Sons of the Morning. Eden Phillpotts

Honor more serious-minded. Well, that means you would have made her so before now, if you could. You failed to change her in all these years; he has succeeded in clouding her life somehow within the space of two months. How can you explain that?"

      "You're asking pithy questions, my son. And, by the voice of you, I'm inclined to reckon you're as likely to know the answers to them as I am. Maybe more likely. You're a man in love, and that quickens the wits of even the dullest clod who ever sat sighing on a gate, eating his turnip and finding it tasteless. I loved a maid once, too; but 'tis so far off."

      "Well, there's something not wholly right in this. And they ought to know it."

      "Certainly they don't—don't guess it or dream it. But leave that. Now you. You must tackle yourself. The remedy lies with you. This thing has made you think, at any rate."

      "Well, yes. Honor isn't so satisfied with me as of old, somehow. Of course that's natural, but——"

      "She loves you a thousand times better than you love yourself."

      "And still isn't exactly happy in me."

      "Are you happy in yourself? She's very well satisfied with you—worships the ground you walk on, as the saying is—but that's not to say she's satisfied with your life. And more am I, or anybody that cares about you. And more are you."

      "Well, well; but Myles Stapledon—this dear, good chap. He's a—what? Why, a magnifying glass for people to see me in—upside down."

      "He thinks very little about you, I fancy."

      "He's succeeded in making me feel a fool, anyhow; and that's unpleasant. Tell me what to do, Mr. Endicott. Where shall I begin?"

      "Begin to be a man, Yeoland. That's what a woman wants in her husband—wants it unconsciously before everything. A man—self-contained, resolute—a figure strong enough to lean upon in storm and stress."

      "Stapledon is a man."

      "He is, emphatically. He knows where he is going, and the road. He gets unity into his life, method into his to-morrows."

      "To-morrow's always all right. It's to-day that bothers me so infernally."

      "Ah! and yesterday must make you feel sick every time you think of it, if you've any conscience."

      "I know there isn't much to show. Yet it seems such a poor compliment to the wonderful world to waste your time in grubbing meanly with your back to her. At best we can only get a few jewelled glimpses through these clay gates that we live behind. Then down comes the night, when no man may work or play. And we shall be an awfully long time dead. And what's the sum of a life's labour after all?"

      "Get work," said Mark, "and drop that twaddle. Healthy work's the first law of Nature, no matter what wise men may say or poets sing. Liberty! It's a Jack-o'-lantern. There's no created thing can be free. Doing His will—all, all. Root and branch, berry and bud, feathered and furred creatures—all working to live complete. The lily does toil; and if you could see the double fringe of her roots above the bulb and under it—as I can well mind when I had eyes and loved the garden—you'd know it was so. There's no good thing in all the world got without labour at the back of it. Think what goes to build a flash of lightning—you that love storms. But the lightning's not free neither. And the Almighty's self works harder than all His worlds put together."

      "Well, I'll do something definite. I think I'll write a book about birds. Tell me, does Honor speak much of her cousin?"

      "She does."

      "Yet if she knew—if she only knew. Why, God's light! she'd wither and lose her sap and grow old in two years with Stapledon. I know it, in the very heart of me, and I'd stake my life on it against all the prophets. There's that in close contact with him would freeze and kill such as Honor. Yes, kill her, for it's a vital part of her would suffer. Some fascination has sprung up from the contrast between us; and it has charmed her. She's bewitched. And yet—be frank, Mr. Endicott—do you believe that Stapledon is the husband for Honor? You've thought about it, naturally, because, before she and I were engaged, you told me that you hoped they might make a match for their own sakes and the farm's. Now what do you say? Would you, knowing her only less well than I do, wish that she could change?"

      The other was silent.

      "You would, then?"

      "If I would," answered old Endicott, "I shouldn't have hesitated to say so. It's because I wouldn't that I was dumb."

      "You wouldn't? That's a great weight off my mind, then."

      "I mean no praise for you. I should like to chop you and Stapledon small, mix you, and mould you again. Yet what folly! Then she'd look at neither, for certain."

      "Such a salad wouldn't be delectable. But thank you for heartening me. I'm the husband for your niece. I know it—sure as I'm a Christian. And she knew it a month ago; and she'll know it again a month hence, I pray, even if she's forgotten it for the moment. Now I'll clear out, and leave you with your thoughts."

      "So you've quarrelled with her?"

      "No, no, no; she quarrelled with me, very properly, very justly; then she left me in disgrace, and I came to you, hoping for a grain of comfort. I'm a poor prattler, you know—one who cannot hide my little dish of misery out of sight, but must always parade it if I suspect a sympathetic nature in man or woman. Good-bye again."

      So Christopher departed, mounted his horse, and trotted home in most amiable mood.

      CHAPTER IX.

      THE WARNING