CHAPTER III

As far back as Jack's earliest memories went, he had always liked animals and plants and rough grey rocks and yellow foam.

They had, indeed, been all there was to like. Human beings, especially grown-up ones, had hitherto played in his conception of life a singularly small and contemptible part. They were inevitable, of course, and some­times useful; but neither interesting nor pleasant, and generally much in the way. Within the last three years a new element had been creeping into his relation with the adults of his world; he had begun to see in them natural, as it were, hereditary enemies. Anything brutal or stupid, any petty mean­ness or fidgetty interference on their part, seemed to him a matter of course, coming from creatures by nature illogical, spiteful, and incompetent; and, his standpoint having once become fixed, many wise and necessary restrictions were lumped together with the others in careless contempt. He never troubled himself about the reasons of a pro­hibition; if a thing was forbidden, it was presumably just because there was no sensible ground of objection to it.

Of men and women in any other capacity than that of despised authority he had little knowledge. After the loss of the black-browed mother whom he could dimly remem­ber, he and Molly had spent four years in St. Ives under the care of their grandmother and a crotchetty maiden aunt. These two ladies had regarded the children as visitations of Providence, whom, for their sins, they must at regular intervals feed and wash, especially wash; no boy was ever more heroically scrubbed than Jack. But cold water and rough towels, excellent as they were, had not satisfied all the soul's needs of the growing boy; and as quite a small child he had sat up in his bed in the dark to address, to the big anthropomorphic Thing which he had been taught to worship, a bitter reproach; "It's not fair. What did You make me for, if You weren't going to let any­body want me?"

The sailor father had wanted him, at any rate; it had been good to know that there was one person in the world who did not think it a disgrace for a boy to be dark and ugly and to have black eyes like his mother's, even though that person was nearly always at sea. But then had come a night of rough weather aтd distress signals all along the coast; and the next morning Aunt Sarah had driven over with a white face and a telegram. Since then the orphans had lived at the Vicarage in Porthcarrick.

Uncle Josiah and Aunt Sarah had shown to the passionate boy much earnest care for his body's welfare and his soul's health, but very little personal friendliness or affection; and that little, when it came from the man, he resented as impertinence, when from the woman, despised as weakness. People should play fair, and not try to catch you with shams that you didn't expect. Grown­ups had two recognised engines of warfare, and should stick to them. One was moralising, or "jaw"; the other, sheer coercion. This latter, though disagreeable, seemed to him the more logical weapon. It would have saved trouble to begin with the thing, once they were going to end with it. Indeed, the Vicar would have been surprised could he have learned how much more keenly the boy resented his sermons than his punishments. Innumerable thrashings had instilled into Jack a certain respect for a person who can hit hard; and had his relations with his uncle begun and ended with the cane, there would have been on his part far less bitterness; but the moralising filled him with scorn, and the occasional attempts at friendliness with fierce disgust.

Aunt Sarah he simply despised. She, poor woman, had certainly never been guilty of any brutality towards him; it is doubtful whether she had uttered a harsh word to any one in all her ineffectual, well-meaning days. Her ambitions went no further than to see around her smiling faces of contented serv­ants and children, looking up in happy sub­mission to their and her king; and her one grief, besides that of childlessness, was that the faces, though mostly submissive enough, were not always happy. Jack, in a chronic state of disobedience and revolt, was to her an utterly unsolvable problem. She was always kind to him, — it was not in her to be otherwise to any living thing, — but she looked upon him with a sort of dread, and with a feeling which, in a more definite nature, would have been dislike; he was so incon­venient. Her little careful plans to make things "go smoothly" were always being disturbed and thrown out by this one impos­sible factor.

If it had crossed her mind that the boy was lonely and miserable she would have been sincerely horrified; merely to read in the parish magazine of an ill-used child was enough to make her cry; and, timid as she was, she had often risked the displeasure of her god on earth by trying to beg Jack off from various punishments. Had he ever tried to beg himself off, she would have liked him better; his hard indifference repelled her. She herself, though a most conscientious woman, had once even stepped a little aside from the exact truth to screen him from the Vicar's anger. She had been found out, of course; for Jack, when asked about the matter, had told the truth at once. The worst of it was that his habit of acknowledg­ing his misdeeds appeared to be the result of sheer bravado, not of any love for veracity; for he had no scruples about telling any number of falsehoods when it suited his pur­pose to do so. But he never prevaricated; when he told a lie, he did it deliberately, with a straight look between the eyes; and that, again, Aunt Sarah could not understand. So beyond much gentle moralising, pathetically futile, her vicarious motherhood, in his case, could not go. She lavished all her affection on Molly, whose evil tendencies, if they were there at all, were still hidden in the mists of babyhood; and left Jack to struggle with a bitter heart as best he might.

