in a state of depression. The enveloping, dank blackness of the premature night, the thought of the hours of study in his cold bedroom that lay before him, seemed like hands reaching up out of the sodden ground, dragging him down. He was famishing. He had a piece of chocolate bar in his pocket, and he wondered if he could extract it and negotiate its passage to his mouth without Pheasant's becoming aware of it. He felt for it, found it, cautiously extricated it from its battered silver-paper wrapping under cover of a sudden fierce outburst from Renny which distracted her attention. He crammed it into his mouth, sinking lower into the seat and closing his eyes.
He was beginning to feel comforted when Pheasant hissed in his ear: "Horrid little pig!"
He had forgotten how shrewd was her sense of smell. She was going to get even, too. She fumbled in her pocket, produced a cigarette-case, and the next instant the sharp flare of a match lighted up her little pale face and showed the sarcastic pucker of her lips cherishing the cigarette. Sweet-smelling smoke lay heavy on the damp air. Finch's last cigarette had been smoked that noonday. He might, of course, have asked Renny for one, but it was scarcely safe to approach him when he was baffled by the car.
Presently the eldest Whiteoak threw himself back in his seat with a gesture of despair.
"We may walk home for all of her," he observed, laconically. He too lighted a cigarette.
​Smoke and gloomy silence pervaded the car. Rain slashed against the sides, and with each flutter of the ill-fitting curtains a chill draught penetrated the interior. Rain-blurred lights of other cars slid by.
"But you were splendid, Renny," said Pheasant, to lighten the depression. "And got the blue ribbon, too! I'd come around, and I saw the whole thing."
"I couldn't help winning on the roan," he said. "God, what a mare!" Then, after a moment, he added pointedly: "Though if I'd been ass enough to take the whip to her, I should probably have come only second."
"Oh, how cold I am!" exclaimed the girl, ignoring the thrust. "And I can't help thinking of my poor little baby."
Finch was suddenly filled with intense irritation toward them both, sitting there smoking. What had they to do when they did get home but lounge about a stable or suckle a kid? While he would be forced to lash his wretched brains to the study of trigonometry. He swallowed the last of his chocolate, and said, in a hoarse voice: "You seemed to be thick enough with that fool American 'lootenant.' Who was he?"
The abandoned impudence of the words shocked him, even as he uttered them. He would not have been surprised if Renny had turned in his seat and felled him to the floor. He was sure he felt a shiver of apprehension from Pheasant's corner.
But Renny answered quietly enough: "I knew him in France. A splendid chap. Very rich, too." And he added, enviously: "Got one of the finest stables in America."
Pheasant moaned: "Oh, my poor little Mooey! Am I never to get back to him?"
Her brother-in-law's tone became testy. "Look here, my girl, you must either give up riding in horse shows or having babies. They don't fit."
"But I've just begun both in the last year," she pleaded, "and they're equally fascinating, and Piers likes me to do both."
​Finch growled: "Quote someone besides Piers for a change."
"But how can I? He's the only husband I've got."
"He's not the only brother I have, and I'm tired of hearing his words chanted as though he was the Almighty."
She leaned toward him, her face a white blur against the dark. "Anyone who is as self-centred as you are naturally doesn't want to hear about anyone else. Anyone who would devour a bar of chocolate with a starving young mother at his side. Anyone——"
"Say 'anyone' again," bawled Finch, "and I'll jump out of the car!"
The altercation was cut short by a vehement jolt. The motor had started. Renny gave a grunt of satisfaction.
He slouched behind the wheel, staring ahead into the November night. The roads were almost deserted when they had passed beyond the suburbs. Even the streets of the villages through which they speeded were almost empty. The vast expanse of lake and sky to the left was a great blackness, except for the beam of the lighthouse and two dusky red lights denoting the presence of a schooner ploughing against a head wind.
His mind flew ahead to the stables at Jalna. Mike, a handsome gelding, had got his leg badly cut by a kick from a vicious new horse that morning. He felt much disturbed about Mike. The vet had said it might be a serious business. He was anxious to get home and find out what sort of day he had passed. . . . He thought of the new horse that had done the damage. One of Piers's purchases. He himself had not liked the look in the brute's eyes, but Piers cared nothing about disposition if a horse's body was right. Piers would make over the disposition to suit himself. That seemed to be his idea. Well, he'd better make this new nag's temper over and be sharp about it. . . . He scowled in a way that always moved his grandmother to exclaim ecstatically: "Eh, what a perfect Court the lad is! He can give a savage look when he's a mind to!"
​He thought of a foal that had been dropped that morning by one of the farm horses. She was a clumsy, ugly-looking beast with a face like a sheep and large flat feet, but, lying there in the box stall with her foal beside her, she had seemed changed. Something noble about the poor beast, as a gaunt, ugly woman may give a sudden impression of nobility bending over her newborn child. Extraordinary things, horses—Nature, an extraordinary thing altogether. The differences between one mare and another—between a farm horse and a hunter. The strange, unaccountable differences between members of the same family. His young half-brothers and himself. The boys more difficult to handle than horseflesh, by a long shot. They shouldn't be, for they were the same flesh and blood, got by the same sire. . . . Yet what two boys could be more unlike than little Wakefield, so sensitive, affectionate, and clever, and young Finch, whom one couldn't browbeat into studying or shame into taking an interest in games, who was always mooning about with a sheepish air? He had seemed more old, more mopey than ever of late. . . . And then Piers. Piers was different again. Sturdy, horse-loving, land-loving Piers. They were very congenial, he and Piers, in their love of horses, their devotion to Jalna. . . . And Eden. He uttered a sound between a growl and a sigh when he thought of Eden. Not a line from him since he had disappeared after his affair with Pheasant, nearly a year and a half ago. That showed what writing poetry could do to a chap—make him forget decency, spoil the life of a girl like Alayne. What a disgraceful mess it had been, that affair! Piers had been quieter, more inclined to moods ever since, though the coming of the baby had done a good deal to straighten things up. Poor little kid, he must be howling for his supper by now. . . .
