CHAPTER XXIV

GRIF FALLS ASLEEP

‘What peace doth now Rock him asleep.’

――_Vaughan._

Owing to what the doctor had said it was decided that Grif was not to go to school till an answer should have been received to Aunt Caroline’s letter:――Edward and Palmer would be returning next week.

It was on a morning towards the end of September that he wandered away by himself, and his feet of their own accord seemed to take, as they very often did just now, the direction of the churchyard.

The rebuilding of the church had not yet been begun, though the canon hoped to see it well in progress before the year was out. Grif’s head was bent, and there was a certain drag in his walk, as if all volition had gone out of it, and he were merely obeying a summons. As he reached the low wall he paused and a look of aversion came into his eyes.

Pouncer was with him, and Pouncer, too, appeared to feel his master’s depression. A heaviness of autumn was over them, and in the grey stagnant air each sound――the rattle of a passing cart, the cry of a boy driving sheep――dropped like a stone into a pond, became lost in the silence which spread above it again, sending only a faint ripple out to some eternal shore.

He looked at the reddening blackberry-leaves; he stroked them softly: and, had anyone been there to see it, there must have seemed something peculiarly pathetic in that simple action. Then, in the distance, he heard the hoot of an approaching motor. It told him that the doctor was coming, and for some obscure reason he was seized by a desire to hide. He climbed the wall and crouched down below it on the other side, holding Pouncer close to him till the car had passed. Then he wondered why he had hidden. He did not know why; only from day to day the instinct was growing stronger and stronger within him to hide from everything.

The passing of the doctor reminded him of the drive they had taken together, and of the promise he had then made to go to see the Batts. He had not kept his promise: he had not been able to keep it; for it seemed to require an almost impossible effort of will now to do even the simplest things.

At length he conquered his listlessness and climbed back into the road. He actually ran for a little way, trying to get out of sight of the churchyard as quickly as possible, as if he feared to walk on and on, as he sometimes did in a nightmare, and still find it close beside him. Even Pouncer appeared to be affected by the same idea, for he raced ahead, barking and puffing, spreading out his legs in a clumsy gallop.

Gradually Grif’s feet began to move more slowly, and at last he came to a complete standstill in the middle of the road. Pouncer looked back at him anxiously, still keeping a little in front, but the boy remained motionless, his eyes half shut. He wanted to go on, yet something called him back. In a vague way he realized that he had reached a sort of crisis, and that defeat, should it occur again, would this time be permanent....

He felt Pouncer beside him, licking his hand. He moved on blindly. A dead stillness seemed to have fallen over everything, and the very air appeared to push him back, to bar his progress, to be like the dense and clinging weeds which thicken a stagnant pool.

He stumbled on, and presently the old garden wall rose before him, and with that his pace quickened. He reached the gate and pushed it open.

He found Captain Narcissus at work, clipping one of the box-trees, which was cut into the shape of a bird; but Grif did not stay long with him, for the captain told him to run on in and see Miss Nancy.

Leaving Pouncer outside, he entered the house, and there a servant told him that Miss Nancy was up in her own room. He went upstairs, and as he pushed open the door he saw her seated near the window, hemming curtains; but as soon as he entered she put down her work and caught him in her arms. She did not ask him why he had not come to them for so long; she did not ask about his illness, though she was shocked at the change in his appearance; she simply accepted him as he was. After a little she took up her work again, and Grif, sitting on a stool at her feet, leaned against her knee. And presently of his own accord he told her why he had not been, or tried to tell her, for his chief explanation was that something had prevented him from coming. “I have not been very well,” he said.

“But you must get quite strong before you go home,” Miss Nancy smiled.

She looked down at him, as he sat gazing far away out of the window, and a dimness rose in her eyes as she stroked his hair.

“Yes. I think――I think I could get well here.”

The dreamy words seemed to her to have a strange meaning, and she bent a little lower. “What is it, Grif?” she asked gently. “Won’t you tell me what it is?”

He tried to tell her, but the story, which had never passed his lips till then, seemed loth to pass them now.

She listened, but it was not at once that she understood the meaning of his words. When it did come to her, it came in a single illuminating flash, and she saw it all from the beginning. She saw it, and she saw its horror; and what made its horror was that he himself did not, or could not, perceive it in the light of delusion. She felt an infinite compassion for him, but she said nothing, letting him finish out his tale to the end.

His head leaned against her lap, and his eyes were nearly closed. She held his hand in hers, his brown thin hand, which seemed dry and fragile as a winter leaf.

“But that was not Billy,” she said to him, in a low voice. “He was not like that: he never could be like that. It is some cruel falsehood which has been dropped into your mind, and grown up there.... Come with me to Billy’s room now, and I will show you his things, and tell you about him.”

She got up, and, holding Grif’s hand, took him into a bright still room overlooking the garden. A robin was chirping on the window-sill, but he did not fly away when they entered.