He was not envious because his sister was preferred before him. In a certain stiff, shy way of his own he was fond of the child. But they had not much in common. She was not only little, and a girl, — he might have forgiven these defects, — she was also "good." She sat on people's laps, and shut the door after her, and was kissed and praised, and had sweets given her by visitors, who liked to stroke her pretty hair. Jack wondered sometimes how the caresses didn't make her sick, and why she didn't cut the hair off with Aunt Sarah's scissors and throw it in the people's faces. He would have dragged his out by the roots if any one had "pawed it about" that way.

The only human creatures whom he recog­nised as having any moral claim upon him were the larrikins to whom, for nearly two years now, he had been leader. His ethical code was barbaric and primitive; it never occurred to him to think that he was doing anything mean or unworthy in breaking people's windows, looting their apples, or wantonly damaging their kitchen gardens; nor did he think it necessary to consult at all the personal wishes of his subjects; he was the master, and his will was law; but to abandon his boys in a crisis, or allow one of them to take a caning which he could by any manoeuvring have transferred to his own shoulders, would have seemed to him a mon­strous thing. His tiny kingdom was an absolute despotism; in his eyes the whole duty of a subject consisted in obedience, that of a ruler in loyalty; he was splendidly loyal to his boys, but he despised them in his heart.

From human society, great and small, he came back always with relief to furred or feathered creatures, to cliffs and moor and sea. The puppies and the rabbits, the village dogs and cats, all knew a side of him which the Vicar had never seen. Even the lesser humans to whom he extended his pro­tection never saw quite the real Jack; with Billy Greggs he was scornfully tolerant, with Molly condescendingly good-natured; with animals, especially if they were small and helpless, he could be full of tender loving-kindness.

But the best that was in him was known only to Spotty. She was the old brown dog in the stable yard; a sorry specimen truly, and, except for Jack, without a friend in the world. In her best days she had not been much to look at; a hopeless mongrel, bob-tailed and bandy-legged, with a white patch over one ragged ear. Now in her old age she had gone blind, and was no longer of any use as a watch-dog. It would have been kinder to have her chloroformed; she was growing too feeble to take exercise and keep healthy, and was becoming a burden to herself and an object of disgust to others. But Mrs. Ray­mond disliked the idea of killing anything; and the Vicar was too just a man to turn out a faithful servant because she was past her work; so Spotty remained in the yard, well fed and housed, and tolerated as aged paupers are tolerated.

On this old, ugly, miserable creature, whom death had passed by and forgotten, was showered all the hidden gold of Jack's affection. He never forgot to wash and comb her, or to soak her biscuits carefully, and never forgave any one who laughed at her infirmities. Under his indifference and callousness lay a dumb, fierce, hot resentment against the injustice of men and things. No one was ever fair to Spotty, because she had grown old and blind; as if that in itself were not unfair enough. No one was ever fair to him, because he was born ugly and wicked; and he could no more help that than Spotty could help being blind. Their common wrong was a bond between them; and it was Spotty alone who knew his secret.

For Jack had one secret; only one, and that so simple and so plainly written in his face that anybody could have read it who had looked at him with unprejudiced eyes. But there were no such eyes at the Vicarage; and his secret remained unread. It was that he was unhappy. He had never acknowl­edged it to himself, and would have been amazed and indignant had any one suggested it; but it was true, nevertheless. Though in some ways, especially impish ways, he got a fair amount of enjoyment out of life, there was always behind his pleasures a dull aching, as of emptiness that nothing could fill. To be glad when night came because another day was over; to hide every little hurt and grief away for fear some one should find it out; to have his hand against every man and every man's hand — often so heavy — against him, seemed to him a matter of course; if he thought about it all, he thought only that the world was stupidly managed some­how, and that it was no use to worry, because one couldn't make things any better.

It was this secret hunger of the soul that had driven him to seek his loves outside of human companionship. The bleak grey Cornish moorland was a tenderer mother to him than Aunt Sarah, with all her kindly heart, had ever been. On his worst days, when mischief failed to help and even fight­ing could not cure the aching restlessness within him, he would slip away and wander on the cliffs alone for hours. Then he would lie down in some still, shadowy gorge or cleft, and bury himself in the wet fern, and find comfort somehow.