He increased the speed regardless of the slippery road, and called over his shoulder: "Home in ten minutes now, so cheer up, Pheasant! Have either of you got a cigarette? I've smoked my last."
"I've done the same, Renny. Oh, I'm so glad we're ​nearly there! You've made wonderful time considering the night."
"Have you any, Finch?"
"Me!" exclaimed the boy, rubbing one of his bony knees, which had got cramped from sitting so long in one position. "I never have any! I can't afford them. It takes all my allowance, I can tell you, to pay my railway fare, and buy my lunch, and pay fees for this and that. I've nothing left for cigarettes."
"So much the better for you, at your age," returned his brother, curtly.
"Chocolate bars are much better for you," purred Pheasant, close to his ear.
Renny peered through the window. "There's the station," he said. "I suppose your wheel is there. Shall you get it? Or had you sooner stop in the car with us?"
"It's a beast of a night. I think I'll go with you. No—I'll—yes—oh, Lord, I don't know what to do!" He peered forlornly into the night.
Renny brought up the car with a jolt. He demanded over his shoulder: "What the devil is the matter with you? You seem to have a perpetual grouch. Now make up your mind, if it's possible. I think myself you had better leave the wheel where it is and walk to the station in the morning."
"It'll be a beastly walk in such weather as this," mumbled Finch, moving his leg with his hands to bring life into it. "My books'll be all muddy."
"Well, get one of the men to run you down in the car."
"Piers will want the car early. I heard him say so."
Renny stretched back a long arm and threw open the door beside the youth. "Now," he said quietly, but with an ominous chest vibration in his voice, "get out. I've had enough of this shilly-shallying!"
Finch scrambled out, giving a ridiculous hop as his numb foot touched the ground. He stood with dropped jaw as the door was slammed and the motor rattled away, sending a spray of muddy water against his trouser legs.
He moved heavily under a weight of self-pity as he went toward the station house. In the room behind the ​station-master's office he found his bicycle propped against the scales. It might not be a bad idea to weigh himself, he thought. He had been drinking a glass of milk every day of late in the hope that he might put on a little flesh. He mounted the scales and began dubiously moving the weights. The sound of men's voices came from the inner room, argumentative voices, and high-pitched. The scale balanced, he peered anxiously at the figures, then his face brightened—a clear gain of three pounds. A childlike grin lighted his features. The milk was doing him good, all right. He was gaining flesh. Not so bad that, three pounds in a fortnight. He would drink more of it. He stepped from the scales and was about to remove his bicycle when he discovered that a pedal was pressing on the platform of the scales. Suspicion clouded his brow. Might it not be possible that the pressure of the pedal had something to do with the increase in his weight? He set the wheel aside and again mounted the scales. Eagerly he examined the trembling indicator. The weight flew up. He moved the brass slide. Four pounds less. He had not gained! He had lost. He had lost. He weighed a pound less than he had a fortnight ago!
Gloomily he picked up the bicycle and steered it out of the station. He heard one of the men ask: "What's that noise out there?" And the station-master's reply: "I guess it's the Whiteoak boy that goes into town to school. He leaves his wheel here." The voices were lowered and Finch could imagine the disparaging remarks they were making about him.
He flung himself on to the saddle and pedalled doggedly along the path beside the rails. Darn the old bike! Darn the rain! Above all, darn milk! It was making him thinner instead of stouter. He would have no more of it.
The driveway that led to the house was a black tunnel. Hemlocks and balsams walled it in with their impenetrable resinous boughs. The heavy scent of them, the scent of the fungus growths beneath them, was so enhanced by the continuous moisture of the past two weeks that it seemed a palpable essence dripping from the dense ​draperies of their limbs, oozing from the wet earth beneath. It was an approach that might have led to a sleeping palace, or to the retreat of a band of worshippers of some forgotten gods. As the boy passed through the oppressive, embalmed darkness he felt that he was moving in a dream, that he might glide on thus for ever, with no light, no warmth, at the end to greet him.
In there peace came to him. He wished that he might have ridden on and on among these ancient trees till he absorbed something of their impassive dignity. He pictured himself entering the room where the family would be gathered, wearing like a cloak about him the dignity of one of these trees. He pictured his entry as casting a chill over the rough good spirits of these less austere beings.
As he emerged to the gravelled sweep about the house, the rain beat down on him with increasing violence, and the east wind caused the shutters to rattle and the bare stalks of the old Virginia creeper to scrape against the wall. Warm lights shone from the windows of the dining-room.
He put aside his imaginings and made a dash for the back entrance.
He pushed his bicycle into a dark passage in the basement and went into a little washroom to wash his hands. As he dried them he glanced at his reflection in the speckled mirror above the basin—a lank fair lock hanging over his forehead; his long nose, his thin cheeks, made pink by the wind and rain. He did not look so bad after all, he thought. He felt comforted.
As he passed the kitchen he heard the nasal voice of Rags, the Whiteoak houseman, singing:
He had a glimpse of the red brick floor, the low ceiling, darkened by many years of smoke, of Rags's buxom wife bending over the hot range. His spirits rose. He raced up the stairway, hung his wet raincoat in the hall, and entered the dining-room.