“See, these are his toys,” she said. “He was just an ordinary boy. This is his stamp-book; this is the museum he made with things his grandfather gave him; these are his soldiers, and this is the boat he used to sail on the pond and on the river. These are his skates, and these are his books――I expect you have read most of them――_Huckleberry Finn_, _Twenty-thousand Leagues under the Sea_, _The Young Fur Traders_, _Nat the Naturalist_.... And this is his picture hanging on the wall.”

Grif looked at the laughing, merry face, and as he did so something which had been coiled about his mind ever since the afternoon before his illness, seemed to drop away. It was as if a window had been opened into his soul, letting in the fresh clean air and the sunshine, letting in the song of the robin and the blue sky and the wind. He shuddered for a moment, as a kind of ecstasy of relief swept up through him. He gave a little sharp cry as he buried his face against Miss Nancy. “I know now――I know now,” he whispered. “It is all different.”

The rapture of freedom, of happiness, seemed to beat upon his heart, and he sobbed with the joy of its healing, cleansing waves, which rushed over him and through him. He had turned very white, and Miss Nancy, leading him to the big rocking-chair by the window-seat, sat down there and drew him to her. He was so light that she scarcely felt his weight as she held him in her arms, held him closely, his dark head pillowed on her breast. The white face sank lower on her shoulder, and in a little while he became very quiet, so that she knew, looking down at his shut eyes, that he had fallen asleep. “He will get well now,” she whispered to herself. “He is well already.” And her lips moved in a silent prayer. “When he wakens up he will be happy. All this will have passed from him, and he will be well and strong.”

Outside, the robin continued to sing, and a low, sweet, humming noise told her that Captain Narcissus had begun to cut the grass. The sound of the lawn-mower rose, monotonous and pleasant, a pleasant soothing music, which seemed to bring back the spirit of the dying summer. She sat on, listening to it, and thinking of the boy lying so quietly in her arms. At last the noise ceased, and she guessed that the Captain was coming indoors. Probably it was nearly lunch-time.

“Shall we go downstairs?” Miss Nancy whispered, for Grif was sleeping now so lightly that she could not hear his breathing, could not even hear it when she bent her head till her lips touched his hair.

But Grif slept on.

THE END.

_Printed by_ Butler & Tanner _Frome and London_

SELECTIONS FROM MR. EDWARD ARNOLD’S LIST OF NEW AND RECENT BOOKS

Verdun to the Vosges. Impressions of the War on the Fortress Frontier of France. By GERALD CAMPBELL, Special Correspondent of _The Times_ in the East of France. _With Illustrations and Maps._ =10s. 6d. net.=

“A deeply impressive, well-informed book. Mr. Campbell’s book will well repay careful and patient study. It penetrates beneath the surface of the fighting.”――_Daily Telegraph._

“A well-written and well-illustrated volume. Mr. Campbell had many fine opportunities, and used them both wisely and well. He gives us many a shocking picture of the brutality and bestiality of the German invaders.”――_Morning Post._

“This book contains, so far as we know, the only careful and trustworthy account of those months of intense fighting which has yet been published. Historians will have to turn to these pages for information in regard to many details of the confused events of the early days in this theatre.”――_The Times._

A French Mother in War time. By MADAME E. DRUMONT. Translated by MISS G. BEVIR. =3s. 6d. net.=

The writer of this frank and simple narrative is the wife of the famous anti-Semite, but the young airman son, to whom she is devotedly attached, is the child of a first marriage. The volume consists of her diary from July, 1914, to August, 1915. This anxious French mother makes no attempt to represent herself as more heroic than she was or is, and her honesty gives a special value to her picture of the central and really fine figure in the book――that of her son Paul, many of whose letters to her during the war are here given. Among other interesting passages in the book is a description of the scene at the Paris Cabinet Council, when General Gallieni was asked by the Ministry if he would defend Paris.

A Surgeon in Khaki. By A. A. MARTIN, M.D., F.R.C.S. Eng. _With Illustrations. Fifth Impression._ =10s. 6d. net.=

“A superlatively interesting book.”――_Graphic._

“A book full of life and human feeling. ‘A Surgeon in Khaki’ will certainly live as a first-class description of a portion of the great war.”――_Field._

“A book of extraordinary interest. There are many stories, grave and gay, in this book, which should be widely read. It is quite a remarkable book, and gives a wonderful vision of what war is.”――_Birmingham Daily Post._

With Our Army in Flanders, 1915. By G. VALENTINE WILLIAMS. _Illustrated. Second Impression._ =12s. 6d. net.=

“Mr. Williams has written an excellent book, one of the most vivid and informing accounts that have yet been produced of our men in the field. Like all good correspondents, he has an eye for significant detail. His knowledge of Germany helps him to many instructive comparisons. He is the master of an easy, vigorous style, which occasionally reaches real eloquence. Above all, he has a great gift of enthusiasm. The book is written in a fine spirit, not captious, or egotistical, or flamboyant, but honest and understanding.”――_Spectator._

“This book is no mere compilation of the day-to-day dispatches from Mr. Williams, but a complete study of the army at work and at play, touched by many a scene of pathos, enlivened by many a page of vivacious anecdote, and marked throughout by keen study of all the phases and problems of the war.”――_Daily Mail._

The Capture of De Wet. Including a Short Account of the Conquest of German South-West Africa. By P. J. SAMPSON. _Illustrated._ =10s. 6d. net.=

“_I have perused the work with interest, and must congratulate you on the accurate, impartial, and comprehensive manner in which you have dealt with a much-to-be-regretted episode in the history of South Africa._”――From GENERAL BOTHA’S letter to the Author.