 So, blind as he was and groping in the dark, he had learned to know and love the healing touch of nature. Then, when the mavis flew away, his eyes were opened, and whereas he was blind, now he saw.

For a long time he sat by the window, looking out; at last he undressed himself in the dark and crept into bed, very grave and subdued. Fortunately there was no one in the world who cared enough about him to look in upon his sleep, as happens sometimes with boys who have mothers; so his pride was safe from any one discovering that he slept with wet eyelashes. He found it out himself, though, in the morning, and was ashamed for a moment. Then he looked out of the window, and forgot to be self-conscious, seeing a new heaven and a new earth.

Then followed glorious days; long days of wonder and rejoicing, radiant with light and song and colour, or veiled in solemn clouds and mystery. Of course there were the usual annoyances; church on Sunday, school on week-days, family prayers and Bible-readings, Aunt Sarah and Uncle Josiah. But these disturbances, after all, were temporary and unimportant; he had never realised before

how few of the twenty-four hours they filled, how wide and wonderful were those remain­ing. Sunday passed, and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday; and the first rapture of his awakening still encircled him about; since Saturday he had not fought or quarrelled, had played no tricks and given no trouble either at home or in school. Four consecu­tive days without so much as a reprimand were a new record in his life; according to his social traditions and standard of conduct a disgraceful one; but it did not occur to him to think about the matter at all; he was be­having like the "good boys" that he held in contempt, and had not even found it out, so absorbed he was in the joy of life, in splen­dours of sunlight and starlight, in shining sands and glittering foam.

On Monday night there had been a thun­derstorm; and he had slipped out, unob­served, into the roaring blackness of the moor, to lie bareheaded on the heather in a torrent of rain. Then had come Tuesday, soft and cool and silver-grey, with tender shadows over land and sea, after the turbulent glories of the lightning god. Surely there was never any world so beautiful, or any boy so happy, so splendidly alive.

But the divinest day was Wednesday. From the fire-opal of the sunrise to the cloudy amethyst of twilight, it was a day of jewels; a day of sapphire sea and diamond spray, of skylarks singing in far blue heights and sunbeams flaming on the yellow gorse; a day of peace on earth and goodwill — even — toward men. One could not hate uncle him­self on such a day.

Jack was up with the dawn and on the beach before sunrise. It was low water, and he scrambled out on to the long, jagged reef which had caused so many wrecks that the precipice above it was called "Deadman's Cliff." When he was tired of slipping about on the tangle and cutting his feet with the sharp points of barnacles, he lay down beside a shallow rock pool and looked into the sunlit water. It was full of brilliant anemones, green and pink and orange, open wide and holding up hundreds of painted arms. In one corner was a fairy forest of zoophytes, with a sea-snail trying earnestly to force a passage through.

Suddenly, behind a little clump of sea­weed, there was a flash of prismatic colour, and silken ripples passed over the surface of the pool. He lay still, watching. Presently a tiny fish, some two inches long, slipped out through the sea-weed and began to swim round and round the pool, glittering in pink and silver. He plunged his hand into the water with a swift, dexterous movement, and caught the fish.

He lifted the little creature and held it in the sunshine, watching the flashing colours pass and change along its sides as it plunged and struggled in his hand. Then suddenly he saw how beautiful it was, and put it gently back into the water, and let it dart away. One had no right to interfere with a thing whose body was made all of rainbows.

His hand was still lying in the water, and he glanced down at it carelessly. There were no rainbows on it; but it was beautiful; more beautiful even than the fish. He opened and shut it under the water; and watched the working of the muscles, and the strong, smooth curve of the wrist. Yes, it was beautiful, and it was a part of him.

That afternoon was again a half-holiday. Billy Greggs had suggested that they should go fishing, as Saturday's expedition had not come off; but Jack refused; he wanted to be quite alone, and clamber on the rocks and look down through deep fissures at the ebbing tide.

Starting off after early dinner, with a pocketful of cherries and a drag-net for deep rock pools, he came upon Molly sitting alone in the garden with her head buried in the big lavender bush.

 "Hullo, Moll!" he said cheerfully as he passed.

There was no answer, and he saw her shoulders shake a little; she was crying. He turned back.

"Why, what's wrong? Uncle been nag­ging again?"

She lifted up a tear-stained face.

"I'm to stop in... all the afternoon! And I did want to go and take Daisy to bathe: Dr. Jenkins ordered her sea-baths!"

Daisy, the broken-nosed doll lying on the grass beside her, was too far gone for any sea-baths to help, or, for that matter, to in­jure; but Molly could scarcely be expected to realise that.

