They talked a little about the books Howard had been recommending, but Mrs. Graves was bent on making much of Jack.
"I don"t get you here often by yourself," she said. "I daren"t ask a modern young man to come and see two old frumps--one old frump, I mean!
But I gather that you have views of your own, Jack, and some day I shall try to get at them. I suppose that in a small place like this we all know a great deal more about each other than we suspect each other of knowing. What a comfort that we have tongues that we can hold! It wouldn"t be possible to live, if we knew that all the absurdities we pride ourselves on concealing were all perfectly well known and canva.s.sed by all our friends. However, as long as we only enjoy each other"s faults, and don"t go in for correcting them, we can get on. I hope you don"t DISAPPROVE of people, Jack! That"s the hopeless att.i.tude."
"Well, I hate some people," said Jack, "but I hate them so much that it is quite a pleasure to meet them and to think how infernal they are; and when it"s like that, I should be sorry if they improved."
"I won"t go as far as that," said Howard. "The most I do is to be thankful that their lack of improvement can still entertain me. One can never be thankful enough for really grotesque people. But I confess I don"t enjoy seeing people spiteful and mean and vicious. I want to obliterate all that."
"I want it to be obliterated," said Mrs. Graves; "but I don"t feel equal to doing it. Oh, well, we mustn"t get solemn over it; that"s the mischief! But I mustn"t keep you gentlemen from more serious pursuits--"real things," I believe, Jack?"
"Mr. Kennedy has been sneaking on me," said Jack. "I don"t like to see people mean and spiteful. It gives me pain. I want all that obliterated."
"This is what happens to my pupils," said Howard. "Come on, Jack, you shall not expose my methods like this."
They went off with the old keeper, who carried a bag of writhing ferrets, and was accompanied by a boy with a spade and a line and a bag of cartridges. As they went on, Jack catechised Howard closely.
"Did my family behave themselves?" he said. "Did you want them obliterated? I expect you had a good pull at the Governor, but don"t forget he is a good chap. He is so dreadfully interested, but you come to plenty of sense last of all. I admit it is last, but it"s there.
It"s no joke facing him if there"s a row! he doesn"t say much then, and that makes it awful. He has a way of looking out of the window, if I cheek him, for about five minutes, which turns me sick. Up on the top he is a bit frothy--but there"s no harm in that, and he keeps things going."
"Yes," said Howard, "I felt that, and I may tell you plainly I liked him very much, and thought him a thoroughly good sort."
"Well, what about Maud?" said Jack.
Howard felt a tremor. He did not want to talk about Maud, and he did not want Jack to talk about her. It seemed like laying hands on something sacred and secluded. So he said, "Really, I don"t know as yet--I only had one talk with her. I can"t tell. I thought her delightful; like you with your impudence left out."
"The little cat!" said Jack; "she is as impudent as they make them.
I"ll be bound she has taken the length of your foot. What did she talk about? stars and flowers? That"s one of her dodges."
"I decline to answer," said Howard; "and I won"t have you spoiling my impressions. Just leave me alone to make up my mind, will you?"
Jack looked at him,--he had spoken sharply--nodded, and said, "All right! I won"t give her away. I see you are lost; but I"ll get it all out of you some time."
They were by this time some way up the valley. There were rabbit burrows everywhere among the thickets. The ferrets were put in. Howard and Jack were posted below, and the shooting began. The rabbits bolted well, and Howard experienced a lively satisfaction, quite out of proportion, he felt, to the circ.u.mstances, at finding that he could shoot a great deal better than his pupil. The old knack came back to him, and he toppled over his rabbits cleanly and in a masterly way.
"You are rather good at this!" said Jack. "Won"t I blazon it abroad up at Beaufort. You shall have all the credit and more. I can"t see how you always manage to get them in the head."
"It"s a trick," said Howard; "you have got to get a particular swing, and when you have got it, it"s difficult to miss--it"s only practice; and I shot a good deal at one time."
Howard was unreasonably happy that afternoon. It was a still, sunny day, and the steep down stretched away above them, an ancient English woodland, with all its thorn-thickets and elder-clumps. It had been like this, he thought, from the beginning of history, never touched by the hand of man. The expectant waiting, the quick aim, the sudden shot, took off the restlessness of his brain; and as they stood there, often waiting for a long time in silence, a peculiar quality of peace and contentment enveloped his spirit. It was all so old, so settled, so quiet, that all sense of retrospect and prospect pa.s.sed from his mind.
He was just glad to be alive and alert, glad of his friendly companion, robust and strong. A few pictures pa.s.sed before his mind, but he was glad just to let his eyes wander over the scene, the steep turf ramparts, the close-set dingles, the spring sunshine falling softly over all, as the sun pa.s.sed over and the shadows lengthened. At last a ferret got hung up, and had to be dug out. Howard looked at his watch, and said they must go back to tea. Jack protested in vain that there was plenty of light left. Howard said they were expected back. They left the keeper to recover the ferret, and went back quickly down the valley. Jack was in supreme delight.