“What he unfolds is a drama――we might almost call it an epic――of South Africa in action, in which the principal figures stand out boldly and the principal events happen again before our eyes.”――_Morning Post._

Germany and the Next War. By General F. VON BERNHARDI. Paper, =2s. net;= cloth, =2s. 6d. net.=

A Year Ago. Being the concluding portion of “Eye-Witness’s Narrative of the War,” from March to July, 1915, when the series of articles came to an end. By COL. E. D. SWINTON, R.E., D.S.O., and CAPT. THE EARL PERCY. Crown 8vo, paper, =2s. net;= cloth, =2s. 6d. net.=

The principal event in the period covered by the new volume is the second battle of Ypres, where the Canadians so distinguished themselves. There are also general descriptions of the new warfare in all its novel phases, from the base to the front-line trenches, that contain an immense amount of information deeply interesting to the civilian reader.

Eye-Witness’s Narrative of the War. From the Marne to Neuve Chapelle, September, 1914–March, 1915. 312 pp. Crown 8vo. Paper, =1s. net;= cloth, =2s. net.=

Gives the complete narrative of “Eye Witness” as issued by the Press Bureau, and, read consecutively in this narrative form, makes an extremely interesting and illuminating commentary on the operations and achievements of the Expeditionary Force.

“Pending the time when a full history of the European conflict will be possible, there can be nothing better in the way of a brief general survey of the British operations than ‘Eye-Witness’s Narrative.’”――_Illustrated London News._

A Surgeon in Belgium. By H. S. SOUTTAR, F.R.C.S., Late Surgeon-in-Chief of the Belgian Field Hospital. Demy 8vo. =8s. 6d. net.= _Third Impression._ Also a Popular Edition, paper cover, =2s. net;= cloth, =2s. 6d. net.=

“If all war books were like this one, it is safe to say that we should hear no complaint that the public is already weary of volumes dealing with the great conflict. For, in place of the average piece of journalistic hack-work, we have here a live book, a book with a character and a soul, a book whose literary skill and deep human feeling justify the prediction that it will be found among the few elect records which survive their hour, and are still remembered and consulted in years to come.”――_Daily Telegraph._

“Admirably written and readable from beginning to end.”――_Morning Post._

“Mr. Souttar is a surgeon with a gift for vivid writing. His book is a quite fascinating record of his experience.”――_Daily News._

“Among the multitude of books on the war this must surely hold a foremost place.”――_Westminster Gazette._

Years of Childhood. By SERGE AKSAKOFF. Translated from the Russian by J. D. DUFF, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. =10s. 6d. net.=

“One can hardly thank the translator sufficiently for this first rendering of the book in any other language than Russian.”――_The Times._

“‘Years of Childhood’ becomes the more fascinating the more one reads and thinks about it. Aksakoff read a new and ecstatic meaning into things which are banal and tame to most men and women, and the eager eye of his mind scanned deep into the lives and loves of the people round about him.”――_Morning Post._

Thirty-Five Years in the New Forest. By the HON GERALD LASCELLES. _With Illustrations._ =12s. 6d. net.=

“A delightful blend of sport, forestry, and tradition.”――_Saturday Review._

“A book for the readers of _Country Life_. They are sure to delight in it.”――_Country Life._

Thirty Years a Boxing Referee. By EUGENE CORRI. _Illustrated._ =10s. 6d. net.=

“A genuine treat for all lovers of boxing.”――_Referee._

“This breezy book on boxing is just characteristic of the author. It is a great cheery volume to the end.”――_Morning Post._

Froth and Bubble. By MONTY HARBORD. _Illustrated._ =10s. 6d. net.=

“As full of incident and adventure as ‘Monte Cristo.’ Whether ranching in Montana, or fighting in South Africa, or fighting against Nature in British East Africa, we always have the feeling that we are getting nothing but the truth.”――_Evening Standard._

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Reminiscences of John Adye Curran, K.C. =10s. 6d. net.=

“Many have pretended to lift the veil [of the Phœnix Park murders], but Judge Curran for the first time really lets in the daylight. His tales of the Irish Bar and Bench make excellent reading.”――_Northern Whig._

Ballads of the Fleet. By SIR RENNELL RODD, G.C.M.G., British Ambassador at Rome. New and Cheaper Edition. =2s. 6d. net.=

LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD, 41 & 43, MADDOX STREET, W.

* * * * *

Transcriber’s Notes:

――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_); text in bold by “equal” signs (=bold=).

――Printer’s, punctuation, and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.

――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.

――Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.