"It's a jolly shame!" said Jack indignantly; he had been kept in so often himself that he could feel for her. "Poor old girl! What had you been doing?"

The question brought a burst of tears.

"I hadn't done anything! I wouldn't mind if I'd been naughty, but I hadn't! It's only because Mary Anne's cooking, and uncle says I mustn't go alone."

"But you don't go out with Mary Anne other days. Where are those girls you always play with?"

"Emma's away from home, and Janey Scott couldn't come. I can't help that! If I'd been naughty it would have been just the same. It's not fair."

Jack's forehead contracted; this was an echo of his own grievance. Either things should be arranged according to convenience, and there should be no rewards and punishments at all, or people should be punished only when they were to blame. Uncle, and, apparently, uncle's God, had a very elaborate system for dealing with offenders according to their deserts; but the practical result of it seemed always to be that, if you were unlucky, you were punished for your misfortunes. He glanced at the sunlit cliffs with a sigh; he had been counting so on a perfect holiday alone.

"Don't cry, old girl," he said. "Let's go and ask Aunt Sarah whether you may come with me."

Mr. Raymond, fortunately, was out; and Aunt Sarah, though a little surprised at so unusual a request from Jack, who was gen­erally the most unsociable of boys, made no difficulties; so the two children went down the steep lane together, Jack a little sobered and trying not to feel disappointed, Molly trotting beside him, radiant with happiness.

In ten minutes he had forgotten all about his disappointment. More delightful even than the flashing water itself was Molly's joy in it. With amazement he discovered that this little creature, whom he had always looked down upon, possessed, at nine years old, a sense of beauty to which he, with all his superiority of a big boy, had only now awaked. She hugged herself with ecstasy at the sight of the green waves dashing up between wet rocks and flinging showers of bright spray into the sunlight. He took her to a favourite spot of his; a narrow rock platform on which one could kneel beside a hole in the granite, and look through into a cavern far below where the water foamed and thundered. As he knelt with his arm about her, holding her carefully so that she should not fall, he felt the little body quiver against his side, and drew her back from the edge of the hole.

"Don't be frightened! I won't let you fall."

Then he saw that it was not fear which made her tremble. Her eyes were big and shining as she looked up at him.

"Jack," she said, "do you think God lives down there?"

When the tide ebbed he took her down to the reef and showed her wonderful things. They fed anemones with scraps of dead limpets tied with strands of Molly's hair, which she tugged out in the recklessness of her excitement; and drew the bait up again, half-devoured, to see the anemone "turn sulky" and shrink into a shapeless lump of jelly. They undressed Daisy and bathed her solemnly, and dried her with grubby pocket-handkerchiefs, and plastered her broken nose with slimy sea-weed; oh, if the Gang had seen its captain playing with his sister's doll! They caught a shrimp, and mimicked his hideous face, and let him go again. At last they sat down side by side to eat their cherries, their naked feet in a rock pool.

Molly threw a cherry stone into the pool; and presently Jack heard her telling a story to herself as she leaned over looking down into the water; she had quite got over her shyness with him now.

"...So the cherry tree grew up in the sea, and was a sea cherry tree; and there were sea cherries all over it... And one day the shrimp came by and saw the sea cherries, and he thought: 'I must take some of those home for my baby shrimps'..."

"Molly," said Jack suddenly, "do you ever tell stories to Aunt Sarah? No, I don't mean fibs — of course everybody tells fibs; I mean stories about shrimps, and cherries, and things?"

She lookdd round, shocked at such a ques­tion.

"Why, no!"

Jack was quite abashed.

"Oh, wel," he said apologetically, "I couldn't know, you see. I thought, perhaps, as you are good, ahd she likes you..."

"It's the easiest way," she answered seri­ously, "if you're good, they let you alone."

To Jack the answer was a revelation. So Molly, too, lived in a secret world that was all her own, and kept the grown-ups and their dirty hands at arm's length! Her goodness and his badness were means to the same end; the difference was only one of method.

"The plucky little scrap of a thing!" he thought; and looked at her with new respect;

When all the cherries were eaten Molly lay down on the warm rock and went to sleep with her tumbled head against her arm.

Jack put her hat over her eyes to shade them from the sun, and sat still, looking out across the blue, shimmering water. Presently he turned and looked down at Molly. She was fast asleep. One bare foot was tucked up under her; the other lay stretched out on the rock, the smooth, clear skin still wet and glistening in the sun. He sat still for a long time, looking at her very solemnly; then he bent down and stroked the little naked foot. It was the first voluntary caress that he had given in his life to any human creature.