"Well, that"s an honest way of spending time!" he said. "My word, how I dangle about here; it isn"t good for my health. But, by George, I wish I could shoot like you, Mr. Kennedy, Sir."
"Why this sudden obsequiousness?" said Howard.
"Oh, because I never know what to call you," said Jack. "I can"t call you by your Christian name, and Mr. Kennedy seems absurd. What do you like?"
"Whatever comes naturally," said Howard.
"Well, I"ll call you Howard when we are together," said Jack. "But mind, not at Beaufort! If I call you anything, it will have to be Mr.
Kennedy. I hate men fraternising with the Dons. The Dons rather encourage it, because it makes them feel youthful and bucks them up.
The men are just as bad about Christian names. Gratters on getting your Christian name, you know! It"s like a girls" school. I wonder why Cambridge is more like a girls" school than a public school is? I suppose they are more sentimental. I do loathe that."
When they got back they found Maud at tea; she had been there all the afternoon; she greeted Howard very pleasantly, but there was a touch of embarra.s.sment created by the presence of Jack, who regarded her severely and called her "Miss."
"He"s got some grudge against me," said Maud to Howard. "He always has when he calls me Miss."
"What else should I call you?" said Jack; "Mr. Kennedy has been telling me that one should call people by whatever name seems natural. You are a Miss to-day, and no mistake. You are at some game or other!"
"Now, Jack, be quiet!" said Mrs. Graves; "that is how the British paterfamilias gets made. You must not begin to make your womankind uncomfortable in public. You must not think aloud. You must keep up the mysteries of chivalry!"
"I don"t care for mysteries," said Jack, "but I"ll behave. My father says one mustn"t seethe the kid in its mother"s milk. I will leave Miss to her conscience."
"Did you enjoy yourself?" said Mrs. Graves to Howard.
"Yes, I"m afraid I did," said Howard, "very much indeed."
"Some book I read the other day," said Mrs. Graves, "stated that men ought to do primeval things, eat under-done beef, sleep in their clothes, drink too much, kill things. It sounds disgusting; but I suppose you felt primeval?"
"I don"t know what it was," said Howard. "I felt very well content."
"My word, he can shoot!" said Jack to Mrs. Graves; "I"m a perfect duffer beside him; he shot four-fifths of the bag, and there"s a perfect mountain of rabbits to come in."
"Horrible, horrible!" said Mrs. Graves, "but are there enough to go round the village?"
"Two apiece," said Jack, "to every man a damsel or two! Now, Maud, come on--ten o"clock, to-morrow, Sir--and perhaps a little fishing later?"
"You had better stay to lunch, whenever you come and work in the morning, Jack," said Mrs. Graves; "and I"ll turn you inside out before very long."
Howard went off to his work with a pleasant sense of the open air. They dined together quietly; after dinner he went and sate down by Mrs.
Graves.
"Jack"s a nice boy," she said, "very nice--don"t make him pert!"
"I am afraid I shan"t MAKE him anything," said Howard. "He will go his own way, sure enough; but he isn"t pert--he comes to heel, and he remembers. He is like the true gentleman--he is never unintentionally offensive."
Mrs. Graves laughed, and said, "Yes, that is so."
Howard went on, "I have been thinking a great deal about our talk yesterday, and it"s a new light to me. I do not think I fully understand, but I feel that there is something very big behind it all, which I want to understand. This great force you speak of--is it an AIM?"
"That"s a good question," said Mrs. Graves. "No, it"s not an aim at all. It"s too big for that; an aim is quite on a lower level. There"s no aim in the big things. A man doesn"t fall ill with an aim--he doesn"t fall in love with an aim. It just comes upon him."
"But then," said Howard, "is it more than a sort of artistic gift which some have and many have not? I have known a few real artists, and they just did not care for anything else in the world. All the rest of life was just a pa.s.sing of time, a framework to their work. There was an artist I knew, who was dying. The doctor asked him if he wanted anything. "Just a full day"s work," he said."
"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "it is like that in a way; it is the one thing worth doing and being. But it isn"t a conscious using of minutes and opportunities--it isn"t a plan; it is just a fulness of life, rejoicing to live, to see, to interpret, to understand. It doesn"t matter what life you live--it is how you live it. Life is only the cup for the liquor which must else be spilled. I can only use an old phrase--it is being "in the spirit": when you ask whether it is a special gift, of course some people have it more strongly and consciously than others.
But it is the thing to which we are all tending sooner or later; and the mysterious thing about it is that so many people do not seem to know they have it. Yet it is always just the becoming aware of what is there."
"How do you account for that?" said Howard.