Omaha daily bee., 1922-01-22
By CHARLES SAXBY

~ VII
them. seintllating sentences. all
marked with the dismal sign OF the
unuttered aud too late.
The confines OF the room irked
him: better the driving wet outside,
il only TO escape the inane stare OF
those purple china spaniels on the
manlel. Except the road, all sense
OF direction was wiped out, the Tors
all hidden in the gray wrack that
permitted only a narrow circle oi
vision. Princesiown. with its rent
day throng, repclled him, so perforce
he turned downhill towards the Vale
OF Dart.
Dart Bridge, its elm trees looming
through the obscuring rain; beyond
them, the lane to Hangcr-Down.
Why he turned into it Maynard
could hardly say; it was certainly in
no intention OF renewing his attack
upon the Tollcy chair. That also
seemed TO be gone; like all the time
he had spent here on the Moor,
swallowed up by that swift pursui;
OF the past which devours each
moment almost before one Can grasp
at it. 1t was more certain inertia,
the push of an idea that had be.
come almost a habit, which pre-
pelled him to the door OF the farm.
Rain lashed, crouched against the
lee of the down, the place looked
more hopeless than ever, and he
wondered that any could be found
willing TO wrest a living from those
fields. That was the pride of these
moorland people, he knew; that des-
perate clnging to the position OF
iandholder, lacking which they must
sink to the ignominy of service to
others.
His rap on the door echoed back
to him with almost righteousness;
even if Mrs. Tolley were within,
how would he explain his coming
here again-when he could not ex-
plain it even to himself. The ex-
traordinary circles of life and their
unseen connections. Elsie Lathrop,
the Benbrook gallery, Mrs. Ira and
himself, 1000 miles away, knocking
on the door of this isolated Dart
moor cottage.
1t was Elias who opened TO him,
the sterile childishness of his face
underlaid by a glow of excitement,
which faded at sight of Maynard.
"Eh, it's you. Us thought as 7
was Squire Bragdon come down from
Princestown.' Then the glow
mounted again in recovered con-
fdence. "But he'll come, you'll sec.
In little while he'll be a-grummagine
down so fast as un's mare can .trot.
Come you in.
1t was the same room in which
Maynard had first seen the Tolley
chair, even as he saw it now, lording
It over the threadbare ncatness of its
surroundings. The sight Of it awokc
again in him the desire TO carry it
off and enshrine it in some more
worthy place. Then, as he looked at
the woman, even the chair faded, for
it was she who was the real pres
ence. As she sat there, black clad,
bleakly immobile, she was like some
priestess at temple which, its affairs
already Pickering to extinction,
waited mutely for the touch of the
vandal. For her that touch had al
ready come, he felt; she was merely
as "a mourner who waits the removal
of the body. He could imagine her
and Elias, with their meager baggage
piled on neighbor's cart, passing
dispossessed out into the rain, the
poignancy of their going slimed by
the grin of that tragedy Of pigs.
Yet he realized, too, something of
what that young stranger had meant
when he spoke of the moor peoples
sense of the art of situation. The
barrenness of it made this drama of
the Tolleys perfect thing, rooted
in soil and tradition old as that age
less moor and the centuries of the
crown. He had been viewing it from
his own angle of the chair, but he
saw now that to these people of the
waste the crux of it was that quar-
terly miracle of the Tolley rent, with
its suggestion of something older
even than the soil, more potent than
the crown itself. A false touch would
have married the classic sever
ity of its outlines; even death would
have been too final, for the harrow
Of this was the going on.
1t was Elias who saved the mo-
ment from becoming intolerable; |
gazing out through the rain drenched |
panes, he gave cry of triumph.
Il told you so-it's him. I'd swear
to Squire Bragdon's mare if t was
so dark as the Pit 'isself. Now us1l
see"
The rattle of wheels down the
lane, splash of hoofs in its pools;
the feeling of an overbearing per-
scnality about to descend on them,
a grating voice with a sort OF joviai
snarl in it.
"Hah-so that's you, Elias, is it?
What's all this-hey? Mrs. Tolley
not got her rent-what!'
There was no change in the
woman. Looking at her carven calm,
Maynard dimly saw the high gods at
whose altars she had SO long been
servitor. The grim lords of Poverty,
Anxiety, and inexorable Decay, the
only fame of appeascment left on